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<pre>
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: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FAMILIAR STUDIES OF MEN AND
BOOKS***
</pre>
<p>Transcribed from the 1896 Chatto & Windus edition by David
Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org</p>
<h1>FAMILIAR STUDIES<br />
<span class="GutSmall">OF</span><br />
MEN AND BOOKS</h1>
<p style="text-align: center"><span
class="GutSmall">BY</span></p>
<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">ROBERT LOUIS
STEVENSON</span></p>
<p style="text-align: center">
<a href="images/p0b.jpg">
<img alt=
"Decorative graphic"
title=
"Decorative graphic"
src="images/p0s.jpg" />
</a></p>
<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall"><i>ELEVENTH
EDITION</i></span></p>
<div class="gapspace"> </div>
<p style="text-align: center">London<br />
CHATTO & WINDUS, PICADILLY<br />
1896</p>
<div class="gapspace"> </div>
<p style="text-align: center">TO</p>
<p style="text-align: center">THOMAS STEVENSON</p>
<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">CIVIL
ENGINEER</span><br />
<span class="GutSmall">BY WHOSE DEVICES THE GREAT SEA LIGHTS IN
EVERY QUARTER</span><br />
<span class="GutSmall">OF THE WORLD NOW SHINE MORE
BRIGHTLY</span></p>
<p style="text-align: center">THIS VOLUME IS IN LOVE AND
GRATITUDE</p>
<p style="text-align: center">DEDICATED BY HIS SON</p>
<p style="text-align: center">THE AUTHOR</p>
<h2>PREFACE<br />
BY WAY OF CRITICISM.</h2>
<p><span class="smcap">These</span> studies are collected from
the monthly press. One appeared in the <i>New
Quarterly</i>, one in <i>Macmillan’s</i>, and the rest in
the <i>Cornhill Magazine</i>. To the <i>Cornhill</i> 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p><i>Hugo’s Romances</i>.—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.</p>
<p><i>Burns</i>.—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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p><i>Walt Whitman</i>.—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.</p>
<p><i>Thoreau</i>.—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 <i>parti-pris</i>, 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p><i>Villon</i>.—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.</p>
<p>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 <i>éclat de voix</i>, 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
(<i>La Grosse Margot</i>) 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:—</p>
<blockquote><p>Nunc plango florem<br />
Ætatis teneræ<br />
Nitidiorem<br />
Veneris sidere:<br />
Tunc columbinam<br />
Mentis dulcedinem,<br />
Nunc serpentinam<br />
Amaritudinem.<br />
Verbo rogantes<br />
Removes ostio,<br />
Munera dantes<br />
Foves cubiculo,<br />
Illos abire
præcipis<br />
A quibus nihil
accipis,<br />
Cæcos
claudosque recipis,<br />
Viros illustres
decipis<br />
Cum melle venenosa. <a name="citation0"></a><a href="#footnote0"
class="citation">[0]</a></p>
</blockquote>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p><i>Charles of Orleans</i>.—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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p><i>Knox</i>.—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.</p>
<p>Of the <i>Pepys</i> 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.</p>
<p style="text-align: right">R. L. S.</p>
<h2>CONTENTS.</h2>
<table>
<tr>
<td><p> </p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: right"><span
class="GutSmall">PAGE</span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p><span class="smcap">Victor Hugo’s
Romances</span></p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page1">1</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p><span class="smcap">Some Aspects of Robert
Burns</span></p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page38">38</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p><span class="smcap">Walt Whitman</span></p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page91">91</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p><span class="smcap">Henry David Thoreau: His Character and
Opinions</span></p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page129">129</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p><span class="smcap">Yoshida-Torajiro</span></p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page172">172</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p><span class="smcap">François Villon, Student, Poet,
and House-breaker</span></p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page192">192</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p><span class="smcap">Charles of Orleans</span></p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page236">236</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p><span class="smcap">Samuel Pepys</span></p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page290">290</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><p><span class="smcap">John Knox and Women</span></p>
</td>
<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a
href="#page328">328</a></span></p>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
<h2><a name="page1"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 1</span>VICTOR
HUGO’S ROMANCES.</h2>
<blockquote><p>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 <i>Quentin Durward</i>.</p>
</blockquote>
<p><span class="smcap">Victor Hugo’s</span> 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, <i>Quatre Vingt
Treize</i>, 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 <i>Quatre Vingt Treize</i> 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.</p>
<div class="gapspace"> </div>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<div class="gapspace"> </div>
<p>The moral end that the author had before him in the conception
of <i>Notre Dame de Paris</i> 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?</p>
<p>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 <i>in pace</i>, 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, <i>pour voir
s’ils ne blanchissaient pas</i>.” And, p. 181:
“Ses pensées étaient si insupportables
qu’il prenait sa tête à deux mains et
tâchait de l’arracher de ses épaules <i>pour
la briser sur le pavé</i>.”</p>
<p>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 <i>Notre Dame</i>, 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.</p>
<div class="gapspace"> </div>
<p>We look in vain for any similar blemish in <i>Les
Misérables</i>. 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 <i>Les
Misérables</i>; 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.</p>
<p>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 <i>Notre Dame</i>
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.</p>
<div class="gapspace"> </div>
<p>Superstition and social exigency having been thus dealt with
in the first two members of the series, it remained for <i>Les
Travailleurs de la Mer</i> 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
<i>Les Travailleurs</i> 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.</p>
<p>But in <i>Les Travailleurs</i>, 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.</p>
<div class="gapspace"> </div>
<p>In<i> L’Homme qui Rit</i>, 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 <i>reductio ad absurdum</i> 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.</p>
<p>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 <i>Les
Travailleurs</i>, 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,” <a
name="citation27"></a><a href="#footnote27"
class="citation">[27]</a> 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.</p>
<div class="gapspace"> </div>
<p>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 <i>Quatre Vingt Treize</i>
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.</p>
<p>The episode of the mother and children in <i>Quatre Vingt
Treize</i> is equal to anything that Hugo has ever written.
There is one chapter in the second volume, for instance, called
“<i>Sein guéri</i>, <i>cœur
saignant</i>,” 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 <i>L’Homme qui Rit</i>; 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.</p>
<div class="gapspace"> </div>
<p>Such then, with their faults and their signal excellences, are
the five great novels.</p>
<p>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 <i>Les
Misérables or Les Travailleurs</i> of their distinctive
lesson, you would find that the story had lost its interest and
the book was dead.</p>
<p>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 <i>Les
Travailleurs</i>; sometimes, as in <i>Les Misérables</i>,
they merely figure for awhile, as a beautiful episode in the epic
of oppression; sometimes they are entirely absent, as in
<i>Quatre Vingt Treize</i>. There is no hero in <i>Notre
Dame</i>: in <i>Les Misérables</i> it is an old man: in
<i>L’Homme qui Rit</i> it is a monster: in <i>Quatre Vingt
Treize</i> 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 <i>rôle</i>, 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?</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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?</p>
<h2><a name="page38"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 38</span>SOME
ASPECTS OF ROBERT BURNS</h2>
<p><span class="smcap">To</span> 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 <i>Holy Willie’s Prayer</i>,
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 <i>Jolly Beggars</i>, 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 <i>Cotter’s
Saturday Night</i> should have stooped to write the <i>Jolly
Beggars</i>. The <i>Saturday Night</i> 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
<i>Jolly Beggars</i>. 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, <i>teres atque rotundus</i>—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
<i>protégé</i>, 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 <i>Holy Willie</i>, nor the <i>Beggars</i>, nor the
<i>Ordination</i>, 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.</p>
<p>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?</p>
<h3><span class="smcap">Youth</span>.</h3>
<p>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 <i>Titus Andronicus</i>, 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.</p>
<p>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
<i>Burnes</i>; Robert early adopted the orthography
<i>Burness</i> from his cousin in the Mearns; and in his
twenty-eighth year changed it once more to <i>Burns</i>. 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
<i>Jehan</i> for <i>Jean</i>, swaggering in Gautier’s red
waistcoat, and horrifying Bourgeois in a public café with
paradox and gasconnade.</p>
<p>A leading trait throughout his whole career was his desire to
be in love. <i>Ne fait pas ce tour qui veut</i>. 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 <i>one or more</i> 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 <i>Rab the Ranter</i>; and one who
was in no way formidable by himself might grow dangerous and
attractive through the fame of his associate.</p>
<p>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 <i>facile princeps</i>, 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?</p>
<p>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 <i>Holy Willie</i> 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.</p>
<p>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 <i>Man of Feeling</i>. 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.</p>
<h3><span class="smcap">The Love Stories</span>.</h3>
<p>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,
<i>caret quia vate sacro</i>), 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?”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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
<i>Nancy</i>, 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:—</p>
<blockquote><p>“The bursting tears my heart declare;<br />
Farewell the bonny banks of Ayr!”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>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.”</p>
<p>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 <i>landertness</i>, 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.”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 <i>in meditatione fugæ</i>, on behalf of
some Edinburgh fair one, probably of humble rank, who declared an
intention of adding to his family.</p>
<p>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 <i>Werther</i> 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 <i>tête-à-tête</i>, 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 <i>fun</i> passing between two persons who saw each other
only <i>once</i>;” 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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. <a
name="citation71"></a><a href="#footnote71"
class="citation">[71]</a></p>
<h3><span class="smcap">Downward Course</span>.</h3>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 <i>Address to a Louse</i>, 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.</p>
<p>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.”</p>
<p>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:—</p>
<blockquote><p>“Here’s freedom to him that wad
read,<br />
Here’s freedom to him that wad write;<br />
There’s nane ever feared that the truth should be heard<br
/>
But them wham the truth wad indite.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>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 <i>Scots</i>, <i>wha hae</i>; 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
<i>fanfaronnade</i> 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 <i>Twa Dogs</i> 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.</p>
<p>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 <i>Auld Lang Syne</i>. 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?</p>
<h3><span class="smcap">Works</span>.</h3>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 <i>Address to a
Louse</i>. 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 <i>Farmer’s Salutation to his Auld Mare
Maggie</i>, with the clever and inhumane production of half a
century earlier, <i>The Auld Man’s Mare’s dead</i>,
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 <i>Twa Dogs</i>, describes
and enters into the merry-making in the cottage?</p>
<blockquote><p>“The luntin’ pipe an’
sneeshin’ mill,<br />
Are handed round wi’ richt guid will;<br />
The canty auld folks crackin’ crouse,<br />
The young anes rantin’ through the house—<br />
My heart has been sae fain to see them<br />
That I for joy hae barkit wi’ them.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>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
<i>Jolly Beggars</i>, he shows no gleam of dramatic
instinct. Mr. Carlyle has complained that <i>Tam o’
Shanter</i> is, from the absence of this quality, only a
picturesque and external piece of work; and I may add that in the
<i>Twa Dogs</i> 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?—</p>
<blockquote><p>“Then gently scan your brother man,<br />
Still gentler sister woman;<br />
Though they may gang a kennin wrang,<br />
To step aside is human:<br />
One point must still be greatly dark—”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>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.</p>
<h2><a name="page91"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 91</span>WALT
WHITMAN.</h2>
<p><span class="smcap">Of</span> 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 <i>Samson Agonistes</i>; 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.</p>
<p>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?</p>
<h3>I.</h3>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<h3>II.</h3>
<p>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 <i>Maladie de
René</i>, 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<blockquote><p>“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.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<h3>III.</h3>
<p>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</p>
<blockquote><p>“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.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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:—</p>
<blockquote><p>“The dear love of man for his
comrade—the attraction of friend for friend,<br />
Of the well-married husband and wife, of children and parents,<br
/>
Of city for city and land for land.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>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 <i>ego</i> 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<h3>IV.</h3>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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:—</p>
<blockquote><p>“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.</p>
<p>“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.</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>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.</p>
<h3>V.</h3>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<h3>VI.</h3>
<p>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?</p>
<p>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 <i>Leaves of
Grass</i> which do pretty well condense his teaching on all
essential points, and yet preserve a measure of his spirit.</p>
<blockquote><p>“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.”</p>
<p>“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.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>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 <i>Leaves of Grass</i>, 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.</p>
<h2><a name="page129"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
129</span>HENRY DAVID THOREAU:<br />
HIS CHARACTER AND OPINIONS.</h2>
<h3>I.</h3>
<p><span class="smcap">Thoreau’s</span> 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 <i>no</i> than <i>yes</i>; and that is a characteristic which
depicts the man. It is a useful accomplishment to be able
to say <i>no</i>, but surely it is the essence of amiability to
prefer to say <i>yes</i> 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.</p>
<p>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
<i>suppose</i> 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.</p>
<p>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, <i>but are for ever on the side of the most
sensitive</i>.”</p>
<h3>II.</h3>
<p>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. “<i>Such are
my engagements to myself</i> 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>“The cost of a thing,” says he, “is <i>the
amount of what I will call life</i> 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.</p>
<p>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; <i>he may
adventure on life now</i>, 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 <i>to maintain oneself on
this earth is not a hardship</i>, <i>but a pastime</i>, if we
will live simply and wisely; <i>as the pursuits of simpler
nations are still the sports of the more
artificial</i>.”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<h3>III.</h3>
<p>“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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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:</p>
<blockquote><p>“Spät erklingt was früh
erklang;<br />
Glück und Unglück wird Gesang.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>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 <i>Areopagitica</i>, 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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
<i>Hamlet</i>, 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.</p>
<p>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. <i>Walden</i>, <i>or Life
in the Woods</i>, <i>A Week on the Concord and Merrimack
Rivers</i>, <i>The Maine Woods</i>,—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.</p>
<p>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 <i>Week</i>. These are
remarkable for a vivid truth of impression and a happy
suitability of language, not frequently surpassed.</p>
<p>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 <i>Robinson Crusoe</i>? 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 <i>Robinson</i>, but the romantic and
philosophic interest of the fable. The same treatment does
quite the reverse of delighting us when it is applied, in
<i>Colonel Jack</i>, 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
<i>Cape Cod</i>, or <i>The Yankee in Canada</i>. 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 <i>The Yankee in Canada</i>.</p>
<p>There are but three books of his that will be read with much
pleasure: the <i>Week</i>, <i>Walden</i>, 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.”</p>
<h3>IV.</h3>
<p>“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.”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.”</p>
<p>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.”</p>
<blockquote><p>“It were treason to our love<br />
And a sin to God above,<br />
One iota to abate<br />
Of a pure, impartial hate.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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!”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 <i>Walden</i>; 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.</p>
<p>“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. . . . <i>All
fables</i>, <i>indeed</i>, <i>have their morals</i>; <i>but the
innocent enjoy the story</i>.”</p>
<h3>V.</h3>
<p>“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. <i>But we wait for the
neighbour without to tell us of some false</i>, <i>easier
way</i>.” “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) “<i>our lives are sustained by a nearly equal
expense of virtue of some kind</i>.” 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 <i>did</i> 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.”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 <i>his</i> government which is the
<i>slave’s</i> 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 <i>one</i> <span class="GutSmall">HONEST</span> man, in this
State of Massachusetts, <i>ceasing to hold slaves</i>, 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.</p>
<p>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 <i>fiasco</i>, 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<div class="gapspace"> </div>
<p><span class="smcap">Note</span>.—For many facts in the
above essay, among which I may mention the incident of the
squirrel, I am indebted to <i>Thoreau</i>: <i>His Life and
Aims</i>, by J. A. Page, or, as is well known, Dr. Japp.</p>
<h2><a name="page172"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
172</span>YOSHIDA-TORAJIRO</h2>
<p><span class="smcap">The</span> 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.</p>
<p>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 <i>j</i>, which has the French
sound, or, as it has been cleverly proposed to write it, the
sound of <i>zh</i>. 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.</p>
<p>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?</p>
<p>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
<i>Ronyin</i>, 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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
<i>trouvère</i>, 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.</p>
<p>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 <a
name="citation179"></a><a href="#footnote179"
class="citation">[179]</a> 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.</p>
<p>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:</p>
<blockquote><p>“We do not know where we are to sleep
to-night,<br />
In a thousand miles of desert where we can see no human
smoke.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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, <a
name="citation185"></a><a href="#footnote185"
class="citation">[185]</a> 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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:—</p>
<blockquote><p>“It is better to be a crystal and be
broken,<br />
Than to remain perfect like a tile upon the housetop.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>So Kusákabé, from the highlands of Satzuma,
passed out of the theatre of this world. His death was like
an antique worthy’s.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<h2><a name="page192"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
192</span>FRANÇOIS VILLON, STUDENT, POET, AND
HOUSEBREAKER.</h2>
<p><span class="smcap">Perhaps</span> 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. <a name="citation192"></a><a
href="#footnote192" class="citation">[192]</a> 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<h2><span class="smcap">A Wild Youth</span>.</h2>
<p>François de Montcorbier, <i>alias</i> François
des Loges, <i>alias</i> François Villon, <i>alias</i>
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. <a name="citation195"></a><a
href="#footnote195" class="citation">[195]</a> 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.</p>
<p>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 <i>bourse</i>, 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. <a name="citation196"></a><a
href="#footnote196" class="citation">[196]</a> 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.</p>
<p>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 <i>Notre Dame de Paris</i>. 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.</p>
<p>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 <i>Porte Rouge</i>, 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
<i>Small Testament</i> 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 <i>minus</i> 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 <i>Small Testament</i> immediately on the
back of the occurrence, and the time when he wrote the <i>Large
Testament</i> 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.</p>
<p>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. <a
name="citation204"></a><a href="#footnote204"
class="citation">[204]</a> 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 <i>jeu d’esprit</i>, a graceful and trifling
exercise of the imagination, in the grimy ballad of Fat Peg
(<i>Grosse Margot</i>). 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—</p>
<blockquote><p> “A place, for which the
pained’st fiend<br />
Of hell would not in reputation change.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 (<i>serain</i>), and had
a sword below it dangling from his girdle. So these three
dallied in front of St. Benoît, taking their pleasure
(<i>pour soy esbatre</i>). 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.</p>
<p>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 (<i>autrement dit</i>) 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
<i>alias of</i> 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.</p>
<h3><span class="smcap">A Gang of Thieves</span>.</h3>
<p>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. <a name="citation210"></a><a
href="#footnote210" class="citation">[210]</a> 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.</p>
<p>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. “<i>Dictus des Cahyeus est
fortis operator crochetorum</i>,” says Tabary’s
interrogation, “<i>sed dictus Petit-Jehan</i>, <i>ejus
socius</i>, <i>est forcius operator</i>.” 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
<i>gang</i> 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?</p>
<p>At Christmas-time in 1456, readers of Villon will remember
that he was engaged on the <i>Small Testament</i>. About
the same period, <i>circa festum nativitatis Domini</i>, 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?</p>
<p>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 <i>Small
Testament</i>. 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.</p>
<p>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 (<i>de leur sorte et
de leurs complices</i>). 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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; <a name="citation220a"></a><a
href="#footnote220a" class="citation">[220a]</a> and Colin de
Cayeux, with many others, was condemned to death and hanged. <a
name="citation220b"></a><a href="#footnote220b"
class="citation">[220b]</a></p>
<h3><span class="smcap">Villon and the Gallows</span>.</h3>
<p>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:—</p>
<blockquote><p>“La pluye nous a debuez et lavez,<br />
Et le soleil dessechez et noirciz;<br />
Pies, corbeaulx, nous ont les yeux cavez,<br />
Et arrachez la barbe et les sourcilz.<br />
Jamais, nul temps, nous ne sommes rassis;<br />
Puis ça, puis là, comme le vent varie,<br />
A son plaisir sans cesser nous charie,<br />
Plus becquetez d’oiscaulx que dez à couldre.<br />
Ne soyez donc de nostre confrairie,<br />
Mais priez Dieu que tous nous vueille absouldre.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 <i>envoi</i>,
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; <a name="citation224"></a><a
href="#footnote224" class="citation">[224]</a> 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.</p>
<p>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 <i>Large Testament</i>, and perpetuate his name in a
sort of glorious ignominy.</p>
<h3><span class="smcap">The </span><span class="smcap"><i>Large
Testament</i></span>.</h3>
<p>Of this capital achievement and, with it, of Villon’s
style in general, it is here the place to speak. The
<i>Large Testament</i> 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 <i>Don Juan</i> 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.</p>
<p>“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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 <i>Large
Testament</i> 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.</p>
<p>There were two things on which he felt with perfect and, in
one case, even threatening sincerity.</p>
<p>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
<i>Old Vagabond</i> or <i>Jacques</i>. 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p style="text-align: center">* * * * *</p>
<p>The date of the <i>Large Testament</i> 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.</p>
<h2><a name="page236"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
236</span>CHARLES OF ORLEANS.</h2>
<p><span class="smcap">For</span> 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, <i>figura animi magis quam corporis</i>. 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.</p>
<h3>I.</h3>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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. <a name="citation238"></a><a
href="#footnote238" class="citation">[238]</a> “A
green room, with the ceiling full of angels, and the
<i>dossier</i> of shepherds and shepherdesses seeming (<i>faisant
contenance</i>) 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.</p>
<p>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. <a name="citation240a"></a><a
href="#footnote240a" class="citation">[240a]</a> 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. <a name="citation240b"></a><a
href="#footnote240b" class="citation">[240b]</a> If a
scandal happened, as in the loathsome thirty-third story of the
<i>Cent Nouvelles Nouvelles</i>, 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. <a name="citation241a"></a><a
href="#footnote241a" class="citation">[241a]</a>
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. <a name="citation241b"></a><a
href="#footnote241b" class="citation">[241b]</a> 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. <a name="citation241c"></a><a
href="#footnote241c" class="citation">[241c]</a> 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.
<a name="citation242a"></a><a href="#footnote242a"
class="citation">[242a]</a> 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.” <a name="citation242b"></a><a
href="#footnote242b" class="citation">[242b]</a> 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.” <a
name="citation243"></a><a href="#footnote243"
class="citation">[243]</a></p>
<p>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. <i>Pleuroit fort ladite Isabeau</i>; the said
Isabella wept copiously. <a name="citation244"></a><a
href="#footnote244" class="citation">[244]</a> 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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. “<i>You were
stolen from me</i>,” 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.</p>
<p>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: “<i>Dieu le
scet</i>,” God knows it; or “<i>Souvenez-vous de</i>
—” Remember! <a name="citation248"></a><a
href="#footnote248" class="citation">[248]</a> 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.</p>
<p>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. <a name="citation249"></a><a href="#footnote249"
class="citation">[249]</a> 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, <i>pour ne pas
desobéir au roi</i>, 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, “<i>Pax</i>, <i>pax</i>,
<i>inquit Propheta</i>, <i>et non est Pax</i>.” <a
name="citation250"></a><a href="#footnote250"
class="citation">[250]</a> 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: “<i>Domine Jesu</i>, <i>parce populo
tuo</i>, <i>dirige in viam pacis principes</i>.” 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,
“<i>Souvenez-vous de</i> —”
Remember! He has killed Polonius, to be sure; but the king
is never a penny the worse.</p>
<h3>II.</h3>
<p>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 <i>Henry V.</i>; 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:” <a
name="citation253"></a><a href="#footnote253"
class="citation">[253]</a> 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. <a name="citation254"></a><a
href="#footnote254" class="citation">[254]</a></p>
<p>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. <i>The Pilgrim’s Progress</i> and <i>Don
Quixote</i> 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.</p>
<p>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. <a name="citation257a"></a><a
href="#footnote257a" class="citation">[257a]</a> 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.” <a
name="citation257b"></a><a href="#footnote257b"
class="citation">[257b]</a> 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. <a
name="citation257c"></a><a href="#footnote257c"
class="citation">[257c]</a> 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. <a
name="citation258a"></a><a href="#footnote258a"
class="citation">[258a]</a> For the moment, he must really
have been thinking more of France than of Charles of Orleans.</p>
<p>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.
<a name="citation258b"></a><a href="#footnote258b"
class="citation">[258b]</a> 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.” <a
name="citation258c"></a><a href="#footnote258c"
class="citation">[258c]</a></p>
<p>Charles made laudable endeavours to acquire English, and even
learned to write a rondel in that tongue of quite average
mediocrity. <a name="citation259a"></a><a href="#footnote259a"
class="citation">[259a]</a> 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. <a
name="citation259b"></a><a href="#footnote259b"
class="citation">[259b]</a> 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.”
<a name="citation260"></a><a href="#footnote260"
class="citation">[260]</a> 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.</p>
<p>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.” <a
name="citation262a"></a><a href="#footnote262a"
class="citation">[262a]</a> 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. <a
name="citation262b"></a><a href="#footnote262b"
class="citation">[262b]</a> 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.</p>
<p>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.”</p>
<h3>III.</h3>
<p>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. <a
name="citation265a"></a><a href="#footnote265a"
class="citation">[265a]</a> 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. <a name="citation265b"></a><a href="#footnote265b"
class="citation">[265b]</a></p>
<p>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?</p>
<p>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,
<i>comme en brigade</i>, and were served abundantly with many
rich and curious dishes. <a name="citation267a"></a><a
href="#footnote267a" class="citation">[267a]</a> 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. <a name="citation267b"></a><a
href="#footnote267b" class="citation">[267b]</a> 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.</p>
<p>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. <a name="citation268"></a><a href="#footnote268"
class="citation">[268]</a> 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.</p>
<p>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. <a name="citation269"></a><a
href="#footnote269" class="citation">[269]</a></p>
<h3>IV.</h3>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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. <a name="citation271a"></a><a
href="#footnote271a" class="citation">[271a]</a> A little
later and the duke sang, in a truly patriotic vein, the
deliverance of Guyenne and Normandy. <a
name="citation271b"></a><a href="#footnote271b"
class="citation">[271b]</a> 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. <a
name="citation271c"></a><a href="#footnote271c"
class="citation">[271c]</a> 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 <i>The Times</i> 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.</p>
<p>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. <a
name="citation272"></a><a href="#footnote272"
class="citation">[272]</a> 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. <a name="citation273"></a><a
href="#footnote273" class="citation">[273]</a></p>
<p>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,</p>
<blockquote><p>“I die of thirst beside the fountain’s
edge”</p>
<p>(Je meurs de soif emprès de la fontaine).</p>
</blockquote>
<p>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 <i>tabula rasa</i>, 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,</p>
<blockquote><p>“I die of thirst beside the fountain’s
edge,”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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. <a
name="citation276a"></a><a href="#footnote276a"
class="citation">[276a]</a> Sometimes the journeys were set
about on horseback in a large party, with the <i>fourriers</i>
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. <a name="citation276b"></a><a
href="#footnote276b" class="citation">[276b]</a> 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. <a name="citation276c"></a><a
href="#footnote276c" class="citation">[276c]</a> 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.
<a name="citation276d"></a><a href="#footnote276d"
class="citation">[276d]</a> 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?</p>
<p>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. <a
name="citation277a"></a><a href="#footnote277a"
class="citation">[277a]</a> 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. <a
name="citation277b"></a><a href="#footnote277b"
class="citation">[277b]</a> 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. <a
name="citation277c"></a><a href="#footnote277c"
class="citation">[277c]</a></p>
<p>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. <a
name="citation278"></a><a href="#footnote278"
class="citation">[278]</a></p>
<p>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.</p>
<h3>V.</h3>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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
<i>fourriers</i>, 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<h2><a name="page290"></a><span class="pagenum">p.
290</span>SAMUEL PEPYS.</h2>
<p><span class="smcap">In</span> 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<h3><span class="smcap">The Diary</span>.</h3>
<p>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.”</p>
<p>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, <i>L’escholle
des Filles</i>, 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?</p>
<p>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 <i>Dapper Dicky</i>; 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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
<i>Assurance</i>, 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 <i>Naseby</i>, now changed into the <i>Charles</i>, 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
<i>Confessions</i>, or Hazlitt, who wrote the <i>Liber
Amoris</i>, 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.</p>
<p>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, <i>as I
was writing of this very line</i>, 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.</p>
<p>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 <i>ego</i> 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.</p>
<p>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.
<i>Mens cujusque is est quisque</i>, 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.”</p>
<h3><span class="smcap">A Liberal Genius</span>.</h3>
<p>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 <i>greedy</i>, but the reader must not suppose that he can
change it for that closely kindred one of <i>hungry</i>, 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 <i>viveur</i>—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.</p>
<p>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 <i>Hydrostatics</i> 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.</p>
<p>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, <i>which I seldom
am</i>;” 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<h3><span class="smcap">Respectability</span>.</h3>
<p>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 <i>Owl’s Nest</i> 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.”</p>
<p>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 <i>Sandy Foundation
Shaken</i>, 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 <i>not fit for everybody to
read</i>.” 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.</p>
<p>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.”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<h2><a name="page328"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 328</span>JOHN
KNOX AND HIS RELATIONS TO WOMEN.</h2>
<h3>I.—<span class="smcap">The Controversy about Female
Rule</span>.</h3>
<p><span class="smcap">When</span> 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. <a
name="citation329"></a><a href="#footnote329"
class="citation">[329]</a> 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 <a
name="citation330a"></a><a href="#footnote330a"
class="citation">[330a]</a> 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 <a
name="citation330b"></a><a href="#footnote330b"
class="citation">[330b]</a> about the religious partialities of
those who took part in the controversy, in which some of these
learned disputants cut a very sorry figure.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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. <a name="citation333a"></a><a href="#footnote333a"
class="citation">[333a]</a> 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. <a name="citation333b"></a><a href="#footnote333b"
class="citation">[333b]</a> 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—<i>The First Blast of the Trumpet
against the Monstrous Regiment of Women</i>. <a
name="citation334"></a><a href="#footnote334"
class="citation">[334]</a></p>
<p>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. <i>But whether it do or not</i>, <i>yet dare we
not cease to blow as God will give strength</i>. <i>For we
are debtors to more than to princes</i>, <i>to wit</i>, <i>to the
great multitude of our brethren</i>, of whom, no doubt, a great
number have heretofore offended by error and
ignorance.”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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
“<i>study to repress the inordinate pride and
tyranny</i>” <i>of queens</i>. 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 <span
class="smcap">the Trumpet hath once blown</span>.”</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.” <a name="citation341"></a><a
href="#footnote341" class="citation">[341]</a></p>
<p>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?</p>
<p>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 <a
name="citation342"></a><a href="#footnote342"
class="citation">[342]</a> 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.</p>
<p>There is little doubt in my mind that this interview was what
caused Knox to print his book without a name. <a
name="citation344"></a><a href="#footnote344"
class="citation">[344]</a> 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 <i>mal-à-propos</i>, 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.” <a
name="citation345a"></a><a href="#footnote345a"
class="citation">[345a]</a> 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,” <a name="citation345b"></a><a
href="#footnote345b" class="citation">[345b]</a> 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.” <a name="citation346a"></a><a href="#footnote346a"
class="citation">[346a]</a></p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>John Aylmer, afterwards Bishop of London, published an answer
to Knox, under the title of <i>An Harbour for Faithful and true
Subjects against the late Blown Blast</i>, <i>concerning the
government of Women</i>. <a name="citation346b"></a><a
href="#footnote346b" class="citation">[346b]</a> 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 <i>natural and unnatural</i>. 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. <a
name="citation348"></a><a href="#footnote348"
class="citation">[348]</a> 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. <a
name="citation349"></a><a href="#footnote349"
class="citation">[349]</a></p>
<p>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.”
<a name="citation352a"></a><a href="#footnote352a"
class="citation">[352a]</a> 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, <a name="citation352b"></a><a
href="#footnote352b" class="citation">[352b]</a> 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, <i>for the miraculous work of God</i>, <i>comforting His
afflicted by means of an infirm vessel</i>, <i>I do
acknowledge</i>, <i>and the power of His most potent hand I will
obey</i>. <i>More plainly to speak</i>, <i>if Queen
Elizabeth shall confess</i>, <i>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</i>, 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.</p>
<p>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.” <a
name="citation354"></a><a href="#footnote354"
class="citation">[354]</a> 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.</p>
<p>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, <a
name="citation355"></a><a href="#footnote355"
class="citation">[355]</a> 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, <i>unless her crafty counsel in so doing shot at a further
mark</i>.” 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.</p>
<p>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.” <a name="citation357"></a><a
href="#footnote357" class="citation">[357]</a> Deborah
again.</p>
<p>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: <i>quia</i> (these are his own words)
<i>quia omnia munda mundis</i>: 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.” <a name="citation359"></a><a
href="#footnote359" class="citation">[359]</a></p>
<p>Now, in this, which may be called his <i>Last Blast</i>, 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. <a
name="citation360"></a><a href="#footnote360"
class="citation">[360]</a> 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
<i>Blast</i> 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<h3>II.—<span class="smcap">Private Life</span>.</h3>
<p><span class="smcap">To</span> 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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
<i>ewig-weibliche</i>, 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.” <a name="citation368"></a><a
href="#footnote368" class="citation">[368]</a> 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.” <a
name="citation369a"></a><a href="#footnote369a"
class="citation">[369a]</a> 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. <a
name="citation369b"></a><a href="#footnote369b"
class="citation">[369b]</a> 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.” <a name="citation371a"></a><a
href="#footnote371a" class="citation">[371a]</a> 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.” <a name="citation371b"></a><a
href="#footnote371b" class="citation">[371b]</a> 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.</p>
<p>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 <i>Nostre Dame</i>; 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. <a
name="citation373a"></a><a href="#footnote373a"
class="citation">[373a]</a> 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.” <a name="citation373b"></a><a
href="#footnote373b" class="citation">[373b]</a> 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.” <a name="citation373c"></a><a
href="#footnote373c" class="citation">[373c]</a> 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>I did start back from you rehearsing your
infirmities</i>. <i>I remember myself so to have done</i>,
<i>and that is my common on consuetude when anything pierceth or
toucheth my heart</i>. <i>Call to your mind what I did
standing at the cupboard at Alnwick</i>. 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.” <a
name="citation374a"></a><a href="#footnote374a"
class="citation">[374a]</a> 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;<i> yea</i>, <i>very shame hath holden
me from your company</i>, <i>when I was most surely persuaded
that God had appointed me at that time to comfort and feed your
hungry and afflicted soul</i>. <i>God in His infinite
mercy</i>,” he goes on, “<i>remove not only from me
all fear that tendeth not to godliness</i>, <i>but from others
suspicion to judge of me otherwise than it becometh one member to
judge of another</i>.” <a name="citation374b"></a><a
href="#footnote374b" class="citation">[374b]</a> 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.” <a name="citation375a"></a><a href="#footnote375a"
class="citation">[375a]</a></p>
<p>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. <a
name="citation375b"></a><a href="#footnote375b"
class="citation">[375b]</a> 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.” <a
name="citation375c"></a><a href="#footnote375c"
class="citation">[375c]</a> 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. <a name="citation376"></a><a
href="#footnote376" class="citation">[376]</a> 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 <i>think</i> this be the first letter I ever
wrote to you.” This, if we are to take it literally,
may pair off with the “two <i>or three</i> 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.” <a
name="citation377"></a><a href="#footnote377"
class="citation">[377]</a> 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.” <a
name="citation378"></a><a href="#footnote378"
class="citation">[378]</a> 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.</p>
<p>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.
<a name="citation379a"></a><a href="#footnote379a"
class="citation">[379a]</a> Certainly she sometimes wrote
to his dictation; and, in this capacity, he calls her “his
left hand.” <a name="citation379b"></a><a
href="#footnote379b" class="citation">[379b]</a> 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.” <a name="citation379c"></a><a
href="#footnote379c" class="citation">[379c]</a> 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.” <a
name="citation379d"></a><a href="#footnote379d"
class="citation">[379d]</a> 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.</p>
<p>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. <a
name="citation380"></a><a href="#footnote380"
class="citation">[380]</a> 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.” <a
name="citation381"></a><a href="#footnote381"
class="citation">[381]</a> 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.”</p>
<p>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.
<a name="citation382a"></a><a href="#footnote382a"
class="citation">[382a]</a> 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. <a name="citation382b"></a><a
href="#footnote382b" class="citation">[382b]</a> Out of
all, however, he had chosen two. “<i>God</i>,” he
writes to them, “<i>brought us in such familiar
acquaintance</i>, <i>that your hearts were incensed and kindled
with a special care over me</i>, <i>as a mother useth to be over
her natural child</i>; and my heart was opened and compelled in
your presence to be more plain than ever I was to any.” <a
name="citation382c"></a><a href="#footnote382c"
class="citation">[382c]</a> 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.” <a name="citation383"></a><a
href="#footnote383" class="citation">[383]</a> 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. <i>Dear sister</i>, <i>if I should express the thirst
and languor which I have had for your presence</i>, <i>I should
appear to pass measure</i>. . . <i>Yea</i>, <i>I weep and rejoice
in remembrance of you</i>; 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.” <a name="citation384"></a><a
href="#footnote384" class="citation">[384]</a> 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.” <a name="citation385"></a><a href="#footnote385"
class="citation">[385]</a> 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.” <a name="citation388"></a><a
href="#footnote388" class="citation">[388]</a> 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.</p>
<p>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. <i>Of nature</i>, <i>I am churlish</i>; <i>yet one
thing I ashame not to affirm</i>, <i>that familiarity once
thoroughly contracted was never yet broken on my
default</i>. <i>The cause may be that I have rather need of
all</i>, <i>than that any have need of me</i>. However it
(<i>that</i>) 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.” <a name="citation390"></a><a href="#footnote390"
class="citation">[390]</a> 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 <i>Confession of Faith</i>, “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.” <a name="citation391a"></a><a href="#footnote391a"
class="citation">[391a]</a> 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.” <a name="citation391b"></a><a
href="#footnote391b" class="citation">[391b]</a> 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.” <a name="citation391c"></a><a
href="#footnote391c" class="citation">[391c]</a> One letter
more, and then silence.</p>
<p>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.” <a
name="citation392"></a><a href="#footnote392"
class="citation">[392]</a> 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.</p>
<p>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. <a
name="citation393"></a><a href="#footnote393"
class="citation">[393]</a></p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<div class="gapspace"> </div>
<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">THE
END.</span></p>
<div class="gapspace"> </div>
<p style="text-align: center"><i>Printed by</i> R. & R. <span
class="smcap">Clark</span>, <span class="smcap">Limited</span>,
<i>Edinburgh</i>.</p>
<div class="gapspace"> </div>
<h2>FOOTNOTES</h2>
<p><a name="footnote0"></a><a href="#citation0"
class="footnote">[0]</a> <i>Gaudeamus</i>: <i>Carmina
vagorum selecta</i>. Leipsic. Trübner.
1879.</p>
<p><a name="footnote27"></a><a href="#citation27"
class="footnote">[27]</a> Prefatory letter to <i>Peveril of
the Peak</i>.</p>
<p><a name="footnote71"></a><a href="#citation71"
class="footnote">[71]</a> For the love affairs see, in
particular, Mr. Scott Douglas’s edition under the different
dates.</p>
<p><a name="footnote179"></a><a href="#citation179"
class="footnote">[179]</a> 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.</p>
<p><a name="footnote185"></a><a href="#citation185"
class="footnote">[185]</a> I understood that the merchant
was endeavouring surreptitiously to obtain for his son
instruction to which he was not entitled.—F. J.</p>
<p><a name="footnote192"></a><a href="#citation192"
class="footnote">[192]</a> <i>Etude Biographique sur
François Villon</i>. Paris: H. Menu.</p>
<p><a name="footnote195"></a><a href="#citation195"
class="footnote">[195]</a> <i>Bougeois de Paris</i>,
ed. Panthéon, pp. 688, 689.</p>
<p><a name="footnote196"></a><a href="#citation196"
class="footnote">[196]</a> <i>Bourgeois</i>, pp. 627, 636,
and 725.</p>
<p><a name="footnote204"></a><a href="#citation204"
class="footnote">[204]</a> <i>Chronìque
Scandaleuse</i>, ed. Panthéon, p. 237.</p>
<p><a name="footnote210"></a><a href="#citation210"
class="footnote">[210]</a> Monstrelet: <i>Panthéon
Littéraire</i>, p. 26.</p>
<p><a name="footnote220a"></a><a href="#citation220a"
class="footnote">[220a]</a> <i>Chron. Scand.</i> ut
supra.</p>
<p><a name="footnote220b"></a><a href="#citation220b"
class="footnote">[220b]</a> 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.</p>
<p><a name="footnote224"></a><a href="#citation224"
class="footnote">[224]</a> <i>Chron. Scand.</i>, p.
338.</p>
<p><a name="footnote238"></a><a href="#citation238"
class="footnote">[238]</a> Champollion-Figeac’s
<i>Louis et Charles d’Orléans</i>, p. 348.</p>
<p><a name="footnote240a"></a><a href="#citation240a"
class="footnote">[240a]</a>
D’Héricault’s admirable <i>Memoir</i>,
prefixed to his edition of Charles’s works, vol. i. p.
xi.</p>
<p><a name="footnote240b"></a><a href="#citation240b"
class="footnote">[240b]</a> Vallet de Viriville, <i>Charles
VII. et son Epoque</i>, ii. 428, note 2.</p>
<p><a name="footnote241a"></a><a href="#citation241a"
class="footnote">[241a]</a> See Lecoy de la Marche, <i>Le
Roi René</i>, i. 167.</p>
<p><a name="footnote241b"></a><a href="#citation241b"
class="footnote">[241b]</a> Vallet, <i>Charles VII</i>, ii.
85, 86, note 2.</p>
<p><a name="footnote241c"></a><a href="#citation241c"
class="footnote">[241c]</a> Champollion-Figeac,
193–198.</p>
<p><a name="footnote242a"></a><a href="#citation242a"
class="footnote">[242a]</a> Champollion-Figeac, 209.</p>
<p><a name="footnote242b"></a><a href="#citation242b"
class="footnote">[242b]</a> 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.</p>
<p><a name="footnote243"></a><a href="#citation243"
class="footnote">[243]</a> <i>The Debate between the
Heralds of France and England</i>, 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.</p>
<p><a name="footnote244"></a><a href="#citation244"
class="footnote">[244]</a> Des Ursins.</p>
<p><a name="footnote248"></a><a href="#citation248"
class="footnote">[248]</a> Michelet, iv. App.
179, p. 337.</p>
<p><a name="footnote249"></a><a href="#citation249"
class="footnote">[249]</a> Champollion-Figeac, pp.
279–82.</p>
<p><a name="footnote250"></a><a href="#citation250"
class="footnote">[250]</a> Michelet, iv. pp.
123–4.</p>
<p><a name="footnote253"></a><a href="#citation253"
class="footnote">[253]</a> <i>Debate between the
Heralds</i>.</p>
<p><a name="footnote254"></a><a href="#citation254"
class="footnote">[254]</a> Sir H. Nicholas,
<i>Agincourt</i>.</p>
<p><a name="footnote257a"></a><a href="#citation257a"
class="footnote">[257a]</a> <i>Debate between the
Heralds</i>.</p>
<p><a name="footnote257b"></a><a href="#citation257b"
class="footnote">[257b]</a> Works (ed.
d’Héricault), i. 43.</p>
<p><a name="footnote257c"></a><a href="#citation257c"
class="footnote">[257c]</a> <i>Ibid.</i> 143.</p>
<p><a name="footnote258a"></a><a href="#citation258a"
class="footnote">[258a]</a> Works (ed.
d’Héricault), i. 190.</p>
<p><a name="footnote258b"></a><a href="#citation258b"
class="footnote">[258b]</a> <i>Ibid.</i> 144.</p>
<p><a name="footnote258c"></a><a href="#citation258c"
class="footnote">[258c]</a> <i>Ibid.</i> 158.</p>
<p><a name="footnote259a"></a><a href="#citation259a"
class="footnote">[259a]</a> M. Champollion-Figeac gives
many in his editions of Charles’s works, most (as I should
think) of very doubtful authenticity, or worse.</p>
<p><a name="footnote259b"></a><a href="#citation259b"
class="footnote">[259b]</a> Rymer, x. 564.
D’Héricault’s <i>Memoir</i>, p. xli.
Gairdner’s <i>Paston Letters</i>, i. 27, 99.</p>
<p><a name="footnote260"></a><a href="#citation260"
class="footnote">[260]</a> Champollion-Figeac, 377.</p>
<p><a name="footnote262a"></a><a href="#citation262a"
class="footnote">[262a]</a> Dom Plancher, iv.
178–9.</p>
<p><a name="footnote262b"></a><a href="#citation262b"
class="footnote">[262b]</a> Works, i. 157–63.</p>
<p><a name="footnote265a"></a><a href="#citation265a"
class="footnote">[265a]</a> Vallet’s <i>Charles
VII.</i>, i. 251.</p>
<p><a name="footnote265b"></a><a href="#citation265b"
class="footnote">[265b]</a> <i>Procès de Jeanne
d’Arc</i>, i. 133–55.</p>
<p><a name="footnote267a"></a><a href="#citation267a"
class="footnote">[267a]</a> Monstrelet.</p>
<p><a name="footnote267b"></a><a href="#citation267b"
class="footnote">[267b]</a> Vallet’s <i>Charles
VII.</i>, iii. chap. i. But see the chronicle that
bears Jaquet’s name: a lean and dreary book.</p>
<p><a name="footnote268"></a><a href="#citation268"
class="footnote">[268]</a> Monstrelet.</p>
<p><a name="footnote269"></a><a href="#citation269"
class="footnote">[269]</a> D’Héricault’s
<i>Memoir</i>, xl. xli. Vallet, <i>Charles VI.</i>, ii.
435.</p>
<p><a name="footnote271a"></a><a href="#citation271a"
class="footnote">[271a]</a> Champollion-Figeac, 368.</p>
<p><a name="footnote271b"></a><a href="#citation271b"
class="footnote">[271b]</a> Works, i. 115.</p>
<p><a name="footnote271c"></a><a href="#citation271c"
class="footnote">[271c]</a>
D’Héricault’s <i>Memoir</i>, xlv.</p>
<p><a name="footnote272"></a><a href="#citation272"
class="footnote">[272]</a> ChampoIlion-Figeac, 381, 361,
381.</p>
<p><a name="footnote273"></a><a href="#citation273"
class="footnote">[273]</a> Champollion-Figeac, 359,361.</p>
<p><a name="footnote276a"></a><a href="#citation276a"
class="footnote">[276a]</a> Lecoy de la Marche, <i>Roi
René</i>, ii. 155, 177.</p>
<p><a name="footnote276b"></a><a href="#citation276b"
class="footnote">[276b]</a> Champollion-Figeac, chaps. v.
and vi.</p>
<p><a name="footnote276c"></a><a href="#citation276c"
class="footnote">[276c]</a> <i>Ibid.</i> 364; Works, i.
172.</p>
<p><a name="footnote276d"></a><a href="#citation276d"
class="footnote">[276d]</a> 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.”</p>
<p><a name="footnote277a"></a><a href="#citation277a"
class="footnote">[277a]</a> Champollion-Figeac, 387.</p>
<p><a name="footnote277b"></a><a href="#citation277b"
class="footnote">[277b]</a> <i>Nouvelle Biographie
Didot</i>, art. “Marie de Clèves.”
Vallet, <i>Charles VII</i>, iii. 85, note 1.</p>
<p><a name="footnote277c"></a><a href="#citation277c"
class="footnote">[277c]</a> Champollion-Figeac, 383,
384–386.</p>
<p><a name="footnote278"></a><a href="#citation278"
class="footnote">[278]</a> Works, ii. 57, 258.</p>
<p><a name="footnote329"></a><a href="#citation329"
class="footnote">[329]</a> Gaberel’s <i>Eglist de
Genève</i>, i. 88.</p>
<p><a name="footnote330a"></a><a href="#citation330a"
class="footnote">[330a]</a> <i>La Démocratie chez
les Prédicateurs de la Ligue</i>.</p>
<p><a name="footnote330b"></a><a href="#citation330b"
class="footnote">[330b]</a> <i>Historia affectuum se
immiscentium controversiæ de gynæcocratia</i>.
It is in his collected prefaces, Leipsic, 1683.</p>
<p><a name="footnote333a"></a><a href="#citation333a"
class="footnote">[333a]</a> <i>Œuvres de
d’Aubigné</i>, i. 449.</p>
<p><a name="footnote333b"></a><a href="#citation333b"
class="footnote">[333b]</a> <i>Dames Illustres</i>, pp.
358–360.</p>
<p><a name="footnote334"></a><a href="#citation334"
class="footnote">[334]</a> Works of John Knox, iv. 349.</p>
<p><a name="footnote341"></a><a href="#citation341"
class="footnote">[341]</a> M‘Crie’s <i>Life of
Knox</i>, ii. 41.</p>
<p><a name="footnote342"></a><a href="#citation342"
class="footnote">[342]</a> Described by Calvin in a letter
to Cecil, Knox’s Works, vol. iv.</p>
<p><a name="footnote344"></a><a href="#citation344"
class="footnote">[344]</a> 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.</p>
<p><a name="footnote345a"></a><a href="#citation345a"
class="footnote">[345a]</a> Knox’s Works, iv.
358.</p>
<p><a name="footnote345b"></a><a href="#citation345b"
class="footnote">[345b]</a> Strype’s <i>Aylmer</i>,
p. 16.</p>
<p><a name="footnote346a"></a><a href="#citation346a"
class="footnote">[346a]</a> It may interest the reader to
know that these (so says Thomasius) are the “ipsissima
verba Schlusselburgii.”</p>
<p><a name="footnote346b"></a><a href="#citation346b"
class="footnote">[346b]</a> I am indebted for a sight of
this book to the kindness of Mr. David Laing, the editor of
Knox’s Works.</p>
<p><a name="footnote348"></a><a href="#citation348"
class="footnote">[348]</a> <i>Social Statics</i>, p. 64,
etc.</p>
<p><a name="footnote349"></a><a href="#citation349"
class="footnote">[349]</a> Hallam’s <i>Const. Hist.
of England</i>, i. 225, note m.</p>
<p><a name="footnote352a"></a><a href="#citation352a"
class="footnote">[352a]</a> Knox to Mrs. Locke, 6th April
1559. Works, vi. 14.</p>
<p><a name="footnote352b"></a><a href="#citation352b"
class="footnote">[352b]</a> Knox to Sir William Cecil, 10th
April 1559. Works, ii. 16, or vi. 15.</p>
<p><a name="footnote354"></a><a href="#citation354"
class="footnote">[354]</a> Knox to Queen Elizabeth, July.
20th, 1559. Works, vi. 47, or ii. 26.</p>
<p><a name="footnote355"></a><a href="#citation355"
class="footnote">[355]</a> Knox to Queen Elizabeth, August
6th, 1561. Works, vi. 126.</p>
<p><a name="footnote357"></a><a href="#citation357"
class="footnote">[357]</a> Knox’s Works, ii.
278–280.</p>
<p><a name="footnote359"></a><a href="#citation359"
class="footnote">[359]</a> Calderwood’s <i>History of
the Kirk of Scotland</i>, edition of the Wodrow Society, iii.
51–54.</p>
<p><a name="footnote360"></a><a href="#citation360"
class="footnote">[360]</a> <i>Bayle’s Historical
Dictionary</i>, art. Knox, remark G.</p>
<p><a name="footnote368"></a><a href="#citation368"
class="footnote">[368]</a> Works, iv. 244.</p>
<p><a name="footnote369a"></a><a href="#citation369a"
class="footnote">[369a]</a> Works, iv. 246.</p>
<p><a name="footnote369b"></a><a href="#citation369b"
class="footnote">[369b]</a> <i>Ib.</i> iv. 225.</p>
<p><a name="footnote371a"></a><a href="#citation371a"
class="footnote">[371a]</a> Works, iv. 245.</p>
<p><a name="footnote371b"></a><a href="#citation371b"
class="footnote">[371b]</a> <i>Ib.</i> iv. 221.</p>
<p><a name="footnote373a"></a><a href="#citation373a"
class="footnote">[373a]</a> Works, vi. 514.</p>
<p><a name="footnote373b"></a><a href="#citation373b"
class="footnote">[373b]</a> <i>Ib.</i> iii. 338.</p>
<p><a name="footnote373c"></a><a href="#citation373c"
class="footnote">[373c]</a> <i>Ib.</i> iii. 352, 353.</p>
<p><a name="footnote374a"></a><a href="#citation374a"
class="footnote">[374a]</a> Works, iii. 350.</p>
<p><a name="footnote374b"></a><a href="#citation374b"
class="footnote">[374b]</a> <i>Ib.</i> iii. 390, 391.</p>
<p><a name="footnote375a"></a><a href="#citation375a"
class="footnote">[375a]</a> Works, iii. 142.</p>
<p><a name="footnote375b"></a><a href="#citation375b"
class="footnote">[375b]</a> <i>Ib.</i> iii. 378.</p>
<p><a name="footnote375c"></a><a href="#citation375c"
class="footnote">[375c]</a> <i>Ib.</i> ii. 379.</p>
<p><a name="footnote376"></a><a href="#citation376"
class="footnote">[376]</a> Works, iii. 394.</p>
<p><a name="footnote377"></a><a href="#citation377"
class="footnote">[377]</a> Works, iii. 376.</p>
<p><a name="footnote378"></a><a href="#citation378"
class="footnote">[378]</a> Works, iii. 378.</p>
<p><a name="footnote379a"></a><a href="#citation379a"
class="footnote">[379a]</a> Works, vi. 104.</p>
<p><a name="footnote379b"></a><a href="#citation379b"
class="footnote">[379b]</a> <i>Ib.</i> v. 5.</p>
<p><a name="footnote379c"></a><a href="#citation379c"
class="footnote">[379c]</a> <i>Ib.</i> vi. 27.</p>
<p><a name="footnote379d"></a><a href="#citation379d"
class="footnote">[379d]</a> <i>Ib.</i> ii. 138.</p>
<p><a name="footnote380"></a><a href="#citation380"
class="footnote">[380]</a> Mr. Laing’s preface to the
sixth volume of Knox’s Works, p. lxii.</p>
<p><a name="footnote381"></a><a href="#citation381"
class="footnote">[381]</a> Works. vi. 534.</p>
<p><a name="footnote382a"></a><a href="#citation382a"
class="footnote">[382a]</a> Works, iv. 220.</p>
<p><a name="footnote382b"></a><a href="#citation382b"
class="footnote">[382b]</a> <i>Ib.</i> iii. 380.</p>
<p><a name="footnote382c"></a><a href="#citation382c"
class="footnote">[382c]</a> <i>Ib.</i> iv. 220.</p>
<p><a name="footnote383"></a><a href="#citation383"
class="footnote">[383]</a> Works, iii. 380.</p>
<p><a name="footnote384"></a><a href="#citation384"
class="footnote">[384]</a> Works, iv. 238.</p>
<p><a name="footnote385"></a><a href="#citation385"
class="footnote">[385]</a> Works, iv. 240.</p>
<p><a name="footnote388"></a><a href="#citation388"
class="footnote">[388]</a> Works, vi. 513, 514.</p>
<p><a name="footnote390"></a><a href="#citation390"
class="footnote">[390]</a> Works, vi. ii.</p>
<p><a name="footnote391a"></a><a href="#citation391a"
class="footnote">[391a]</a> Works, vi. pp. 21. 101, 108,
130.</p>
<p><a name="footnote391b"></a><a href="#citation391b"
class="footnote">[391b]</a> <i>Ib.</i> vi. 83.</p>
<p><a name="footnote391c"></a><a href="#citation391c"
class="footnote">[391c]</a> <i>Ib.</i> vi. 129.</p>
<p><a name="footnote392"></a><a href="#citation392"
class="footnote">[392]</a> Works, vi. 532.</p>
<p><a name="footnote393"></a><a href="#citation393"
class="footnote">[393]</a> Works, i. 246.</p>
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