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diff --git a/425-0.txt b/425-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..fad761f --- /dev/null +++ b/425-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8957 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Familiar Studies of Men and Books, 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: Familiar Studies of Men and Books + + +Author: Robert Louis Stevenson + + + +Release Date: February 12, 2013 [eBook #425] +[This file was first posted on December 23, 1995] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FAMILIAR STUDIES OF MEN AND +BOOKS*** + + +Transcribed from the 1896 Chatto & Windus edition by David Price, email +ccx074@pglaf.org + + + + + + FAMILIAR STUDIES + OF + MEN AND BOOKS + + + BY + + ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON + +[Picture: Decorative graphic] + + _ELEVENTH EDITION_ + + * * * * * + + London + CHATTO & WINDUS, PICADILLY + 1896 + + * * * * * + + TO + + THOMAS STEVENSON + + CIVIL ENGINEER + BY WHOSE DEVICES THE GREAT SEA LIGHTS IN EVERY QUARTER + OF THE WORLD NOW SHINE MORE BRIGHTLY + + THIS VOLUME IS IN LOVE AND GRATITUDE + + DEDICATED BY HIS SON + + THE AUTHOR + + + + +PREFACE +BY WAY OF CRITICISM. + + +THESE studies are collected from the monthly press. One appeared in the +_New Quarterly_, one in _Macmillan’s_, and the rest in the _Cornhill +Magazine_. To the _Cornhill_ I owe a double debt of thanks; first, that +I was received there in the very best society, and under the eye of the +very best of editors; and second, that the proprietors have allowed me to +republish so considerable an amount of copy. + +These nine worthies have been brought together from many different ages +and countries. Not the most erudite of men could be perfectly prepared +to deal with so many and such various sides of human life and manners. +To pass a true judgment upon Knox and Burns implies a grasp upon the very +deepest strain of thought in Scotland,—a country far more essentially +different from England than many parts of America; for, in a sense, the +first of these men re-created Scotland, and the second is its most +essentially national production. To treat fitly of Hugo and Villon would +involve yet wider knowledge, not only of a country foreign to the author +by race, history, and religion, but of the growth and liberties of art. +Of the two Americans, Whitman and Thoreau, each is the type of something +not so much realised as widely sought after among the late generations of +their countrymen; and to see them clearly in a nice relation to the +society that brought them forth, an author would require a large habit of +life among modern Americans. As for Yoshida, I have already disclaimed +responsibility; it was but my hand that held the pen. + +In truth, these are but the readings of a literary vagrant. One book led +to another, one study to another. The first was published with +trepidation. Since no bones were broken, the second was launched with +greater confidence. So, by insensible degrees, a young man of our +generation acquires, in his own eyes, a kind of roving judicial +commission through the ages; and, having once escaped the perils of the +Freemans and the Furnivalls, sets himself up to right the wrongs of +universal history and criticism. Now, it is one thing to write with +enjoyment on a subject while the story is hot in your mind from recent +reading, coloured with recent prejudice; and it is quite another business +to put these writings coldly forth again in a bound volume. We are most +of us attached to our opinions; that is one of the “natural affections” +of which we hear so much in youth; but few of us are altogether free from +paralysing doubts and scruples. For my part, I have a small idea of the +degree of accuracy possible to man, and I feel sure these studies teem +with error. One and all were written with genuine interest in the +subject; many, however, have been conceived and finished with imperfect +knowledge; and all have lain, from beginning to end, under the +disadvantages inherent in this style of writing. + +Of these disadvantages a word must here be said. The writer of short +studies, having to condense in a few pages the events of a whole +lifetime, and the effect on his own mind of many various volumes, is +bound, above all things, to make that condensation logical and striking. +For the only justification of his writing at all is that he shall present +a brief, reasoned, and memorable view. By the necessity of the case, all +the more neutral circumstances are omitted from his narrative; and that +of itself, by the negative exaggeration of which I have spoken in the +text, lends to the matter in hand a certain false and specious glitter. +By the necessity of the case, again, he is forced to view his subject +throughout in a particular illumination, like a studio artifice. Like +Hales with Pepys, he must nearly break his sitter’s neck to get the +proper shadows on the portrait. It is from one side only that he has +time to represent his subject. The side selected will either be the one +most striking to himself, or the one most obscured by controversy; and in +both cases that will be the one most liable to strained and sophisticated +reading. In a biography, this and that is displayed; the hero is seen at +home, playing the flute; the different tendencies of his work come, one +after another, into notice; and thus something like a true, general +impression of the subject may at last be struck. But in the short study, +the writer, having seized his “point of view,” must keep his eye steadily +to that. He seeks, perhaps, rather to differentiate than truly to +characterise. The proportions of the sitter must be sacrificed to the +proportions of the portrait; the lights are heightened, the shadows +overcharged; the chosen expression, continually forced, may degenerate at +length into a grimace; and we have at best something of a caricature, at +worst a calumny. Hence, if they be readable at all, and hang together by +their own ends, the peculiar convincing force of these brief +representations. They take so little a while to read, and yet in that +little while the subject is so repeatedly introduced in the same light +and with the same expression, that, by sheer force of repetition, that +view is imposed upon the reader. The two English masters of the style, +Macaulay and Carlyle, largely exemplify its dangers. Carlyle, indeed, +had so much more depth and knowledge of the heart, his portraits of +mankind are felt and rendered with so much more poetic comprehension, and +he, like his favourite Ram Dass, had a fire in his belly so much more +hotly burning than the patent reading lamp by which Macaulay studied, +that it seems at first sight hardly fair to bracket them together. But +the “point of view” was imposed by Carlyle on the men he judged of in his +writings with an austerity not only cruel but almost stupid. They are +too often broken outright on the Procrustean bed; they are probably +always disfigured. The rhetorical artifice of Macaulay is easily spied; +it will take longer to appreciate the moral bias of Carlyle. So with all +writers who insist on forcing some significance from all that comes +before them; and the writer of short studies is bound, by the necessity +of the case, to write entirely in that spirit. What he cannot vivify he +should omit. + +Had it been possible to rewrite some of these papers, I hope I should +have had the courage to attempt it. But it is not possible. Short +studies are, or should be, things woven like a carpet, from which it is +impossible to detach a strand. What is perverted has its place there for +ever, as a part of the technical means by which what is right has been +presented. It is only possible to write another study, and then, with a +new “point of view,” would follow new perversions and perhaps a fresh +caricature. Hence, it will be, at least, honest to offer a few grains of +salt to be taken with the text; and as some words of apology, addition, +correction, or amplification fall to be said on almost every study in the +volume, it will be most simple to run them over in their order. But this +must not be taken as a propitiatory offering to the gods of shipwreck; I +trust my cargo unreservedly to the chances of the sea; and do not, by +criticising myself, seek to disarm the wrath of other and less partial +critics. + +_Hugo’s Romances_.—This is an instance of the “point of view.” The five +romances studied with a different purpose might have given different +results, even with a critic so warmly interested in their favour. The +great contemporary master of wordmanship, and indeed of all literary arts +and technicalities, had not unnaturally dazzled a beginner. But it is +best to dwell on merits, for it is these that are most often overlooked. + +_Burns_.—I have left the introductory sentences on Principal Shairp, +partly to explain my own paper, which was merely supplemental to his +amiable but imperfect book, partly because that book appears to me truly +misleading both as to the character and the genius of Burns. This seems +ungracious, but Mr. Shairp has himself to blame; so good a Wordsworthian +was out of character upon that stage. + +This half apology apart, nothing more falls to be said except upon a +remark called forth by my study in the columns of a literary Review. The +exact terms in which that sheet disposed of Burns I cannot now recall; +but they were to this effect—that Burns was a bad man, the impure vehicle +of fine verses; and that this was the view to which all criticism tended. +Now I knew, for my own part, that it was with the profoundest pity, but +with a growing esteem, that I studied the man’s desperate efforts to do +right; and the more I reflected, the stranger it appeared to me that any +thinking being should feel otherwise. The complete letters shed, indeed, +a light on the depths to which Burns had sunk in his character of Don +Juan, but they enhance in the same proportion the hopeless nobility of +his marrying Jean. That I ought to have stated this more noisily I now +see; but that any one should fail to see it for himself, is to me a thing +both incomprehensible and worthy of open scorn. If Burns, on the facts +dealt with in this study, is to be called a bad man, I question very much +whether either I or the writer in the Review have ever encountered what +it would be fair to call a good one. All have some fault. The fault of +each grinds down the hearts of those about him, and—let us not blink the +truth—hurries both him and them into the grave. And when we find a man +persevering indeed, in his fault, as all of us do, and openly overtaken, +as not all of us are, by its consequences, to gloss the matter over, with +too polite biographers, is to do the work of the wrecker disfiguring +beacons on a perilous seaboard; but to call him bad, with a +self-righteous chuckle, is to be talking in one’s sleep with Heedless and +Too-bold in the arbour. + +Yet it is undeniable that much anger and distress is raised in many +quarters by the least attempt to state plainly, what every one well +knows, of Burns’s profligacy, and of the fatal consequences of his +marriage. And for this there are perhaps two subsidiary reasons. For, +first, there is, in our drunken land, a certain privilege extended to +drunkenness. In Scotland, in particular, it is almost respectable, above +all when compared with any “irregularity between the sexes.” The +selfishness of the one, so much more gross in essence, is so much less +immediately conspicuous in its results that our demiurgeous Mrs. Grundy +smiles apologetically on its victims. It is often said—I have heard it +with these ears—that drunkenness “may lead to vice.” Now I did not think +it at all proved that Burns was what is called a drunkard; and I was +obliged to dwell very plainly on the irregularity and the too frequent +vanity and meanness of his relations to women. Hence, in the eyes of +many, my study was a step towards the demonstration of Burns’s radical +badness. + +But second, there is a certain class, professors of that low morality so +greatly more distressing than the better sort of vice, to whom you must +never represent an act that was virtuous in itself, as attended by any +other consequences than a large family and fortune. To hint that Burns’s +marriage had an evil influence is, with this class, to deny the moral +law. Yet such is the fact. It was bravely done; but he had presumed too +far on his strength. One after another the lights of his life went out, +and he fell from circle to circle to the dishonoured sickbed of the end. +And surely for any one that has a thing to call a soul he shines out +tenfold more nobly in the failure of that frantic effort to do right, +than if he had turned on his heel with Worldly Wiseman, married a +congenial spouse, and lived orderly and died reputably an old man. It is +his chief title that he refrained from “the wrong that amendeth wrong.” +But the common, trashy mind of our generation is still aghast, like the +Jews of old, at any word of an unsuccessful virtue. Job has been written +and read; the tower of Siloam fell nineteen hundred years ago; yet we +have still to desire a little Christianity, or, failing that, a little +even of that rude, old, Norse nobility of soul, which saw virtue and vice +alike go unrewarded, and was yet not shaken in its faith. + +_Walt Whitman_.—This is a case of a second difficulty which lies +continually before the writer of critical studies: that he has to mediate +between the author whom he loves and the public who are certainly +indifferent and frequently averse. Many articles had been written on +this notable man. One after another had leaned, in my eyes, either to +praise or blame unduly. In the last case, they helped to blindfold our +fastidious public to an inspiring writer; in the other, by an excess of +unadulterated praise, they moved the more candid to revolt. I was here +on the horns of a dilemma; and between these horns I squeezed myself with +perhaps some loss to the substance of the paper. Seeing so much in +Whitman that was merely ridiculous, as well as so much more that was +unsurpassed in force and fitness,—seeing the true prophet doubled, as I +thought, in places with the Bull in a China Shop,—it appeared best to +steer a middle course, and to laugh with the scorners when I thought they +had any excuse, while I made haste to rejoice with the rejoicers over +what is imperishably good, lovely, human, or divine, in his extraordinary +poems. That was perhaps the right road; yet I cannot help feeling that +in this attempt to trim my sails between an author whom I love and honour +and a public too averse to recognise his merit, I have been led into a +tone unbecoming from one of my stature to one of Whitman’s. But the good +and the great man will go on his way not vexed with my little shafts of +merriment. He, first of any one, will understand how, in the attempt to +explain him credibly to Mrs. Grundy, I have been led into certain airs of +the man of the world, which are merely ridiculous in me, and were not +intentionally discourteous to himself. But there is a worse side to the +question; for in my eagerness to be all things to all men, I am afraid I +may have sinned against proportion. It will be enough to say here that +Whitman’s faults are few and unimportant when they are set beside his +surprising merits. I had written another paper full of gratitude for the +help that had been given me in my life, full of enthusiasm for the +intrinsic merit of the poems, and conceived in the noisiest extreme of +youthful eloquence. The present study was a rifacimento. From it, with +the design already mentioned, and in a fit of horror at my old excess, +the big words and emphatic passages were ruthlessly excised. But this +sort of prudence is frequently its own punishment; along with the +exaggeration, some of the truth is sacrificed; and the result is cold, +constrained, and grudging. In short, I might almost everywhere have +spoken more strongly than I did. + +_Thoreau_.—Here is an admirable instance of the “point of view” forced +throughout, and of too earnest reflection on imperfect facts. Upon me +this pure, narrow, sunnily-ascetic Thoreau had exercised a great charm. +I have scarce written ten sentences since I was introduced to him, but +his influence might be somewhere detected by a close observer. Still it +was as a writer that I had made his acquaintance; I took him on his own +explicit terms; and when I learned details of his life, they were, by the +nature of the case and my own _parti-pris_, read even with a certain +violence in terms of his writings. There could scarce be a perversion +more justifiable than that; yet it was still a perversion. The study +indeed, raised so much ire in the breast of Dr. Japp (H. A. Page), +Thoreau’s sincere and learned disciple, that had either of us been men, I +please myself with thinking, of less temper and justice, the difference +might have made us enemies instead of making us friends. To him who knew +the man from the inside, many of my statements sounded like inversions +made on purpose; and yet when we came to talk of them together, and he +had understood how I was looking at the man through the books, while he +had long since learned to read the books through the man, I believe he +understood the spirit in which I had been led astray. + +On two most important points, Dr. Japp added to my knowledge, and with +the same blow fairly demolished that part of my criticism. First, if +Thoreau were content to dwell by Walden Pond, it was not merely with +designs of self-improvement, but to serve mankind in the highest sense. +Hither came the fleeing slave; thence was he despatched along the road to +freedom. That shanty in the woods was a station in the great Underground +Railroad; that adroit and philosophic solitary was an ardent worker, soul +and body, in that so much more than honourable movement, which, if +atonement were possible for nations, should have gone far to wipe away +the guilt of slavery. But in history sin always meets with condign +punishment; the generation passes, the offence remains, and the innocent +must suffer. No underground railroad could atone for slavery, even as no +bills in Parliament can redeem the ancient wrongs of Ireland. But here +at least is a new light shed on the Walden episode. + +Second, it appears, and the point is capital, that Thoreau was once +fairly and manfully in love, and, with perhaps too much aping of the +angel, relinquished the woman to his brother. Even though the brother +were like to die of it, we have not yet heard the last opinion of the +woman. But be that as it may, we have here the explanation of the +“rarefied and freezing air” in which I complained that he had taught +himself to breathe. Reading the man through the books, I took his +professions in good faith. He made a dupe of me, even as he was seeking +to make a dupe of himself, wresting philosophy to the needs of his own +sorrow. But in the light of this new fact, those pages, seemingly so +cold, are seen to be alive with feeling. What appeared to be a lack of +interest in the philosopher turns out to have been a touching insincerity +of the man to his own heart; and that fine-spun airy theory of +friendship, so devoid, as I complained, of any quality of flesh and +blood, a mere anodyne to lull his pains. The most temperate of living +critics once marked a passage of my own with a cross and the words, “This +seems nonsense.” It not only seemed; it was so. It was a private +bravado of my own, which I had so often repeated to keep up my spirits, +that I had grown at last wholly to believe it, and had ended by setting +it down as a contribution to the theory of life. So with the more icy +parts of this philosophy of Thoreau’s. He was affecting the Spartanism +he had not; and the old sentimental wound still bled afresh, while he +deceived himself with reasons. + +Thoreau’s theory, in short, was one thing and himself another: of the +first, the reader will find what I believe to be a pretty faithful +statement and a fairly just criticism in the study; of the second he will +find but a contorted shadow. So much of the man as fitted nicely with +his doctrines, in the photographer’s phrase, came out. But that large +part which lay outside and beyond, for which he had found or sought no +formula, on which perhaps his philosophy even looked askance, is wanting +in my study, as it was wanting in the guide I followed. In some ways a +less serious writer, in all ways a nobler man, the true Thoreau still +remains to be depicted. + +_Villon_.—I am tempted to regret that I ever wrote on this subject, not +merely because the paper strikes me as too picturesque by half, but +because I regarded Villon as a bad fellow. Others still think well of +him, and can find beautiful and human traits where I saw nothing but +artistic evil; and by the principle of the art, those should have written +of the man, and not I. Where you see no good, silence is the best. +Though this penitence comes too late, it may be well, at least, to give +it expression. + +The spirit of Villon is still living in the literature of France. Fat +Peg is oddly of a piece with the work of Zola, the Goncourts, and the +infinitely greater Flaubert; and, while similar in ugliness, still +surpasses them in native power. The old author, breaking with an _éclat +de voix_, out of his tongue-tied century, has not yet been touched on his +own ground, and still gives us the most vivid and shocking impression of +reality. Even if that were not worth doing at all, it would be worth +doing as well as he has done it; for the pleasure we take in the author’s +skill repays us, or at least reconciles us to the baseness of his +attitude. Fat Peg (_La Grosse Margot_) is typical of much; it is a piece +of experience that has nowhere else been rendered into literature; and a +kind of gratitude for the author’s plainness mingles, as we read, with +the nausea proper to the business. I shall quote here a verse of an old +students’ song, worth laying side by side with Villon’s startling +ballade. This singer, also, had an unworthy mistress, but he did not +choose to share the wages of dishonour; and it is thus, with both wit and +pathos, that he laments her fall:— + + Nunc plango florem + Ætatis teneræ + Nitidiorem + Veneris sidere: + Tunc columbinam + Mentis dulcedinem, + Nunc serpentinam + Amaritudinem. + Verbo rogantes + Removes ostio, + Munera dantes + Foves cubiculo, + Illos abire præcipis + A quibus nihil accipis, + Cæcos claudosque recipis, + Viros illustres decipis + Cum melle venenosa. {0} + +But our illustrious writer of ballades it was unnecessary to deceive; it +was the flight of beauty alone, not that of honesty or honour, that he +lamented in his song; and the nameless mediæval vagabond has the best of +the comparison. + +There is now a Villon Society in England; and Mr. John Payne has +translated him entirely into English, a task of unusual difficulty. I +regret to find that Mr. Payne and I are not always at one as to the +author’s meaning; in such cases I am bound to suppose that he is in the +right, although the weakness of the flesh withholds me from anything +beyond a formal submission. He is now upon a larger venture, promising +us at last that complete Arabian Nights to which we have all so long +looked forward. + +_Charles of Orleans_.—Perhaps I have done scanty justice to the charm of +the old Duke’s verses, and certainly he is too much treated as a fool. +The period is not sufficiently remembered. What that period was, to what +a blank of imbecility the human mind had fallen, can only be known to +those who have waded in the chronicles. Excepting Comines and La Salle +and Villon, I have read no author who did not appal me by his torpor; and +even the trial of Joan of Arc, conducted as it was by chosen clerks, +bears witness to a dreary, sterile folly,—a twilight of the mind peopled +with childish phantoms. In relation to his contemporaries, Charles seems +quite a lively character. + +It remains for me to acknowledge the kindness of Mr. Henry Pyne, who, +immediately on the appearance of the study, sent me his edition of the +Debate between the Heralds: a courtesy from the expert to the amateur +only too uncommon in these days. + +_Knox_.—Knox, the second in order of interest among the reformers, lies +dead and buried in the works of the learned and unreadable M‘Crie. It +remains for some one to break the tomb and bring him forth, alive again +and breathing, in a human book. With the best intentions in the world, I +have only added two more flagstones, ponderous like their predecessors, +to the mass of obstruction that buries the reformer from the world; I +have touched him in my turn with that “mace of death,” which Carlyle has +attributed to Dryasdust; and my two dull papers are, in the matter of +dulness, worthy additions to the labours of M‘Crie. Yet I believe they +are worth reprinting in the interest of the next biographer of Knox. I +trust his book may be a masterpiece; and I indulge the hope that my two +studies may lend him a hint or perhaps spare him a delay in its +composition. + +Of the _Pepys_ I can say nothing; for it has been too recently through my +hands; and I still retain some of the heat of composition. Yet it may +serve as a text for the last remark I have to offer. To Pepys I think I +have been amply just; to the others, to Burns, Thoreau, Whitman, Charles +of Orleans, even Villon, I have found myself in the retrospect ever too +grudging of praise, ever too disrespectful in manner. It is not easy to +see why I should have been most liberal to the man of least pretensions. +Perhaps some cowardice withheld me from the proper warmth of tone; +perhaps it is easier to be just to those nearer us in rank of mind. Such +at least is the fact, which other critics may explain. For these were +all men whom, for one reason or another, I loved; or when I did not love +the men, my love was the greater to their books. I had read them and +lived with them; for months they were continually in my thoughts; I +seemed to rejoice in their joys and to sorrow with them in their griefs; +and behold, when I came to write of them, my tone was sometimes hardly +courteous and seldom wholly just. + + R. L. S. + + + + +CONTENTS. + + PAGE +VICTOR HUGO’S ROMANCES 1 +SOME ASPECTS OF ROBERT BURNS 38 +WALT WHITMAN 91 +HENRY DAVID THOREAU: HIS CHARACTER AND OPINIONS 129 +YOSHIDA-TORAJIRO 172 +FRANÇOIS VILLON, STUDENT, POET, AND HOUSE-BREAKER 192 +CHARLES OF ORLEANS 236 +SAMUEL PEPYS 290 +JOHN KNOX AND WOMEN 328 + +VICTOR HUGO’S ROMANCES. + + + Après le roman pittoresque mais prosaïque de Walter Scott il restera + un autre roman à créer, plus beau et plus complet encore selon nous. + C’est le roman, à la fois drame et épopée, pittoresque mais poétique, + réel mais idéal, vrai mais grand, qui enchâssera Walter Scott dans + Homère.—Victor Hugo on _Quentin Durward_. + +VICTOR HUGO’S romances occupy an important position in the history of +literature; many innovations, timidly made elsewhere, have in them been +carried boldly out to their last consequences; much that was indefinite +in literary tendencies has attained to definite maturity; many things +have come to a point and been distinguished one from the other; and it is +only in the last romance of all, _Quatre Vingt Treize_, that this +culmination is most perfect. This is in the nature of things. Men who +are in any way typical of a stage of progress may be compared more justly +to the hand upon the dial of the clock, which continues to advance as it +indicates, than to the stationary milestone, which is only the measure of +what is past. The movement is not arrested. That significant something +by which the work of such a man differs from that of his predecessors, +goes on disengaging itself and becoming more and more articulate and +cognisable. The same principle of growth that carried his first book +beyond the books of previous writers, carries his last book beyond his +first. And just as the most imbecile production of any literary age +gives us sometimes the very clue to comprehension we have sought long and +vainly in contemporary masterpieces, so it may be the very weakest of an +author’s books that, coming in the sequel of many others, enables us at +last to get hold of what underlies the whole of them—of that spinal +marrow of significance that unites the work of his life into something +organic and rational. This is what has been done by _Quatre Vingt +Treize_ for the earlier romances of Victor Hugo, and, through them, for a +whole division of modern literature. We have here the legitimate +continuation of a long and living literary tradition; and hence, so far, +its explanation. When many lines diverge from each other in direction so +slightly as to confuse the eye, we know that we have only to produce them +to make the chaos plain: this is continually so in literary history; and +we shall best understand the importance of Victor Hugo’s romances if we +think of them as some such prolongation of one of the main lines of +literary tendency. + + * * * * * + +When we compare the novels of Walter Scott with those of the man of +genius who preceded him, and whom he delighted to honour as a master in +the art—I mean Henry Fielding—we shall be somewhat puzzled, at the first +moment, to state the difference that there is between these two. +Fielding has as much human science; has a far firmer hold upon the tiller +of his story; has a keen sense of character, which he draws (and Scott +often does so too) in a rather abstract and academical manner; and +finally, is quite as humorous and quite as good-humoured as the great +Scotchman. With all these points of resemblance between the men, it is +astonishing that their work should be so different. The fact is, that +the English novel was looking one way and seeking one set of effects in +the hands of Fielding; and in the hands of Scott it was looking eagerly +in all ways and searching for all the effects that by any possibility it +could utilise. The difference between these two men marks a great +enfranchisement. With Scott the Romantic movement, the movement of an +extended curiosity and an enfranchised imagination, has begun. This is a +trite thing to say; but trite things are often very indefinitely +comprehended: and this enfranchisement, in as far as it regards the +technical change that came over modern prose romance, has never perhaps +been explained with any clearness. + +To do so, it will be necessary roughly to compare the two sets of +conventions upon which plays and romances are respectively based. The +purposes of these two arts are so much alike, and they deal so much with +the same passions and interests, that we are apt to forget the +fundamental opposition of their methods. And yet such a fundamental +opposition exists. In the drama the action is developed in great measure +by means of things that remain outside of the art; by means of real +things, that is, and not artistic conventions for things. This is a sort +of realism that is not to be confounded with that realism in painting of +which we hear so much. The realism in painting is a thing of purposes; +this, that we have to indicate in the drama, is an affair of method. We +have heard a story, indeed, of a painter in France who, when he wanted to +paint a sea-beach, carried realism from his ends to his means, and +plastered real sand upon his canvas; and that is precisely what is done +in the drama. The dramatic author has to paint his beaches with real +sand: real live men and women move about the stage; we hear real voices; +what is feigned merely puts a sense upon what is; we do actually see a +woman go behind a screen as Lady Teazle, and, after a certain interval, +we do actually see her very shamefully produced again. Now all these +things, that remain as they were in life, and are not transmuted into any +artistic convention, are terribly stubborn and difficult to deal with; +and hence there are for the dramatist many resultant limitations in time +and space. These limitations in some sort approximate towards those of +painting: the dramatic author is tied down, not indeed to a moment, but +to the duration of each scene or act; he is confined to the stage, almost +as the painter is confined within his frame. But the great restriction +is this, that a dramatic author must deal with his actors, and with his +actors alone. Certain moments of suspense, certain significant +dispositions of personages, a certain logical growth of emotion, these +are the only means at the disposal of the playwright. It is true that, +with the assistance of the scene-painter, the costumier and the conductor +of the orchestra, he may add to this something of pageant, something of +sound and fury; but these are, for the dramatic writer, beside the mark, +and do not come under the vivifying touch of his genius. When we turn to +romance, we find this no longer. Here nothing is reproduced to our +senses directly. Not only the main conception of the work, but the +scenery, the appliances, the mechanism by which this conception is +brought home to us, have been put through the crucible of another man’s +mind, and come out again, one and all, in the form of written words. +With the loss of every degree of such realism as we have described, there +is for art a clear gain of liberty and largeness of competence. Thus, +painting, in which the round outlines of things are thrown on to a flat +board, is far more free than sculpture, in which their solidity is +preserved. It is by giving up these identities that art gains true +strength. And so in the case of novels as compared with the stage. +Continuous narration is the flat board on to which the novelist throws +everything. And from this there results for him a great loss of +vividness, but a great compensating gain in his power over the subject; +so that he can now subordinate one thing to another in importance, and +introduce all manner of very subtle detail, to a degree that was before +impossible. He can render just as easily the flourish of trumpets before +a victorious emperor and the gossip of country market women, the gradual +decay of forty years of a man’s life and the gesture of a passionate +moment. He finds himself equally unable, if he looks at it from one +point of view—equally able, if he looks at it from another point of +view—to reproduce a colour, a sound, an outline, a logical argument, a +physical action. He can show his readers, behind and around the +personages that for the moment occupy the foreground of his story, the +continual suggestion of the landscape; the turn of the weather that will +turn with it men’s lives and fortunes, dimly foreshadowed on the horizon; +the fatality of distant events, the stream of national tendency, the +salient framework of causation. And all this thrown upon the flat +board—all this entering, naturally and smoothly, into the texture of +continuous intelligent narration. + +This touches the difference between Fielding and Scott. In the work of +the latter, true to his character of a modern and a romantic, we become +suddenly conscious of the background. Fielding, on the other hand, +although he had recognised that the novel was nothing else than an epic +in prose, wrote in the spirit not of the epic, but of the drama. This is +not, of course, to say that the drama was in any way incapable of a +regeneration similar in kind to that of which I am now speaking with +regard to the novel. The notorious contrary fact is sufficient to guard +the reader against such a misconstruction. All that is meant is, that +Fielding remained ignorant of certain capabilities which the novel +possesses over the drama; or, at least, neglected and did not develop +them. To the end he continued to see things as a playwright sees them. +The world with which he dealt, the world he had realised for himself and +sought to realise and set before his readers, was a world of exclusively +human interest. As for landscape, he was content to underline stage +directions, as it might be done in a play-book: Tom and Molly retire into +a practicable wood. As for nationality and public sentiment, it is +curious enough to think that Tom Jones is laid in the year forty-five, +and that the only use he makes of the rebellion is to throw a troop of +soldiers into his hero’s way. It is most really important, however, to +remark the change which has been introduced into the conception of +character by the beginning of the romantic movement and the consequent +introduction into fiction of a vast amount of new material. Fielding +tells us as much as he thought necessary to account for the actions of +his creatures; he thought that each of these actions could be decomposed +on the spot into a few simple personal elements, as we decompose a force +in a question of abstract dynamics. The larger motives are all unknown +to him; he had not understood that the nature of the landscape or the +spirit of the times could be for anything in a story; and so, naturally +and rightly, he said nothing about them. But Scott’s instinct, the +instinct of the man of an age profoundly different, taught him otherwise; +and, in his work, the individual characters begin to occupy a +comparatively small proportion of that canvas on which armies manœuvre, +and great hills pile themselves upon each other’s shoulders. Fielding’s +characters were always great to the full stature of a perfectly arbitrary +will. Already in Scott we begin to have a sense of the subtle influences +that moderate and qualify a man’s personality; that personality is no +longer thrown out in unnatural isolation, but is resumed into its place +in the constitution of things. + +It is this change in the manner of regarding men and their actions first +exhibited in romance, that has since renewed and vivified history. For +art precedes philosophy and even science. People must have noticed +things and interested themselves in them before they begin to debate upon +their causes or influence. And it is in this way that art is the pioneer +of knowledge; those predilections of the artist he knows not why, those +irrational acceptations and recognitions, reclaim, out of the world that +we have not yet realised, ever another and another corner; and after the +facts have been thus vividly brought before us and have had time to +settle and arrange themselves in our minds, some day there will be found +the man of science to stand up and give the explanation. Scott took an +interest in many things in which Fielding took none; and for this reason, +and no other, he introduced them into his romances. If he had been told +what would be the nature of the movement that he was so lightly +initiating, he would have been very incredulous and not a little +scandalised. At the time when he wrote, the real drift of this new +manner of pleasing people in fiction was not yet apparent; and, even now, +it is only by looking at the romances of Victor Hugo that we are enabled +to form any proper judgment in the matter. These books are not only +descended by ordinary generation from the Waverley novels, but it is in +them chiefly that we shall find the revolutionary tradition of Scott +carried farther that we shall find Scott himself, in so far as regards +his conception of prose fiction and its purposes, surpassed in his own +spirit, instead of tamely followed. We have here, as I said before, a +line of literary tendency produced, and by this production definitely +separated from others. When we come to Hugo, we see that the deviation, +which seemed slight enough and not very serious between Scott and +Fielding, is indeed such a great gulph in thought and sentiment as only +successive generations can pass over: and it is but natural that one of +the chief advances that Hugo has made upon Scott is an advance in +self-consciousness. Both men follow the same road; but where the one +went blindly and carelessly, the other advances with all deliberation and +forethought. There never was artist much more unconscious than Scott; +and there have been not many more conscious than Hugo. The passage at +the head of these pages shows how organically he had understood the +nature of his own changes. He has, underlying each of the five great +romances (which alone I purpose here to examine), two deliberate designs: +one artistic, the other consciously ethical and intellectual. This is a +man living in a different world from Scott, who professes sturdily (in +one of his introductions) that he does not believe in novels having any +moral influence at all; but still Hugo is too much of an artist to let +himself be hampered by his dogmas; and the truth is that the artistic +result seems, in at least one great instance, to have very little +connection with the other, or directly ethical result. + +The artistic result of a romance, what is left upon the memory by any +really powerful and artistic novel, is something so complicated and +refined that it is difficult to put a name upon it and yet something as +simple as nature. These two propositions may seem mutually destructive, +but they are so only in appearance. The fact is that art is working far +ahead of language as well as of science, realising for us, by all manner +of suggestions and exaggerations, effects for which as yet we have no +direct name; nay, for which we may never perhaps have a direct name, for +the reason that these effects do not enter very largely into the +necessities of life. Hence alone is that suspicion of vagueness that +often hangs about the purpose of a romance: it is clear enough to us in +thought; but we are not used to consider anything clear until we are able +to formulate it in words, and analytical language has not been +sufficiently shaped to that end. We all know this difficulty in the case +of a picture, simple and strong as may be the impression that it has left +with us; and it is only because language is the medium of romance, that +we are prevented from seeing that the two cases are the same. It is not +that there is anything blurred or indefinite in the impression left with +us, it is just because the impression is so very definite after its own +kind, that we find it hard to fit it exactly with the expressions of our +philosophical speech. + +It is this idea which underlies and issues from a romance, this something +which it is the function of that form of art to create, this epical +value, that I propose chiefly to seek and, as far as may be, to throw +into relief, in the present study. It is thus, I believe, that we shall +see most clearly the great stride that Hugo has taken beyond his +predecessors, and how, no longer content with expressing more or less +abstract relations of man to man, he has set before himself the task of +realising, in the language of romance, much of the involution of our +complicated lives. + +This epical value is not to be found, let it be understood, in every +so-called novel. The great majority are not works of art in anything but +a very secondary signification. One might almost number on one’s fingers +the works in which such a supreme artistic intention has been in any way +superior to the other and lesser aims, themselves more or less artistic, +that generally go hand in hand with it in the conception of prose +romance. The purely critical spirit is, in most novels, paramount. At +the present moment we can recall one man only, for whose works it would +have been equally possible to accomplish our present design: and that man +is Hawthorne. There is a unity, an unwavering creative purpose, about +some at least of Hawthorne’s romances, that impresses itself on the most +indifferent reader; and the very restrictions and weaknesses of the man +served perhaps to strengthen the vivid and single impression of his +works. There is nothing of this kind in Hugo: unity, if he attains to +it, is indeed unity out of multitude; and it is the wonderful power of +subordination and synthesis thus displayed, that gives us the measure of +his talent. No amount of mere discussion and statement, such as this, +could give a just conception of the greatness of this power. It must be +felt in the books themselves, and all that can be done in the present +essay is to recall to the reader the more general features of each of the +five great romances, hurriedly and imperfectly, as space will permit, and +rather as a suggestion than anything more complete. + + * * * * * + +The moral end that the author had before him in the conception of _Notre +Dame de Paris_ was (he tells us) to “denounce” the external fatality that +hangs over men in the form of foolish and inflexible superstition. To +speak plainly, this moral purpose seems to have mighty little to do with +the artistic conception; moreover it is very questionably handled, while +the artistic conception is developed with the most consummate success. +Old Paris lives for us with newness of life: we have ever before our eyes +the city cut into three by the two arms of the river, the boat-shaped +island “moored” by five bridges to the different shores, and the two +unequal towns on either hand. We forget all that enumeration of palaces +and churches and convents which occupies so many pages of admirable +description, and the thoughtless reader might be inclined to conclude +from this, that they were pages thrown away; but this is not so: we +forget, indeed, the details, as we forget or do not see the different +layers of paint on a completed picture; but the thing desired has been +accomplished, and we carry away with us a sense of the “Gothic profile” +of the city, of the “surprising forest of pinnacles and towers and +belfries,” and we know not what of rich and intricate and quaint. And +throughout, Notre Dame has been held up over Paris by a height far +greater than that of its twin towers: the Cathedral is present to us from +the first page to the last; the title has given us the clue, and already +in the Palace of Justice the story begins to attach itself to that +central building by character after character. It is purely an effect of +mirage; Notre Dame does not, in reality, thus dominate and stand out +above the city; and any one who should visit it, in the spirit of the +Scott-tourists to Edinburgh or the Trossachs, would be almost offended at +finding nothing more than this old church thrust away into a corner. It +is purely an effect of mirage, as we say; but it is an effect that +permeates and possesses the whole book with astonishing consistency and +strength. And then, Hugo has peopled this Gothic city, and, above all, +this Gothic church, with a race of men even more distinctly Gothic than +their surroundings. We know this generation already: we have seen them +clustered about the worn capitals of pillars, or craning forth over the +church-leads with the open mouths of gargoyles. About them all there is +that sort of stiff quaint unreality, that conjunction of the grotesque, +and even of a certain bourgeois snugness, with passionate contortion and +horror, that is so characteristic of Gothic art. Esmeralda is somewhat +an exception; she and the goat traverse the story like two children who +have wandered in a dream. The finest moment of the book is when these +two share with the two other leading characters, Dom Claude and +Quasimodo, the chill shelter of the old cathedral. It is here that we +touch most intimately the generative artistic idea of the romance: are +they not all four taken out of some quaint moulding, illustrative of the +Beatitudes, or the Ten Commandments, or the seven deadly sins? What is +Quasimodo but an animated gargoyle? What is the whole book but the +reanimation of Gothic art? + +It is curious that in this, the earliest of the five great romances, +there should be so little of that extravagance that latterly we have come +almost to identify with the author’s manner. Yet even here we are +distressed by words, thoughts, and incidents that defy belief and +alienate the sympathies. The scene of the _in pace_, for example, in +spite of its strength, verges dangerously on the province of the penny +novelist. I do not believe that Quasimodo rode upon the bell; I should +as soon imagine that he swung by the clapper. And again the following +two sentences, out of an otherwise admirable chapter, surely surpass what +it has ever entered into the heart of any other man to imagine (vol. ii. +p. 180): “Il souffrait tant que par instants il s’arrachait des poignées +de cheveux, _pour voir s’ils ne blanchissaient pas_.” And, p. 181: “Ses +pensées étaient si insupportables qu’il prenait sa tête à deux mains et +tâchait de l’arracher de ses épaules _pour la briser sur le pavé_.” + +One other fault, before we pass on. In spite of the horror and misery +that pervade all of his later work, there is in it much less of actual +melodrama than here, and rarely, I should say never, that sort of +brutality, that useless insufferable violence to the feelings, which is +the last distinction between melodrama and true tragedy. Now, in _Notre +Dame_, the whole story of Esmeralda’s passion for the worthless archer is +unpleasant enough; but when she betrays herself in her last hiding-place, +herself and her wretched mother, by calling out to this sordid hero who +has long since forgotten her—well, that is just one of those things that +readers will not forgive; they do not like it, and they are quite right; +life is hard enough for poor mortals, without having it indefinitely +embittered for them by bad art. + + * * * * * + +We look in vain for any similar blemish in _Les Misérables_. Here, on +the other hand, there is perhaps the nearest approach to literary +restraint that Hugo has ever made: there is here certainly the ripest and +most easy development of his powers. It is the moral intention of this +great novel to awaken us a little, if it may be—for such awakenings are +unpleasant—to the great cost of this society that we enjoy and profit by, +to the labour and sweat of those who support the litter, civilisation, in +which we ourselves are so smoothly carried forward. People are all glad +to shut their eyes; and it gives them a very simple pleasure when they +can forget that our laws commit a million individual injustices, to be +once roughly just in the general; that the bread that we eat, and the +quiet of the family, and all that embellishes life and makes it worth +having, have to be purchased by death—by the deaths of animals, and the +deaths of men wearied out with labour, and the deaths of those criminals +called tyrants and revolutionaries, and the deaths of those +revolutionaries called criminals. It is to something of all this that +Victor Hugo wishes to open men’s eyes in _Les Misérables_; and this moral +lesson is worked out in masterly coincidence with the artistic effect. +The deadly weight of civilisation to those who are below presses sensibly +on our shoulders as we read. A sort of mocking indignation grows upon us +as we find Society rejecting, again and again, the services of the most +serviceable; setting Jean Valjean to pick oakum, casting Galileo into +prison, even crucifying Christ. There is a haunting and horrible sense +of insecurity about the book. The terror we thus feel is a terror for +the machinery of law, that we can hear tearing, in the dark, good and bad +between its formidable wheels with the iron stolidity of all machinery, +human or divine. This terror incarnates itself sometimes and leaps +horribly out upon us; as when the crouching mendicant looks up, and Jean +Valjean, in the light of the street lamp, recognises the face of the +detective; as when the lantern of the patrol flashes suddenly through the +darkness of the sewer; or as when the fugitive comes forth at last at +evening, by the quiet riverside, and finds the police there also, waiting +stolidly for vice and stolidly satisfied to take virtue instead. The +whole book is full of oppression, and full of prejudice, which is the +great cause of oppression. We have the prejudices of M. Gillenormand, +the prejudices of Marius, the prejudices in revolt that defend the +barricade, and the throned prejudices that carry it by storm. And then +we have the admirable but ill-written character of Javert, the man who +had made a religion of the police, and would not survive the moment when +he learned that there was another truth outside the truth of laws; a just +creation, over which the reader will do well to ponder. + +With so gloomy a design this great work is still full of life and light +and love. The portrait of the good Bishop is one of the most agreeable +things in modern literature. The whole scene at Montfermeil is full of +the charm that Hugo knows so well how to throw about children. Who can +forget the passage where Cosette, sent out at night to draw water, stands +in admiration before the illuminated booth, and the huckster behind “lui +faisait un peu l’effet d’être le Père éternel?” The pathos of the +forlorn sabot laid trustingly by the chimney in expectation of the Santa +Claus that was not, takes us fairly by the throat; there is nothing in +Shakespeare that touches the heart more nearly. The loves of Cosette and +Marius are very pure and pleasant, and we cannot refuse our affection to +Gavroche, although we may make a mental reservation of our profound +disbelief in his existence. Take it for all in all, there are few books +in the world that can be compared with it. There is as much calm and +serenity as Hugo has ever attained to; the melodramatic coarsenesses that +disfigured _Notre Dame_ are no longer present. There is certainly much +that is painfully improbable; and again, the story itself is a little too +well constructed; it produces on us the effect of a puzzle, and we grow +incredulous as we find that every character fits again and again into the +plot, and is, like the child’s cube, serviceable on six faces; things are +not so well arranged in life as all that comes to. Some of the +digressions, also, seem out of place, and do nothing but interrupt and +irritate. But when all is said, the book remains of masterly conception +and of masterly development, full of pathos, full of truth, full of a +high eloquence. + + * * * * * + +Superstition and social exigency having been thus dealt with in the first +two members of the series, it remained for _Les Travailleurs de la Mer_ +to show man hand to hand with the elements, the last form of external +force that is brought against him. And here once more the artistic +effect and the moral lesson are worked out together, and are, indeed, +one. Gilliat, alone upon the reef at his herculean task, offers a type +of human industry in the midst of the vague “diffusion of forces into the +illimitable,” and the visionary development of “wasted labour” in the +sea, and the winds, and the clouds. No character was ever thrown into +such strange relief as Gilliat. The great circle of sea-birds that come +wanderingly around him on the night of his arrival, strikes at once the +note of his pre-eminence and isolation. He fills the whole reef with his +indefatigable toil; this solitary spot in the ocean rings with the +clamour of his anvil; we see him as he comes and goes, thrown out sharply +against the clear background of the sea. And yet his isolation is not to +be compared with the isolation of Robinson Crusoe, for example; indeed, +no two books could be more instructive to set side by side than _Les +Travailleurs_ and this other of the old days before art had learnt to +occupy itself with what lies outside of human will. Crusoe was one sole +centre of interest in the midst of a nature utterly dead and utterly +unrealised by the artist; but this is not how we feel with Gilliat; we +feel that he is opposed by a “dark coalition of forces,” that an “immense +animosity” surrounds him; we are the witnesses of the terrible warfare +that he wages with “the silent inclemency of phenomena going their own +way, and the great general law, implacable and passive:” “a conspiracy of +the indifferency of things” is against him. There is not one interest on +the reef, but two. Just as we recognise Gilliat for the hero, we +recognise, as implied by this indifferency of things, this direction of +forces to some purpose outside our purposes, yet another character who +may almost take rank as the villain of the novel, and the two face up to +one another blow for blow, feint for feint, until, in the storm, they +fight it epically out, and Gilliat remains the victor;—a victor, however, +who has still to encounter the octopus. I need say nothing of the +gruesome, repulsive excellence of that famous scene; it will be enough to +remind the reader that Gilliat is in pursuit of a crab when he is himself +assaulted by the devil fish, and that this, in its way, is the last touch +to the inner significance of the book; here, indeed, is the true position +of man in the universe. + +But in _Les Travailleurs_, with all its strength, with all its eloquence, +with all the beauty and fitness of its main situations, we cannot conceal +from ourselves that there is a thread of something that will not bear +calm scrutiny. There is much that is disquieting about the storm, +admirably as it begins. I am very doubtful whether it would be possible +to keep the boat from foundering in such circumstances, by any amount of +breakwater and broken rock. I do not understand the way in which the +waves are spoken of, and prefer just to take it as a loose way of +speaking, and pass on. And lastly, how does it happen that the sea was +quite calm next day? Is this great hurricane a piece of scene-painting +after all? And when we have forgiven Gilliat’s prodigies of strength +(although, in soberness, he reminds us more of Porthos in the Vicomte de +Bragelonne than is quite desirable), what is to be said to his suicide, +and how are we to condemn in adequate terms that unprincipled avidity +after effect, which tells us that the sloop disappeared over the horizon, +and the head under the water, at one and the same moment? Monsieur Hugo +may say what he will, but we know better; we know very well that they did +not; a thing like that raises up a despairing spirit of opposition in a +man’s readers; they give him the lie fiercely, as they read. Lastly, we +have here already some beginning of that curious series of English +blunders, that makes us wonder if there are neither proof-sheets nor +judicious friends in the whole of France, and affects us sometimes with a +sickening uneasiness as to what may be our own exploits when we touch +upon foreign countries and foreign tongues. It is here that we shall +find the famous “first of the fourth,” and many English words that may be +comprehensible perhaps in Paris. It is here that we learn that “laird” +in Scotland is the same title as “lord” in England. Here, also, is an +account of a Highland soldier’s equipment, which we recommend to the +lovers of genuine fun. + + * * * * * + +In_ L’Homme qui Rit_, it was Hugo’s object to ‘denounce’ (as he would say +himself) the aristocratic principle as it was exhibited in England; and +this purpose, somewhat more unmitigatedly satiric than that of the two +last, must answer for much that is unpleasant in the book. The +repulsiveness of the scheme of the story, and the manner in which it is +bound up with impossibilities and absurdities, discourage the reader at +the outset, and it needs an effort to take it as seriously as it +deserves. And yet when we judge it deliberately, it will be seen that, +here again, the story is admirably adapted to the moral. The +constructive ingenuity exhibited throughout is almost morbid. Nothing +could be more happily imagined, as a _reductio ad absurdum_ of the +aristocratic principle, than the adventures of Gwynplaine, the itinerant +mountebank, snatched suddenly out of his little way of life, and +installed without preparation as one of the hereditary legislators of a +great country. It is with a very bitter irony that the paper, on which +all this depends, is left to float for years at the will of wind and +tide. What, again, can be finer in conception than that voice from the +people heard suddenly in the House of Lords, in solemn arraignment of the +pleasures and privileges of its splendid occupants? The horrible +laughter, stamped for ever “by order of the king” upon the face of this +strange spokesman of democracy, adds yet another feature of justice to +the scene; in all time, travesty has been the argument of oppression; +and, in all time, the oppressed might have made this answer: “If I am +vile, is it not your system that has made me so?” This ghastly laughter +gives occasion, moreover, for the one strain of tenderness running +through the web of this unpleasant story: the love of the blind girl Dea, +for the monster. It is a most benignant providence that thus +harmoniously brings together these two misfortunes; it is one of those +compensations, one of those afterthoughts of a relenting destiny, that +reconcile us from time to time to the evil that is in the world; the +atmosphere of the book is purified by the presence of this pathetic love; +it seems to be above the story somehow, and not of it, as the full moon +over the night of some foul and feverish city. + +There is here a quality in the narration more intimate and particular +than is general with Hugo; but it must be owned, on the other hand, that +the book is wordy, and even, now and then, a little wearisome. Ursus and +his wolf are pleasant enough companions; but the former is nearly as much +an abstract type as the latter. There is a beginning, also, of an abuse +of conventional conversation, such as may be quite pardonable in the +drama where needs must, but is without excuse in the romance. Lastly, I +suppose one must say a word or two about the weak points of this not +immaculate novel; and if so, it will be best to distinguish at once. The +large family of English blunders, to which we have alluded already in +speaking of _Les Travailleurs_, are of a sort that is really indifferent +in art. If Shakespeare makes his ships cast anchor by some seaport of +Bohemia, if Hugo imagines Tom-Tim-Jack to be a likely nickname for an +English sailor, or if either Shakespeare, or Hugo, or Scott, for that +matter, be guilty of “figments enough to confuse the march of a whole +history—anachronisms enough to overset all, chronology,” {27} the life of +their creations, the artistic truth and accuracy of their work, is not so +much as compromised. But when we come upon a passage like the sinking of +the “Ourque” in this romance, we can do nothing but cover our face with +our hands: the conscientious reader feels a sort of disgrace in the very +reading. For such artistic falsehoods, springing from what I have called +already an unprincipled avidity after effect, no amount of blame can be +exaggerated; and above all, when the criminal is such a man as Victor +Hugo. We cannot forgive in him what we might have passed over in a +third-rate sensation novelist. Little as he seems to know of the sea and +nautical affairs, he must have known very well that vessels do not go +down as he makes the “Ourque” go down; he must have known that such a +liberty with fact was against the laws of the game, and incompatible with +all appearance of sincerity in conception or workmanship. + + * * * * * + +In each of these books, one after another, there has been some departure +from the traditional canons of romance; but taking each separately, one +would have feared to make too much of these departures, or to found any +theory upon what was perhaps purely accidental. The appearance of +_Quatre Vingt Treize_ has put us out of the region of such doubt. Like a +doctor who has long been hesitating how to classify an epidemic malady, +we have come at last upon a case so well marked that our uncertainty is +at an end. It is a novel built upon “a sort of enigma,” which was at +that date laid before revolutionary France, and which is presented by +Hugo to Tellmarch, to Lantenac, to Gauvain, and very terribly to +Cimourdain, each of whom gives his own solution of the question, clement +or stern, according to the temper of his spirit. That enigma was this: +“Can a good action be a bad action? Does not he who spares the wolf kill +the sheep?” This question, as I say, meets with one answer after another +during the course of the book, and yet seems to remain undecided to the +end. And something in the same way, although one character, or one set +of characters, after another comes to the front and occupies our +attention for the moment, we never identify our interest with any of +these temporary heroes nor regret them after they are withdrawn. We soon +come to regard them somewhat as special cases of a general law; what we +really care for is something that they only imply and body forth to us. +We know how history continues through century after century; how this +king or that patriot disappears from its pages with his whole generation, +and yet we do not cease to read, nor do we even feel as if we had reached +any legitimate conclusion, because our interest is not in the men, but in +the country that they loved or hated, benefited or injured. And so it is +here: Gauvain and Cimourdain pass away, and we regard them no more than +the lost armies of which we find the cold statistics in military annals; +what we regard is what remains behind; it is the principle that put these +men where they were, that filled them for a while with heroic +inspiration, and has the power, now that they are fallen, to inspire +others with the same courage. The interest of the novel centres about +revolutionary France: just as the plot is an abstract judicial +difficulty, the hero is an abstract historical force. And this has been +done, not, as it would have been before, by the cold and cumbersome +machinery of allegory, but with bold, straightforward realism, dealing +only with the objective materials of art, and dealing with them so +masterfully that the palest abstractions of thought come before us, and +move our hopes and fears, as if they were the young men and maidens of +customary romance. + +The episode of the mother and children in _Quatre Vingt Treize_ is equal +to anything that Hugo has ever written. There is one chapter in the +second volume, for instance, called “_Sein guéri_, _cœur saignant_,” that +is full of the very stuff of true tragedy, and nothing could be more +delightful than the humours of the three children on the day before the +assault. The passage on La Vendée is really great, and the scenes in +Paris have much of the same broad merit. The book is full, as usual, of +pregnant and splendid sayings. But when thus much is conceded by way of +praise, we come to the other scale of the balance, and find this, also, +somewhat heavy. There is here a yet greater over-employment of +conventional dialogue than in _L’Homme qui Rit_; and much that should +have been said by the author himself, if it were to be said at all, he +has most unwarrantably put into the mouths of one or other of his +characters. We should like to know what becomes of the main body of the +troop in the wood of La Saudraie during the thirty pages or so in which +the foreguard lays aside all discipline, and stops to gossip over a woman +and some children. We have an unpleasant idea forced upon us at one +place, in spite of all the good-natured incredulity that we can summon up +to resist it. Is it possible that Monsieur Hugo thinks they ceased to +steer the corvette while the gun was loose? Of the chapter in which +Lantenac and Halmalho are alone together in the boat, the less said the +better; of course, if there were nothing else, they would have been +swamped thirty times over during the course of Lantenac’s harangue. +Again, after Lantenac has landed, we have scenes of almost inimitable +workmanship that suggest the epithet “statuesque” by their clear and +trenchant outline; but the tocsin scene will not do, and the tocsin +unfortunately pervades the whole passage, ringing continually in our ears +with a taunting accusation of falsehood. And then, when we come to the +place where Lantenac meets the royalists, under the idea that he is going +to meet the republicans, it seems as if there were a hitch in the stage +mechanism. I have tried it over in every way, and I cannot conceive any +disposition that would make the scene possible as narrated. + + * * * * * + +Such then, with their faults and their signal excellences, are the five +great novels. + +Romance is a language in which many persons learn to speak with a certain +appearance of fluency; but there are few who can ever bend it to any +practical need, few who can ever be said to express themselves in it. It +has become abundantly plain in the foregoing examination that Victor Hugo +occupies a high place among those few. He has always a perfect command +over his stories; and we see that they are constructed with a high regard +to some ulterior purpose, and that every situation is informed with moral +significance and grandeur. Of no other man can the same thing be said in +the same degree. His romances are not to be confused with “the novel +with a purpose” as familiar to the English reader: this is generally the +model of incompetence; and we see the moral clumsily forced into every +hole and corner of the story, or thrown externally over it like a carpet +over a railing. Now the moral significance, with Hugo, is of the essence +of the romance; it is the organising principle. If you could somehow +despoil _Les Misérables or Les Travailleurs_ of their distinctive lesson, +you would find that the story had lost its interest and the book was +dead. + +Having thus learned to subordinate his story to an idea, to make his art +speak, he went on to teach it to say things heretofore unaccustomed. If +you look back at the five books of which we have now so hastily spoken, +you will be astonished at the freedom with which the original purposes of +story-telling have been laid aside and passed by. Where are now the two +lovers who descended the main watershed of all the Waverley novels, and +all the novels that have tried to follow in their wake? Sometimes they +are almost lost sight of before the solemn isolation of a man against the +sea and sky, as in _Les Travailleurs_; sometimes, as in _Les Misérables_, +they merely figure for awhile, as a beautiful episode in the epic of +oppression; sometimes they are entirely absent, as in _Quatre Vingt +Treize_. There is no hero in _Notre Dame_: in _Les Misérables_ it is an +old man: in _L’Homme qui Rit_ it is a monster: in _Quatre Vingt Treize_ +it is the Revolution. Those elements that only began to show themselves +timidly, as adjuncts, in the novels of Walter Scott, have usurped ever +more and more of the canvas; until we find the whole interest of one of +Hugo’s romances centring around matter that Fielding would have banished +from his altogether, as being out of the field of fiction. So we have +elemental forces occupying nearly as large a place, playing (so to speak) +nearly as important a _rôle_, as the man, Gilliat, who opposes and +overcomes them. So we find the fortunes of a nation put upon the stage +with as much vividness as ever before the fortunes of a village maiden or +a lost heir; and the forces that oppose and corrupt a principle holding +the attention quite as strongly as the wicked barons or dishonest +attorneys of the past. Hence those individual interests that were +supreme in Fielding, and even in Scott, stood out over everything else +and formed as it were the spine of the story, figure here only as one set +of interests among many sets, one force among many forces, one thing to +be treated out of a whole world of things equally vivid and important. +So that, for Hugo, man is no longer an isolated spirit without antecedent +or relation here below, but a being involved in the action and reaction +of natural forces, himself a centre of such action and reaction or an +unit in a great multitude, chased hither and thither by epidemic terrors +and aspirations, and, in all seriousness, blown about by every wind of +doctrine. This is a long way that we have travelled: between such work +and the work of Fielding is there not, indeed, a great gulph in thought +and sentiment? + +Art, thus conceived, realises for men a larger portion of life, and that +portion one that it is more difficult for them to realise unaided; and, +besides helping them to feel more intensely those restricted personal +interests which are patent to all, it awakes in them some consciousness +of those more general relations that are so strangely invisible to the +average man in ordinary moods. It helps to keep man in his place in +nature, and, above all, it helps him to understand more intelligently the +responsibilities of his place in society. And in all this generalisation +of interest, we never miss those small humanities that are at the +opposite pole of excellence in art; and while we admire the intellect +that could see life thus largely, we are touched with another sentiment +for the tender heart that slipped the piece of gold into Cosette’s sabot, +that was virginally troubled at the fluttering of her dress in the spring +wind, or put the blind girl beside the deformity of the laughing man. +This, then, is the last praise that we can award to these romances. The +author has shown a power of just subordination hitherto unequalled; and +as, in reaching forward to one class of effects, he has not been +forgetful or careless of the other, his work is more nearly complete +work, and his art, with all its imperfections, deals more comprehensively +with the materials of life than that of any of his otherwise more sure +and masterly predecessors. + +These five books would have made a very great fame for any writer, and +yet they are but one façade of the monument that Victor Hugo has erected +to his genius. Everywhere we find somewhat the same greatness, somewhat +the same infirmities. In his poems and plays there are the same +unaccountable protervities that have already astonished us in the +romances. There, too, is the same feverish strength, welding the fiery +iron of his idea under forge-hammer repetitions—an emphasis that is +somehow akin to weaknesses—strength that is a little epileptic. He +stands so far above all his contemporaries, and so incomparably excels +them in richness, breadth, variety, and moral earnestness, that we almost +feel as if he had a sort of right to fall oftener and more heavily than +others; but this does not reconcile us to seeing him profit by the +privilege so freely. We like to have, in our great men, something that +is above question; we like to place an implicit faith in them, and see +them always on the platform of their greatness; and this, unhappily, +cannot be with Hugo. As Heine said long ago, his is a genius somewhat +deformed; but, deformed as it is, we accept it gladly; we shall have the +wisdom to see where his foot slips, but we shall have the justice also to +recognise in him one of the greatest artists of our generation, and, in +many ways, one of the greatest artists of time. If we look back, yet +once, upon these five romances, we see blemishes such as we can lay to +the charge of no other man in the number of the famous; but to what other +man can we attribute such sweeping innovations, such a new and +significant presentment of the life of man, such an amount, if we merely +think of the amount, of equally consummate performance? + + + + +SOME ASPECTS OF ROBERT BURNS + + +TO write with authority about another man, we must have fellow-feeling +and some common ground of experience with our subject. We may praise or +blame according as we find him related to us by the best or worst in +ourselves; but it is only in virtue of some relationship that we can be +his judges, even to condemn. Feelings which we share and understand +enter for us into the tissue of the man’s character; those to which we +are strangers in our own experience we are inclined to regard as blots, +exceptions, inconsistencies, and excursions of the diabolic; we conceive +them with repugnance, explain them with difficulty, and raise our hands +to heaven in wonder when we find them in conjunction with talents that we +respect or virtues that we admire. David, king of Israel, would pass a +sounder judgment on a man than either Nathaniel or David Hume. Now, +Principal Shairp’s recent volume, although I believe no one will read it +without respect and interest, has this one capital defect—that there is +imperfect sympathy between the author and the subject, between the critic +and the personality under criticism. Hence an inorganic, if not an +incoherent, presentation of both the poems and the man. Of _Holy +Willie’s Prayer_, Principal Shairp remarks that “those who have loved +most what was best in Burns’s poetry must have regretted that it was ever +written.” To the _Jolly Beggars_, so far as my memory serves me, he +refers but once; and then only to remark on the “strange, not to say +painful,” circumstance that the same hand which wrote the _Cotter’s +Saturday Night_ should have stooped to write the _Jolly Beggars_. The +_Saturday Night_ may or may not be an admirable poem; but its +significance is trebled, and the power and range of the poet first +appears, when it is set beside the _Jolly Beggars_. To take a man’s work +piecemeal, except with the design of elegant extracts, is the way to +avoid, and not to perform, the critic’s duty. The same defect is +displayed in the treatment of Burns as a man, which is broken, +apologetical, and confused. The man here presented to us is not that +Burns, _teres atque rotundus_—a burly figure in literature, as, from our +present vantage of time, we have begun to see him. This, on the other +hand, is Burns as he may have appeared to a contemporary clergyman, whom +we shall conceive to have been a kind and indulgent but orderly and +orthodox person, anxious to be pleased, but too often hurt and +disappointed by the behaviour of his red-hot _protégé_, and solacing +himself with the explanation that the poet was “the most inconsistent of +men.” If you are so sensibly pained by the misconduct of your subject, +and so paternally delighted with his virtues, you will always be an +excellent gentleman, but a somewhat questionable biographer. Indeed, we +can only be sorry and surprised that Principal Shairp should have chosen +a theme so uncongenial. When we find a man writing on Burns, who likes +neither _Holy Willie_, nor the _Beggars_, nor the _Ordination_, nothing +is adequate to the situation but the old cry of Géronte: “Que diable +allait-il faire dans cette galère?” And every merit we find in the book, +which is sober and candid in a degree unusual with biographies of Burns, +only leads us to regret more heartily that good work should be so greatly +thrown away. + +It is far from my intention to tell over again a story that has been so +often told; but there are certainly some points in the character of Burns +that will bear to be brought out, and some chapters in his life that +demand a brief rehearsal. The unity of the man’s nature, for all its +richness, has fallen somewhat out of sight in the pressure of new +information and the apologetical ceremony of biographers. Mr. Carlyle +made an inimitable bust of the poet’s head of gold; may I not be forgiven +if my business should have more to do with the feet, which were of clay? + + + +YOUTH. + + +Any view of Burns would be misleading which passed over in silence the +influences of his home and his father. That father, William Burnes, +after having been for many years a gardener, took a farm, married, and, +like an emigrant in a new country, built himself a house with his own +hands. Poverty of the most distressing sort, with sometimes the near +prospect of a gaol, embittered the remainder of his life. Chill, +backward, and austere with strangers, grave and imperious in his family, +he was yet a man of very unusual parts and of an affectionate nature. On +his way through life he had remarked much upon other men, with more +result in theory than practice; and he had reflected upon many subjects +as he delved the garden. His great delight was in solid conversation; he +would leave his work to talk with the schoolmaster Murdoch; and Robert, +when he came home late at night, not only turned aside rebuke but kept +his father two hours beside the fire by the charm of his merry and +vigorous talk. Nothing is more characteristic of the class in general, +and William Burnes in particular, than the pains he took to get proper +schooling for his boys, and, when that was no longer possible, the sense +and resolution with which he set himself to supply the deficiency by his +own influence. For many years he was their chief companion; he spoke +with them seriously on all subjects as if they had been grown men; at +night, when work was over, he taught them arithmetic; he borrowed books +for them on history, science, and theology; and he felt it his duty to +supplement this last—the trait is laughably Scottish—by a dialogue of his +own composition, where his own private shade of orthodoxy was exactly +represented. He would go to his daughter as she stayed afield herding +cattle, to teach her the names of grasses and wild flowers, or to sit by +her side when it thundered. Distance to strangers, deep family +tenderness, love of knowledge, a narrow, precise, and formal reading of +theology—everything we learn of him hangs well together, and builds up a +popular Scotch type. If I mention the name of Andrew Fairservice, it is +only as I might couple for an instant Dugald Dalgetty with old Marshal +Loudon, to help out the reader’s comprehension by a popular but unworthy +instance of a class. Such was the influence of this good and wise man +that his household became a school to itself, and neighbours who came +into the farm at meal-time would find the whole family, father, brothers, +and sisters, helping themselves with one hand, and holding a book in the +other. We are surprised at the prose style of Robert; that of Gilbert +need surprise us no less; even William writes a remarkable letter for a +young man of such slender opportunities. One anecdote marks the taste of +the family. Murdoch brought _Titus Andronicus_, and, with such dominie +elocution as we may suppose, began to read it aloud before this rustic +audience; but when he had reached the passage where Tamora insults +Lavinia, with one voice and “in an agony of distress” they refused to +hear it to an end. In such a father and with such a home, Robert had +already the making of an excellent education; and what Murdoch added, +although it may not have been much in amount, was in character the very +essence of a literary training. Schools and colleges, for one great man +whom they complete, perhaps unmake a dozen; the strong spirit can do well +upon more scanty fare. + +Robert steps before us, almost from the first, in his complete +character—a proud, headstrong, impetuous lad, greedy of pleasure, greedy +of notice; in his own phrase “panting after distinction,” and in his +brother’s “cherishing a particular jealousy of people who were richer or +of more consequence than himself:” with all this, he was emphatically of +the artist nature. Already he made a conspicuous figure in Tarbolton +church, with the only tied hair in the parish, “and his plaid, which was +of a particular colour, wrapped in a particular manner round his +shoulders.” Ten years later, when a married man, the father of a family, +a farmer, and an officer of Excise, we shall find him out fishing in +masquerade, with fox-skin cap, belted great-coat, and great Highland +broadsword. He liked dressing up, in fact, for its own sake. This is +the spirit which leads to the extravagant array of Latin Quarter +students, and the proverbial velveteen of the English landscape-painter; +and, though the pleasure derived is in itself merely personal, it shows a +man who is, to say the least of it, not pained by general attention and +remark. His father wrote the family name _Burnes_; Robert early adopted +the orthography _Burness_ from his cousin in the Mearns; and in his +twenty-eighth year changed it once more to _Burns_. It is plain that the +last transformation was not made without some qualm; for in addressing +his cousin he adheres, in at least one more letter, to spelling number +two. And this, again, shows a man preoccupied about the manner of his +appearance even down to the name, and little willing to follow custom. +Again, he was proud, and justly proud, of his powers in conversation. To +no other man’s have we the same conclusive testimony from different +sources and from every rank of life. It is almost a commonplace that the +best of his works was what he said in talk. Robertson the historian +“scarcely ever met any man whose conversation displayed greater vigour;” +the Duchess of Gordon declared that he “carried her off her feet;” and, +when he came late to an inn, the servants would get out of bed to hear +him talk. But, in these early days at least, he was determined to shine +by any means. He made himself feared in the village for his tongue. He +would crush weaker men to their faces, or even perhaps—for the statement +of Sillar is not absolute—say cutting things of his acquaintances behind +their back. At the church door, between sermons, he would parade his +religious views amid hisses. These details stamp the man. He had no +genteel timidities in the conduct of his life. He loved to force his +personality upon the world. He would please himself, and shine. Had he +lived in the Paris of 1830, and joined his lot with the Romantics, we can +conceive him writing _Jehan_ for _Jean_, swaggering in Gautier’s red +waistcoat, and horrifying Bourgeois in a public café with paradox and +gasconnade. + +A leading trait throughout his whole career was his desire to be in love. +_Ne fait pas ce tour qui veut_. His affections were often enough +touched, but perhaps never engaged. He was all his life on a voyage of +discovery, but it does not appear conclusively that he ever touched the +happy isle. A man brings to love a deal of ready-made sentiment, and +even from childhood obscurely prognosticates the symptoms of this vital +malady. Burns was formed for love; he had passion, tenderness, and a +singular bent in the direction; he could foresee, with the intuition of +an artist, what love ought to be; and he could not conceive a worthy life +without it. But he had ill-fortune, and was besides so greedy after +every shadow of the true divinity, and so much the slave of a strong +temperament, that perhaps his nerve was relaxed and his heart had lost +the power of self-devotion before an opportunity occurred. The +circumstances of his youth doubtless counted for something in the result. +For the lads of Ayrshire, as soon as the day’s work was over and the +beasts were stabled, would take the road, it might be in a winter +tempest, and travel perhaps miles by moss and moorland to spend an hour +or two in courtship. Rule 10 of the Bachelors’ Club at Tarbolton +provides that “every man proper for a member of this Society must be a +professed lover of _one or more_ of the female sex.” The rich, as Burns +himself points out, may have a choice of pleasurable occupations, but +these lads had nothing but their “cannie hour at e’en.” It was upon love +and flirtation that this rustic society was built; gallantry was the +essence of life among the Ayrshire hills as well as in the Court of +Versailles; and the days were distinguished from each other by +love-letters, meetings, tiffs, reconciliations, and expansions to the +chosen confidant, as in a comedy of Marivaux. Here was a field for a man +of Burns’s indiscriminate personal ambition, where he might pursue his +voyage of discovery in quest of true love, and enjoy temporary triumphs +by the way. He was “constantly the victim of some fair enslaver”—at +least, when it was not the other way about; and there were often +underplots and secondary fair enslavers in the background. Many—or may +we not say most?—of these affairs were entirely artificial. One, he +tells us, he began out of “a vanity of showing his parts in courtship,” +for he piqued himself on his ability at a love-letter. But, however they +began, these flames of his were fanned into a passion ere the end; and he +stands unsurpassed in his power of self-deception, and positively without +a competitor in the art, to use his own words, of “battering himself into +a warm affection,”—a debilitating and futile exercise. Once he had +worked himself into the vein, “the agitations of his mind and body” were +an astonishment to all who knew him. Such a course as this, however +pleasant to a thirsty vanity, was lowering to his nature. He sank more +and more towards the professional Don Juan. With a leer of what the +French call fatuity, he bids the belles of Mauchline beware of his +seductions; and the same cheap self-satisfaction finds a yet uglier vent +when he plumes himself on the scandal at the birth of his first bastard. +We can well believe what we hear of his facility in striking up an +acquaintance with women: he would have conquering manners; he would bear +down upon his rustic game with the grace that comes of absolute +assurance—the Richelieu of Lochlea or Mossgiel. In yet another manner +did these quaint ways of courtship help him into fame. If he were great +as principal, he was unrivalled as confidant. He could enter into a +passion; he could counsel wary moves, being, in his own phrase, so old a +hawk; nay, he could turn a letter for some unlucky swain, or even string +a few lines of verse that should clinch the business and fetch the +hesitating fair one to the ground. Nor, perhaps, was it only his +“curiosity, zeal, and intrepid dexterity” that recommended him for a +second in such affairs; it must have been a distinction to have the +assistance and advice of _Rab the Ranter_; and one who was in no way +formidable by himself might grow dangerous and attractive through the +fame of his associate. + +I think we can conceive him, in these early years, in that rough moorland +country, poor among the poor with his seven pounds a year, looked upon +with doubt by respectable elders, but for all that the best talker, the +best letter-writer, the most famous lover and confidant, the laureate +poet, and the only man who wore his hair tied in the parish. He says he +had then as high a notion of himself as ever after; and I can well +believe it. Among the youth he walked _facile princeps_, an apparent +god; and even if, from time to time, the Reverend Mr. Auld should swoop +upon him with the thunders of the Church, and, in company with seven +others, Rab the Ranter must figure some fine Sunday on the stool of +repentance, would there not be a sort of glory, an infernal apotheosis, +in so conspicuous a shame? Was not Richelieu in disgrace more idolised +than ever by the dames of Paris? and when was the highwayman most +acclaimed but on his way to Tyburn? Or, to take a simile from nearer +home, and still more exactly to the point, what could even corporal +punishment avail, administered by a cold, abstract, unearthly +school-master, against the influence and fame of the school’s hero? + +And now we come to the culminating point of Burns’s early period. He +began to be received into the unknown upper world. His fame soon spread +from among his fellow-rebels on the benches, and began to reach the +ushers and monitors of this great Ayrshire academy. This arose in part +from his lax views about religion; for at this time that old war of the +creeds and confessors, which is always grumbling from end to end of our +poor Scotland, brisked up in these parts into a hot and virulent +skirmish; and Burns found himself identified with the opposition party,—a +clique of roaring lawyers and half-heretical divines, with wit enough to +appreciate the value of the poet’s help, and not sufficient taste to +moderate his grossness and personality. We may judge of their surprise +when _Holy Willie_ was put into their hand; like the amorous lads of +Tarbolton, they recognised in him the best of seconds. His satires began +to go the round in manuscript; Mr. Aiken, one of the lawyers, “read him +into fame;” he himself was soon welcome in many houses of a better sort, +where his admirable talk, and his manners, which he had direct from his +Maker, except for a brush he gave them at a country dancing school, +completed what his poems had begun. We have a sight of him at his first +visit to Adamhill, in his ploughman’s shoes, coasting around the carpet +as though that were sacred ground. But he soon grew used to carpets and +their owners; and he was still the superior of all whom he encountered, +and ruled the roost in conversation. Such was the impression made, that +a young clergyman, himself a man of ability, trembled and became confused +when he saw Robert enter the church in which he was to preach. It is not +surprising that the poet determined to publish: he had now stood the test +of some publicity, and under this hopeful impulse he composed in six +winter months the bulk of his more important poems. Here was a young man +who, from a very humble place, was mounting rapidly; from the cynosure of +a parish, he had become the talk of a county; once the bard of rural +courtships, he was now about to appear as a bound and printed poet in the +world’s bookshops. + +A few more intimate strokes are necessary to complete the sketch. This +strong young plough-man, who feared no competitor with the flail, +suffered like a fine lady from sleeplessness and vapours; he would fall +into the blackest melancholies, and be filled with remorse for the past +and terror for the future. He was still not perhaps devoted to religion, +but haunted by it; and at a touch of sickness prostrated himself before +God in what I can only call unmanly penitence. As he had aspirations +beyond his place in the world, so he had tastes, thoughts, and weaknesses +to match. He loved to walk under a wood to the sound of a winter +tempest; he had a singular tenderness for animals; he carried a book with +him in his pocket when he went abroad, and wore out in this service two +copies of the _Man of Feeling_. With young people in the field at work +he was very long-suffering; and when his brother Gilbert spoke sharply to +them—“O man, ye are no for young folk,” he would say, and give the +defaulter a helping hand and a smile. In the hearts of the men whom he +met, he read as in a book; and, what is yet more rare, his knowledge of +himself equalled his knowledge of others. There are no truer things said +of Burns than what is to be found in his own letters. Country Don Juan +as he was, he had none of that blind vanity which values itself on what +it is not; he knew his own strength and weakness to a hair: he took +himself boldly for what he was, and, except in moments of hypochondria, +declared himself content. + + + +THE LOVE STORIES. + + +On the night of Mauchline races, 1785, the young men and women of the +place joined in a penny ball, according to their custom. In the same set +danced Jean Armour, the master-mason’s daughter, and our dark-eyed Don +Juan. His dog (not the immortal Luath, but a successor unknown to fame, +_caret quia vate sacro_), apparently sensible of some neglect, followed +his master to and fro, to the confusion of the dancers. Some mirthful +comments followed; and Jean heard the poet say to his partner—or, as I +should imagine, laughingly launch the remark to the company at large—that +“he wished he could get any of the lasses to like him as well as his +dog.” Some time after, as the girl was bleaching clothes on Mauchline +green, Robert chanced to go by, still accompanied by his dog; and the +dog, “scouring in long excursion,” scampered with four black paws across +the linen. This brought the two into conversation; when Jean, with a +somewhat hoydenish advance, inquired if “he had yet got any of the lasses +to like him as well as his dog?” + +It is one of the misfortunes of the professional Don Juan that his honour +forbids him to refuse battle; he is in life like the Roman soldier upon +duty, or like the sworn physician who must attend on all diseases. Burns +accepted the provocation; hungry hope reawakened in his heart; here was a +girl—pretty, simple at least, if not honestly stupid, and plainly not +averse to his attentions: it seemed to him once more as if love might +here be waiting him. Had he but known the truth! for this facile and +empty-headed girl had nothing more in view than a flirtation; and her +heart, from the first and on to the end of her story, was engaged by +another man. Burns once more commenced the celebrated process of +“battering himself into a warm affection;” and the proofs of his success +are to be found in many verses of the period. Nor did he succeed with +himself only; Jean, with her heart still elsewhere, succumbed to his +fascination, and early in the next year the natural consequence became +manifest. It was a heavy stroke for this unfortunate couple. They had +trifled with life, and were now rudely reminded of life’s serious issues. +Jean awoke to the ruin of her hopes; the best she had now to expect was +marriage with a man who was a stranger to her dearest thoughts; she might +now be glad if she could get what she would never have chosen. As for +Burns, at the stroke of the calamity he recognised that his voyage of +discovery had led him into a wrong hemisphere—that he was not, and never +had been, really in love with Jean. Hear him in the pressure of the +hour. “Against two things,” he writes, “I am as fixed as fate—staying at +home, and owning her conjugally. The first, by heaven, I will not +do!—the last, by hell, I will never do!” And then he adds, perhaps +already in a more relenting temper: “If you see Jean, tell her I will +meet her, so God help me in my hour of need.” They met accordingly; and +Burns, touched with her misery, came down from these heights of +independence, and gave her a written acknowledgment of marriage. It is +the punishment of Don Juanism to create continually false +positions—relations in life which are wrong in themselves, and which it +is equally wrong to break or to perpetuate. This was such a case. +Worldly Wiseman would have laughed and gone his way; let us be glad that +Burns was better counselled by his heart. When we discover that we can +be no longer true, the next best is to be kind. I daresay he came away +from that interview not very content, but with a glorious conscience; and +as he went homeward, he would sing his favourite, “How are Thy servants +blest, O Lord!” Jean, on the other hand, armed with her “lines,” +confided her position to the master-mason, her father, and his wife. +Burns and his brother were then in a fair way to ruin themselves in their +farm; the poet was an execrable match for any well-to-do country lass; +and perhaps old Armour had an inkling of a previous attachment on his +daughter’s part. At least, he was not so much incensed by her slip from +virtue as by the marriage which had been designed to cover it. Of this +he would not hear a word. Jean, who had besought the acknowledgment only +to appease her parents, and not at all from any violent inclination to +the poet, readily gave up the paper for destruction; and all parties +imagined, although wrongly, that the marriage was thus dissolved. To a +proud man like Burns here was a crushing blow. The concession which had +been wrung from his pity was now publicly thrown back in his teeth. The +Armour family preferred disgrace to his connection. Since the promise, +besides, he had doubtless been busy “battering himself” back again into +his affection for the girl; and the blow would not only take him in his +vanity, but wound him at the heart. + +He relieved himself in verse; but for such a smarting affront manuscript +poetry was insufficient to console him. He must find a more powerful +remedy in good flesh and blood, and after this discomfiture, set forth +again at once upon his voyage of discovery in quest of love. It is +perhaps one of the most touching things in human nature, as it is a +commonplace of psychology, that when a man has just lost hope or +confidence in one love, he is then most eager to find and lean upon +another. The universe could not be yet exhausted; there must be hope and +love waiting for him somewhere; and so, with his head down, this poor, +insulted poet ran once more upon his fate. There was an innocent and +gentle Highland nursery-maid at service in a neighbouring family; and he +had soon battered himself and her into a warm affection and a secret +engagement. Jean’s marriage lines had not been destroyed till March 13, +1786; yet all was settled between Burns and Mary Campbell by Sunday, May +14, when they met for the last time, and said farewell with rustic +solemnities upon the banks of Ayr. They each wet their hands in a +stream, and, standing one on either bank, held a Bible between them as +they vowed eternal faith. Then they exchanged Bibles, on one of which +Burns, for greater security, had inscribed texts as to the binding nature +of an oath; and surely, if ceremony can do aught to fix the wandering +affections, here were two people united for life. Mary came of a +superstitious family, so that she perhaps insisted on these rites; but +they must have been eminently to the taste of Burns at this period; for +nothing would seem superfluous, and no oath great enough, to stay his +tottering constancy. + +Events of consequence now happened thickly in the poet’s life. His book +was announced; the Armours sought to summon him at law for the aliment of +the child; he lay here and there in hiding to correct the sheets; he was +under an engagement for Jamaica, where Mary was to join him as his wife; +now, he had “orders within three weeks at latest to repair aboard the +_Nancy_, Captain Smith;” now his chest was already on the road to +Greenock; and now, in the wild autumn weather on the moorland, he +measures verses of farewell:— + + “The bursting tears my heart declare; + Farewell the bonny banks of Ayr!” + +But the great master dramatist had secretly another intention for the +piece; by the most violent and complicated solution, in which death and +birth and sudden fame all play a part as interposing deities, the +act-drop fell upon a scene of transformation. Jean was brought to bed of +twins, and, by an amicable arrangement, the Burnses took the boy to bring +up by hand, while the girl remained with her mother. The success of the +book was immediate and emphatic; it put £20 at once into the author’s +purse; and he was encouraged upon all hands to go to Edinburgh and push +his success in a second and larger edition. Third and last in these +series of interpositions, a letter came one day to Mossgiel Farm for +Robert. He went to the window to read it; a sudden change came over his +face, and he left the room without a word. Years afterwards, when the +story began to leak out, his family understood that he had then learned +the death of Highland Mary. Except in a few poems and a few dry +indications purposely misleading as to date, Burns himself made no +reference to this passage of his life; it was an adventure of which, for +I think sufficient reasons, he desired to bury the details. Of one thing +we may be glad: in after years he visited the poor girl’s mother, and +left her with the impression that he was “a real warm-hearted chield.” + +Perhaps a month after he received this intelligence, he set out for +Edinburgh on a pony he had borrowed from a friend. The town that winter +was “agog with the ploughman poet.” Robertson, Dugald Stewart, Blair, +“Duchess Gordon and all the gay world,” were of his acquaintance. Such a +revolution is not to be found in literary history. He was now, it must +be remembered, twenty-seven years of age; he had fought since his early +boyhood an obstinate battle against poor soil, bad seed, and inclement +seasons, wading deep in Ayrshire mosses, guiding the plough in the furrow +wielding “the thresher’s weary flingin’-tree;” and his education, his +diet, and his pleasures, had been those of a Scotch countryman. Now he +stepped forth suddenly among the polite and learned. We can see him as +he then was, in his boots and buckskins, his blue coat and waistcoat +striped with buff and blue, like a farmer in his Sunday best; the heavy +ploughman’s figure firmly planted on its burly legs; his face full of +sense and shrewdness, and with a somewhat melancholy air of thought, and +his large dark eye “literally glowing” as he spoke. “I never saw such +another eye in a human head,” says Walter Scott, “though I have seen the +most distinguished men of my time.” With men, whether they were lords or +omnipotent critics, his manner was plain, dignified, and free from +bashfulness or affectation. If he made a slip, he had the social courage +to pass on and refrain from explanation. He was not embarrassed in this +society, because he read and judged the men; he could spy snobbery in a +titled lord; and, as for the critics, he dismissed their system in an +epigram. “These gentlemen,” said he, “remind me of some spinsters in my +country who spin their thread so fine that it is neither fit for weft nor +woof.” Ladies, on the other hand, surprised him; he was scarce commander +of himself in their society; he was disqualified by his acquired nature +as a Don Juan; and he, who had been so much at his ease with country +lasses, treated the town dames to an extreme of deference. One lady, who +met him at a ball, gave Chambers a speaking sketch of his demeanour. +“His manner was not prepossessing—scarcely, she thinks, manly or natural. +It seemed as if he affected a rusticity or _landertness_, so that when he +said the music was ‘bonnie, bonnie,’ it was like the expression of a +child.” These would be company manners; and doubtless on a slight degree +of intimacy the affectation would grow less. And his talk to women had +always “a turn either to the pathetic or humorous, which engaged the +attention particularly.” + +The Edinburgh magnates (to conclude this episode at once) behaved well to +Burns from first to last. Were heaven-born genius to revisit us in +similar guise, I am not venturing too far when I say that he need expect +neither so warm a welcome nor such solid help. Although Burns was only a +peasant, and one of no very elegant reputation as to morals, he was made +welcome to their homes. They gave him a great deal of good advice, +helped him to some five hundred pounds of ready money, and got him, as +soon as he asked it, a place in the Excise. Burns, on his part, bore the +elevation with perfect dignity; and with perfect dignity returned, when +the time had come, into a country privacy of life. His powerful sense +never deserted him, and from the first he recognised that his Edinburgh +popularity was but an ovation and the affair of a day. He wrote a few +letters in a high-flown, bombastic vein of gratitude; but in practice he +suffered no man to intrude upon his self-respect. On the other hand, he +never turned his back, even for a moment, on his old associates; and he +was always ready to sacrifice an acquaintance to a friend, although the +acquaintance were a duke. He would be a bold man who should promise +similar conduct in equally exacting circumstances. It was, in short, an +admirable appearance on the stage of life—socially successful, intimately +self-respecting, and like a gentleman from first to last. + +In the present study, this must only be taken by the way, while we return +to Burns’s love affairs. Even on the road to Edinburgh he had seized +upon the opportunity of a flirtation, and had carried the “battering” so +far that when next he moved from town, it was to steal two days with this +anonymous fair one. The exact importance to Burns of this affair may be +gathered from the song in which he commemorated its occurrence. “I love +the dear lassie,” he sings, “because she loves me;” or, in the tongue of +prose: “Finding an opportunity, I did not hesitate to profit by it, and +even now, if it returned, I should not hesitate to profit by it again.” +A love thus founded has no interest for mortal man. Meantime, early in +the winter, and only once, we find him regretting Jean in his +correspondence. “Because”—such is his reason—“because he does not think +he will ever meet so delicious an armful again;” and then, after a brief +excursion into verse, he goes straight on to describe a new episode in +the voyage of discovery with the daughter of a Lothian farmer for a +heroine. I must ask the reader to follow all these references to his +future wife; they are essential to the comprehension of Burns’s character +and fate. In June, we find him back at Mauchline, a famous man. There, +the Armour family greeted him with a “mean, servile compliance,” which +increased his former disgust. Jean was not less compliant; a second time +the poor girl submitted to the fascination of the man whom she did not +love, and whom she had so cruelly insulted little more than a year ago; +and, though Burns took advantage of her weakness, it was in the ugliest +and most cynical spirit, and with a heart absolutely indifferent. Judge +of this by a letter written some twenty days after his return—a letter to +my mind among the most degrading in the whole collection—a letter which +seems to have been inspired by a boastful, libertine bagman. “I am +afraid,” it goes, “I have almost ruined one source, the principal one, +indeed, of my former happiness—the eternal propensity I always had to +fall in love. My heart no more glows with feverish rapture; I have no +paradisiacal evening interviews.” Even the process of “battering” has +failed him, you perceive. Still he had some one in his eye—a lady, if +you please, with a fine figure and elegant manners, and who had “seen the +politest quarters in Europe.” “I frequently visited her,” he writes, +“and after passing regularly the intermediate degrees between the distant +formal bow and the familiar grasp round the waist, I ventured, in my +careless way, to talk of friendship in rather ambiguous terms; and after +her return to —, I wrote her in the same terms. Miss, construing my +remarks further than even I intended, flew off in a tangent of female +dignity and reserve, like a mounting lark in an April morning; and wrote +me an answer which measured out very completely what an immense way I had +to travel before I could reach the climate of her favours. But I am an +old hawk at the sport, and wrote her such a cool, deliberate, prudent +reply, as brought my bird from her aerial towerings, pop, down to my +foot, like Corporal Trim’s hat.” I avow a carnal longing, after this +transcription, to buffet the Old Hawk about the ears. There is little +question that to this lady he must have repeated his addresses, and that +he was by her (Miss Chalmers) eventually, though not at all unkindly, +rejected. One more detail to characterise the period. Six months after +the date of this letter, Burns, back in Edinburgh, is served with a writ +_in meditatione fugæ_, on behalf of some Edinburgh fair one, probably of +humble rank, who declared an intention of adding to his family. + +About the beginning of December (1787), a new period opens in the story +of the poet’s random affections. He met at a tea party one Mrs. Agnes +M’Lehose, a married woman of about his own age, who, with her two +children, had been deserted by an unworthy husband. She had wit, could +use her pen, and had read _Werther_ with attention. Sociable, and even +somewhat frisky, there was a good, sound, human kernel in the woman; a +warmth of love, strong dogmatic religious feeling, and a considerable, +but not authoritative, sense of the proprieties. Of what biographers +refer to daintily as “her somewhat voluptuous style of beauty,” judging +from the silhouette in Mr. Scott Douglas’s invaluable edition, the reader +will be fastidious if he does not approve. Take her for all in all, I +believe she was the best woman Burns encountered. The pair took a fancy +for each other on the spot; Mrs. M’Lehose, in her turn, invited him to +tea; but the poet, in his character of the Old Hawk, preferred a +_tête-à-tête_, excused himself at the last moment, and offered a visit +instead. An accident confined him to his room for nearly a month, and +this led to the famous Clarinda and Sylvander correspondence. It was +begun in simple sport; they are already at their fifth or sixth exchange, +when Clarinda writes: “It is really curious so much _fun_ passing between +two persons who saw each other only _once_;” but it is hardly safe for a +man and woman in the flower of their years to write almost daily, and +sometimes in terms too ambiguous, sometimes in terms too plain, and +generally in terms too warm, for mere acquaintance. The exercise +partakes a little of the nature of battering, and danger may be +apprehended when next they meet. It is difficult to give any account of +this remarkable correspondence; it is too far away from us, and perhaps, +not yet far enough, in point of time and manner; the imagination is +baffled by these stilted literary utterances, warming, in bravura +passages, into downright truculent nonsense. Clarinda has one famous +sentence in which she bids Sylvander connect the thought of his mistress +with the changing phases of the year; it was enthusiastically admired by +the swain, but on the modern mind produces mild amazement and alarm. +“Oh, Clarinda,” writes Burns, “shall we not meet in a state—some yet +unknown state—of being, where the lavish hand of Plenty shall minister to +the highest wish of Benevolence, and where the chill north wind of +Prudence shall never blow over the flowery field of Enjoyment?” The +design may be that of an Old Hawk, but the style is more suggestive of a +Bird of Paradise. It is sometimes hard to fancy they are not gravely +making fun of each other as they write. Religion, poetry, love, and +charming sensibility, are the current topics. “I am delighted, charming +Clarinda, with your honest enthusiasm for religion,” writes Burns; and +the pair entertained a fiction that this was their “favourite subject.” +“This is Sunday,” writes the lady, “and not a word on our favourite +subject. O fy ‘divine Clarinda!’” I suspect, although quite +unconsciously on the part of the lady, who was bent on his redemption, +they but used the favourite subject as a stalking-horse. In the +meantime, the sportive acquaintance was ripening steadily into a genuine +passion. Visits took place, and then became frequent. Clarinda’s +friends were hurt and suspicious; her clergyman interfered; she herself +had smart attacks of conscience, but her heart had gone from her control; +it was altogether his, and she “counted all things but loss—heaven +excepted—that she might win and keep him.” Burns himself was transported +while in her neighbourhood, but his transports somewhat rapidly declined +during an absence. I am tempted to imagine that, womanlike, he took on +the colour of his mistress’s feeling; that he could not but heat himself +at the fire of her unaffected passion; but that, like one who should +leave the hearth upon a winter’s night, his temperature soon fell when he +was out of sight, and in a word, though he could share the symptoms, that +he had never shared the disease. At the same time, amid the fustian of +the letters there are forcible and true expressions, and the love verses +that he wrote upon Clarinda are among the most moving in the language. + +We are approaching the solution. In mid-winter, Jean, once more in the +family way, was turned out of doors by her family; and Burns had her +received and cared for in the house of a friend. For he remained to the +last imperfect in his character of Don Juan, and lacked the sinister +courage to desert his victim. About the middle of February (1788), he +had to tear himself from his Clarinda and make a journey into the +south-west on business. Clarinda gave him two shirts for his little son. +They were daily to meet in prayer at an appointed hour. Burns, too late +for the post at Glasgow, sent her a letter by parcel that she might not +have to wait. Clarinda on her part writes, this time with a beautiful +simplicity: “I think the streets look deserted-like since Monday; and +there’s a certain insipidity in good kind folks I once enjoyed not a +little. Miss Wardrobe supped here on Monday. She once named you, which +kept me from falling asleep. I drank your health in a glass of ale—as +the lasses do at Hallowe’en—‘in to mysel’.’” Arrived at Mauchline, Burns +installed Jean Armour in a lodging, and prevailed on Mrs. Armour to +promise her help and countenance in the approaching confinement. This +was kind at least; but hear his expressions: “I have taken her a room; I +have taken her to my arms; I have given her a mahogany bed; I have given +her a guinea. . . . I swore her privately and solemnly never to attempt +any claim on me as a husband, even though anybody should persuade her she +had such a claim—which she has not, neither during my life nor after my +death. She did all this like a good girl.” And then he took advantage +of the situation. To Clarinda he wrote: “I this morning called for a +certain woman. I am disgusted with her; I cannot endure her;” and he +accused her of “tasteless insipidity, vulgarity of soul, and mercenary +fawning.” This was already in March; by the thirteenth of that month he +was back in Edinburgh. On the 17th, he wrote to Clarinda: “Your hopes, +your fears, your cares, my love, are mine; so don’t mind them. I will +take you in my hand through the dreary wilds of this world, and scare +away the ravening bird or beast that would annoy you.” Again, on the +21st: “Will you open, with satisfaction and delight, a letter from a man +who loves you, who has loved you, and who will love you, to death, +through death, and for ever. . . . How rich am I to have such a treasure +as you! . . . ‘The Lord God knoweth,’ and, perhaps, ‘Israel he shall +know,’ my love and your merit. Adieu, Clarinda! I am going to remember +you in my prayers.” By the 7th of April, seventeen days later he had +already decided to make Jean Armour publicly his wife. + +A more astonishing stage-trick is not to be found. And yet his conduct +is seen, upon a nearer examination, to be grounded both in reason and in +kindness. He was now about to embark on a solid worldly career; he had +taken a farm; the affair with Clarinda, however gratifying to his heart, +was too contingent to offer any great consolation to a man like Burns, to +whom marriage must have seemed the very dawn of hope and self-respect. +This is to regard the question from its lowest aspect; but there is no +doubt that he entered on this new period of his life with a sincere +determination to do right. He had just helped his brother with a loan of +a hundred and eighty pounds; should he do nothing for the poor girl whom +he had ruined? It was true he could not do as he did without brutally +wounding Clarinda; that was the punishment of his bygone fault; he was, +as he truly says, “damned with a choice only of different species of +error and misconduct.” To be professional Don Juan, to accept the +provocation of any lively lass upon the village green, may thus lead a +man through a series of detestable words and actions, and land him at +last in an undesired and most unsuitable union for life. If he had been +strong enough to refrain or bad enough to persevere in evil; if he had +only not been Don Juan at all, or been Don Juan altogether, there had +been some possible road for him throughout this troublesome world; but a +man, alas! who is equally at the call of his worse and better instincts, +stands among changing events without foundation or resource. {71} + + + +DOWNWARD COURSE. + + +It may be questionable whether any marriage could have tamed Burns; but +it is at least certain that there was no hope for him in the marriage he +contracted. He did right, but then he had done wrong before; it was, as +I said, one of those relations in life which it seems equally wrong to +break or to perpetuate. He neither loved nor respected his wife. “God +knows,” he writes, “my choice was as random as blind man’s buff.” He +consoles himself by the thought that he has acted kindly to her; that she +“has the most sacred enthusiasm of attachment to him;” that she has a +good figure; that she has a “wood-note wild,” “her voice rising with ease +to B natural,” no less. The effect on the reader is one of unmingled +pity for both parties concerned. This was not the wife who (in his own +words) could “enter into his favourite studies or relish his favourite +authors;” this was not even a wife, after the affair of the marriage +lines, in whom a husband could joy to place his trust. Let her manage a +farm with sense, let her voice rise to B natural all day long, she would +still be a peasant to her lettered lord, and an object of pity rather +than of equal affection. She could now be faithful, she could now be +forgiving, she could now be generous even to a pathetic and touching +degree; but coming from one who was unloved, and who had scarce shown +herself worthy of the sentiment, these were all virtues thrown away, +which could neither change her husband’s heart nor affect the inherent +destiny of their relation. From the outset, it was a marriage that had +no root in nature; and we find him, ere long, lyrically regretting +Highland Mary, renewing correspondence with Clarinda in the warmest +language, on doubtful terms with Mrs. Riddel, and on terms unfortunately +beyond any question with Anne Park. + +Alas! this was not the only ill circumstance in his future. He had been +idle for some eighteen months, superintending his new edition, hanging on +to settle with the publisher, travelling in the Highlands with Willie +Nichol, or philandering with Mrs. M’Lehose; and in this period the +radical part of the man had suffered irremediable hurt. He had lost his +habits of industry, and formed the habit of pleasure. Apologetical +biographers assure us of the contrary; but from the first, he saw and +recognised the danger for himself; his mind, he writes, is “enervated to +an alarming degree” by idleness and dissipation; and again, “my mind has +been vitiated with idleness.” It never fairly recovered. To business he +could bring the required diligence and attention without difficulty; but +he was thenceforward incapable, except in rare instances, of that +superior effort of concentration which is required for serious literary +work. He may be said, indeed, to have worked no more, and only amused +himself with letters. The man who had written a volume of masterpieces +in six months, during the remainder of his life rarely found courage for +any more sustained effort than a song. And the nature of the songs is +itself characteristic of these idle later years; for they are often as +polished and elaborate as his earlier works were frank, and headlong, and +colloquial; and this sort of verbal elaboration in short flights is, for +a man of literary turn, simply the most agreeable of pastimes. The +change in manner coincides exactly with the Edinburgh visit. In 1786 he +had written the _Address to a Louse_, which may be taken as an extreme +instance of the first manner; and already, in 1787, we come upon the +rosebud pieces to Miss Cruikshank, which are extreme examples of the +second. The change was, therefore, the direct and very natural +consequence of his great change in life; but it is not the less typical +of his loss of moral courage that he should have given up all larger +ventures, nor the less melancholy that a man who first attacked +literature with a hand that seemed capable of moving mountains, should +have spent his later years in whittling cherry-stones. + +Meanwhile, the farm did not prosper; he had to join to it the salary of +an exciseman; at last he had to give it up, and rely altogether on the +latter resource. He was an active officer; and, though he sometimes +tempered severity with mercy, we have local testimony oddly representing +the public feeling of the period, that, while “in everything else he was +a perfect gentleman, when he met with anything seizable he was no better +than any other gauger.” + +There is but one manifestation of the man in these last years which need +delay us: and that was the sudden interest in politics which arose from +his sympathy with the great French Revolution. His only political +feeling had been hitherto a sentimental Jacobitism, not more or less +respectable than that of Scott, Aytoun, and the rest of what George +Borrow has nicknamed the “Charlie over the water” Scotchmen. It was a +sentiment almost entirely literary and picturesque in its origin, built +on ballads and the adventures of the Young Chevalier; and in Burns it is +the more excusable, because he lay out of the way of active politics in +his youth. With the great French Revolution, something living, +practical, and feasible appeared to him for the first time in this realm +of human action. The young ploughman who had desired so earnestly to +rise, now reached out his sympathies to a whole nation animated with the +same desire. Already in 1788 we find the old Jacobitism hand in hand +with the new popular doctrine, when, in a letter of indignation against +the zeal of a Whig clergyman, he writes: “I daresay the American Congress +in 1776 will be allowed to be as able and as enlightened as the English +Convention was in 1688; and that their posterity will celebrate the +centenary of their deliverance from us, as duly and sincerely as we do +ours from the oppressive measures of the wrong-headed house of Stuart.” +As time wore on, his sentiments grew more pronounced and even violent; +but there was a basis of sense and generous feeling to his hottest +excess. What he asked was a fair chance for the individual in life; an +open road to success and distinction for all classes of men. It was in +the same spirit that he had helped to found a public library in the +parish where his farm was situated, and that he sang his fervent snatches +against tyranny and tyrants. Witness, were it alone, this verse:— + + “Here’s freedom to him that wad read, + Here’s freedom to him that wad write; + There’s nane ever feared that the truth should be heard + But them wham the truth wad indite.” + +Yet his enthusiasm for the cause was scarce guided by wisdom. Many +stories are preserved of the bitter and unwise words he used in country +coteries; how he proposed Washington’s health as an amendment to Pitt’s, +gave as a toast “the last verse of the last chapter of Kings,” and +celebrated Dumouriez in a doggrel impromptu full of ridicule and hate. +Now his sympathies would inspire him with _Scots_, _wha hae_; now involve +him in a drunken broil with a loyal officer, and consequent apologies and +explanations, hard to offer for a man of Burns’s stomach. Nor was this +the front of his offending. On February 27, 1792, he took part in the +capture of an armed smuggler, bought at the subsequent sale four +carronades, and despatched them with a letter to the French Assembly. +Letter and guns were stopped at Dover by the English officials; there was +trouble for Burns with his superiors; he was reminded firmly, however +delicately, that, as a paid official, it was his duty to obey and to be +silent; and all the blood of this poor, proud, and falling man must have +rushed to his head at the humiliation. His letter to Mr. Erskine, +subsequently Earl of Mar, testifies, in its turgid, turbulent phrases, to +a perfect passion of alarmed self-respect and vanity. He had been +muzzled, and muzzled, when all was said, by his paltry salary as an +exciseman; alas! had he not a family to keep? Already, he wrote, he +looked forward to some such judgment from a hackney scribbler as this: +“Burns, notwithstanding the _fanfaronnade_ of independence to be found in +his works, and after having been held forth to view and to public +estimation as a man of some genius, yet, quite destitute of resources +within himself to support his borrowed dignity, he dwindled into a paltry +exciseman, and shrunk out the rest of his insignificant existence in the +meanest of pursuits, and among the vilest of mankind.” And then on he +goes, in a style of rhodomontade, but filled with living indignation, to +declare his right to a political opinion, and his willingness to shed his +blood for the political birthright of his sons. Poor, perturbed spirit! +he was indeed exercised in vain; those who share and those who differ +from his sentiments about the Revolution, alike understand and sympathise +with him in this painful strait; for poetry and human manhood are lasting +like the race, and politics, which are but a wrongful striving after +right, pass and change from year to year and age to age. The _Twa Dogs_ +has already outlasted the constitution of Siéyès and the policy of the +Whigs; and Burns is better known among English-speaking races than either +Pitt or Fox. + +Meanwhile, whether as a man, a husband, or a poet, his steps led +downward. He knew, knew bitterly, that the best was out of him; he +refused to make another volume, for he felt that it would be a +disappointment; he grew petulantly alive to criticism, unless he was sure +it reached him from a friend. For his songs, he would take nothing; they +were all that he could do; the proposed Scotch play, the proposed series +of Scotch tales in verse, all had gone to water; and in a fling of pain +and disappointment, which is surely noble with the nobility of a viking, +he would rather stoop to borrow than to accept money for these last and +inadequate efforts of his muse. And this desperate abnegation rises at +times near to the height of madness; as when he pretended that he had not +written, but only found and published, his immortal _Auld Lang Syne_. In +the same spirit he became more scrupulous as an artist; he was doing so +little, he would fain do that little well; and about two months before +his death, he asked Thomson to send back all his manuscripts for revisal, +saying that he would rather write five songs to his taste than twice that +number otherwise. The battle of his life was lost; in forlorn efforts to +do well, in desperate submissions to evil, the last years flew by. His +temper is dark and explosive, launching epigrams, quarrelling with his +friends, jealous of young puppy officers. He tries to be a good father; +he boasts himself a libertine. Sick, sad, and jaded, he can refuse no +occasion of temporary pleasure, no opportunity to shine; and he who had +once refused the invitations of lords and ladies is now whistled to the +inn by any curious stranger. His death (July 21, 1796), in his +thirty-seventh year, was indeed a kindly dispensation. It is the fashion +to say he died of drink; many a man has drunk more and yet lived with +reputation, and reached a good age. That drink and debauchery helped to +destroy his constitution, and were the means of his unconscious suicide, +is doubtless true; but he had failed in life, had lost his power of work, +and was already married to the poor, unworthy, patient Jean, before he +had shown his inclination to convivial nights, or at least before that +inclination had become dangerous either to his health or his +self-respect. He had trifled with life, and must pay the penalty. He +had chosen to be Don Juan, he had grasped at temporary pleasures, and +substantial happiness and solid industry had passed him by. He died of +being Robert Burns, and there is no levity in such a statement of the +case; for shall we not, one and all, deserve a similar epitaph? + + + +WORKS. + + +The somewhat cruel necessity which has lain upon me throughout this paper +only to touch upon those points in the life of Burns where correction or +amplification seemed desirable, leaves me little opportunity to speak of +the works which have made his name so famous. Yet, even here, a few +observations seem necessary. + +At the time when the poet made his appearance and great first success, +his work was remarkable in two ways. For, first, in an age when poetry +had become abstract and conventional, instead of continuing to deal with +shepherds, thunderstorms, and personifications, he dealt with the actual +circumstances of his life, however matter-of-fact and sordid these might +be. And, second, in a time when English versification was particularly +stiff, lame, and feeble, and words were used with ultra-academical +timidity, he wrote verses that were easy, racy, graphic, and forcible, +and used language with absolute tact and courage as it seemed most fit to +give a clear impression. If you take even those English authors whom we +know Burns to have most admired and studied, you will see at once that he +owed them nothing but a warning. Take Shenstone, for instance, and watch +that elegant author as he tries to grapple with the facts of life. He +has a description, I remember, of a gentleman engaged in sliding or +walking on thin ice, which is a little miracle of incompetence. You see +my memory fails me, and I positively cannot recollect whether his hero +was sliding or walking; as though a writer should describe a skirmish, +and the reader, at the end, be still uncertain whether it were a charge +of cavalry or a slow and stubborn advance of foot. There could be no +such ambiguity in Burns; his work is at the opposite pole from such +indefinite and stammering performances; and a whole lifetime passed in +the study of Shenstone would only lead a man further and further from +writing the _Address to a Louse_. Yet Burns, like most great artists, +proceeded from a school and continued a tradition; only the school and +tradition were Scotch, and not English. While the English language was +becoming daily more pedantic and inflexible, and English letters more +colourless and slack, there was another dialect in the sister country, +and a different school of poetry tracing its descent, through King James +I., from Chaucer. The dialect alone accounts for much; for it was then +written colloquially, which kept it fresh and supple; and, although not +shaped for heroic flights, it was a direct and vivid medium for all that +had to do with social life. Hence, whenever Scotch poets left their +laborious imitations of bad English verses, and fell back on their own +dialect, their style would kindle, and they would write of their +convivial and somewhat gross existences with pith and point. In Ramsay, +and far more in the poor lad Fergusson, there was mettle, humour, +literary courage, and a power of saying what they wished to say +definitely and brightly, which in the latter case should have justified +great anticipations. Had Burns died at the same age as Fergusson, he +would have left us literally nothing worth remark. To Ramsay and to +Fergusson, then, he was indebted in a very uncommon degree, not only +following their tradition and using their measures, but directly and +avowedly imitating their pieces. The same tendency to borrow a hint, to +work on some one else’s foundation, is notable in Burns from first to +last, in the period of song-writing as well as in that of the early +poems; and strikes one oddly in a man of such deep originality, who left +so strong a print on all he touched, and whose work is so greatly +distinguished by that character of “inevitability” which Wordsworth +denied to Goethe. + +When we remember Burns’s obligations to his predecessors, we must never +forget his immense advances on them. They had already “discovered” +nature; but Burns discovered poetry—a higher and more intense way of +thinking of the things that go to make up nature, a higher and more ideal +key of words in which to speak of them. Ramsay and Fergusson excelled at +making a popular—or shall we say vulgar?—sort of society verses, comical +and prosaic, written, you would say, in taverns while a supper party +waited for its laureate’s word; but on the appearance of Burns, this +coarse and laughing literature was touched to finer issues, and learned +gravity of thought and natural pathos. + +What he had gained from his predecessors was a direct, speaking style, +and to walk on his own feet instead of on academical stilts. There was +never a man of letters with more absolute command of his means; and we +may say of him, without excess, that his style was his slave. Hence that +energy of epithet, so concise and telling, that a foreigner is tempted to +explain it by some special richness or aptitude in the dialect he wrote. +Hence that Homeric justice and completeness of description which gives us +the very physiognomy of nature, in body and detail, as nature is. Hence, +too, the unbroken literary quality of his best pieces, which keeps him +from any slip into the weariful trade of word-painting, and presents +everything, as everything should be presented by the art of words, in a +clear, continuous medium of thought. Principal Shairp, for instance, +gives us a paraphrase of one tough verse of the original; and for those +who know the Greek poets only by paraphrase, this has the very quality +they are accustomed to look for and admire in Greek. The contemporaries +of Burns were surprised that he should visit so many celebrated mountains +and waterfalls, and not seize the opportunity to make a poem. Indeed, it +is not for those who have a true command of the art of words, but for +peddling, professional amateurs, that these pointed occasions are most +useful and inspiring. As those who speak French imperfectly are glad to +dwell on any topic they may have talked upon or heard others talk upon +before, because they know appropriate words for it in French, so the +dabbler in verse rejoices to behold a waterfall, because he has learned +the sentiment and knows appropriate words for it in poetry. But the +dialect of Burns was fitted to deal with any subject; and whether it was +a stormy night, a shepherd’s collie, a sheep struggling in the snow, the +conduct of cowardly soldiers in the field, the gait and cogitations of a +drunken man, or only a village cockcrow in the morning, he could find +language to give it freshness, body, and relief. He was always ready to +borrow the hint of a design, as though he had a difficulty in +commencing—a difficulty, let us say, in choosing a subject out of a world +which seemed all equally living and significant to him; but once he had +the subject chosen, he could cope with nature single-handed, and make +every stroke a triumph. Again, his absolute mastery in his art enabled +him to express each and all of his different humours, and to pass +smoothly and congruously from one to another. Many men invent a dialect +for only one side of their nature—perhaps their pathos or their humour, +or the delicacy of their senses—and, for lack of a medium, leave all the +others unexpressed. You meet such an one, and find him in conversation +full of thought, feeling, and experience, which he has lacked the art to +employ in his writings. But Burns was not thus hampered in the practice +of the literary art; he could throw the whole weight of his nature into +his work, and impregnate it from end to end. If Doctor Johnson, that +stilted and accomplished stylist, had lacked the sacred Boswell, what +should we have known of him? and how should we have delighted in his +acquaintance as we do? Those who spoke with Burns tell us how much we +have lost who did not. But I think they exaggerate their privilege: I +think we have the whole Burns in our possession set forth in his +consummate verses. + +It was by his style, and not by his matter, that he affected Wordsworth +and the world. There is, indeed, only one merit worth considering in a +man of letters—that he should write well; and only one damning fault—that +he should write ill. We are little the better for the reflections of the +sailor’s parrot in the story. And so, if Burns helped to change the +course of literary history, it was by his frank, direct, and masterly +utterance, and not by his homely choice of subjects. That was imposed +upon him, not chosen upon a principle. He wrote from his own experience, +because it was his nature so to do, and the tradition of the school from +which he proceeded was fortunately not opposed to homely subjects. But +to these homely subjects he communicated the rich commentary of his +nature; they were all steeped in Burns; and they interest us not in +themselves, but because they have been passed through the spirit of so +genuine and vigorous a man. Such is the stamp of living literature; and +there was never any more alive than that of Burns. + +What a gust of sympathy there is in him sometimes flowing out in byways +hitherto unused, upon mice, and flowers, and the devil himself; sometimes +speaking plainly between human hearts; sometimes ringing out in +exultation like a peal of bells! When we compare the _Farmer’s +Salutation to his Auld Mare Maggie_, with the clever and inhumane +production of half a century earlier, _The Auld Man’s Mare’s dead_, we +see in a nutshell the spirit of the change introduced by Burns. And as +to its manner, who that has read it can forget how the collie, Luath, in +the _Twa Dogs_, describes and enters into the merry-making in the +cottage? + + “The luntin’ pipe an’ sneeshin’ mill, + Are handed round wi’ richt guid will; + The canty auld folks crackin’ crouse, + The young anes rantin’ through the house— + My heart has been sae fain to see them + That I for joy hae barkit wi’ them.” + +It was this ardent power of sympathy that was fatal to so many women, +and, through Jean Armour, to himself at last. His humour comes from him +in a stream so deep and easy that I will venture to call him the best of +humorous poets. He turns about in the midst to utter a noble sentiment +or a trenchant remark on human life, and the style changes and rises to +the occasion. I think it is Principal Shairp who says, happily, that +Burns would have been no Scotchman if he had not loved to moralise; +neither, may we add, would he have been his father’s son; but (what is +worthy of note) his moralisings are to a large extent the moral of his +own career. He was among the least impersonal of artists. Except in the +_Jolly Beggars_, he shows no gleam of dramatic instinct. Mr. Carlyle has +complained that _Tam o’ Shanter_ is, from the absence of this quality, +only a picturesque and external piece of work; and I may add that in the +_Twa Dogs_ it is precisely in the infringement of dramatic propriety that +a great deal of the humour of the speeches depends for its existence and +effect. Indeed, Burns was so full of his identity that it breaks forth +on every page; and there is scarce an appropriate remark either in praise +or blame of his own conduct, but he has put it himself into verse. Alas! +for the tenor of these remarks! They are, indeed, his own pitiful +apology for such a marred existence and talents so misused and stunted; +and they seem to prove for ever how small a part is played by reason in +the conduct of man’s affairs. Here was one, at least, who with unfailing +judgment predicted his own fate; yet his knowledge could not avail him, +and with open eyes he must fulfil his tragic destiny. Ten years before +the end he had written his epitaph; and neither subsequent events, nor +the critical eyes of posterity, have shown us a word in it to alter. +And, lastly, has he not put in for himself the last unanswerable plea?— + + “Then gently scan your brother man, + Still gentler sister woman; + Though they may gang a kennin wrang, + To step aside is human: + One point must still be greatly dark—” + +One? Alas! I fear every man and woman of us is “greatly dark” to all +their neighbours, from the day of birth until death removes them, in +their greatest virtues as well as in their saddest faults; and we, who +have been trying to read the character of Burns, may take home the lesson +and be gentle in our thoughts. + + + + +WALT WHITMAN. + + +OF late years the name of Walt Whitman has been a good deal bandied about +in books and magazines. It has become familiar both in good and ill +repute. His works have been largely bespattered with praise by his +admirers, and cruelly mauled and mangled by irreverent enemies. Now, +whether his poetry is good or bad as poetry, is a matter that may admit +of a difference of opinion without alienating those who differ. We could +not keep the peace with a man who should put forward claims to taste and +yet depreciate the choruses in _Samson Agonistes_; but, I think, we may +shake hands with one who sees no more in Walt Whitman’s volume, from a +literary point of view, than a farrago of incompetent essays in a wrong +direction. That may not be at all our own opinion. We may think that, +when a work contains many unforgettable phrases, it cannot be altogether +devoid of literary merit. We may even see passages of a high poetry here +and there among its eccentric contents. But when all is said, Walt +Whitman is neither a Milton nor a Shakespeare; to appreciate his works is +not a condition necessary to salvation; and I would not disinherit a son +upon the question, nor even think much the worse of a critic, for I +should always have an idea what he meant. + +What Whitman has to say is another affair from how he says it. It is not +possible to acquit any one of defective intelligence, or else stiff +prejudice, who is not interested by Whitman’s matter and the spirit it +represents. Not as a poet, but as what we must call (for lack of a more +exact expression) a prophet, he occupies a curious and prominent +position. Whether he may greatly influence the future or not, he is a +notable symptom of the present. As a sign of the times, it would be hard +to find his parallel. I should hazard a large wager, for instance, that +he was not unacquainted with the works of Herbert Spencer; and yet where, +in all the history books, shall we lay our hands on two more incongruous +contemporaries? Mr. Spencer so decorous—I had almost said, so dandy—in +dissent; and Whitman, like a large shaggy dog, just unchained, scouring +the beaches of the world and baying at the moon. And when was an echo +more curiously like a satire, than when Mr. Spencer found his Synthetic +Philosophy reverberated from the other shores of the Atlantic in the +“barbaric yawp” of Whitman? + + + +I. + + +Whitman, it cannot be too soon explained, writes up to a system. He was +a theoriser about society before he was a poet. He first perceived +something wanting, and then sat down squarely to supply the want. The +reader, running over his works, will find that he takes nearly as much +pleasure in critically expounding his theory of poetry as in making +poems. This is as far as it can be from the case of the spontaneous +village minstrel dear to elegy, who has no theory whatever, although +sometimes he may have fully as much poetry as Whitman. The whole of +Whitman’s work is deliberate and preconceived. A man born into a society +comparatively new, full of conflicting elements and interests, could not +fail, if he had any thoughts at all, to reflect upon the tendencies +around him. He saw much good and evil on all sides, not yet settled down +into some more or less unjust compromise as in older nations, but still +in the act of settlement. And he could not but wonder what it would turn +out; whether the compromise would be very just or very much the reverse, +and give great or little scope for healthy human energies. From idle +wonder to active speculation is but a step; and he seems to have been +early struck with the inefficacy of literature and its extreme +unsuitability to the conditions. What he calls “Feudal Literature” could +have little living action on the tumult of American democracy; what he +calls the “Literature of Wo,” meaning the whole tribe of Werther and +Byron, could have no action for good in any time or place. Both +propositions, if art had none but a direct moral influence, would be true +enough; and as this seems to be Whitman’s view, they were true enough for +him. He conceived the idea of a Literature which was to inhere in the +life of the present; which was to be, first, human, and next, American; +which was to be brave and cheerful as per contract; to give culture in a +popular and poetical presentment; and, in so doing, catch and stereotype +some democratic ideal of humanity which should be equally natural to all +grades of wealth and education, and suited, in one of his favourite +phrases, to “the average man.” To the formation of some such literature +as this his poems are to be regarded as so many contributions, one +sometimes explaining, sometimes superseding, the other: and the whole +together not so much a finished work as a body of suggestive hints. He +does not profess to have built the castle, but he pretends he has traced +the lines of the foundation. He has not made the poetry, but he flatters +himself he has done something towards making the poets. + +His notion of the poetic function is ambitious, and coincides roughly +with what Schopenhauer has laid down as the province of the +metaphysician. The poet is to gather together for men, and set in order, +the materials of their existence. He is “The Answerer;” he is to find +some way of speaking about life that shall satisfy, if only for the +moment, man’s enduring astonishment at his own position. And besides +having an answer ready, it is he who shall provoke the question. He must +shake people out of their indifference, and force them to make some +election in this world, instead of sliding dully forward in a dream. +Life is a business we are all apt to mismanage; either living recklessly +from day to day, or suffering ourselves to be gulled out of our moments +by the inanities of custom. We should despise a man who gave as little +activity and forethought to the conduct of any other business. But in +this, which is the one thing of all others, since it contains them all, +we cannot see the forest for the trees. One brief impression obliterates +another. There is something stupefying in the recurrence of unimportant +things. And it is only on rare provocations that we can rise to take an +outlook beyond daily concerns, and comprehend the narrow limits and great +possibilities of our existence. It is the duty of the poet to induce +such moments of clear sight. He is the declared enemy of all living by +reflex action, of all that is done betwixt sleep and waking, of all the +pleasureless pleasurings and imaginary duties in which we coin away our +hearts and fritter invaluable years. He has to electrify his readers +into an instant unflagging activity, founded on a wide and eager +observation of the world, and make them direct their ways by a superior +prudence, which has little or nothing in common with the maxims of the +copy-book. That many of us lead such lives as they would heartily disown +after two hours’ serious reflection on the subject is, I am afraid, a +true, and, I am sure, a very galling thought. The Enchanted Ground of +dead-alive respectability is next, upon the map, to the Beulah of +considerate virtue. But there they all slumber and take their rest in +the middle of God’s beautiful and wonderful universe; the drowsy heads +have nodded together in the same position since first their fathers fell +asleep; and not even the sound of the last trumpet can wake them to a +single active thought. + +The poet has a hard task before him to stir up such fellows to a sense of +their own and other people’s principles in life. + +And it happens that literature is, in some ways, but an indifferent means +to such an end. Language is but a poor bull’s-eye lantern wherewith to +show off the vast cathedral of the world; and yet a particular thing once +said in words is so definite and memorable, that it makes us forget the +absence of the many which remain unexpressed; like a bright window in a +distant view, which dazzles and confuses our sight of its surroundings. +There are not words enough in all Shakespeare to express the merest +fraction of a man’s experience in an hour. The speed of the eyesight and +the hearing, and the continual industry of the mind, produce, in ten +minutes, what it would require a laborious volume to shadow forth by +comparisons and roundabout approaches. If verbal logic were sufficient, +life would be as plain sailing as a piece of Euclid. But, as a matter of +fact, we make a travesty of the simplest process of thought when we put +it into words for the words are all coloured and forsworn, apply +inaccurately, and bring with them, from former uses ideas of praise and +blame that have nothing to do with the question in hand. So we must +always see to it nearly, that we judge by the realities of life and not +by the partial terms that represent them in man’s speech; and at times of +choice, we must leave words upon one side, and act upon those brute +convictions, unexpressed and perhaps inexpressible, which cannot be +flourished in an argument, but which are truly the sum and fruit of our +experience. Words are for communication, not for judgment. This is what +every thoughtful man knows for himself, for only fools and silly +schoolmasters push definitions over far into the domain of conduct; and +the majority of women, not learned in these scholastic refinements, live +all-of-a-piece and unconsciously, as a tree grows, without caring to put +a name upon their acts or motives. Hence, a new difficulty for Whitman’s +scrupulous and argumentative poet; he must do more than waken up the +sleepers to his words; he must persuade them to look over the book and at +life with their own eyes. + +This side of truth is very present to Whitman; it is this that he means +when he tells us that “To glance with an eye confounds the learning of +all times.” But he is not unready. He is never weary of descanting on +the undebatable conviction that is forced upon our minds by the presence +of other men, of animals, or of inanimate things. To glance with an eye, +were it only at a chair or a park railing, is by far a more persuasive +process, and brings us to a far more exact conclusion, than to read the +works of all the logicians extant. If both, by a large allowance, may be +said to end in certainty, the certainty in the one case transcends the +other to an incalculable degree. If people see a lion, they run away; if +they only apprehend a deduction, they keep wandering around in an +experimental humour. Now, how is the poet to convince like nature, and +not like books? Is there no actual piece of nature that he can show the +man to his face, as he might show him a tree if they were walking +together? Yes, there is one: the man’s own thoughts. In fact, if the +poet is to speak efficaciously, he must say what is already in his +hearer’s mind. That, alone, the hearer will believe; that, alone, he +will be able to apply intelligently to the facts of life. Any +conviction, even if it be a whole system or a whole religion, must pass +into the condition of commonplace, or postulate, before it becomes fully +operative. Strange excursions and high-flying theories may interest, but +they cannot rule behaviour. Our faith is not the highest truth that we +perceive, but the highest that we have been able to assimilate into the +very texture and method of our thinking. It is not, therefore, by +flashing before a man’s eyes the weapons of dialectic; it is not by +induction, deduction, or construction; it is not by forcing him on from +one stage of reasoning to another, that the man will be effectually +renewed. He cannot be made to believe anything; but he can be made to +see that he has always believed it. And this is the practical canon. It +is when the reader cries, “Oh, I know!” and is, perhaps, half irritated +to see how nearly the author has forestalled his own thoughts, that he is +on the way to what is called in theology a Saving Faith. + +Here we have the key to Whitman’s attitude. To give a certain unity of +ideal to the average population of America—to gather their activities +about some conception of humanity that shall be central and normal, if +only for the moment—the poet must portray that population as it is. Like +human law, human poetry is simply declaratory. If any ideal is possible, +it must be already in the thoughts of the people; and, by the same +reason, in the thoughts of the poet, who is one of them. And hence +Whitman’s own formula: “The poet is individual—he is complete in himself: +the others are as good as he; only he sees it, and they do not.” To show +them how good they are, the poet must study his fellow-countrymen and +himself somewhat like a traveller on the hunt for his book of travels. +There is a sense, of course, in which all true books are books of travel; +and all genuine poets must run their risk of being charged with the +traveller’s exaggeration; for to whom are such books more surprising than +to those whose own life is faithfully and smartly pictured? But this +danger is all upon one side; and you may judiciously flatter the portrait +without any likelihood of the sitter’s disowning it for a faithful +likeness. And so Whitman has reasoned: that by drawing at first hand +from himself and his neighbours, accepting without shame the +inconsistencies and brutalities that go to make up man, and yet treating +the whole in a high, magnanimous spirit, he would make sure of belief, +and at the same time encourage people forward by the means of praise. + + + +II. + + +We are accustomed nowadays to a great deal of puling over the +circumstances in which we are placed. The great refinement of many +poetical gentlemen has rendered them practically unfit for the jostling +and ugliness of life, and they record their unfitness at considerable +length. The bold and awful poetry of Job’s complaint produces too many +flimsy imitators; for there is always something consolatory in grandeur, +but the symphony transposed for the piano becomes hysterically sad. This +literature of woe, as Whitman calls it, this _Maladie de René_, as we +like to call it in Europe, is in many ways a most humiliating and sickly +phenomenon. Young gentlemen with three or four hundred a year of private +means look down from a pinnacle of doleful experience on all the grown +and hearty men who have dared to say a good word for life since the +beginning of the world. There is no prophet but the melancholy Jacques, +and the blue devils dance on all our literary wires. + +It would be a poor service to spread culture, if this be its result, +among the comparatively innocent and cheerful ranks of men. When our +little poets have to be sent to look at the ploughman and learn wisdom, +we must be careful how we tamper with our ploughmen. Where a man in not +the best of circumstances preserves composure of mind, and relishes ale +and tobacco, and his wife and children, in the intervals of dull and +unremunerative labour; where a man in this predicament can afford a +lesson by the way to what are called his intellectual superiors, there is +plainly something to be lost, as well as something to be gained, by +teaching him to think differently. It is better to leave him as he is +than to teach him whining. It is better that he should go without the +cheerful lights of culture, if cheerless doubt and paralysing +sentimentalism are to be the consequence. Let us, by all means, fight +against that hide-bound stolidity of sensation and sluggishness of mind +which blurs and decolorises for poor natures the wonderful pageant of +consciousness; let us teach people, as much as we can, to enjoy, and they +will learn for themselves to sympathise; but let us see to it, above all, +that we give these lessons in a brave, vivacious note, and build the man +up in courage while we demolish its substitute, indifference. + +Whitman is alive to all this. He sees that, if the poet is to be of any +help, he must testify to the livableness of life. His poems, he tells +us, are to be “hymns of the praise of things.” They are to make for a +certain high joy in living, or what he calls himself “a brave delight fit +for freedom’s athletes.” And he has had no difficulty in introducing his +optimism: it fitted readily enough with his system; for the average man +is truly a courageous person and truly fond of living. One of Whitman’s +remarks upon this head is worth quotation, as he is there perfectly +successful, and does precisely what he designs to do throughout: Takes +ordinary and even commonplace circumstances; throws them out, by a happy +turn of thinking, into significance and something like beauty; and tacks +a hopeful moral lesson to the end. + + “The passionate tenacity of hunters, woodmen, early risers, + cultivators of gardens and orchards and fields, he says, the love of + healthy women for the manly form, seafaring persons, drivers of + horses, the passion for light and the open air,—all is an old + unvaried sign of the unfailing perception of beauty, and of a + residence of the poetic in outdoor people.” + +There seems to me something truly original in this choice of trite +examples. You will remark how adroitly Whitman begins, hunters and +woodmen being confessedly romantic. And one thing more. If he had said +“the love of healthy men for the female form,” he would have said almost +a silliness; for the thing has never been dissembled out of delicacy, and +is so obvious as to be a public nuisance. But by reversing it, he tells +us something not unlike news; something that sounds quite freshly in +words; and, if the reader be a man, gives him a moment of great +self-satisfaction and spiritual aggrandisement. In many different +authors you may find passages more remarkable for grammar, but few of a +more ingenious turn, and none that could be more to the point in our +connection. The tenacity of many ordinary people in ordinary pursuits is +a sort of standing challenge to everybody else. If one man can grow +absorbed in delving his garden, others may grow absorbed and happy over +something else. Not to be upsides in this with any groom or gardener, is +to be very meanly organised. A man should be ashamed to take his food if +he has not alchemy enough in his stomach to turn some of it into intense +and enjoyable occupation. + +Whitman tries to reinforce this cheerfulness by keeping up a sort of +outdoor atmosphere of sentiment. His book, he tells us, should be read +“among the cooling influences of external nature;” and this +recommendation, like that other famous one which Hawthorne prefixed to +his collected tales, is in itself a character of the work. Every one who +has been upon a walking or a boating tour, living in the open air, with +the body in constant exercise and the mind in fallow, knows true ease and +quiet. The irritating action of the brain is set at rest; we think in a +plain, unfeverish temper; little things seem big enough, and great things +no longer portentous; and the world is smilingly accepted as it is. This +is the spirit that Whitman inculcates and parades. He thinks very ill of +the atmosphere of parlours or libraries. Wisdom keeps school outdoors. +And he has the art to recommend this attitude of mind by simply pluming +himself upon it as a virtue; so that the reader, to keep the advantage +over his author which most readers enjoy, is tricked into professing the +same view. And this spirit, as it is his chief lesson, is the greatest +charm of his work. Thence, in spite of an uneven and emphatic key of +expression, something trenchant and straightforward, something simple and +surprising, distinguishes his poems. He has sayings that come home to +one like the Bible. We fall upon Whitman, after the works of so many men +who write better, with a sense of relief from strain, with a sense of +touching nature, as when one passes out of the flaring, noisy +thoroughfares of a great city into what he himself has called, with +unexcelled imaginative justice of language, “the huge and thoughtful +night.” And his book in consequence, whatever may be the final judgment +of its merit, whatever may be its influence on the future, should be in +the hands of all parents and guardians as a specific for the distressing +malady of being seventeen years old. Green-sickness yields to his +treatment as to a charm of magic; and the youth, after a short course of +reading, ceases to carry the universe upon his shoulders. + + + +III. + + +Whitman is not one of those who can be deceived by familiarity. He +considers it just as wonderful that there are myriads of stars, as that +one man should rise from the dead. He declares “a hair on the back of +his hand just as curious as any special revelation.” His whole life is +to him what it was to Sir Thomas Browne, one perpetual miracle. +Everything is strange, everything unaccountable, everything beautiful; +from a bug to the moon, from the sight of the eyes to the appetite for +food. He makes it his business to see things as if he saw them for the +first time, and professes astonishment on principle. But he has no +leaning towards mythology; avows his contempt for what he calls +“unregenerate poetry;” and does not mean by nature + + “The smooth walks, trimmed hedges, butterflies, posies, and + nightingales of the English poets, but the whole orb, with its + geologic history, the Kosmos, carrying fire and snow, that rolls + through the illimitable areas, light as a feather though weighing + billions of tons.” + +Nor is this exhaustive; for in his character of idealist all impressions, +all thoughts, trees and people, love and faith, astronomy, history, and +religion, enter upon equal terms into his notion of the universe. He is +not against religion; not, indeed, against any religion. He wishes to +drag with a larger net, to make a more comprehensive synthesis, than any +or than all of them put together. In feeling after the central type of +man, he must embrace all eccentricities; his cosmology must subsume all +cosmologies, and the feelings that gave birth to them; his statement of +facts must include all religion and all irreligion, Christ and Boodha, +God and the devil. The world as it is, and the whole world as it is, +physical, and spiritual, and historical, with its good and bad, with its +manifold inconsistencies, is what he wishes to set forth, in strong, +picturesque, and popular lineaments, for the understanding of the average +man. One of his favourite endeavours is to get the whole matter into a +nutshell; to knock the four corners of the universe, one after another, +about his readers’ ears; to hurry him, in breathless phrases, hither and +thither, back and forward, in time and space; to focus all this about his +own momentary personality; and then, drawing the ground from under his +feet, as if by some cataclysm of nature, to plunge him into the +unfathomable abyss sown with enormous suns and systems, and among the +inconceivable numbers and magnitudes and velocities of the heavenly +bodies. So that he concludes by striking into us some sense of that +disproportion of things which Shelley has illuminated by the ironical +flash of these eight words: The desire of the moth for the star. + +The same truth, but to what a different purpose! Whitman’s moth is +mightily at his ease about all the planets in heaven, and cannot think +too highly of our sublunary tapers. The universe is so large that +imagination flags in the effort to conceive it; but here, in the +meantime, is the world under our feet, a very warm and habitable corner. +“The earth, that is sufficient; I do not want the constellations any +nearer,” he remarks. And again: “Let your soul stand cool and composed,” +says he, “before a million universes.” It is the language of a +transcendental common sense, such as Thoreau held and sometimes uttered. +But Whitman, who has a somewhat vulgar inclination for technical talk and +the jargon of philosophy, is not content with a few pregnant hints; he +must put the dots upon his i’s; he must corroborate the songs of Apollo +by some of the darkest talk of human metaphysic. He tells his disciples +that they must be ready “to confront the growing arrogance of Realism.” +Each person is, for himself, the keystone and the occasion of this +universal edifice. “Nothing, not God,” he says, “is greater to one than +oneself is;” a statement with an irreligious smack at the first sight; +but like most startling sayings, a manifest truism on a second. He will +give effect to his own character without apology; he sees “that the +elementary laws never apologise.” “I reckon,” he adds, with quaint +colloquial arrogance, “I reckon I behave no prouder than the level I +plant my house by, after all.” The level follows the law of its being; +so, unrelentingly, will he; everything, every person, is good in his own +place and way; God is the maker of all and all are in one design. For he +believes in God, and that with a sort of blasphemous security. “No array +of terms,” quoth he, “no array of terms can say how much at peace I am +about God and about death.” There certainly never was a prophet who +carried things with a higher hand; he gives us less a body of dogmas than +a series of proclamations by the grace of God; and language, you will +observe, positively fails him to express how far he stands above the +highest human doubts and trepidations. + +But next in order of truths to a person’s sublime conviction of himself, +comes the attraction of one person for another, and all that we mean by +the word love:— + + “The dear love of man for his comrade—the attraction of friend for + friend, + Of the well-married husband and wife, of children and parents, + Of city for city and land for land.” + +The solitude of the most sublime idealist is broken in upon by other +people’s faces; he sees a look in their eyes that corresponds to +something in his own heart; there comes a tone in their voices which +convicts him of a startling weakness for his fellow-creatures. While he +is hymning the _ego_ and commercing with God and the universe, a woman +goes below his window; and at the turn of her skirt, or the colour of her +eyes, Icarus is recalled from heaven by the run. Love is so startlingly +real that it takes rank upon an equal footing of reality with the +consciousness of personal existence. We are as heartily persuaded of the +identity of those we love as of our own identity. And so sympathy pairs +with self-assertion, the two gerents of human life on earth; and +Whitman’s ideal man must not only be strong, free, and self-reliant in +himself, but his freedom must be bounded and his strength perfected by +the most intimate, eager, and long-suffering love for others. To some +extent this is taking away with the left hand what has been so generously +given with the right. Morality has been ceremoniously extruded from the +door only to be brought in again by the window. We are told, on one +page, to do as we please; and on the next we are sharply upbraided for +not having done as the author pleases. We are first assured that we are +the finest fellows in the world in our own right; and then it appears +that we are only fine fellows in so far as we practise a most quixotic +code of morals. The disciple who saw himself in clear ether a moment +before is plunged down again among the fogs and complications of duty. +And this is all the more overwhelming because Whitman insists not only on +love between sex and sex, and between friends of the same sex, but in the +field of the less intense political sympathies; and his ideal man must +not only be a generous friend but a conscientious voter into the bargain. + +His method somewhat lessens the difficulty. He is not, the reader will +remember, to tell us how good we ought to be, but to remind us how good +we are. He is to encourage us to be free and kind, by proving that we +are free and kind already. He passes our corporate life under review, to +show that it is upheld by the very virtues of which he makes himself the +advocate. “There is no object so soft,” he says somewhere in his big, +plain way, “there is no object so soft but it makes a hub for the wheel’d +universe.” Rightly understood, it is on the softest of all objects, the +sympathetic heart, that the wheel of society turns easily and securely as +on a perfect axle. There is no room, of course, for doubt or discussion, +about conduct, where every one is to follow the law of his being with +exact compliance. Whitman hates doubt, deprecates discussion, and +discourages to his utmost the craving, carping sensibilities of the +conscience. We are to imitate, to use one of his absurd and happy +phrases, “the satisfaction and aplomb of animals.” If he preaches a sort +of ranting Christianity in morals, a fit consequent to the ranting +optimism of his cosmology, it is because he declares it to be the +original deliverance of the human heart; or at least, for he would be +honestly historical in method, of the human heart as at present +Christianised. His is a morality without a prohibition; his policy is +one of encouragement all round. A man must be a born hero to come up to +Whitman’s standard in the practice of any of the positive virtues; but of +a negative virtue, such as temperance or chastity, he has so little to +say, that the reader need not be surprised if he drops a word or two upon +the other side. He would lay down nothing that would be a clog; he would +prescribe nothing that cannot be done ruddily, in a heat. The great +point is to get people under way. To the faithful Whitmanite this would +be justified by the belief that God made all, and that all was good; the +prophet, in this doctrine, has only to cry “Tally-ho,” and mankind will +break into a gallop on the road to El Dorado. Perhaps, to another class +of minds, it may look like the result of the somewhat cynical reflection +that you will not make a kind man out of one who is unkind by any +precepts under heaven; tempered by the belief that, in natural +circumstances, the large majority is well disposed. Thence it would +follow, that if you can only get every one to feel more warmly and act +more courageously, the balance of results will be for good. + +So far, you see, the doctrine is pretty coherent as a doctrine; as a +picture of man’s life it is incomplete and misleading, although eminently +cheerful. This he is himself the first to acknowledge; for if he is +prophetic in anything, it is in his noble disregard of consistency. “Do +I contradict myself?” he asks somewhere; and then pat comes the answer, +the best answer ever given in print, worthy of a sage, or rather of a +woman: “Very well, then, I contradict myself!” with this addition, not so +feminine and perhaps not altogether so satisfactory: “I am large—I +contain multitudes.” Life, as a matter of fact, partakes largely of the +nature of tragedy. The gospel according to Whitman, even if it be not so +logical, has this advantage over the gospel according to Pangloss, that +it does not utterly disregard the existence of temporal evil. Whitman +accepts the fact of disease and wretchedness like an honest man; and +instead of trying to qualify it in the interest of his optimism, sets +himself to spur people up to be helpful. He expresses a conviction, +indeed, that all will be made up to the victims in the end; that “what is +untried and afterward” will fail no one, not even “the old man who has +lived without purpose and feels it with bitterness worse than gall.” But +this is not to palliate our sense of what is hard or melancholy in the +present. Pangloss, smarting under one of the worst things that ever was +supposed to come from America, consoled himself with the reflection that +it was the price we have to pay for cochineal. And with that murderous +parody, logical optimism and the praises of the best of possible words +went irrevocably out of season, and have been no more heard of in the +mouths of reasonable men. Whitman spares us all allusions to the +cochineal; he treats evil and sorrow in a spirit almost as of welcome; as +an old sea-dog might have welcomed the sight of the enemy’s topsails off +the Spanish Main. There, at least, he seems to say, is something obvious +to be done. I do not know many better things in literature than the +brief pictures,—brief and vivid like things seen by lightning,—with which +he tries to stir up the world’s heart upon the side of mercy. He braces +us, on the one hand, with examples of heroic duty and helpfulness; on the +other, he touches us with pitiful instances of people needing help. He +knows how to make the heart beat at a brave story; to inflame us with +just resentment over the hunted slave; to stop our mouths for shame when +he tells of the drunken prostitute. For all the afflicted, all the weak, +all the wicked, a good word is said in a spirit which I can only call one +of ultra-Christianity; and however wild, however contradictory, it may be +in parts, this at least may be said for his book, as it may be said of +the Christian Gospels, that no one will read it, however respectable, but +he gets a knock upon his conscience; no one however fallen, but he finds +a kindly and supporting welcome. + + + +IV. + + +Nor has he been content with merely blowing the trumpet for the battle of +well-doing; he has given to his precepts the authority of his own brave +example. Naturally a grave, believing man, with little or no sense of +humour, he has succeeded as well in life as in his printed performances. +The spirit that was in him has come forth most eloquently in his actions. +Many who have only read his poetry have been tempted to set him down as +an ass, or even as a charlatan; but I never met any one who had known him +personally who did not profess a solid affection and respect for the +man’s character. He practises as he professes; he feels deeply that +Christian love for all men, that toleration, that cheerful delight in +serving others, which he often celebrates in literature with a doubtful +measure of success. And perhaps, out of all his writings, the best and +the most human and convincing passages are to be found in “these soil’d +and creas’d little livraisons, each composed of a sheet or two of paper, +folded small to carry in the pocket, and fastened with a pin,” which he +scribbled during the war by the bedsides of the wounded or in the +excitement of great events. They are hardly literature in the formal +meaning of the word; he has left his jottings for the most part as he +made them; a homely detail, a word from the lips of a dying soldier, a +business memorandum, the copy of a letter-short, straightforward to the +point, with none of the trappings of composition; but they breathe a +profound sentiment, they give us a vivid look at one of the sides of +life, and they make us acquainted with a man whom it is an honour to +love. + +Whitman’s intense Americanism, his unlimited belief in the future of +These States (as, with reverential capitals, he loves to call them), made +the war a period of great trial to his soul. The new virtue, Unionism, +of which he is the sole inventor, seemed to have fallen into premature +unpopularity. All that he loved, hoped, or hated, hung in the balance. +And the game of war was not only momentous to him in its issues; it +sublimated his spirit by its heroic displays, and tortured him intimately +by the spectacle of its horrors. It was a theatre, it was a place of +education, it was like a season of religious revival. He watched Lincoln +going daily to his work; he studied and fraternised with young soldiery +passing to the front; above all, he walked the hospitals, reading the +Bible, distributing clean clothes, or apples, or tobacco; a patient, +helpful, reverend man, full of kind speeches. + +His memoranda of this period are almost bewildering to read. From one +point of view they seem those of a district visitor; from another, they +look like the formless jottings of an artist in the picturesque. More +than one woman, on whom I tried the experiment, immediately claimed the +writer for a fellow-woman. More than one literary purist might identify +him as a shoddy newspaper correspondent without the necessary faculty of +style. And yet the story touches home; and if you are of the weeping +order of mankind, you will certainly find your eyes fill with tears, of +which you have no reason to be ashamed. There is only one way to +characterise a work of this order, and that is to quote. Here is a +passage from a letter to a mother, unknown to Whitman, whose son died in +hospital:— + + “Frank, as far as I saw, had everything requisite in surgical + treatment, nursing, etc. He had watches much of the time. He was so + good and well-behaved, and affectionate, I myself liked him very + much. I was in the habit of coming in afternoons and sitting by him, + and he liked to have me—liked to put out his arm and lay his hand on + my knee—would keep it so a long while. Toward the last he was more + restless and flighty at night—often fancied himself with his + regiment—by his talk sometimes seem’d as if his feelings were hurt by + being blamed by his officers for something he was entirely innocent + of—said ‘I never in my life was thought capable of such a thing, and + never was.’ At other times he would fancy himself talking as it + seem’d to children or such like, his relatives, I suppose, and giving + them good advice; would talk to them a long while. All the time he + was out of his head not one single bad word, or thought, or idea + escaped him. It was remark’d that many a man’s conversation in his + senses was not half so good as Frank’s delirium. + + “He was perfectly willing to die—he had become very weak, and had + suffer’d a good deal, and was perfectly resign’d, poor boy. I do not + know his past life, but I feel as if it must have been good. At any + rate what I saw of him here, under the most trying circumstances, + with a painful wound, and among strangers, I can say that he behaved + so brave, so composed, and so sweet and affectionate, it could not be + surpassed. And now, like many other noble and good men, after + serving his country as a soldier, he has yielded up his young life at + the very outset in her service. Such things are gloomy—yet there is + a text, ‘God doeth all things well,’ the meaning of which, after due + time, appears to the soul. + + “I thought perhaps a few words, though from a stranger, about your + son, from one who was with him at the last, might be worth while, for + I loved the young man, though I but saw him immediately to lose him.” + +It is easy enough to pick holes in the grammar of this letter, but what +are we to say of its profound goodness and tenderness? It is written as +though he had the mother’s face before his eyes, and saw her wincing in +the flesh at every word. And what, again, are we to say of its sober +truthfulness, not exaggerating, not running to phrases, not seeking to +make a hero out of what was only an ordinary but good and brave young +man? Literary reticence is not Whitman’s stronghold; and this reticence +is not literary, but humane; it is not that of a good artist but that of +a good man. He knew that what the mother wished to hear about was Frank; +and he told her about her Frank as he was. + + + +V. + + +Something should be said of Whitman’s style, for style is of the essence +of thinking. And where a man is so critically deliberate as our author, +and goes solemnly about his poetry for an ulterior end, every indication +is worth notice. He has chosen a rough, unrhymed, lyrical verse; +sometimes instinct with a fine processional movement; often so rugged and +careless that it can only be described by saying that he has not taken +the trouble to write prose. I believe myself that it was selected +principally because it was easy to write, although not without +recollections of the marching measures of some of the prose in our +English Old Testament. According to Whitman, on the other hand, “the +time has arrived to essentially break down the barriers of form between +Prose and Poetry . . . for the most cogent purposes of those great inland +states, and for Texas, and California, and Oregon;”—a statement which is +among the happiest achievements of American humour. He calls his verses +“recitatives,” in easily followed allusion to a musical form. +“Easily-written, loose-fingered chords,” he cries, “I feel the thrum of +your climax and close.” Too often, I fear, he is the only one who can +perceive the rhythm; and in spite of Mr. Swinburne, a great part of his +work considered as verses is poor bald stuff. Considered, not as verse, +but as speech, a great part of it is full of strange and admirable +merits. The right detail is seized; the right word, bold and trenchant, +is thrust into its place. Whitman has small regard to literary +decencies, and is totally free from literary timidities. He is neither +afraid of being slangy nor of being dull; nor, let me add, of being +ridiculous. The result is a most surprising compound of plain grandeur, +sentimental affectation, and downright nonsense. It would be useless to +follow his detractors and give instances of how bad he can be at his +worst; and perhaps it would be not much wiser to give extracted specimens +of how happily he can write when he is at his best. These come in to +most advantage in their own place; owing something, it may be, to the +offset of their curious surroundings. And one thing is certain, that no +one can appreciate Whitman’s excellences until he has grown accustomed to +his faults. Until you are content to pick poetry out of his pages almost +as you must pick it out of a Greek play in Bohn’s translation, your +gravity will be continually upset, your ears perpetually disappointed, +and the whole book will be no more to you than a particularly flagrant +production by the Poet Close. + +A writer of this uncertain quality was, perhaps, unfortunate in taking +for thesis the beauty of the world as it now is, not only on the +hill-tops but in the factory; not only by the harbour full of stately +ships, but in the magazine of the hopelessly prosaic hatter. To show +beauty in common things is the work of the rarest tact. It is not to be +done by the wishing. It is easy to posit as a theory, but to bring it +home to men’s minds is the problem of literature, and is only +accomplished by rare talent, and in comparatively rare instances. To bid +the whole world stand and deliver, with a dogma in one’s right hand by +way of pistol; to cover reams of paper in a galloping, headstrong vein; +to cry louder and louder over everything as it comes up, and make no +distinction in one’s enthusiasm over the most incomparable matters; to +prove one’s entire want of sympathy for the jaded, literary palate, by +calling, not a spade a spade, but a hatter a hatter, in a lyrical +apostrophe;—this, in spite of all the airs of inspiration, is not the way +to do it. It may be very wrong, and very wounding to a respectable +branch of industry, but the word “hatter” cannot be used seriously in +emotional verse; not to understand this, is to have no literary tact; and +I would, for his own sake, that this were the only inadmissible +expression with which Whitman had bedecked his pages. The book teems +with similar comicalities; and, to a reader who is determined to take it +from that side only, presents a perfect carnival of fun. + +A good deal of this is the result of theory playing its usual vile trick +upon the artist. It is because he is a Democrat that Whitman must have +in the hatter. If you may say Admiral, he reasons, why may you not say +Hatter? One man is as good as another, and it is the business of the +“great poet” to show poetry in the life of the one as well as the other. +A most incontrovertible sentiment surely, and one which nobody would +think of controverting, where—and here is the point—where any beauty has +been shown. But how, where that is not the case? where the hatter is +simply introduced, as God made him and as his fellow-men have miscalled +him, at the crisis of a high-flown rhapsody? And what are we to say, +where a man of Whitman’s notable capacity for putting things in a bright, +picturesque, and novel way, simply gives up the attempt, and indulges, +with apparent exultation, in an inventory of trades or implements, with +no more colour or coherence than so many index-words out of a dictionary? +I do not know that we can say anything, but that it is a prodigiously +amusing exhibition for a line or so. The worst of it is, that Whitman +must have known better. The man is a great critic, and, so far as I can +make out, a good one; and how much criticism does it require to know that +capitulation is not description, or that fingering on a dumb keyboard, +with whatever show of sentiment and execution, is not at all the same +thing as discoursing music? I wish I could believe he was quite honest +with us; but, indeed, who was ever quite honest who wrote a book for a +purpose? It is a flight beyond the reach of human magnanimity. + +One other point, where his means failed him, must be touched upon, +however shortly. In his desire to accept all facts loyally and simply, +it fell within his programme to speak at some length and with some +plainness on what is, for I really do not know what reason, the most +delicate of subjects. Seeing in that one of the most serious and +interesting parts of life, he was aggrieved that it should be looked upon +as ridiculous or shameful. No one speaks of maternity with his tongue in +his cheek; and Whitman made a bold push to set the sanctity of fatherhood +beside the sanctity of motherhood, and introduce this also among the +things that can be spoken of without either a blush or a wink. But the +Philistines have been too strong; and, to say truth, Whitman has rather +played the fool. We may be thoroughly conscious that his end is +improving; that it would be a good thing if a window were opened on these +close privacies of life; that on this subject, as on all others, he now +and then lets fall a pregnant saying. But we are not satisfied. We feel +that he was not the man for so difficult an enterprise. He loses our +sympathy in the character of a poet by attracting too much of our +attention in that of a Bull in a China Shop. And where, by a little more +art, we might have been solemnised ourselves, it is too often Whitman +alone who is solemn in the face of an audience somewhat indecorously +amused. + + + +VI. + + +Lastly, as most important, after all, to human beings in our disputable +state, what is that higher prudence which was to be the aim and issue of +these deliberate productions? + +Whitman is too clever to slip into a succinct formula. If he could have +adequately said his say in a single proverb, it is to be presumed he +would not have put himself to the trouble of writing several volumes. It +was his programme to state as much as he could of the world with all its +contradictions, and leave the upshot with God who planned it. What he +has made of the world and the world’s meanings is to be found at large in +his poems. These altogether give his answers to the problems of belief +and conduct; in many ways righteous and high-spirited, in some ways loose +and contradictory. And yet there are two passages from the preface to +the _Leaves of Grass_ which do pretty well condense his teaching on all +essential points, and yet preserve a measure of his spirit. + + “This is what you shall do,” he says in the one, “love the earth, and + sun, and animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, + stand up for the stupid and crazy, devote your income and labour to + others, hate tyrants, argue not concerning God, have patience and + indulgence towards the people, take off your hat to nothing known or + unknown, or to any man or number of men; go freely with powerful + uneducated persons, and with the young, and mothers of families, read + these leaves (his own works) in the open air every season of every + year of your life; re-examine all you have been told at school or + church, or in any book, and dismiss whatever insults your own soul.” + + “The prudence of the greatest poet,” he adds in the other—and the + greatest poet is, of course, himself—“knows that the young man who + composedly perilled his life and lost it, has done exceeding well for + himself; while the man who has not perilled his life, and retains it + to old age in riches and ease, has perhaps achieved nothing for + himself worth mentioning; and that only that person has no great + prudence to learn, who has learnt to prefer real long-lived things, + and favours body and soul the same, and perceives the indirect surely + following the direct, and what evil or good he does leaping onward + and waiting to meet him again, and who in his spirit, in any + emergency whatever, neither hurries nor avoids death.” + +There is much that is Christian in these extracts, startlingly Christian. +Any reader who bears in mind Whitman’s own advice and “dismisses whatever +insults his own soul” will find plenty that is bracing, brightening, and +chastening to reward him for a little patience at first. It seems hardly +possible that any being should get evil from so healthy a book as the +_Leaves of Grass_, which is simply comical wherever it falls short of +nobility; but if there be any such, who cannot both take and leave, who +cannot let a single opportunity pass by without some unworthy and unmanly +thought, I should have as great difficulty, and neither more nor less, in +recommending the works of Whitman as in lending them Shakespeare, or +letting them go abroad outside of the grounds of a private asylum. + + + + +HENRY DAVID THOREAU: +HIS CHARACTER AND OPINIONS. + + +I. + + +THOREAU’S thin, penetrating, big-nosed face, even in a bad woodcut, +conveys some hint of the limitations of his mind and character. With his +almost acid sharpness of insight, with his almost animal dexterity in +act, there went none of that large, unconscious geniality of the world’s +heroes. He was not easy, not ample, not urbane, not even kind; his +enjoyment was hardly smiling, or the smile was not broad enough to be +convincing; he had no waste lands nor kitchen-midden in his nature, but +was all improved and sharpened to a point. “He was bred to no +profession,” says Emerson; “he never married; he lived alone; he never +went to church; he never voted; he refused to pay a tax to the State; he +ate no flesh, he drank no wine, he never knew the use of tobacco and, +though a naturalist, he used neither trap nor gun. When asked at dinner +what dish he preferred, he answered, ‘the nearest.’” So many negative +superiorities begin to smack a little of the prig. From his later works +he was in the habit of cutting out the humorous passages, under the +impression that they were beneath the dignity of his moral muse; and +there we see the prig stand public and confessed. It was “much easier,” +says Emerson acutely, much easier for Thoreau to say _no_ than _yes_; and +that is a characteristic which depicts the man. It is a useful +accomplishment to be able to say _no_, but surely it is the essence of +amiability to prefer to say _yes_ where it is possible. There is +something wanting in the man who does not hate himself whenever he is +constrained to say no. And there was a great deal wanting in this born +dissenter. He was almost shockingly devoid of weaknesses; he had not +enough of them to be truly polar with humanity; whether you call him +demi-god or demi-man, he was at least not altogether one of us, for he +was not touched with a feeling of our infirmities. The world’s heroes +have room for all positive qualities, even those which are disreputable, +in the capacious theatre of their dispositions. Such can live many +lives; while a Thoreau can live but one, and that only with perpetual +foresight. + +He was no ascetic, rather an Epicurean of the nobler sort; and he had +this one great merit, that he succeeded so far as to be happy. “I love +my fate to the core and rind,” he wrote once; and even while he lay +dying, here is what he dictated (for it seems he was already too feeble +to control the pen): “You ask particularly after my health. I _suppose_ +that I have not many months to live, but of course know nothing about it. +I may say that I am enjoying existence as much as ever, and regret +nothing.” It is not given to all to bear so clear a testimony to the +sweetness of their fate, nor to any without courage and wisdom; for this +world in itself is but a painful and uneasy place of residence, and +lasting happiness, at least to the self-conscious, comes only from +within. Now Thoreau’s content and ecstasy in living was, we may say, +like a plant that he had watered and tended with womanish solicitude; for +there is apt to be something unmanly, something almost dastardly, in a +life that does not move with dash and freedom, and that fears the bracing +contact of the world. In one word, Thoreau was a skulker. He did not +wish virtue to go out of him among his fellow-men, but slunk into a +corner to hoard it for himself. He left all for the sake of certain +virtuous self-indulgences. It is true that his tastes were noble; that +his ruling passion was to keep himself unspotted from the world; and that +his luxuries were all of the same healthy order as cold tubs and early +rising. But a man may be both coldly cruel in the pursuit of goodness, +and morbid even in the pursuit of health. I cannot lay my hands on the +passage in which he explains his abstinence from tea and coffee, but I am +sure I have the meaning correctly. It is this; He thought it bad economy +and worthy of no true virtuoso to spoil the natural rapture of the +morning with such muddy stimulants; let him but see the sun rise, and he +was already sufficiently inspirited for the labours of the day. That may +be reason good enough to abstain from tea; but when we go on to find the +same man, on the same or similar grounds, abstain from nearly everything +that his neighbours innocently and pleasurably use, and from the rubs and +trials of human society itself into the bargain, we recognise that +valetudinarian healthfulness which is more delicate than sickness itself. +We need have no respect for a state of artificial training. True health +is to be able to do without it. Shakespeare, we can imagine, might begin +the day upon a quart of ale, and yet enjoy the sunrise to the full as +much as Thoreau, and commemorate his enjoyment in vastly better verses. +A man who must separate himself from his neighbours’ habits in order to +be happy, is in much the same case with one who requires to take opium +for the same purpose. What we want to see is one who can breast into the +world, do a man’s work, and still preserve his first and pure enjoyment +of existence. + +Thoreau’s faculties were of a piece with his moral shyness; for they were +all delicacies. He could guide himself about the woods on the darkest +night by the touch of his feet. He could pick up at once an exact dozen +of pencils by the feeling, pace distances with accuracy, and gauge cubic +contents by the eye. His smell was so dainty that he could perceive the +fœtor of dwelling-houses as he passed them by at night; his palate so +unsophisticated that, like a child, he disliked the taste of wine—or +perhaps, living in America, had never tasted any that was good; and his +knowledge of nature was so complete and curious that he could have told +the time of year, within a day or so, by the aspect of the plants. In +his dealings with animals, he was the original of Hawthorne’s Donatello. +He pulled the woodchuck out of its hole by the tail; the hunted fox came +to him for protection; wild squirrels have been seen to nestle in his +waistcoat; he would thrust his arm into a pool and bring forth a bright, +panting fish, lying undismayed in the palm of his hand. There were few +things that he could not do. He could make a house, a boat, a pencil, or +a book. He was a surveyor, a scholar, a natural historian. He could +run, walk, climb, skate, swim, and manage a boat. The smallest occasion +served to display his physical accomplishment; and a manufacturer, from +merely observing his dexterity with the window of a railway carriage, +offered him a situation on the spot. “The only fruit of much living,” he +observes, “is the ability to do some slight thing better.” But such was +the exactitude of his senses, so alive was he in every fibre, that it +seems as if the maxim should be changed in his case, for he could do most +things with unusual perfection. And perhaps he had an approving eye to +himself when he wrote: “Though the youth at last grows indifferent, the +laws of the universe are not indifferent, _but are for ever on the side +of the most sensitive_.” + + + +II. + + +Thoreau had decided, it would seem, from the very first to lead a life of +self-improvement: the needle did not tremble as with richer natures, but +pointed steadily north; and as he saw duty and inclination in one, he +turned all his strength in that direction. He was met upon the threshold +by a common difficulty. In this world, in spite of its many agreeable +features, even the most sensitive must undergo some drudgery to live. It +is not possible to devote your time to study and meditation without what +are quaintly but happily denominated private means; these absent, a man +must contrive to earn his bread by some service to the public such as the +public cares to pay him for; or, as Thoreau loved to put it, Apollo must +serve Admetus. This was to Thoreau even a sourer necessity than it is to +most; there was a love of freedom, a strain of the wild man, in his +nature, that rebelled with violence against the yoke of custom; and he +was so eager to cultivate himself and to be happy in his own society, +that he could consent with difficulty even to the interruptions of +friendship. “_Such are my engagements to myself_ that I dare not +promise,” he once wrote in answer to an invitation; and the italics are +his own. Marcus Aurelius found time to study virtue, and between whiles +to conduct the imperial affairs of Rome; but Thoreau is so busy improving +himself, that he must think twice about a morning call. And now imagine +him condemned for eight hours a day to some uncongenial and unmeaning +business! He shrank from the very look of the mechanical in life; all +should, if possible, be sweetly spontaneous and swimmingly progressive. +Thus he learned to make lead-pencils, and, when he had gained the best +certificate and his friends began to congratulate him on his +establishment in life, calmly announced that he should never make +another. “Why should I?” said he “I would not do again what I have done +once.” For when a thing has once been done as well as it wants to be, it +is of no further interest to the self-improver. Yet in after years, and +when it became needful to support his family, he returned patiently to +this mechanical art—a step more than worthy of himself. + +The pencils seem to have been Apollo’s first experiment in the service of +Admetus; but others followed. “I have thoroughly tried school-keeping,” +he writes, “and found that my expenses were in proportion, or rather out +of proportion, to my income; for I was obliged to dress and train, not to +say think and believe, accordingly, and I lost my time into the bargain. +As I did not teach for the benefit of my fellow-men, but simply for a +livelihood, this was a failure. I have tried trade, but I found that it +would take ten years to get under way in that, and that then I should +probably be on my way to the devil.” Nothing, indeed, can surpass his +scorn for all so-called business. Upon that subject gall squirts from +him at a touch. “The whole enterprise of this nation is not illustrated +by a thought,” he writes; “it is not warmed by a sentiment; there is +nothing in it for which a man should lay down his life, nor even his +gloves.” And again: “If our merchants did not most of them fail, and the +banks too, my faith in the old laws of this world would be staggered. +The statement that ninety-six in a hundred doing such business surely +break down is perhaps the sweetest fact that statistics have revealed.” +The wish was probably father to the figures; but there is something +enlivening in a hatred of so genuine a brand, hot as Corsican revenge, +and sneering like Voltaire. + +Pencils, school-keeping, and trade being thus discarded one after +another, Thoreau, with a stroke of strategy, turned the position. He saw +his way to get his board and lodging for practically nothing; and Admetus +never got less work out of any servant since the world began. It was his +ambition to be an oriental philosopher; but he was always a very Yankee +sort of oriental. Even in the peculiar attitude in which he stood to +money, his system of personal economics, as we may call it, he displayed +a vast amount of truly down-East calculation, and he adopted poverty like +a piece of business. Yet his system is based on one or two ideas which, +I believe, come naturally to all thoughtful youths, and are only pounded +out of them by city uncles. Indeed, something essentially youthful +distinguishes all Thoreau’s knock-down blows at current opinion. Like +the posers of a child, they leave the orthodox in a kind of speechless +agony. These know the thing is nonsense. They are sure there must be an +answer, yet somehow cannot find it. So it is with his system of economy. +He cuts through the subject on so new a plane that the accepted arguments +apply no longer; he attacks it in a new dialect where there are no +catchwords ready made for the defender; after you have been boxing for +years on a polite, gladiatorial convention, here is an assailant who does +not scruple to hit below the belt. + +“The cost of a thing,” says he, “is _the amount of what I will call life_ +which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long +run.” I have been accustomed to put it to myself, perhaps more clearly, +that the price we have to pay for money is paid in liberty. Between +these two ways of it, at least, the reader will probably not fail to find +a third definition of his own; and it follows, on one or other, that a +man may pay too dearly for his livelihood, by giving, in Thoreau’s terms, +his whole life for it, or, in mine, bartering for it the whole of his +available liberty, and becoming a slave till death. There are two +questions to be considered—the quality of what we buy, and the price we +have to pay for it. Do you want a thousand a year, a two thousand a +year, or a ten thousand a year livelihood? and can you afford the one you +want? It is a matter of taste; it is not in the least degree a question +of duty, though commonly supposed so. But there is no authority for that +view anywhere. It is nowhere in the Bible. It is true that we might do +a vast amount of good if we were wealthy, but it is also highly +improbable; not many do; and the art of growing rich is not only quite +distinct from that of doing good, but the practice of the one does not at +all train a man for practising the other. “Money might be of great +service to me,” writes Thoreau; “but the difficulty now is that I do not +improve my opportunities, and therefore I am not prepared to have my +opportunities increased.” It is a mere illusion that, above a certain +income, the personal desires will be satisfied and leave a wider margin +for the generous impulse. It is as difficult to be generous, or anything +else, except perhaps a member of Parliament, on thirty thousand as on two +hundred a year. + +Now Thoreau’s tastes were well defined. He loved to be free, to be +master of his times and seasons, to indulge the mind rather than the +body; he preferred long rambles to rich dinners, his own reflections to +the consideration of society, and an easy, calm, unfettered, active life +among green trees to dull toiling at the counter of a bank. And such +being his inclination he determined to gratify it. A poor man must save +off something; he determined to save off his livelihood. “When a man has +attained those things which are necessary to life,” he writes, “there is +another alternative than to obtain the superfluities; _he may adventure +on life now_, his vacation from humbler toil having commenced.” Thoreau +would get shelter, some kind of covering for his body, and necessary +daily bread; even these he should get as cheaply as possible; and then, +his vacation from humbler toil having commenced, devote himself to +oriental philosophers, the study of nature, and the work of +self-improvement. + +Prudence, which bids us all go to the ant for wisdom and hoard against +the day of sickness, was not a favourite with Thoreau. He preferred that +other, whose name is so much misappropriated: Faith. When he had secured +the necessaries of the moment, he would not reckon up possible accidents +or torment himself with trouble for the future. He had no toleration for +the man “who ventures to live only by the aid of the mutual insurance +company, which has promised to bury him decently.” He would trust +himself a little to the world. “We may safely trust a good deal more +than we do,” says he. “How much is not done by us! or what if we had +been taken sick?” And then, with a stab of satire, he describes +contemporary mankind in a phrase: “All the day long on the alert, at +night we unwillingly say our prayers and commit ourselves to +uncertainties.” It is not likely that the public will be much affected +by Thoreau, when they blink the direct injunctions of the religion they +profess; and yet, whether we will or no, we make the same hazardous +ventures; we back our own health and the honesty of our neighbours for +all that we are worth; and it is chilling to think how many must lose +their wager. + +In 1845, twenty-eight years old, an age by which the liveliest have +usually declined into some conformity with the world, Thoreau, with a +capital of something less than five pounds and a borrowed axe, walked +forth into the woods by Walden Pond, and began his new experiment in +life. He built himself a dwelling, and returned the axe, he says with +characteristic and workman-like pride, sharper than when he borrowed it; +he reclaimed a patch, where he cultivated beans, peas, potatoes, and +sweet corn; he had his bread to bake, his farm to dig, and for the matter +of six weeks in the summer he worked at surveying, carpentry, or some +other of his numerous dexterities, for hire. + +For more than five years, this was all that he required to do for his +support, and he had the winter and most of the summer at his entire +disposal. For six weeks of occupation, a little cooking and a little +gentle hygienic gardening, the man, you may say, had as good as stolen +his livelihood. Or we must rather allow that he had done far better; for +the thief himself is continually and busily occupied; and even one born +to inherit a million will have more calls upon his time than Thoreau. +Well might he say, “What old people tell you you cannot do, you try and +find you can.” And how surprising is his conclusion: “I am convinced +that _to maintain oneself on this earth is not a hardship_, _but a +pastime_, if we will live simply and wisely; _as the pursuits of simpler +nations are still the sports of the more artificial_.” + +When he had enough of that kind of life, he showed the same simplicity in +giving it up as in beginning it. There are some who could have done the +one, but, vanity forbidding, not the other; and that is perhaps the story +of the hermits; but Thoreau made no fetish of his own example, and did +what he wanted squarely. And five years is long enough for an experiment +and to prove the success of transcendental Yankeeism. It is not his +frugality which is worthy of note; for, to begin with, that was inborn, +and therefore inimitable by others who are differently constituted; and +again, it was no new thing, but has often been equalled by poor Scotch +students at the universities. The point is the sanity of his view of +life, and the insight with which he recognised the position of money, and +thought out for himself the problem of riches and a livelihood. Apart +from his eccentricities, he had perceived, and was acting on, a truth of +universal application. For money enters in two different characters into +the scheme of life. A certain amount, varying with the number and empire +of our desires, is a true necessary to each one of us in the present +order of society; but beyond that amount, money is a commodity to be +bought or not to be bought, a luxury in which we may either indulge or +stint ourselves, like any other. And there are many luxuries that we may +legitimately prefer to it, such as a grateful conscience, a country life, +or the woman of our inclination. Trite, flat, and obvious as this +conclusion may appear, we have only to look round us in society to see +how scantily it has been recognised; and perhaps even ourselves, after a +little reflection, may decide to spend a trifle less for money, and +indulge ourselves a trifle more in the article of freedom. + + + +III. + + +“To have done anything by which you earned money merely,” says Thoreau, +“is to be” (have been, he means) “idle and worse.” There are two +passages in his letters, both, oddly enough, relating to firewood, which +must be brought together to be rightly understood. So taken, they +contain between them the marrow of all good sense on the subject of work +in its relation to something broader than mere livelihood. Here is the +first: “I suppose I have burned up a good-sized tree to-night—and for +what? I settled with Mr. Tarbell for it the other day; but that wasn’t +the final settlement. I got off cheaply from him. At last one will say: +‘Let us see, how much wood did you burn, sir?’ And I shall shudder to +think that the next question will be, ‘What did you do while you were +warm?’” Even after we have settled with Admetus in the person of Mr. +Tarbell, there comes, you see, a further question. It is not enough to +have earned our livelihood. Either the earning itself should have been +serviceable to mankind, or something else must follow. To live is +sometimes very difficult, but it is never meritorious in itself; and we +must have a reason to allege to our own conscience why we should continue +to exist upon this crowded earth. + +If Thoreau had simply dwelt in his house at Walden, a lover of trees, +birds, and fishes, and the open air and virtue, a reader of wise books, +an idle, selfish self-improver, he would have managed to cheat Admetus, +but, to cling to metaphor, the devil would have had him in the end. +Those who can avoid toil altogether and dwell in the Arcadia of private +means, and even those who can, by abstinence, reduce the necessary amount +of it to some six weeks a year, having the more liberty, have only the +higher moral obligation to be up and doing in the interest of man. + +The second passage is this: “There is a far more important and warming +heat, commonly lost, which precedes the burning of the wood. It is the +smoke of industry, which is incense. I had been so thoroughly warmed in +body and spirit, that when at length my fuel was housed, I came near +selling it to the ashman, as if I had extracted all its heat.” Industry +is, in itself and when properly chosen, delightful and profitable to the +worker; and when your toil has been a pleasure, you have not, as Thoreau +says, “earned money merely,” but money, health, delight, and moral +profit, all in one. “We must heap up a great pile of doing for a small +diameter of being,” he says in another place; and then exclaims, “How +admirably the artist is made to accomplish his self-culture by devotion +to his art!” We may escape uncongenial toil, only to devote ourselves to +that which is congenial. It is only to transact some higher business +that even Apollo dare play the truant from Admetus. We must all work for +the sake of work; we must all work, as Thoreau says again, in any +“absorbing pursuit—it does not much matter what, so it be honest;” but +the most profitable work is that which combines into one continued effort +the largest proportion of the powers and desires of a man’s nature; that +into which he will plunge with ardour, and from which he will desist with +reluctance; in which he will know the weariness of fatigue, but not that +of satiety; and which will be ever fresh, pleasing, and stimulating to +his taste. Such work holds a man together, braced at all points; it does +not suffer him to doze or wander; it keeps him actively conscious of +himself, yet raised among superior interests; it gives him the profit of +industry with the pleasures of a pastime. This is what his art should be +to the true artist, and that to a degree unknown in other and less +intimate pursuits. For other professions stand apart from the human +business of life; but an art has its seat at the centre of the artist’s +doings and sufferings, deals directly with his experiences, teaches him +the lessons of his own fortunes and mishaps, and becomes a part of his +biography. So says Goethe: + + “Spät erklingt was früh erklang; + Glück und Unglück wird Gesang.” + +Now Thoreau’s art was literature; and it was one of which he had +conceived most ambitiously. He loved and believed in good books. He +said well, “Life is not habitually seen from any common platform so truly +and unexaggerated as in the light of literature.” But the literature he +loved was of the heroic order. “Books, not which afford us a cowering +enjoyment, but in which each thought is of unusual daring; such as an +idle man cannot read, and a timid one would not be entertained by, which +even make us dangerous to existing institutions—such I call good books.” +He did not think them easy to be read. “The heroic books,” he says, +“even if printed in the character of our mother-tongue, will always be in +a language dead to degenerate times; and we must laboriously seek the +meaning of each word and line, conjecturing a larger sense than common +use permits out of what wisdom and valour and generosity we have.” Nor +does he suppose that such books are easily written. “Great prose, of +equal elevation, commands our respect more than great verse,” says he, +“since it implies a more permanent and level height, a life more pervaded +with the grandeur of the thought. The poet often only makes an +irruption, like the Parthian, and is off again, shooting while he +retreats; but the prose writer has conquered like a Roman and settled +colonies.” We may ask ourselves, almost with dismay, whether such works +exist at all but in the imagination of the student. For the bulk of the +best of books is apt to be made up with ballast; and those in which +energy of thought is combined with any stateliness of utterance may be +almost counted on the fingers. Looking round in English for a book that +should answer Thoreau’s two demands of a style like poetry and sense that +shall be both original and inspiriting, I come to Milton’s +_Areopagitica_, and can name no other instance for the moment. Two +things at least are plain: that if a man will condescend to nothing more +commonplace in the way of reading, he must not look to have a large +library; and that if he proposes himself to write in a similar vein, he +will find his work cut out for him. + +Thoreau composed seemingly while he walked, or at least exercise and +composition were with him intimately connected; for we are told that “the +length of his walk uniformly made the length of his writing.” He speaks +in one place of “plainness and vigour, the ornaments of style,” which is +rather too paradoxical to be comprehensively, true. + +In another he remarks: “As for style of writing, if one has anything to +say it drops from him simply as a stone falls to the ground.” We must +conjecture a very large sense indeed for the phrase “if one has anything +to say.” When truth flows from a man, fittingly clothed in style and +without conscious effort, it is because the effort has been made and the +work practically completed before he sat down to write. It is only out +of fulness of thinking that expression drops perfect like a ripe fruit; +and when Thoreau wrote so nonchalantly at his desk, it was because he had +been vigorously active during his walk. For neither clearness +compression, nor beauty of language, come to any living creature till +after a busy and a prolonged acquaintance with the subject on hand. Easy +writers are those who, like Walter Scott, choose to remain contented with +a less degree of perfection than is legitimately within the compass of +their powers. We hear of Shakespeare and his clean manuscript; but in +face of the evidence of the style itself and of the various editions of +_Hamlet_, this merely proves that Messrs. Hemming and Condell were +unacquainted with the common enough phenomenon called a fair copy. He +who would recast a tragedy already given to the world must frequently and +earnestly have revised details in the study. Thoreau himself, and in +spite of his protestations, is an instance of even extreme research in +one direction; and his effort after heroic utterance is proved not only +by the occasional finish, but by the determined exaggeration of his +style. “I trust you realise what an exaggerator I am—that I lay myself +out to exaggerate,” he writes. And again, hinting at the explanation: +“Who that has heard a strain of music feared lest he should speak +extravagantly any more for ever?” And yet once more, in his essay on +Carlyle, and this time with his meaning well in hand: “No truth, we +think, was ever expressed but with this sort of emphasis, that for the +time there seemed to be no other.” Thus Thoreau was an exaggerative and +a parabolical writer, not because he loved the literature of the East, +but from a desire that people should understand and realise what he was +writing. He was near the truth upon the general question; but in his own +particular method, it appears to me, he wandered. Literature is not less +a conventional art than painting or sculpture; and it is the least +striking, as it is the most comprehensive of the three. To hear a strain +of music to see a beautiful woman, a river, a great city, or a starry +night, is to make a man despair of his Lilliputian arts in language. +Now, to gain that emphasis which seems denied to us by the very nature of +the medium, the proper method of literature is by selection, which is a +kind of negative exaggeration. It is the right of the literary artist, +as Thoreau was on the point of seeing, to leave out whatever does not +suit his purpose. Thus we extract the pure gold; and thus the +well-written story of a noble life becomes, by its very omissions, more +thrilling to the reader. But to go beyond this, like Thoreau, and to +exaggerate directly, is to leave the saner classical tradition, and to +put the reader on his guard. And when you write the whole for the half, +you do not express your thought more forcibly, but only express a +different thought which is not yours. + +Thoreau’s true subject was the pursuit of self-improvement combined with +an unfriendly criticism of life as it goes on in our societies; it is +there that he best displays the freshness and surprising trenchancy of +his intellect; it is there that his style becomes plain and vigorous, and +therefore, according to his own formula, ornamental. Yet he did not care +to follow this vein singly, but must drop into it by the way in books of +a different purport. _Walden_, _or Life in the Woods_, _A Week on the +Concord and Merrimack Rivers_, _The Maine Woods_,—such are the titles he +affects. He was probably reminded by his delicate critical perception +that the true business of literature is with narrative; in reasoned +narrative, and there alone, that art enjoys all its advantages, and +suffers least from its defects. Dry precept and disembodied +disquisition, as they can only be read with an effort of abstraction, can +never convey a perfectly complete or a perfectly natural impression. +Truth, even in literature, must be clothed with flesh and blood, or it +cannot tell its whole story to the reader. Hence the effect of anecdote +on simple minds; and hence good biographies and works of high, +imaginative art, are not only far more entertaining, but far more +edifying, than books of theory or precept. Now Thoreau could not clothe +his opinions in the garment of art, for that was not his talent; but he +sought to gain the same elbow-room for himself, and to afford a similar +relief to his readers, by mingling his thoughts with a record of +experience. + +Again, he was a lover of nature. The quality which we should call +mystery in a painting, and which belongs so particularly to the aspect of +the external world and to its influence upon our feelings, was one which +he was never weary of attempting to reproduce in his books. The seeming +significance of nature’s appearances, their unchanging strangeness to the +senses, and the thrilling response which they waken in the mind of man, +continued to surprise and stimulate his spirits. It appeared to him, I +think, that if we could only write near enough to the facts, and yet with +no pedestrian calm, but ardently, we might transfer the glamour of +reality direct upon our pages; and that, if it were once thus captured +and expressed, a new and instructive relation might appear between men’s +thoughts and the phenomena of nature. This was the eagle that he pursued +all his life long, like a schoolboy with a butterfly net. Hear him to a +friend: “Let me suggest a theme for you—to state to yourself precisely +and completely what that walk over the mountains amounted to for you, +returning to this essay again and again until you are satisfied that all +that was important in your experience is in it. Don’t suppose that you +can tell it precisely the first dozen times you try, but at ’em again; +especially when, after a sufficient pause you suspect that you are +touching the heart or summit of the matter, reiterate your blows there, +and account for the mountain to yourself. Not that the story need be +long, but it will take a long while to make it short.” Such was the +method, not consistent for a man whose meanings were to “drop from him as +a stone falls to the ground.” Perhaps the most successful work that +Thoreau ever accomplished in this direction is to be found in the +passages relating to fish in the _Week_. These are remarkable for a +vivid truth of impression and a happy suitability of language, not +frequently surpassed. + +Whatever Thoreau tried to do was tried in fair, square prose, with +sentences solidly built, and no help from bastard rhythms. Moreover, +there is a progression—I cannot call it a progress—in his work towards a +more and more strictly prosaic level, until at last he sinks into the +bathos of the prosy. Emerson mentions having once remarked to Thoreau: +“Who would not like to write something which all can read, like _Robinson +Crusoe_? and who does not see with regret that his page is not solid with +a right materialistic treatment which delights everybody?” I must say in +passing that it is not the right materialistic treatment which delights +the world in _Robinson_, but the romantic and philosophic interest of the +fable. The same treatment does quite the reverse of delighting us when +it is applied, in _Colonel Jack_, to the management of a plantation. But +I cannot help suspecting Thoreau to have been influenced either by this +identical remark or by some other closely similar in meaning. He began +to fall more and more into a detailed materialistic treatment; he went +into the business doggedly, as one who should make a guide-book; he not +only chronicled what had been important in his own experience, but +whatever might have been important in the experience of anybody else; not +only what had affected him, but all that he saw or heard. His ardour had +grown less, or perhaps it was inconsistent with a right materialistic +treatment to display such emotions as he felt; and, to complete the +eventful change, he chose, from a sense of moral dignity, to gut these +later works of the saving quality of humour. He was not one of those +authors who have learned, in his own words, “to leave out their dulness.” +He inflicts his full quantity upon the reader in such books as _Cape +Cod_, or _The Yankee in Canada_. Of the latter he confessed that he had +not managed to get much of himself into it. Heaven knows he had not, nor +yet much of Canada, we may hope. “Nothing,” he says somewhere, “can +shock a brave man but dulness.” Well, there are few spots more shocking +to the brave than the pages of _The Yankee in Canada_. + +There are but three books of his that will be read with much pleasure: +the _Week_, _Walden_, and the collected letters. As to his poetry, +Emerson’s word shall suffice for us, it is so accurate and so prettily +said: “The thyme and majoram are not yet honey.” In this, as in his +prose, he relied greatly on the goodwill of the reader, and wrote +throughout in faith. It was an exercise of faith to suppose that many +would understand the sense of his best work, or that any could be +exhilarated by the dreary chronicling of his worst. “But,” as he says, +“the gods do not hear any rude or discordant sound, as we learn from the +echo; and I know that the nature towards which I launch these sounds is +so rich that it will modulate anew and wonderfully improve my rudest +strain.” + + + +IV. + + +“What means the fact,” he cries, “that a soul which has lost all hope for +itself can inspire in another listening soul such an infinite confidence +in it, even while it is expressing its despair?” The question is an echo +and an illustration of the words last quoted; and it forms the key-note +of his thoughts on friendship. No one else, to my knowledge, has spoken +in so high and just a spirit of the kindly relations; and I doubt whether +it be a drawback that these lessons should come from one in many ways so +unfitted to be a teacher in this branch. The very coldness and egoism of +his own intercourse gave him a clearer insight into the intellectual +basis of our warm, mutual tolerations; and testimony to their worth comes +with added force from one who was solitary and disobliging, and of whom a +friend remarked, with equal wit and wisdom, “I love Henry, but I cannot +like him.” + +He can hardly be persuaded to make any distinction between love and +friendship; in such rarefied and freezing air, upon the mountain-tops of +meditation, had he taught himself to breathe. He was, indeed, too +accurate an observer not to have remarked that “there exists already a +natural disinterestedness and liberality” between men and women; yet, he +thought, “friendship is no respecter of sex.” Perhaps there is a sense +in which the words are true; but they were spoken in ignorance; and +perhaps we shall have put the matter most correctly, if we call love a +foundation for a nearer and freer degree of friendship than can be +possible without it. For there are delicacies, eternal between persons +of the same sex, which are melted and disappear in the warmth of love. + +To both, if they are to be right, he attributes the same nature and +condition. “We are not what we are,” says he, “nor do we treat or esteem +each other for such, but for what we are capable of being.” “A friend is +one who incessantly pays us the compliment of expecting all the virtues +from us, and who can appreciate them in us.” “The friend asks no return +but that his friend will religiously accept and wear and not disgrace his +apotheosis of him.” “It is the merit and preservation of friendship that +it takes place on a level higher than the actual characters of the +parties would seem to warrant.” This is to put friendship on a pedestal +indeed; and yet the root of the matter is there; and the last sentence, +in particular, is like a light in a dark place, and makes many mysteries +plain. We are different with different friends; yet if we look closely +we shall find that every such relation reposes on some particular +apotheosis of oneself; with each friend, although we could not +distinguish it in words from any other, we have at least one special +reputation to preserve: and it is thus that we run, when mortified, to +our friend or the woman that we love, not to hear ourselves called +better, but to be better men in point of fact. We seek this society to +flatter ourselves with our own good conduct. And hence any falsehood in +the relation, any incomplete or perverted understanding, will spoil even +the pleasure of these visits. Thus says Thoreau again: “Only lovers know +the value of truth.” And yet again: “They ask for words and deeds, when +a true relation is word and deed.” + +But it follows that since they are neither of them so good as the other +hopes, and each is, in a very honest manner, playing a part above his +powers, such an intercourse must often be disappointing to both. “We may +bid farewell sooner than complain,” says Thoreau, “for our complaint is +too well grounded to be uttered.” “We have not so good a right to hate +any as our friend.” + + “It were treason to our love + And a sin to God above, + One iota to abate + Of a pure, impartial hate.” + +Love is not blind, nor yet forgiving. “O yes, believe me,” as the song +says, “Love has eyes!” The nearer the intimacy, the more cuttingly do we +feel the unworthiness of those we love; and because you love one, and +would die for that love to-morrow, you have not forgiven, and you never +will forgive, that friend’s misconduct. If you want a person’s faults, +go to those who love him. They will not tell you, but they know. And +herein lies the magnanimous courage of love, that it endures this +knowledge without change. + +It required a cold, distant personality like that of Thoreau, perhaps, to +recognise and certainly to utter this truth; for a more human love makes +it a point of honour not to acknowledge those faults of which it is most +conscious. But his point of view is both high and dry. He has no +illusions; he does not give way to love any more than to hatred, but +preserves them both with care like valuable curiosities. A more +bald-headed picture of life, if I may so express myself, has seldom been +presented. He is an egoist; he does not remember, or does not think it +worth while to remark, that, in these near intimacies, we are ninety-nine +times disappointed in our beggarly selves for once that we are +disappointed in our friend; that it is we who seem most frequently +undeserving of the love that unites us; and that it is by our friend’s +conduct that we are continually rebuked and yet strengthened for a fresh +endeavour. Thoreau is dry, priggish, and selfish. It is profit he is +after in these intimacies; moral profit, certainly, but still profit to +himself. If you will be the sort of friend I want, he remarks naïvely, +“my education cannot dispense with your society.” His education! as +though a friend were a dictionary. And with all this, not one word about +pleasure, or laughter, or kisses, or any quality of flesh and blood. It +was not inappropriate, surely, that he had such close relations with the +fish. We can understand the friend already quoted, when he cried: “As +for taking his arm, I would as soon think of taking the arm of an +elm-tree!” + +As a matter of fact he experienced but a broken enjoyment in his +intimacies. He says he has been perpetually on the brink of the sort of +intercourse he wanted, and yet never completely attained it. And what +else had he to expect when he would not, in a happy phrase of Carlyle’s, +“nestle down into it”? Truly, so it will be always if you only stroll in +upon your friends as you might stroll in to see a cricket match; and even +then not simply for the pleasure of the thing, but with some afterthought +of self-improvement, as though you had come to the cricket match to bet. +It was his theory that people saw each other too frequently, so that +their curiosity was not properly whetted, nor had they anything fresh to +communicate; but friendship must be something else than a society for +mutual improvement—indeed, it must only be that by the way, and to some +extent unconsciously; and if Thoreau had been a man instead of a manner +of elm-tree, he would have felt that he saw his friends too seldom, and +have reaped benefits unknown to his philosophy from a more sustained and +easy intercourse. We might remind him of his own words about love: “We +should have no reserve; we should give the whole of ourselves to that +business. But commonly men have not imagination enough to be thus +employed about a human being, but must be coopering a barrel, forsooth.” +Ay, or reading oriental philosophers. It is not the nature of the rival +occupation, it is the fact that you suffer it to be a rival, that renders +loving intimacy impossible. Nothing is given for nothing in this world; +there can be no true love, even on your own side, without devotion; +devotion is the exercise of love, by which it grows; but if you will give +enough of that, if you will pay the price in a sufficient “amount of what +you call life,” why then, indeed, whether with wife or comrade, you may +have months and even years of such easy, natural, pleasurable, and yet +improving intercourse as shall make time a moment and kindness a delight. + +The secret of his retirement lies not in misanthropy, of which he had no +tincture, but part in his engrossing design of self-improvement and part +in the real deficiencies of social intercourse. He was not so much +difficult about his fellow human beings as he could not tolerate the +terms of their association. He could take to a man for any genuine +qualities, as we see by his admirable sketch of the Canadian woodcutter +in _Walden_; but he would not consent, in his own words, to “feebly +fabulate and paddle in the social slush.” It seemed to him, I think, +that society is precisely the reverse of friendship, in that it takes +place on a lower level than the characters of any of the parties would +warrant us to expect. The society talk of even the most brilliant man is +of greatly less account than what you will get from him in (as the French +say) a little committee. And Thoreau wanted geniality; he had not enough +of the superficial, even at command; he could not swoop into a parlour +and, in the naval phrase, “cut out” a human being from that dreary port; +nor had he inclination for the task. I suspect he loved books and nature +as well and near as warmly as he loved his fellow-creatures,—a +melancholy, lean degeneration of the human character. + +“As for the dispute about solitude and society,” he thus sums up: “Any +comparison is impertinent. It is an idling down on the plain at the base +of the mountain instead of climbing steadily to its top. Of course you +will be glad of all the society you can get to go up with? Will you go +to glory with me? is the burden of the song. It is not that we love to +be alone, but that we love to soar, and when we do soar the company grows +thinner and thinner till there is none at all. It is either the tribune +on the plain, a sermon on the mount, or a very private ecstasy still +higher up. Use all the society that will abet you.” But surely it is no +very extravagant opinion that it is better to give than to receive, to +serve than to use our companions; and above all, where there is no +question of service upon either side, that it is good to enjoy their +company like a natural man. It is curious and in some ways dispiriting +that a writer may be always best corrected out of his own mouth; and so, +to conclude, here is another passage from Thoreau which seems aimed +directly at himself: “Do not be too moral; you may cheat yourself out of +much life so. . . . _All fables_, _indeed_, _have their morals_; _but +the innocent enjoy the story_.” + + + +V. + + +“The only obligation,” says he, “which I have a right to assume is to do +at any time what I think right.” “Why should we ever go abroad, even +across the way, to ask a neighbour’s advice?” “There is a nearer +neighbour within, who is incessantly telling us how we should behave. +_But we wait for the neighbour without to tell us of some false_, _easier +way_.” “The greater part of what my neighbours call good I believe in my +soul to be bad.” To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of +becoming, is the only end of life. It is “when we fall behind ourselves” +that “we are cursed with duties and the neglect of duties.” “I love the +wild,” he says, “not less than the good.” And again: “The life of a good +man will hardly improve us more than the life of a freebooter, for the +inevitable laws appear as plainly in the infringement as in the +observance, and” (mark this) “_our lives are sustained by a nearly equal +expense of virtue of some kind_.” Even although he were a prig, it will +be owned he could announce a startling doctrine. “As for doing good,” he +writes elsewhere, “that is one of the professions that are full. +Moreover, I have tried it fairly, and, strange as it may seem, am +satisfied that it does not agree with my constitution. Probably I should +not conscientiously and deliberately forsake my particular calling to do +the good which society demands of me, to save the universe from +annihilation; and I believe that a like but infinitely greater +steadfastness elsewhere is all that now preserves it. If you should ever +be betrayed into any of these philanthropies, do not let your left hand +know what your right hand does, for it is not worth knowing.” Elsewhere +he returns upon the subject, and explains his meaning thus: “If I ever +_did_ a man any good in their sense, of course it was something +exceptional and insignificant compared with the good or evil I am +constantly doing by being what I am.” + +There is a rude nobility, like that of a barbarian king, in this unshaken +confidence in himself and indifference to the wants, thoughts, or +sufferings of others. In his whole works I find no trace of pity. This +was partly the result of theory, for he held the world too mysterious to +be criticised, and asks conclusively: “What right have I to grieve who +have not ceased to wonder?” But it sprang still more from constitutional +indifference and superiority; and he grew up healthy, composed, and +unconscious from among life’s horrors, like a green bay-tree from a field +of battle. It was from this lack in himself that he failed to do justice +to the spirit of Christ; for while he could glean more meaning from +individual precepts than any score of Christians, yet he conceived life +in such a different hope, and viewed it with such contrary emotions, that +the sense and purport of the doctrine as a whole seems to have passed him +by or left him unimpressed. He could understand the idealism of the +Christian view, but he was himself so unaffectedly unhuman that he did +not recognise the human intention and essence of that teaching. Hence he +complained that Christ did not leave us a rule that was proper and +sufficient for this world, not having conceived the nature of the rule +that was laid down; for things of that character that are sufficiently +unacceptable become positively non-existent to the mind. But perhaps we +shall best appreciate the defect in Thoreau by seeing it supplied in the +case of Whitman. For the one, I feel confident, is the disciple of the +other; it is what Thoreau clearly whispered that Whitman so uproariously +bawls; it is the same doctrine, but with how immense a difference! the +same argument, but used to what a new conclusion! Thoreau had plenty of +humour until he tutored himself out of it, and so forfeited that best +birthright of a sensible man; Whitman, in that respect, seems to have +been sent into the world naked and unashamed; and yet by a strange +consummation, it is the theory of the former that is arid, abstract, and +claustral. Of these two philosophies so nearly identical at bottom, the +one pursues Self-improvement—a churlish, mangy dog; the other is up with +the morning, in the best of health, and following the nymph Happiness, +buxom, blithe, and debonair. Happiness, at least, is not solitary; it +joys to communicate; it loves others, for it depends on them for its +existence; it sanctions and encourages to all delights that are not +unkind in themselves; if it lived to a thousand, it would not make +excision of a single humorous passage; and while the self-improver +dwindles towards the prig, and, if he be not of an excellent constitution +may even grow deformed into an Obermann, the very name and appearance of +a happy man breathe of good-nature, and help the rest of us to live. + +In the case of Thoreau, so great a show of doctrine demands some outcome +in the field of action. If nothing were to be done but build a shanty +beside Walden Pond, we have heard altogether too much of these +declarations of independence. That the man wrote some books is nothing +to the purpose, for the same has been done in a suburban villa. That he +kept himself happy is perhaps a sufficient excuse, but it is +disappointing to the reader. We may be unjust, but when a man despises +commerce and philanthropy alike, and has views of good so soaring that he +must take himself apart from mankind for their cultivation, we will not +be content without some striking act. It was not Thoreau’s fault if he +were not martyred; had the occasion come, he would have made a noble +ending. As it is, he did once seek to interfere in the world’s course; +he made one practical appearance on the stage of affairs; and a strange +one it was, and strangely characteristic of the nobility and the +eccentricity of the man. It was forced on him by his calm but radical +opposition to negro slavery. “Voting for the right is doing nothing for +it,” he saw; “it is only expressing to men feebly your desire that it +should prevail.” For his part, he would not “for an instant recognise +that political organisation for _his_ government which is the _slave’s_ +government also.” “I do not hesitate to say,” he adds, “that those who +call themselves Abolitionists should at once effectually withdraw their +support, both in person and property, from the government of +Massachusetts.” That is what he did: in 1843 he ceased to pay the +poll-tax. The highway-tax he paid, for he said he was as desirous to be +a good neighbour as to be a bad subject; but no more poll-tax to the +State of Massachusetts. Thoreau had now seceded, and was a polity unto +himself; or, as he explains it with admirable sense, “In fact, I quietly +declare war with the State after my fashion, though I will still make +what use and get what advantage of her I can, as is usual in such cases.” +He was put in prison; but that was a part of his design. “Under a +government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is +also a prison. I know this well, that if one thousand, if one hundred, +if ten men whom I could name—ay, if _one_ HONEST man, in this State of +Massachusetts, _ceasing to hold slaves_, were actually to withdraw from +this copartnership, and be locked up in the county gaol therefor, it +would be the abolition of slavery in America. For it matters not how +small the beginning may seem to be; what is once well done is done for +ever.” Such was his theory of civil disobedience. + +And the upshot? A friend paid the tax for him; continued year by year to +pay it in the sequel; and Thoreau was free to walk the woods unmolested. +It was a _fiasco_, but to me it does not seem laughable; even those who +joined in the laughter at the moment would be insensibly affected by this +quaint instance of a good man’s horror for injustice. We may compute the +worth of that one night’s imprisonment as outweighing half a hundred +voters at some subsequent election: and if Thoreau had possessed as great +a power of persuasion as (let us say) Falstaff, if he had counted a party +however small, if his example had been followed by a hundred or by thirty +of his fellows, I cannot but believe it would have greatly precipitated +the era of freedom and justice. We feel the misdeeds of our country with +so little fervour, for we are not witnesses to the suffering they cause; +but when we see them wake an active horror in our fellow-man, when we see +a neighbour prefer to lie in prison rather than be so much as passively +implicated in their perpetration, even the dullest of us will begin to +realise them with a quicker pulse. + +Not far from twenty years later, when Captain John Brown was taken at +Harper’s Ferry, Thoreau was the first to come forward in his defence. +The committees wrote to him unanimously that his action was premature. +“I did not send to you for advice,” said he, “but to announce that I was +to speak.” I have used the word “defence;” in truth he did not seek to +defend him, even declared it would be better for the good cause that he +should die; but he praised his action as I think Brown would have liked +to hear it praised. + +Thus this singularly eccentric and independent mind, wedded to a +character of so much strength, singleness, and purity, pursued its own +path of self-improvement for more than half a century, part gymnosophist, +part backwoodsman; and thus did it come twice, though in a subaltern +attitude, into the field of political history. + + * * * * * + +NOTE.—For many facts in the above essay, among which I may mention the +incident of the squirrel, I am indebted to _Thoreau_: _His Life and +Aims_, by J. A. Page, or, as is well known, Dr. Japp. + + + + +YOSHIDA-TORAJIRO + + +THE name at the head of this page is probably unknown to the English +reader, and yet I think it should become a household word like that of +Garibaldi or John Brown. Some day soon, we may expect to hear more fully +the details of Yoshida’s history, and the degree of his influence in the +transformation of Japan; even now there must be Englishmen acquainted +with the subject, and perhaps the appearance of this sketch may elicit +something more complete and exact. I wish to say that I am not, rightly +speaking, the author of the present paper: I tell the story on the +authority of an intelligent Japanese gentleman, Mr. Taiso Masaki, who +told it me with an emotion that does honour to his heart; and though I +have taken some pains, and sent my notes to him to be corrected, this can +be no more than an imperfect outline. + +Yoshida-Torajiro was son to the hereditary military instructor of the +house of Choshu. The name you are to pronounce with an equality of +accent on the different syllables, almost as in French, the vowels as in +Italian, but the consonants in the English manner—except the _j_, which +has the French sound, or, as it has been cleverly proposed to write it, +the sound of _zh_. Yoshida was very learned in Chinese letters, or, as +we might say, in the classics, and in his father’s subject; fortification +was among his favourite studies, and he was a poet from his boyhood. He +was born to a lively and intelligent patriotism; the condition of Japan +was his great concern; and while he projected a better future, he lost no +opportunity of improving his knowledge of her present state. With this +end he was continually travelling in his youth, going on foot and +sometimes with three days’ provision on his back, in the brave, +self-helpful manner of all heroes. He kept a full diary while he was +thus upon his journeys, but it is feared that these notes have been +destroyed. If their value were in any respect such as we have reason to +expect from the man’s character, this would be a loss not easy to +exaggerate. It is still wonderful to the Japanese how far he contrived +to push these explorations; a cultured gentleman of that land and period +would leave a complimentary poem wherever he had been hospitably +entertained; and a friend of Mr. Masaki, who was likewise a great +wanderer, has found such traces of Yoshida’s passage in very remote +regions of Japan. + +Politics is perhaps the only profession for which no preparation is +thought necessary; but Yoshida considered otherwise, and he studied the +miseries of his fellow-countrymen with as much attention and research as +though he had been going to write a book instead of merely to propose a +remedy. To a man of his intensity and singleness, there is no question +but that this survey was melancholy in the extreme. His dissatisfaction +is proved by the eagerness with which he threw himself into the cause of +reform; and what would have discouraged another braced Yoshida for his +task. As he professed the theory of arms, it was firstly the defences of +Japan that occupied his mind. The external feebleness of that country +was then illustrated by the manners of overriding barbarians, and the +visits of big barbarian war ships: she was a country beleaguered. Thus +the patriotism of Yoshida took a form which may be said to have defeated +itself: he had it upon him to keep out these all-powerful foreigners, +whom it is now one of his chief merits to have helped to introduce; but a +man who follows his own virtuous heart will be always found in the end to +have been fighting for the best. One thing leads naturally to another in +an awakened mind, and that with an upward progress from effect to cause. +The power and knowledge of these foreigners were things inseparable; by +envying them their military strength, Yoshida came to envy them their +culture; from the desire to equal them in the first, sprang his desire to +share with them in the second; and thus he is found treating in the same +book of a new scheme to strengthen the defences of Kioto and of the +establishment, in the same city, of a university of foreign teachers. He +hoped, perhaps, to get the good of other lands without their evil; to +enable Japan to profit by the knowledge of the barbarians, and still keep +her inviolate with her own arts and virtues. But whatever was the +precise nature of his hope, the means by which it was to be accomplished +were both difficult and obvious. Some one with eyes and understanding +must break through the official cordon, escape into the new world, and +study this other civilisation on the spot. And who could be better +suited for the business? It was not without danger, but he was without +fear. It needed preparation and insight; and what had he done since he +was a child but prepare himself with the best culture of Japan, and +acquire in his excursions the power and habit of observing? + +He was but twenty-two, and already all this was clear in his mind, when +news reached Choshu that Commodore Perry was lying near to Yeddo. Here, +then, was the patriot’s opportunity. Among the Samurai of Choshu, and in +particular among the councillors of the Daimio, his general culture, his +views, which the enlightened were eager to accept, and, above all, the +prophetic charm, the radiant persuasion of the man, had gained him many +and sincere disciples. He had thus a strong influence at the provincial +Court; and so he obtained leave to quit the district, and, by way of a +pretext, a privilege to follow his profession in Yeddo. Thither he +hurried, and arrived in time to be too late: Perry had weighed anchor, +and his sails had vanished from the waters of Japan. But Yoshida, having +put his hand to the plough, was not the man to go back; he had entered +upon this business, and, please God, he would carry it through; and so he +gave up his professional career and remained in Yeddo to be at hand +against the next opportunity. By this behaviour he put himself into an +attitude towards his superior, the Daimio of Choshu, which I cannot +thoroughly explain. Certainly, he became a _Ronyin_, a broken man, a +feudal outlaw; certainly he was liable to be arrested if he set foot upon +his native province; yet I am cautioned that “he did not really break his +allegiance,” but only so far separated himself as that the prince could +no longer be held accountable for his late vassal’s conduct. There is +some nicety of feudal custom here that escapes my comprehension. + +In Yeddo, with this nondescript political status, and cut off from any +means of livelihood, he was joyfully supported by those who sympathised +with his design. One was Sákuma-Shozan, hereditary retainer of one of +the Shogun’s councillors, and from him he got more than money or than +money’s worth. A steady, respectable man, with an eye to the world’s +opinion, Sákuma was one of those who, if they cannot do great deeds in +their own person, have yet an ardour of admiration for those who can, +that recommends them to the gratitude of history. They aid and abet +greatness more, perhaps, than we imagine. One thinks of them in +connection with Nicodemus, who visited our Lord by night. And Sákuma was +in a position to help Yoshida more practically than by simple +countenance; for he could read Dutch, and was eager to communicate what +he knew. + +While the young Ronyin thus lay studying in Yeddo, news came of a Russian +ship at Nangasaki. No time was to be lost. Sákuma contributed “a long +copy of encouraging verses;” and off set Yoshida on foot for Nangasaki. +His way lay through his own province of Choshu; but, as the highroad to +the south lay apart from the capital, he was able to avoid arrest. He +supported himself, like a _trouvère_, by his proficiency in verse. He +carried his works along with him, to serve as an introduction. When he +reached a town he would inquire for the house of any one celebrated for +swordsmanship, or poetry, or some of the other acknowledged forms of +culture; and there, on giving a taste of his skill, he would be received +and entertained, and leave behind him, when he went away, a compliment in +verse. Thus he travelled through the Middle Ages on his voyage of +discovery into the nineteenth century. When he reached Nangasaki he was +once more too late. The Russians were gone. But he made a profit on his +journey in spite of fate, and stayed awhile to pick up scraps of +knowledge from the Dutch interpreters—a low class of men, but one that +had opportunities; and then, still full of purpose, returned to Yeddo on +foot, as he had come. + +It was not only his youth and courage that supported him under these +successive disappointments, but the continual affluence of new disciples. +The man had the tenacity of a Bruce or a Columbus, with a pliability that +was all his own. He did not fight for what the world would call success; +but for “the wages of going on.” Check him off in a dozen directions, he +would find another outlet and break forth. He missed one vessel after +another, and the main work still halted; but so long as he had a single +Japanese to enlighten and prepare for the better future, he could still +feel that he was working for Japan. Now, he had scarce returned from +Nangasaki, when he was sought out by a new inquirer, the most promising +of all. This was a common soldier, of the Hemming class, a dyer by +birth, who had heard vaguely {179} of Yoshida’s movements, and had become +filled with wonder as to their design. This was a far different inquirer +from Sákuma-Shozan, or the councillors of the Daimio of Choshu. This was +no two-sworded gentleman, but the common stuff of the country, born in +low traditions and unimproved by books; and yet that influence, that +radiant persuasion that never failed Yoshida in any circumstance of his +short life, enchanted, enthralled, and converted the common soldier, as +it had done already with the elegant and learned. The man instantly +burned up into a true enthusiasm; his mind had been only waiting for a +teacher; he grasped in a moment the profit of these new ideas; he, too, +would go to foreign, outlandish parts, and bring back the knowledge that +was to strengthen and renew Japan; and in the meantime, that he might be +the better prepared, Yoshida set himself to teach, and he to learn, the +Chinese literature. It is an episode most honourable to Yoshida, and yet +more honourable still to the soldier, and to the capacity and virtue of +the common people of Japan. + +And now, at length, Commodore Perry returned to Simoda. Friends crowded +round Yoshida with help, counsels, and encouragement. One presented him +with a great sword, three feet long and very heavy, which, in the +exultation of the hour, he swore to carry throughout all his wanderings, +and to bring back—a far-travelled weapon—to Japan. A long letter was +prepared in Chinese for the American officers; it was revised and +corrected by Sákuma, and signed by Yoshida, under the name of +Urinaki-Manji, and by the soldier under that of Ichigi-Koda. Yoshida had +supplied himself with a profusion of materials for writing; his dress was +literally stuffed with paper which was to come back again enriched with +his observations, and make a great and happy kingdom of Japan. Thus +equipped, this pair of emigrants set forward on foot from Yeddo, and +reached Simoda about nightfall. At no period within history can travel +have presented to any European creature the same face of awe and terror +as to these courageous Japanese. The descent of Ulysses into hell is a +parallel more near the case than the boldest expedition in the Polar +circles. For their act was unprecedented; it was criminal; and it was to +take them beyond the pale of humanity into a land of devils. It is not +to be wondered at if they were thrilled by the thought of their unusual +situation; and perhaps the soldier gave utterance to the sentiment of +both when he sang, “in Chinese singing” (so that we see he had already +profited by his lessons), these two appropriate verses: + + “We do not know where we are to sleep to-night, + In a thousand miles of desert where we can see no human smoke.” + +In a little temple, hard by the sea-shore, they lay down to repose; sleep +overtook them as they lay; and when they awoke, “the east was already +white” for their last morning in Japan. They seized a fisherman’s boat +and rowed out—Perry lying far to sea because of the two tides. Their +very manner of boarding was significant of determination; for they had no +sooner caught hold upon the ship than they kicked away their boat to make +return impossible. And now you would have thought that all was over. +But the Commodore was already in treaty with the Shogun’s Government; it +was one of the stipulations that no Japanese was to be aided in escaping +from Japan; and Yoshida and his followers were handed over as prisoners +to the authorities at Simoda. That night he who had been to explore the +secrets of the barbarian slept, if he might sleep at all, in a cell too +short for lying down at full length, and too low for standing upright. +There are some disappointments too great for commentary. + +Sákuma, implicated by his handwriting, was sent into his own province in +confinement, from which he was soon released. Yoshida and the soldier +suffered a long and miserable period of captivity, and the latter, +indeed, died, while yet in prison, of a skin disease. But such a spirit +as that of Yoshida-Torajiro is not easily made or kept a captive; and +that which cannot be broken by misfortune you shall seek in vain to +confine in a bastille. He was indefatigably active, writing reports to +Government and treatises for dissemination. These latter were +contraband; and yet he found no difficulty in their distribution, for he +always had the jailor on his side. It was in vain that they kept +changing him from one prison to another; Government by that plan only +hastened the spread of new ideas; for Yoshida had only to arrive to make +a convert. Thus, though he himself has laid by the heels, he confirmed +and extended his party in the State. + +At last, after many lesser transferences, he was given over from the +prisons of the Shogun to those of his own superior, the Daimio of Choshu. +I conceive it possible that he may then have served out his time for the +attempt to leave Japan, and was now resigned to the provincial Government +on a lesser count, as a Ronyin or feudal rebel. But, however that may +be, the change was of great importance to Yoshida; for by the influence +of his admirers in the Daimio’s council, he was allowed the privilege, +underhand, of dwelling in his own house. And there, as well to keep up +communication with his fellow-reformers as to pursue his work of +education, he received boys to teach. It must not be supposed that he +was free; he was too marked a man for that; he was probably assigned to +some small circle, and lived, as we should say, under police +surveillance; but to him, who had done so much from under lock and key, +this would seem a large and profitable liberty. + +It was at this period that Mr. Masaki was brought into personal contact +with Yoshida; and hence, through the eyes of a boy of thirteen, we get +one good look at the character and habits of the hero. He was ugly and +laughably disfigured with the smallpox; and while nature had been so +niggardly with him from the first, his personal habits were even +sluttish. His clothes were wretched; when he ate or washed he wiped his +hands upon his sleeves; and as his hair was not tied more than once in +the two months, it was often disgusting to behold. With such a picture, +it is easy to believe that he never married. A good teacher, gentle in +act, although violent and abusive in speech, his lessons were apt to go +over the heads of his scholars and to leave them gaping, or more often +laughing. Such was his passion for study that he even grudged himself +natural repose; and when he grew drowsy over his books he would, if it +was summer, put mosquitoes up his sleeve; and, if it was winter, take off +his shoes and run barefoot on the snow. His handwriting was +exceptionally villainous; poet though he was, he had no taste for what +was elegant; and in a country where to write beautifully was not the mark +of a scrivener but an admired accomplishment for gentlemen, he suffered +his letters to be jolted out of him by the press of matter and the heat +of his convictions. He would not tolerate even the appearance of a +bribe; for bribery lay at the root of much that was evil in Japan, as +well as in countries nearer home; and once when a merchant brought him +his son to educate, and added, as was customary, {185} a little private +sweetener, Yoshida dashed the money in the giver’s face, and launched +into such an outbreak of indignation as made the matter public in the +school. He was still, when Masaki knew him, much weakened by his +hardships in prison; and the presentation sword, three feet long, was too +heavy for him to wear without distress; yet he would always gird it on +when he went to dig in his garden. That is a touch which qualifies the +man. A weaker nature would have shrunk from the sight of what only +commemorated a failure. But he was of Thoreau’s mind, that if you can +“make your failure tragical by courage, it will not differ from success.” +He could look back without confusion to his enthusiastic promise. If +events had been contrary, and he found himself unable to carry out that +purpose—well, there was but the more reason to be brave and constant in +another; if he could not carry the sword into barbarian lands, it should +at least be witness to a life spent entirely for Japan. + +This is the sight we have of him as he appeared to schoolboys, but not +related in the schoolboy spirit. A man so careless of the graces must be +out of court with boys and women. And, indeed, as we have all been more +or less to school, it will astonish no one that Yoshida was regarded by +his scholars as a laughing-stock. The schoolboy has a keen sense of +humour. Heroes he learns to understand and to admire in books; but he is +not forward to recognise the heroic under the traits of any contemporary +man, and least of all in a brawling, dirty, and eccentric teacher. But +as the years went by, and the scholars of Yoshida continued in vain to +look around them for the abstractly perfect, and began more and more to +understand the drift of his instructions, they learned to look back upon +their comic school-master as upon the noblest of mankind. + +The last act of this brief and full existence was already near at hand. +Some of his work was done; for already there had been Dutch teachers +admitted into Nangasaki, and the country at large was keen for the new +learning. But though the renaissance had begun, it was impeded and +dangerously threatened by the power of the Shogun. His minister—the same +who was afterwards assassinated in the snow in the very midst of his +bodyguard—not only held back pupils from going to the Dutchmen, but by +spies and detectives, by imprisonment and death, kept thinning out of +Japan the most intelligent and active spirits. It is the old story of a +power upon its last legs—learning to the bastille, and courage to the +block; when there are none left but sheep and donkeys, the State will +have been saved. But a man must not think to cope with a Revolution; nor +a minister, however fortified with guards, to hold in check a country +that had given birth to such men as Yoshida and his soldier-follower. +The violence of the ministerial Tarquin only served to direct attention +to the illegality of his master’s rule; and people began to turn their +allegiance from Yeddo and the Shogun to the long-forgotten Mikado in his +seclusion at Kioto. At this juncture, whether in consequence or not, the +relations between these two rulers became strained; and the Shogun’s +minister set forth for Kioto to put another affront upon the rightful +sovereign. The circumstance was well fitted to precipitate events. It +was a piece of religion to defend the Mikado; it was a plain piece of +political righteousness to oppose a tyrannical and bloody usurpation. To +Yoshida the moment for action seemed to have arrived. He was himself +still confined in Choshu. Nothing was free but his intelligence; but +with that he sharpened a sword for the Shogun’s minister. A party of his +followers were to waylay the tyrant at a village on the Yeddo and Kioto +road, present him with a petition, and put him to the sword. But Yoshida +and his friends were closely observed; and the too great expedition of +two of the conspirators, a boy of eighteen and his brother, wakened the +suspicion of the authorities, and led to a full discovery of the plot and +the arrest of all who were concerned. + +In Yeddo, to which he was taken, Yoshida was thrown again into a strict +confinement. But he was not left destitute of sympathy in this last hour +of trial. In the next cell lay one Kusákabé, a reformer from the +southern highlands of Satzuma. They were in prison for different plots +indeed, but for the same intention; they shared the same beliefs and the +same aspirations for Japan; many and long were the conversations they +held through the prison wall, and dear was the sympathy that soon united +them. It fell first to the lot of Kusákabé to pass before the judges; +and when sentence had been pronounced he was led towards the place of +death below Yoshida’s window. To turn the head would have been to +implicate his fellow-prisoner; but he threw him a look from his eye, and +bade him farewell in a loud voice, with these two Chinese verses:— + + “It is better to be a crystal and be broken, + Than to remain perfect like a tile upon the housetop.” + +So Kusákabé, from the highlands of Satzuma, passed out of the theatre of +this world. His death was like an antique worthy’s. + +A little after, and Yoshida too must appear before the Court. His last +scene was of a piece with his career, and fitly crowned it. He seized on +the opportunity of a public audience, confessed and gloried in his +design, and, reading his auditors a lesson in the history of their +country, told at length the illegality of the Shogun’s power and the +crimes by which its exercise was sullied. So, having said his say for +once, he was led forth and executed, thirty-one years old. + +A military engineer, a bold traveller (at least in wish), a poet, a +patriot, a schoolmaster, a friend to learning, a martyr to reform,—there +are not many men, dying at seventy, who have served their country in such +various characters. He was not only wise and provident in thought, but +surely one of the fieriest of heroes in execution. It is hard to say +which is most remarkable—his capacity for command, which subdued his very +jailors; his hot, unflagging zeal; or his stubborn superiority to defeat. +He failed in each particular enterprise that he attempted; and yet we +have only to look at his country to see how complete has been his general +success. His friends and pupils made the majority of leaders in that +final Revolution, now some twelve years old; and many of them are, or +were until the other day, high placed among the rulers of Japan. And +when we see all round us these brisk intelligent students, with their +strange foreign air, we should never forget how Yoshida marched afoot +from Choshu to Yeddo, and from Yeddo to Nangasaki, and from Nangasaki +back again to Yeddo; how he boarded the American ship, his dress stuffed +with writing material; nor how he languished in prison, and finally gave +his death, as he had formerly given all his life and strength and +leisure, to gain for his native land that very benefit which she now +enjoys so largely. It is better to be Yoshida and perish, than to be +only Sákuma and yet save the hide. Kusákabé, of Satzuma, has said the +word: it is better to be a crystal and be broken. + +I must add a word; for I hope the reader will not fail to perceive that +this is as much the story of a heroic people as that of a heroic man. It +is not enough to remember Yoshida; we must not forget the common soldier, +nor Kusákabé, nor the boy of eighteen, Nomura, of Choshu, whose eagerness +betrayed the plot. It is exhilarating to have lived in the same days +with these great-hearted gentlemen. Only a few miles from us, to speak +by the proportion of the universe, while I was droning over my lessons, +Yoshida was goading himself to be wakeful with the stings of the +mosquito; and while you were grudging a penny income tax, Kusákabé was +stepping to death with a noble sentence on his lips. + + + + +FRANÇOIS VILLON, STUDENT, POET, AND HOUSEBREAKER. + + +PERHAPS one of the most curious revolutions in literary history is the +sudden bull’s-eye light cast by M. Longnon on the obscure existence of +François Villon. {192} His book is not remarkable merely as a chapter of +biography exhumed after four centuries. To readers of the poet it will +recall, with a flavour of satire, that characteristic passage in which he +bequeaths his spectacles—with a humorous reservation of the case—to the +hospital for blind paupers known as the Fifteen-Score. Thus equipped, +let the blind paupers go and separate the good from the bad in the +cemetery of the Innocents! For his own part the poet can see no +distinction. Much have the dead people made of their advantages. What +does it matter now that they have lain in state beds and nourished portly +bodies upon cakes and cream! Here they all lie, to be trodden in the +mud; the large estate and the small, sounding virtue and adroit or +powerful vice, in very much the same condition; and a bishop not to be +distinguished from a lamp-lighter with even the strongest spectacles. + +Such was Villon’s cynical philosophy. Four hundred years after his +death, when surely all danger might be considered at an end, a pair of +critical spectacles have been applied to his own remains; and though he +left behind him a sufficiently ragged reputation from the first, it is +only after these four hundred years that his delinquencies have been +finally tracked home, and we can assign him to his proper place among the +good or wicked. It is a staggering thought, and one that affords a fine +figure of the imperishability of men’s acts, that the stealth of the +private inquiry office can be carried so far back into the dead and dusty +past. We are not so soon quit of our concerns as Villon fancied. In the +extreme of dissolution, when not so much as a man’s name is remembered, +when his dust is scattered to the four winds, and perhaps the very grave +and the very graveyard where he was laid to rest have been forgotten, +desecrated, and buried under populous towns,—even in this extreme let an +antiquary fall across a sheet of manuscript, and the name will be +recalled, the old infamy will pop out into daylight like a toad out of a +fissure in the rock, and the shadow of the shade of what was once a man +will be heartily pilloried by his descendants. A little while ago and +Villon was almost totally forgotten; then he was revived for the sake of +his verses; and now he is being revived with a vengeance in the detection +of his misdemeanours. How unsubstantial is this projection of a man’s +existence, which can lie in abeyance for centuries and then be brushed up +again and set forth for the consideration of posterity by a few dips in +an antiquary’s inkpot! This precarious tenure of fame goes a long way to +justify those (and they are not few) who prefer cakes and cream in the +immediate present. + + + + +A WILD YOUTH. + + +François de Montcorbier, _alias_ François des Loges, _alias_ François +Villon, _alias_ Michel Mouton, Master of Arts in the University of Paris, +was born in that city in the summer of 1431. It was a memorable year for +France on other and higher considerations. A great-hearted girl and a +poor-hearted boy made, the one her last, the other his first appearance +on the public stage of that unhappy country. On the 30th of May the +ashes of Joan of Arc were thrown into the Seine, and on the 2d of +December our Henry Sixth made his Joyous Entry dismally enough into +disaffected and depopulating Paris. Sword and fire still ravaged the +open country. On a single April Saturday twelve hundred persons, besides +children, made their escape out of the starving capital. The hangman, as +is not uninteresting to note in connection with Master Francis, was kept +hard at work in 1431; on the last of April and on the 4th of May alone, +sixty-two bandits swung from Paris gibbets. {195} A more confused or +troublous time it would have been difficult to select for a start in +life. Not even a man’s nationality was certain; for the people of Paris +there was no such thing as a Frenchman. The English were the English +indeed, but the French were only the Armagnacs, whom, with Joan of Arc at +their head, they had beaten back from under their ramparts not two years +before. Such public sentiment as they had centred about their dear Duke +of Burgundy, and the dear Duke had no more urgent business than to keep +out of their neighbourhood. . . . At least, and whether he liked it or +not, our disreputable troubadour was tubbed and swaddled as a subject of +the English crown. + +We hear nothing of Villon’s father except that he was poor and of mean +extraction. His mother was given piously, which does not imply very much +in an old Frenchwoman, and quite uneducated. He had an uncle, a monk in +an abbey at Angers, who must have prospered beyond the family average, +and was reported to be worth five or six hundred crowns. Of this uncle +and his money-box the reader will hear once more. In 1448 Francis became +a student of the University of Paris; in 1450 he took the degree of +Bachelor, and in 1452 that of Master of Arts. His _bourse_, or the sum +paid weekly for his board, was of the amount of two sous. Now two sous +was about the price of a pound of salt butter in the bad times of 1417; +it was the price of half-a-pound in the worse times of 1419; and in 1444, +just four years before Villon joined the University, it seems to have +been taken as the average wage for a day’s manual labour. {196} In +short, it cannot have been a very profuse allowance to keep a sharp-set +lad in breakfast and supper for seven mortal days; and Villon’s share of +the cakes and pastry and general good cheer, to which he is never weary +of referring, must have been slender from the first. + +The educational arrangements of the University of Paris were, to our way +of thinking, somewhat incomplete. Worldly and monkish elements were +presented in a curious confusion, which the youth might disentangle for +himself. If he had an opportunity, on the one hand, of acquiring much +hair-drawn divinity and a taste for formal disputation, he was put in the +way of much gross and flaunting vice upon the other. The lecture room of +a scholastic doctor was sometimes under the same roof with establishments +of a very different and peculiarly unedifying order. The students had +extraordinary privileges, which by all accounts they abused +extraordinarily. And while some condemned themselves to an almost +sepulchral regularity and seclusion, others fled the schools, swaggered +in the street “with their thumbs in their girdle,” passed the night in +riot, and behaved themselves as the worthy forerunners of Jehan Frollo in +the romance of _Notre Dame de Paris_. Villon tells us himself that he +was among the truants, but we hardly needed his avowal. The burlesque +erudition in which he sometimes indulged implies no more than the merest +smattering of knowledge; whereas his acquaintance with blackguard haunts +and industries could only have been acquired by early and consistent +impiety and idleness. He passed his degrees, it is true; but some of us +who have been to modern universities will make their own reflections on +the value of the test. As for his three pupils, Colin Laurent, Girard +Gossouyn, and Jehan Marceau—if they were really his pupils in any serious +sense—what can we say but God help them! And sure enough, by his own +description, they turned out as ragged, rowdy, and ignorant as was to be +looked for from the views and manners of their rare preceptor. + +At some time or other, before or during his university career, the poet +was adopted by Master Guillaume de Villon, chaplain of Saint +Benoît-le-Bétourné near the Sorbonne. From him he borrowed the surname +by which he is known to posterity. It was most likely from his house, +called the _Porte Rouge_, and situated in a garden in the cloister of St. +Benoît, that Master Francis heard the bell of the Sorbonne ring out the +Angelus while he was finishing his _Small Testament_ at Christmastide in +1456. Towards this benefactor he usually gets credit for a respectable +display of gratitude. But with his trap and pitfall style of writing, it +is easy to make too sure. His sentiments are about as much to be relied +on as those of a professional beggar; and in this, as in so many other +matters, he comes towards us whining and piping the eye, and goes off +again with a whoop and his finger to his nose. Thus, he calls Guillaume +de Villon his “more than father,” thanks him with a great show of +sincerity for having helped him out of many scrapes, and bequeaths him +his portion of renown. But the portion of renown which belonged to a +young thief, distinguished (if, at the period when he wrote this legacy, +he was distinguished at all) for having written some more or less obscene +and scurrilous ballads, must have been little fitted to gratify the +self-respect or increase the reputation of a benevolent ecclesiastic. +The same remark applies to a subsequent legacy of the poet’s library, +with specification of one work which was plainly neither decent nor +devout. We are thus left on the horns of a dilemma. If the chaplain was +a godly, philanthropic personage, who had tried to graft good principles +and good behaviour on this wild slip of an adopted son, these jesting +legacies would obviously cut him to the heart. The position of an +adopted son towards his adoptive father is one full of delicacy; where a +man lends his name he looks for great consideration. And this legacy of +Villon’s portion of renown may be taken as the mere fling of an +unregenerate scapegrace who has wit enough to recognise in his own shame +the readiest weapon of offence against a prosy benefactor’s feelings. +The gratitude of Master Francis figures, on this reading, as a frightful +_minus_ quantity. If, on the other hand, those jests were given and +taken in good humour, the whole relation between the pair degenerates +into the unedifying complicity of a debauched old chaplain and a witty +and dissolute young scholar. At this rate the house with the red door +may have rung with the most mundane minstrelsy; and it may have been +below its roof that Villon, through a hole in the plaster, studied, as he +tells us, the leisures of a rich ecclesiastic. + +It was, perhaps, of some moment in the poet’s life that he should have +inhabited the cloister of Saint Benoît. Three of the most remarkable +among his early acquaintances are Catherine de Vausselles, for whom he +entertained a short-lived affection and an enduring and most unmanly +resentment; Regnier de Montigny, a young blackguard of good birth; and +Colin de Cayeux, a fellow with a marked aptitude for picking locks. Now +we are on a foundation of mere conjecture, but it is at least curious to +find that two of the canons of Saint Benoît answered respectively to the +names of Pierre de Vaucel and Etienne de Montigny, and that there was a +householder called Nicolas de Cayeux in a street—the Rue des Poirées—in +the immediate neighbourhood of the cloister. M. Longnon is almost ready +to identify Catherine as the niece of Pierre; Regnier as the nephew of +Etienne, and Colin as the son of Nicolas. Without going so far, it must +be owned that the approximation of names is significant. As we go on to +see the part played by each of these persons in the sordid melodrama of +the poet’s life, we shall come to regard it as even more notable. Is it +not Clough who has remarked that, after all, everything lies in +juxtaposition? Many a man’s destiny has been settled by nothing +apparently more grave than a pretty face on the opposite side of the +street and a couple of bad companions round the corner. + +Catherine de Vausselles (or de Vaucel—the change is within the limits of +Villon’s licence) had plainly delighted in the poet’s conversation; near +neighbours or not, they were much together and Villon made no secret of +his court, and suffered himself to believe that his feeling was repaid in +kind. This may have been an error from the first, or he may have +estranged her by subsequent misconduct or temerity. One can easily +imagine Villon an impatient wooer. One thing, at least, is sure: that +the affair terminated in a manner bitterly humiliating to Master Francis. +In presence of his lady-love, perhaps under her window and certainly with +her connivance, he was unmercifully thrashed by one Noë le Joly—beaten, +as he says himself, like dirty linen on the washing-board. It is +characteristic that his malice had notably increased between the time +when he wrote the _Small Testament_ immediately on the back of the +occurrence, and the time when he wrote the _Large Testament_ five years +after. On the latter occasion nothing is too bad for his “damsel with +the twisted nose,” as he calls her. She is spared neither hint nor +accusation, and he tells his messenger to accost her with the vilest +insults. Villon, it is thought, was out of Paris when these amenities +escaped his pen; or perhaps the strong arm of Noë le Joly would have been +again in requisition. So ends the love story, if love story it may +properly be called. Poets are not necessarily fortunate in love; but +they usually fall among more romantic circumstances and bear their +disappointment with a better grace. + +The neighbourhood of Regnier de Montigny and Colin de Cayeux was probably +more influential on his after life than the contempt of Catherine. For a +man who is greedy of all pleasures, and provided with little money and +less dignity of character, we may prophesy a safe and speedy voyage +downward. Humble or even truckling virtue may walk unspotted in this +life. But only those who despise the pleasures can afford to despise the +opinion of the world. A man of a strong, heady temperament, like Villon, +is very differently tempted. His eyes lay hold on all provocations +greedily, and his heart flames up at a look into imperious desire; he is +snared and broached-to by anything and everything, from a pretty face to +a piece of pastry in a cookshop window; he will drink the rinsing of the +wine cup, stay the latest at the tavern party; tap at the lit windows, +follow the sound of singing, and beat the whole neighbourhood for another +reveller, as he goes reluctantly homeward; and grudge himself every hour +of sleep as a black empty period in which he cannot follow after +pleasure. Such a person is lost if he have not dignity, or, failing +that, at least pride, which is its shadow and in many ways its +substitute. Master Francis, I fancy, would follow his own eager +instincts without much spiritual struggle. And we soon find him fallen +among thieves in sober, literal earnest, and counting as acquaintances +the most disreputable people he could lay his hands on: fellows who stole +ducks in Paris Moat; sergeants of the criminal court, and archers of the +watch; blackguards who slept at night under the butchers’ stalls, and for +whom the aforesaid archers peered about carefully with lanterns; Regnier +de Montigny, Colin de Cayeux, and their crew, all bound on a favouring +breeze towards the gallows; the disorderly abbess of Port Royal, who went +about at fair time with soldiers and thieves, and conducted her abbey on +the queerest principles, and most likely Perette Mauger, the great Paris +receiver of stolen goods, not yet dreaming, poor woman! of the last scene +of her career when Henry Cousin, executor of the high justice, shall bury +her, alive and most reluctant, in front of the new Montigny gibbet. {204} +Nay, our friend soon began to take a foremost rank in this society. He +could string off verses, which is always an agreeable talent; and he +could make himself useful in many other ways. The whole ragged army of +Bohemia, and whosoever loved good cheer without at all loving to work and +pay for it, are addressed in contemporary verses as the “Subjects of +François Villon.” He was a good genius to all hungry and unscrupulous +persons; and became the hero of a whole legendary cycle of tavern tricks +and cheateries. At best, these were doubtful levities, rather too +thievish for a schoolboy, rather too gamesome for a thief. But he would +not linger long in this equivocal border land. He must soon have +complied with his surroundings. He was one who would go where the +cannikin clinked, not caring who should pay; and from supping in the +wolves’ den, there is but a step to hunting with the pack. And here, as +I am on the chapter of his degradation, I shall say all I mean to say +about its darkest expression, and be done with it for good. Some +charitable critics see no more than a _jeu d’esprit_, a graceful and +trifling exercise of the imagination, in the grimy ballad of Fat Peg +(_Grosse Margot_). I am not able to follow these gentlemen to this +polite extreme. Out of all Villon’s works that ballad stands forth in +flaring reality, gross and ghastly, as a thing written in a contraction +of disgust. M. Longnon shows us more and more clearly at every page that +we are to read our poet literally, that his names are the names of real +persons, and the events he chronicles were actual events. But even if +the tendency of criticism had run the other way, this ballad would have +gone far to prove itself. I can well understand the reluctance of worthy +persons in this matter; for of course it is unpleasant to think of a man +of genius as one who held, in the words of Marina to Boult— + + “A place, for which the pained’st fiend + Of hell would not in reputation change.” + +But beyond this natural unwillingness, the whole difficulty of the case +springs from a highly virtuous ignorance of life. Paris now is not so +different from the Paris of then; and the whole of the doings of Bohemia +are not written in the sugar-candy pastorals of Murger. It is really not +at all surprising that a young man of the fifteenth century, with a knack +of making verses, should accept his bread upon disgraceful terms. The +race of those who do is not extinct; and some of them to this day write +the prettiest verses imaginable. . . . After this, it were impossible +for Master Francis to fall lower: to go and steal for himself would be an +admirable advance from every point of view, divine or human. + +And yet it is not as a thief, but as a homicide, that he makes his first +appearance before angry justice. On June 5, 1455, when he was about +twenty-four, and had been Master of Arts for a matter of three years, we +behold him for the first time quite definitely. Angry justice had, as it +were, photographed him in the act of his homicide; and M. Longnon, +rummaging among old deeds, has turned up the negative and printed it off +for our instruction. Villon had been supping—copiously we may +believe—and sat on a stone bench in front of the Church of St. Benoît, in +company with a priest called Gilles and a woman of the name of Isabeau. +It was nine o’clock, a mighty late hour for the period, and evidently a +fine summer’s night. Master Francis carried a mantle, like a prudent +man, to keep him from the dews (_serain_), and had a sword below it +dangling from his girdle. So these three dallied in front of St. Benoît, +taking their pleasure (_pour soy esbatre_). Suddenly there arrived upon +the scene a priest, Philippe Chermoye or Sermaise, also with sword and +cloak, and accompanied by one Master Jehan le Mardi. Sermaise, according +to Villon’s account, which is all we have to go upon, came up blustering +and denying God; as Villon rose to make room for him upon the bench, +thrust him rudely back into his place; and finally drew his sword and cut +open his lower lip, by what I should imagine was a very clumsy stroke. +Up to this point, Villon professes to have been a model of courtesy, even +of feebleness: and the brawl, in his version, reads like the fable of the +wolf and the lamb. But now the lamb was roused; he drew his sword, +stabbed Sermaise in the groin, knocked him on the head with a big stone, +and then, leaving him to his fate, went away to have his own lip doctored +by a barber of the name of Fouquet. In one version, he says that Gilles, +Isabeau, and Le Mardi ran away at the first high words, and that he and +Sermaise had it out alone; in another, Le Mardi is represented as +returning and wresting Villon’s sword from him: the reader may please +himself. Sermaise was picked up, lay all that night in the prison of +Saint Benoît, where he was examined by an official of the Châtelet and +expressly pardoned Villon, and died on the following Saturday in the +Hôtel Dieu. + +This, as I have said, was in June. Not before January of the next year +could Villon extract a pardon from the king; but while his hand was in, +he got two. One is for “François des Loges, alias (_autrement dit_) de +Villon;” and the other runs in the name of François de Montcorbier. Nay, +it appears there was a further complication; for in the narrative of the +first of these documents, it is mentioned that he passed himself off upon +Fouquet, the barber-surgeon, as one Michel Mouton. M. Longnon has a +theory that this unhappy accident with Sermaise was the cause of Villon’s +subsequent irregularities; and that up to that moment he had been the +pink of good behaviour. But the matter has to my eyes a more dubious +air. A pardon necessary for Des Loges and another for Montcorbier? and +these two the same person? and one or both of them known by the _alias +of_ Villon, however honestly come by? and lastly, in the heat of the +moment, a fourth name thrown out with an assured countenance? A ship is +not to be trusted that sails under so many colours. This is not the +simple bearing of innocence. No—the young master was already treading +crooked paths; already, he would start and blench at a hand upon his +shoulder, with the look we know so well in the face of Hogarth’s Idle +Apprentice; already, in the blue devils, he would see Henry Cousin, the +executor of high justice, going in dolorous procession towards +Montfaucon, and hear the wind and the birds crying around Paris gibbet. + + + +A GANG OF THIEVES. + + +In spite of the prodigious number of people who managed to get hanged, +the fifteenth century was by no means a bad time for criminals. A great +confusion of parties and great dust of fighting favoured the escape of +private housebreakers and quiet fellows who stole ducks in Paris Moat. +Prisons were leaky; and as we shall see, a man with a few crowns in his +pocket and perhaps some acquaintance among the officials, could easily +slip out and become once more a free marauder. There was no want of a +sanctuary where he might harbour until troubles blew by; and accomplices +helped each other with more or less good faith. Clerks, above all, had +remarkable facilities for a criminal way of life; for they were +privileged, except in cases of notorious incorrigibility, to be plucked +from the hands of rude secular justice and tried by a tribunal of their +own. In 1402, a couple of thieves, both clerks of the University, were +condemned to death by the Provost of Paris. As they were taken to +Montfaucon, they kept crying “high and clearly” for their benefit of +clergy, but were none the less pitilessly hanged and gibbeted. Indignant +Alma Mater interfered before the king; and the Provost was deprived of +all royal offices, and condemned to return the bodies and erect a great +stone cross, on the road from Paris to the gibbet graven with the +effigies of these two holy martyrs. {210} We shall hear more of the +benefit of clergy; for after this the reader will not be surprised to +meet with thieves in the shape of tonsured clerks, or even priests and +monks. + +To a knot of such learned pilferers our poet certainly belonged; and by +turning over a few more of M. Longnon’s negatives, we shall get a clear +idea of their character and doings. Montigny and De Cayeux are names +already known; Guy Tabary, Petit-Jehan, Dom Nicolas, little Thibault, who +was both clerk and goldsmith, and who made picklocks and melted plate for +himself and his companions—with these the reader has still to become +acquainted. Petit-Jehan and De Cayeux were handy fellows and enjoyed a +useful pre-eminence in honour of their doings with the picklock. +“_Dictus des Cahyeus est fortis operator crochetorum_,” says Tabary’s +interrogation, “_sed dictus Petit-Jehan_, _ejus socius_, _est forcius +operator_.” But the flower of the flock was little Thibault; it was +reported that no lock could stand before him; he had a persuasive hand; +let us salute capacity wherever we may find it. Perhaps the term _gang_ +is not quite properly applied to the persons whose fortunes we are now +about to follow; rather they were independent malefactors, socially +intimate, and occasionally joining together for some serious operation +just as modern stockjobbers form a syndicate for an important loan. Nor +were they at all particular to any branch of misdoing. They did not +scrupulously confine themselves to a single sort of theft, as I hear is +common among modern thieves. They were ready for anything, from +pitch-and-toss to manslaughter. Montigny, for instance, had neglected +neither of these extremes, and we find him accused of cheating at games +of hazard on the one hand, and on the other of the murder of one Thevenin +Pensete in a house by the Cemetery of St. John. If time had only spared +us some particulars, might not this last have furnished us with the +matter of a grisly winter’s tale? + +At Christmas-time in 1456, readers of Villon will remember that he was +engaged on the _Small Testament_. About the same period, _circa festum +nativitatis Domini_, he took part in a memorable supper at the Mule +Tavern, in front of the Church of St. Mathurin. Tabary, who seems to +have been very much Villon’s creature, had ordered the supper in the +course of the afternoon. He was a man who had had troubles in his time +and languished in the Bishop of Paris’s prisons on a suspicion of picking +locks; confiding, convivial, not very astute—who had copied out a whole +improper romance with his own right hand. This supper-party was to be +his first introduction to De Cayeux and Petit-Jehan, which was probably a +matter of some concern to the poor man’s muddy wits; in the sequel, at +least, he speaks of both with an undisguised respect, based on +professional inferiority in the matter of picklocks. Dom Nicolas, a +Picardy monk, was the fifth and last at table. When supper had been +despatched and fairly washed down, we may suppose, with white Baigneux or +red Beaune, which were favourite wines among the fellowship, Tabary was +solemnly sworn over to secrecy on the night’s performances; and the party +left the Mule and proceeded to an unoccupied house belonging to Robert de +Saint-Simon. This, over a low wall, they entered without difficulty. +All but Tabary took off their upper garments; a ladder was found and +applied to the high wall which separated Saint-Simon’s house from the +court of the College of Navarre; the four fellows in their shirt-sleeves +(as we might say) clambered over in a twinkling; and Master Guy Tabary +remained alone beside the overcoats. From the court the burglars made +their way into the vestry of the chapel, where they found a large chest, +strengthened with iron bands and closed with four locks. One of these +locks they picked, and then, by levering up the corner, forced the other +three. Inside was a small coffer, of walnut wood, also barred with iron, +but fastened with only three locks, which were all comfortably picked by +way of the keyhole. In the walnut coffer—a joyous sight by our thieves’ +lantern—were five hundred crowns of gold. There was some talk of opening +the aumries, where, if they had only known, a booty eight or nine times +greater lay ready to their hand; but one of the party (I have a humorous +suspicion it was Dom Nicolas, the Picardy monk) hurried them away. It +was ten o’clock when they mounted the ladder; it was about midnight +before Tabary beheld them coming back. To him they gave ten crowns, and +promised a share of a two-crown dinner on the morrow; whereat we may +suppose his mouth watered. In course of time, he got wind of the real +amount of their booty and understood how scurvily he had been used; but +he seems to have borne no malice. How could he, against such superb +operators as Petit-Jehan and De Cayeux; or a person like Villon, who +could have made a new improper romance out of his own head, instead of +merely copying an old one with mechanical right hand? + +The rest of the winter was not uneventful for the gang. First they made +a demonstration against the Church of St. Mathurin after chalices, and +were ignominiously chased away by barking dogs. Then Tabary fell out +with Casin Chollet, one of the fellows who stole ducks in Paris Moat, who +subsequently became a sergeant of the Châtelet and distinguished himself +by misconduct, followed by imprisonment and public castigation, during +the wars of Louis Eleventh. The quarrel was not conducted with a proper +regard to the king’s peace, and the pair publicly belaboured each other +until the police stepped in, and Master Tabary was cast once more into +the prisons of the Bishop. While he still lay in durance, another job +was cleverly executed by the band in broad daylight, at the Augustine +Monastery. Brother Guillaume Coiffier was beguiled by an accomplice to +St. Mathurin to say mass; and during his absence, his chamber was entered +and five or six hundred crowns in money and some silver plate +successfully abstracted. A melancholy man was Coiffier on his return! +Eight crowns from this adventure were forwarded by little Thibault to the +incarcerated Tabary; and with these he bribed the jailor and reappeared +in Paris taverns. Some time before or shortly after this, Villon set out +for Angers, as he had promised in the _Small Testament_. The object of +this excursion was not merely to avoid the presence of his cruel mistress +or the strong arm of Noë le Joly, but to plan a deliberate robbery on his +uncle the monk. As soon as he had properly studied the ground, the +others were to go over in force from Paris—picklocks and all—and away +with my uncle’s strongbox! This throws a comical sidelight on his own +accusation against his relatives, that they had “forgotten natural duty” +and disowned him because he was poor. A poor relation is a distasteful +circumstance at the best, but a poor relation who plans deliberate +robberies against those of his blood, and trudges hundreds of weary +leagues to put them into execution, is surely a little on the wrong side +of toleration. The uncle at Angers may have been monstrously undutiful; +but the nephew from Paris was upsides with him. + +On the 23d April, that venerable and discreet person, Master Pierre +Marchand, Curate and Prior of Paray-le-Monial, in the diocese of +Chartres, arrived in Paris and put up at the sign of the Three +Chandeliers, in the Rue de la Huchette. Next day, or the day after, as +he was breakfasting at the sign of the Armchair, he fell into talk with +two customers, one of whom was a priest and the other our friend Tabary. +The idiotic Tabary became mighty confidential as to his past life. +Pierre Marchand, who was an acquaintance of Guillaume Coiffier’s and had +sympathised with him over his loss, pricked up his ears at the mention of +picklocks, and led on the transcriber of improper romances from one thing +to another, until they were fast friends. For picklocks the Prior of +Paray professed a keen curiosity; but Tabary, upon some late alarm, had +thrown all his into the Seine. Let that be no difficulty, however, for +was there not little Thibault, who could make them of all shapes and +sizes, and to whom Tabary, smelling an accomplice, would be only too glad +to introduce his new acquaintance? On the morrow, accordingly, they met; +and Tabary, after having first wet his whistle at the prior’s expense, +led him to Notre Dame and presented him to four or five “young +companions,” who were keeping sanctuary in the church. They were all +clerks, recently escaped, like Tabary himself, from the episcopal +prisons. Among these we may notice Thibault, the operator, a little +fellow of twenty-six, wearing long hair behind. The Prior expressed, +through Tabary, his anxiety to become their accomplice and altogether +such as they were (_de leur sorte et de leurs complices_). Mighty polite +they showed themselves, and made him many fine speeches in return. But +for all that, perhaps because they had longer heads than Tabary, perhaps +because it is less easy to wheedle men in a body, they kept obstinately +to generalities and gave him no information as to their exploits, past, +present, or to come. I suppose Tabary groaned under this reserve; for no +sooner were he and the Prior out of the church than he fairly emptied his +heart to him, gave him full details of many hanging matters in the past, +and explained the future intentions of the band. The scheme of the hour +was to rob another Augustine monk, Robert de la Porte, and in this the +Prior agreed to take a hand with simulated greed. Thus, in the course of +two days, he had turned this wineskin of a Tabary inside out. For a +while longer the farce was carried on; the Prior was introduced to +Petit-Jehan, whom he describes as a little, very smart man of thirty, +with a black beard and a short jacket; an appointment was made and broken +in the de la Porte affair; Tabary had some breakfast at the Prior’s +charge and leaked out more secrets under the influence of wine and +friendship; and then all of a sudden, on the 17th of May, an alarm sprang +up, the Prior picked up his skirts and walked quietly over to the +Châtelet to make a deposition, and the whole band took to their heels and +vanished out of Paris and the sight of the police. + +Vanish as they like, they all go with a clog about their feet. Sooner or +later, here or there, they will be caught in the fact, and ignominiously +sent home. From our vantage of four centuries afterwards, it is odd and +pitiful to watch the order in which the fugitives are captured and +dragged in. + +Montigny was the first. In August of that same year, he was laid by the +heels on many grievous counts; sacrilegious robberies, frauds, +incorrigibility, and that bad business about Thevenin Pensete in the +house by the cemetery of St. John. He was reclaimed by the +ecclesiastical authorities as a clerk; but the claim was rebutted on the +score of incorrigibility, and ultimately fell to the ground; and he was +condemned to death by the Provost of Paris. It was a very rude hour for +Montigny, but hope was not yet over. He was a fellow of some birth; his +father had been king’s pantler; his sister, probably married to some one +about the Court, was in the family way, and her health would be +endangered if the execution was proceeded with. So down comes Charles +the Seventh with letters of mercy, commuting the penalty to a year in a +dungeon on bread and water, and a pilgrimage to the shrine of St. James +in Galicia. Alas! the document was incomplete; it did not contain the +full tale of Montigny’s enormities; it did not recite that he had been +denied benefit of clergy, and it said nothing about Thevenin Pensete. +Montigny’s hour was at hand. Benefit of clergy, honourable descent from +king’s pantler, sister in the family way, royal letters of +commutation—all were of no avail. He had been in prison in Rouen, in +Tours, in Bordeaux, and four times already in Paris; and out of all these +he had come scatheless; but now he must make a little excursion as far as +Montfaucon with Henry Cousin, executor of high justice. There let him +swing among the carrion crows. + +About a year later, in July 1458, the police laid hands on Tabary. +Before the ecclesiastical commissary he was twice examined, and, on the +latter occasion, put to the question ordinary and extraordinary. What a +dismal change from pleasant suppers at the Mule, where he sat in triumph +with expert operators and great wits! He is at the lees of life, poor +rogue; and those fingers which once transcribed improper romances are now +agonisingly stretched upon the rack. We have no sure knowledge, but we +may have a shrewd guess of the conclusion. Tabary, the admirer, would go +the same way as those whom he admired. + +The last we hear of is Colin de Cayeux. He was caught in autumn 1460, in +the great Church of St. Leu d’Esserens, which makes so fine a figure in +the pleasant Oise valley between Creil and Beaumont. He was reclaimed by +no less than two bishops; but the Procureur for the Provost held fast by +incorrigible Colin. 1460 was an ill-starred year: for justice was making +a clean sweep of “poor and indigent persons, thieves, cheats, and +lockpickers,” in the neighbourhood of Paris; {220a} and Colin de Cayeux, +with many others, was condemned to death and hanged. {220b} + + + +VILLON AND THE GALLOWS. + + +Villon was still absent on the Angers expedition when the Prior of Paray +sent such a bombshell among his accomplices; and the dates of his return +and arrest remain undiscoverable. M. Campaux plausibly enough opined for +the autumn of 1457, which would make him closely follow on Montigny, and +the first of those denounced by the Prior to fall into the toils. We may +suppose, at least, that it was not long thereafter; we may suppose him +competed for between lay and clerical Courts; and we may suppose him +alternately pert and impudent, humble and fawning, in his defence. But +at the end of all supposing, we come upon some nuggets of fact. For +first, he was put to the question by water. He who had tossed off so +many cups of white Baigneux or red Beaune, now drank water through linen +folds, until his bowels were flooded and his heart stood still. After so +much raising of the elbow, so much outcry of fictitious thirst, here at +last was enough drinking for a lifetime. Truly, of our pleasant vices, +the gods make whips to scourge us. And secondly he was condemned to be +hanged. A man may have been expecting a catastrophe for years, and yet +find himself unprepared when it arrives. Certainly, Villon found, in +this legitimate issue of his career, a very staggering and grave +consideration. Every beast, as he says, clings bitterly to a whole skin. +If everything is lost, and even honour, life still remains; nay, and it +becomes, like the ewe lamb in Nathan’s parable, as dear as all the rest. +“Do you fancy,” he asks, in a lively ballad, “that I had not enough +philosophy under my hood to cry out: ‘I appeal’? If I had made any bones +about the matter, I should have been planted upright in the fields, by +the St. Denis Road”—Montfaucon being on the way to St. Denis. An appeal +to Parliament, as we saw in the case of Colin de Cayeux, did not +necessarily lead to an acquittal or a commutation; and while the matter +was pending, our poet had ample opportunity to reflect on his position. +Hanging is a sharp argument, and to swing with many others on the gibbet +adds a horrible corollary for the imagination. With the aspect of +Montfaucon he was well acquainted; indeed, as the neighbourhood appears +to have been sacred to junketing and nocturnal picnics of wild young men +and women, he had probably studied it under all varieties of hour and +weather. And now, as he lay in prison waiting the mortal push, these +different aspects crowded back on his imagination with a new and +startling significance; and he wrote a ballad, by way of epitaph for +himself and his companions, which remains unique in the annals of +mankind. It is, in the highest sense, a piece of his biography:— + + “La pluye nous a debuez et lavez, + Et le soleil dessechez et noirciz; + Pies, corbeaulx, nous ont les yeux cavez, + Et arrachez la barbe et les sourcilz. + Jamais, nul temps, nous ne sommes rassis; + Puis ça, puis là, comme le vent varie, + A son plaisir sans cesser nous charie, + Plus becquetez d’oiscaulx que dez à couldre. + Ne soyez donc de nostre confrairie, + Mais priez Dieu que tous nous vueille absouldre.” + +Here is some genuine thieves’ literature after so much that was spurious; +sharp as an etching, written with a shuddering soul. There is an +intensity of consideration in the piece that shows it to be the +transcript of familiar thoughts. It is the quintessence of many a +doleful nightmare on the straw, when he felt himself swing helpless in +the wind, and saw the birds turn about him, screaming and menacing his +eyes. + +And, after all, the Parliament changed his sentence into one of +banishment; and to Roussillon, in Dauphiny, our poet must carry his woes +without delay. Travellers between Lyons and Marseilles may remember a +station on the line, some way below Vienne, where the Rhone fleets +seaward between vine-clad hills. This was Villon’s Siberia. It would be +a little warm in summer perhaps, and a little cold in winter in that +draughty valley between two great mountain fields; but what with the +hills, and the racing river, and the fiery Rhone wines, he was little to +be pitied on the conditions of his exile. Villon, in a remarkably bad +ballad, written in a breath, heartily thanked and fulsomely belauded the +Parliament; the _envoi_, like the proverbial postscript of a lady’s +letter, containing the pith of his performance in a request for three +days’ delay to settle his affairs and bid his friends farewell. He was +probably not followed out of Paris, like Antoine Fradin, the popular +preacher, another exile of a few years later, by weeping multitudes; +{224} but I daresay one or two rogues of his acquaintance would keep him +company for a mile or so on the south road, and drink a bottle with him +before they turned. For banished people, in those days, seem to have set +out on their own responsibility, in their own guard, and at their own +expense. It was no joke to make one’s way from Paris to Roussillon alone +and penniless in the fifteenth century. Villon says he left a rag of his +tails on every bush. Indeed, he must have had many a weary tramp, many a +slender meal, and many a to-do with blustering captains of the +Ordonnance. But with one of his light fingers, we may fancy that he took +as good as he gave; for every rag of his tail, he would manage to +indemnify himself upon the population in the shape of food, or wine, or +ringing money; and his route would be traceable across France and +Burgundy by housewives and inn-keepers lamenting over petty thefts, like +the track of a single human locust. A strange figure he must have cut in +the eyes of the good country people: this ragged, blackguard city poet, +with a smack of the Paris student, and a smack of the Paris street arab, +posting along the highways, in rain or sun, among the green fields and +vineyards. For himself, he had no taste for rural loveliness; green +fields and vineyards would be mighty indifferent to Master Francis; but +he would often have his tongue in his cheek at the simplicity of rustic +dupes, and often, at city gates, he might stop to contemplate the gibbet +with its swinging bodies, and hug himself on his escape. + +How long he stayed at Roussillon, how far he became the protégé of the +Bourbons, to whom that town belonged, or when it was that he took part, +under the auspices of Charles of Orleans, in a rhyming tournament to be +referred to once again in the pages of the present volume, are matters +that still remain in darkness, in spite of M. Longnon’s diligent +rummaging among archives. When we next find him, in summer 1461, alas! +he is once more in durance: this time at Méun-sur-Loire, in the prisons +of Thibault d’Aussigny, Bishop of Orleans. He had been lowered in a +basket into a noisome pit, where he lay, all summer, gnawing hard crusts +and railing upon fate. His teeth, he says, were like the teeth of a +rake: a touch of haggard portraiture all the more real for being +excessive and burlesque, and all the more proper to the man for being a +caricature of his own misery. His eyes were “bandaged with thick walls.” +It might blow hurricanes overhead; the lightning might leap in high +heaven; but no word of all this reached him in his noisome pit. “Il +n’entre, ou gist, n’escler ni tourbillon.” Above all, he was fevered +with envy and anger at the freedom of others; and his heart flowed over +into curses as he thought of Thibault d’Aussigny, walking the streets in +God’s sunlight, and blessing people with extended fingers. So much we +find sharply lined in his own poems. Why he was cast again into +prison—how he had again managed to shave the gallows—this we know not, +nor, from the destruction of authorities, are we ever likely to learn. +But on October 2d, 1461, or some day immediately preceding, the new King, +Louis Eleventh, made his joyous entry into Méun. Now it was a part of +the formality on such occasions for the new King to liberate certain +prisoners; and so the basket was let down into Villon’s pit, and hastily +did Master Francis scramble in, and was most joyfully hauled up, and shot +out, blinking and tottering, but once more a free man, into the blessed +sun and wind. Now or never is the time for verses! Such a happy +revolution would turn the head of a stocking-weaver, and set him jingling +rhymes. And so—after a voyage to Paris, where he finds Montigny and De +Cayeux clattering, their bones upon the gibbet, and his three pupils +roystering in Paris streets, “with their thumbs under their +girdles,”—down sits Master Francis to write his _Large Testament_, and +perpetuate his name in a sort of glorious ignominy. + + + +THE _LARGE TESTAMENT_. + + +Of this capital achievement and, with it, of Villon’s style in general, +it is here the place to speak. The _Large Testament_ is a hurly-burly of +cynical and sentimental reflections about life, jesting legacies to +friends and enemies, and, interspersed among these many admirable +ballades, both serious and absurd. With so free a design, no thought +that occurred to him would need to be dismissed without expression; and +he could draw at full length the portrait of his own bedevilled soul, and +of the bleak and blackguardly world which was the theatre of his exploits +and sufferings. If the reader can conceive something between the +slap-dash inconsequence of Byron’s _Don Juan_ and the racy humorous +gravity and brief noble touches that distinguish the vernacular poems of +Burns, he will have formed some idea of Villon’s style. To the latter +writer—except in the ballades, which are quite his own, and can be +paralleled from no other language known to me—he bears a particular +resemblance. In common with Burns he has a certain rugged compression, a +brutal vivacity of epithet, a homely vigour, a delight in local +personalities, and an interest in many sides of life, that are often +despised and passed over by more effete and cultured poets. Both also, +in their strong, easy colloquial way, tend to become difficult and +obscure; the obscurity in the case of Villon passing at times into the +absolute darkness of cant language. They are perhaps the only two great +masters of expression who keep sending their readers to a glossary. + +“Shall we not dare to say of a thief,” asks Montaigne, “that he has a +handsome leg?” It is a far more serious claim that we have to put +forward in behalf of Villon. Beside that of his contemporaries, his +writing, so full of colour, so eloquent, so picturesque, stands out in an +almost miraculous isolation. If only one or two of the chroniclers could +have taken a leaf out of his book, history would have been a pastime, and +the fifteenth century as present to our minds as the age of Charles +Second. This gallows-bird was the one great writer of his age and +country, and initiated modern literature for France. Boileau, long ago, +in the period of perukes and snuff-boxes, recognised him as the first +articulate poet in the language; and if we measure him, not by priority +of merit, but living duration of influence, not on a comparison with +obscure forerunners, but with great and famous successors, we shall +instal this ragged and disreputable figure in a far higher niche in +glory’s temple than was ever dreamed of by the critic. It is, in itself, +a memorable fact that, before 1542, in the very dawn of printing, and +while modern France was in the making, the works of Villon ran through +seven different editions. Out of him flows much of Rabelais; and through +Rabelais, directly and indirectly, a deep, permanent, and growing +inspiration. Not only his style, but his callous pertinent way of +looking upon the sordid and ugly sides of life, becomes every day a more +specific feature in the literature of France. And only the other year, a +work of some power appeared in Paris, and appeared with infinite scandal, +which owed its whole inner significance and much of its outward form to +the study of our rhyming thief. + +The world to which he introduces us is, as before said, blackguardly and +bleak. Paris swarms before us, full of famine, shame, and death; monks +and the servants of great lords hold high wassail upon cakes and pastry; +the poor man licks his lips before the baker’s window; people with +patched eyes sprawl all night under the stalls; chuckling Tabary +transcribes an improper romance; bare-bosomed lasses and ruffling +students swagger in the streets; the drunkard goes stumbling homewards; +the graveyard is full of bones; and away on Montfaucon, Colin de Cayeux +and Montigny hang draggled in the rain. Is there nothing better to be +seen than sordid misery and worthless joys? Only where the poor old +mother of the poet kneels in church below painted windows, and makes +tremulous supplication to the Mother of God. + +In our mixed world, full of green fields and happy lovers, where not long +before, Joan of Arc had led one of the highest and noblest lives in the +whole story of mankind, this was all worth chronicling that our poet +could perceive. His eyes were indeed sealed with his own filth. He +dwelt all his life in a pit more noisome than the dungeon at Méun. In +the moral world, also, there are large phenomena not cognisable out of +holes and corners. Loud winds blow, speeding home deep-laden ships and +sweeping rubbish from the earth; the lightning leaps and cleans the face +of heaven; high purposes and brave passions shake and sublimate men’s +spirits; and meanwhile, in the narrow dungeon of his soul, Villon is +mumbling crusts and picking vermin. + +Along with this deadly gloom of outlook, we must take another +characteristic of his work: its unrivalled insincerity. I can give no +better similitude of this quality than I have given already: that he +comes up with a whine, and runs away with a whoop and his finger to his +nose. His pathos is that of a professional mendicant who should happen +to be a man of genius; his levity that of a bitter street arab, full of +bread. On a first reading, the pathetic passages preoccupy the reader, +and he is cheated out of an alms in the shape of sympathy. But when the +thing is studied the illusion fades away: in the transitions, above all, +we can detect the evil, ironical temper of the man; and instead of a +flighty work, where many crude but genuine feelings tumble together for +the mastery as in the lists of tournament, we are tempted to think of the +_Large Testament_ as of one long-drawn epical grimace, pulled by a +merry-andrew, who has found a certain despicable eminence over human +respect and human affections by perching himself astride upon the +gallows. Between these two views, at best, all temperate judgments will +be found to fall; and rather, as I imagine, towards the last. + +There were two things on which he felt with perfect and, in one case, +even threatening sincerity. + +The first of these was an undisguised envy of those richer than himself. +He was for ever drawing a parallel, already exemplified from his own +words, between the happy life of the well-to-do and the miseries of the +poor. Burns, too proud and honest not to work, continued through all +reverses to sing of poverty with a light, defiant note. Béranger waited +till he was himself beyond the reach of want, before writing the _Old +Vagabond_ or _Jacques_. Samuel Johnson, although he was very sorry to be +poor, “was a great arguer for the advantages of poverty” in his ill days. +Thus it is that brave men carry their crosses, and smile with the fox +burrowing in their vitals. But Villon, who had not the courage to be +poor with honesty, now whiningly implores our sympathy, now shows his +teeth upon the dung-heap with an ugly snarl. He envies bitterly, envies +passionately. Poverty, he protests, drives men to steal, as hunger makes +the wolf sally from the forest. The poor, he goes on, will always have a +carping word to say, or, if that outlet be denied, nourish rebellious +thoughts. It is a calumny on the noble army of the poor. Thousands in a +small way of life, ay, and even in the smallest, go through life with +tenfold as much honour and dignity and peace of mind, as the rich +gluttons whose dainties and state-beds awakened Villon’s covetous temper. +And every morning’s sun sees thousands who pass whistling to their toil. +But Villon was the “mauvais pauvre” defined by Victor Hugo, and, in its +English expression, so admirably stereotyped by Dickens. He was the +first wicked sansculotte. He is the man of genius with the moleskin cap. +He is mighty pathetic and beseeching here in the street, but I would not +go down a dark road with him for a large consideration. + +The second of the points on which he was genuine and emphatic was common +to the middle ages; a deep and somewhat snivelling conviction of the +transitory nature of this life and the pity and horror of death. Old age +and the grave, with some dark and yet half-sceptical terror of an +after-world—these were ideas that clung about his bones like a disease. +An old ape, as he says, may play all the tricks in its repertory, and +none of them will tickle an audience into good humour. “Tousjours vieil +synge est desplaisant.” It is not the old jester who receives most +recognition at a tavern party, but the young fellow, fresh and handsome, +who knows the new slang, and carries off his vice with a certain air. Of +this, as a tavern jester himself, he would be pointedly conscious. As +for the women with whom he was best acquainted, his reflections on their +old age, in all their harrowing pathos, shall remain in the original for +me. Horace has disgraced himself to something the same tune; but what +Horace throws out with an ill-favoured laugh, Villon dwells on with an +almost maudlin whimper. + +It is in death that he finds his truest inspiration in the swift and +sorrowful change that overtakes beauty; in the strange revolution by +which great fortunes and renowns are diminished to a handful of +churchyard dust; and in the utter passing away of what was once lovable +and mighty. It is in this that the mixed texture of his thought enables +him to reach such poignant and terrible effects, and to enchance pity +with ridicule, like a man cutting capers to a funeral march. It is in +this, also, that he rises out of himself into the higher spheres of art. +So, in the ballade by which he is best known, he rings the changes on +names that once stood for beautiful and queenly women, and are now no +more than letters and a legend. “Where are the snows of yester year?” +runs the burden. And so, in another not so famous, he passes in review +the different degrees of bygone men, from the holy Apostles and the +golden Emperor of the East, down to the heralds, pursuivants, and +trumpeters, who also bore their part in the world’s pageantries and ate +greedily at great folks’ tables: all this to the refrain of “So much +carry the winds away!” Probably, there was some melancholy in his mind +for a yet lower grade, and Montigny and Colin de Cayeux clattering their +bones on Paris gibbet. Alas, and with so pitiful an experience of life, +Villon can offer us nothing but terror and lamentation about death! No +one has ever more skilfully communicated his own disenchantment; no one +ever blown a more ear-piercing note of sadness. This unrepentant thief +can attain neither to Christian confidence, nor to the spirit of the +bright Greek saying, that whom the gods love die early. It is a poor +heart, and a poorer age, that cannot accept the conditions of life with +some heroic readiness. + + * * * * * + +The date of the _Large Testament_ is the last date in the poet’s +biography. After having achieved that admirable and despicable +performance, he disappears into the night from whence he came. How or +when he died, whether decently in bed or trussed up to a gallows, remains +a riddle for foolhardy commentators. It appears his health had suffered +in the pit at Méun; he was thirty years of age and quite bald; with the +notch in his under lip where Sermaise had struck him with the sword, and +what wrinkles the reader may imagine. In default of portraits, this is +all I have been able to piece together, and perhaps even the baldness +should be taken as a figure of his destitution. A sinister dog, in all +likelihood, but with a look in his eye, and the loose flexile mouth that +goes with wit and an overweening sensual temperament. Certainly the +sorriest figure on the rolls of fame. + + + + +CHARLES OF ORLEANS. + + +FOR one who was no great politician, nor (as men go) especially wise, +capable or virtuous, Charles of Orleans is more than usually enviable to +all who love that better sort of fame which consists in being known not +widely, but intimately. “To be content that time to come should know +there was such a man, not caring whether they knew more of him, or to +subsist under naked denominations, without deserts or noble acts,” is, +says Sir Thomas Browne, a frigid ambition. It is to some more specific +memory that youth looks forward in its vigils. Old kings are sometimes +disinterred in all the emphasis of life, the hands untainted by decay, +the beard that had so often wagged in camp or senate still spread upon +the royal bosom; and in busts and pictures, some similitude of the great +and beautiful of former days is handed down. In this way, public +curiosity may be gratified, but hardly any private aspiration after fame. +It is not likely that posterity will fall in love with us, but not +impossible that it may respect or sympathise; and so a man would rather +leave behind him the portrait of his spirit than a portrait of his face, +_figura animi magis quam corporis_. Of those who have thus survived +themselves most completely, left a sort of personal seduction behind them +in the world, and retained, after death, the art of making friends, +Montaigne and Samuel Johnson certainly stand first. But we have +portraits of all sorts of men, from august Cæsar to the king’s dwarf; and +all sorts of portraits, from a Titian treasured in the Louvre to a +profile over the grocer’s chimney shelf. And so in a less degree, but no +less truly, than the spirit of Montaigne lives on in the delightful +Essays, that of Charles of Orleans survives in a few old songs and old +account-books; and it is still in the choice of the reader to make this +duke’s acquaintance, and, if their humours suit, become his friend. + + + +I. + + +His birth—if we are to argue from a man’s parents—was above his merit. +It is not merely that he was the grandson of one king, the father of +another, and the uncle of a third; but something more specious was to be +looked for from the son of his father, Louis de Valois, Duke of Orleans, +brother to the mad king Charles VI., lover of Queen Isabel, and the +leading patron of art and one of the leading politicians in France. And +the poet might have inherited yet higher virtues from his mother, +Valentina of Milan, a very pathetic figure of the age, the faithful wife +of an unfaithful husband, and the friend of a most unhappy king. The +father, beautiful, eloquent, and accomplished, exercised a strange +fascination over his contemporaries; and among those who dip nowadays +into the annals of the time there are not many—and these few are little +to be envied—who can resist the fascination of the mother. All mankind +owe her a debt of gratitude because she brought some comfort into the +life of the poor madman who wore the crown of France. + +Born (May 1391) of such a noble stock, Charles was to know from the first +all favours of nature and art. His father’s gardens were the admiration +of his contemporaries; his castles were situated in the most agreeable +parts of France, and sumptuously adorned. We have preserved, in an +inventory of 1403, the description of tapestried rooms where Charles may +have played in childhood. {238} “A green room, with the ceiling full of +angels, and the _dossier_ of shepherds and shepherdesses seeming +(_faisant contenance_) to eat nuts and cherries. A room of gold, silk +and worsted, with a device of little children in a river, and the sky +full of birds. A room of green tapestry, showing a knight and lady at +chess in a pavilion. Another green room, with shepherdesses in a +trellised garden worked in gold and silk. A carpet representing +cherry-trees, where there is a fountain, and a lady gathering cherries in +a basin.” These were some of the pictures over which his fancy might +busy itself of an afternoon, or at morning as he lay awake in bed. With +our deeper and more logical sense of life, we can have no idea how large +a space in the attention of mediæval men might be occupied by such +figured hangings on the wall. There was something timid and purblind in +the view they had of the world. Morally, they saw nothing outside of +traditional axioms; and little of the physical aspect of things entered +vividly into their mind, beyond what was to be seen on church windows and +the walls and floors of palaces. The reader will remember how Villon’s +mother conceived of heaven and hell and took all her scanty stock of +theology from the stained glass that threw its light upon her as she +prayed. And there is scarcely a detail of external effect in the +chronicles and romances of the time, but might have been borrowed at +second hand from a piece of tapestry. It was a stage in the history of +mankind which we may see paralleled, to some extent, in the first infant +school, where the representations of lions and elephants alternate round +the wall with moral verses and trite presentments of the lesser virtues. +So that to live in a house of many pictures was tantamount, for the time, +to a liberal education in itself. + +At Charles’s birth an order of knighthood was inaugurated in his honour. +At nine years old, he was a squire; at eleven, he had the escort of a +chaplain and a schoolmaster; at twelve, his uncle the king made him a +pension of twelve thousand livres d’or. {240a} He saw the most brilliant +and the most learned persons of France, in his father’s Court; and would +not fail to notice that these brilliant and learned persons were one and +all engaged in rhyming. Indeed, if it is difficult to realise the part +played by pictures, it is perhaps even more difficult to realise that +played by verses in the polite and active history of the age. At the +siege of Pontoise, English and French exchanged defiant ballades over the +walls. {240b} If a scandal happened, as in the loathsome thirty-third +story of the _Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles_, all the wits must make rondels +and chansonettes, which they would hand from one to another with an +unmanly sneer. Ladies carried their favourite’s ballades in their +girdles. {241a} Margaret of Scotland, all the world knows already, +kissed Alain Chartier’s lips in honour of the many virtuous thoughts and +golden sayings they had uttered; but it is not so well known, that this +princess was herself the most industrious of poetasters, that she is +supposed to have hastened her death by her literary vigils, and sometimes +wrote as many as twelve rondels in the day. {241b} It was in rhyme, +even, that the young Charles should learn his lessons. He might get all +manner of instruction in the truly noble art of the chase, not without a +smack of ethics by the way, from the compendious didactic poem of Gace de +la Bigne. Nay, and it was in rhyme that he should learn rhyming: in the +verses of his father’s Maître d’Hôtel, Eustache Deschamps, which treated +of “l’art de dictier et de faire chançons, ballades, virelais et +rondeaux,” along with many other matters worth attention, from the courts +of Heaven to the misgovernment of France. {241c} At this rate, all +knowledge is to be had in a goody, and the end of it is an old song. We +need not wonder when we hear from Monstrelet that Charles was a very well +educated person. He could string Latin texts together by the hour, and +make ballades and rondels better than Eustache Deschamps himself. He had +seen a mad king who would not change his clothes, and a drunken emperor +who could not keep his hand from the wine-cup. He had spoken a great +deal with jesters and fiddlers, and with the profligate lords who helped +his father to waste the revenues of France. He had seen ladies dance on +into broad daylight, and much burning of torches and waste of dainties +and good wine. {242a} And when all is said, it was no very helpful +preparation for the battle of life. “I believe Louis XI.,” writes +Comines, “would not have saved himself, if he had not been very +differently brought up from such other lords as I have seen educated in +this country; for these were taught nothing but to play the jackanapes +with finery and fine words.” {242b} I am afraid Charles took such +lessons to heart, and conceived of life as a season principally for +junketing and war. His view of the whole duty of man, so empty, vain, +and wearisome to us, was yet sincerely and consistently held. When he +came in his ripe years to compare the glory of two kingdoms, England and +France, it was on three points only,—pleasures, valour, and riches,—that +he cared to measure them; and in the very outset of that tract he speaks +of the life of the great as passed, “whether in arms, as in assaults, +battles, and sieges, or in jousts and tournaments, in high and stately +festivities and in funeral solemnities.” {243} + +When he was no more than thirteen, his father had him affianced to +Isabella, virgin-widow of our Richard II. and daughter of his uncle +Charles VI.; and, two years after (June 29, 1406), the cousins were +married at Compiègne, he fifteen, she seventeen years of age. It was in +every way a most desirable match. The bride brought five hundred +thousand francs of dowry. The ceremony was of the utmost magnificence, +Louis of Orleans figuring in crimson velvet, adorned with no less than +seven hundred and ninety-five pearls, gathered together expressly for +this occasion. And no doubt it must have been very gratifying for a +young gentleman of fifteen, to play the chief part in a pageant so gaily +put upon the stage. Only, the bridegroom might have been a little older; +and, as ill-luck would have it, the bride herself was of this way of +thinking, and would not be consoled for the loss of her title as queen, +or the contemptible age of her new husband. _Pleuroit fort ladite +Isabeau_; the said Isabella wept copiously. {244} It is fairly debatable +whether Charles was much to be pitied when, three years later (September +1409), this odd marriage was dissolved by death. Short as it was, +however, this connection left a lasting stamp upon his mind; and we find +that, in the last decade of his life, and after he had remarried for +perhaps the second time, he had not yet forgotten or forgiven the violent +death of Richard II. “Ce mauvais cas”—that ugly business, he writes, has +yet to be avenged. + +The marriage festivity was on the threshold of evil days. The great +rivalry between Louis of Orleans and John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy, +had been forsworn with the most reverend solemnities. But the feud was +only in abeyance, and John of Burgundy still conspired in secret. On +November 23, 1407—in that black winter when the frost lasted +six-and-sixty days on end—a summons from the king reached Louis of +Orleans at the Hôtel Barbette, where he had been supping with Queen +Isabel. It was seven or eight in the evening, and the inhabitants of the +quarter were abed. He set forth in haste, accompanied by two squires +riding on one horse, a page, and a few varlets running with torches. As +he rode, he hummed to himself and trifled with his glove. And so riding, +he was beset by the bravoes of his enemy and slain. My lord of Burgundy +set an ill precedent in this deed, as he found some years after on the +bridge of Montereau; and even in the meantime he did not profit quietly +by his rival’s death. The horror of the other princes seems to have +perturbed himself; he avowed his guilt in the council, tried to brazen it +out, finally lost heart and fled at full gallop, cutting bridges behind +him, towards Bapaume and Lille. And so there we have the head of one +faction, who had just made himself the most formidable man in France, +engaged in a remarkably hurried journey, with black care on the pillion. +And meantime, on the other side, the widowed duchess came to Paris in +appropriate mourning, to demand justice for her husband’s death. Charles +VI., who was then in a lucid interval, did probably all that he could, +when he raised up the kneeling suppliant with kisses and smooth words. +Things were at a dead-lock. The criminal might be in the sorriest +fright, but he was still the greatest of vassals. Justice was easy to +ask and not difficult to promise; how it was to be executed was another +question. No one in France was strong enough to punish John of Burgundy; +and perhaps no one, except the widow, very sincere in wishing to punish +him. + +She, indeed, was eaten up of zeal; but the intensity of her eagerness +wore her out; and she died about a year after the murder, of grief and +indignation, unrequited love and unsatisfied resentment. It was during +the last months of her life that this fiery and generous woman, seeing +the soft hearts of her own children, looked with envy on a certain +natural son of her husband’s destined to become famous in the sequel as +the Bastard of Orleans, or the brave Dunois. “_You were stolen from +me_,” she said; “it is you who are fit to avenge your father.” These are +not the words of ordinary mourning, or of an ordinary woman. It is a +saying, over which Balzac would have rubbed his episcopal hands. That +the child who was to avenge her husband had not been born out of her +body, was a thing intolerable to Valentina of Milan; and the expression +of this singular and tragic jealousy is preserved to us by a rare chance, +in such straightforward and vivid words as we are accustomed to hear only +on the stress of actual life, or in the theatre. In history—where we see +things as in a glass darkly, and the fashion of former times is brought +before us, deplorably adulterated and defaced, fitted to very vague and +pompous words, and strained through many men’s minds of everything +personal or precise—this speech of the widowed duchess startles a reader, +somewhat as the footprint startled Robinson Crusoe. A human voice breaks +in upon the silence of the study, and the student is aware of a +fellow-creature in his world of documents. With such a clue in hand, one +may imagine how this wounded lioness would spur and exasperate the +resentment of her children, and what would be the last words of counsel +and command she left behind her. + +With these instancies of his dying mother—almost a voice from the +tomb—still tingling in his ears, the position of young Charles of +Orleans, when he was left at the head of that great house, was curiously +similar to that of Shakspeare’s Hamlet. The times were out of joint; +here was a murdered father to avenge on a powerful murderer; and here, in +both cases, a lad of inactive disposition born to set these matters +right. Valentina’s commendation of Dunois involved a judgment on +Charles, and that judgment was exactly correct. Whoever might be, +Charles was not the man to avenge his father. Like Hamlet, this son of a +dear father murdered was sincerely grieved at heart. Like Hamlet, too, +he could unpack his heart with words, and wrote a most eloquent letter to +the king, complaining that what was denied to him would not be denied “to +the lowest born and poorest man on earth.” Even in his private hours he +strove to preserve a lively recollection of his injury, and keep up the +native hue of resolution. He had gems engraved with appropriate legends, +hortatory or threatening: “_Dieu le scet_,” God knows it; or +“_Souvenez-vous de_ —” Remember! {248} It is only towards the end that +the two stories begin to differ; and in some points the historical +version is the more tragic. Hamlet only stabbed a silly old councillor +behind the arras; Charles of Orleans trampled France for five years under +the hoofs of his banditti. The miscarriage of Hamlet’s vengeance was +confined, at widest, to the palace; the ruin wrought by Charles of +Orleans was as broad as France. + +Yet the first act of the young duke is worthy of honourable mention. +Prodigal Louis had made enormous debts; and there is a story extant, to +illustrate how lightly he himself regarded these commercial obligations. +It appears that Louis, after a narrow escape he made in a thunder-storm, +had a smart access of penitence, and announced he would pay his debts on +the following Sunday. More than eight hundred creditors presented +themselves, but by that time the devil was well again, and they were +shown the door with more gaiety than politeness. A time when such +cynical dishonesty was possible for a man of culture is not, it will be +granted, a fortunate epoch for creditors. When the original debtor was +so lax, we may imagine how an heir would deal with the incumbrances of +his inheritance. On the death of Philip the Forward, father of that John +the Fearless whom we have seen at work, the widow went through the +ceremony of a public renunciation of goods; taking off her purse and +girdle, she left them on the grave, and thus, by one notable act, +cancelled her husband’s debts and defamed his honour. The conduct of +young Charles of Orleans was very different. To meet the joint +liabilities of his father and mother (for Valentina also was lavish), he +had to sell or pledge a quantity of jewels; and yet he would not take +advantage of a pretext, even legally valid, to diminish the amount. +Thus, one Godefroi Lefèvre, having disbursed many odd sums for the late +duke, and received or kept no vouchers, Charles ordered that he should be +believed upon his oath. {249} To a modern mind this seems as honourable +to his father’s memory as if John the Fearless had been hanged as high as +Haman. And as things fell out, except a recantation from the University +of Paris, which had justified the murder out of party feeling, and +various other purely paper reparations, this was about the outside of +what Charles was to effect in that direction. He lived five years, and +grew up from sixteen to twenty-one, in the midst of the most horrible +civil war, or series of civil wars, that ever devastated France; and from +first to last his wars were ill-starred, or else his victories useless. +Two years after the murder (March 1409), John the Fearless having the +upper hand for the moment, a shameful and useless reconciliation took +place, by the king’s command, in the church of Our Lady at Chartres. The +advocate of the Duke of Burgundy stated that Louis of Orleans had been +killed “for the good of the king’s person and realm.” Charles and his +brothers, with tears of shame, under protest, _pour ne pas desobéir au +roi_, forgave their father’s murderer and swore peace upon the missal. +It was, as I say, a shameful and useless ceremony; the very greffier, +entering it in his register, wrote in the margin, “_Pax_, _pax_, _inquit +Propheta_, _et non est Pax_.” {250} Charles was soon after allied with +the abominable Bernard d’Armagnac, even betrothed or married to a +daughter of his, called by a name that sounds like a contradiction in +terms, Bonne d’Armagnac. From that time forth, throughout all this +monstrous period—a very nightmare in the history of France—he is no more +than a stalking-horse for the ambitious Gascon. Sometimes the smoke +lifts, and you can see him for the twinkling of an eye, a very pale +figure; at one moment there is a rumour he will be crowned king; at +another, when the uproar has subsided, he will be heard still crying out +for justice; and the next (1412), he is showing himself to the applauding +populace on the same horse with John of Burgundy. But these are +exceptional seasons, and, for the most part, he merely rides at the +Gascon’s bridle over devastated France. His very party go, not by the +name of Orleans, but by the name of Armagnac. Paris is in the hands of +the butchers: the peasants have taken to the woods. Alliances are made +and broken as if in a country dance; the English called in, now by this +one, now by the other. Poor people sing in church, with white faces and +lamentable music: “_Domine Jesu_, _parce populo tuo_, _dirige in viam +pacis principes_.” And the end and upshot of the whole affair for +Charles of Orleans is another peace with John the Fearless. France is +once more tranquil, with the tranquillity of ruin; he may ride home again +to Blois, and look, with what countenance he may, on those gems he had +got engraved in the early days of his resentment, “_Souvenez-vous de_ —” +Remember! He has killed Polonius, to be sure; but the king is never a +penny the worse. + + + +II. + + +From the battle of Agincourt (Oct. 1415) dates the second period of +Charles’s life. The English reader will remember the name of Orleans in +the play of _Henry V._; and it is at least odd that we can trace a +resemblance between the puppet and the original. The interjection, “I +have heard a sonnet begin so to one’s mistress” (Act iii. scene 7), may +very well indicate one who was already an expert in that sort of trifle; +and the game of proverbs he plays with the Constable in the same scene, +would be quite in character for a man who spent many years of his life +capping verses with his courtiers. Certainly, Charles was in the great +battle with five hundred lances (say, three thousand men), and there he +was made prisoner as he led the van. According to one story, some ragged +English archer shot him down; and some diligent English Pistol, hunting +ransoms on the field of battle, extracted him from under a heap of bodies +and retailed him to our King Henry. He was the most important capture of +the day, and used with all consideration. On the way to Calais, Henry +sent him a present of bread and wine (and bread, you will remember, was +an article of luxury in the English camp), but Charles would neither eat +nor drink. Thereupon, Henry came to visit him in his quarters. “Noble +cousin,” said he, “how are you?” Charles replied that he was well. +“Why, then, do you neither eat nor drink?” And then with some asperity, +as I imagine, the young duke told him that “truly he had no inclination +for food.” And our Henry improved the occasion with something of a +snuffle, assuring his prisoner that God had fought against the French on +account of their manifold sins and transgressions. Upon this there +supervened the agonies of a rough sea passage; and many French lords, +Charles, certainly, among the number, declared they would rather endure +such another defeat than such another sore trial on shipboard. Charles, +indeed, never forgot his sufferings. Long afterwards, he declared his +hatred to a seafaring life, and willingly yielded to England the empire +of the seas, “because there is danger and loss of life, and God knows +what pity when it storms; and sea-sickness is for many people hard to +bear; and the rough life that must be led is little suitable for the +nobility:” {253} which, of all babyish utterances that ever fell from any +public man, may surely bear the bell. Scarcely disembarked, he followed +his victor, with such wry face as we may fancy, through the streets of +holiday London. And then the doors closed upon his last day of garish +life for more than a quarter of a century. After a boyhood passed in the +dissipations of a luxurious court or in the camp of war, his ears still +stunned and his cheeks still burning from his enemies’ jubilations; out +of all this ringing of English bells and singing of English anthems, from +among all these shouting citizens in scarlet cloaks, and beautiful +virgins attired in white, he passed into the silence and solitude of a +political prison. {254} + +His captivity was not without alleviations. He was allowed to go +hawking, and he found England an admirable country for the sport; he was +a favourite with English ladies, and admired their beauty; and he did not +lack for money, wine, or books; he was honourably imprisoned in the +strongholds of great nobles, in Windsor Castle and the Tower of London. +But when all is said, he was a prisoner for five-and-twenty years. For +five-and-twenty years he could not go where he would, or do what he +liked, or speak with any but his gaolers. We may talk very wisely of +alleviations; there is only one alleviation for which the man would thank +you: he would thank you to open the door. With what regret Scottish +James I. bethought him (in the next room perhaps to Charles) of the time +when he rose “as early as the day.” What would he not have given to wet +his boots once more with morning dew, and follow his vagrant fancy among +the meadows? The only alleviation to the misery of constraint lies in +the disposition of the prisoner. To each one this place of discipline +brings his own lesson. It stirs Latude or Baron Trenck into heroic +action; it is a hermitage for pious and conformable spirits. Béranger +tells us he found prison life, with its regular hours and long evenings, +both pleasant and profitable. _The Pilgrim’s Progress_ and _Don Quixote_ +were begun in prison. It was after they were become (to use the words of +one of them), “Oh, worst imprisonment—the dungeon of themselves!” that +Homer and Milton worked so hard and so well for the profit of mankind. +In the year 1415 Henry V. had two distinguished prisoners, French Charles +of Orleans and Scottish James I., who whiled away the hours of their +captivity with rhyming. Indeed, there can be no better pastime for a +lonely man than the mechanical exercise of verse. Such intricate forms +as Charles had been used to from childhood, the ballade with its scanty +rhymes; the rondel, with the recurrence first of the whole, then of half +the burthen, in thirteen verses, seem to have been invented for the +prison and the sick bed. The common Scotch saying, on the sight of +anything operose and finical, “he must have had little to do that made +that!” might be put as epigraph on all the song books of old France. +Making such sorts of verse belongs to the same class of pleasures as +guessing acrostics or “burying proverbs.” It is almost purely formal, +almost purely verbal. It must be done gently and gingerly. It keeps the +mind occupied a long time, and never so intently as to be distressing; +for anything like strain is against the very nature of the craft. +Sometimes things go easily, the refrains fall into their place as if of +their own accord, and it becomes something of the nature of an +intellectual tennis; you must make your poem as the rhymes will go, just +as you must strike your ball as your adversary played it. So that these +forms are suitable rather for those who wish to make verses, than for +those who wish to express opinions. Sometimes, on the other hand, +difficulties arise: rival verses come into a man’s head, and fugitive +words elude his memory. Then it is that he enjoys at the same time the +deliberate pleasures of a connoisseur comparing wines, and the ardour of +the chase. He may have been sitting all day long in prison with folded +hands; but when he goes to bed, the retrospect will seem animated and +eventful. + +Besides confirming himself as an habitual maker of verses, Charles +acquired some new opinions during his captivity. He was perpetually +reminded of the change that had befallen him. He found the climate of +England cold and “prejudicial to the human frame;” he had a great +contempt for English fruit and English beer; even the coal fires were +unpleasing in his eyes. {257a} He was rooted up from among his friends +and customs and the places that had known him. And so in this strange +land he began to learn the love of his own. Sad people all the world +over are like to be moved when the wind is in some particular quarter. +So Burns preferred when it was in the west, and blew to him from his +mistress; so the girl in the ballade, looking south to Yarrow, thought it +might carry a kiss betwixt her and her gallant; and so we find Charles +singing of the “pleasant wind that comes from France.” {257b} One day, +at “Dover-on-the-Sea,” he looked across the straits, and saw the +sandhills about Calais. And it happened to him, he tells us in a +ballade, to remember his happiness over there in the past; and he was +both sad and merry at the recollection, and could not have his fill of +gazing on the shores of France. {257c} Although guilty of unpatriotic +acts, he had never been exactly unpatriotic in feeling. But his sojourn +in England gave, for the time at least, some consistency to what had been +a very weak and ineffectual prejudice. He must have been under the +influence of more than usually solemn considerations, when he proceeded +to turn Henry’s puritanical homily after Agincourt into a ballade, and +reproach France, and himself by implication, with pride, gluttony, +idleness, unbridled covetousness, and sensuality. {258a} For the moment, +he must really have been thinking more of France than of Charles of +Orleans. + +And another lesson he learned. He who was only to be released in case of +peace, begins to think upon the disadvantages of war. “Pray for peace,” +is his refrain: a strange enough subject for the ally of Bernard +d’Armagnac. {258b} But this lesson was plain and practical; it had one +side in particular that was specially attractive for Charles; and he did +not hesitate to explain it in so many words. “Everybody,” he writes—I +translate roughly—“everybody should be much inclined to peace, for +everybody has a deal to gain by it.” {258c} + +Charles made laudable endeavours to acquire English, and even learned to +write a rondel in that tongue of quite average mediocrity. {259a} He was +for some time billeted on the unhappy Suffolk, who received fourteen +shillings and fourpence a day for his expenses; and from the fact that +Suffolk afterwards visited Charles in France while he was negotiating the +marriage of Henry VI., as well as the terms of that nobleman’s +impeachment, we may believe there was some not unkindly intercourse +between the prisoner and his gaoler: a fact of considerable interest when +we remember that Suffolk’s wife was the granddaughter of the poet +Geoffrey Chaucer. {259b} Apart from this, and a mere catalogue of dates +and places, only one thing seems evident in the story of Charles’s +captivity. It seems evident that, as these five-and-twenty years drew +on, he became less and less resigned. Circumstances were against the +growth of such a feeling. One after another of his fellow-prisoners was +ransomed and went home. More than once he was himself permitted to visit +France; where he worked on abortive treaties and showed himself more +eager for his own deliverance than for the profit of his native land. +Resignation may follow after a reasonable time upon despair; but if a man +is persecuted by a series of brief and irritating hopes, his mind no more +attains to a settled frame of resolution, than his eye would grow +familiar with a night of thunder and lightning. Years after, when he was +speaking at the trial of that Duke of Alençon, who began life so +hopefully as the boyish favourite of Joan of Arc, he sought to prove that +captivity was a harder punishment than death. “For I have had experience +myself,” he said; “and in my prison of England, for the weariness, +danger, and displeasure in which I then lay, I have many a time wished I +had been slain at the battle where they took me.” {260} This is a +flourish, if you will, but it is something more. His spirit would +sometimes rise up in a fine anger against the petty desires and +contrarieties of life. He would compare his own condition with the quiet +and dignified estate of the dead; and aspire to lie among his comrades on +the field of Agincourt, as the Psalmist prayed to have the wings of a +dove and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea. But such high thoughts +came to Charles only in a flash. + +John the Fearless had been murdered in his turn on the bridge of +Montereau so far back as 1419. His son, Philip the Good—partly to +extinguish the feud, partly that he might do a popular action, and +partly, in view of his ambitious schemes, to detach another great vassal +from the throne of France—had taken up the cause of Charles of Orleans, +and negotiated diligently for his release. In 1433 a Burgundian embassy +was admitted to an interview with the captive duke, in the presence of +Suffolk. Charles shook hands most affectionately with the ambassadors. +They asked after his health. “I am well enough in body,” he replied, +“but far from well in mind. I am dying of grief at having to pass the +best days of my life in prison, with none to sympathise.” The talk +falling on the chances of peace, Charles referred to Suffolk if he were +not sincere and constant in his endeavours to bring it about. “If peace +depended on me,” he said, “I should procure it gladly, were it to cost me +my life seven days after.” We may take this as showing what a large +price he set, not so much on peace, as on seven days of freedom. Seven +days!—he would make them seven years in the employment. Finally, he +assured the ambassadors of his good will to Philip of Burgundy; squeezed +one of them by the hand and nipped him twice in the arm to signify things +unspeakable before Suffolk; and two days after sent them Suffolk’s +barber, one Jean Carnet, a native of Lille, to testify more freely of his +sentiments. “As I speak French,” said this emissary, “the Duke of +Orleans is more familiar with me than with any other of the household; +and I can bear witness he never said anything against Duke Philip.” +{262a} It will be remembered that this person, with whom he was so +anxious to stand well, was no other than his hereditary enemy, the son of +his father’s murderer. But the honest fellow bore no malice, indeed not +he. He began exchanging ballades with Philip, whom he apostrophises as +his companion, his cousin, and his brother. He assures him that, soul +and body, he is altogether Burgundian; and protests that he has given his +heart in pledge to him. Regarded as the history of a vendetta, it must +be owned that Charles’s life has points of some originality. And yet +there is an engaging frankness about these ballades which disarms +criticism. {262b} You see Charles throwing himself headforemost into the +trap; you hear Burgundy, in his answers begin to inspire him with his own +prejudices, and draw melancholy pictures of the misgovernment of France. +But Charles’s own spirits are so high and so amiable, and he is so +thoroughly convinced his cousin is a fine fellow, that one’s scruples are +carried away in the torrent of his happiness and gratitude. And his +would be a sordid spirit who would not clap hands at the consummation +(Nov. 1440); when Charles, after having sworn on the Sacrament that he +would never again bear arms against England, and pledged himself body and +soul to the unpatriotic faction in his own country, set out from London +with a light heart and a damaged integrity. + +In the magnificent copy of Charles’s poems, given by our Henry VII. to +Elizabeth of York on the occasion of their marriage, a large illumination +figures at the head of one of the pages, which, in chronological +perspective, is almost a history of his imprisonment. It gives a view of +London with all its spires, the river passing through the old bridge and +busy with boats. One side of the White Tower has been taken out, and we +can see, as under a sort of shrine, the paved room where the duke sits +writing. He occupies a high-backed bench in front of a great chimney; +red and black ink are before him; and the upper end of the apartment is +guarded by many halberdiers, with the red cross of England on their +breast. On the next side of the tower he appears again, leaning out of +window and gazing on the river; doubtless there blows just then “a +pleasant wind from out the land of France,” and some ship comes up the +river: “the ship of good news.” At the door we find him yet again; this +time embracing a messenger, while a groom stands by holding two saddled +horses. And yet further to the left, a cavalcade defiles out of the +tower; the duke is on his way at last towards “the sunshine of France.” + + + +III. + + +During the five-and-twenty years of his captivity, Charles had not lost +in the esteem of his fellow-countrymen. For so young a man, the head of +so great a house, and so numerous a party, to be taken prisoner as he +rode in the vanguard of France, and stereotyped for all men in this +heroic attitude, was to taste untimeously the honours of the grave. Of +him, as of the dead, it would be ungenerous to speak evil; what little +energy he had displayed would be remembered with piety, when all that he +had done amiss was courteously forgotten. As English folk looked for +Arthur; as Danes awaited the coming of Ogier; as Somersetshire peasants +or sergeants of the Old Guard expected the return of Monmouth or +Napoleon; the countrymen of Charles of Orleans looked over the straits +towards his English prison with desire and confidence. Events had so +fallen out while he was rhyming ballades, that he had become the type of +all that was most truly patriotic. The remnants of his old party had +been the chief defenders of the unity of France. His enemies of Burgundy +had been notoriously favourers and furtherers of English domination. +People forgot that his brother still lay by the heels for an unpatriotic +treaty with England, because Charles himself had been taken prisoner +patriotically fighting against it. That Henry V. had left special orders +against his liberation, served to increase the wistful pity with which he +was regarded. And when, in defiance of all contemporary virtue, and +against express pledges, the English carried war into their prisoner’s +fief, not only France, but all thinking men in Christendom, were roused +to indignation against the oppressors, and sympathy with the victim. It +was little wonder if he came to bulk somewhat largely in the imagination +of the best of those at home. Charles le Boutteillier, when (as the +story goes) he slew Clarence at Beaugé, was only seeking an exchange for +Charles of Orleans. {265a} It was one of Joan of Arc’s declared +intentions to deliver the captive duke. If there was no other way, she +meant to cross the seas and bring him home by force. And she professed +before her judges a sure knowledge that Charles of Orleans was beloved of +God. {265b} + +Alas! it was not at all as a deliverer that Charles returned to France. +He was nearly fifty years old. Many changes had been accomplished since, +at twenty-three, he was taken on the field of Agincourt. But of all +these he was profoundly ignorant, or had only heard of them in the +discoloured reports of Philip of Burgundy. He had the ideas of a former +generation, and sought to correct them by the scandal of a factious +party. With such qualifications he came back eager for the domination, +the pleasures, and the display that befitted his princely birth. A long +disuse of all political activity combined with the flatteries of his new +friends to fill him with an overweening conceit of his own capacity and +influence. If aught had gone wrong in his absence, it seemed quite +natural men should look to him for its redress. Was not King Arthur come +again? + +The Duke of Burgundy received him with politic honours. He took his +guest by his foible for pageantry, all the easier as it was a foible of +his own; and Charles walked right out of prison into much the same +atmosphere of trumpeting and bell-ringing as he had left behind when he +went in. Fifteen days after his deliverance he was married to Mary of +Cleves, at St. Omer. The marriage was celebrated with the usual pomp of +the Burgundian court; there were joustings, and illuminations, and +animals that spouted wine; and many nobles dined together, _comme en +brigade_, and were served abundantly with many rich and curious dishes. +{267a} It must have reminded Charles not a little of his first marriage +at Compiègne; only then he was two years the junior of his bride, and +this time he was five-and-thirty years her senior. It will be a fine +question which marriage promises more: for a boy of fifteen to lead off +with a lass of seventeen, or a man of fifty to make a match of it with a +child of fifteen. But there was something bitter in both. The +lamentations of Isabella will not have been forgotten. As for Mary, she +took up with one Jaquet de la Lain, a sort of muscular Methody of the +period, with a huge appetite for tournaments, and a habit of confessing +himself the last thing before he went to bed. {267b} With such a hero, +the young duchess’s amours were most likely innocent; and in all other +ways she was a suitable partner for the duke, and well fitted to enter +into his pleasures. + +When the festivities at Saint Omer had come to an end, Charles and his +wife set forth by Ghent and Tournay. The towns gave him offerings of +money as he passed through, to help in the payment of his ransom. From +all sides, ladies and gentlemen thronged to offer him their services; +some gave him their sons for pages, some archers for a bodyguard; and by +the time he reached Tournay, he had a following of 300 horse. Everywhere +he was received as though he had been the King of France. {268} If he +did not come to imagine himself something of the sort, he certainly +forgot the existence of any one with a better claim to the title. He +conducted himself on the hypothesis that Charles VII. was another Charles +VI. He signed with enthusiasm that treaty of Arras, which left France +almost at the discretion of Burgundy. On December 18 he was still no +farther than Bruges, where he entered into a private treaty with Philip; +and it was not until January 14, ten weeks after he disembarked in +France, and attended by a ruck of Burgundian gentlemen, that he arrived +in Paris and offered to present himself before Charles VII. The king +sent word that he might come, if he would, with a small retinue, but not +with his present following; and the duke, who was mightily on his high +horse after all the ovations he had received, took the king’s attitude +amiss, and turned aside into Touraine, to receive more welcome and more +presents, and be convoyed by torchlight into faithful cities. + +And so you see, here was King Arthur home again, and matters nowise +mended in consequence. The best we can say is, that this last stage of +Charles’s public life was of no long duration. His confidence was soon +knocked out of him in the contact with others. He began to find he was +an earthen vessel among many vessels of brass; he began to be shrewdly +aware that he was no King Arthur. In 1442, at Limoges, he made himself +the spokesman of the malcontent nobility. The king showed himself +humiliatingly indifferent to his counsels, and humiliatingly generous +towards his necessities. And there, with some blushes, he may be said to +have taken farewell of the political stage. A feeble attempt on the +county of Asti is scarce worth the name of exception. Thenceforward let +Ambition wile whom she may into the turmoil of events, our duke will walk +cannily in his well-ordered garden, or sit by the fire to touch the +slender reed. {269} + + + +IV. + + +If it were given each of us to transplant his life wherever he pleased in +time or space, with all the ages and all the countries of the world to +choose from, there would be quite an instructive diversity of taste. A +certain sedentary majority would prefer to remain where they were. Many +would choose the Renaissance; many some stately and simple period of +Grecian life; and still more elect to pass a few years wandering among +the villages of Palestine with an inspired conductor. For some of our +quaintly vicious contemporaries, we have the decline of the Roman Empire +and the reign of Henry III. of France. But there are others not quite so +vicious, who yet cannot look upon the world with perfect gravity, who +have never taken the categorical imperative to wife, and have more taste +for what is comfortable than for what is magnanimous and high; and I can +imagine some of these casting their lot in the Court of Blois during the +last twenty years of the life of Charles of Orleans. + +The duke and duchess, their staff of officers and ladies, and the +high-born and learned persons who were attracted to Blois on a visit, +formed a society for killing time and perfecting each other in various +elegant accomplishments, such as we might imagine for an ideal +watering-place in the Delectable Mountains. The company hunted and went +on pleasure-parties; they played chess, tables, and many other games. +What we now call the history of the period passed, I imagine, over the +heads of these good people much as it passes over our own. News reached +them, indeed, of great and joyful import. William Peel received eight +livres and five sous from the duchess, when he brought the first tidings +that Rouen was recaptured from the English. {271a} A little later and +the duke sang, in a truly patriotic vein, the deliverance of Guyenne and +Normandy. {271b} They were liberal of rhymes and largesse, and welcomed +the prosperity of their country much as they welcomed the coming of +spring, and with no more thought of collaborating towards the event. +Religion was not forgotten in the Court of Blois. Pilgrimages were +agreeable and picturesque excursions. In those days a well-served chapel +was something like a good vinery in our own, an opportunity for display +and the source of mild enjoyments. There was probably something of his +rooted delight in pageantry, as well as a good deal of gentle piety, in +the feelings with which Charles gave dinner every Friday to thirteen poor +people, served them himself, and washed their feet with his own hands. +{271c} Solemn affairs would interest Charles and his courtiers from +their trivial side. The duke perhaps cared less for the deliverance of +Guyenne and Normandy than for his own verses on the occasion; just as Dr. +Russell’s correspondence in _The Times_ was among the most material parts +of the Crimean War for that talented correspondent. And I think it +scarcely cynical to suppose that religion as well as patriotism was +principally cultivated as a means of filling up the day. + +It was not only messengers fiery red with haste and charged with the +destiny of nations, who were made welcome at the gates of Blois. If any +man of accomplishment came that way, he was sure of an audience, and +something for his pocket. The courtiers would have received Ben Jonson +like Drummond of Hawthornden, and a good pugilist like Captain Barclay. +They were catholic, as none but the entirely idle can be catholic. It +might be Pierre, called Dieu d’amours, the juggler; or it might be three +high English minstrels; or the two men, players of ghitterns, from the +kingdom of Scotland, who sang the destruction of the Turks; or again +Jehan Rognelet, player of instruments of music, who played and danced +with his wife and two children; they would each be called into the castle +to give a taste of his proficiency before my lord the duke. {272} +Sometimes the performance was of a more personal interest, and produced +much the same sensations as are felt on an English green on the arrival +of a professional cricketer, or round an English billiard table during a +match between Roberts and Cooke. This was when Jehan Nègre, the Lombard, +came to Blois and played chess against all these chess-players, and won +much money from my lord and his intimates; or when Baudet Harenc of +Chalons made ballades before all these ballade-makers. {273} + +It will not surprise the reader to learn they were all makers of ballades +and rondels. To write verses for May day, seems to have been as much a +matter of course, as to ride out with the cavalcade that went to gather +hawthorn. The choice of Valentines was a standing challenge, and the +courtiers pelted each other with humorous and sentimental verses as in a +literary carnival. If an indecorous adventure befell our friend Maistre +Estienne le Gout, my lord the duke would turn it into the funniest of +rondels, all the rhymes being the names of the cases of nouns or the +moods of verbs; and Maistre Estienne would make reply in similar fashion, +seeking to prune the story of its more humiliating episodes. If Frédet +was too long away from Court, a rondel went to upbraid him; and it was in +a rondel that Frédet would excuse himself. Sometimes two or three, or as +many as a dozen, would set to work on the same refrain, the same idea, or +in the same macaronic jargon. Some of the poetasters were heavy enough; +others were not wanting in address; and the duchess herself was among +those who most excelled. On one occasion eleven competitors made a +ballade on the idea, + + “I die of thirst beside the fountain’s edge” + + (Je meurs de soif emprès de la fontaine). + +These eleven ballades still exist; and one of them arrests the attention +rather from the name of the author than from any special merit in itself. +It purports to be the work of François Villon; and so far as a foreigner +can judge (which is indeed a small way), it may very well be his. Nay, +and if any one thing is more probable than another, in the great _tabula +rasa_, or unknown land, which we are fain to call the biography of +Villon, it seems probable enough that he may have gone upon a visit to +Charles of Orleans. Where Master Baudet Harenc, of Chalons, found a +sympathetic, or perhaps a derisive audience (for who can tell nowadays +the degree of Baudet’s excellence in his art?), favour would not be +wanting for the greatest ballade-maker of all time. Great as would seem +the incongruity, it may have pleased Charles to own a sort of kinship +with ragged singers, and whimsically regard himself as one of the +confraternity of poets. And he would have other grounds of intimacy with +Villon. A room looking upon Windsor gardens is a different matter from +Villon’s dungeon at Méun; yet each in his own degree had been tried in +prison. Each in his own way also, loved the good things of this life and +the service of the Muses. But the same gulf that separated Burns from +his Edinburgh patrons would separate the singer of Bohemia from the +rhyming duke. And it is hard to imagine that Villon’s training amongst +thieves, loose women, and vagabond students, had fitted him to move in a +society of any dignity and courtliness. Ballades are very admirable +things; and a poet is doubtless a most interesting visitor. But among +the courtiers of Charles, there would be considerable regard for the +proprieties of etiquette; and even a duke will sometimes have an eye to +his teaspoons. Moreover, as a poet, I can conceive he may have +disappointed expectation. It need surprise nobody if Villon’s ballade on +the theme, + + “I die of thirst beside the fountain’s edge,” + +was but a poor performance. He would make better verses on the lee-side +of a flagon at the sign of the Pomme du Pin, than in a cushioned settle +in the halls of Blois. + +Charles liked change of place. He was often not so much travelling as +making a progress; now to join the king for some great tournament; now to +visit King René, at Tarascon, where he had a study of his own and saw all +manner of interesting things—oriental curios, King René painting birds, +and, what particularly pleased him, Triboulet, the dwarf jester, whose +skull-cap was no bigger than an orange. {276a} Sometimes the journeys +were set about on horseback in a large party, with the _fourriers_ sent +forward to prepare a lodging at the next stage. We find almost +Gargantuan details of the provision made by these officers against the +duke’s arrival, of eggs and butter and bread, cheese and peas and +chickens, pike and bream and barbel, and wine both white and red. {276b} +Sometimes he went by water in a barge, playing chess or tables with a +friend in the pavilion, or watching other vessels as they went before the +wind. {276c} Children ran along the bank, as they do to this day on the +Crinan Canal; and when Charles threw in money, they would dive and bring +it up. {276d} As he looked on at their exploits, I wonder whether that +room of gold and silk and worsted came back into his memory, with the +device of little children in a river, and the sky full of birds? + +He was a bit of a book-fancier, and had vied with his brother Angoulême +in bringing back the library of their grandfather Charles V., when +Bedford put it up for sale in London. {277a} The duchess had a library +of her own; and we hear of her borrowing romances from ladies in +attendance on the blue-stocking Margaret of Scotland. {277b} Not only +were books collected, but new books were written at the court of Blois. +The widow of one Jean Fougère, a bookbinder, seems to have done a number +of odd commissions for the bibliophilous count. She it was who received +three vellum-skins to bind the duchess’s Book of Hours, and who was +employed to prepare parchment for the use of the duke’s scribes. And she +it was who bound in vermilion leather the great manuscript of Charles’s +own poems, which was presented to him by his secretary, Anthony Astesan, +with the text in one column, and Astesan’s Latin version in the other. +{277c} + +Such tastes, with the coming of years, would doubtless take the place of +many others. We find in Charles’s verse much semi-ironical regret for +other days, and resignation to growing infirmities. He who had been +“nourished in the schools of love,” now sees nothing either to please or +displease him. Old age has imprisoned him within doors, where he means +to take his ease, and let younger fellows bestir themselves in life. He +had written (in earlier days, we may presume) a bright and defiant little +poem in praise of solitude. If they would but leave him alone with his +own thoughts and happy recollections, he declared it was beyond the power +of melancholy to affect him. But now, when his animal strength has so +much declined that he sings the discomforts of winter instead of the +inspirations of spring, and he has no longer any appetite for life, he +confesses he is wretched when alone, and, to keep his mind from grievous +thoughts, he must have many people around him, laughing, talking, and +singing. {278} + +While Charles was thus falling into years, the order of things, of which +he was the outcome and ornament, was growing old along with him. The +semi-royalty of the princes of the blood was already a thing of the past; +and when Charles VII. was gathered to his fathers, a new king reigned in +France, who seemed every way the opposite of royal. Louis XI. had aims +that were incomprehensible, and virtues that were inconceivable to his +contemporaries. But his contemporaries were able enough to appreciate +his sordid exterior, and his cruel and treacherous spirit. To the whole +nobility of France he was a fatal and unreasonable phenomenon. All such +courts as that of Charles at Blois, or his friend René’s in Provence, +would soon be made impossible; interference was the order of the day; +hunting was already abolished; and who should say what was to go next? +Louis, in fact, must have appeared to Charles primarily in the light of a +kill-joy. I take it, when missionaries land in South Sea Islands and lay +strange embargo on the simplest things in life, the islanders will not be +much more puzzled and irritated than Charles of Orleans at the policy of +the Eleventh Louis. There was one thing, I seem to apprehend, that had +always particularly moved him; and that was, any proposal to punish a +person of his acquaintance. No matter what treason he may have made or +meddled with, an Alençon or an Armagnac was sure to find Charles reappear +from private life, and do his best to get him pardoned. He knew them +quite well. He had made rondels with them. They were charming people in +every way. There must certainly be some mistake. Had not he himself +made anti-national treaties almost before he was out of his nonage? And +for the matter of that, had not every one else done the like? Such are +some of the thoughts by which he might explain to himself his aversion to +such extremities; but it was on a deeper basis that the feeling probably +reposed. A man of his temper could not fail to be impressed at the +thought of disastrous revolutions in the fortunes of those he knew. He +would feel painfully the tragic contrast, when those who had everything +to make life valuable were deprived of life itself. And it was shocking +to the clemency of his spirit, that sinners should be hurried before +their judge without a fitting interval for penitence and satisfaction. +It was this feeling which brought him at last, a poor, purblind +blue-bottle of the later autumn, into collision with “the universal +spider,” Louis XI. He took up the defence of the Duke of Brittany at +Tours. But Louis was then in no humour to hear Charles’s texts and Latin +sentiments; he had his back to the wall, the future of France was at +stake; and if all the old men in the world had crossed his path, they +would have had the rough side of his tongue like Charles of Orleans. I +have found nowhere what he said, but it seems it was monstrously to the +point, and so rudely conceived that the old duke never recovered the +indignity. He got home as far as Amboise, sickened, and died two days +after (Jan. 4, 1465), in the seventy-fourth year of his age. And so a +whiff of pungent prose stopped the issue of melodious rondels to the end +of time. + + + +V. + + +The futility of Charles’s public life was of a piece throughout. He +never succeeded in any single purpose he set before him; for his +deliverance from England, after twenty-five years of failure and at the +cost of dignity and consistency, it would be ridiculously hyperbolical to +treat as a success. During the first part of his life he was the +stalking horse of Bernard d’Armagnac; during the second, he was the +passive instrument of English diplomatists; and before he was well +entered on the third, he hastened to become the dupe and catspaw of +Burgundian treason. On each of these occasions, a strong and not +dishonourable personal motive determined his behaviour. In 1407 and the +following years, he had his father’s murder uppermost in his mind. +During his English captivity, that thought was displaced by a more +immediate desire for his own liberation. In 1440 a sentiment of +gratitude to Philip of Burgundy blinded him to all else, and led him to +break with the tradition of his party and his own former life. He was +born a great vassal, and he conducted himself like a private gentleman. +He began life in a showy and brilliant enough fashion, by the light of a +petty personal chivalry. He was not without some tincture of patriotism; +but it was resolvable into two parts: a preference for life among his +fellow-countrymen, and a barren point of honour. In England, he could +comfort himself by the reflection that “he had been taken while loyally +doing his devoir,” without any misgiving as to his conduct in the +previous years, when he had prepared the disaster of Agincourt by +wasteful feud. This unconsciousness of the larger interests is perhaps +most happily exampled out of his own mouth. When Alençon stood accused +of betraying Normandy into the hands of the English, Charles made a +speech in his defence, from which I have already quoted more than once. +Alençon, he said, had professed a great love and trust towards him; “yet +did he give no great proof thereof, when he sought to betray Normandy; +whereby he would have made me lose an estate of 10,000 livres a year, and +might have occasioned the destruction of the kingdom and of all us +Frenchmen.” These are the words of one, mark you, against whom +Gloucester warned the English Council because of his “great subtility and +cautelous disposition.” It is not hard to excuse the impatience of Louis +XI., if such stuff was foisted on him by way of political deliberation. + +This incapacity to see things with any greatness, this obscure and narrow +view was fundamentally characteristic of the man as well as of the epoch. +It is not even so striking in his public life, where he failed, as in his +poems, where he notably succeeded. For wherever we might expect a poet +to be unintelligent, it certainly would not be in his poetry. And +Charles is unintelligent even there. Of all authors whom a modern may +still read and read over again with pleasure, he has perhaps the least to +say. His poems seem to bear testimony rather to the fashion of rhyming, +which distinguished the age, than to any special vocation in the man +himself. Some of them are drawing-room exercises and the rest seem made +by habit. Great writers are struck with something in nature or society, +with which they become pregnant and longing; they are possessed with an +idea, and cannot be at peace until they have put it outside of them in +some distinct embodiment. But with Charles literature was an object +rather than a mean; he was one who loved bandying words for its own sake; +the rigidity of intricate metrical forms stood him in lieu of precise +thought; instead of communicating truth, he observed the laws of a game; +and when he had no one to challenge at chess or rackets, he made verses +in a wager against himself. From the very idleness of the man’s mind, +and not from intensity of feeling, it happens that all his poems are more +or less autobiographical. But they form an autobiography singularly bald +and uneventful. Little is therein recorded beside sentiments. Thoughts, +in any true sense, he had none to record. And if we can gather that he +had been a prisoner in England, that he had lived in the Orleannese, and +that he hunted and went in parties of pleasure, I believe it is about as +much definite experience as is to be found in all these five hundred +pages of autobiographical verse. Doubtless, we find here and there a +complaint on the progress of the infirmities of age. Doubtless, he feels +the great change of the year, and distinguishes winter from spring; +winter as the time of snow and the fireside; spring as the return of +grass and flowers, the time of St. Valentine’s day and a beating heart. +And he feels love after a fashion. Again and again, we learn that +Charles of Orleans is in love, and hear him ring the changes through the +whole gamut of dainty and tender sentiment. But there is never a spark +of passion; and heaven alone knows whether there was any real woman in +the matter, or the whole thing was an exercise in fancy. If these poems +were indeed inspired by some living mistress, one would think he had +never seen, never heard, and never touched her. There is nothing in any +one of these so numerous love-songs to indicate who or what the lady was. +Was she dark or fair, passionate or gentle like himself, witty or simple? +Was it always one woman? or are there a dozen here immortalised in cold +indistinction? The old English translator mentions gray eyes in his +version of one of the amorous rondels; so far as I remember, he was +driven by some emergency of the verse; but in the absence of all sharp +lines of character and anything specific, we feel for the moment a sort +of surprise, as though the epithet were singularly happy and unusual, or +as though we had made our escape from cloudland into something tangible +and sure. The measure of Charles’s indifference to all that now +preoccupies and excites a poet, is best given by a positive example. If, +besides the coming of spring, any one external circumstance may be said +to have struck his imagination, it was the despatch of _fourriers_, while +on a journey, to prepare the night’s lodging. This seems to be his +favourite image; it reappears like the upas-tree in the early work of +Coleridge: we may judge with what childish eyes he looked upon the world, +if one of the sights which most impressed him was that of a man going to +order dinner. + +Although they are not inspired by any deeper motive than the common run +of contemporaneous drawing-room verses, those of Charles of Orleans are +executed with inimitable lightness and delicacy of touch. They deal with +floating and colourless sentiments, and the writer is never greatly +moved, but he seems always genuine. He makes no attempt to set off thin +conceptions with a multiplicity of phrases. His ballades are generally +thin and scanty of import; for the ballade presented too large a canvas, +and he was preoccupied by technical requirements. But in the rondel he +has put himself before all competitors by a happy knack and a prevailing +distinction of manner. He is very much more of a duke in his verses than +in his absurd and inconsequential career as a statesman; and how he shows +himself a duke is precisely by the absence of all pretension, turgidity, +or emphasis. He turns verses, as he would have come into the king’s +presence, with a quiet accomplishment of grace. + +Théodore de Banville, the youngest poet of a famous generation now nearly +extinct, and himself a sure and finished artist, knocked off, in his +happiest vein, a few experiments in imitation of Charles of Orleans. I +would recommend these modern rondels to all who care about the old duke, +not only because they are delightful in themselves, but because they +serve as a contrast to throw into relief the peculiarities of their +model. When de Banville revives a forgotten form of verse—and he has +already had the honour of reviving the ballade—he does it in the spirit +of a workman choosing a good tool wherever he can find one, and not at +all in that of the dilettante, who seeks to renew bygone forms of thought +and make historic forgeries. With the ballade this seemed natural +enough; for in connection with ballades the mind recurs to Villon, and +Villon was almost more of a modern than de Banville himself. But in the +case of the rondel, a comparison is challenged with Charles of Orleans, +and the difference between two ages and two literatures is illustrated in +a few poems of thirteen lines. Something, certainly, has been retained +of the old movement; the refrain falls in time like a well-played bass; +and the very brevity of the thing, by hampering and restraining the +greater fecundity of the modern mind, assists the imitation. But de +Banville’s poems are full of form and colour; they smack racily of modern +life, and own small kindred with the verse of other days, when it seems +as if men walked by twilight, seeing little, and that with distracted +eyes, and instead of blood, some thin and spectral fluid circulated in +their veins. They might gird themselves for battle, make love, eat and +drink, and acquit themselves manfully in all the external parts of life; +but of the life that is within, and those processes by which we render +ourselves an intelligent account of what we feel and do, and so represent +experience that we for the first time make it ours, they had only a loose +and troubled possession. They beheld or took part in great events, but +there was no answerable commotion in their reflective being; and they +passed throughout turbulent epochs in a sort of ghostly quiet and +abstraction. Feeling seems to have been strangely disproportioned to the +occasion, and words were laughably trivial and scanty to set forth the +feeling even such as it was. Juvenal des Ursins chronicles calamity +after calamity, with but one comment for them all: that “it was great +pity.” Perhaps, after too much of our florid literature, we find an +adventitious charm in what is so different; and while the big drums are +beaten every day by perspiring editors over the loss of a cock-boat or +the rejection of a clause, and nothing is heard that is not proclaimed +with sound of trumpet, it is not wonderful if we retire with pleasure +into old books, and listen to authors who speak small and clear, as if in +a private conversation. Truly this is so with Charles of Orleans. We +are pleased to find a small man without the buskin, and obvious +sentiments stated without affectation. If the sentiments are obvious, +there is all the more chance we may have experienced the like. As we +turn over the leaves, we may find ourselves in sympathy with some one or +other of these staid joys and smiling sorrows. If we do we shall be +strangely pleased, for there is a genuine pathos in these simple words, +and the lines go with a lilt, and sing themselves to music of their own. + + + + +SAMUEL PEPYS. + + +IN two books a fresh light has recently been thrown on the character and +position of Samuel Pepys. Mr. Mynors Bright has given us a new +transcription of the Diary, increasing it in bulk by near a third, +correcting many errors, and completing our knowledge of the man in some +curious and important points. We can only regret that he has taken +liberties with the author and the public. It is no part of the duties of +the editor of an established classic to decide what may or may not be +“tedious to the reader.” The book is either an historical document or +not, and in condemning Lord Braybrooke Mr. Bright condemns himself. As +for the time-honoured phrase, “unfit for publication,” without being +cynical, we may regard it as the sign of a precaution more or less +commercial; and we may think, without being sordid, that when we purchase +six huge and distressingly expensive volumes, we are entitled to be +treated rather more like scholars and rather less like children. But Mr. +Bright may rest assured: while we complain, we are still grateful. Mr. +Wheatley, to divide our obligation, brings together, clearly and with no +lost words, a body of illustrative material. Sometimes we might ask a +little more; never, I think, less. And as a matter of fact, a great part +of Mr. Wheatley’s volume might be transferred, by a good editor of Pepys, +to the margin of the text, for it is precisely what the reader wants. + +In the light of these two books, at least, we have now to read our +author. Between them they contain all we can expect to learn for, it may +be, many years. Now, if ever we should be able to form some notion of +that unparalleled figure in the annals of mankind—unparalleled for three +good reasons: first, because he was a man known to his contemporaries in +a halo of almost historical pomp, and to his remote descendants with an +indecent familiarity, like a tap-room comrade; second, because he has +outstripped all competitors in the art or virtue of a conscious honesty +about oneself; and, third, because, being in many ways a very ordinary +person, he has yet placed himself before the public eye with such a +fulness and such an intimacy of detail as might be envied by a genius +like Montaigne. Not then for his own sake only, but as a character in a +unique position, endowed with a unique talent, and shedding a unique +light upon the lives of the mass of mankind, he is surely worthy of +prolonged and patient study. + + + +THE DIARY. + + +That there should be such a book as Pepys’s Diary is incomparably +strange. Pepys, in a corrupt and idle period, played the man in public +employments, toiling hard and keeping his honour bright. Much of the +little good that is set down to James the Second comes by right to Pepys; +and if it were little for a king, it is much for a subordinate. To his +clear, capable head was owing somewhat of the greatness of England on the +seas. In the exploits of Hawke, Rodney, or Nelson, this dead Mr. Pepys +of the Navy Office had some considerable share. He stood well by his +business in the appalling plague of 1666. He was loved and respected by +some of the best and wisest men in England. He was President of the +Royal Society; and when he came to die, people said of his conduct in +that solemn hour—thinking it needless to say more—that it was answerable +to the greatness of his life. Thus he walked in dignity, guards of +soldiers sometimes attending him in his walks, subalterns bowing before +his periwig; and when he uttered his thoughts they were suitable to his +state and services. On February 8, 1668, we find him writing to Evelyn, +his mind bitterly occupied with the late Dutch war, and some thoughts of +the different story of the repulse of the Great Armada: “Sir, you will +not wonder at the backwardness of my thanks for the present you made me, +so many days since, of the Prospect of the Medway, while the Hollander +rode master in it, when I have told you that the sight of it hath led me +to such reflections on my particular interest, by my employment, in the +reproach due to that miscarriage, as have given me little less disquiet +than he is fancied to have who found his face in Michael Angelo’s hell. +The same should serve me also in excuse for my silence in celebrating +your mastery shown in the design and draught, did not indignation rather +than courtship urge me so far to commend them, as to wish the furniture +of our House of Lords changed from the story of ’88 to that of ’67 (of +Evelyn’s designing), till the pravity of this were reformed to the temper +of that age, wherein God Almighty found his blessings more operative +than, I fear, he doth in ours his judgments.” + +This is a letter honourable to the writer, where the meaning rather than +the words is eloquent. Such was the account he gave of himself to his +contemporaries; such thoughts he chose to utter, and in such language: +giving himself out for a grave and patriotic public servant. We turn to +the same date in the Diary by which he is known, after two centuries, to +his descendants. The entry begins in the same key with the letter, +blaming the “madness of the House of Commons” and “the base proceedings, +just the epitome of all our public proceedings in this age, of the House +of Lords;” and then, without the least transition, this is how our +diarist proceeds: “To the Strand, to my bookseller’s, and there bought an +idle, rogueish French book, _L’escholle des Filles_, which I have bought +in plain binding, avoiding the buying of it better bound, because I +resolve, as soon as I have read it, to burn it, that it may not stand in +the list of books, nor among them, to disgrace them, if it should be +found.” Even in our day, when responsibility is so much more clearly +apprehended, the man who wrote the letter would be notable; but what +about the man, I do not say who bought a roguish book, but who was +ashamed of doing so, yet did it, and recorded both the doing and the +shame in the pages of his daily journal? + +We all, whether we write or speak, must somewhat drape ourselves when we +address our fellows; at a given moment we apprehend our character and +acts by some particular side; we are merry with one, grave with another, +as befits the nature and demands of the relation. Pepys’s letter to +Evelyn would have little in common with that other one to Mrs. Knipp +which he signed by the pseudonym of _Dapper Dicky_; yet each would be +suitable to the character of his correspondent. There is no untruth in +this, for man, being a Protean animal, swiftly shares and changes with +his company and surroundings; and these changes are the better part of +his education in the world. To strike a posture once for all, and to +march through life like a drum-major, is to be highly disagreeable to +others and a fool for oneself into the bargain. To Evelyn and to Knipp +we understand the double facing; but to whom was he posing in the Diary, +and what, in the name of astonishment, was the nature of the pose? Had +he suppressed all mention of the book, or had he bought it, gloried in +the act, and cheerfully recorded his glorification, in either case we +should have made him out. But no; he is full of precautions to conceal +the “disgrace” of the purchase, and yet speeds to chronicle the whole +affair in pen and ink. It is a sort of anomaly in human action, which we +can exactly parallel from another part of the Diary. + +Mrs. Pepys had written a paper of her too just complaints against her +husband, and written it in plain and very pungent English. Pepys, in an +agony lest the world should come to see it, brutally seizes and destroys +the tell-tale document; and then—you disbelieve your eyes—down goes the +whole story with unsparing truth and in the cruellest detail. It seems +he has no design but to appear respectable, and here he keeps a private +book to prove he was not. You are at first faintly reminded of some of +the vagaries of the morbid religious diarist; but at a moment’s thought +the resemblance disappears. The design of Pepys is not at all to edify; +it is not from repentance that he chronicles his peccadilloes, for he +tells us when he does repent, and, to be just to him, there often follows +some improvement. Again, the sins of the religious diarist are of a very +formal pattern, and are told with an elaborate whine. But in Pepys you +come upon good, substantive misdemeanours; beams in his eye of which he +alone remains unconscious; healthy outbreaks of the animal nature, and +laughable subterfuges to himself that always command belief and often +engage the sympathies. + +Pepys was a young man for his age, came slowly to himself in the world, +sowed his wild oats late, took late to industry, and preserved till +nearly forty the headlong gusto of a boy. So, to come rightly at the +spirit in which the Diary was written, we must recall a class of +sentiments which with most of us are over and done before the age of +twelve. In our tender years we still preserve a freshness of surprise at +our prolonged existence; events make an impression out of all proportion +to their consequence; we are unspeakably touched by our own past +adventures, and look forward to our future personality with sentimental +interest. It was something of this, I think, that clung to Pepys. +Although not sentimental in the abstract, he was sweetly sentimental +about himself. His own past clung about his heart, an evergreen. He was +the slave of an association. He could not pass by Islington, where his +father used to carry him to cakes and ale, but he must light at the +“King’s Head” and eat and drink “for remembrance of the old house sake.” +He counted it good fortune to lie a night at Epsom to renew his old +walks, “where Mrs. Hely and I did use to walk and talk, with whom I had +the first sentiments of love and pleasure in a woman’s company, discourse +and taking her by the hand, she being a pretty woman.” He goes about +weighing up the _Assurance_, which lay near Woolwich underwater, and +cries in a parenthesis, “Poor ship, that I have been twice merry in, in +Captain Holland’s time;” and after revisiting the _Naseby_, now changed +into the _Charles_, he confesses “it was a great pleasure to myself to +see the ship that I began my good fortune in.” The stone that he was cut +for he preserved in a case; and to the Turners he kept alive such +gratitude for their assistance that for years, and after he had begun to +mount himself into higher zones, he continued to have that family to +dinner on the anniversary of the operation. Not Hazlitt nor Rousseau had +a more romantic passion for their past, although at times they might +express it more romantically; and if Pepys shared with them this childish +fondness, did not Rousseau, who left behind him the _Confessions_, or +Hazlitt, who wrote the _Liber Amoris_, and loaded his essays with loving +personal detail, share with Pepys in his unwearied egotism? For the two +things go hand in hand; or, to be more exact, it is the first that makes +the second either possible or pleasing. + +But, to be quite in sympathy with Pepys, we must return once more to the +experience of children. I can remember to have written, in the fly-leaf +of more than one book, the date and the place where I then was—if, for +instance, I was ill in bed or sitting in a certain garden; these were +jottings for my future self; if I should chance on such a note in after +years, I thought it would cause me a particular thrill to recognise +myself across the intervening distance. Indeed, I might come upon them +now, and not be moved one tittle—which shows that I have comparatively +failed in life, and grown older than Samuel Pepys. For in the Diary we +can find more than one such note of perfect childish egotism; as when he +explains that his candle is going out, “which makes me write thus +slobberingly;” or as in this incredible particularity, “To my study, +where I only wrote thus much of this day’s passages to this *, and so out +again;” or lastly, as here, with more of circumstance: “I staid up till +the bellman came by with his bell under my window, _as I was writing of +this very line_, and cried, ‘Past one of the clock, and a cold, frosty, +windy morning.’” Such passages are not to be misunderstood. The appeal +to Samuel Pepys years hence is unmistakable. He desires that dear, +though unknown, gentleman keenly to realise his predecessor; to remember +why a passage was uncleanly written; to recall (let us fancy, with a +sigh) the tones of the bellman, the chill of the early, windy morning, +and the very line his own romantic self was scribing at the moment. The +man, you will perceive, was making reminiscences—a sort of pleasure by +ricochet, which comforts many in distress, and turns some others into +sentimental libertines: and the whole book, if you will but look at it in +that way, is seen to be a work of art to Pepys’s own address. + +Here, then, we have the key to that remarkable attitude preserved by him +throughout his Diary, to that unflinching—I had almost said, that +unintelligent—sincerity which makes it a miracle among human books. He +was not unconscious of his errors—far from it; he was often startled into +shame, often reformed, often made and broke his vows of change. But +whether he did ill or well, he was still his own unequalled self; still +that entrancing _ego_ of whom alone he cared to write; and still sure of +his own affectionate indulgence, when the parts should be changed, and +the Writer come to read what he had written. Whatever he did, or said, +or thought, or suffered, it was still a trait of Pepys, a character of +his career; and as, to himself, he was more interesting than Moses or +than Alexander, so all should be faithfully set down. I have called his +Diary a work of art. Now when the artist has found something, word or +deed, exactly proper to a favourite character in play or novel, he will +neither suppress nor diminish it, though the remark be silly or the act +mean. The hesitation of Hamlet, the credulity of Othello, the baseness +of Emma Bovary, or the irregularities of Mr. Swiveller, caused neither +disappointment nor disgust to their creators. And so with Pepys and his +adored protagonist: adored not blindly, but with trenchant insight and +enduring, human toleration. I have gone over and over the greater part +of the Diary; and the points where, to the most suspicious scrutiny, he +has seemed not perfectly sincere, are so few, so doubtful, and so petty, +that I am ashamed to name them. It may be said that we all of us write +such a diary in airy characters upon our brain; but I fear there is a +distinction to be made; I fear that as we render to our consciousness an +account of our daily fortunes and behaviour, we too often weave a tissue +of romantic compliments and dull excuses; and even if Pepys were the ass +and coward that men call him, we must take rank as sillier and more +cowardly than he. The bald truth about oneself, what we are all too +timid to admit when we are not too dull to see it, that was what he saw +clearly and set down unsparingly. + +It is improbable that the Diary can have been carried on in the same +single spirit in which it was begun. Pepys was not such an ass, but he +must have perceived, as he went on, the extraordinary nature of the work +he was producing. He was a great reader, and he knew what other books +were like. It must, at least, have crossed his mind that some one might +ultimately decipher the manuscript, and he himself, with all his pains +and pleasures, be resuscitated in some later day; and the thought, +although discouraged, must have warmed his heart. He was not such an +ass, besides, but he must have been conscious of the deadly explosives, +the gun-cotton and the giant powder, he was hoarding in his drawer. Let +some contemporary light upon the journal, and Pepys was plunged for ever +in social and political disgrace. We can trace the growth of his terrors +by two facts. In 1660, while the Diary was still in its youth, he tells +about it, as a matter of course, to a lieutenant in the navy; but in +1669, when it was already near an end, he could have bitten his tongue +out, as the saying is, because he had let slip his secret to one so grave +and friendly as Sir William Coventry. And from two other facts I think +we may infer that he had entertained, even if he had not acquiesced in, +the thought of a far-distant publicity. The first is of capital +importance: the Diary was not destroyed. The second—that he took unusual +precautions to confound the cipher in “rogueish” passages—proves, beyond +question, that he was thinking of some other reader besides himself. +Perhaps while his friends were admiring the “greatness of his behaviour” +at the approach of death, he may have had a twinkling hope of +immortality. _Mens cujusque is est quisque_, said his chosen motto; and, +as he had stamped his mind with every crook and foible in the pages of +the Diary, he might feel that what he left behind him was indeed himself. +There is perhaps no other instance so remarkable of the desire of man for +publicity and an enduring name. The greatness of his life was open, yet +he longed to communicate its smallness also; and, while contemporaries +bowed before him, he must buttonhole posterity with the news that his +periwig was once alive with nits. But this thought, although I cannot +doubt he had it, was neither his first nor his deepest; it did not colour +one word that he wrote; and the Diary, for as long as he kept it, +remained what it was when he began, a private pleasure for himself. It +was his bosom secret; it added a zest to all his pleasures; he lived in +and for it, and might well write these solemn words, when he closed that +confidant for ever: “And so I betake myself to that course which is +almost as much as to see myself go into the grave; for which, and all the +discomforts that will accompany my being blind, the good God prepare me.” + + + +A LIBERAL GENIUS. + + +Pepys spent part of a certain winter Sunday, when he had taken physic, +composing “a song in praise of a liberal genius (such as I take my own to +be) to all studies and pleasures.” The song was unsuccessful, but the +Diary is, in a sense, the very song that he was seeking; and his portrait +by Hales, so admirably reproduced in Mynors Bright’s edition, is a +confirmation of the Diary. Hales, it would appear, had known his +business; and though he put his sitter to a deal of trouble, almost +breaking his neck “to have the portrait full of shadows,” and draping him +in an Indian gown hired expressly for the purpose, he was preoccupied +about no merely picturesque effects, but to portray the essence of the +man. Whether we read the picture by the Diary or the Diary by the +picture, we shall at least agree that Hales was among the number of those +who can “surprise the manners in the face.” Here we have a mouth +pouting, moist with desires; eyes greedy, protuberant, and yet apt for +weeping too; a nose great alike in character and dimensions; and +altogether a most fleshly, melting countenance. The face is attractive +by its promise of reciprocity. I have used the word _greedy_, but the +reader must not suppose that he can change it for that closely kindred +one of _hungry_, for there is here no aspiration, no waiting for better +things, but an animal joy in all that comes. It could never be the face +of an artist; it is the face of a _viveur_—kindly, pleased and pleasing, +protected from excess and upheld in contentment by the shifting +versatility of his desires. For a single desire is more rightly to be +called a lust; but there is health in a variety, where one may balance +and control another. + +The whole world, town or country, was to Pepys a garden of Armida. +Wherever he went, his steps were winged with the most eager expectation; +whatever he did, it was done with the most lively pleasure. An +insatiable curiosity in all the shows of the world and all the secrets of +knowledge, filled him brimful of the longing to travel, and supported him +in the toils of study. Rome was the dream of his life; he was never +happier than when he read or talked of the Eternal City. When he was in +Holland, he was “with child” to see any strange thing. Meeting some +friends and singing with them in a palace near the Hague, his pen fails +him to express his passion of delight, “the more so because in a heaven +of pleasure and in a strange country.” He must go to see all famous +executions. He must needs visit the body of a murdered man, defaced +“with a broad wound,” he says, “that makes my hand now shake to write of +it.” He learned to dance, and was “like to make a dancer.” He learned +to sing, and walked about Gray’s Inn Fields “humming to myself (which is +now my constant practice) the trillo.” He learned to play the lute, the +flute, the flageolet, and the theorbo, and it was not the fault of his +intention if he did not learn the harpsichord or the spinet. He learned +to compose songs, and burned to give forth “a scheme and theory of music +not yet ever made in the world.” When he heard “a fellow whistle like a +bird exceeding well,” he promised to return another day and give an angel +for a lesson in the art. Once, he writes, “I took the Bezan back with +me, and with a brave gale and tide reached up that night to the Hope, +taking great pleasure in learning the seamen’s manner of singing when +they sound the depths.” If he found himself rusty in his Latin grammar, +he must fall to it like a schoolboy. He was a member of Harrington’s +Club till its dissolution, and of the Royal Society before it had +received the name. Boyle’s _Hydrostatics_ was “of infinite delight” to +him, walking in Barnes Elms. We find him comparing Bible concordances, a +captious judge of sermons, deep in Descartes and Aristotle. We find him, +in a single year, studying timber and the measurement of timber; tar and +oil, hemp, and the process of preparing cordage; mathematics and +accounting; the hull and the rigging of ships from a model; and “looking +and improving himself of the (naval) stores with”—hark to the +fellow!—“great delight.” His familiar spirit of delight was not the same +with Shelley’s; but how true it was to him through life! He is only +copying something, and behold, he “takes great pleasure to rule the +lines, and have the capital words wrote with red ink;” he has only had +his coal-cellar emptied and cleaned, and behold, “it do please him +exceedingly.” A hog’s harslett is “a piece of meat he loves.” He cannot +ride home in my Lord Sandwich’s coach, but he must exclaim, with +breathless gusto, “his noble, rich coach.” When he is bound for a supper +party, he anticipates a “glut of pleasure.” When he has a new watch, “to +see my childishness,” says he, “I could not forbear carrying it in my +hand and seeing what o’clock it was an hundred times.” To go to +Vauxhall, he says, and “to hear the nightingales and other birds, hear +fiddles, and there a harp and here a Jew’s trump, and here laughing, and +there fine people walking, is mighty divertising.” And the nightingales, +I take it, were particularly dear to him; and it was again “with great +pleasure” that he paused to hear them as he walked to Woolwich, while the +fog was rising and the April sun broke through. + +He must always be doing something agreeable, and, by preference, two +agreeable things at once. In his house he had a box of carpenter’s +tools, two dogs, an eagle, a canary, and a blackbird that whistled tunes, +lest, even in that full life, he should chance upon an empty moment. If +he had to wait for a dish of poached eggs, he must put in the time by +playing on the flageolet; if a sermon were dull, he must read in the book +of Tobit or divert his mind with sly advances on the nearest women. When +he walked, it must be with a book in his pocket to beguile the way in +case the nightingales were silent; and even along the streets of London, +with so many pretty faces to be spied for and dignitaries to be saluted, +his trail was marked by little debts “for wine, pictures, etc.,” the true +headmark of a life intolerant of any joyless passage. He had a kind of +idealism in pleasure; like the princess in the fairy story, he was +conscious of a rose-leaf out of place. Dearly as he loved to talk, he +could not enjoy nor shine in a conversation when he thought himself +unsuitably dressed. Dearly as he loved eating, he “knew not how to eat +alone;” pleasure for him must heighten pleasure; and the eye and ear must +be flattered like the palate ere he avow himself content. He had no zest +in a good dinner when it fell to be eaten “in a bad street and in a +periwig-maker’s house;” and a collation was spoiled for him by +indifferent music. His body was indefatigable, doing him yeoman’s +service in this breathless chase of pleasures. On April 11, 1662, he +mentions that he went to bed “weary, _which I seldom am_;” and already +over thirty, he would sit up all night cheerfully to see a comet. But it +is never pleasure that exhausts the pleasure-seeker; for in that career, +as in all others, it is failure that kills. The man who enjoys so wholly +and bears so impatiently the slightest widowhood from joy, is just the +man to lose a night’s rest over some paltry question of his right to +fiddle on the leads, or to be “vexed to the blood” by a solecism in his +wife’s attire; and we find in consequence that he was always peevish when +he was hungry, and that his head “aked mightily” after a dispute. But +nothing could divert him from his aim in life; his remedy in care was the +same as his delight in prosperity; it was with pleasure, and with +pleasure only, that he sought to drive out sorrow; and, whether he was +jealous of his wife or skulking from a bailiff, he would equally take +refuge in the theatre. There, if the house be full and the company +noble, if the songs be tunable, the actors perfect, and the play +diverting, this odd hero of the secret Diary, this private self-adorer, +will speedily be healed of his distresses. + +Equally pleased with a watch, a coach, a piece of meat, a tune upon the +fiddle, or a fact in hydrostatics, Pepys was pleased yet more by the +beauty, the worth, the mirth, or the mere scenic attitude in life of his +fellow-creatures. He shows himself throughout a sterling humanist. +Indeed, he who loves himself, not in idle vanity, but with a plenitude of +knowledge, is the best equipped of all to love his neighbours. And +perhaps it is in this sense that charity may be most properly said to +begin at home. It does not matter what quality a person has: Pepys can +appreciate and love him for it. He “fills his eyes” with the beauty of +Lady Castlemaine; indeed, he may be said to dote upon the thought of her +for years; if a woman be good-looking and not painted, he will walk miles +to have another sight of her; and even when a lady by a mischance spat +upon his clothes, he was immediately consoled when he had observed that +she was pretty. But, on the other hand, he is delighted to see Mrs. Pett +upon her knees, and speaks thus of his Aunt James: “a poor, religious, +well-meaning, good soul, talking of nothing but God Almighty, and that +with so much innocence that mightily pleased me.” He is taken with Pen’s +merriment and loose songs, but not less taken with the sterling worth of +Coventry. He is jolly with a drunken sailor, but listens with interest +and patience, as he rides the Essex roads, to the story of a Quaker’s +spiritual trials and convictions. He lends a critical ear to the +discourse of kings and royal dukes. He spends an evening at Vauxhall +with “Killigrew and young Newport—loose company,” says he, “but worth a +man’s being in for once, to know the nature of it, and their manner of +talk and lives.” And when a rag-boy lights him home, he examines him +about his business and other ways of livelihood for destitute children. +This is almost half-way to the beginning of philanthropy; had it only +been the fashion, as it is at present, Pepys had perhaps been a man +famous for good deeds. And it is through this quality that he rises, at +times, superior to his surprising egotism; his interest in the love +affairs of others is, indeed, impersonal; he is filled with concern for +my Lady Castlemaine, whom he only knows by sight, shares in her very +jealousies, joys with her in her successes; and it is not untrue, however +strange it seems in his abrupt presentment, that he loved his maid Jane +because she was in love with his man Tom. + +Let us hear him, for once, at length: “So the women and W. Hewer and I +walked upon the Downes, where a flock of sheep was; and the most pleasant +and innocent sight that ever I saw in my life. We found a shepherd and +his little boy reading, far from any houses or sight of people, the Bible +to him; so I made the boy read to me, which he did with the forced tone +that children do usually read, that was mighty pretty; and then I did +give him something, and went to the father, and talked with him. He did +content himself mightily in my liking his boy’s reading, and did bless +God for him, the most like one of the old patriarchs that ever I saw in +my life, and it brought those thoughts of the old age of the world in my +mind for two or three days after. We took notice of his woolen knit +stockings of two colours mixed, and of his shoes shod with iron, both at +the toe and heels, and with great nails in the soles of his feet, which +was mighty pretty; and taking notice of them, ‘Why,’ says the poor man, +‘the downes, you see, are full of stones, and we are faine to shoe +ourselves thus; and these,’ says he, ‘will make the stones fly till they +ring before me.’ I did give the poor man something, for which he was +mighty thankful, and I tried to cast stones with his horne crooke. He +values his dog mightily, that would turn a sheep any way which he would +have him, when he goes to fold them; told me there was about eighteen +score sheep in his flock, and that he hath four shillings a week the year +round for keeping of them; and Mrs. Turner, in the common fields here, +did gather one of the prettiest nosegays that ever I saw in my life.” + +And so the story rambles on to the end of that day’s pleasuring; with +cups of milk, and glowworms, and people walking at sundown with their +wives and children, and all the way home Pepys still dreaming “of the old +age of the world” and the early innocence of man. This was how he walked +through life, his eyes and ears wide open, and his hand, you will +observe, not shut; and thus he observed the lives, the speech, and the +manners of his fellow-men, with prose fidelity of detail and yet a +lingering glamour of romance. + +It was “two or three days after” that he extended this passage in the +pages of his journal, and the style has thus the benefit of some +reflection. It is generally supposed that, as a writer, Pepys must rank +at the bottom of the scale of merit. But a style which is indefatigably +lively, telling, and picturesque through six large volumes of everyday +experience, which deals with the whole matter of a life, and yet is +rarely wearisome, which condescends to the most fastidious particulars, +and yet sweeps all away in the forthright current of the narrative,—such +a style may be ungrammatical, it may be inelegant, it may be one tissue +of mistakes, but it can never be devoid of merit. The first and the true +function of the writer has been thoroughly performed throughout; and +though the manner of his utterance may be childishly awkward, the matter +has been transformed and assimilated by his unfeigned interest and +delight. The gusto of the man speaks out fierily after all these years. +For the difference between Pepys and Shelley, to return to that +half-whimsical approximation, is one of quality but not one of degree; in +his sphere, Pepys felt as keenly, and his is the true prose of +poetry—prose because the spirit of the man was narrow and earthly, but +poetry because he was delightedly alive. Hence, in such a passage as +this about the Epsom shepherd, the result upon the reader’s mind is +entire conviction and unmingled pleasure. So, you feel, the thing fell +out, not otherwise; and you would no more change it than you would change +a sublimity of Shakespeare’s, a homely touch of Bunyan’s, or a favoured +reminiscence of your own. + +There never was a man nearer being an artist, who yet was not one. The +tang was in the family; while he was writing the journal for our +enjoyment in his comely house in Navy Gardens, no fewer than two of his +cousins were tramping the fens, kit under arm, to make music to the +country girls. But he himself, though he could play so many instruments +and pass judgment in so many fields of art, remained an amateur. It is +not given to any one so keenly to enjoy, without some greater power to +understand. That he did not like Shakespeare as an artist for the stage +may be a fault, but it is not without either parallel or excuse. He +certainly admired him as a poet; he was the first beyond mere actors on +the rolls of that innumerable army who have got “To be or not to be” by +heart. Nor was he content with that; it haunted his mind; he quoted it +to himself in the pages of the Diary, and, rushing in where angels fear +to tread, he set it to music. Nothing, indeed, is more notable than the +heroic quality of the verses that our little sensualist in a periwig +chose out to marry with his own mortal strains. Some gust from brave +Elizabethan times must have warmed his spirit, as he sat tuning his +sublime theorbo. “To be or not to be. Whether ’tis nobler”—“Beauty +retire, thou dost my pity move”—“It is decreed, nor shall thy fate, O +Rome;”—open and dignified in the sound, various and majestic in the +sentiment, it was no inapt, as it was certainly no timid, spirit that +selected such a range of themes. Of “Gaze not on Swans,” I know no more +than these four words; yet that also seems to promise well. It was, +however, on a probable suspicion, the work of his master, Mr. +Berkenshaw—as the drawings that figure at the breaking up of a young +ladies’ seminary are the work of the professor attached to the +establishment. Mr. Berkenshaw was not altogether happy in his pupil. +The amateur cannot usually rise into the artist, some leaven of the world +still clogging him; and we find Pepys behaving like a pickthank to the +man who taught him composition. In relation to the stage, which he so +warmly loved and understood, he was not only more hearty, but more +generous to others. Thus he encounters Colonel Reames, “a man,” says he, +“who understands and loves a play as well as I, and I love him for it.” +And again, when he and his wife had seen a most ridiculous insipid piece, +“Glad we were,” he writes, “that Betterton had no part in it.” It is by +such a zeal and loyalty to those who labour for his delight that the +amateur grows worthy of the artist. And it should be kept in mind that, +not only in art, but in morals, Pepys rejoiced to recognise his betters. +There was not one speck of envy in the whole human-hearted egotist. + + + +RESPECTABILITY. + + +When writers inveigh against respectability, in the present degraded +meaning of the word, they are usually suspected of a taste for clay pipes +and beer cellars; and their performances are thought to hail from the +_Owl’s Nest_ of the comedy. They have something more, however, in their +eye than the dulness of a round million dinner parties that sit down +yearly in old England. For to do anything because others do it, and not +because the thing is good, or kind, or honest in its own right, is to +resign all moral control and captaincy upon yourself, and go post-haste +to the devil with the greater number. We smile over the ascendency of +priests; but I had rather follow a priest than what they call the leaders +of society. No life can better than that of Pepys illustrate the dangers +of this respectable theory of living. For what can be more untoward than +the occurrence, at a critical period and while the habits are still +pliable, of such a sweeping transformation as the return of Charles the +Second? Round went the whole fleet of England on the other tack; and +while a few tall pintas, Milton or Pen, still sailed a lonely course by +the stars and their own private compass, the cock-boat, Pepys, must go +about with the majority among “the stupid starers and the loud huzzas.” + +The respectable are not led so much by any desire of applause as by a +positive need for countenance. The weaker and the tamer the man, the +more will he require this support; and any positive quality relieves him, +by just so much, of this dependence. In a dozen ways, Pepys was quite +strong enough to please himself without regard for others; but his +positive qualities were not co-extensive with the field of conduct; and +in many parts of life he followed, with gleeful precision, in the +footprints of the contemporary Mrs. Grundy. In morals, particularly, he +lived by the countenance of others; felt a slight from another more +keenly than a meanness in himself; and then first repented when he was +found out. You could talk of religion or morality to such a man; and by +the artist side of him, by his lively sympathy and apprehension, he could +rise, as it were dramatically, to the significance of what you said. All +that matter in religion which has been nicknamed other-worldliness was +strictly in his gamut; but a rule of life that should make a man rudely +virtuous, following right in good report and ill report, was foolishness +and a stumbling-block to Pepys. He was much thrown across the Friends; +and nothing can be more instructive than his attitude towards these most +interesting people of that age. I have mentioned how he conversed with +one as he rode; when he saw some brought from a meeting under arrest, “I +would to God,” said he, “they would either conform, or be more wise and +not be catched;” and to a Quaker in his own office he extended a timid +though effectual protection. Meanwhile there was growing up next door to +him that beautiful nature William Pen. It is odd that Pepys condemned +him for a fop; odd, though natural enough when you see Pen’s portrait, +that Pepys was jealous of him with his wife. But the cream of the story +is when Pen publishes his _Sandy Foundation Shaken_, and Pepys has it +read aloud by his wife. “I find it,” he says, “so well writ as, I think, +it is too good for him ever to have writ it; and it is a serious sort of +book, and _not fit for everybody to read_.” Nothing is more galling to +the merely respectable than to be brought in contact with religious +ardour. Pepys had his own foundation, sandy enough, but dear to him from +practical considerations, and he would read the book with true uneasiness +of spirit; for conceive the blow if, by some plaguy accident, this Pen +were to convert him! It was a different kind of doctrine that he judged +profitable for himself and others. “A good sermon of Mr. Gifford’s at +our church, upon ‘Seek ye first the kingdom of heaven.’ A very excellent +and persuasive, good and moral sermon. He showed, like a wise man, that +righteousness is a surer moral way of being rich than sin and villainy.” +It is thus that respectable people desire to have their Greathearts +address them, telling, in mild accents, how you may make the best of both +worlds, and be a moral hero without courage, kindness, or troublesome +reflection; and thus the Gospel, cleared of Eastern metaphor, becomes a +manual of worldly prudence, and a handybook for Pepys and the successful +merchant. + +The respectability of Pepys was deeply grained. He has no idea of truth +except for the Diary. He has no care that a thing shall be, if it but +appear; gives out that he has inherited a good estate, when he has +seemingly got nothing but a lawsuit; and is pleased to be thought liberal +when he knows he has been mean. He is conscientiously ostentatious. I +say conscientiously, with reason. He could never have been taken for a +fop, like Pen, but arrayed himself in a manner nicely suitable to his +position. For long he hesitated to assume the famous periwig; for a +public man should travel gravely with the fashions not foppishly before, +nor dowdily behind, the central movement of his age. For long he durst +not keep a carriage; that, in his circumstances would have been improper; +but a time comes, with the growth of his fortune, when the impropriety +has shifted to the other side, and he is “ashamed to be seen in a +hackney.” Pepys talked about being “a Quaker or some very melancholy +thing;” for my part, I can imagine nothing so melancholy, because nothing +half so silly, as to be concerned about such problems. But so +respectability and the duties of society haunt and burden their poor +devotees; and what seems at first the very primrose path of life, proves +difficult and thorny like the rest. And the time comes to Pepys, as to +all the merely respectable, when he must not only order his pleasures, +but even clip his virtuous movements, to the public pattern of the age. +There was some juggling among officials to avoid direct taxation; and +Pepys, with a noble impulse, growing ashamed of this dishonesty, designed +to charge himself with £1000; but finding none to set him an example, +“nobody of our ablest merchants” with this moderate liking for clean +hands, he judged it “not decent;” he feared it would “be thought vain +glory;” and, rather than appear singular, cheerfully remained a thief. +One able merchant’s countenance, and Pepys had dared to do an honest act! +Had he found one brave spirit, properly recognised by society, he might +have gone far as a disciple. Mrs. Turner, it is true, can fill him full +of sordid scandal, and make him believe, against the testimony of his +senses, that Pen’s venison pasty stank like the devil; but, on the other +hand, Sir William Coventry can raise him by a word into another being. +Pepys, when he is with Coventry, talks in the vein of an old Roman. What +does he care for office or emolument? “Thank God, I have enough of my +own,” says he, “to buy me a good book and a good fiddle, and I have a +good wife.” And again, we find this pair projecting an old age when an +ungrateful country shall have dismissed them from the field of public +service; Coventry living retired in a fine house, and Pepys dropping in, +“it may be, to read a chapter of Seneca.” + +Under this influence, the only good one in his life, Pepys continued +zealous and, for the period, pure in his employment. He would not be +“bribed to be unjust,” he says, though he was “not so squeamish as to +refuse a present after,” suppose the king to have received no wrong. His +new arrangement for the victualling of Tangier he tells us with honest +complacency, will save the king a thousand and gain Pepys three hundred +pounds a year,—a statement which exactly fixes the degree of the age’s +enlightenment. But for his industry and capacity no praise can be too +high. It was an unending struggle for the man to stick to his business +in such a garden of Armida as he found this life; and the story of his +oaths, so often broken, so courageously renewed, is worthy rather of +admiration that the contempt it has received. + +Elsewhere, and beyond the sphere of Coventry’s influence, we find him +losing scruples and daily complying further with the age. When he began +the journal, he was a trifle prim and puritanic; merry enough, to be +sure, over his private cups, and still remembering Magdalene ale and his +acquaintance with Mrs. Ainsworth of Cambridge. But youth is a hot season +with all; when a man smells April and May he is apt at times to stumble; +and in spite of a disordered practice, Pepys’s theory, the better things +that he approved and followed after, we may even say were strict. Where +there was “tag, rag, and bobtail, dancing, singing, and drinking,” he +felt “ashamed, and went away;” and when he slept in church, he prayed God +forgive him. In but a little while we find him with some ladies keeping +each other awake “from spite,” as though not to sleep in church were an +obvious hardship; and yet later he calmly passes the time of service, +looking about him, with a perspective glass, on all the pretty women. +His favourite ejaculation, “Lord!” occurs but once that I have observed +in 1660, never in ’61, twice in ’62, and at least five times in ’63; +after which the “Lords” may be said to pullulate like herrings, with here +and there a solitary “damned,” as it were a whale among the shoal. He +and his wife, once filled with dudgeon by some innocent freedoms at a +marriage, are soon content to go pleasuring with my Lord Brouncker’s +mistress, who was not even, by his own account, the most discreet of +mistresses. Tag, rag, and bobtail, dancing, singing, and drinking, +become his natural element; actors and actresses and drunken, roaring +courtiers are to be found in his society; until the man grew so involved +with Saturnalian manners and companions that he was shot almost +unconsciously into the grand domestic crash of 1668. + +That was the legitimate issue and punishment of years of staggering walk +and conversation. The man who has smoked his pipe for half a century in +a powder magazine finds himself at last the author and the victim of a +hideous disaster. So with our pleasant-minded Pepys and his +peccadilloes. All of a sudden, as he still trips dexterously enough +among the dangers of a double-faced career, thinking no great evil, +humming to himself the trillo, Fate takes the further conduct of that +matter from his hands, and brings him face to face with the consequences +of his acts. For a man still, after so many years, the lover, although +not the constant lover, of his wife,—for a man, besides, who was so +greatly careful of appearances,—the revelation of his infidelities was a +crushing blow. The tears that he shed, the indignities that he endured, +are not to be measured. A vulgar woman, and now justly incensed, Mrs. +Pepys spared him no detail of suffering. She was violent, threatening +him with the tongs; she was careless of his honour, driving him to insult +the mistress whom she had driven him to betray and to discard; worst of +all, she was hopelessly inconsequent, in word and thought and deed, now +lulling him with reconciliations, and anon flaming forth again with the +original anger. Pepys had not used his wife well; he had wearied her +with jealousies, even while himself unfaithful; he had grudged her +clothes and pleasures, while lavishing both upon himself; he had abused +her in words; he had bent his fist at her in anger; he had once blacked +her eye; and it is one of the oddest particulars in that odd Diary of +his, that, while the injury is referred to once in passing, there is no +hint as to the occasion or the manner of the blow. But now, when he is +in the wrong, nothing can exceed the long-suffering affection of this +impatient husband. While he was still sinning and still undiscovered, he +seems not to have known a touch of penitence stronger than what might +lead him to take his wife to the theatre, or for an airing, or to give +her a new dress, by way of compensation. Once found out, however, and he +seems to himself to have lost all claim to decent usage. It is perhaps +the strongest instance of his externality. His wife may do what she +pleases, and though he may groan, it will never occur to him to blame +her; he has no weapon left but tears and the most abject submission. We +should perhaps have respected him more had he not given way so +utterly—above all, had he refused to write, under his wife’s dictation, +an insulting letter to his unhappy fellow-culprit, Miss Willet; but +somehow I believe we like him better as he was. + +The death of his wife, following so shortly after, must have stamped the +impression of this episode upon his mind. For the remaining years of his +long life we have no Diary to help us, and we have seen already how +little stress is to be laid upon the tenor of his correspondence; but +what with the recollection of the catastrophe of his married life, what +with the natural influence of his advancing years and reputation, it +seems not unlikely that the period of gallantry was at an end for Pepys; +and it is beyond a doubt that he sat down at last to an honoured and +agreeable old age among his books and music, the correspondent of Sir +Isaac Newton, and, in one instance at least the poetical counsellor of +Dryden. Through all this period, that Diary which contained the secret +memoirs of his life, with all its inconsistencies and escapades, had been +religiously preserved; nor, when he came to die, does he appear to have +provided for its destruction. So we may conceive him faithful to the end +to all his dear and early memories; still mindful of Mrs. Hely in the +woods at Epsom; still lighting at Islington for a cup of kindness to the +dead; still, if he heard again that air that once so much disturbed him, +thrilling at the recollection of the love that bound him to his wife. + + + + +JOHN KNOX AND HIS RELATIONS TO WOMEN. + + +I.—THE CONTROVERSY ABOUT FEMALE RULE. + + +WHEN first the idea became widely spread among men that the Word of God, +instead of being truly the foundation of all existing institutions, was +rather a stone which the builders had rejected, it was but natural that +the consequent havoc among received opinions should be accompanied by the +generation of many new and lively hopes for the future. Somewhat as in +the early days of the French Revolution, men must have looked for an +immediate and universal improvement in their condition. Christianity, up +to that time, had been somewhat of a failure politically. The reason was +now obvious, the capital flaw was detected, the sickness of the body +politic traced at last to its efficient cause. It was only necessary to +put the Bible thoroughly into practice, to set themselves strenuously to +realise in life the Holy Commonwealth, and all abuses and iniquities +would surely pass away. Thus, in a pageant played at Geneva in the year +1523, the world was represented as a sick man at the end of his wits for +help, to whom his doctor recommends Lutheran specifics. {329} The +Reformers themselves had set their affections in a different world, and +professed to look for the finished result of their endeavours on the +other side of death. They took no interest in politics as such; they +even condemned political action as Antichristian: notably, Luther in the +case of the Peasants’ War. And yet, as the purely religious question was +inseparably complicated with political difficulties, and they had to make +opposition, from day to day, against principalities and powers, they were +led, one after another, and again and again, to leave the sphere which +was more strictly their own, and meddle, for good and evil, with the +affairs of State. Not much was to be expected from interference in such +a spirit. Whenever a minister found himself galled or hindered, he would +be inclined to suppose some contravention of the Bible. Whenever +Christian liberty was restrained (and Christian liberty for each +individual would be about coextensive with what he wished to do), it was +obvious that the State was Antichristian. The great thing, and the one +thing, was to push the Gospel and the Reformers’ own interpretation of +it. Whatever helped was good; whatever hindered was evil; and if this +simple classification proved inapplicable over the whole field, it was no +business of his to stop and reconcile incongruities. He had more +pressing concerns on hand; he had to save souls; he had to be about his +Father’s business. This short-sighted view resulted in a doctrine that +was actually Jesuitical in application. They had no serious ideas upon +politics, and they were ready, nay, they seemed almost bound, to adopt +and support whichever ensured for the moment the greatest benefit to the +souls of their fellow-men. They were dishonest in all sincerity. Thus +Labitte, in the introduction to a book {330a} in which he exposes the +hypocritical democracy of the Catholics under the League, steps aside for +a moment to stigmatise the hypocritical democracy of the Protestants. +And nowhere was this expediency in political questions more apparent than +about the question of female sovereignty. So much was this the case that +one James Thomasius, of Leipsic, wrote a little paper {330b} about the +religious partialities of those who took part in the controversy, in +which some of these learned disputants cut a very sorry figure. + +Now Knox has been from the first a man well hated; and it is somewhat +characteristic of his luck that he figures here in the very forefront of +the list of partial scribes who trimmed their doctrine with the wind in +all good conscience, and were political weathercocks out of conviction. +Not only has Thomasius mentioned him, but Bayle has taken the hint from +Thomasius, and dedicated a long note to the matter at the end of his +article on the Scotch Reformer. This is a little less than fair. If any +one among the evangelists of that period showed more serious political +sense than another, it was assuredly Knox; and even in this very matter +of female rule, although I do not suppose any one nowadays will feel +inclined to endorse his sentiments, I confess I can make great allowance +for his conduct. The controversy, besides, has an interest of its own, +in view of later controversies. + +John Knox, from 1556 to 1559, was resident in Geneva, as minister, +jointly with Goodman, of a little church of English refugees. He and his +congregation were banished from England by one woman, Mary Tudor, and +proscribed in Scotland by another, the Regent Mary of Guise. The +coincidence was tempting: here were many abuses centring about one abuse; +here was Christ’s Gospel persecuted in the two kingdoms by one anomalous +power. He had not far to go to find the idea that female government was +anomalous. It was an age, indeed, in which women, capable and incapable, +played a conspicuous part upon the stage of European history; and yet +their rule, whatever may have been the opinion of here and there a wise +man or enthusiast, was regarded as an anomaly by the great bulk of their +contemporaries. It was defended as an anomaly. It, and all that +accompanied and sanctioned it, was set aside as a single exception; and +no one thought of reasoning down from queens and extending their +privileges to ordinary women. Great ladies, as we know, had the +privilege of entering into monasteries and cloisters, otherwise forbidden +to their sex. As with one thing, so with another. Thus, Margaret of +Navarre wrote books with great acclamation, and no one, seemingly, saw +fit to call her conduct in question; but Mademoiselle de Gournay, +Montaigne’s adopted daughter, was in a controversy with the world as to +whether a woman might be an author without incongruity. Thus, too, we +have Théodore Agrippa d’Aubigné writing to his daughters about the +learned women of his century, and cautioning them, in conclusion, that +the study of letters was unsuited to ladies of a middling station, and +should be reserved for princesses. {333a} And once more, if we desire to +see the same principle carried to ludicrous extreme, we shall find that +Reverend Father in God the Abbot of Brantôme, claiming, on the authority +of some lord of his acquaintance, a privilege, or rather a duty, of free +love for great princesses, and carefully excluding other ladies from the +same gallant dispensation. {333b} One sees the spirit in which these +immunities were granted; and how they were but the natural consequence of +that awe for courts and kings that made the last writer tell us, with +simple wonder, how Catherine de Medici would “laugh her fill just like +another” over the humours of pantaloons and zanies. And such servility +was, of all things, what would touch most nearly the republican spirit of +Knox. It was not difficult for him to set aside this weak scruple of +loyalty. The lantern of his analysis did not always shine with a very +serviceable light; but he had the virtue, at least, to carry it into many +places of fictitious holiness, and was not abashed by the tinsel divinity +that hedged kings and queens from his contemporaries. And so he could +put the proposition in the form already mentioned: there was Christ’s +Gospel persecuted in the two kingdoms by one anomalous power plainly, +then, the “regiment of women” was Antichristian. Early in 1558 he +communicated this discovery to the world, by publishing at Geneva his +notorious book—_The First Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous +Regiment of Women_. {334} + +As a whole, it is a dull performance; but the preface, as is usual with +Knox, is both interesting and morally fine. Knox was not one of those +who are humble in the hour of triumph; he was aggressive even when things +were at their worst. He had a grim reliance in himself, or rather in his +mission; if he were not sure that he was a great man, he was at least +sure that he was one set apart to do great things. And he judged simply +that whatever passed in his mind, whatever moved him to flee from +persecution instead of constantly facing it out, or, as here, to publish +and withhold his name from the title-page of a critical work, would not +fail to be of interest, perhaps of benefit, to the world. There may be +something more finely sensitive in the modern humour, that tends more and +more to withdraw a man’s personality from the lessons he inculcates or +the cause that he has espoused; but there is a loss herewith of wholesome +responsibility; and when we find in the works of Knox, as in the Epistles +of Paul, the man himself standing nakedly forward, courting and +anticipating criticism, putting his character, as it were, in pledge for +the sincerity of his doctrine, we had best waive the question of +delicacy, and make our acknowledgments for a lesson of courage, not +unnecessary in these days of anonymous criticism, and much light, +otherwise unattainable, on the spirit in which great movements were +initiated and carried forward. Knox’s personal revelations are always +interesting; and, in the case of the “First Blast,” as I have said, there +is no exception to the rule. He begins by stating the solemn +responsibility of all who are watchmen over God’s flock; and all are +watchmen (he goes on to explain, with that fine breadth of spirit that +characterises him even when, as here, he shows himself most narrow), all +are watchmen “whose eyes God doth open, and whose conscience he pricketh +to admonish the ungodly.” And with the full consciousness of this great +duty before him, he sets himself to answer the scruples of timorous or +worldly-minded people. How can a man repent, he asks, unless the nature +of his transgression is made plain to him? “And therefore I say,” he +continues, “that of necessity it is that this monstriferous empire of +women (which among all enormities that this day do abound upon the face +of the whole earth, is most detestable and damnable) be openly and +plainly declared to the world, to the end that some may repent and be +saved.” To those who think the doctrine useless, because it cannot be +expected to amend those princes whom it would dispossess if once +accepted, he makes answer in a strain that shows him at his greatest. +After having instanced how the rumour of Christ’s censures found its way +to Herod in his own court, “even so,” he continues, “may the sound of our +weak trumpet, by the support of some wind (blow it from the south, or +blow it from the north, it is of no matter), come to the ears of the +chief offenders. _But whether it do or not_, _yet dare we not cease to +blow as God will give strength_. _For we are debtors to more than to +princes_, _to wit_, _to the great multitude of our brethren_, of whom, no +doubt, a great number have heretofore offended by error and ignorance.” + +It is for the multitude, then, he writes; he does not greatly hope that +his trumpet will be audible in palaces, or that crowned women will +submissively discrown themselves at his appeal; what he does hope, in +plain English, is to encourage and justify rebellion; and we shall see, +before we have done, that he can put his purpose into words as roundly as +I can put it for him. This he sees to be a matter of much hazard; he is +not “altogether so brutish and insensible, but that he has laid his +account what the finishing of the work may cost.” He knows that he will +find many adversaries, since “to the most part of men, lawful and godly +appeareth whatsoever antiquity hath received.” He looks for opposition, +“not only of the ignorant multitude, but of the wise, politic, and quiet +spirits of the earth.” He will be called foolish, curious, despiteful, +and a sower of sedition; and one day, perhaps, for all he is now +nameless, he may be attainted of treason. Yet he has “determined to obey +God, notwithstanding that the world shall rage thereat.” Finally, he +makes some excuse for the anonymous appearance of this first instalment: +it is his purpose thrice to blow the trumpet in this matter, if God so +permit; twice he intends to do it without name; but at the last blast to +take the odium upon himself, that all others may be purged. + +Thus he ends the preface, and enters upon his argument with a secondary +title: “The First Blast to awake Women degenerate.” We are in the land +of assertion without delay. That a woman should bear rule, superiority, +dominion or empire over any realm, nation, or city, he tells us, is +repugnant to nature, contumely to God, and a subversion of good order. +Women are weak, frail, impatient, feeble, and foolish. God has denied to +woman wisdom to consider, or providence to foresee, what is profitable to +a commonwealth. Women have been ever lightly esteemed; they have been +denied the tutory of their own sons, and subjected to the unquestionable +sway of their husbands; and surely it is irrational to give the greater +where the less has been withheld, and suffer a woman to reign supreme +over a great kingdom who would be allowed no authority by her own +fireside. He appeals to the Bible; but though he makes much of the first +transgression and certain strong texts in Genesis and Paul’s Epistles, he +does not appeal with entire success. The cases of Deborah and Huldah can +be brought into no sort of harmony with his thesis. Indeed, I may say +that, logically, he left his bones there; and that it is but the phantom +of an argument that he parades thenceforward to the end. Well was it for +Knox that he succeeded no better; it is under this very ambiguity about +Deborah that we shall find him fain to creep for shelter before he is +done with the regiment of women. After having thus exhausted Scripture, +and formulated its teaching in the somewhat blasphemous maxim that the +man is placed above the woman, even as God above the angels, he goes on +triumphantly to adduce the testimonies of Tertullian, Augustine, Ambrose, +Basil, Chrysostom, and the Pandects; and having gathered this little +cloud of witnesses about him, like pursuivants about a herald, he +solemnly proclaims all reigning women to be traitoresses and rebels +against God; discharges all men thenceforward from holding any office +under such monstrous regiment, and calls upon all the lieges with one +consent to “_study to repress the inordinate pride and tyranny_” _of +queens_. If this is not treasonable teaching, one would be glad to know +what is; and yet, as if he feared he had not made the case plain enough +against himself, he goes on to deduce the startling corollary that all +oaths of allegiance must be incontinently broken. If it was sin thus to +have sworn even in ignorance, it were obstinate sin to continue to +respect them after fuller knowledge. Then comes the peroration, in which +he cries aloud against the cruelties of that cursed Jezebel of +England—that horrible monster Jezebel of England; and after having +predicted sudden destruction to her rule and to the rule of all crowned +women, and warned all men that if they presume to defend the same when +any “noble heart” shall be raised up to vindicate the liberty of his +country, they shall not fail to perish themselves in the ruin, he +concludes with a last rhetorical flourish: “And therefore let all men be +advertised, for THE TRUMPET HATH ONCE BLOWN.” + +The capitals are his own. In writing, he probably felt the want of some +such reverberation of the pulpit under strong hands as he was wont to +emphasise his spoken utterances withal; there would seem to him a want of +passion in the orderly lines of type; and I suppose we may take the +capitals as a mere substitute for the great voice with which he would +have given it forth, had we heard it from his own lips. Indeed, as it +is, in this little strain of rhetoric about the trumpet, this current +allusion to the fall of Jericho, that alone distinguishes his bitter and +hasty production, he was probably right, according to all artistic canon, +thus to support and accentuate in conclusion the sustained metaphor of a +hostile proclamation. It is curious, by the way, to note how favourite +an image the trumpet was with the Reformer. He returns to it again and +again; it is the Alpha and Omega of his rhetoric; it is to him what a +ship is to the stage sailor; and one would almost fancy he had begun the +world as a trumpeter’s apprentice. The partiality is surely +characteristic. All his life long he was blowing summonses before +various Jerichos, some of which fell duly, but not all. Wherever he +appears in history his speech is loud, angry, and hostile; there is no +peace in his life, and little tenderness; he is always sounding hopefully +to the front for some rough enterprise. + +And as his voice had something of the trumpet’s hardness, it had +something also of the trumpet’s warlike inspiration. So Randolph, +possibly fresh from the sound of the Reformer’s preaching, writes of him +to Cecil:—“Where your honour exhorteth us to stoutness, I assure you the +voice of one man is able, in an hour, to put more life in us than six +hundred trumpets continually blustering in our ears.” {341} + +Thus was the proclamation made. Nor was it long in wakening all the +echoes of Europe. What success might have attended it, had the question +decided been a purely abstract question, it is difficult to say. As it +was, it was to stand or fall, not by logic, but by political needs and +sympathies. Thus, in France, his doctrine was to have some future, +because Protestants suffered there under the feeble and treacherous +regency of Catherine de Medici; and thus it was to have no future +anywhere else, because the Protestant interest was bound up with the +prosperity of Queen Elizabeth. This stumbling-block lay at the very +threshold of the matter; and Knox, in the text of the “First Blast,” had +set everybody the wrong example and gone to the ground himself. He finds +occasion to regret “the blood of innocent Lady Jane Dudley.” But Lady +Jane Dudley, or Lady Jane Grey, as we call her, was a would-be traitoress +and rebel against God, to use his own expressions. If, therefore, +political and religious sympathy led Knox himself into so grave a +partiality, what was he to expect from his disciples? + +If the trumpet gave so ambiguous a sound, who could heartily prepare +himself for the battle? The question whether Lady Jane Dudley was an +innocent martyr, or a traitoress against God, whose inordinate pride and +tyranny had been effectually repressed, was thus left altogether in the +wind; and it was not, perhaps, wonderful if many of Knox’s readers +concluded that all right and wrong in the matter turned upon the degree +of the sovereign’s orthodoxy and possible helpfulness to the Reformation. +He should have been the more careful of such an ambiguity of meaning, as +he must have known well the lukewarm indifference and dishonesty of his +fellow-reformers in political matters. He had already, in 1556 or 1557, +talked the matter over with his great master, Calvin, in “a private +conversation;” and the interview {342} must have been truly distasteful +to both parties. Calvin, indeed, went a far way with him in theory, and +owned that the “government of women was a deviation from the original and +proper order of nature, to be ranked, no less than slavery, among the +punishments consequent upon the fall of man.” But, in practice, their +two roads separated. For the Man of Geneva saw difficulties in the way +of the Scripture proof in the cases of Deborah and Huldah, and in the +prophecy of Isaiah that queens should be the nursing mothers of the +Church. And as the Bible was not decisive, he thought the subject should +be let alone, because, “by custom and public consent and long practice, +it has been established that realms and principalities may descend to +females by hereditary right, and it would not be lawful to unsettle +governments which are ordained by the peculiar providence of God.” I +imagine Knox’s ears must have burned during this interview. Think of him +listening dutifully to all this—how it would not do to meddle with +anointed kings—how there was a peculiar providence in these great +affairs; and then think of his own peroration, and the “noble heart” whom +he looks for “to vindicate the liberty of his country;” or his answer to +Queen Mary, when she asked him who he was, to interfere in the affairs of +Scotland:—“Madam, a subject born within the same!” Indeed, the two +doctors who differed at this private conversation represented, at the +moment, two principles of enormous import in the subsequent history of +Europe. In Calvin we have represented that passive obedience, that +toleration of injustice and absurdity, that holding back of the hand from +political affairs as from something unclean, which lost France, if we are +to believe M. Michelet, for the Reformation; a spirit necessarily fatal +in the long run to the existence of any sect that may profess it; a +suicidal doctrine that survives among us to this day in narrow views of +personal duty, and the low political morality of many virtuous men. In +Knox, on the other hand, we see foreshadowed the whole Puritan Revolution +and the scaffold of Charles I. + +There is little doubt in my mind that this interview was what caused Knox +to print his book without a name. {344} It was a dangerous thing to +contradict the Man of Geneva, and doubly so, surely, when one had had the +advantage of correction from him in a private conversation; and Knox had +his little flock of English refugees to consider. If they had fallen +into bad odour at Geneva, where else was there left to flee to? It was +printed, as I said, in 1558; and, by a singular _mal-à-propos_, in that +same year Mary died, and Elizabeth succeeded to the throne of England. +And just as the accession of Catholic Queen Mary had condemned female +rule in the eyes of Knox, the accession of Protestant Queen Elizabeth +justified it in the eyes of his colleagues. Female rule ceases to be an +anomaly, not because Elizabeth can “reply to eight ambassadors in one day +in their different languages,” but because she represents for the moment +the political future of the Reformation. The exiles troop back to +England with songs of praise in their mouths. The bright occidental +star, of which we have all read in the Preface to the Bible, has risen +over the darkness of Europe. There is a thrill of hope through the +persecuted Churches of the Continent. Calvin writes to Cecil, washing +his hands of Knox and his political heresies. The sale of the “First +Blast” is prohibited in Geneva; and along with it the bold book of Knox’s +colleague, Goodman—a book dear to Milton—where female rule was briefly +characterised as a “monster in nature and disorder among men.” {345a} +Any who may ever have doubted, or been for a moment led away by Knox or +Goodman, or their own wicked imaginations, are now more than convinced. +They have seen the occidental star. Aylmer, with his eye set greedily on +a possible bishopric, and “the better to obtain the favour of the new +Queen,” {345b} sharpens his pen to confound Knox by logic. What need? +He has been confounded by facts. “Thus what had been to the refugees of +Geneva as the very word of God, no sooner were they back in England than, +behold! it was the word of the devil.” {346a} + +Now, what of the real sentiments of these loyal subjects of Elizabeth? +They professed a holy horror for Knox’s position: let us see if their own +would please a modern audience any better, or was, in substance, greatly +different. + +John Aylmer, afterwards Bishop of London, published an answer to Knox, +under the title of _An Harbour for Faithful and true Subjects against the +late Blown Blast_, _concerning the government of Women_. {346b} And +certainly he was a thought more acute, a thought less precipitate and +simple, than his adversary. He is not to be led away by such captious +terms as _natural and unnatural_. It is obvious to him that a woman’s +disability to rule is not natural in the same sense in which it is +natural for a stone to fall or fire to burn. He is doubtful, on the +whole, whether this disability be natural at all; nay, when he is laying +it down that a woman should not be a priest, he shows some elementary +conception of what many of us now hold to be the truth of the matter. +“The bringing-up of women,” he says, “is commonly such” that they cannot +have the necessary qualifications, “for they are not brought up in +learning in schools, nor trained in disputation.” And even so, he can +ask, “Are there not in England women, think you, that for learning and +wisdom could tell their household and neighbours as good a tale as any +Sir John there?” For all that, his advocacy is weak. If women’s rule is +not unnatural in a sense preclusive of its very existence, it is neither +so convenient nor so profitable as the government of men. He holds +England to be specially suitable for the government of women, because +there the governor is more limited and restrained by the other members of +the constitution than in other places; and this argument has kept his +book from being altogether forgotten. It is only in hereditary +monarchies that he will offer any defence of the anomaly. “If rulers +were to be chosen by lot or suffrage, he would not that any women should +stand in the election, but men only.” The law of succession of crowns +was a law to him, in the same sense as the law of evolution is a law to +Mr. Herbert Spencer; and the one and the other counsels his readers, in a +spirit suggestively alike, not to kick against the pricks or seek to be +more wise than He who made them. {348} If God has put a female child +into the direct line of inheritance, it is God’s affair. His strength +will be perfected in her weakness. He makes the Creator address the +objectors in this not very flattering vein:—“I, that could make Daniel, a +sucking babe, to judge better than the wisest lawyers; a brute beast to +reprehend the folly of a prophet; and poor fishers to confound the great +clerks of the world—cannot I make a woman to be a good ruler over you?” +This is the last word of his reasoning. Although he was not altogether +without Puritanic leaven, shown particularly in what he says of the +incomes of Bishops, yet it was rather loyalty to the old order of things +than any generous belief in the capacity of women, that raised up for +them this clerical champion. His courtly spirit contrasts singularly +with the rude, bracing republicanism of Knox. “Thy knee shall bow,” he +says, “thy cap shall off, thy tongue shall speak reverently of thy +sovereign.” For himself, his tongue is even more than reverent. Nothing +can stay the issue of his eloquent adulation. Again and again, “the +remembrance of Elizabeth’s virtues” carries him away; and he has to hark +back again to find the scent of his argument. He is repressing his +vehement adoration throughout, until, when the end comes, and he feels +his business at an end, he can indulge himself to his heart’s content in +indiscriminate laudation of his royal mistress. It is humorous to think +that this illustrious lady, whom he here praises, among many other +excellences, for the simplicity of her attire and the “marvellous +meekness of her stomach,” threatened him, years after, in no very meek +terms, for a sermon against female vanity in dress, which she held as a +reflection on herself. {349} + +Whatever was wanting here in respect for women generally, there was no +want of respect for the Queen; and one cannot very greatly wonder if +these devoted servants looked askance, not upon Knox only, but on his +little flock, as they came back to England tainted with disloyal +doctrine. For them, as for him, the occidental star rose somewhat red +and angry. As for poor Knox, his position was the saddest of all. For +the juncture seemed to him of the highest importance; it was the nick of +time, the flood-water of opportunity. Not only was there an opening for +him in Scotland, a smouldering brand of civil liberty and religious +enthusiasm which it should be for him to kindle into flame with his +powerful breath but he had his eye seemingly on an object of even higher +worth. For now, when religious sympathy ran so high that it could be set +against national aversion, he wished to begin the fusion together of +England and Scotland, and to begin it at the sore place. If once the +open wound were closed at the Border, the work would be half done. +Ministers placed at Berwick and such places might seek their converts +equally on either side of the march; old enemies would sit together to +hear the gospel of peace, and forget the inherited jealousies of many +generations in the enthusiasm of a common faith; or—let us say better—a +common heresy. For people are not most conscious of brotherhood when +they continue languidly together in one creed, but when, with some doubt, +with some danger perhaps, and certainly not without some reluctance, they +violently break with the tradition of the past, and go forth from the +sanctuary of their fathers to worship under the bare heaven. A new +creed, like a new country, is an unhomely place of sojourn; but it makes +men lean on one another and join hands. It was on this that Knox relied +to begin the union of the English and the Scotch. And he had, perhaps, +better means of judging than any even of his contemporaries. He knew the +temper of both nations; and already during his two years’ chaplaincy at +Berwick, he had seen his scheme put to the proof. But whether +practicable or not, the proposal does him much honour. That he should +thus have sought to make a love-match of it between the two peoples, and +tried to win their inclination towards a union instead of simply +transferring them, like so many sheep, by a marriage, or testament, or +private treaty, is thoroughly characteristic of what is best in the man. +Nor was this all. He had, besides, to assure himself of English support, +secret or avowed, for the reformation party in Scotland; a delicate +affair, trenching upon treason. And so he had plenty to say to Cecil, +plenty that he did not care to “commit to paper neither yet to the +knowledge of many.” But his miserable publication had shut the doors of +England in his face. Summoned to Edinburgh by the confederate lords, he +waited at Dieppe, anxiously praying for leave to journey through England. +The most dispiriting tidings reach him. His messengers, coming from so +obnoxious a quarter, narrowly escape imprisonment. His old congregation +are coldly received, and even begin to look back again to their place of +exile with regret. “My First Blast,” he writes ruefully, “has blown from +me all my friends of England.” And then he adds, with a snarl, “The +Second Blast, I fear, shall sound somewhat more sharp, except men be more +moderate than I hear they are.” {352a} But the threat is empty; there +will never be a second blast—he has had enough of that trumpet. Nay, he +begins to feel uneasily that, unless he is to be rendered useless for the +rest of his life, unless he is to lose his right arm and go about his +great work maimed and impotent, he must find some way of making his peace +with England and the indignant Queen. The letter just quoted was written +on the 6th of April 1559; and on the 10th, after he had cooled his heels +for four days more about the streets of Dieppe, he gave in altogether, +and writes a letter of capitulation to Cecil. In this letter, {352b} +which he kept back until the 22d, still hoping that things would come +right of themselves, he censures the great secretary for having “followed +the world in the way of perdition,” characterises him as “worthy of +hell,” and threatens him, if he be not found simple, sincere, and fervent +in the cause of Christ’s gospel, that he shall “taste of the same cup +that politic heads have drunken in before him.” This is all, I take it, +out of respect for the Reformer’s own position; if he is going to be +humiliated, let others be humiliated first; like a child who will not +take his medicine until he has made his nurse and his mother drink of it +before him. “But I have, say you, written a treasonable book against the +regiment and empire of women. . . . The writing of that book I will not +deny; but to prove it treasonable I think it shall be hard. . . . It is +hinted that my book shall be written against. If so be, sir, I greatly +doubt they shall rather hurt nor (than) mend the matter.” And here come +the terms of capitulation; for he does not surrender unconditionally, +even in this sore strait: “And yet if any,” he goes on, “think me enemy +to the person, or yet to the regiment, of her whom God hath now promoted, +they are utterly deceived in me, _for the miraculous work of God_, +_comforting His afflicted by means of an infirm vessel_, _I do +acknowledge_, _and the power of His most potent hand I will obey_. _More +plainly to speak_, _if Queen Elizabeth shall confess_, _that the +extraordinary dispensation of God’s great mercy maketh that lawful unto +her which both nature and God’s law do deny to all women_, then shall +none in England be more willing to maintain her lawful authority than I +shall be. But if (God’s wondrous work set aside) she ground (as God +forbid) the justness of her title upon consuetude, laws, or ordinances of +men, then”—Then Knox will denounce her? Not so; he is more politic +nowadays—then, he “greatly fears” that her ingratitude to God will not go +long without punishment. + +His letter to Elizabeth, written some few months later, was a mere +amplification of the sentences quoted above. She must base her title +entirely upon the extraordinary providence of God; but if she does this, +“if thus, in God’s presence, she humbles herself, so will he with tongue +and pen justify her authority, as the Holy Ghost hath justified the same +in Deborah, that blessed mother in Israel.” {354} And so, you see, his +consistency is preserved; he is merely applying the doctrine of the +“First Blast.” The argument goes thus: The regiment of women is, as +before noted in our work, repugnant to nature, contumely to God, and a +subversion of good order. It has nevertheless pleased God to raise up, +as exceptions to this law, first Deborah, and afterward Elizabeth +Tudor—whose regiment we shall proceed to celebrate. + +There is no evidence as to how the Reformer’s explanations were received, +and indeed it is most probable that the letter was never shown to +Elizabeth at all. For it was sent under cover of another to Cecil, and +as it was not of a very courtly conception throughout, and was, of all +things, what would most excite the Queen’s uneasy jealousy about her +title, it is like enough that the secretary exercised his discretion (he +had Knox’s leave in this case, and did not always wait for that, it is +reputed) to put the letter harmlessly away beside other valueless or +unpresentable State Papers. I wonder very much if he did the same with +another, {355} written two years later, after Mary had come into +Scotland, in which Knox almost seeks to make Elizabeth an accomplice with +him in the matter of the “First Blast.” The Queen of Scotland is going +to have that work refuted, he tells her; and “though it were but +foolishness in him to prescribe unto her Majesty what is to be done,” he +would yet remind her that Mary is neither so much alarmed about her own +security, nor so generously interested in Elizabeth’s, “that she would +take such pains, _unless her crafty counsel in so doing shot at a further +mark_.” There is something really ingenious in this letter; it showed +Knox in the double capacity of the author of the “First Blast” and the +faithful friend of Elizabeth; and he combines them there so naturally, +that one would scarcely imagine the two to be incongruous. + +Twenty days later he was defending his intemperate publication to another +queen—his own queen, Mary Stuart. This was on the first of those three +interviews which he has preserved for us with so much dramatic vigour in +the picturesque pages of his history. After he had avowed the authorship +in his usual haughty style, Mary asked: “You think, then, that I have no +just authority?” The question was evaded. “Please your Majesty,” he +answered, “that learned men in all ages have had their judgments free, +and most commonly disagreeing from the common judgment of the world; such +also have they published by pen and tongue; and yet notwithstanding they +themselves have lived in the common society with others, and have borne +patiently with the errors and imperfections which they could not amend.” +Thus did “Plato the philosopher:” thus will do John Knox. “I have +communicated my judgment to the world: if the realm finds no +inconvenience from the regiment of a woman, that which they approve, +shall I not further disallow than within my own breast; but shall be as +well content to live under your Grace, as Paul was to live under Nero. +And my hope is, that so long as ye defile not your hands with the blood +of the saints of God, neither I nor my book shall hurt either you or your +authority.” All this is admirable in wisdom and moderation, and, except +that he might have hit upon a comparison less offensive than that with +Paul and Nero, hardly to be bettered. Having said thus much, he feels he +needs say no more; and so, when he is further pressed, he closes that +part of the discussion with an astonishing sally. If he has been content +to let this matter sleep, he would recommend her Grace to follow his +example with thankfulness of heart; it is grimly to be understood which +of them has most to fear if the question should be reawakened. So the +talk wandered to other subjects. Only, when the Queen was summoned at +last to dinner (“for it was afternoon”) Knox made his salutation in this +form of words: “I pray God, Madam, that you may be as much blessed within +the Commonwealth of Scotland, if it be the pleasure of God, as ever +Deborah was in the Commonwealth of Israel.” {357} Deborah again. + +But he was not yet done with the echoes of his own “First Blast.” In +1571, when he was already near his end, the old controversy was taken up +in one of a series of anonymous libels against the Reformer affixed, +Sunday after Sunday, to the church door. The dilemma was fairly enough +stated. Either his doctrine is false, in which case he is a “false +doctor” and seditious; or, if it be true, why does he “avow and approve +the contrare, I mean that regiment in the Queen of England’s person; +which he avoweth and approveth, not only praying for the maintenance of +her estate, but also procuring her aid and support against his own native +country?” Knox answered the libel, as his wont was, next Sunday, from +the pulpit. He justified the “First Blast” with all the old arrogance; +there is no drawing back there. The regiment of women is repugnant to +nature, contumely to God, and a subversion of good order, as before. +When he prays for the maintenance of Elizabeth’s estate, he is only +following the example of those prophets of God who warned and comforted +the wicked kings of Israel; or of Jeremiah, who bade the Jews pray for +the prosperity of Nebuchadnezzar. As for the Queen’s aid, there is no +harm in that: _quia_ (these are his own words) _quia omnia munda mundis_: +because to the pure all things are pure. One thing, in conclusion, he +“may not pretermit” to give the lie in the throat to his accuser, where +he charges him with seeking support against his native country. “What I +have been to my country,” said the old Reformer, “What I have been to my +country, albeit this unthankful age will not know, yet the ages to come +will be compelled to bear witness to the truth. And thus I cease, +requiring of all men that have anything to oppone against me, that he may +(they may) do it so plainly, as that I may make myself and all my doings +manifest to the world. For to me it seemeth a thing unreasonable, that, +in this my decrepit age, I shall be compelled to fight against shadows, +and howlets that dare not abide the light.” {359} + +Now, in this, which may be called his _Last Blast_, there is as sharp +speaking as any in the “First Blast” itself. He is of the same opinion +to the end, you see, although he has been obliged to cloak and garble +that opinion for political ends. He has been tacking indeed, and he has +indeed been seeking the favour of a queen; but what man ever sought a +queen’s favour with a more virtuous purpose, or with as little courtly +policy? The question of consistency is delicate, and must be made plain. +Knox never changed his opinion about female rule, but lived to regret +that he had published that opinion. Doubtless he had many thoughts so +far out of the range of public sympathy, that he could only keep them to +himself, and, in his own words, bear patiently with the errors and +imperfections that he could not amend. For example, I make no doubt +myself that, in his own heart, he did hold the shocking dogma attributed +to him by more than one calumniator; and that, had the time been ripe, +had there been aught to gain by it, instead of all to lose, he would have +been the first to assert that Scotland was elective instead of +hereditary—“elective as in the days of paganism,” as one Thevet says in +holy horror. {360} And yet, because the time was not ripe, I find no +hint of such an idea in his collected works. Now, the regiment of women +was another matter that he should have kept to himself; right or wrong, +his opinion did not fit the moment; right or wrong, as Aylmer puts it, +“the _Blast_ was blown out of season.” And this it was that he began to +perceive after the accession of Elizabeth; not that he had been wrong, +and that female rule was a good thing, for he had said from the first +that “the felicity of some women in their empires” could not change the +law of God and the nature of created things; not this, but that the +regiment of women was one of those imperfections of society which must be +borne with because yet they cannot be remedied. The thing had seemed so +obvious to him, in his sense of unspeakable masculine superiority, and +his fine contempt for what is only sanctioned by antiquity and common +consent, he had imagined that, at the first hint, men would arise and +shake off the debasing tyranny. He found himself wrong, and he showed +that he could be moderate in his own fashion, and understood the spirit +of true compromise. He came round to Calvin’s position, in fact, but by +a different way. And it derogates nothing from the merit of this wise +attitude that it was the consequence of a change of interest. We are all +taught by interest; and if the interest be not merely selfish, there is +no wiser preceptor under heaven, and perhaps no sterner. + +Such is the history of John Knox’s connection with the controversy about +female rule. In itself, this is obviously an incomplete study; not fully +to be understood, without a knowledge of his private relations with the +other sex, and what he thought of their position in domestic life. This +shall be dealt with in another paper. + + + +II.—PRIVATE LIFE. + + +TO those who know Knox by hearsay only, I believe the matter of this +paper will be somewhat astonishing. For the hard energy of the man in +all public matters has possessed the imagination of the world; he remains +for posterity in certain traditional phrases, browbeating Queen Mary, or +breaking beautiful carved work in abbeys and cathedrals, that had long +smoked themselves out and were no more than sorry ruins, while he was +still quietly teaching children in a country gentleman’s family. It does +not consist with the common acceptation of his character to fancy him +much moved, except with anger. And yet the language of passion came to +his pen as readily, whether it was a passion of denunciation against some +of the abuses that vexed his righteous spirit, or of yearning for the +society of an absent friend. He was vehement in affection, as in +doctrine. I will not deny that there may have been, along with his +vehemence, something shifty, and for the moment only; that, like many +men, and many Scotchmen, he saw the world and his own heart, not so much +under any very steady, equable light, as by extreme flashes of passion, +true for the moment, but not true in the long run. There does seem to me +to be something of this traceable in the Reformer’s utterances: +precipitation and repentance, hardy speech and action somewhat +circumspect, a strong tendency to see himself in a heroic light and to +place a ready belief in the disposition of the moment. Withal he had +considerable confidence in himself, and in the uprightness of his own +disciplined emotions, underlying much sincere aspiration after spiritual +humility. And it is this confidence that makes his intercourse with +women so interesting to a modern. It would be easy, of course, to make +fun of the whole affair, to picture him strutting vaingloriously among +these inferior creatures, or compare a religious friendship in the +sixteenth century with what was called, I think, a literary friendship in +the eighteenth. But it is more just and profitable to recognise what +there is sterling and human underneath all his theoretical affectations +of superiority. Women, he has said in his “First Blast,” are, “weak, +frail, impatient, feeble, and foolish;” and yet it does not appear that +he was himself any less dependent than other men upon the sympathy and +affection of these weak, frail, impatient, feeble, and foolish creatures; +it seems even as if he had been rather more dependent than most. + +Of those who are to act influentially on their fellows, we should expect +always something large and public in their way of life, something more or +less urbane and comprehensive in their sentiment for others. We should +not expect to see them spend their sympathy in idyls, however beautiful. +We should not seek them among those who, if they have but a wife to their +bosom, ask no more of womankind, just as they ask no more of their own +sex, if they can find a friend or two for their immediate need. They +will be quick to feel all the pleasures of our association—not the great +ones alone, but all. They will know not love only, but all those other +ways in which man and woman mutually make each other happy—by sympathy, +by admiration, by the atmosphere they bear about them—down to the mere +impersonal pleasure of passing happy faces in the street. For, through +all this gradation, the difference of sex makes itself pleasurably felt. +Down to the most lukewarm courtesies of life, there is a special chivalry +due and a special pleasure received, when the two sexes are brought ever +so lightly into contact. We love our mothers otherwise than we love our +fathers; a sister is not as a brother to us; and friendship between man +and woman, be it never so unalloyed and innocent, is not the same as +friendship between man and man. Such friendship is not even possible for +all. To conjoin tenderness for a woman that is not far short of +passionate with such disinterestedness and beautiful gratuity of +affection as there is between friends of the same sex, requires no +ordinary disposition in the man. For either it would presuppose quite +womanly delicacy of perception, and, as it were, a curiosity in shades of +differing sentiment; or it would mean that he had accepted the large, +simple divisions of society: a strong and positive spirit robustly +virtuous, who has chosen a better part coarsely, and holds to it +steadfastly, with all its consequences of pain to himself and others; as +one who should go straight before him on a journey, neither tempted by +wayside flowers nor very scrupulous of small lives under foot. It was in +virtue of this latter disposition that Knox was capable of those +intimacies with women that embellished his life; and we find him +preserved for us in old letters as a man of many women friends; a man of +some expansion toward the other sex; a man ever ready to comfort weeping +women, and to weep along with them. + +Of such scraps and fragments of evidence as to his private life and more +intimate thoughts as have survived to us from all the perils that environ +written paper, an astonishingly large proportion is in the shape of +letters to women of his familiarity. He was twice married, but that is +not greatly to the purpose; for the Turk, who thinks even more meanly of +women than John Knox, is none the less given to marrying. What is really +significant is quite apart from marriage. For the man Knox was a true +man, and woman, the _ewig-weibliche_, was as necessary to him, in spite +of all low theories, as ever she was to Goethe. He came to her in a +certain halo of his own, as the minister of truth, just as Goethe came to +her in a glory of art; he made himself necessary to troubled hearts and +minds exercised in the painful complications that naturally result from +all changes in the world’s way of thinking; and those whom he had thus +helped became dear to him, and were made the chosen companions of his +leisure if they were at hand, or encouraged and comforted by letter if +they were afar. + +It must not be forgotten that Knox had been a presbyter of the old +Church, and that the many women whom we shall see gathering around him, +as he goes through life, had probably been accustomed, while still in the +communion of Rome, to rely much upon some chosen spiritual director, so +that the intimacies of which I propose to offer some account, while +testifying to a good heart in the Reformer, testify also to a certain +survival of the spirit of the confessional in the Reformed Church, and +are not properly to be judged without this idea. There is no friendship +so noble, but it is the product of the time; and a world of little +finical observances, and little frail proprieties and fashions of the +hour, go to make or to mar, to stint or to perfect, the union of spirits +the most loving and the most intolerant of such interference. The trick +of the country and the age steps in even between the mother and her +child, counts out their caresses upon niggardly fingers, and says, in the +voice of authority, that this one thing shall be a matter of confidence +between them, and this other thing shall not. And thus it is that we +must take into reckoning whatever tended to modify the social atmosphere +in which Knox and his women friends met, and loved and trusted each +other. To the man who had been their priest and was now their minister, +women would be able to speak with a confidence quite impossible in these +latter days; the women would be able to speak, and the man to hear. It +was a beaten road just then; and I daresay we should be no less +scandalised at their plain speech than they, if they could come back to +earth, would be offended at our waltzes and worldly fashions. This, +then, was the footing on which Knox stood with his many women friends. +The reader will see, as he goes on, how much of warmth, of interest, and +of that happy mutual dependence which is the very gist of friendship, he +contrived to ingraft upon this somewhat dry relationship of penitent and +confessor. + +It must be understood that we know nothing of his intercourse with women +(as indeed we know little at all about his life) until he came to Berwick +in 1549, when he was already in the forty-fifth year of his age. At the +same time it is just possible that some of a little group at Edinburgh, +with whom he corresponded during his last absence, may have been friends +of an older standing. Certainly they were, of all his female +correspondents, the least personally favoured. He treats them throughout +in a comprehensive sort of spirit that must at times have been a little +wounding. Thus, he remits one of them to his former letters, “which I +trust be common betwixt you and the rest of our sisters, for to me ye are +all equal in Christ.” {368} Another letter is a gem in this way. +“Albeit” it begins, “albeit I have no particular matter to write unto +you, beloved sister, yet I could not refrain to write these few lines to +you in declaration of my remembrance of you. True it is that I have many +whom I bear in equal remembrance before God with you, to whom at present +I write nothing, either for that I esteem them stronger than you, and +therefore they need the less my rude labours, or else because they have +not provoked me by their writing to recompense their remembrance.” {369a} +His “sisters in Edinburgh” had evidently to “provoke” his attention +pretty constantly; nearly all his letters are, on the face of them, +answers to questions, and the answers are given with a certain crudity +that I do not find repeated when he writes to those he really cares for. +So when they consult him about women’s apparel (a subject on which his +opinion may be pretty correctly imagined by the ingenious reader for +himself) he takes occasion to anticipate some of the most offensive +matter of the “First Blast” in a style of real brutality. {369b} It is +not merely that he tells them “the garments of women do declare their +weakness and inability to execute the office of man,” though that in +itself is neither very wise nor very opportune in such a correspondence +one would think; but if the reader will take the trouble to wade through +the long, tedious sermon for himself, he will see proof enough that Knox +neither loved, nor very deeply respected, the women he was then +addressing. In very truth, I believe these Edinburgh sisters simply +bored him. He had a certain interest in them as his children in the +Lord; they were continually “provoking him by their writing;” and, if +they handed his letters about, writing to them was as good a form of +publication as was then open to him in Scotland. There is one letter, +however, in this budget, addressed to the wife of Clerk-Register Mackgil, +which is worthy of some further mention. The Clerk-Register had not +opened his heart, it would appear, to the preaching of the Gospel, and +Mrs. Mackgil has written, seeking the Reformer’s prayers in his behalf. +“Your husband,” he answers, “is dear to me for that he is a man indued +with some good gifts, but more dear for that he is your husband. Charity +moveth me to thirst his illumination, both for his comfort and for the +trouble which you sustain by his coldness, which justly may be called +infidelity.” He wishes her, however, not to hope too much; he can +promise that his prayers will be earnest, but not that they will be +effectual; it is possible that this is to be her “cross” in life; that +“her head, appointed by God for her comfort, should be her enemy.” And +if this be so, well, there is nothing for it; “with patience she must +abide God’s merciful deliverance,” taking heed only that she does not +“obey manifest iniquity for the pleasure of any mortal man.” {371a} I +conceive this epistle would have given a very modified sort of pleasure +to the Clerk-Register, had it chanced to fall into his hands. Compare +its tenor—the dry resignation not without a hope of merciful deliverance +therein recommended—with these words from another letter, written but the +year before to two married women of London: “Call first for grace by +Jesus, and thereafter communicate with your faithful husbands, and then +shall God, I doubt not, conduct your footsteps, and direct your counsels +to His glory.” {371b} Here the husbands are put in a very high place; we +can recognise here the same hand that has written for our instruction how +the man is set above the woman, even as God above the angels. But the +point of the distinction is plain. For Clerk-Register Mackgil was not a +faithful husband; displayed, indeed, towards religion a “coldness which +justly might be called infidelity.” We shall see in more notable +instances how much Knox’s conception of the duty of wives varies +according to the zeal and orthodoxy of the husband. + +As I have said, he may possibly have made the acquaintance of Mrs. +Mackgil, Mrs. Guthrie, or some other, or all, of these Edinburgh friends +while he was still Douglas of Longniddry’s private tutor. But our +certain knowledge begins in 1549. He was then but newly escaped from his +captivity in France, after pulling an oar for nineteen months on the +benches of the galley _Nostre Dame_; now up the rivers, holding stealthy +intercourse with other Scottish prisoners in the castle of Rouen; now out +in the North Sea, raising his sick head to catch a glimpse of the far-off +steeples of St. Andrews. And now he was sent down by the English Privy +Council as a preacher to Berwick-upon-Tweed; somewhat shaken in health by +all his hardships, full of pains and agues, and tormented by gravel, that +sorrow of great men; altogether, what with his romantic story, his weak +health, and his great faculty of eloquence, a very natural object for the +sympathy of devout women. At this happy juncture he fell into the +company of a Mrs. Elizabeth Bowes, wife of Richard Bowes, of Aske, in +Yorkshire, to whom she had borne twelve children. She was a religious +hypochondriac, a very weariful woman, full of doubts and scruples, and +giving no rest on earth either to herself or to those whom she honoured +with her confidence. From the first time she heard Knox preach she +formed a high opinion of him, and was solicitous ever after of his +society. {373a} Nor was Knox unresponsive. “I have always delighted in +your company,” he writes, “and when labours would permit, you know I have +not spared hours to talk and commune with you.” Often when they had met +in depression he reminds her, “God hath sent great comfort unto both.” +{373b} We can gather from such letters as are yet extant how close and +continuous was their intercourse. “I think it best you remain till the +morrow,” he writes once, “and so shall we commune at large at afternoon. +This day you know to be the day of my study and prayer unto God; yet if +your trouble be intolerable, or, if you think my presence may release +your pain, do as the Spirit shall move you. . . . Your messenger found me +in bed, after a sore trouble and most dolorous night, and so dolour may +complain to dolour when we two meet. . . . And this is more plain than +ever I spoke, to let you know you have a companion in trouble.” {373c} +Once we have the curtain raised for a moment, and can look at the two +together for the length of a phrase. “After the writing of this +preceding,” writes Knox, “your brother and mine, Harrie Wycliffe, did +advertise me by writing, that your adversary (the devil) took occasion to +trouble you because that _I did start back from you rehearsing your +infirmities_. _I remember myself so to have done_, _and that is my +common on consuetude when anything pierceth or toucheth my heart_. _Call +to your mind what I did standing at the cupboard at Alnwick_. In very +deed I thought that no creature had been tempted as I was; and when I +heard proceed from your mouth the very same words that he troubles me +with, I did wonder and from my heart lament your sore trouble, knowing in +myself the dolour thereof.” {374a} Now intercourse of so very close a +description, whether it be religious intercourse or not, is apt to +displease and disquiet a husband; and we know incidentally from Knox +himself that there was some little scandal about his intimacy with Mrs. +Bowes. “The slander and fear of men,” he writes, “has impeded me to +exercise my pen so oft as I would;_ yea_, _very shame hath holden me from +your company_, _when I was most surely persuaded that God had appointed +me at that time to comfort and feed your hungry and afflicted soul_. +_God in His infinite mercy_,” he goes on, “_remove not only from me all +fear that tendeth not to godliness_, _but from others suspicion to judge +of me otherwise than it becometh one member to judge of another_.” {374b} +And the scandal, such as it was, would not be allayed by the dissension +in which Mrs. Bowes seems to have lived with her family upon the matter +of religion, and the countenance shown by Knox to her resistance. +Talking of these conflicts, and her courage against “her own flesh and +most inward affections, yea, against some of her most natural friends,” +he writes it, “to the praise of God, he has wondered at the bold +constancy which he has found in her when his own heart was faint.” {375a} + +Now, perhaps in order to stop scandalous mouths, perhaps out of a desire +to bind the much-loved evangelist nearer to her in the only manner +possible, Mrs. Bowes conceived the scheme of marrying him to her fifth +daughter, Marjorie; and the Reformer seems to have fallen in with it +readily enough. It seems to have been believed in the family that the +whole matter had been originally made up between these two, with no very +spontaneous inclination on the part of the bride. {375b} Knox’s idea of +marriage, as I have said, was not the same for all men; but on the whole, +it was not lofty. We have a curious letter of his, written at the +request of Queen Mary, to the Earl of Argyle, on very delicate household +matters; which, as he tells us, “was not well accepted of the said Earl.” +{375c} We may suppose, however, that his own home was regulated in a +similar spirit. I can fancy that for such a man, emotional, and with a +need, now and again, to exercise parsimony in emotions not strictly +needful, something a little mechanical, something hard and fast and +clearly understood, would enter into his ideal of a home. There were +storms enough without, and equability was to be desired at the fireside +even at a sacrifice of deeper pleasures. So, from a wife, of all women, +he would not ask much. One letter to her which has come down to us is, I +had almost said, conspicuous for coldness. {376} He calls her, as he +called other female correspondents, “dearly beloved sister;” the epistle +is doctrinal, and nearly the half of it bears, not upon her own case, but +upon that of her mother. However, we know what Heine wrote in his wife’s +album; and there is, after all, one passage that may be held to intimate +some tenderness, although even that admits of an amusingly opposite +construction. “I think,” he says, “I _think_ this be the first letter I +ever wrote to you.” This, if we are to take it literally, may pair off +with the “two _or three_ children” whom Montaigne mentions having lost at +nurse; the one is as eccentric in a lover as the other in a parent. +Nevertheless, he displayed more energy in the course of his troubled +wooing than might have been expected. The whole Bowes family, angry +enough already at the influence he had obtained over the mother, set +their faces obdurately against the match. And I daresay the opposition +quickened his inclination. I find him writing to Mrs. Bowes that she +need no further trouble herself about the marriage; it should now be his +business altogether; it behoved him now to jeopard his life “for the +comfort of his own flesh, both fear and friendship of all earthly +creature laid aside.” {377} This is a wonderfully chivalrous utterance +for a Reformer forty-eight years old; and it compares well with the +leaden coquetries of Calvin, not much over thirty, taking this and that +into consideration, weighing together dowries and religious +qualifications and the instancy of friends, and exhibiting what M. +Bungener calls “an honourable and Christian difficulty” of choice, in +frigid indecisions and insincere proposals. But Knox’s next letter is in +a humbler tone; he has not found the negotiation so easy as he fancied; +he despairs of the marriage altogether, and talks of leaving +England,—regards not “what country consumes his wicked carcass.” “You +shall understand,” he says, “that this sixth of November, I spoke with +Sir Robert Bowes” (the head of the family, his bride’s uncle) “in the +matter you know, according to your request; whose disdainful, yea, +despiteful, words hath so pierced my heart that my life is bitter to me. +I bear a good countenance with a sore troubled heart, because he that +ought to consider matters with a deep judgment is become not only a +despiser, but also a taunter of God’s messengers—God be merciful unto +him! Amongst others his most unpleasing words, while that I was about to +have declared my heart in the whole matter, he said, ‘Away with your +rhetorical reasons! for I will not be persuaded with them.’ God knows I +did use no rhetoric nor coloured speech; but would have spoken the truth, +and that in most simple manner. I am not a good orator in my own cause; +but what he would not be content to hear of me, God shall declare to him +one day to his displeasure, unless he repent.” {378} Poor Knox, you see, +is quite commoved. It has been a very unpleasant interview. And as it +is the only sample that we have of how things went with him during his +courtship, we may infer that the period was not as agreeable for Knox as +it has been for some others. + +However, when once they were married, I imagine he and Marjorie Bowes hit +it off together comfortably enough. The little we know of it may be +brought together in a very short space. She bore him two sons. He seems +to have kept her pretty busy, and depended on her to some degree in his +work; so that when she fell ill, his papers got at once into disorder. +{379a} Certainly she sometimes wrote to his dictation; and, in this +capacity, he calls her “his left hand.” {379b} In June 1559, at the +headiest moment of the Reformation in Scotland, he writes regretting the +absence of his helpful colleague, Goodman, “whose presence” (this is the +not very grammatical form of his lament) “whose presence I more thirst, +than she that is my own flesh.” {379c} And this, considering the source +and the circumstances, may be held as evidence of a very tender +sentiment. He tells us himself in his history, on the occasion of a +certain meeting at the Kirk of Field, that “he was in no small heaviness +by reason of the late death of his dear bed-fellow, Marjorie Bowes.” +{379d} Calvin, condoling with him, speaks of her as “a wife whose like +is not to be found everywhere” (that is very like Calvin), and again, as +“the most delightful of wives.” We know what Calvin thought desirable in +a wife, “good humour, chastity, thrift, patience, and solicitude for her +husband’s health,” and so we may suppose that the first Mrs. Knox fell +not far short of this ideal. + +The actual date of the marriage is uncertain but by September 1566, at +the latest, the Reformer was settled in Geneva with his wife. There is +no fear either that he will be dull; even if the chaste, thrifty, patient +Marjorie should not altogether occupy his mind, he need not go out of the +house to seek more female sympathy; for behold! Mrs. Bowes is duly +domesticated with the young couple. Dr. M‘Crie imagined that Richard +Bowes was now dead, and his widow, consequently, free to live where she +would; and where could she go more naturally than to the house of a +married daughter? This, however, is not the case. Richard Bowes did not +die till at least two years later. It is impossible to believe that he +approved of his wife’s desertion, after so many years of marriage, after +twelve children had been born to them; and accordingly we find in his +will, dated 1558, no mention either of her or of Knox’s wife. {380} This +is plain sailing. It is easy enough to understand the anger of Bowes +against this interloper, who had come into a quiet family, married the +daughter in spite of the father’s opposition, alienated the wife from the +husband and the husband’s religion, supported her in a long course of +resistance and rebellion, and, after years of intimacy, already too close +and tender for any jealous spirit to behold without resentment, carried +her away with him at last into a foreign land. But it is not quite easy +to understand how, except out of sheer weariness and disgust, he was ever +brought to agree to the arrangement. Nor is it easy to square the +Reformer’s conduct with his public teaching. We have, for instance, a +letter by him, Craig, and Spottiswood, to the Archbishops of Canterbury +and York, anent “a wicked and rebellious woman,” one Anne Good, spouse to +“John Barron, a minister of Christ Jesus his evangel,” who, “after great +rebellion shown unto him, and divers admonitions given, as well by +himself as by others in his name, that she should in no wise depart from +this realm, nor from his house without his license, hath not the less +stubbornly and rebelliously departed, separated herself from his society, +left his house, and withdrawn herself from this realm.” {381} Perhaps +some sort of license was extorted, as I have said, from Richard Bowes, +weary with years of domestic dissension; but setting that aside, the +words employed with so much righteous indignation by Knox, Craig, and +Spottiswood, to describe the conduct of that wicked and rebellious woman, +Mrs. Barron, would describe nearly as exactly the conduct of the +religious Mrs. Bowes. It is a little bewildering, until we recollect the +distinction between faithful and unfaithful husbands; for Barron was “a +minister of Christ Jesus his evangel,” while Richard Bowes, besides being +own brother to a despiser and taunter of God’s messengers, is shrewdly +suspected to have been “a bigoted adherent of the Roman Catholic faith,” +or, as Knox himself would have expressed it, “a rotten Papist.” + +You would have thought that Knox was now pretty well supplied with female +society. But we are not yet at the end of the roll. The last year of +his sojourn in England had been spent principally in London, where he was +resident as one of the chaplains of Edward the Sixth; and here he boasts, +although a stranger, he had, by God’s grace, found favour before many. +{382a} The godly women of the metropolis made much of him; once he +writes to Mrs. Bowes that her last letter had found him closeted with +three, and he and the three women were all in tears. {382b} Out of all, +however, he had chosen two. “_God_,” he writes to them, “_brought us in +such familiar acquaintance_, _that your hearts were incensed and kindled +with a special care over me_, _as a mother useth to be over her natural +child_; and my heart was opened and compelled in your presence to be more +plain than ever I was to any.” {382c} And out of the two even he had +chosen one, Mrs. Anne Locke, wife to Mr. Harry Locke, merchant, nigh to +Bow Kirk, Cheapside, in London, as the address runs. If one may venture +to judge upon such imperfect evidence, this was the woman he loved best. +I have a difficulty in quite forming to myself an idea of her character. +She may have been one of the three tearful visitors before alluded to; +she may even have been that one of them who was so profoundly moved by +some passages of Mrs. Bowes’s letter, which the Reformer opened, and read +aloud to them before they went. “O would to God,” cried this +impressionable matron, “would to God that I might speak with that person, +for I perceive there are more tempted than I.” {383} This may have been +Mrs. Locke, as I say; but even if it were, we must not conclude from this +one fact that she was such another as Mrs. Bowes. All the evidence tends +the other way. She was a woman of understanding, plainly, who followed +political events with interest, and to whom Knox thought it worth while +to write, in detail, the history of his trials and successes. She was +religious, but without that morbid perversity of spirit that made +religion so heavy a burden for the poor-hearted Mrs. Bowes. More of her +I do not find, save testimony to the profound affection that united her +to the Reformer. So we find him writing to her from Geneva, in such +terms as these:—“You write that your desire is earnest to see me. _Dear +sister_, _if I should express the thirst and languor which I have had for +your presence_, _I should appear to pass measure_. . . _Yea_, _I weep and +rejoice in remembrance of you_; but that would evanish by the comfort of +your presence, which I assure you is so dear to me, that if the charge of +this little flock here, gathered together in Christ’s name, did not +impede me, my coming should prevent my letter.” {384} I say that this +was written from Geneva; and yet you will observe that it is no +consideration for his wife or mother-in-law, only the charge of his +little flock, that keeps him from setting out forthwith for London, to +comfort himself with the dear presence of Mrs. Locke. Remember that was +a certain plausible enough pretext for Mrs. Locke to come to Geneva—“the +most perfect school of Christ that ever was on earth since the days of +the Apostles”—for we are now under the reign of that “horrible monster +Jezebel of England,” when a lady of good orthodox sentiments was better +out of London. It was doubtful, however, whether this was to be. She +was detained in England, partly by circumstances unknown, “partly by +empire of her head,” Mr. Harry Locke, the Cheapside merchant. It is +somewhat humorous to see Knox struggling for resignation, now that he has +to do with a faithful husband (for Mr. Harry Locke was faithful). Had it +been otherwise, “in my heart,” he says, “I could have wished—yea,” here +he breaks out, “yea, and cannot cease to wish—that God would guide you to +this place.” {385} And after all, he had not long to wait, for, whether +Mr. Harry Locke died in the interval, or was wearied, he too, into giving +permission, five months after the date of the letter last quoted, “Mrs. +Anne Locke, Harry her son, and Anne her daughter, and Katharine her +maid,” arrived in that perfect school of Christ, the Presbyterian +paradise, Geneva. So now, and for the next two years, the cup of Knox’s +happiness was surely full. Of an afternoon, when the bells rang out for +the sermon, the shops closed, and the good folk gathered to the churches, +psalm-book in hand, we can imagine him drawing near to the English chapel +in quite patriarchal fashion, with Mrs. Knox and Mrs. Bowes and Mrs. +Locke, James his servant, Patrick his pupil, and a due following of +children and maids. He might be alone at work all morning in his study, +for he wrote much during these two years; but at night, you may be sure +there was a circle of admiring women, eager to hear the new paragraph, +and not sparing of applause. And what work, among others, was he +elaborating at this time, but the notorious “First Blast”? So that he +may have rolled out in his big pulpit voice, how women were weak, frail, +impatient, feeble, foolish, inconstant, variable, cruel, and lacking the +spirit of counsel, and how men were above them, even as God is above the +angels, in the ears of his own wife, and the two dearest friends he had +on earth. But he had lost the sense of incongruity, and continued to +despise in theory the sex he honoured so much in practice, of whom he +chose his most intimate associates, and whose courage he was compelled to +wonder at, when his own heart was faint. + +We may say that such a man was not worthy of his fortune; and so, as he +would not learn, he was taken away from that agreeable school, and his +fellowship of women was broken up, not to be reunited. Called into +Scotland to take at last that strange position in history which is his +best claim to commemoration, he was followed thither by his wife and his +mother-in-law. The wife soon died. The death of her daughter did not +altogether separate Mrs. Bowes from Knox, but she seems to have come and +gone between his house and England. In 1562, however, we find him +characterised as “a sole man by reason of the absence of his +mother-in-law, Mrs. Bowes,” and a passport is got for her, her man, a +maid, and “three horses, whereof two shall return,” as well as liberty to +take all her own money with her into Scotland. This looks like a +definite arrangement; but whether she died at Edinburgh, or went back to +England yet again, I cannot find. + +With that great family of hers, unless in leaving her husband she had +quarrelled with them all, there must have been frequent occasion for her +presence, one would think. Knox at least survived her; and we possess +his epigraph to their long intimacy, given to the world by him in an +appendix to his latest publication. I have said in a former paper that +Knox was not shy of personal revelations in his published works. And the +trick seems to have grown on him. To this last tract, a controversial +onslaught on a Scottish Jesuit, he prefixed a prayer, not very pertinent +to the matter in hand, and containing references to his family which were +the occasion of some wit in his adversary’s answer; and appended what +seems equally irrelevant, one of his devout letters to Mrs. Bowes, with +an explanatory preface. To say truth, I believe he had always felt +uneasily that the circumstances of this intimacy were very capable of +misconstruction; and now, when he was an old man, taking “his good night +of all the faithful in both realms,” and only desirous “that without any +notable sclander to the evangel of Jesus Christ, he might end his battle; +for as the world was weary of him, so was he of it;”—in such a spirit it +was not, perhaps, unnatural that he should return to this old story, and +seek to put it right in the eyes of all men, ere he died. “Because that +God,” he says, “because that God now in His mercy hath put an end to the +battle of my dear mother, Mistress Elizabeth Bowes, before that He put an +end to my wretched life, I could not cease but declare to the world what +was the cause of our great familiarity and long acquaintance; which was +neither flesh nor blood, but a troubled conscience upon her part, which +never suffered her to rest but when she was in the company of the +faithful, of whom (from the first hearing of the word at my mouth) she +judged me to be one. . . . Her company to me was comfortable (yea, +honourable and profitable, for she was to me and mine a mother), but yet +it was not without some cross; for besides trouble and fashery of body +sustained for her, my mind was seldom quiet, for doing somewhat for the +comfort of her troubled conscience.” {388} He had written to her years +before, from his first exile in Dieppe, that “only God’s hand” could +withhold him from once more speaking with her face to face; and now, when +God’s hand has indeed interposed, when there lies between them, instead +of the voyageable straits, that great gulf over which no man can pass, +this is the spirit in which he can look back upon their long +acquaintance. She was a religious hypochondriac, it appears, whom, not +without some cross and fashery of mind and body, he was good enough to +tend. He might have given a truer character of their friendship, had he +thought less of his own standing in public estimation, and more of the +dead woman. But he was in all things, as Burke said of his son in that +ever memorable passage, a public creature. He wished that even into this +private place of his affections posterity should follow him with a +complete approval; and he was willing, in order that this might be so, to +exhibit the defects of his lost friend, and tell the world what weariness +he had sustained through her unhappy disposition. There is something +here that reminds one of Rousseau. + +I do not think he ever saw Mrs. Locke after he left Geneva; but his +correspondence with her continued for three years. It may have continued +longer, of course, but I think the last letters we possess read like the +last that would be written. Perhaps Mrs. Locke was then remarried, for +there is much obscurity over her subsequent history. For as long as +their intimacy was kept up, at least, the human element remains in the +Reformer’s life. Here is one passage, for example, the most likable +utterance of Knox’s that I can quote:—Mrs. Locke has been upbraiding him +as a bad correspondent. “My remembrance of you,” he answers, “is not so +dead, but I trust it shall be fresh enough, albeit it be renewed by no +outward token for one year. _Of nature_, _I am churlish_; _yet one thing +I ashame not to affirm_, _that familiarity once thoroughly contracted was +never yet broken on my default_. _The cause may be that I have rather +need of all_, _than that any have need of me_. However it (_that_) be, +it cannot be, as I say, the corporal absence of one year or two that can +quench in my heart that familiar acquaintance in Christ Jesus, which half +a year did engender, and almost two years did nourish and confirm. And +therefore, whether I write or no, be assuredly persuaded that I have you +in such memory as becometh the faithful to have of the faithful.” {390} +This is the truest touch of personal humility that I can remember to have +seen in all the five volumes of the Reformer’s collected works: it is no +small honour to Mrs. Locke that his affection for her should have brought +home to him this unwonted feeling of dependence upon others. Everything +else in the course of the correspondence testifies to a good, sound, +down-right sort of friendship between the two, less ecstatic than it was +at first, perhaps, but serviceable and very equal. He gives her ample +details as to the progress of the work of reformation; sends her the +sheets of the _Confession of Faith_, “in quairs,” as he calls it; asks +her to assist him with her prayers, to collect money for the good cause +in Scotland, and to send him books for himself—books by Calvin +especially, one on Isaiah, and a new revised edition of the “Institutes.” +“I must be bold on your liberality,” he writes, “not only in that, but in +greater things as I shall need.” {391a} On her part she applies to him +for spiritual advice, not after the manner of the drooping Mrs. Bowes, +but in a more positive spirit,—advice as to practical points, advice as +to the Church of England, for instance, whose ritual he condemns as a +“mingle-mangle.” {391b} Just at the end she ceases to write, sends him +“a token, without writing.” “I understand your impediment,” he answers, +“and therefore I cannot complain. Yet if you understood the variety of +my temptations, I doubt not but you would have written somewhat.” {391c} +One letter more, and then silence. + +And I think the best of the Reformer died out with that correspondence. +It is after this, of course, that he wrote that ungenerous description of +his intercourse with Mrs. Bowes. It is after this, also, that we come to +the unlovely episode of his second marriage. He had been left a widower +at the age of fifty-five. Three years after, it occurred apparently to +yet another pious parent to sacrifice a child upon the altar of his +respect for the Reformer. In January 1563, Randolph writes to Cecil: +“Your Honour will take it for a great wonder when I shall write unto you +that Mr. Knox shall marry a very near kinswoman of the Duke’s, a Lord’s +daughter, a young lass not above sixteen years of age.” {392} He adds +that he fears he will be laughed at for reporting so mad a story. And +yet it was true; and on Palm Sunday, 1564, Margaret Stewart, daughter of +Andrew Lord Stewart of Ochiltree, aged seventeen, was duly united to John +Knox, Minister of St. Giles’s Kirk, Edinburgh, aged fifty-nine,—to the +great disgust of Queen Mary from family pride, and I would fain hope of +many others for more humane considerations. “In this,” as Randolph says, +“I wish he had done otherwise.” The Consistory of Geneva, “that most +perfect school of Christ that ever was on earth since the days of the +Apostles,” were wont to forbid marriages on the ground of too great a +disproportion in age. I cannot help wondering whether the old Reformer’s +conscience did not uneasily remind him, now and again, of this good +custom of his religious metropolis, as he thought of the two-and-forty +years that separated him from his poor bride. Fitly enough, we hear +nothing of the second Mrs. Knox until she appears at her husband’s +deathbed, eight years after. She bore him three daughters in the +interval; and I suppose the poor child’s martyrdom was made as easy for +her as might be. She was “extremely attentive to him” at the end, we +read and he seems to have spoken to her with some confidence. Moreover, +and this is very characteristic, he had copied out for her use a little +volume of his own devotional letters to other women. + +This is the end of the roll, unless we add to it Mrs. Adamson, who had +delighted much in his company “by reason that she had a troubled +conscience,” and whose deathbed is commemorated at some length in the +pages of his history. {393} + +And now, looking back, it cannot be said that Knox’s intercourse with +women was quite of the highest sort. It is characteristic that we find +him more alarmed for his own reputation than for the reputation of the +women with whom he was familiar. There was a fatal preponderance of self +in all his intimacies: many women came to learn from him, but he never +condescended to become a learner in his turn. And so there is not +anything idyllic in these intimacies of his; and they were never so +renovating to his spirit as they might have been. But I believe they +were good enough for the women. I fancy the women knew what they were +about when so many of them followed after Knox. It is not simply because +a man is always fully persuaded that he knows the right from the wrong +and sees his way plainly through the maze of life, great qualities as +these are, that people will love and follow him, and write him letters +full of their “earnest desire for him” when he is absent. It is not over +a man, whose one characteristic is grim fixity of purpose, that the +hearts of women are “incensed and kindled with a special care,” as it +were over their natural children. In the strong quiet patience of all +his letters to the weariful Mrs. Bowes, we may perhaps see one cause of +the fascination he possessed for these religious women. Here was one +whom you could besiege all the year round with inconsistent scruples and +complaints; you might write to him on Thursday that you were so elated it +was plain the devil was deceiving you, and again on Friday that you were +so depressed it was plain God had cast you off for ever; and he would +read all this patiently and sympathetically, and give you an answer in +the most reassuring polysyllables, and all divided into heads—who +knows?—like a treatise on divinity. And then, those easy tears of his. +There are some women who like to see men crying; and here was this +great-voiced, bearded man of God, who might be seen beating the solid +pulpit every Sunday, and casting abroad his clamorous denunciations to +the terror of all, and who on the Monday would sit in their parlours by +the hour, and weep with them over their manifold trials and temptations. +Nowadays, he would have to drink a dish of tea with all these penitents. +. . . It sounds a little vulgar, as the past will do, if we look into it +too closely. We could not let these great folk of old into our +drawing-rooms. Queen Elizabeth would positively not be eligible for a +housemaid. The old manners and the old customs go sinking from grade to +grade, until, if some mighty emperor revisited the glimpses of the moon, +he would not find any one of his way of thinking, any one he could strike +hands with and talk to freely and without offence, save perhaps the +porter at the end of the street, or the fellow with his elbows out who +loafs all day before the public-house. So that this little note of +vulgarity is not a thing to be dwelt upon; it is to be put away from us, +as we recall the fashion of these old intimacies; so that we may only +remember Knox as one who was very long-suffering with women, kind to them +in his own way, loving them in his own way—and that not the worst way, if +it was not the best—and once at least, if not twice, moved to his heart +of hearts by a woman, and giving expression to the yearning he had for +her society in words that none of us need be ashamed to borrow. + +And let us bear in mind always that the period I have gone over in this +essay begins when the Reformer was already beyond the middle age, and +already broken in bodily health: it has been the story of an old man’s +friendships. This it is that makes Knox enviable. Unknown until past +forty, he had then before him five-and-thirty years of splendid and +influential life, passed through uncommon hardships to an uncommon degree +of power, lived in his own country as a sort of king, and did what he +would with the sound of his voice out of the pulpit. And besides all +this, such a following of faithful women! One would take the first forty +years gladly, if one could be sure of the last thirty. Most of us, even +if, by reason of great strength and the dignity of gray hairs, we retain +some degree of public respect in the latter days of our existence, will +find a falling away of friends, and a solitude making itself round about +us day by day, until we are left alone with the hired sick-nurse. For +the attraction of a man’s character is apt to be outlived, like the +attraction of his body; and the power to love grows feeble in its turn, +as well as the power to inspire love in others. It is only with a few +rare natures that friendship is added to friendship, love to love, and +the man keeps growing richer in affection—richer, I mean, as a bank may +be said to grow richer, both giving and receiving more—after his head is +white and his back weary, and he prepares to go down into the dust of +death. + + * * * * * + + THE END. + + * * * * * + + _Printed by_ R. & R. CLARK, LIMITED, _Edinburgh_. + + * * * * * + + + + +FOOTNOTES + + +{0} _Gaudeamus_: _Carmina vagorum selecta_. Leipsic. Trübner. 1879. + +{27} Prefatory letter to _Peveril of the Peak_. + +{71} For the love affairs see, in particular, Mr. Scott Douglas’s +edition under the different dates. + +{179} Yoshida, when on his way to Nangasaki, met the soldier and talked +with him by the roadside; they then parted, but the soldier was so much +struck by the words he heard, that on Yoshida’s return he sought him out +and declared his intention of devoting his life to the good cause. I +venture, in the absence of the writer, to insert this correction, having +been present when the story was told by Mr. Masaki.—F. J. And I, there +being none to settle the difference, must reproduce both versions.—R. L. +S. + +{185} I understood that the merchant was endeavouring surreptitiously to +obtain for his son instruction to which he was not entitled.—F. J. + +{192} _Etude Biographique sur François Villon_. Paris: H. Menu. + +{195} _Bougeois de Paris_, ed. Panthéon, pp. 688, 689. + +{196} _Bourgeois_, pp. 627, 636, and 725. + +{204} _Chronìque Scandaleuse_, ed. Panthéon, p. 237. + +{210} Monstrelet: _Panthéon Littéraire_, p. 26. + +{220a} _Chron. Scand._ ut supra. + +{220b} Here and there, principally in the order of events, this article +differs from M. Longnon’s own reading of his material. The ground on +which he defers the execution of Montigny and De Cayeux beyond the date +of their trials seems insufficient. There is a law of parsimony for the +construction of historical documents; simplicity is the first duty of +narration; and hanged they were. + +{224} _Chron. Scand._, p. 338. + +{238} Champollion-Figeac’s _Louis et Charles d’Orléans_, p. 348. + +{240a} D’Héricault’s admirable _Memoir_, prefixed to his edition of +Charles’s works, vol. i. p. xi. + +{240b} Vallet de Viriville, _Charles VII. et son Epoque_, ii. 428, note +2. + +{241a} See Lecoy de la Marche, _Le Roi René_, i. 167. + +{241b} Vallet, _Charles VII_, ii. 85, 86, note 2. + +{241c} Champollion-Figeac, 193–198. + +{242a} Champollion-Figeac, 209. + +{242b} The student will see that there are facts cited, and expressions +borrowed, in this paragraph, from a period extending over almost the +whole of Charles’s life, instead of being confined entirely to his +boyhood. As I do not believe there was any change, so I do not believe +there is any anachronism involved. + +{243} _The Debate between the Heralds of France and England_, translated +and admirably edited by Mr. Henry Pyne. For the attribution of this +tract to Charles, the reader is referred to Mr. Pyne’s conclusive +argument. + +{244} Des Ursins. + +{248} Michelet, iv. App. 179, p. 337. + +{249} Champollion-Figeac, pp. 279–82. + +{250} Michelet, iv. pp. 123–4. + +{253} _Debate between the Heralds_. + +{254} Sir H. Nicholas, _Agincourt_. + +{257a} _Debate between the Heralds_. + +{257b} Works (ed. d’Héricault), i. 43. + +{257c} _Ibid._ 143. + +{258a} Works (ed. d’Héricault), i. 190. + +{258b} _Ibid._ 144. + +{258c} _Ibid._ 158. + +{259a} M. Champollion-Figeac gives many in his editions of Charles’s +works, most (as I should think) of very doubtful authenticity, or worse. + +{259b} Rymer, x. 564. D’Héricault’s _Memoir_, p. xli. Gairdner’s +_Paston Letters_, i. 27, 99. + +{260} Champollion-Figeac, 377. + +{262a} Dom Plancher, iv. 178–9. + +{262b} Works, i. 157–63. + +{265a} Vallet’s _Charles VII._, i. 251. + +{265b} _Procès de Jeanne d’Arc_, i. 133–55. + +{267a} Monstrelet. + +{267b} Vallet’s _Charles VII._, iii. chap. i. But see the chronicle +that bears Jaquet’s name: a lean and dreary book. + +{268} Monstrelet. + +{269} D’Héricault’s _Memoir_, xl. xli. Vallet, _Charles VI._, ii. 435. + +{271a} Champollion-Figeac, 368. + +{271b} Works, i. 115. + +{271c} D’Héricault’s _Memoir_, xlv. + +{272} ChampoIlion-Figeac, 381, 361, 381. + +{273} Champollion-Figeac, 359,361. + +{276a} Lecoy de la Marche, _Roi René_, ii. 155, 177. + +{276b} Champollion-Figeac, chaps. v. and vi. + +{276c} _Ibid._ 364; Works, i. 172. + +{276d} Champollion-Figeac, 364: “Jeter de l’argent aux petis enfans qui +estoient au long de Bourbon, pour les faire nonner en l’eau et aller +querre l’argent au fond.” + +{277a} Champollion-Figeac, 387. + +{277b} _Nouvelle Biographie Didot_, art. “Marie de Clèves.” Vallet, +_Charles VII_, iii. 85, note 1. + +{277c} Champollion-Figeac, 383, 384–386. + +{278} Works, ii. 57, 258. + +{329} Gaberel’s _Eglist de Genève_, i. 88. + +{330a} _La Démocratie chez les Prédicateurs de la Ligue_. + +{330b} _Historia affectuum se immiscentium controversiæ de +gynæcocratia_. It is in his collected prefaces, Leipsic, 1683. + +{333a} _Œuvres de d’Aubigné_, i. 449. + +{333b} _Dames Illustres_, pp. 358–360. + +{334} Works of John Knox, iv. 349. + +{341} M‘Crie’s _Life of Knox_, ii. 41. + +{342} Described by Calvin in a letter to Cecil, Knox’s Works, vol. iv. + +{344} It was anonymously published, but no one seems to have been in +doubt about its authorship; he might as well have set his name to it, for +all the good he got by holding it back. + +{345a} Knox’s Works, iv. 358. + +{345b} Strype’s _Aylmer_, p. 16. + +{346a} It may interest the reader to know that these (so says Thomasius) +are the “ipsissima verba Schlusselburgii.” + +{346b} I am indebted for a sight of this book to the kindness of Mr. +David Laing, the editor of Knox’s Works. + +{348} _Social Statics_, p. 64, etc. + +{349} Hallam’s _Const. Hist. of England_, i. 225, note m. + +{352a} Knox to Mrs. Locke, 6th April 1559. Works, vi. 14. + +{352b} Knox to Sir William Cecil, 10th April 1559. Works, ii. 16, or +vi. 15. + +{354} Knox to Queen Elizabeth, July. 20th, 1559. Works, vi. 47, or ii. +26. + +{355} Knox to Queen Elizabeth, August 6th, 1561. Works, vi. 126. + +{357} Knox’s Works, ii. 278–280. + +{359} Calderwood’s _History of the Kirk of Scotland_, edition of the +Wodrow Society, iii. 51–54. + +{360} _Bayle’s Historical Dictionary_, art. Knox, remark G. + +{368} Works, iv. 244. + +{369a} Works, iv. 246. + +{369b} _Ib._ iv. 225. + +{371a} Works, iv. 245. + +{371b} _Ib._ iv. 221. + +{373a} Works, vi. 514. + +{373b} _Ib._ iii. 338. + +{373c} _Ib._ iii. 352, 353. + +{374a} Works, iii. 350. + +{374b} _Ib._ iii. 390, 391. + +{375a} Works, iii. 142. + +{375b} _Ib._ iii. 378. + +{375c} _Ib._ ii. 379. + +{376} Works, iii. 394. + +{377} Works, iii. 376. + +{378} Works, iii. 378. + +{379a} Works, vi. 104. + +{379b} _Ib._ v. 5. + +{379c} _Ib._ vi. 27. + +{379d} _Ib._ ii. 138. + +{380} Mr. Laing’s preface to the sixth volume of Knox’s Works, p. lxii. + +{381} Works. vi. 534. + +{382a} Works, iv. 220. + +{382b} _Ib._ iii. 380. + +{382c} _Ib._ iv. 220. + +{383} Works, iii. 380. + +{384} Works, iv. 238. + +{385} Works, iv. 240. + +{388} Works, vi. 513, 514. + +{390} Works, vi. ii. + +{391a} Works, vi. pp. 21. 101, 108, 130. + +{391b} _Ib._ vi. 83. + +{391c} _Ib._ vi. 129. + +{392} Works, vi. 532. + +{393} Works, i. 246. + + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FAMILIAR STUDIES OF MEN AND BOOKS*** + + +******* This file should be named 425-0.txt or 425-0.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/4/2/425 + + + +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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