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diff --git a/5338-h/5338-h.htm b/5338-h/5338-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..8b5d8cc --- /dev/null +++ b/5338-h/5338-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,4278 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>Mark Rutherford's Deliverance, by Mark Rutherford</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + P.gutsumm { margin-left: 5%;} + P.poetry {margin-left: 3%; } + .GutSmall { font-size: 0.7em; } + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4, H5 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + table { border-collapse: collapse; } +table {margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto;} + td { vertical-align: top; border: 1px solid black;} + td p { margin: 0.2em; } + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: small; + text-align: right; + font-weight: normal; + color: gray; + } + img { border: none; } + img.dc { float: left; width: 50px; height: 50px; } + p.gutindent { margin-left: 2em; } + div.gapspace { height: 0.8em; } + div.gapline { height: 0.8em; width: 100%; border-top: 1px solid;} + div.gapmediumline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + div.gapmediumdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; + margin-left: 40%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid; } + div.gapdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 50%; + margin-left: 25%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; margin-left:40%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + .citation {vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: none;} + img.floatleft { float: left; + margin-right: 1em; + margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.floatright { float: right; + margin-left: 1em; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.clearcenter {display: block; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em} + --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Mark Rutherford's Deliverance, by Mark +Rutherford + + +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: Mark Rutherford's Deliverance + + +Author: Mark Rutherford + + + +Release Date: August 14, 2014 [eBook #5338] +[This file was first posted on July 2, 2002] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARK RUTHERFORD'S DELIVERANCE*** +</pre> +<p>Transcribed from the 1913 Hodder and Stoughton edition by +David Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/fpb.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Man comforting woman" +title= +"Man comforting woman" +src="images/fps.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<h1>MARK RUTHERFORD’S<br /> +DELIVERANCE</h1> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">BY</span><br +/> +MARK RUTHERFORD</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/tpb.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Decoractive graphic" +title= +"Decoractive graphic" +src="images/tps.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">HODDER & +STOUGHTON’S</span><br /> +<span class="GutSmall">SEVENPENNY LIBRARY</span></p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center">HODDER AND STOUGHTON<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">LONDON NEW YORK +TORONTO</span></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 colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER I</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Newspapers</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page3">3</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER II</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">M’Kay</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page23">23</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER III</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Miss Leroy</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page40">40</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER IV</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p>A <span class="smcap">Necessary Development</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page62">62</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER V</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">What it all came to</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page81">81</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER VI</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Drury Lane Theology</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page103">103</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER VII</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Qui dedit in Mari Viam</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page116">116</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER VIII</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Flagellum non approquinabit +Tabernaculo Tuo</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page127">127</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td colspan="2"><p style="text-align: center">CHAPTER IX</p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Holidays</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><span class="indexpageno"><a +href="#page145">145</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<h2><a name="page3"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 3</span>CHAPTER +I<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">NEWSPAPERS</span></h2> +<p><span class="smcap">When</span> I had established myself in my +new lodgings in Camden Town, I found I had ten pounds in my +pocket, and again there was no outlook. I examined +carefully every possibility. At last I remembered that a +relative of mine, who held some office in the House of Commons, +added to his income by writing descriptive accounts of the +debates, throwing in by way of supplement any stray scraps of +gossip which he was enabled to collect. The rules of the +House as to the admission of strangers were not so strict then as +they are now, and he assured me that if I could but secure a +commission from a newspaper, he could pass me into one of the +galleries, and, when there was nothing to be heard worth +describing, I could remain in the lobby, where I should by +degrees find many opportunities of picking up intelligence which +would pay. So far, so good; but how to obtain the +commission? I managed to get hold of a list of all the +country papers, and I wrote to nearly every one, offering my +services. I am afraid that I somewhat exaggerated them, for +I had two answers, and, after a little correspondence, two +engagements. This was an unexpected stroke of luck; but +alas! both journals circulated in the same district. I +never could get together more stuff than would fill about a +column and a half, and consequently I was obliged, with infinite +pains, to vary, so that it could not be recognised, the form of +what, at bottom, was essentially the same matter. This was +work which would have been disagreeable enough, if I had not now +ceased in a great measure to demand what was agreeable. In +years past I coveted a life, not of mere sensual +enjoyment—for that I never cared—but a life which +should be filled with activities of the noblest kind, and it was +intolerable to me to reflect that all my waking hours were in the +main passed in merest drudgery, and that only for a few moments +at the beginning or end of the day could it be said that the +higher sympathies were really operative. Existence to me +was nothing but these few moments, and consequently flitted like +a shadow. I was now, however, the better of what was half +disease and half something healthy and good. In the first +place, I had discovered that my appetite was far larger than my +powers. Consumed by a longing for continuous intercourse +with the best, I had no ability whatever to maintain it, and I +had accepted as a fact, however mysterious it might be, that the +human mind is created with the impulses of a seraph and the +strength of a man. Furthermore, what was I that I should +demand exceptional treatment? Thousands of men and women +superior to myself, are condemned, if that is the proper word to +use, to almost total absence from themselves. The roar of +the world for them is never lulled to rest, nor can silence ever +be secured in which the voice of the Divine can be heard.</p> +<p>My letters were written twice a week, and as each contained a +column and a half, I had six columns weekly to manufacture. +These I was in the habit of writing in the morning, my evenings +being spent at the House. At first I was rather interested, +but after a while the occupation became tedious beyond measure, +and for this reason. In a discussion of any importance +about fifty members perhaps would take part, and had made up +their minds beforehand to speak. There could not possibly +be more than three or four reasons for or against the motion, and +as the knowledge that what the intending orator had to urge had +been urged a dozen times before on that very night never deterred +him from urging it again, the same arguments, diluted, muddled, +and mispresented, recurred with the most wearisome iteration.</p> +<p>The public outside knew nothing or very little of the real +House of Commons, and the manner in which time was squandered +there, for the reports were all of them much abbreviated. +In fact, I doubt whether anybody but the Speaker, and one or two +other persons in the same position as myself, really felt with +proper intensity what the waste was, and how profound was the +vanity of members and the itch for expression; for even the +reporters were relieved at stated intervals, and the impression +on their minds was not continuous. Another evil result of +these attendances at the House was a kind of political +scepticism. Over and over again I have seen a Government +arraigned for its conduct of foreign affairs. The evidence +lay in masses of correspondence which it would have required some +days to master, and the verdict, after knowing the facts, ought +to have depended upon the application of principles, each of +which admitted a contrary principle for which much might be +pleaded. There were not fifty members in the House with the +leisure or the ability to understand what it was which had +actually happened, and if they had understood it, they would not +have had the wit to see what was the rule which ought to have +decided the case. Yet, whether they understood or not, they +were obliged to vote, and what was worse, the constituencies also +had to vote, and so the gravest matters were settled in utter +ignorance. This has often been adduced as an argument +against an extended suffrage, but, if it is an argument against +anything, it is an argument against intrusting the aristocracy +and even the House itself with the destinies of the nation; for +no dock labourer could possibly be more entirely empty of all +reasons for action than the noble lords, squires, lawyers, and +railway directors whom I have seen troop to the division +bell. There is something deeper than this scepticism, but +the scepticism is the easiest and the most obvious conclusion to +an open mind dealing so closely and practically with politics as +it was my lot to do at this time of my life. Men must be +governed, and when it comes to the question, by whom? I, for one, +would far sooner in the long run trust the people at large than I +would the few, who in everything which relates to Government are +as little instructed as the many and more difficult to +move. The very fickleness of the multitude, the theme of +such constant declamation, is so far good that it proves a +susceptibility to impressions to which men hedged round by +impregnable conventionalities cannot yield. <a +name="citation7"></a><a href="#footnote7" +class="citation">[7]</a></p> +<p>When I was living in the country, the pure sky and the +landscape formed a large portion of my existence, so large that +much of myself depended on it, and I wondered how men could be +worth anything if they could never see the face of nature. +For this belief my early training on the “Lyrical +Ballads” is answerable. When I came to London the +same creed survived, and I was for ever thirsting for intercourse +with my ancient friend. Hope, faith, and God seemed +impossible amidst the smoke of the streets. It was now very +difficult for me, except at rare opportunities, to leave London, +and it was necessary for me, therefore, to understand that all +that was essential for me was obtainable there, even though I +should never see anything more than was to be seen in journeying +through the High Street, Camden Town, Tottenham Court Road, the +Seven Dials, and Whitehall. I should have been guilty of a +simple surrender to despair if I had not forced myself to make +this discovery. I cannot help saying, with all my love for +the literature of my own day, that it has an evil side to it +which none know except the millions of sensitive persons who are +condemned to exist in great towns. It might be imagined +from much of this literature that true humanity and a belief in +God are the offspring of the hills or the ocean; and by +implication, if not expressly, the vast multitudes who hardly +ever see the hills or the ocean must be without a religion. +The long poems which turn altogether upon scenery, perhaps in +foreign lands, and the passionate devotion to it which they +breathe, may perhaps do good in keeping alive in the hearts of +men a determination to preserve air, earth, and water from +pollution; but speaking from experience as a Londoner, I can +testify that they are most depressing, and I would counsel +everybody whose position is what mine was to avoid these books +and to associate with those which will help him in his own +circumstances.</p> +<p>Half of my occupation soon came to an end. One of my +editors sent me a petulant note telling me that all I wrote he +could easily find out himself, and that he required something +more “graphic and personal.” I could do no +better, or rather I ought to say, no worse than I had been +doing. These letters were a great trouble to me. I +was always conscious of writing so much of which I was not +certain, and so much which was indifferent to me. The +unfairness of parties haunted me. But I continued to write, +because I saw no other way of getting a living, and surely it is +a baser dishonesty to depend upon the charity of friends because +some pleasant, clean, ideal employment has not presented itself, +than to soil one’s hands with a little of the inevitable +mud. I don’t think I ever felt anything more keenly +than I did a sneer from an acquaintance of mine who was in the +habit of borrowing money from me. He was a painter, whose +pictures were never sold because he never worked hard enough to +know how to draw, and it came to my ears indirectly that he had +said that “he would rather live the life of a medieval +ascetic than condescend to the degradation of scribbling a dozen +columns weekly of utter trash on subjects with which he had no +concern.” At that very moment he owed me five +pounds. God knows that I admitted my dozen columns to be +utter trash, but it ought to have been forgiven by those who saw +that I was struggling to save myself from the streets and to keep +a roof over my head. Degraded, however, as I might be, I +could not get down to the “graphic and personal,” for +it meant nothing less than the absolutely false. I +therefore contrived to exist on the one letter, which, excepting +the mechanical labour of writing a second, took up as much of my +time as if I had to write two.</p> +<p>Never, but once or twice at the most, did my labours meet with +the slightest recognition beyond payment. Once I remember +that I accused a member of a discreditable manœuvre to +consume the time of the House, and as he represented a borough in +my district, he wrote to the editor denying the charge. The +editor without any inquiry—and I believe I was +mistaken—instantly congratulated me on having +“scored.” At another time, when Parliament was +not sitting, I ventured, by way of filling up my allotted space, +to say a word on behalf of a now utterly forgotten novel. I +had a letter from the authoress thanking me, but alas! the +illusion vanished. I was tempted by this one novel to look +into others which I found she had written, and I discovered that +they were altogether silly. The attraction of the one of +which I thought so highly, was due not to any real merit which it +possessed, but to something I had put into it. It was dead, +but it had served as a wall to re-echo my own voice. +Excepting these two occasions, I don’t think that one +solitary human being ever applauded or condemned one solitary +word of which I was the author. All my friends knew where +my contributions were to be found, but I never heard that they +looked at them. They were never worth reading, and yet such +complete silence was rather lonely. The tradesman who makes +a good coat enjoys the satisfaction of having fitted and pleased +his customer, and a bricklayer, if he be diligent, is rewarded by +knowing that his master understands his value, but I never knew +what it was to receive a single response. I wrote for an +abstraction; and spoke to empty space. I cannot help +claiming some pity and even respect for the class to which I +belonged. I have heard them called all kinds of hard names, +hacks, drudges, and something even more contemptible, but the +injustice done to them is monstrous. Their wage is hardly +earned; it is peculiarly precarious, depending altogether upon +their health, and no matter how ill they may be they must +maintain the liveliness of manner which is necessary to procure +acceptance. I fell in with one poor fellow whose line was +something like my own. I became acquainted with him through +sitting side by side with him at the House. He lived in +lodgings in Goodge Street, and occasionally I walked with him as +far as the corner of Tottenham Court Road, where I caught the +last omnibus northward. He wrote like me a +“descriptive article” for the country, but he also +wrote every now and then—a dignity to which I never +attained—a “special” for London. His +“descriptive articles” were more political than mine, +and he was obliged to be violently Tory. His creed, +however, was such a pure piece of professionalism, that though I +was Radical, and was expected to be so, we never jarred, and +often, as we wandered homewards, we exchanged notes, and were +mutually useful, his observations appearing in my paper, and mine +in his, with proper modifications. How he used to roar in +the <i>Gazette</i> against the opposite party, and yet I never +heard anything from him myself but what was diffident and +tender. He had acquired, as an instrument necessary to him, +an extraordinarily extravagant style, and he laid about him with +a bludgeon, which inevitably descended on the heads of all +prominent persons if they happened not to be Conservative, no +matter what their virtues might be. One peculiarity, +however, I noted in him. Although he ought every now and +then, when the subject was uppermost, to have flamed out in the +<i>Gazette</i> on behalf of the Church, I never saw a word from +him on that subject. He drew the line at religion. He +did not mind acting his part in things secular, for his +performances were, I am sure, mostly histrionic, but there he +stopped. The unreality of his character was a husk +surrounding him, but it did not touch the core. It was as +if he had said to himself, “Political controversy is +nothing to me, and, what is more, is so uncertain that it matters +little whether I say yes or no, nor indeed does it matter if I +say yes <i>and</i> no, and I must keep my wife and children from +the workhouse; but when it comes to the relationship of man to +God, it is a different matter.” His altogether +outside vehemence and hypocrisy did in fact react upon him, and +so far from affecting harmfully what lay deeper, produced a more +complete sincerity and transparency extending even to the finest +verbal distinctions. Over and over again have I heard him +preach to his wife, almost with pathos, the duty of perfect +exactitude in speech in describing the commonest +occurrences. “Now, my dear, <i>is</i> that so?” +was a perpetual remonstrance with him; and he always insisted +upon it that there is no training more necessary for children +than that of teaching them not merely to speak the truth in the +ordinary, vulgar sense of the term, but to speak it in a much +higher sense, by rigidly compelling, point by point, a +correspondence of the words with the fact external or +internal. He never would tolerate in his own children a +mere hackneyed, borrowed expression, but demanded exact +portraiture; and nothing vexed him more than to hear one of them +spoil and make worthless what he or she had seen, by reporting it +in some stale phrase which had been used by everybody. This +refusal to take the trouble to watch the presentment to the mind +of anything which had been placed before it, and to reproduce it +in its own lines and colours was, as he said, nothing but +falsehood, and he maintained that the principal reason why people +are so uninteresting is not that they have nothing to say. +It is rather that they will not face the labour of saying in +their own tongue what they have to say, but cover it up and +conceal it in commonplace, so that we get, not what they +themselves behold and what they think, but a hieroglyphic or +symbol invented as the representative of a certain class of +objects or emotions, and as inefficient to represent a particular +object or emotion as <i>x</i> or <i>y</i> to set forth the +relation of Hamlet to Ophelia. He would even exercise his +children in this art of the higher truthfulness, and would +purposely make them give him an account of something which he had +seen and they had seen, checking them the moment he saw a lapse +from originality. Such was the Tory correspondent of the +<i>Gazette</i>.</p> +<p>I ought to say, by way of apology for him, that in his day it +signified little or nothing whether Tory or Whig was in +power. Politics had not become what they will one day +become, a matter of life or death, dividing men with really +private love and hate. What a mockery controversy was in +the House! How often I have seen members, who were furious +at one another across the floor, quietly shaking hands outside, +and inviting one another to dinner! I have heard them say +that we ought to congratulate ourselves that parliamentary +differences do not in this country breed personal +animosities. To me this seemed anything but a subject of +congratulation. Men who are totally at variance ought not +to be friends, and if Radical and Tory are not totally, but +merely superficially at variance, so much the worse for their +Radicalism and Toryism.</p> +<p>It is possible, and even probable, that the public fury and +the subsequent amity were equally absurd. Most of us have +no real loves and no real hatreds. Blessed is love, less +blessed is hatred, but thrice accursed is that indifference which +is neither one nor the other, the muddy mess which men call +friendship.</p> +<p>M’Kay—for that was his name—lived, as I have +said, in Goodge Street, where he had unfurnished +apartments. I often spent part of the Sunday with him, and +I may forestall obvious criticism by saying that I do not pretend +for a moment to defend myself from inconsistency in denouncing +members of Parliament for their duplicity, M’Kay and myself +being also guilty of something very much like it. But there +was this difference between us and our parliamentary friends, +that we always divested ourselves of all hypocrisy when we were +alone. We then dropped the stage costume which members +continued to wear in the streets and at the dinner-table, and in +which some of them even slept and said their prayers.</p> +<p>London Sundays to persons who are not attached to any +religious community, and have no money to spend, are rather +dreary. We tried several ways of getting through the +morning. If we heard that there was a preacher with a +reputation, we went to hear him. As a rule, however, we got +no good in that way. Once we came to a chapel where there +was a minister supposed to be one of the greatest orators of the +day. We had much difficulty in finding standing room. +Just as we entered we heard him say, “My friends, I appeal +to those of you who are parents. You know that if you say +to a child ‘go,’ he goeth, and if you say +‘come,’ he cometh. So the +Lord”— But at this point M’Kay, who had +children, nudged me to come out; and out we went. Why does +this little scene remain with me? I can hardly say, but +here it stands. It is remembered, not so much by reason of +the preacher as by reason of the apparent acquiescence and +admiration of the audience, who seemed to be perfectly willing to +take over an experience from their pastor—if indeed it was +really an experience—which was not their own. Our +usual haunts on Sunday were naturally the parks and Kensington +Gardens; but artificial limited enclosures are apt to become +wearisome after a time, and we longed for a little more freedom +if a little less trim. So we would stroll towards Hampstead +or Highgate, the only drawback to these regions being the +squalid, ragged, half town, half suburb, through which it was +necessary to pass. The skirts of London when the air is +filled with north-easterly soot, grit, and filth, are cheerless, +and the least cheerful part of the scene is the inability of the +vast wandering masses of people to find any way of amusing +themselves. At the corner of one of the fields in Kentish +Town, just about to be devoured, stood a public-house, and +opposite the door was generally encamped a man who sold nothing +but Brazil nuts. Swarms of people lazily wandered past him, +most of them waiting for the public-house to open. Brazil +nuts on a cold black Sunday morning are not exhilarating, but the +costermonger found many customers who bought his nuts, and ate +them, merely because they had nothing better to do. We went +two or three times to a freethinking hall, where we were +entertained with demonstrations of the immorality of the +patriarchs and Jewish heroes, and arguments to prove that the +personal existence of the devil was a myth, the audience breaking +out into uproarious laughter at comical delineations of Noah and +Jonah. One morning we found the place completely +packed. A “celebrated Christian,” as he was +described to us, having heard of the hall, had volunteered to +engage in debate on the claims of the Old Testament to Divine +authority. He turned out to be a preacher whom we knew +quite well. He was introduced by his freethinking +antagonist, who claimed for him a respectful hearing. The +preacher said that before beginning he should like to +“engage in prayer.” Accordingly he came to the +front of the platform, lifted up his eyes, told God why he was +there, and besought Him to bless the discussion in the conversion +“of these poor wandering souls, who have said in their +hearts that there is no God, to a saving faith in Him and in the +blood of Christ.” I expected that some resentment +would be displayed when the wandering souls found themselves +treated like errant sheep, but to my surprise they listened with +perfect silence; and when he had said “Amen,” there +were great clappings of hands, and cries of +“Bravo.” They evidently considered the prayer +merely as an elocutionary show-piece. The preacher was much +disconcerted, but he recovered himself, and began his sermon, for +it was nothing more. He enlarged on the fact that men of +the highest eminence had believed in the Old Testament. +Locke and Newton had believed in it, and did it not prove +arrogance in us to doubt when the “gigantic intellect which +had swept the skies, and had announced the law which bound the +universe together was satisfied?” The witness of the +Old Testament to the New was another argument, but his main +reliance was upon the prophecies. From Adam to Isaiah there +was a continuous prefigurement of Christ. Christ was the +point to which everything tended; and “now, my +friends,” he said, “I cannot sit down without +imploring you to turn your eyes on Him who never yet repelled the +sinner, to wash in that eternal Fountain ever open for the +remission of sins, and to flee from the wrath to come. I +believe the sacred symbol of the cross has not yet lost its +efficacy. For eighteen hundred years, whenever it has been +exhibited to the sons of men, it has been potent to reclaim and +save them. ‘I, if I be lifted up,’ cried the +Great Sufferer, ‘will draw all men unto Me,’ and He +has drawn not merely the poor and ignorant but the philosopher +and the sage. Oh, my brethren, think what will happen if +you reject Him. I forbear to paint your doom. And +think again, on the other hand, of the bliss which awaits you if +you receive Him, of the eternal companionship with the Most High +and with the spirits of just men made perfect.” His +hearers again applauded vigorously, and none less so than their +appointed leader, who was to follow on the other side. He +was a little man with small eyes; his shaven face was dark with a +black beard lurking under the skin, and his nose was slightly +turned up. He was evidently a trained debater who had +practised under railway arches, discussion “forums,” +and in the classes promoted by his sect. He began by saying +that he could not compliment his friend who had just sat down on +the inducements which he had offered them to become +Christians. The New Cut was not a nice place on a wet day, +but he had rather sit at a stall there all day long with his feet +on a basket than lie in the bosom of some of the just men made +perfect portrayed in the Bible. Nor, being married, should +he feel particularly at ease if he had to leave his wife with +David. David certainly ought to have got beyond all that +kind of thing, considering it must be over 3000 years since he +first saw Bathsheba; but we are told that the saints are for ever +young in heaven, and this treacherous villain, who would have +been tried by a jury of twelve men and hung outside Newgate if he +had lived in the nineteenth century, might be dangerous +now. He was an amorous old gentleman up to the very +last. (Roars of laughter.) Nor did the speaker feel +particularly anxious to be shut up with all the bishops, who of +course are amongst the elect, and on their departure from this +vale of tears tempered by ten thousand a year, are duly supplied +with wings. Much more followed in the same strain upon the +immorality of the Bible heroes, their cruelty, and the cruelty of +the God who sanctioned it. Then followed a clever +exposition of the inconsistencies of the Old Testament history, +the impossibility of any reference to Jesus therein, and a really +earnest protest against the quibbling by which those who believed +in the Bible as a revelation sought to reconcile it with +science. “Finally,” said the speaker, “I +am sure we all of us will pass a vote of thanks to our reverend +friend for coming to see us, and we cordially invite him to come +again. If I might be allowed to offer a suggestion, it +would be that he should make himself acquainted with our case +before he pays us another visit, and not suppose that we are to +be persuaded with the rhetoric which may do very well for the +young women of his congregation, but won’t go down +here.” This was fair and just, for the eminent +Christian was nothing but an ordinary minister, who, when he was +prepared for his profession, had never been allowed to see what +are the historical difficulties of Christianity, lest he should +be overcome by them. On the other hand, his sceptical +opponents were almost devoid of the faculty for appreciating the +great remains of antiquity, and would probably have considered +the machinery of the Prometheus Bound or of the Iliad a +sufficient reason for a sneer. That they should spend their +time in picking the Bible to pieces when there was so much +positive work for them to do, seemed to me as melancholy as if +they had spent themselves upon theology. To waste a Sunday +morning in ridiculing such stories as that of Jonah was surely as +imbecile as to waste it in proving their verbal veracity.</p> +<h2><a name="page23"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +23</span>CHAPTER II<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">M’KAY</span></h2> +<p><span class="smcap">It</span> was foggy and overcast as we +walked home to Goodge Street. The churches and chapels were +emptying themselves, but the great mass of the population had +been “nowhere.” I had dinner with M’Kay, +and as the day wore on the fog thickened. London on a dark +Sunday afternoon, more especially about Goodge Street, is +depressing. The inhabitants drag themselves hither and +thither in languor and uncertainty. Small mobs loiter at +the doors of the gin palaces. Costermongers wander +aimlessly, calling “walnuts” with a cry so melancholy +that it sounds as the wail of the hopelessly lost may be imagined +to sound when their anguish has been deadened by the monotony of +a million years.</p> +<p>About two or three o’clock decent working men in their +best clothes emerge from the houses in such streets as Nassau +Street. It is part of their duty to go out after dinner on +Sunday with the wife and children. The husband pushes the +perambulator out of the dingy passage, and gazes doubtfully this +way and that way, not knowing whither to go, and evidently +longing for the Monday, when his work, however disagreeable it +may be, will be his plain duty. The wife follows carrying a +child, and a boy and girl in unaccustomed apparel walk by her +side. They come out into Mortimer Street. There are +no shops open; the sky over their heads is mud, the earth is mud +under their feet, the muddy houses stretch in long rows, black, +gaunt, uniform. The little party reach Hyde Park, also +wrapped in impenetrable mud-grey. The man’s face +brightens for a moment as he says, “It is time to go +back,” and so they return, without the interchange of a +word, unless perhaps they happen to see an omnibus horse fall +down on the greasy stones. What is there worth thought or +speech on such an expedition? Nothing! The tradesman +who kept the oil and colour establishment opposite to us was not +to be tempted outside. It was a little more comfortable +than Nassau Street, and, moreover, he was religious and did not +encourage Sabbath-breaking. He and his family always moved +after their mid-day Sabbath repast from the little back room +behind the shop up to what they called the drawing-room +overhead. It was impossible to avoid seeing them every time +we went to the window. The father of the family, after his +heavy meal, invariably sat in the easy-chair with a handkerchief +over his eyes and slept. The children were always at the +windows, pretending to read books, but in reality watching the +people below. At about four o’clock their papa +generally awoke, and demanded a succession of hymn tunes played +on the piano. When the weather permitted, the lower sash +was opened a little, and the neighbours were indulged with the +performance of “Vital Spark,” the father +“coming in” now and then with a bass note or two at +the end where he was tolerably certain of the harmony. At +five o’clock a prophecy of the incoming tea brought us some +relief from the contemplation of the landscape or +brick-scape. I say “some relief,” for meals at +M’Kay’s were a little disagreeable. His wife +was an honest, good little woman, but so much attached to him and +so dependent on him that she was his mere echo. She had no +opinions which were not his, and whenever he said anything which +went beyond the ordinary affairs of the house, she listened with +curious effort, and generally responded by a weakened repetition +of M’Kay’s own observations. He perpetually, +therefore, had before him an enfeebled reflection of himself, and +this much irritated him, notwithstanding his love for her; for +who could help loving a woman who, without the least hesitation, +would have opened her veins at his command, and have given up +every drop of blood in her body for him? Over and over +again I have heard him offer some criticism on a person or event, +and the customary chime of approval would ensue, provoking him to +such a degree that he would instantly contradict himself with +much bitterness, leaving poor Mrs. M’Kay in much +perplexity. Such a shot as this generally reduced her to +timid silence. As a rule, he always discouraged any topic +at his house which was likely to serve as an occasion for showing +his wife’s dependence on him. He designedly talked +about her household affairs, asked her whether she had mended his +clothes and ordered the coals. She knew that these things +were not what was upon his mind, and she answered him in +despairing tones, which showed how much she felt the obtrusive +condescension to her level. I greatly pitied her, and +sometimes, in fact, my emotion at the sight of her struggles with +her limitations almost overcame me and I was obliged to get up +and go. She was childishly affectionate. If +M’Kay came in and happened to go up to her and kiss her, +her face brightened into the sweetest and happiest smile. I +recollect once after he had been unusually annoyed with her he +repented just as he was leaving home, and put his lips to her +head, holding it in both his hands. I saw her gently take +the hand from her forehead and press it to her mouth, the tears +falling down her cheek meanwhile. Nothing would ever tempt +her to admit anything against her husband. M’Kay was +violent and unjust at times. His occupation he hated, and +his restless repugnance to it frequently discharged itself +indifferently upon everything which came in his way. His +children often thought him almost barbarous, but in truth he did +not actually see them when he was in one of these moods. +What was really present with him, excluding everything else, was +the sting of something more than usually repulsive of which they +knew nothing. Mrs. M’Kay’s answer to her +children’s remonstrances when they were alone with her +always was, “He is so worried,” and she invariably +dwelt upon their faults which had given him the opportunity for +his wrath.</p> +<p>I think M’Kay’s treatment of her wholly +wrong. I think that he ought not to have imposed himself +upon her so imperiously. I think he ought to have striven +to ascertain what lay concealed in that modest heart, to have +encouraged its expression and development, to have debased +himself before her that she might receive courage to rise, and he +would have found that she had something which he had not; not +<i>his</i> something perhaps, but something which would have made +his life happier. As it was, he stood upon his own ground +above her. If she could reach him, well and good, if not, +the helping hand was not proffered, and she fell back, +hopeless. Later on he discovered his mistake. She +became ill very gradually, and M’Kay began to see in the +distance a prospect of losing her. A frightful pit came in +view. He became aware that he could not do without +her. He imagined what his home would have been with other +women whom he knew, and he confessed that with them he would have +been less contented. He acknowledged that he had been +guilty of a kind of criminal epicurism; that he rejected in +foolish, fatal, nay, even wicked indifference, the bread of life +upon which he might have lived and thriven. His whole +effort now was to suppress himself in his wife. He read to +her, a thing he never did before, and when she misunderstood, he +patiently explained; he took her into his counsels and asked her +opinion; he abandoned his own opinion for hers, and in the +presence of her children he always deferred to her, and delighted +to acknowledge that she knew more than he did, that she was right +and he was wrong. She was now confined to her house, and +the end was near, but this was the most blessed time of her +married life. She grew under the soft rain of his loving +care, and opened out, not, indeed, into an oriental flower, rich +in profound mystery of scent and colour, but into a blossom of +the chalk-down. Altogether concealed and closed she would +have remained if it had not been for this beneficent and heavenly +gift poured upon her. He had just time enough to see what +she really was, and then she died. There are some natures +that cannot unfold under pressure or in the presence of +unregarding power. Hers was one. They require a clear +space round them, the removal of everything which may overmaster +them, and constant delicate attention. They require too a +recognition of the fact, which M’Kay for a long time did +not recognise, that it is folly to force them and to demand of +them that they shall be what they cannot be. I stood by the +grave this morning of my poor, pale, clinging little friend now +for some years at peace, and I thought that the tragedy of +Promethean torture or Christ-like crucifixion may indeed be +tremendous, but there is a tragedy too in the existence of a soul +like hers, conscious of its feebleness and ever striving to +overpass it, ever aware that it is an obstacle to the return of +the affection of the man whom she loves.</p> +<p>Meals, as I have said, were disagreeable at +M’Kay’s, and when we wanted to talk we went out of +doors. The evening after our visit to the debating hall we +moved towards Portland Place, and walked up and down there for an +hour or more. M’Kay had a passionate desire to reform +the world. The spectacle of the misery of London, and of +the distracted swaying hither and thither of the multitudes who +inhabit it, tormented him incessantly. He always chafed at +it, and he never seemed sure that he had a right to the enjoyment +of the simplest pleasures so long as London was before him. +What a farce, he would cry, is all this poetry, philosophy, art, +and culture, when millions of wretched mortals are doomed to the +eternal darkness and crime of the city! Here are the +educated classes occupying themselves with exquisite emotions, +with speculations upon the Infinite, with addresses to flowers, +with the worship of waterfalls and flying clouds, and with the +incessant portraiture of a thousand moods and variations of love, +while their neighbours lie grovelling in the mire, and never know +anything more of life or its duties than is afforded them by a +police report in a bit of newspaper picked out of the +kennel. We went one evening to hear a great violin-player, +who played such music, and so exquisitely, that the limits of +life were removed. But we had to walk up the Haymarket +home, between eleven and twelve o’clock, and the +violin-playing became the merest trifling. M’Kay had +been brought up upon the Bible. He had before him, not only +there, but in the history of all great religious movements, a +record of the improvement of the human race, or of large portions +of it, not merely by gradual civilisation, but by inspiration +spreading itself suddenly. He could not get it out of his +head that something of this kind is possible again in our +time. He longed to try for himself in his own poor way in +one of the slums about Drury Lane. I sympathised with him, +but I asked him what he had to say. I remember telling him +that I had been into St. Paul’s Cathedral, and that I +pictured to myself the cathedral full, and myself in the +pulpit. I was excited while imagining the opportunity +offered me of delivering some message to three or four thousand +persons in such a building, but in a minute or two I discovered +that my sermon would be very nearly as follows: “Dear +friends, I know no more than you know; we had better go +home.” I admitted to him that if he could believe in +hell-fire, or if he could proclaim the Second Advent, as Paul did +to the Thessalonians, and get people to believe, he might change +their manners, but otherwise he could do nothing but resort to a +much slower process. With the departure of a belief in the +supernatural departs once and for ever the chance of regenerating +the race except by the school and by science. <a +name="citation31"></a><a href="#footnote31" +class="citation">[31]</a> However, M’Kay thought he +would try. His earnestness was rather a hindrance than a +help to him, for it prevented his putting certain important +questions to himself, or at any rate it prevented his waiting for +distinct answers. He recurred to the apostles and Bunyan, +and was convinced that it was possible even now to touch depraved +men and women with an idea which should recast their lives. +So it is that the main obstacle to our success is a success which +has preceded us. We instinctively follow the antecedent +form, and consequently we either pass by, or deny altogether, the +life of our own time, because its expression has changed. +We never do practically believe that the Messiah is not +incarnated twice in the same flesh. He came as Jesus, and +we look for Him as Jesus now, overlooking the manifestation of +to-day, and dying, perhaps, without recognising it.</p> +<p>M’Kay had found a room near Parker Street, Drury Lane, +in which he proposed to begin, and that night, as we trod the +pavement of Portland Place, he propounded his plans to me, I +listening without much confidence, but loth nevertheless to take +the office of Time upon myself, and to disprove what experience +would disprove more effectually. His object was nothing +less than gradually to attract Drury Lane to come and be +saved.</p> +<p>The first Sunday I went with him to the room. As we +walked over the Drury Lane gratings of the cellars a most foul +stench came up, and one in particular I remember to this +day. A man half dressed pushed open a broken window beneath +us, just as we passed by, and there issued such a blast of +corruption, made up of gases bred by filth, air breathed and +rebreathed a hundred times, charged with odours of unnameable +personal uncleanness and disease, that I staggered to the gutter +with a qualm which I could scarcely conquer. At the doors +of the houses stood grimy women with their arms folded and their +hair disordered. Grimier boys and girls had tied a rope to +broken railings, and were swinging on it. The common door +to a score of lodgings stood ever open, and the children swarmed +up and down the stairs carrying with them patches of mud every +time they came in from the street. The wholesome practice +which amongst the decent poor marks off at least one day in the +week as a day on which there is to be a change; when there is to +be some attempt to procure order and cleanliness; a day to be +preceded by soap and water, by shaving, and by as many clean +clothes as can be procured, was unknown here. There was no +break in the uniformity of squalor; nor was it even possible for +any single family to emerge amidst such altogether suppressive +surroundings. All self-respect, all effort to do anything +more than to satisfy somehow the grossest wants, had +departed. The shops were open; most of them exhibiting a +most miscellaneous collection of goods, such as bacon cut in +slices, fire-wood, a few loaves of bread, and sweetmeats in dirty +bottles. Fowls, strange to say, black as the flagstones, +walked in and out of these shops, or descended into the dark +areas. The undertaker had not put up his shutters. He +had drawn down a yellow blind, on which was painted a picture of +a suburban cemetery. Two funerals, the loftiest effort of +his craft, were depicted approaching the gates. When the +gas was alight behind the blind, an effect was produced which was +doubtless much admired. He also displayed in his window a +model coffin, a work of art. It was about a foot long, +varnished, studded with little brass nails, and on the lid was +fastened a rustic cross stretching from end to end. The +desire to decorate existence in some way or other with more or +less care is nearly universal. The most sensual and the +meanest almost always manifest an indisposition to be content +with mere material satisfaction. I have known selfish, +gluttonous, drunken men spend their leisure moments in trimming a +bed of scarlet geraniums, and the vulgarest and most commonplace +of mortals considers it a necessity to put a picture in the room +or an ornament on the mantelpiece. The instinct, even in +its lowest forms, is divine. It is the commentary on the +text that man shall not live by bread alone. It is evidence +of an acknowledged compulsion—of which art is the highest +manifestation—to <i>escape</i>. In the alleys behind +Drury Lane this instinct, the very salt of life, was dead, +crushed out utterly, a symptom which seemed to me ominous, and +even awful to the last degree. The only house in which it +survived was in that of the undertaker, who displayed the +willows, the black horses, and the coffin. These may have +been nothing more than an advertisement, but from the care with +which the cross was elaborated, and the neatness with which it +was made to resemble a natural piece of wood, I am inclined to +believe that the man felt some pleasure in his work for its own +sake, and that he was not utterly submerged. The cross in +such dens as these, or, worse than dens, in such sewers! If +it be anything, it is a symbol of victory, of power to triumph +over resistance, and even death. Here was nothing but +sullen subjugation, the most grovelling slavery, mitigated only +by a tendency to mutiny. Here was a strength of +circumstance to quell and dominate which neither Jesus nor Paul +could have overcome—worse a thousandfold than Scribes or +Pharisees, or any form of persecution. The preaching of +Jesus would have been powerless here; in fact, no known stimulus, +nothing ever held up before men to stir the soul to activity, can +do anything in the back streets of great cities so long as they +are the cesspools which they are now.</p> +<p>We came to the room. About a score of +M’Kay’s own friends were there, and perhaps +half-a-dozen outsiders, attracted by the notice which had been +pasted on a board at the entrance. M’Kay announced +his errand. The ignorance and misery of London he said were +intolerable to him. He could not take any pleasure in life +when he thought upon them. What could he do? that was the +question. He was not a man of wealth. He could not +buy up these hovels. He could not force an entrance into +them and persuade their inhabitants to improve themselves. +He had no talents wherewith to found a great organisation or +create public opinion. He had determined, after much +thought, to do what he was now doing. It was very little, +but it was all he could undertake. He proposed to keep this +room open as a place to which those who wished might resort at +different times, and find some quietude, instruction, and what +fortifying thoughts he could collect to enable men to endure +their almost unendurable sufferings. He did not intend to +teach theology. Anything which would be serviceable he +would set forth, but in the main he intended to rely on holding +up the examples of those who were greater than ourselves and were +our redeemers. He meant to teach Christ in the proper sense +of the word. Christ now is admired probably more than He +had ever been. Everybody agrees to admire Him, but where +are the people who really do what He did? There is no +religion now-a-days. Religion is a mere literature. +Cultivated persons sit in their studies and write overflowingly +about Jesus, or meet at parties and talk about Him; but He is not +of much use to me unless I say to myself, <i>how is it with +thee</i>? unless I myself become what He was. This was the +meaning of Jesus to the Apostle Paul. Jesus was in him; he +had put on Jesus; that is to say, Jesus lived in him like a +second soul, taking the place of his own soul and directing him +accordingly. That was religion, and it is absurd to say +that the English nation at this moment, or any section of it, is +religious. Its educated classes are inhabited by a hundred +minds. We are in a state of anarchy, each of us with a +different aim and shaping himself according to a different type; +while the uneducated classes are entirely given over to the +“natural man.” He was firmly persuaded that we +need religion, poor and rich alike. We need some +controlling influence to bind together our scattered +energies. We do not know what we are doing. We read +one book one day and another book another day, but it is idle +wandering to right and left; it is not advancing on a straight +road. It is not possible to bind ourselves down to a +certain defined course, but still it is an enormous, an +incalculable advantage for us to have some irreversible standard +set up in us by which everything we meet is to be judged. +That is the meaning of the prophecy—whether it will ever be +fulfilled God only knows—that Christ shall judge the +world. All religions have been this. They have said +that in the midst of the infinitely possible—infinitely +possible evil and infinitely possible good too—we become +distracted. A thousand forces good and bad act upon +us. It is necessary, if we are to be men, if we are to be +saved, that we should be rescued from this tumult, and that our +feet should be planted upon a path. His object, therefore, +would be to preach Christ, as before said, and to introduce into +human life His unifying influence. He would try and get +them to see things with the eyes of Christ, to love with His +love, to judge with His judgment. He believed Christ was +fitted to occupy this place. He deliberately chose Christ +as worthy to be our central, shaping force. He would try by +degrees to prove this; to prove that Christ’s way of +dealing with life is the best way, and so to create a genuinely +Christian spirit, which, when any choice of conduct is presented +to us, will prompt us to ask first of all, <i>how would Christ +have it</i>? or, when men and things pass before us, will decide +through him what we have to say about them. M’Kay +added that he hoped his efforts would not be confined to +talking. He trusted to be able, by means of this little +meeting, gradually to gain admittance for himself and his friends +into the houses of the poor and do some practical good. At +present he had no organisation and no plans. He did not +believe in organisation and plans preceding a clear conception of +what was to be accomplished. Such, as nearly as I can now +recollect, is an outline of his discourse. It was +thoroughly characteristic of him. He always talked in this +fashion. He was for ever insisting on the aimlessness of +modern life, on the powerlessness of its vague activities to +mould men into anything good, to restrain them from evil or +moderate their passions, and he was possessed by a vision of a +new Christianity which was to take the place of the old and dead +theologies. I have reported him in my own language. +He strove as much as he could to make his meaning plain to +everybody. Just before he finished, three or four out of +the half-a-dozen outsiders who were present whistled with all +their might and ran down the stairs shouting to one +another. As we went out they had collected about the door, +and amused themselves by pushing one another against us, and +kicking an old kettle behind us and amongst us all the way up the +street, so that we were covered with splashes. Mrs. +M’Kay went with us, and when we reached home, she tried to +say something about what she had heard. The cloud came over +her husband’s face at once; he remained silent for a +minute, and getting up and going to the window, observed that it +ought to be cleaned, and that he could hardly see the opposite +house. The poor woman looked distressed, and I was just +about to come to her rescue by continuing what she had been +saying, when she rose, not in anger, but in trouble, and went +upstairs.</p> +<h2><a name="page40"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +40</span>CHAPTER III<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">MISS LEROY</span></h2> +<p><span class="smcap">During</span> the great French war there +were many French prisoners in my native town. They led a +strange isolated life, for they knew nothing of our language, +nor, in those days, did three people in the town understand +theirs. The common soldiers amused themselves by making +little trifles and selling them. I have now before me a box +of coloured straw with the date 1799 on the bottom, which was +bought by my grandfather. One of these prisoners was an +officer named Leroy. Why he did not go back to France I +never heard, but I know that before I was born he was living near +our house on a small income; that he tried to teach French, and +that he had as his companion a handsome daughter who grew up +speaking English. What she was like when she was young I +cannot say, but I have had her described to me over and over +again. She had rather darkish brown hair, and she was tall +and straight as an arrow. This she was, by the way, even +into old age. She surprised, shocked, and attracted all the +sober persons in our circle. Her ways were not their +ways. She would walk out by herself on a starry night +without a single companion, and cause thereby infinite talk, +which would have converged to a single focus if it had not +happened that she was also in the habit of walking out at four +o’clock on a summer’s morning, and that in the church +porch of a little village not far from us, which was her +favourite resting-place, a copy of the <i>De Imitatione +Christi</i> was found which belonged to her. So the talk +was scattered again and its convergence prevented. She used +to say doubtful things about love. One of them struck my +mother with horror. Miss Leroy told a male person once, and +told him to his face, that if she loved him and he loved her, and +they agreed to sign one another’s foreheads with a cross as +a ceremony, it would be as good to her as marriage. This +may seem a trifle, but nobody now can imagine what was thought of +it at the time it was spoken. My mother repeated it every +now and then for fifty years. It may be conjectured how +easily any other girls of our acquaintance would have been +classified, and justly classified, if they had uttered such +barefaced Continental immorality. Miss Leroy’s +neighbours were remarkably apt at classifying their +fellow-creatures. They had a few, a very few holes, into +which they dropped their neighbours, and they must go into one or +the other. Nothing was more distressing than a specimen +which, notwithstanding all the violence which might be used to +it, would not fit into a hole, but remained an exception. +Some lout, I believe, reckoning on the legitimacy of his +generalisation, and having heard of this and other observations +accredited to Miss Leroy, ventured to be slightly rude to +her. What she said to him was never known, but he was +always shy afterwards of mentioning her name, and when he did he +was wont to declare that she was “a rum un.” +She was not particular, I have heard, about personal tidiness, +and this I can well believe, for she was certainly not +distinguished when I knew her for this virtue. She cared +nothing for the linen-closet, the spotless bed-hangings, and the +bright poker, which were the true household gods of the +respectable women of those days. She would have been +instantly set down as “slut,” and as having +“nasty dirty forrin ways,” if a peculiar habit of +hers had not unfortunately presented itself, most irritating to +her critics, so anxious promptly to gratify their philosophic +tendency towards scientific grouping. Mrs. Mobbs, who lived +next door to her, averred that she always slept with the window +open. Mrs. Mobbs, like everybody else, never opened her +window except to “air the room.” Mrs. +Mobbs’ best bedroom was carpeted all over, and contained a +great four-post bedstead, hung round with heavy hangings, and +protected at the top from draughts by a kind of firmament of +white dimity. Mrs. Mobbs stuffed a sack of straw up the +chimney of the fireplace, to prevent the fall of the +“sutt,” as she called it. Mrs. Mobbs, if she +had a visitor, gave her a hot supper, and expected her +immediately afterwards to go upstairs, draw the window curtains, +get into this bed, draw the bed curtains also, and wake up the +next morning “bilious.” This was the proper +thing to do. Miss Leroy’s sitting-room was decidedly +disorderly; the chairs were dusty; “yer might write yer +name on the table,” Mrs. Mobbs declared; but, nevertheless, +the casement was never closed night nor day; and, moreover, Miss +Leroy was believed by the strongest circumstantial evidence to +wash herself all over every morning, a habit which Mrs. Mobbs +thought “weakening,” and somehow connected with +ethical impropriety. When Miss Leroy was married, and first +as an elderly woman became known to me, she was very +inconsequential in her opinions, or at least appeared so to our +eyes. She must have been much more so when she was +younger. In our town we were all formed upon recognised +patterns, and those who possessed any one mark of the pattern, +had all. The wine-merchant, for example, who went to +church, eminently respectable, Tory, by no means associating with +the tradesfolk who displayed their goods in the windows, knowing +no “experience,” and who had never felt the +outpouring of the Spirit, was a specimen of a class like +him. Another class was represented by the dissenting +ironmonger, deacon, presiding at prayer-meetings, strict +Sabbatarian, and believer in eternal punishments; while a third +was set forth by “Guffy,” whose real name was +unknown, who got drunk, unloaded barges, assisted at the +municipal elections, and was never once seen inside a place of +worship. These patterns had existed amongst us from the +dimmest antiquity, and were accepted as part of the eternal order +of things; so much so, that the deacon, although he professed to +be sure that nobody who had not been converted would escape the +fire—and the wine-merchant certainly had not been +converted—was very far from admitting to himself that the +wine-merchant ought to be converted, or that it would be proper +to try and convert him. I doubt, indeed, whether our +congregation would have been happy, or would have thought any the +better of him, if he had left the church. Such an event, +however, could no more come within the reach of our vision than a +reversal of the current of our river. It would have broken +up our foundations and party-walls, and would have been +considered as ominous, and anything but a subject for +thankfulness. But Miss Leroy was not the wine-merchant, nor +the ironmonger, nor Guffy, and even now I cannot trace the hidden +centre of union from which sprang so much that was apparently +irreconcilable. She was a person whom nobody could have +created in writing a novel, because she was so +inconsistent. As I have said before, she studied Thomas +à Kempis, and her little French Bible was brown with +constant use. But then she read much fiction in which there +were scenes which would have made our hair stand on end. +The only thing she constantly abhorred in books was what was dull +and opaque. Yet, as we shall see presently, her dislike to +dulness, once at least in her life, notably failed her. She +was not Catholic, and professed herself Protestant, but such a +Protestantism! She had no sceptical doubts. She +believed implicitly that the Bible was the Word of God, and that +everything in it was true, but her interpretation of it was of +the strangest kind. Almost all our great doctrines seemed +shrunk to nothing in her eyes, while others, which were nothing +to us, were all-important to her. The atonement, for +instance, I never heard her mention, but Unitarianism was hateful +to her, and Jesus was her God in every sense of the word. +On the other hand, she was partly Pagan, for she knew very little +of that consideration for the feeble, and even for the foolish, +which is the glory of Christianity. She was rude to foolish +people, and she instinctively kept out of the way of all disease +and weakness, so that in this respect she was far below the +commonplace tradesman’s wife, who visited the sick, sat up +with them, and, in fact, never seemed so completely in her +element as when she could be with anybody who was ill in bed.</p> +<p>Miss Leroy’s father was republican, and so was my +grandfather. My grandfather and old Leroy were the only +people in our town who refused to illuminate when a victory was +gained over the French. Leroy’s windows were spared +on the ground that he was not a Briton, but the mob endeavoured +to show my grandfather the folly of his belief in democracy by +smashing every pane of glass in front of his house with +stones. This drew him and Leroy together, and the result +was, that although Leroy himself never set foot inside any chapel +or church, Miss Leroy was often induced to attend our +meeting-house in company with a maiden aunt of mine, who rather +“took to her.” Now comes the for ever +mysterious passage in history. There was amongst the +attendants at that meeting-house a young man who was apprentice +to a miller. He was a big, soft, quiet, plump-faced, +awkward youth, very good, but nothing more. He wore on +Sunday a complete suit of light pepper-and-salt clothes, and +continued to wear pepper-and-salt on Sunday all his life. +He taught in the Sunday-school, and afterwards, as he got older, +he was encouraged to open his lips at a prayer-meeting, and to +“take the service” in the village chapels on Sunday +evening. He was the most singularly placid, even-tempered +person I ever knew. I first became acquainted with him when +I was a child and he was past middle life. What he was +then, I am told, he always was; and I certainly never heard one +single violent word escape his lips. His habits, even when +young, had a tendency to harden. He went to sleep after his +mid-day dinner with the greatest regularity, and he never could +keep awake if he sat by a fire after dark. I have seen him, +when kneeling at family worship and praying with his family, lose +himself for an instant and nod his head, to the confusion of all +who were around him. He is dead now, but he lived to a good +old age, which crept upon him gradually with no pain, and he +passed away from this world to the next in a peaceful doze. +He never read anything, for the simple reason that whenever he +was not at work or at chapel he slumbered. To the utter +amazement of everybody, it was announced one fine day that Miss +Leroy and he—George Butts—were to be married. +They were about the last people in the world, who, it was +thought, could be brought together. My mother was stunned, +and never completely recovered. I have seen her, forty +years after George Butts’ wedding-day, lift up her hands, +and have heard her call out with emotion, as fresh as if the +event were of yesterday, “What made that girl have George I +can <i>not</i> think—but there!” What she meant +by the last two words we could not comprehend. Many of her +acquaintances interpreted them to mean that she knew more than +she dared communicate, but I think they were mistaken. I am +quite certain if she had known anything she must have told it, +and, in the next place, the phrase “but there” was +not uncommon amongst women in our town, and was supposed to mark +the consciousness of a prudently restrained ability to give an +explanation of mysterious phenomena in human relationships. +For my own part, I am just as much in the dark as my +mother. My father, who was a shrewd man, was always +puzzled, and could not read the riddle. He used to say that +he never thought George could have “made up” to any +young woman, and it was quite clear that Miss Leroy did not +either then or afterwards display any violent affection for +him. I have heard her criticise and patronise him as a +“good soul,” but incapable, as indeed he was, of all +sympathy with her. After marriage she went her way and he +his. She got up early, as she was wont to do, and took her +Bible into the fields while he was snoring. She would then +very likely suffer from a terrible headache during the rest of +the day, and lie down for hours, letting the house manage itself +as best it could. What made her selection of George more +obscure was that she was much admired by many young fellows, some +of whom were certainly more akin to her than he was; and I have +heard from one or two reports of encouraging words, and even +something more than words, which she had vouchsafed to +them. A solution is impossible. The affinities, +repulsions, reasons in a nature like that of Miss Leroy’s +are so secret and so subtle, working towards such incalculable +and not-to-be-predicted results, that to attempt to make a major +and minor premiss and an inevitable conclusion out of them would +be useless. One thing was clear, that by marrying George +she gained great freedom. If she had married anybody closer +to her, she might have jarred with him; there might have been +collision and wreck as complete as if they had been entirely +opposed; for she was not the kind of person to accommodate +herself to others even in the matter of small differences. +But George’s road through space lay entirely apart from +hers, and there was not the slightest chance of +interference. She was under the protection of a husband; +she could do things that, as an unmarried woman, especially in a +foreign land, she could not do, and the compensatory sacrifice to +her was small. This is really the only attempt at +elucidation I can give. She went regularly all her life to +chapel with George, but even when he became deacon, and +“supplied” the villages round, she never would join +the church as a member. She never agreed with the minister, +and he never could make anything out of her. They did not +quarrel, but she thought nothing of his sermons, and he was +perplexed and uncomfortable in the presence of a nondescript who +did not respond to any dogmatic statement of the articles of +religion, and who yet could not be put aside as “one of +those in the gallery”—that is to say, as one of the +ordinary unconverted, for she used to quote hymns with amazing +fervour, and she quoted them to him with a freedom and a certain +superiority which he might have expected from an aged brother +minister, but certainly not from one of his own +congregation. He was a preacher of the Gospel, it was true; +and it was his duty, a duty on which he insisted, to be +“instant in season and out of season” in saying +spiritual things to his flock; but then they were things proper, +decent, conventional, uttered with gravity at suitable +times—such as were customary amongst all the ministers of +the denomination. It was not pleasant to be outbid in his +own department, especially by one who was not a communicant, and +to be obliged, when he went on a pastoral visit to a house in +which Mrs. Butts happened to be, to sit still and hear her, +regardless of the minister’s presence, conclude a short +mystical monologue with Cowper’s verse—</p> +<p class="poetry">“Exults our rising soul,<br /> + Disburdened of her load,<br /> +And swells unutterably full<br /> + Of glory and of God.”</p> +<p>This was <i>not</i> pleasant to our minister, nor was it +pleasant to the minister’s wife. But George Butts +held a responsible position in our community, and the +minister’s wife held also a responsible position, so that +she taxed all her ingenuity to let her friends understand at +tea-parties what she thought of Mrs. Butts without saying +anything which could be the ground of formal remonstrance. +Thus did Mrs. Butts live among us, as an Arabian bird with its +peculiar habits, cries, and plumage might live in one of our +barn-yards with the ordinary barn-door fowls.</p> +<p>I was never happier when I was a boy than when I was with Mrs. +Butts at the mill, which George had inherited. There was a +grand freedom in her house. The front door leading into the +garden was always open. There was no precise separation +between the house and the mill. The business and the +dwelling-place were mixed up together, and covered with +flour. Mr. Butts was in the habit of walking out of his +mill into the living-room every now and then, and never dreamed +when one o’clock came that it was necessary for him to +change his floury coat before he had his dinner. His cap he +also often retained, and in any weather, not extraordinarily +cold, he sat in his shirtsleeves. The garden was large and +half-wild. A man from the mill, if work was slack, gave a +day to it now and then, but it was not trimmed and raked and +combed like the other gardens in the town. It was full of +gooseberry trees, and I was permitted to eat the gooseberries +without stint. The mill-life, too, was inexpressibly +attractive—the dark chamber with the great, green, dripping +wheel in it, so awfully mysterious as the central life of the +whole structure; the machinery connected with the wheel—I +knew not how; the hole where the roach lay by the side of the +mill-tail in the eddy; the haunts of the water-rats which we used +to hunt with Spot, the black and tan terrier, and the still more +exciting sport with the ferrets—all this drew me down the +lane perpetually. I liked, and even loved Mrs. Butts, too, +for her own sake. Her kindness to me was unlimited, and she +was never overcome with the fear of “spoiling me,” +which seemed the constant dread of most of my hostesses. I +never lost my love for her. It grew as I grew, despite my +mother’s scarcely suppressed hostility to her, and when I +heard she was ill, and was likely to die, I went to be with +her. She was eighty years old then. I sat by her +bedside with her hand in mine. I was there when she passed +away, and—but I have no mind and no power to say any more, +for all the memories of her affection and of the sunny days by +the water come over me and prevent the calmness necessary for a +chronicle. She with all her faults and eccentricities will +always have in my heart a little chapel with an ever-burning +light. She was one of the very very few whom I have ever +seen who knew how to love a child.</p> +<p>Mrs. Butts and George had one son who was named Clement. +He was exactly my own age, and naturally we were constant +companions. We went to the same school. He never +distinguished himself at his books, but he was chief among +us. He had a versatile talent for almost every +accomplishment in which we delighted, but he was not supreme in +any one of them. There were better cricketers, better +football players, better hands at setting a night-line, better +swimmers than Clem, but he could do something, and do it well, in +all these departments. He generally took up a thing with +much eagerness for a time, and then let it drop. He was +foremost in introducing new games and new fashions, which he +permitted to flourish for a time, and then superseded. As +he grew up he displayed a taste for drawing and music. He +was soon able to copy little paintings of flowers, or even little +country scenes, and to play a piece of no very great difficulty +with tolerable effect. But as he never was taught by a +master, and never practised elementary exercises and studies, he +was deficient in accuracy. When the question came what was +to be done with him after he left school, his father naturally +wished him to go into the mill. Clem, however, set his face +steadily against this project, and his mother, who was a believer +in his genius, supported him. He actually wanted to go to +the University, a thing unheard of in those days amongst our +people; but this was not possible, and after dangling about for +some time at home, he obtained the post of usher in a school, an +occupation which he considered more congenial and intellectual +than that of grinding flour. Strange to say, although he +knew less than any of his colleagues, he succeeded better than +any of them. He managed to impress a sense of his own +importance upon everybody, including the headmaster. He +slid into a position of superiority above three or four +colleagues who would have shamed him at an examination, and who +uttered many a curse because they saw themselves surpassed and +put in the shade by a stranger, who, they were confident, could +hardly construct a hexameter. He never quarrelled with them +nor did he grossly patronise them, but he always let them know +that he considered himself above them. His reading was +desultory; in fact, everything he did was desultory. He was +not selfish in the ordinary sense of the word. Rather was +he distinguished by a large and liberal open-handedness; but he +was liberal also to himself to a remarkable degree, dressing +himself expensively, and spending a good deal of money in +luxuries. He was specially fond of insisting on his half +French origin, made a great deal of his mother, was silent as to +his father, and always signed himself C. Leroy Butts, although I +don’t believe the second Christian name was given him in +baptism. Notwithstanding his generosity he was egotistical +and hollow at heart. He knew nothing of friendship in the +best sense of the word, but had a multitude of acquaintances, +whom he invariably sought amongst those who were better off than +himself. He was popular with them, for no man knew better +than he how to get up an entertainment, or to make a success of +an evening party. He had not been at his school for two +years before he conceived the notion of setting up for +himself. He had not a penny, but he borrowed easily what +was wanted from somebody he knew, and in a twelvemonth more he +had a dozen pupils. He took care to get the ablest +subordinates he could find, and he succeeded in passing a boy for +an open scholarship at Oxford, against two competitors prepared +by the very man whom he had formerly served. After this he +prospered greatly, and would have prospered still more, if his +love of show and extravagance had not increased with his +income. His talents were sometimes taxed when people who +came to place their sons with him supposed ignorantly that his +origin and attainments were what might be expected from his +position; and poor Chalmers, a Glasgow M.A., who still taught, +for £80 a year, the third class in the establishment in +which Butts began life, had some bitter stories on that +subject. Chalmers was a perfect scholar, but he was not +agreeable. He had black finger-nails, and wore dirty +collars. Having a lively remembrance of his friend’s +“general acquaintance” with Latin prosody, +Chalmers’ opinion of Providence was much modified when he +discovered what Providence was doing for Butts. Clem took +to the Church when he started for himself. It would have +been madness in him to remain a Dissenter. But in private, +if it suited his purpose, he could always be airily sceptical, +and he had a superficial acquaintance, second-hand, with a +multitude of books, many of them of an infidel turn. I once +rebuked him for his hypocrisy, and his defence was that religious +disputes were indifferent to him, and that at any rate a man +associates with gentlemen if he is a churchman. Cultivation +and manners he thought to be of more importance than +Calvinism. I believe that he partly meant what he +said. He went to church because the school would have +failed if he had gone to chapel; but he was sufficiently +keen-sighted and clever to be beyond the petty quarrels of the +sects, and a song well sung was of much greater moment to him +than an essay on pædo-baptism. It was all very well +of Chalmers to revile him for his shallowness. He was +shallow, and yet he possessed in some mysterious way a talent +which I greatly coveted, and which in this world is inestimably +precious—the talent of making people give way before +him—a capacity of self-impression. Chalmers could +never have commanded anybody. He had no power whatever, +even when he was right, to put his will against the wills of +others, but yielded first this way and then the other. +Clem, on the contrary, without any difficulty or any effort, +could conquer all opposition, and smilingly force everybody to do +his bidding.</p> +<p>Clem had a peculiar theory with regard to his own rights and +those of the class to which he considered that he belonged. +He always held implicitly and sometimes explicitly that gifted +people live under a kind of dispensation of grace; the law +existing solely for dull souls. What in a clown is a crime +punishable by the laws of the land might in a man of genius be a +necessary development, or at any rate an excusable offence. +He had nothing to say for the servant-girl who had sinned with +the shopman, but if artist or poet were to carry off another +man’s wife, it might not be wrong.</p> +<p>He believed, and acted upon the belief, that the inferior +ought to render perpetual incense to the superior, and that the +superior should receive it as a matter of course. When his +father was ill he never waited on him or sat up a single night +with him. If duty was disagreeable to him Clem paid homage +to it afar off, but pleaded exemption. He admitted that +waiting on the sick is obligatory on people who are fitted for +it, and is very charming. Nothing was more beautiful to him +than tender, filial care spending itself for a beloved +object. But it was not his vocation. His nerves were +more finely ordered than those of mankind generally, and the +sight of disease and suffering distressed him too much. +Everything was surrendered to him in the houses of his +friends. If any inconvenience was to be endured, he was the +first person to be protected from it, and he accepted the +greatest sacrifices, with a graceful acknowledgment, it is true, +but with no repulse. To what better purpose could the best +wine be put than in cherishing his imagination. It was +simple waste to allow it to be poured out upon the earth, and to +give it to a fool was no better. After he succeeded so well +in the world, Clem, to a great extent, deserted me, although I +was his oldest friend and the friend of his childhood. I +heard that he visited a good many rich persons, that he made much +of them, and they made much of him. He kept up a kind of +acquaintance with me, not by writing to me, but by the very cheap +mode of sending me a newspaper now and then with a marked +paragraph in it announcing the exploits of his school at a +cricket-match, or occasionally with a report of a lecture which +he had delivered. He was a decent orator, and from motives +of business if from no other, he not unfrequently spoke in +public. One or two of these lectures wounded me a good +deal. There was one in particular on <i>As You Like It</i>, +in which he held up to admiration the fidelity which is so +remarkable in Shakespeare, and lamented that in these days it was +so rare to find anything of the kind, he thought that we were +becoming more indifferent to one another. He maintained, +however, that man should be everything to man, and he then +enlarged on the duty of really cultivating affection, of its +superiority to books, and on the pleasure and profit of +self-denial. I do not mean to accuse Clem of downright +hypocrisy. I have known many persons come up from the +country and go into raptures over a playhouse sun and moon who +have never bestowed a glance or a thought on the real sun and +moon to be seen from their own doors; and we are all aware it by +no means follows because we are moved to our very depths by the +spectacle of unrecognised, uncomplaining endurance in a novel, +that therefore we can step over the road to waste an hour or a +sixpence upon the unrecognised, uncomplaining endurance of the +poor lone woman left a widow in the little villa there. I +was annoyed with myself because Clem’s abandonment of me so +much affected me. I wished I could cut the rope and +carelessly cast him adrift as he had cast me adrift, but I could +not. I never could make out and cannot make out what was +the secret of his influence over me; why I was unable to say, +“If you do not care for me I do not care for +you.” I longed sometimes for complete rupture, so +that we might know exactly where we were, but it never +came. Gradually our intercourse grew thinner and thinner, +until at last I heard that he had been spending a fortnight with +some semi-aristocratic acquaintance within five miles of me, and +during the whole of that time he never came near me. I met +him in a railway station soon afterwards, when he came up to me +effusive and apparently affectionate. “It was a real +grief to me, my dear fellow,” he said, “that I could +not call on you last month, but the truth was I was so driven: +they would make me go here and go there, and I kept putting off +my visit to you till it was too late.” Fortunately my +train was just starting, or I don’t know what might have +happened. I said not a word; shook hands with him; got into +the carriage; he waved his hat to me, and I pretended not to see +him, but I did see him, and saw him turn round immediately to +some well-dressed officer-like gentleman with whom he walked +laughing down the platform. The rest of that day was black +to me. I cared for nothing. I passed away from the +thought of Clem, and dwelt upon the conviction which had long +possessed me that I was <i>insignificant</i>, that there was +<i>nothing much in me</i>, and it was this which destroyed my +peace. We may reconcile ourselves to poverty and suffering, +but few of us can endure the conviction that there is <i>nothing +in us</i>, and that consequently we cannot expect anybody to +gravitate towards us with any forceful impulse. It is a +bitter experience. And yet there is consolation. The +universe is infinite. In the presence of its celestial +magnitudes who is there who is really great or small, and what is +the difference between you and me, my work and yours? I +sought refuge in the idea of GOD, the God of a starry night with +its incomprehensible distances; and I was at peace, content to be +the meanest worm of all the millions that crawl on the earth.</p> +<h2><a name="page62"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +62</span>CHAPTER IV<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">A NECESSARY DEVELOPMENT</span></h2> +<p><span class="smcap">The</span> few friends who have read the +first part of my autobiography may perhaps remember that in my +younger days I had engaged myself to a girl named Ellen, from +whom afterwards I parted. After some two or three years she +was left an orphan, and came into the possession of a small +property, over which unfortunately she had complete power. +She was attractive and well-educated, and I heard long after I +had broken with her, and had ceased to have intercourse with +Butts, that the two were married. He of course, living so +near her, had known her well, and he found her money +useful. How they agreed I knew not save by report, but I +was told that after the first child was born, the only child they +ever had, Butts grew indifferent to her, and that she, to use my +friend’s expression, “went off,” by which I +suppose he meant that she faded. There happened in those +days to live near Butts a small squire, married, but with no +family. He was a lethargic creature, about five-and-thirty +years old, farming eight hundred acres of his own land. He +did not, however, belong to the farming class. He had been +to Harrow, was on the magistrates’ bench, and associated +with the small aristocracy of the country round. He was +like every other squire whom I remember in my native county, and +I can remember scores of them. He read no books and +tolerated the usual conventional breaches of the moral law, but +was an intense worshipper of respectability, and hated a +scandal. On one point he differed from his +neighbours. He was a Whig and they were all Tories. I +have said he read no books, and this, on the whole, is true, but +nevertheless he did know something about the history of the early +part of the century, and he was rather fond at political +gatherings of making some allusion to Mr. Fox. His father +had sat in the House of Commons when Fox was there, and had +sternly opposed the French war. I don’t suppose that +anybody not actually <i>in it</i>—no Londoner +certainly—can understand the rigidity of the bonds which +restricted county society when I was young, and for aught I know +may restrict it now. There was with us one huge and dark +exception to the general uniformity. The earl had broken +loose, had ruined his estate, had defied decorum and openly lived +with strange women at home and in Paris, but this black +background did but set off the otherwise universal adhesion to +the Church and to authorised manners, an adhesion tempered and +rendered tolerable by port wine. It must not, however, be +supposed that human nature was different from the human nature of +to-day or a thousand years ago. There were then, even as +there were a thousand years ago, and are to-day, small, secret +doors, connected with mysterious staircases, by which access was +gained to freedom; and men and women, inmates of castles with +walls a yard thick, and impenetrable portcullises, sought those +doors and descended those stairs night and day. But nobody +knew, or if we did know, the silence was profound. The +broad-shouldered, yellow-haired Whig squire, had a wife who was +the opposite of him. She came from a distant part of the +country, and had been educated in France. She was small, +with black hair, and yet with blue eyes. She spoke French +perfectly, was devoted to music, read French books, and, although +she was a constant attendant at church, and gave no opportunity +whatever for the slightest suspicion, the matrons of the circle +in which she moved were never quite happy about her. This +was due partly to her knowledge of French, and partly to her +having no children. Anything more about her I do not +know. She was beyond us, and although I have seen her often +enough I never spoke to her. Butts, however, managed to +become a visitor at the squire’s house. Fancy +<i>my</i> going to the squire’s! But Butts did, was +accepted there, and even dined there with a parson, and two or +three half-pay officers. The squire never called on +Butts. That was an understood thing, nor did Mrs. Butts +accompany her husband. That also was an understood +thing. It was strange that Butts could tolerate and even +court such a relationship. Most men would scorn with the +scorn of a personal insult an invitation to a house from which +their wives were expressly excluded. The squire’s +lady and Clem became great friends. She discovered that his +mother was a Frenchwoman, and this was a bond between them. +She discovered also that Clem was artistic, that he was devotedly +fond of music, that he could draw a little, paint a little, and +she believed in the divine right of talent wherever it might be +found to assert a claim of equality with those who were better +born. The women in the country-side were shy of her; for +the men she could not possibly care, and no doubt she must at +times have got rather weary of her heavy husband with his one +outlook towards the universal in the person of George James Fox, +and the Whig policy of 1802. I am under some disadvantage +in telling this part of my story, because I was far away from +home, and only knew afterwards at second hand what the course of +events had been; but I learned them from one who was intimately +concerned, and I do not think I can be mistaken on any essential +point. I imagine that by this time Mrs. Butts must have +become changed into what she was in later years. She had +grown older since she and I had parted; she had seen trouble; her +child had been born, and although she was not exactly estranged +from Clem, for neither he nor she would have admitted any +coolness, she had learned that she was nothing specially to +him. I have often noticed what an imperceptible touch, what +a slight shifting in the balance of opposing forces, will alter +the character. I have observed a woman, for example, +essentially the same at twenty and thirty—who is there who +is not always essentially the same?—and yet, what was a +defect at twenty, has become transformed and transfigured into a +benignant virtue at thirty; translating the whole nature from the +human to the divine. Some slight depression has been +wrought here, and some slight lift has been given there, and +beauty and order have miraculously emerged from what was +chaotic. The same thing may continually be noticed in the +hereditary transmission of qualities. The redeeming virtue +of the father palpably present in the son becomes his curse, +through a faint diminution of the strength of the check which +caused that virtue to be the father’s salvation. The +propensity, too, which is a man’s evil genius, and leads +him to madness and utter ruin, gives vivid reality to all his +words and thoughts, and becomes all his strength, if by divine +assistance it can just be subdued and prevented from rising in +victorious insurrection. But this is a digression, useful, +however, in its way, because it will explain Mrs. Butts when we +come a little nearer to her in the future.</p> +<p>For a time Clem’s visits to the squire’s house +always took place when the squire was at home, but an amateur +concert was to be arranged in which Clem was to take part +together with the squire’s lady. Clem consequently +was obliged to go to the Hall for the purpose of practising, and +so it came to pass that he was there at unusual hours and when +the master was afield. These morning and afternoon calls +did not cease when the concert was over. Clem’s wife +did not know anything about them, and, if she noticed his +frequent absence, she was met with an excuse. Perhaps the +worst, or almost the worst effect of relationships which we do +not like to acknowledge, is the secrecy and equivocation which +they beget. From the very first moment when the intimacy +between the squire’s wife and Clem began to be anything +more than harmless, he was compelled to shuffle and to become +contemptible. At the same time I believe he defended +himself against himself with the weapons which were ever ready +when self rose against self because of some wrong-doing. He +was not as other men. It was absurd to class what he did +with what an ordinary person might do, although externally his +actions and those of the ordinary person might resemble one +another. I cannot trace the steps by which the two sinners +drew nearer and nearer together, for the simple reason that this +is an autobiography, and not a novel. I do not know what +the development was, nor did anybody except the person +concerned. Neither do I know what was the mental history of +Mrs. Butts during this unhappy period. She seldom talked +about it afterwards. I do, however, happen to recollect +hearing her once say that her greatest trouble was the cessation, +from some unknown cause, of Clem’s attempts—they were +never many—to interest and amuse her. It is easy to +understand how this should be. If a man is guilty of any +defection from himself, of anything of which he is ashamed, +everything which is better becomes a farce to him. After he +has been betrayed by some passion, how can he pretend to the +perfect enjoyment of what is pure? The moment he feels any +disposition to rise, he is stricken through as if with an arrow, +and he drops. Not until weeks, months, and even years have +elapsed, does he feel justified in surrendering himself to a +noble emotion. I have heard of persons who have been able +to ascend easily and instantaneously from the mud to the upper +air, and descend as easily; but to me at least they are +incomprehensible. Clem, less than most men, suffered +permanently, or indeed in any way from remorse, because he was so +shielded by his peculiar philosophy; but I can quite believe that +when he got into the habit of calling at the Hall at mid-day, his +behaviour to his wife changed.</p> +<p>One day in December the squire had gone out with the +hounds. Clem, going on from bad to worse, had now reached +the point of planning to be at the Hall when the squire was not +at home. On that particular afternoon Clem was there. +It was about half-past four o’clock, and the master was not +expected till six. There had been some music, the lady +accompanying, and Clem singing. It was over, and Clem, +sitting down beside her at the piano, and pointing out with his +right hand some passage which had troubled him, had placed his +left arm on her shoulder, and round her neck, she not +resisting. He always swore afterwards that never till then +had such a familiarity as this been permitted, and I believe that +he did not tell a lie. But what was there in that +familiarity? The worst was already there, and it was +through a mere accident that it never showed itself. The +accident was this. The squire, for some unknown reason, had +returned earlier than usual, and dismounting in the stable-yard, +had walked round the garden on the turf which came close to the +windows of the ground floor. Passing the drawing-room +window, and looking in by the edge of the drawn-down blind, he +saw his wife and Clem just at the moment described. He +slipped round to the door, took off his boots so that he might +not be heard, and as there was a large screen inside the room he +was able to enter it unobserved. Clem caught sight of him +just as he emerged from behind the screen, and started up +instantly in great confusion, the lady, with greater presence of +mind, remaining perfectly still. Without a word the squire +strode up to Clem, struck out at him, caught him just over the +temple, and felled him instantaneously. He lay for some +time senseless, and what passed between husband and wife I cannot +say. After about ten minutes, perhaps, Clem came to +himself; there was nobody to be seen; and he managed to get up +and crawl home. He told his wife he had met with an +accident; that he would go to bed, and that she should know all +about it when he was better. His forehead was dressed, and +to bed he went. That night Mrs. Butts had a letter. +It ran as follows:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“<span class="smcap">Madam</span>,—It +may at first sight seem a harsh thing for me to write and tell +you what I have to say, but I can assure you I do not mean to be +anything but kind to you, and I think it will be better, for +reasons which I will afterwards explain, that I should +communicate with you rather than with your husband. For +some time past I have suspected that he was too fond of my wife, +and last night I caught him with his arms round her neck. +In a moment of not unjustifiable anger I knocked him down. +I have not the honour of knowing you personally, but from what I +have heard of you I am sure that he has not the slightest reason +for playing with other women. A man who will do what he has +done will be very likely to conceal from you the true cause of +his disaster, and if you know the cause you may perhaps be able +to reclaim him. If he has any sense of honour left in him, +and of what is due to you, he will seek your pardon for his +baseness, and you will have a hold on him afterwards which you +would not have if you were in ignorance of what has +happened. For him I do not care a straw, but for you I feel +deeply, and I believe that my frankness with you, although it may +cause you much suffering now, will save you more hereafter. +I have only one condition to make. Mr. Butts must leave +this place, and never let me see his face again. He has +ruined my peace. Nothing will be published through me, for, +as far as I can prevent it, I will have no public exposure. +If Mr. Butts were to remain here it would be dangerous for us to +meet, and probably everything, by some chance, would become +common property.—Believe me to be, Madam, with many +assurances of respect, truly yours,—.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>I cannot distinguish the precise proportion of cruelty in this +letter. Did the writer designedly torture Butts by telling +his wife, or did he really think that she would in the end be +happier because Butts would not have a secret reserved from +her,—a temptation to lying—and because with this +secret in her possession, he might perhaps be restrained in +future? Nobody knows. All we know is that there are +very few human actions of which it can be said that this or that +taken by itself produced them. With our inborn tendency to +abstract, to separate mentally the concrete into factors which do +not exist separately, we are always disposed to assign causes +which are too simple, and which, in fact, have no being <i>in +rerum natura</i>. Nothing in nature is propelled or impeded +by one force acting alone. There is no such thing, save in +the brain of the mathematician. I see no reason why even +motives diametrically opposite should not unite in one resulting +deed, and think it very probable that the squire was both cruel +and merciful to the same person in the letter; influenced by +exactly conflicting passions, whose conflict ended <i>so</i>.</p> +<p>As to the squire and his wife, they lived together just as +before. I do not think, that, excepting the four persons +concerned, anybody ever heard a syllable about the affair, save +myself a long while afterwards. Clem, however, packed up +and left the town, after selling his business. He had a +reputation for restlessness; and his departure, although it was +sudden, was no surprise. He betook himself to Australia, +his wife going with him. I heard that they had gone, and +heard also that he was tired of school-keeping in England, and +had determined to try his fortune in another part of the +world. Our friendship had dwindled to nothing, and I +thought no more about him. Mrs. Butts never uttered one +word of reproach to her husband. I cannot say that she +loved him as she could have loved, but she had accepted him, and +she said to herself that as perhaps it was through her lack of +sympathy with him that he had strayed, it was her duty more and +more to draw him to herself. She had a divine disposition, +not infrequent amongst women, to seek in herself the reason for +any wrong which was done to her. That almost instinctive +tendency in men, to excuse, to transfer blame to others, to be +angry with somebody else when they suffer from the consequences +of their own misdeeds, in her did not exist.</p> +<p>During almost the whole of her married life, before this +affair between the squire and Clem, Mrs. Butts had had much +trouble, although her trouble was, perhaps, rather the absence of +joy than the presence of any poignant grief. She was much +by herself. She had never been a great reader, but in her +frequent solitude she was forced to do something in order to +obtain relief, and she naturally turned to the Bible. It +would be foolish to say that the Bible alone was to be credited +with the support she received. It may only have been the +occasion for a revelation of the strength that was in her. +Reading, however, under such circumstances, is likely to be +peculiarly profitable. It is never so profitable as when it +is undertaken in order that a positive need may be satisfied or +an inquiry answered. She discovered in the Bible much that +persons to whom it is a mere literature would never find. +The water of life was not merely admirable to the eye; she drank +it, and knew what a property it possessed for quenching +thirst. No doubt the thought of a heaven hereafter was +especially consolatory. She was able to endure, and even to +be happy because the vision of lengthening sorrow was bounded by +a better world beyond. “A very poor, barbarous +gospel,” thinks the philosopher who rests on his Marcus +Antoninus and Epictetus. I do not mean to say, that in the +shape in which she believed this doctrine, it was not poor and +barbarous, but yet we all of us, whatever our creed may be, must +lay hold at times for salvation upon something like it. +Those who have been plunged up to the very lips in affliction +know its necessity. To such as these it is idle work for +the prosperous and the comfortable to preach satisfaction with +the life that now is. There are seasons when it is our sole +resource to recollect that in a few short years we shall be at +rest. While upon this subject I may say, too, that some +injustice has been done to the Christian creed of immortality as +an influence in determining men’s conduct. Paul +preached the imminent advent of Christ and besought his +disciples, therefore, to watch, and we ask ourselves what is the +moral value to us of such an admonition. But surely if we +are to have any reasons for being virtuous, this is as good as +any other. It is just as respectable to believe that we +ought to abstain from iniquity because Christ is at hand, and we +expect to meet Him, as to abstain from it because by our +abstention we shall be healthier or more prosperous. Paul +had a dream—an absurd dream let us call it—of an +immediate millennium, and of the return of his Master surrounded +with divine splendour, judging mankind and adjusting the balance +between good and evil. It was a baseless dream, and the +enlightened may call it ridiculous. It is anything but +that, it is the very opposite of that. Putting aside its +temporary mode of expression, it is the hope and the prophecy of +all noble hearts, a sign of their inability to concur in the +present condition of things.</p> +<p>Going back to Clem’s wife; she laid hold, as I have +said, upon heaven. The thought wrought in her something +more than forgetfulness of pain or the expectation of +counterpoising bliss. We can understand what this something +was, for although we know no such heaven as hers, a new temper is +imparted to us, a new spirit breathed into us; I was about to say +a new hope bestowed upon us, when we consider that we live +surrounded by the soundless depths in which the stars +repose. Such a consideration has a direct practical effect +upon us, and so had the future upon the mind of Mrs. Butts. +“Why dost thou judge thy brother,” says Paul, +“for we shall all stand before the judgment-seat of +God.” Paul does not mean that God will punish him and +that we may rest satisfied that our enemy will be turned into +hell fire. Rather does he mean, what we, too, feel, that, +reflecting on the great idea of God, and upon all that it +involves, our animosities are softened, and our heat against our +brother is cooled.</p> +<p>One or two reflections may perhaps be permitted here on this +passage in Mrs. Butts’ history.</p> +<p>The fidelity of Clem’s wife to him, if not entirely due +to the New Testament, was in a great measure traceable to +it. She had learned from the Epistle to the Corinthians +that charity beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all +things, endureth all things; and she interpreted this to mean, +not merely charity to those whom she loved by nature, but charity +to those with whom she was not in sympathy, and who even wronged +her. Christianity no doubt does teach such a charity as +this, a love which is to be: independent of mere personal likes +and dislikes, a love of the human in man. The natural man, +the man of this century, uncontrolled by Christianity, considers +himself a model of what is virtuous and heroic if he really loves +his friends, and he permits all kinds of savage antipathies to +those of his fellow creatures with whom he is not in +harmony. Jesus on the other hand asks with His usual +perfect simplicity, “If ye love them which love you, what +reward have ye? Do not even the publicans the +same?” It would be a great step in advance for most +of us to love anybody, and the publicans of the time of Jesus +must have been a much more Christian set than most Christians of +the present day; but that we should love those who do not love us +is a height never scaled now, except by a few of the elect in +whom Christ still survives. In the gospel of Luke, also, +Mrs. Butts read that she was to hope for nothing again from her +love, and that she was to be merciful, as her Father in heaven is +merciful. That is really the expression of the <i>idea</i> +in morality, and incalculable is the blessing that our great +religious teacher should have been bold enough to teach the idea, +and not any limitation of it. He always taught it, the +inward born, the heavenly law towards which everything +strives. He always trusted it; He did not deal in +exceptions; He relied on it to the uttermost, never +despairing. This has always seemed to me to be the real +meaning of the word faith. It is permanent confidence in +the idea, a confidence never to be broken down by apparent +failure, or by examples by which ordinary people prove that +qualification is necessary. It was precisely because Jesus +taught the idea, and nothing below it, that He had such authority +over a soul like my friend’s, and the effect produced by +Him could not have been produced by anybody nearer to ordinary +humanity.</p> +<p>It must be admitted, too, that the Calvinism of those days had +a powerful influence in enabling men and women to endure, +although I object to giving the name of Calvin to a philosophy +which is a necessity in all ages. “Are not two +sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on +the ground without your Father.” This is the last +word which can be said. Nothing can go beyond it, and at +times it is the only ground which we feel does not shake under +our feet. All life is summed up, and due account is taken +of it, according to its degree. Mrs. Butts’ +Calvinism, however, hardly took the usual dogmatic form. +She was too simple to penetrate the depths of metaphysical +theology, and she never would have dared to set down any of her +fellow creatures as irrevocably lost. She adapted the +Calvinistic creed to something which suited her. For +example, she fully understood what St. Paul means when he tells +the Thessalonians that <i>because</i> they were called, +<i>therefore</i> they were to stand fast. She thought with +Paul that being called; having a duty plainly laid upon her; +being bidden as if by a general to do something, she <i>ought</i> +to stand fast; and she stood fast, supported against all pressure +by the consciousness of fulfilling the special orders of One who +was her superior. There is no doubt that this dogma of a +personal calling is a great consolation, and it is a great +truth. Looking at the masses of humanity, driven this way +and that way, the Christian teaching is apt to be forgotten that +for each individual soul there is a vocation as real as if that +soul were alone upon the planet. Yet it is a fact. We +are blinded to it and can hardly believe it, because of the +impotency of our little intellects to conceive a destiny which +shall take care of every atom of life on the globe: we are +compelled to think that in such vast crowds of people as we +behold, individuals must elude the eye of the Maker, and be swept +into forgetfulness. But the truth of truths is that the +mind of the universe is not our mind, or at any rate controlled +by our limitations.</p> +<p>This has been a long digression which I did not intend; but I +could not help it. I was anxious to show how Mrs. Butts met +her trouble through her religion. The apostle says that +“<i>they drank of that spiritual Rock which followed +them</i>, <i>and that Rock was Christ</i>.” That was +true of her. The way through the desert was not +annihilated; the path remained stony and sore to the feet, but it +was accompanied to the end by a sweet stream to which she could +turn aside, and from which she could obtain refreshment and +strength.</p> +<p>Just about the time that we began our meetings near Drury +Lane, I heard that Clem was dead; that he had died abroad. +I knew nothing more; I thought about him and his wife perhaps for +a day, but I had parted from both long ago, and I went on with my +work.</p> +<h2><a name="page81"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +81</span>CHAPTER V<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">WHAT IT ALL CAME TO</span></h2> +<p><span class="smcap">For</span> two years or thereabouts, +M’Kay and myself continued our labours in the Drury Lane +neighbourhood. There is a proverb that it is the first step +which is the most difficult in the achievement of any object, and +the proverb has been altered by ascribing the main part of the +difficulty to the last step. Neither the first nor the last +has been the difficult step with me, but rather what lies +between. The first is usually helped by the excitement and +the promise of new beginnings, and the last by the prospect of +triumph; but the intermediate path is unassisted by enthusiasm, +and it is here we are so likely to faint. M’Kay +nevertheless persevered, supporting me, who otherwise might have +been tempted to despair, and at the end of the two years we were +still at our posts. We had, however, learned +something. We had learned that we could not make the +slightest impression on Drury Lane proper. Now and then an +idler, or sometimes a dozen, lounged in, but what was said was +strange to them; they were out of their own world as completely +as if they were in another planet, and all our efforts to reach +them by simplicity of statement and by talking about things which +we supposed would interest them utterly failed. I did not +know, till I came in actual contact with them, how far away the +classes which lie at the bottom of great cities are from those +above them; how completely they are inaccessible to motives which +act upon ordinary human beings, and how deeply they are sunk +beyond ray of sun or stars, immersed in the selfishness naturally +begotten of their incessant struggle for existence and the +incessant warfare with society. It was an awful thought to +me, ever present on those Sundays, and haunting me at other +times, that men, women, and children were living in such brutish +degradation, and that as they died others would take their +place. Our civilisation seemed nothing but a thin film or +crust lying over a volcanic pit, and I often wondered whether +some day the pit would not break up through it and destroy us +all. Great towns are answerable for the creation and +maintenance of the masses of dark, impenetrable, subterranean +blackguardism, with which we became acquainted. The filthy +gloom of the sky, the dirt of the street, the absence of fresh +air, the herding of the poor into huge districts which cannot be +opened up by those who would do good, are tremendous agencies of +corruption which are active at such a rate that it is appalling +to reflect what our future will be if the accumulation of +population be not checked. To stand face to face with the +insoluble is not pleasant. A man will do anything rather +than confess it is beyond him. He will create pleasant +fictions, and fancy a possible escape here and there, but this +problem of Drury Lane was round and hard like a ball of +adamant. The only thing I could do was faintly, and I was +about to say stupidly, hope—for I had no rational, tangible +grounds for hoping—that some force of which we are not now +aware might some day develop itself which will be able to resist +and remove the pressure which sweeps and crushes into a hell, +sealed from the upper air, millions of human souls every year in +one quarter of the globe alone.</p> +<p>M’Kay’s dreams therefore were not realised, and +yet it would be a mistake to say that they ended in +nothing. It often happens that a grand attempt, although it +may fail—miserably fail—is fruitful in the end and +leaves a result, not the hoped for result it is true, but one +which would never have been attained without it. A youth +strives after the impossible, and he is apt to break his heart +because he has never even touched it, but nevertheless his whole +life is the sweeter for the striving; and the archer who aims at +a mark a hundred yards away will send his arrow further than he +who sets his bow and his arm for fifty yards. So it was +with M’Kay. He did not convert Drury Lane, but he +saved two or three. One man whom we came to know was a +labourer in Somerset House, a kind of coal porter employed in +carrying coals into the offices there from the cellars below, and +in other menial duties. He had about fifteen or sixteen +shillings a week, and as the coals must necessarily be in the +different rooms before ten o’clock in the morning, he began +work early, and was obliged to live within an easy distance of +the Strand. This man had originally been a small tradesman +in a country town. He was honest, but he never could or +never would push his trade in any way. He was fond of all +kinds of little mechanical contrivings, disliked his shop, and +ought to have been a carpenter or cabinet-maker—not as a +master but as a journeyman, for he had no ability whatever to +control men or direct large operations. He was married, and +a sense of duty to his wife—he fortunately had no +children—induced him to stand or sit behind his counter +with regularity, but people would not come to buy of him, because +he never seemed to consider their buying as any favour conferred +on him; and thus he became gradually displaced by his more +energetic or more obsequious rivals. In the end he was +obliged to put up his shutters. Unhappily for him, he had +never been a very ardent attendant at any of the places of +religious worship in the town, and he had therefore no +organisation to help him. Not being master of any craft, he +was in a pitiable plight, and was slowly sinking, when he applied +to the solicitor of the political party for which he had always +voted to assist him. The solicitor applied to the member, +and the member, much regretting the difficulty of obtaining +places for grown-up men, and explaining the pressure upon the +Treasury, wrote to say that the only post at his disposal was +that of labourer. He would have liked to offer a +messengership, but the Treasury had hundreds of applications from +great people who wished to dispose of favourite footmen whose +services they no longer required. Our friend Taylor had by +this time been brought very low, or he would have held out for +something better, but there was nothing to be done. He was +starving, and he therefore accepted; came to London; got a room, +one room only, near Clare Market, and began his new duties. +He was able to pick up a shilling or two more weekly by going on +errands for the clerks during his slack time in the day, so that +altogether on the average he made up about eighteen +shillings. Wandering about the Clare Market region on +Sunday he found us out, came in, and remained constant. +Naturally, as we had so few adherents, we gradually knew these +few very intimately, and Taylor would often spend a holiday or +part of the Sunday with us. He was not eminent for anything +in particular, and an educated man, selecting as his friends +those only who stand for something, would not have taken the +slightest notice of him. He had read nothing particular, +and thought nothing particular—he was indeed one of the +masses—but in this respect different, that he had not the +tendency to association, aggregation, or clanship which belong to +the masses generally. He was different, of course, in all +his ways from his neighbours born and bred to Clare Market and +its alleys. Although commonplace, he had demands made upon +him for an endurance by no means commonplace, and he had sorrows +which were as exquisite as those of his betters. He did not +much resent his poverty. To that I think he would have +submitted, and in fact he did submit to it cheerfully. What +rankled in him was the brutal disregard of him at the +office. He was a servant of servants. The messengers, +who themselves were exposed to all the petty tyrannies of the +clerks, and dared not reply, were Taylor’s masters, and +sought a compensation for their own serfdom by making his ten +times worse. The head messenger, who had been a butler, +swore at him, and if Taylor had “answered” he would +have been reported. He had never been a person of much +importance, but at least he had been independent, and it was a +new experience for him to feel that he was a thing fit for +nothing but to be cuffed and cursed. Upon this point he +used to get eloquent—as eloquent as he could be, for he had +small power of expression, and he would describe to me the +despair which came over him down in those dark vaults at the +prospect of life continuing after this fashion, and with not the +minutest gleam of light even at the very end. Nobody ever +cared to know the most ordinary facts about him. Nobody +inquired whether he was married or single; nobody troubled +himself when he was ill. If he was away, his pay was +stopped; and when he returned to work nobody asked if he was +better. Who can wonder that at first, when he was an utter +stranger in a strange land, he was overcome by the situation, and +that the world was to him a dungeon worse than that of +Chillon? Who can wonder that he was becoming +reckless? A little more of such a life would have +transformed him into a brute. He had not the ability to +become revolutionary, or it would have made him a +conspirator. Suffering of any kind is hard to bear, but the +suffering which especially damages character is that which is +caused by the neglect or oppression of man. At any rate it +was so in Taylor’s case. I believe that he would have +been patient under any inevitable ordinance of nature, but he +could not lie still under contempt, the knowledge that to those +about him he was of less consequence than the mud under their +feet. He was timid and, after his failure as a shopkeeper, +and the near approach to the workhouse, he dreaded above +everything being again cast adrift. Strange conflict arose +in him, for the insults to which he was exposed drove him almost +to madness; and yet the dread of dismissal in a moment checked +him when he was about to “fire up,” as he called it, +and reduced him to a silence which was torture. Once he was +ordered to bring some coals for the messenger’s +lobby. The man who gave him the order, finding that he was +a long time bringing them, went to the top of the stairs, and +bawled after him with an oath to make haste. The reason of +the delay was that Taylor had two loads to bring up—one for +somebody else. When he got to the top of the steps, the +messenger with another oath took the coals, and saying that he +“would teach him to skulk there again,” kicked the +other coal-scuttle down to the bottom. Taylor himself told +me this; and yet, although he would have rejoiced if the man had +dropped down dead, and would willingly have shot him, he was +dumb. The check operated in an instant. He saw +himself without a penny, and in the streets. He went down +into the cellar, and raged and wept for an hour. Had he +been a workman, he would probably have throttled his enemy, or +tried to do it, or what is more likely, his enemy would not have +dared to treat him in such fashion, but he was powerless, and +once losing his situation he would have sunk down into the +gutter, whence he would have been swept by the parish into the +indiscriminate heap of London pauperism, and carted away to the +Union, a conclusion which was worse to him than being hung.</p> +<p>Another of our friends was a waiter in one of the +public-houses and chop-houses combined, of which there are so +many in the Strand. He lived in a wretched alley which ran +from St. Clement’s Church to Boswell Court—I have +forgotten its name—a dark crowded passage. He was a +man of about sixty—invariably called John, without the +addition of any surname. I knew him long before we opened +our room, for I was in the habit of frequently visiting the +chop-house in which he served. His hours were +incredible. He began at nine o’clock in the morning +with sweeping the dining-room, cleaning the tables and the gas +globes, and at twelve business commenced with early +luncheons. Not till three-quarters of an hour after +midnight could he leave, for the house was much used by persons +who supped there after the theatres. During almost the +whole of this time he was on his legs, and very often he was +unable to find two minutes in the day in which to get his +dinner. Sundays, however, were free. John was not a +head waiter, but merely a subordinate, and I never knew why at +his time of life he had not risen to a better position. He +used to say that “things had been against him,” and I +had no right to seek for further explanations. He was +married, and had had three children, of whom one only was +living—a boy of ten years old, whom he hoped to get into +the public-house as a potboy for a beginning. Like Taylor, +the world had well-nigh overpowered John entirely—crushed +him out of all shape, so that what he was originally, or might +have been, it was almost impossible to tell. There was no +particular character left in him. He may once have been +this or that, but every angle now was knocked off, as it is +knocked off from the rounded pebbles which for ages have been +dragged up and down the beach by the waves. For a lifetime +he had been exposed to all sorts of whims and caprices, generally +speaking of the most unreasonable kind, and he had become so +trained to take everything without remonstrance or murmuring that +every cross in his life came to him as a chop alleged by an +irritated customer to be raw or done to a cinder. Poor +wretch! he had one trouble, however, which he could not accept +with such equanimity, or rather with such indifference. His +wife was a drunkard. This was an awful trial to him. +The worst consequence was that his boy knew that his mother got +drunk. The neighbours kindly enough volunteered to look +after the little man when he was not at school, and they waylaid +him and gave him dinner when his mother was intoxicated; but +frequently he was the first when he returned to find out that +there was nothing for him to eat, and many a time he got up at +night as late as twelve o’clock, crawled downstairs, and +went off to his father to tell him that “she was very bad, +and he could not go to sleep.” The father, then, had +to keep his son in the Strand till it was time to close, take him +back, and manage in the best way he could. Over and over +again was he obliged to sit by this wretched woman’s +bedside till breakfast time, and then had to go to work as +usual. Let anybody who has seen a case of this kind say +whether the State ought not to provide for the relief of such men +as John, and whether he ought not to have been able to send his +wife away to some institution where she might have been tended +and restrained from destroying, not merely herself, but her +husband and her child. John hardly bore up under this +sorrow. A man may endure much, provided he knows that he +will be well supported when his day’s toil is over; but if +the help for which he looks fails, he falls. Oh those weary +days in that dark back dining-room, from which not a square inch +of sky was visible! weary days haunted by a fear that while he +was there unknown mischief was being done! weary days, whose +close nevertheless he dreaded! Beaten down, baffled, +disappointed, if we are in tolerable health we can contrive to +live on some almost impossible chance, some most distant flicker +of hope. It is astonishing how minute a crack in the heavy +uniform cloud will relieve us; but when with all our searching we +can see nothing, then at last we sink. Such was +John’s case when I first came to know him. He +attracted me rather, and bit by bit he confided his story to +me. He found out that I might be trusted, and that I could +sympathise, and he told me what he had never told to anybody +before. I was curious to discover whether religion had done +anything for him, and I put the question to him in an indirect +way. His answer was that “some on ’em say +there’s a better world where everything will be put right, +but somehow it seemed too good to be true.” That was +his reason for disbelief, and heaven had not the slightest effect +on him. He found out the room, and was one of our most +constant friends.</p> +<p>Another friend was of a totally different type. His name +was Cardinal. He was a Yorkshireman, broad-shouldered, +ruddy in the face, short-necked, inclined apparently to apoplexy, +and certainly to passion. He was a commercial traveller in +the cloth trade, and as he had the southern counties for his +district, London was his home when he was not upon his +journeys. His wife was a curious contrast to him. She +was dark-haired, pinched-up, thin-lipped, and always seemed as if +she suffered from some chronic pain or gnawing—not +sufficient to make her ill, but sufficient to make her +miserable. They had no children. Cardinal in early +life had been a member of an orthodox Dissenting congregation, +but he had fallen away. He had nobody to guide him, and the +position into which he fell was peculiar. He never busied +himself about religion or philosophy; indeed he had had no +training which would have led him to take an interest in abstract +questions, but he read all kinds of romances and poetry without +any order and upon no system. He had no discriminating +faculty, and mixed up together the most heterogeneous mass of +trumpery novels, French translations, and the best English +authors, provided only they were unworldly or sentimental. +Neither did he know how far to take what he read and use it in +his daily life. He often selected some fantastical motive +which he had found set forth as operative in one of his heroes, +and he brought it into his business, much to the astonishment of +his masters and customers. For this reason he was not +stable. He changed employers two or three times; and, so +far as I could make out, his ground of objection to each of the +firms whom he left might have been a ground of dislike in a girl +to a suitor, but certainly nothing more. During the +intervals of his engagements, unless he was pressed for money, he +did nothing—not from laziness, but because he had got a +notion in his head that his mind wanted rest and +reinvigoration. His habit then was to consume the whole +day—day after day—in reading or in walking out by +himself. It may easily be supposed that with a temperament +like his, and with nobody near him to take him by the hand, he +made great mistakes. His wife and he cared nothing for one +another, but she was jealous to the last degree. I never +saw such jealousy. It was strange that, although she almost +hated him, she watched him with feline sharpness and patience, +and would even have killed any woman whom she knew had won his +affection. He, on the other hand, openly avowed that +marriage without love was nothing, and flaunted without the least +modification the most ideal theories as to the relation between +man and woman. Not that he ever went actually wrong. +His boyish education, his natural purity, and a fear never wholly +suppressed, restrained him. He exasperated people by his +impracticability, and it must be acknowledged that it is very +irritating in a difficult complexity demanding the gravest +consideration—the balancing of this against that—to +hear a man suddenly propose some naked principle with which +everybody is acquainted, and decide by it solely. I came to +know him through M’Kay, who had known him for years; but +M’Kay at last broke out against him, and called him a +stupid fool when he threw up a handsome salary and refused to +serve any longer under a house which had always treated him well, +because they, moving with the times, had determined to offer +their customers a cheaper description of goods, which Cardinal +thought was dishonest. M’Kay said, and said truly, +that many poor persons would buy these goods who could buy +nothing else, and that Cardinal, before yielding to such +scruples, ought to satisfy himself that, by yielding, he would +not become a burden upon others less fanciful. This was +just what happened. Cardinal could get no work again for a +long time, and had to borrow money. I was sorry; but for my +part, this and other eccentricities did not disturb my confidence +in him. He was an honest, affectionate soul, and his +peculiarities were a necessary result of the total chaos of a +time without any moral guidance. With no church, no +philosophy, no religion, the wonder is that anybody on whom use +and wont relax their hold should ever do anything more than +blindly rove hither and thither, arriving at nothing. +Cardinal was adrift, like thousands and hundreds of thousands of +others, and amidst the storm and pitchy darkness of the night, +thousands and hundreds of thousands of voices offer us +pilotage. It spoke well for him that he did nothing worse +than take a few useless phantoms on board which did him no harm, +and that he held fast to his own instinct for truth and +goodness. I never let myself be annoyed by what he produced +to me from his books. All that I discarded. +Underneath all that was a solid worth which I loved, and which +was mostly not vocal. What was vocal in him was, I am bound +to say, not of much value.</p> +<p>About the time when our room opened, Mrs. Cardinal had become +almost insupportable to her husband. Poor woman; I always +pitied her; she was alone sometimes for a fortnight at a stretch; +she read nothing; there was no child to occupy her thoughts; she +knew that her husband lived in a world into which she never +entered, and she had nothing to do but to brood over imaginary +infidelities. She was literally possessed, and who shall be +hard upon her? Nobody cared for her; everybody with whom +her husband associated disliked her, and she knew perfectly well +they never asked her to their houses except for his sake. +Cardinal vowed at last he would endure her no longer, and that +they must separate. He was induced one Sunday morning, when +his resolution was strong within him, and he was just about to +give effect to it, to come with us. The quiet seemed to +soothe him, and he went home with me afterwards. He was not +slow to disclose to me his miserable condition, and his resolve +to change it. I do not know now what I said, but it +appeared to me that he ought not to change it, and that change +would be for him most perilous. I thought that with a +little care life might become at least bearable with his wife; +that by treating her not so much as if she were criminal, but as +if she were diseased, hatred might pass into pity, and pity into +merciful tenderness to her, and that they might dwell together +upon terms not harder than those upon which many persons who have +made mistakes in youth agree to remain with each other; terms +which, after much consideration, they adjudge it better to accept +than to break loose, and bring upon themselves and those +connected with them all that open rupture involves. The +difficulty was to get Cardinal to give up his theory of what two +abstract human beings should do between whom no love +exists. It seemed to him something like atheism to forsake +his clearly-discerned, simple rule for a course which was +dictated by no easily-grasped higher law, and it was very +difficult to persuade him that there is anything of equal +authority in a law less rigid in its outline. However, he +went home. I called on him some time afterwards, and saw +that a peace, or at any rate a truce, was proclaimed, which +lasted up to the day of his death. M’Kay and I agreed +to make as much of Mrs. Cardinal as we could, and yielding to +urgent invitation, she came to the room. This wonderfully +helped to heal her. She began to feel that she was not +overlooked, put on one side, or despised, and the bonds which +bound her constricted lips into bitterness were loosened.</p> +<p>Another friend, and the last whom I shall name, was a young +man named Clark. He was lame, and had been so from +childhood. His father was a tradesman, working hard from +early morning till late at night, and burdened with a number of +children. The boy Richard, shut out from the companionship +of his fellows, had a great love of books. When he left +school his father did not know what to do with him—in fact +there was only one occupation open to him, and that was clerical +work of one kind or another. At last he got a place in a +house in Fleet Street, which did a large business in those days +in sending newspapers into the country. His whole +occupation all day long was to write addresses, and for this he +received twenty-five shillings a week, his hours being from nine +o’clock till seven. The office in which he sat was +crowded, and in order to squeeze the staff into the smallest +space, rent being dear, a gallery had been run round the wall +about four feet from the ceiling. This was provided with +desks and gas lamps, and up there Clark sat, artificial light +being necessary four days out of five. He came straight +from the town in which his father lived to Fleet Street, and once +settled in it there seemed no chance of change for the +better. He knew what his father’s struggles were; he +could not go back to him, and he had not the energy to attempt to +lift himself. It is very doubtful too whether he could have +succeeded in achieving any improvement, whatever his energy might +have been. He had got lodgings in Newcastle Street, and to +these he returned in the evening, remaining there alone with his +little library, and seldom moving out of doors. He was +unhealthy constitutionally, and his habits contributed to make +him more so. Everything which he saw which was good seemed +only to sharpen the contrast between himself and his lot, and his +reading was a curse to him rather than a blessing. I +sometimes wished that he had never inherited any love whatever +for what is usually considered to be the Best, and that he had +been endowed with an organisation coarse and commonplace, like +that of his colleagues. If he went into company which +suited him, or read anything which interested him, it seemed as +if the ten hours of the gallery in Fleet Street had been made +thereby only the more insupportable, and his habitual mood was +one of despondency, so that his fellow clerks who knew his tastes +not unnaturally asked what was the use of them if they only made +him wretched; and they were more than ever convinced that in +their amusements lay true happiness. Habit, which is the +saviour of most of us, the opiate which dulls the otherwise +unbearable miseries of life, only served to make Clark more +sensitive. The monotony of that perpetual address-copying +was terrible. He has told me with a kind of shame what an +effect it had upon him—that sometimes for days he would +feed upon the prospect of the most childish trifle because it +would break in some slight degree the uniformity of his +toil. For example, he would sometimes change from quill to +steel pens and back again, and he found himself actually looking +forward with a kind of joy—merely because of the +variation—to the day on which he had fixed to go back to +the quill after using steel. He would determine, two or +three days beforehand, to get up earlier, and to walk to Fleet +Street by way of Great Queen Street and Lincoln’s Inn +Fields, and upon this he would subsist till the day came. +He could make no longer excursions because of his lameness. +All this may sound very much like simple silliness to most +people, but those who have not been bound to a wheel do not know +what thoughts come into the head of the strongest man who is +extended on it. Clark sat side by side in his gallery with +other young men of rather a degraded type, and the confinement +bred in them a filthy grossness with which they tormented +him. They excited in him loathsome images, from which he +could not free himself either by day or night. He was +peculiarly weak in his inability to cast off impressions, or to +get rid of mental pictures when once formed, and his distress at +being haunted by these hateful, disgusting thoughts was +pitiable. They were in fact almost more than thoughts, they +were transportations out of himself—real visions. It +would have been his salvation if he could have been a carpenter +or a bricklayer, in country air, but this could not be.</p> +<p>Clark had no power to think connectedly to a conclusion. +When an idea came into his head, he dwelt upon it incessantly, +and no correction of the false path upon which it set him was +possible, because he avoided society. Work over, he was so +sick of people that he went back to himself. So it came to +pass that when brought into company, what he believed and +cherished was frequently found to be open to obvious objection, +and was often nothing better than nonsense which was rudely, and +as he himself was forced to admit, justly overthrown. He +ought to have been surrounded with intelligent friends, who would +have enabled him to see continually the other side, and who would +have prevented his long and useless wanderings. Like many +other persons, too, whom I have known—just in proportion to +his lack of penetrative power was his tendency to occupy himself +with difficult questions. By a cruel destiny he was +impelled to dabble in matters for which he was totally +unfitted. He never could go beyond his author a single +step, and he lost himself in endless mazes. If he could but +have been persuaded to content himself with sweet presentations +of wholesome happy existence, with stories and with history, how +much better it would have been for him! He had had no +proper training whatever for anything more, he was ignorant of +the exact meaning of the proper terminology of science, and an +unlucky day it was for him when he picked up on a bookstall some +very early translation of some German book on philosophy. +One reason, as may be conjectured, for his mistakes was his +education in dissenting Calvinism, a religion which is entirely +metaphysical, and encourages, unhappily, in everybody a taste for +tremendous problems. So long as Calvinism is unshaken, the +mischief is often not obvious, because a ready solution taken on +trust is provided; but when doubts arise, the evil results become +apparent, and the poor helpless victim, totally at a loss, is +torn first in this direction and then in the other, and cannot +let these questions alone. He has been taught to believe +they are connected with salvation, and he is compelled still to +busy himself with them, rather than with simple external +piety.</p> +<h2><a name="page103"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +103</span>CHAPTER VI<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">DRURY LANE THEOLOGY</span></h2> +<p><span class="smcap">Such</span> were some of our +disciples. I do not think that church or chapel would have +done them much good. Preachers are like unskilled doctors +with the same pill and draught for every complaint. They do +not know where the fatal spot lies on lung or heart or nerve +which robs us of life. If any of these persons just +described had gone to church or chapel they would have heard +discourses on the usual set topics, none of which would have +concerned them. Their trouble was not the forgiveness of +sins, the fallacies of Arianism, the personality of the Holy +Ghost, or the doctrine of the Eucharist. They all +<i>wanted</i> something distinctly. They had great gaping +needs which they longed to satisfy, intensely practical and +special. Some of these necessities no words could in any +way meet. It was obvious, for instance, that Clark must at +once be taken away from his gallery and his copying if he was to +live—at least in sanity. He had fortunately learned +shorthand, and M’Kay got him employment on a +newspaper. His knowledge of his art was by no means perfect +at first, but he was sent to attend meetings where +<i>verbatim</i> reports were not necessary, and he quickly +advanced. Taylor, too, we tried to remove, and we succeeded +in attaching him to a large club as an out-of-doors porter. +The poor man was now at least in the open air, and freed from +insolent tyranny. This, however, was help such as anybody +might have given. The question of most importance is, What +gospel had we to give? Why, in short, did we meet on the +Sunday? What was our justification? In the first +place, there was the simple quietude. The retreat from the +streets and from miserable cares into a place where there was +peace and room for reflection was something. It is all very +well for cultivated persons with libraries to scoff at religious +services. To the poor the cathedral or the church might be +an immense benefit, if only for the reason that they present a +barrier to worldly noise, and are a distinct invitation by +architecture and symbolic decoration to meditation on something +beyond the business which presses on them during the week. +Poor people frequently cannot read for want of a place in which +to read. Moreover, they require to be provoked by a +stronger stimulus than that of a book. They willingly hear +a man talk if he has anything to say, when they would not care to +look at what he said if it were printed. But to come more +closely to the point. Our main object was to create in our +hearers contentment with their lot; and even some joy in +it. That was our religion; that was the central thought of +all we said and did, giving shape and tendency to +everything. We admitted nothing which did not help us in +that direction, and everything which did help us. Our +attempts, to any one who had not the key, may have seemed vague +and desultory. We might by a stranger have been accused of +feeble wandering, of idle dabbling, now in this subject and now +in that, but after a while he would have found that though we +were weak creatures, with no pretence to special knowledge in any +subject, we at least knew what we meant, and tried to accomplish +it. For my own part, I was happy when I had struck that +path. I felt as if somehow, after many errors, I had once +more gained a road, a religion in fact, and one which essentially +was not new but old, the religion of the Reconciliation, the +reconciliation of man with God; differing from the current creed +in so far as I did not lay stress upon sin as the cause of +estrangement, but yet agreeing with it in making it my duty of +duties to suppress revolt, and to submit calmly and sometimes +cheerfully to the Creator. This surely, under a thousand +disguises, has been the meaning of all the forms of worship which +we have seen in the world. Pain and death are nothing new, +and men have been driven into perplexed scepticism, and even +insurrection by them, ever since men came into being. +Always, however, have the majority, the vast majority of the +race, felt instinctively that in this scepticism and insurrection +they could not abide, and they have struggled more or less +blindly after explanation; determined not to desist till they had +found it, and reaching a result embodied in a multitude of shapes +irrational and absurd to the superficial scoffer, but of profound +interest to the thoughtful. I may observe, in passing, that +this is a reason why all great religions should be treated with +respect, and in a certain sense preserved. It is nothing +less than a wicked waste of accumulated human strivings to sneer +them out of existence. They will be found, every one of +them, to have incarnated certain vital doctrines which it has +cost centuries of toil and devotion properly to appreciate. +Especially is this true of the Catholic faith, and if it were +worth while, it might be shown how it is nothing less than a +divine casket of precious remedies, and if it is to be brutally +broken, it will take ages to rediscover and restore them. +Of one thing I am certain, that their rediscovery and restoration +will be necessary. I cannot too earnestly insist upon the +need of our holding, each man for himself, by some faith which +shall anchor him. It must not be taken up by chance. +We must fight for it, for only so will it become <i>our</i> +faith. The halt in indifference or in hostility is easy +enough and seductive enough. The half-hearted thinks that +when he has attained that stage he has completed the term of +human wisdom. I say go on: do not stay there; do not take +it for granted that there is nothing beyond; incessantly attempt +an advance, and at last a light, dim it may be, will arise. +It will not be a completed system, perfect in all points, an +answer to all our questions, but at least it will give ground for +hope.</p> +<p>We had to face the trials of our friends, and we had to face +death. I do not say for an instant that we had any +effectual reply to these great arguments against us. We +never so much as sought for one, knowing how all men had sought +and failed. But we were able to say there is some +compensation, that there is another side, and this is all that +man can say. No theory of the world is possible. The +storm, the rain slowly rotting the harvest, children sickening in +cellars are obvious; but equally obvious are an evening in June, +the delight of men and women in one another, in music, and in the +exercise of thought. There can surely be no question that +the sum of satisfaction is increasing, not merely in the gross +but for each human being, as the earth from which we sprang is +being worked out of the race, and a higher type is being +developed. I may observe, too, that although it is usually +supposed, it is erroneously supposed, that it is pure doubt which +disturbs or depresses us. Simple suspense is in fact very +rare, for there are few persons so constituted as to be able to +remain in it. It is dogmatism under the cloak of doubt +which pulls us down. It is the dogmatism of death, for +example, which we have to avoid. The open grave is +dogmatic, and we say <i>that man has gone</i>, but this is as +much a transgression of the limits of certitude as if we were to +say <i>he is an angel in bliss</i>. The proper attitude, +the attitude enjoined by the severest exercise of the reason is, +<i>I do not know</i>; and in this there is an element of hope, +now rising and now falling, but always sufficient to prevent that +blank despair which we must feel if we consider it as settled +that when we lie down under the grass there is an absolute +end.</p> +<p>The provision in nature of infinity ever present to us is an +immense help. No man can look up to the stars at night and +reflect upon what lies behind them without feeling that the +tyranny of the senses is loosened, and the tyranny, too, of the +conclusions of his logic. The beyond and the beyond, let us +turn it over as we may, let us consider it as a child considers +it, or by the light of the newest philosophy, is a constant, +visible warning not to make our minds the measure of the +universe. Underneath the stars what dreams, what +conjectures arise, shadowy enough, it is true; but one thing we +cannot help believing as irresistibly as if by geometrical +deduction—that the sphere of that understanding of ours, +whose function it seems to be to imprison us, is limited.</p> +<p>Going through a churchyard one afternoon I noticed that nearly +all the people who were buried there, if the inscriptions on the +tombstones might be taken to represent the thoughts of the +departed when they were alive, had been intent solely on their +own personal salvation. The question with them all seemed +to have been, shall <i>I</i> go to heaven? Considering the +tremendous difference between heaven and hell in the popular +imagination, it was very natural that these poor creatures should +be anxious above everything to know whether they would be in hell +or heaven for ever. Surely, however, this is not the +highest frame of mind, nor is it one to be encouraged. I +would rather do all I can to get out of it, and to draw others +out of it too. Our aim ought not so much to be the +salvation of this poor petty self, but of that in me which alone +makes it worth while to save me; of that alone which I hope will +be saved, immortal truth. The very centre of the existence +of the ordinary chapel-goer and church-goer needs to be shifted +from self to what is outside self, and yet is truly self, and the +sole truth of self. If the truth lives, <i>we</i> live, and +if it dies, we are dead. Our theology stands in need of a +reformation greater than that of Luther’s. It may be +said that the attempt to replace the care for self in us by a +care for the universal is ridiculous. Man cannot rise to +that height. I do not believe it. I believe we can +rise to it. Every ordinary unselfish act is a proof of the +capacity to rise to it; and the mother’s denial of all care +for her own happiness, if she can but make her child happy, is a +sublime anticipation. It may be called an instinct, but in +the course of time it will be possible to develop a wider +instinct in us, so that our love for the truth shall be even +maternally passionate and self-forgetting.</p> +<p>After all our searching it was difficult to find anything +which, in the case of a man like John the waiter, for example, +could be of any service to him. At his age efficient help +was beyond us, and in his case the problem presented itself in +its simple nakedness. What comfort is there discoverable +for the wretched which is not based upon illusion? We could +not tell him that all he endured was right and proper. But +even to him we were able to offer something. We did all we +could to soothe him. On the Sunday, at least, he was able +to find some relief from his labours, and he entered into a +different region. He came to see us in the afternoon and +evening occasionally, and brought his boy. Father and son +were pulled up out of the vault, brought into the daylight, and +led into an open expanse. We tried above everything to +interest them, even in the smallest degree, in what is universal +and impersonal, feeling that in that direction lies +healing. We explained to the child as well as we could some +morsels of science, and in explaining to him we explained to the +father as well. When the anguish begotten by some outbreak +on the part of the wife more violent than usual became almost too +much to bear, we did our best to counsel, and as a last +consolation we could point to Death, divine Death, and +repose. It was but for a few more years at the utmost, and +then must come a rest which no sorrow could invade. +“Having death as an ally, I do not tremble at +shadows,” is an immortal quotation from some unknown Greek +author. Providence, too, by no miracle, came to our +relief. The wife died, as it was foreseen she must, and +that weight being removed, some elasticity and recoil developed +itself. John’s one thought now was for his child, and +by means of the child the father passed out of himself, and +connected himself with the future. The child did in fact +teach the father exactly what we tried to teach, and taught it +with a power of conviction which never could have been produced +by any mere appeals to the reason. The father felt that he +was battered, useless, and a failure, but that in the boy there +were unknown possibilities, and that he might in after life say +that it was to this battered, useless failure of a father he owed +his success. There was nothing now that he would not do to +help Tom’s education, and we joyfully aided as best we +could. So, partly I believe by us, but far more by nature +herself, John’s salvation was wrought out at least in a +measure; discord by the intervention of another note resolved +itself into a kind of harmony, and even through the skylight in +the Strand a glimpse of the azure was obtained.</p> +<p>I hope my readers, if I should ever have any, will remember +that what I wish to do is to give some account of the manner in +which we sought to be of service to the small and very humble +circle of persons whom we had collected about us. I have +preserved no record of anything; I am merely putting down what +now comes into my mind—the two or three articles, not +thirty-nine, nor, alas! a third of that number—which we +were able to hold. I recollect one or two more which +perhaps are worth preservation. In my younger days the aim +of theologians was the justification of the ways of God to +man. They could not succeed. They succeeded no better +than ourselves in satisfying the intellect with a system. +Nor does the Christian religion profess any such +satisfaction. It teaches rather the great doctrine of a +Remedy, of a Mediator; and therein it is profoundly true. +It is unphilosophical in the sense that it offers no explanation +from a single principle, and leaves the ultimate mystery as dark +as before, but it is in accordance with our intuitions. +Everywhere in nature we see exaction of penalties down to the +uttermost farthing, but following after this we discern +forgiveness, obliterating and restorative. Both tendencies +exist. Nature is Rhadamanthine, and more so, for she visits +the sins of the fathers upon the children; but there is in her +also an infinite Pity, healing all wounds, softening all +calamities, ever hastening to alleviate and repair. +Christianity in strange historical fashion is an expression of +nature, a projection of her into a biography and a creed.</p> +<p>We endeavoured to follow Christianity in the depth of its +distinction between right and wrong. Herein this religion +is of priceless value. Philosophy proclaims the unity of +our nature. To philosophy every passion is as natural as +every act of saintlike negation, and one of the usual effects of +thinking or philosophising is to bring together all that is +apparently contrary in man, and to show how it proceeds really +from one centre. But Christianity had not to propound a +theory of man; it had to redeem the world. It laid awful +stress on the duality in us, and the stress laid on that duality +is the world’s salvation. The words right and wrong +are not felt now as they were felt by Paul. They shade off +one into the other. Nevertheless, if mankind is not to be +lost, the ancient antagonism must be maintained. The +shallowest of mortals is able now to laugh at the notion of a +personal devil. No doubt there is no such thing existent; +but the horror at evil which could find no other expression than +in the creation of a devil is no subject for laughter, and if it +do not in some shape or other survive, the race itself will not +survive. No religion, so far as I know, has dwelt like +Christianity with such profound earnestness on the bisection of +man—on the distinction within him, vital to the very last +degree, between the higher and the lower, heaven and hell. +What utter folly is it because of an antique vesture to condemn +as effete what the vesture clothes! Its doctrine and its +sacred story are fixtures in concrete form of precious thoughts +purchased by blood and tears.</p> +<p>I fancy I see the sneer of theologians and critics at our +efforts. The theologians will mock us because we had +nothing better to say. I can only reply that we did our +best. We said all we knew, and we would most thankfully +have said more, had we been sure that it must be true. I +would remind, too, those of our judges who think that we were +such wretched mortals, blind leaders of the blind, that there +have been long ages during which men never pretended to +understand more than we professed to understand. To say +nothing of the Jews, whose meagre system would certainly not have +been thought either satisfying or orthodox by modern Christians, +the Greeks and Romans lived in no clearer light than that which +shines on me. The critics, too, will condemn because of our +weakness; but this defect I at once concede. The severest +critic could not possibly be so severe as I am upon myself. +I <i>know</i> my failings. He, probably, would miss many of +them. But, again I urge that men are not to be debarred by +reason of weakness from doing what little good may lie within +reach of their hands. Had we attempted to save scholars and +thinkers we should have deserved the ridicule with which no doubt +we shall be visited. We aspired to save nobody. We +knew no salvation ourselves. We ventured humbly to bring a +feeble ray of light into the dwellings of two or three poor men +and women; and if Prometheus, fettered to his rock, dwelt with +pride on the blind hopes which he had caused to visit mortals, +the hopes which “stopped the continued anticipation of +their destiny,” we perhaps may be pardoned if at times we +thought that what we were doing was not altogether vanity.</p> +<h2><a name="page116"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +116</span>CHAPTER VII<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">QUI DEDIT IN MARI VIAM</span></h2> +<p><span class="smcap">From</span> time to time I received a +newspaper from my native town, and one morning, looking over the +advertisements, I caught sight of one which arrested me. It +was as follows:—</p> +<blockquote><p>“A Widow Lady desires a situation as Daily +Governess to little children. Address E. B., care of Mrs. +George Andrews, Fancy Bazaar, High Street.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>Mrs. George Andrews was a cousin of Ellen Butts, and that this +was her advertisement I had not the slightest doubt. +Suddenly, without being able to give the least reason for it, an +unconquerable desire to see her arose within me. I could +not understand it. I recollected that memorable resolution +after Miss Arbour’s story years ago. How true that +counsel of Miss Arbour’s was! and yet it had the defect of +most counsel. It was but a principle; whether it suited +this particular case was the one important point on which Miss +Arbour was no authority. What <i>was</i> it which prompted +this inexplicable emotion? A thousand things rushed through +my head without reason or order. I begin to believe that a +first love never dies. A boy falls in love at eighteen or +nineteen. The attachment comes to nothing. It is +broken off for a multitude of reasons, and he sees its +absurdity. He marries afterwards some other woman whom he +even adores, and he has children for whom he spends his life; yet +in an obscure corner of his soul he preserves everlastingly the +cherished picture of the girl who first was dear to him. +She, too, marries. In process of time she is fifty years +old, and he is fifty-two. He has not seen her for thirty +years or more, but he continually turns aside into the little +oratory, to gaze upon the face as it last appeared to him when he +left her at her gate and saw her no more. He inquires now +and then timidly about her whenever he gets the chance. And +once in his life he goes down to the town where she lives, solely +in order to get a sight of her without her knowing anything about +it. He does not succeed, and he comes back and tells his +wife, from whom he never conceals any secrets, that he has been +away on business. I did not for a moment confess that my +love for Ellen had returned. I knew who she was and what +she was, and what had led to our separation; but nevertheless, +all this obstinately remained in the background, and all the +passages of love between us, all our kisses, and above +everything, her tears at that parting in her father’s +house, thrust themselves upon me. It was a mystery to +me. What should have induced that utterly unexpected +resurrection of what I believed to be dead and buried, is beyond +my comprehension. However, the fact remains. I did +not to myself admit that this was love, but it <i>was</i> love, +and that it should have shot up with such swift vitality merely +because I had happened to see those initials was +miraculous. I pretended to myself that I should like once +more to see Mrs. Butts—perhaps she might be in want and I +could help her. I shrank from writing to her or from making +myself known to her, and at last I hit upon the expedient of +answering her advertisement in a feigned name, and requesting her +to call at the King’s Arms hotel upon a gentleman who +wished to engage a widow lady to teach his children. To +prevent any previous inquiries on her part, I said that my name +was Williams, that I lived in the country at some little distance +from the town, but that I should be there on business on the day +named. I took up my quarters at the King’s Arms the +night before. It seemed very strange to be in an inn in the +place in which I was born. I retired early to my bedroom, +and looked out in the clear moonlight over the river. The +landscape seemed haunted by ghosts of my former self. At +one particular point, so well known, I stood fishing. At +another, equally well known, where the water was dangerously +deep, I was examining the ice; and round the corner was the +boathouse where we kept the little craft in which I had voyaged +so many hundreds of miles on excursions upwards beyond where the +navigation ends, or, still more fascinating, down to where the +water widens and sails are to be seen, and there is a foretaste +of the distant sea. It is no pleasure to me to revisit +scenes in which earlier days have been passed. I detest the +sentimental melancholy which steals over me; the sense of the +lapse of time, and the reflection that so many whom I knew are +dead. I would always, if possible, spend my holiday in some +new scene, fresh to me, and full of new interest. I slept +but little, and when the morning came, instead of carrying out my +purpose of wandering through the streets, I was so sick of the +mood by which I had been helplessly overcome, that I sat at a +distance from the window in the coffee-room, and read diligently +last week’s <i>Bell’s Weekly Messenger</i>. My +reading, however, was nothing. I do not suppose I +comprehended the simplest paragraph. My thoughts were away, +and I watched the clock slowly turning towards the hour when +Ellen was to call. I foresaw that I should not be able to +speak to her at the inn. If I have anything particular to +say to anybody, I can always say it so much better out of +doors. I dreaded the confinement of the room, and the +necessity for looking into her face. Under the sky, and in +motion, I should be more at liberty. At last eleven struck +from the church in the square, and five minutes afterwards the +waiter entered to announce Mrs. Butts. I was therefore +right, and she was “E. B.” I was sure that I +should not be recognised. Since I saw her last I had grown +a beard, my hair had got a little grey, and she was always a +little short-sighted. She came in, and as she entered she +put away over her bonnet her thick black veil. Not ten +seconds passed before she was seated on the opposite side of the +table to that on which I was sitting, but I re-read in her during +those ten seconds the whole history of years. I cannot say +that externally she looked worn or broken. I had imagined +that I should see her undone with her great troubles, but to some +extent, and yet not altogether, I was mistaken. The +cheek-bones were more prominent than of old, and her dark-brown +hair drawn tightly over her forehead increased the clear paleness +of the face; the just perceptible tint of colour which I +recollect being now altogether withdrawn. But she was not +haggard, and evidently not vanquished. There was even a +gaiety on her face, perhaps a trifle enforced, and although the +darkness of sorrow gleamed behind it, the sorrow did not seem to +be ultimate, but to be in front of a final background, if not of +joy, at least of resignation. Her ancient levity of manner +had vanished, or at most had left nothing but a trace. I +thought I detected it here and there in a line about the mouth, +and perhaps in her walk. There was a reminiscence of it too +in her clothes. Notwithstanding poverty and distress, the +old neatness—that particular care which used to charm me so +when I was little more than a child, was there still. I was +always susceptible to this virtue, and delicate hands and feet, +with delicate care bestowed thereon, were more attractive to me +than slovenly beauty. I noticed that the gloves, though +mended, fitted with the same precision, and that her dress was +unwrinkled and perfectly graceful. Whatever she might have +had to endure, it had not destroyed that self-centred +satisfaction which makes life tolerable.</p> +<p>I was impelled at once to say that I had to beg her pardon for +asking her there. Unfortunately I was obliged to go over to +Cowston, a village which was about three miles from the +town. Perhaps she would not mind walking part of the way +with me through the meadows, and then we could talk with more +freedom, as I should not feel pressed for time. To this +arrangement she at once agreed, and dropping her thick veil over +her face, we went out. In a few minutes we were clear of +the houses, and I began the conversation.</p> +<p>“Have you been in the habit of teaching?”</p> +<p>“No. The necessity for taking to it has only +lately arisen.”</p> +<p>“What can you teach?”</p> +<p>“Not much beyond what children of ten or eleven years +old are expected to know; but I could take charge of them +entirely.”</p> +<p>“Have you any children of your own?”</p> +<p>“One.”</p> +<p>“Could you take a situation as resident teacher if you +have a child?”</p> +<p>“I must get something to do, and if I can make no +arrangement by which my child can live with me, I shall try and +place her with a friend. I may be able to hear of some +appointment as a daily governess.”</p> +<p>“I should have thought that in your native town you +would have been easily able to find employment—you must be +well known?”</p> +<p>There was a pause, and after a moment or so she +said:—</p> +<p>“We were well known once, but we went abroad and lost +all our money. My husband died abroad. When I +returned, I found that there was very little which my friends +could do for me. I am not accomplished, and there are +crowds of young women who are more capable than I am. +Moreover, I saw that I was becoming a burden, and people called +on me rather as a matter of duty than for any other reason. +You don’t know how soon all but the very best insensibly +neglect very poor relatives if they are not gifted or +attractive. I do not wonder at being made to feel this, nor +do I blame anybody. My little girl is a cripple, my rooms +are dull, and I have nothing in me with which to amuse or +entertain visitors. Pardon my going into this detail. +It was necessary to say something in order to explain my +position.”</p> +<p>“May I ask what salary you will require if you live in +the house?”</p> +<p>“Five-and-thirty pounds a year, but I might take less if +I were asked to do so.”</p> +<p>“Are you a member of the Church of England?”</p> +<p>“No.”</p> +<p>“To what religious body do you belong?”</p> +<p>“I am an Independent, but I would go to Church if my +employers wished it.”</p> +<p>“I thought the Independents objected to go to +Church.”</p> +<p>“They do; but I should not object, if I could hear +anything at the Church which would help me.”</p> +<p>“I am rather surprised at your indifference.”</p> +<p>“I was once more particular, but I have seen much +suffering, and some things which were important to me are not so +now, and others which were not important have become +so.”</p> +<p>I then made up a little story. My sister and I lived +together. We were about to take up our abode at Cowston, +but were as yet strangers to it. I was left a widower with +two little children whom my sister could not educate, as she +could not spare the time. She would naturally have selected +the governess herself, but she was at some distance. She +would like to see Mrs. Butts before engaging her finally, but she +thought that as this advertisement presented itself, I might make +some preliminary inquiries. Perhaps, however, now that Mrs. +Butts knew the facts, she would object to living in the +house. I put it in this way, feeling sure that she would +catch my meaning.</p> +<p>“I am afraid that this situation will not suit me. +I could not go backwards and forwards so far every +day.”</p> +<p>“I understand you perfectly, and feared that this would +be your decision. But if you hesitate, I can give you the +best of references. I had not thought of that before. +References of course will be required by you as well as by +me.”</p> +<p>I put my hand in my pocket for my pocket-book, but I could not +find it. We had now reached a part of our road familiar +enough to both of us. Along that very path Ellen and I had +walked years ago. Under those very trees, on that very seat +had we sat, and she and I were there again. All the old +confidences, confessions, tendernesses, rushed upon me. +What is there which is more potent than the recollection of past +love to move us to love, and knit love with closest bonds? +Can we ever cease to love the souls who have once shared all that +we know and feel? Can we ever be indifferent to those who +have our secrets, and whose secrets we hold? As I looked at +her, I remembered what she knew about me, and what I knew about +her, and this simple thought so overmastered me, that I could +hold out no longer. I said to her that if she would like to +rest for one moment, I might be able to find my papers. We +sat down together, and she drew up her veil to read the address +which I was about to give her. She glanced at me, as I +thought, with a strange expression of excited interrogation, and +something swiftly passed across her face, which warned me that I +had not a moment to lose. I took out one of my own cards, +handed it to her, and said, “Here is a reference which +perhaps you may know.” She bent over it, turned to +me, fixed her eyes intently and directly on mine for one moment, +and then I thought she would have fallen. My arm was around +her in an instant, her head was on my shoulder, and my many +wanderings were over. It was broad, high, sunny noon, the +most solitary hour of the daylight in those fields. We were +roused by the distant sound of the town clock striking twelve; we +rose and went on together to Cowston by the river bank, returning +late in the evening.</p> +<h2><a name="page127"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +127</span>CHAPTER VIII<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">FLAGELLUM NON APPROQUINABIT TABERNACULO +TUO</span></h2> +<p>I <span class="smcap">suppose</span> that the reason why in +novels the story ends with a marriage is partly that the +excitement of the tale ceases then, and partly also because of a +theory that marriage is an epoch, determining the career of life +after it. The epoch once announced, nothing more need be +explained; everything else follows as a matter of course. +These notes of mine are autobiographical, and not a +romance. I have never known much about epochs. I have +had one or two, one specially when I first began to read and +think; but after that, if I have changed, it has been slowly and +imperceptibly. My life, therefore, is totally unfitted to +be the basis of fiction. My return to Ellen, and our +subsequent marriage, were only partially an epoch. A change +had come, but it was one which had long been preparing. +Ellen’s experiences had altered her position, and mine too +was altered. She had been driven into religion by trouble, +and knowing nothing of criticism or philosophy, retained the old +forms for her religious feeling. But the very quickness of +her emotion caused her to welcome all new and living modes of +expressing it. It is only when feeling has ceased to +accompany a creed that it becomes fixed, and verbal departures +from it are counted heresy. I too cared less for argument, +and it even gave me pleasure to talk in her dialect, so familiar +to me, but for so many years unused.</p> +<p>It was now necessary for me to add to my income. I had +nothing upon which to depend save my newspaper, which was +obviously insufficient. At last, I succeeded in obtaining +some clerical employment. For no other work was I fit, for +my training had not been special in any one direction. My +hours were long, from ten in the morning till seven in the +evening, and as I was three miles distant from the office, I was +really away from home for eleven hours every day, excepting on +Sundays. I began to calculate that my life consisted of +nothing but the brief spaces allowed to me for rest, and these +brief spaces I could not enjoy because I dwelt upon their +brevity. There was some excuse for me. Never could +there be any duty incumbent upon man much more inhuman and devoid +of interest than my own. How often I thought about my +friend Clark, and his experiences became mine. The whole +day I did nothing but write, and what I wrote called forth no +single faculty of the mind. Nobody who has not tried such +an occupation can possibly forecast the strange habits, humours, +fancies, and diseases which after a time it breeds. I was +shut up in a room half below the ground. In this room were +three other men besides myself, two of them between fifty and +sixty, and one about three or four-and-twenty. All four of +us kept books or copied letters from ten to seven, with an +interval of three-quarters of an hour for dinner. In all +three of these men, as in the case of Clark’s companions, +there had been developed, partly I suppose by the circumstance of +enforced idleness of brain, the most loathsome tendency to +obscenity. This was the one subject which was common +ground, and upon which they could talk. It was fostered too +by a passion for beer, which was supplied by the publican across +the way, who was perpetually travelling to and fro with +cans. My horror when I first found out into what society I +was thrust was unspeakable. There was a clock within a +hundred yards of my window which struck the hours and +quarters. How I watched that clock! My spirits rose +or fell with each division of the day. From ten to twelve +there was nothing but gloom. By half-past twelve I began to +discern dinner time, and the prospect was brighter. After +dinner there was nothing to be done but doggedly to endure until +five, and at five I was able to see over the distance from five +to seven. My disgust at my companions, however, came to be +mixed with pity. I found none of them cruel, and I received +many little kindnesses from them. I discovered that their +trade was largely answerable for the impurity of thought and +speech which so shocked me. Its monotony compelled some +countervailing stimulus, and as they had never been educated to +care for anything in particular, they found the necessary relief +in sensuality. At first they “chaffed” and +worried me a good deal because of my silence, but at last they +began to think I was “religious,” and then they +ceased to torment me. I rather encouraged them in the +belief that I had a right to exemption from their conversation, +and I passed, I believe, for a Plymouth brother. The only +thing which they could not comprehend was that I made no attempt +to convert them.</p> +<p>The whole establishment was under the rule of a +deputy-manager, who was the terror of the place. He was +tall, thin, and suffered occasionally from spitting of blood, +brought on no doubt from excitement. He was the strangest +mixture of exactitude and passion. He had complete mastery +over every detail of the business, and he never blundered. +All his work was thorough, down to the very bottom, and he had +the most intolerant hatred of everything which was loose and +inaccurate. He never passed a day without flaming out into +oaths and curses against his subordinates, and they could not say +in his wildest fury that his ravings were beside the mark. +He was wrong in his treatment of men—utterly +wrong—but his facts were always correct. I never saw +anybody hated as he was, and the hatred against him was the more +intense because nobody could convict him of a mistake. He +seemed to enjoy a storm, and knew nothing whatever of the +constraints which with ordinary men prevent abusive and brutal +language to those around them. Some of his clerks suffered +greatly from him, and he almost broke down two or three from the +constant nervous strain upon them produced by fear of his +explosions. For my own part, although I came in for a full +share of his temper, I at once made up my mind as soon as I +discovered what he was, not to open my lips to him except under +compulsion. My one object now was to get a living. I +wished also to avoid the self-mortification which must ensue from +altercation. I dreaded, as I have always dreaded beyond +what I can tell, the chaos and wreck which, with me, follows +subjugation by anger, and I held to my resolve under all +provocation. It was very difficult, but how many times I +have blessed myself for adhesion to it. Instead of going +home undone with excitement, and trembling with fear of +dismissal, I have walked out of my dungeon having had to bite my +lips till the blood came, but still conqueror, and with peace of +mind.</p> +<p>Another stratagem of defence which I adopted at the office was +never to betray to a soul anything about myself. Nobody +knew anything about me, whether I was married or single, where I +lived, or what I thought upon a single subject of any +importance. I cut off my office life in this way from my +life at home so completely that I was two selves, and my true +self was not stained by contact with my other self. It was +a comfort to me to think the moment the clock struck seven that +my second self died, and that my first self suffered nothing by +having anything to do with it. I was not the person who sat +at the desk downstairs and endured the abominable talk of his +colleagues and the ignominy of serving such a chief. I knew +nothing about him. I was a citizen walking London streets; +I had my opinions upon human beings and books; I was on equal +terms with my friends; I was Ellen’s husband; I was, in +short, a man. By this scrupulous isolation, I preserved +myself, and the clerk was not debarred from the domain of +freedom.</p> +<p>It is very terrible to think that the labour by which men are +to live should be of this order. The ideal of labour is +that it should be something in which we can take an interest and +even a pride. Immense masses of it in London are the merest +slavery, and it is as mechanical as the daily journey of the +omnibus horse. There is no possibility of relieving it, and +all the ordinary copybook advice of moralists and poets as to the +temper in which we should earn our bread is childish +nonsense. If a man is a painter, or a physician, or a +barrister, or even a tradesman, well and good. The maxims +of authors may be of some service to him, and he may be able to +exemplify them; but if he is a copying clerk they are an insult, +and he can do nothing but arch his back to bear his burden and +find some compensation elsewhere. True it is, that +beneficent Nature here, as always, is helpful. Habit, after +a while, mitigated much of the bitterness of destiny. The +hard points of the flint became smoothed and worn away by +perpetual tramping over them, so that they no longer wounded with +their original sharpness; and the sole of the foot was in time +provided with a merciful callosity. Then, too, there was +developed an appetite which was voracious for all that was +best. Who shall tell the revulsion on reaching home, which +I should never have known had I lived a life of idleness! +Ellen was fond of hearing me read, and with a little care I was +able to select what would bear reading—dramas, for +example. She liked the reading for the reading’s +sake, and she liked to know that what I thought was communicated +to her; that she was not excluded from the sphere in which I +lived. Of the office she never heard a word, and I never +would tell her anything about it; but there was scarcely a single +book in my possession which could be read aloud, that we did not +go through together in this way. I don’t prescribe +this kind of life to everybody. Some of my best friends, I +know, would find it intolerable, but it suited us. +Philosophy and religion I did not touch. It was necessary +to choose themes with varying human interest, such as the best +works of fiction, a play, or a poem; and these perhaps, on the +whole, did me more good at that time than speculation. Oh, +how many times have I left my office humiliated by some silently +endured outbreak on the part of my master, more galling because I +could not put it aside as altogether gratuitous; and in less than +an hour it was two miles away, and I was myself again. If a +man wants to know what the potency of love is, he must be a +menial; he must be despised. Those who are prosperous and +courted cannot understand its power. Let him come home +after he has suffered what is far worse than hatred—the +contempt of a superior, who knows that he can afford to be +contemptuous, seeing that he can replace his slave at a +moment’s notice. Let him be trained by his tyrant to +dwell upon the thought that he belongs to the vast crowd of +people in London who are unimportant; almost useless; to whom it +is a charity to offer employment; who are conscious of possessing +no gift which makes them of any value to anybody, and he will +then comprehend the divine efficacy of the affection of that +woman to whom he is dear. God’s mercy be praised ever +more for it! I cannot write poetry, but if I could, no +theme would tempt me like that of love to such a person as I +was—not love, as I say again, to the hero, but love to the +Helot. Over and over again, when I have thought about it, I +have felt my poor heart swell with a kind of uncontrollable +fervour. I have often, too, said to myself that this love +is no delusion. If we were to set it down as nothing more +than a merciful cheat on the part of the Creator, however +pleasant it might be, it would lose its charm. If I were to +think that my wife’s devotion to me is nothing more than +the simple expression of a necessity to love somebody, that there +is nothing in me which justifies such devotion, I should be +miserable. Rather, I take it, is the love of woman to man a +revelation of the relationship in which God stands to +him—of what <i>ought</i> to be, in fact. In the love +of a woman to the man who is of no account God has provided us +with a true testimony of what is in His own heart. I often +felt this when looking at myself and at Ellen. “What +is there in me?” I have said, “is she not the victim +of some self-created deception?” and I was wretched till I +considered that in her I saw the Divine Nature itself, and that +her passion was a stream straight from the Highest. The +love of woman is, in other words, a living witness never failing +of an actuality in God which otherwise we should never +know. This led me on to connect it with Christianity; but I +am getting incoherent and must stop.</p> +<p>My employment now was so incessant, for it was still necessary +that I should write for my newspaper—although my visits to +the House of Commons had perforce ceased—that I had no time +for any schemes or dreams such as those which had tormented me +when I had more leisure. In one respect this was a +blessing. Destiny now had prescribed for me. I was no +longer agitated by ignorance of what I ought to do. My +present duty was obviously to get my own living, and having got +that, I could do little besides save continue the Sundays with +M’Kay.</p> +<p>We were almost entirely alone. We had no means of making +any friends. We had no money, and no gifts of any +kind. We were neither of us witty nor attractive, but I +have often wondered, nevertheless, what it was which prevented us +from obtaining acquaintance with persons who thronged to houses +in which I could see nothing worth a twopenny omnibus fare. +Certain it is, that we went out of our way sometimes to induce +people to call upon us whom we thought we should like; but, if +they came once or twice, they invariably dropped off, and we saw +no more of them. This behaviour was so universal that, +without the least affectation, I acknowledge there must be +something repellent in me, but what it is I cannot tell. +That Ellen was the cause of the general aversion, it is +impossible to believe. The only theory I have is, that +partly owing to a constant sense of fatigue, due to imperfect +health, and partly to chafing irritation at mere gossip, although +I had no power to think of anything better, or say anything +better myself, I was avoided both by the commonplace and those +who had talent. Commonplace persons avoided me because I +did not chatter, and persons of talent because I stood for +nothing. “There was nothing in me.” We +met at M’Kay’s two gentlemen whom we thought we might +invite to our house. One of them was an antiquarian. +He had discovered in an excavation in London some Roman +remains. This had led him on to the study of the position +and boundaries of the Roman city. He had become an +authority upon this subject, and had lectured upon it. He +came; but as we were utterly ignorant, and could not, with all +our efforts, manifest any sympathy which he valued at the worth +of a pin, he soon departed, and departed for ever. The +second was a student of Elizabethan literature, and I rashly +concluded at once that he must be most delightful. He +likewise came. I showed him my few poor books, which he +condemned, and I found that such observations as I could make he +considered as mere twaddle. I knew nothing, or next to +nothing, about the editions or the curiosities, or the proposed +emendations of obscure passages, and he, too, departed +abruptly. I began to think after he had gone that my study +of Shakespeare was mere dilettantism but I afterwards came to the +conclusion that if a man wishes to spoil himself for Shakespeare, +the best thing he can do is to turn Shakespearian critic.</p> +<p>My worst enemy at this time was ill health, and it was more +distressing than it otherwise would have been, because I had such +responsibilities upon me. When I lived alone I knew that if +anything should happen to me it would be of no particular +consequence, but now whenever I felt sick I was anxious on +account of Ellen. What would become of her—this was +the thought which kept me awake night after night when the +terrors of depression were upon me, as they often were. But +still, terrors with growing years had lost their ancient +strength. My brain and nerves were quiet compared with what +they were in times gone by, and I had gradually learned the +blessed lesson which is taught by familiarity with sorrow, that +the greater part of what is dreadful in it lies in the +imagination. The true Gorgon head is seldom seen in +reality. That it exists I do not doubt, but it is not so +commonly visible as we think. Again, as we get older we +find that all life is given us on conditions of uncertainty, and +yet we walk courageously on. The labourer marries and has +children, when there is nothing but his own strength between him +and ruin. A million chances are encountered every day, and +any one of the million accidents which might happen would cripple +him or kill him, and put into the workhouse those who depend upon +him. Yet he treads his path undisturbed. Life to all +of us is a narrow plank placed across a gulf, which yawns on +either side, and if we were perpetually looking down into it we +should fall. So at last, the possibility of disaster ceased +to affright me. I had been brought off safely so many times +when destruction seemed imminent, that I grew hardened, and lay +down quietly at night, although the whim of a madman might +to-morrow cast me on the pavement. Frequently, as I have +said, I could not do this, but I strove to do it, and was able to +do it when in health.</p> +<p>I tried to think about nothing which expressed whatever in the +world may be insoluble or simply tragic. A great change is +just beginning to come over us in this respect. So many +books I find are written which aim merely at new presentation of +the hopeless. The contradictions of fate, the darkness of +death, the fleeting of man over this brief stage of existence, +whence we know not, and whither we know not, are favourite +subjects with writers who seem to think that they are profound, +because they can propose questions which cannot be +answered. There is really more strength of mind required +for resolving the commonest difficulty than is necessary for the +production of poems on these topics. The characteristic of +so much that is said and written now is melancholy; and it is +melancholy, not because of any deeper acquaintance with the +secrets of man than that which was possessed by our forefathers, +but because it is easy to be melancholy, and the time lacks +strength.</p> +<p>As I am now setting down, without much order or connection, +the lessons which I had to learn, I may perhaps be excused if I +add one or two others. I can say of them all, that they are +not book lessons. They have been taught me by my own +experience, and as a rule I have always found that in my own most +special perplexities I got but little help from books or other +persons. I had to find out for myself what was for me the +proper way of dealing with them.</p> +<p>My love for Ellen was great, but I discovered that even such +love as this could not be left to itself. It wanted +perpetual cherishing. The lamp, if it was to burn brightly, +required daily trimming, for people became estranged and +indifferent, not so much by open quarrel or serious difference, +as by the intervention of trifles which need but the smallest, +although continuous effort for their removal. The true +wisdom is to waste no time over them, but to eject them at +once. Love, too, requires that the two persons who love one +another shall constantly present to one another what is best in +them, and to accomplish this, deliberate purpose, and even +struggle, are necessary. If through relapse into idleness +we do not attempt to bring soul and heart into active communion +day by day, what wonder if this once exalted relationship become +vulgar and mean?</p> +<p>I was much overworked. It was not the work itself which +was such a trial, but the time it consumed. At best, I had +but a clear space of an hour, or an hour and a half at home, and +to slave merely for this seemed such a mockery! Day after +day sped swiftly by, made up of nothing but this infernal +drudgery, and I said to myself—Is this life? But I +made up my mind that <i>never would I give myself +tongue</i>. I clapped a muzzle on my mouth. Had I +followed my own natural bent, I should have become expressive +about what I had to endure, but I found that expression reacts on +him who expresses and intensifies what is expressed. If we +break out into rhetoric over a toothache, the pangs are not the +easier, but the worse to be borne.</p> +<p>I naturally contracted a habit of looking forward from the +present moment to one beyond. The whole week seemed to +exist for the Sunday. On Monday morning I began counting +the hours till Sunday should arrive. The consequence was, +that when it came, it was not enjoyed properly, and I wasted it +in noting the swiftness of its flight. Oh, how absurd is +man! If we were to reckon up all the moments which we +really enjoy for their own sake, how few should we find them to +be! The greatest part, far the greatest part, of our lives +is spent in dreaming over the morrow, and when it comes, it, too, +is consumed in the anticipation of a brighter morrow, and so the +cheat is prolonged, even to the grave. This tendency, +unconquerable though it may appear to be, can to a great extent +at any rate, be overcome by strenuous discipline. I tried +to blind myself to the future, and many and many a time, as I +walked along that dreary New Road or Old St. Pancras Road, have I +striven to compel myself not to look at the image of Hampstead +Heath or Regent’s Park, as yet six days in front of me, but +to get what I could out of what was then with me.</p> +<p>The instinct which leads us perpetually to compare what we are +with what we might be is no doubt of enormous value, and is the +spring which prompts all action, but, like every instinct, it is +the source of greatest danger. I remember the day and the +very spot on which it flashed into me, like a sudden burst of the +sun’s rays, that I had no right to this or that—to so +much happiness, or even so much virtue. What title-deeds +could I show for such a right? Straightway it seemed as if +the centre of a whole system of dissatisfaction were removed, and +as if the system collapsed. God, creating from His infinite +resources a whole infinitude of beings, had created me with a +definite position on the scale, and that position only could I +claim. Cease the trick of contrast. If I can by any +means get myself to consider myself alone without reference to +others, discontent will vanish. I walk this Old St. Pancras +Road on foot—another rides. Keep out of view him who +rides and all persons riding, and I shall not complain that I +tramp in the wet. So also when I think how small and weak I +am.</p> +<p>How foolish it is to try and cure by argument what time will +cure so completely and so gently if left to itself. As I +get older, the anxiety to prove myself right if I quarrel dies +out. I hold my tongue and time vindicates me, if it is +possible to vindicate me, or convicts me if I am wrong. +Many and many a debate too which I have had with myself alone has +been settled in the same way. The question has been put +aside and has lost its importance. The ancient Church +thought, and seriously enough, no doubt, that all the vital +interests of humanity were bound up with the controversies upon +the Divine nature; but the centuries have rolled on, and who +cares for those controversies now. The problems of death +and immortality once upon a time haunted me so that I could +hardly sleep for thinking about them. I cannot tell how, +but so it is, that at the present moment, when I am years nearer +the end, they trouble me but very little. If I could but +bury and let rot things which torment me and come to no +settlement—if I could always do this—what a blessing +it would be.</p> +<h2><a name="page145"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +145</span>CHAPTER IX<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">HOLIDAYS</span></h2> +<p>I <span class="smcap">have</span> said that Ellen had a child +by her first husband. Marie, for that was her name, was now +ten years old. She was like neither her mother nor father, +and yet was <i>shot</i> as it were with strange gleams which +reminded me of her paternal grandmother for a moment, and then +disappeared. She had rather coarse dark hair, small black +eyes, round face, and features somewhat blunt or blurred, the +nose in particular being so. She had a tendency to be +stout. For books she did not care, and it was with the +greatest difficulty we taught her to read. She was not +orderly or careful about her person, and in this respect was a +sore disappointment—not that she was positively careless, +but she took no pride in dress, nor in keeping her room and her +wardrobe neat. She was fond of bright colours, which was +another trial to Ellen, who disliked any approach to +gaudiness. She was not by any means a fool, and she had a +peculiarly swift mode of expressing herself upon persons and +things. A stranger looking at her would perhaps have +adjudged her inclined to sensuousness, and dull. She was +neither one nor the other. She ate little, although she was +fond of sweets. Her rather heavy face, with no clearly cut +outline in it, was not the typical face for passion; but she was +capable of passion to an extraordinary degree, and what is more +remarkable, it was not explosive passion, or rather it was not +passion which she suffered to explode. I remember once when +she was a little mite she was asked out somewhere to tea. +She was dressed and ready, but it began to rain fast, and she was +told she could not go. She besought, but it was in +vain. We could not afford cabs, and there was no +omnibus. Marie, finding all her entreaties were useless, +quietly walked out of the room; and after some little time her +mother, calling her and finding she did not come, went to look +for her. She had gone into the back-yard, and was sitting +there in the rain by the side of the water-butt. She was +soaked, and her best clothes were spoiled. I must confess +that I did not take very kindly to her. I was irritated at +her slowness in learning; it was, in fact, painful to be obliged +to teach her. I thought that perhaps she might have some +undeveloped taste for music, but she showed none, and our +attempts to get her to sing ordinary melodies were a +failure. She was more or less of a locked cabinet to +me. I tried her with the two or three keys which I had, but +finding that none of them fitted, I took no more pains about +her.</p> +<p>One Sunday we determined upon a holiday. It was a bold +adventure for us, but we had made up our minds. There was +an excursion train to Hastings, and accordingly Ellen, Marie, and +myself were at London Bridge Station early in the morning. +It was a lovely summer’s day in mid-July. The journey +down was uncomfortable enough in consequence of the heat and +dust, but we heeded neither one nor the other in the hope of +seeing the sea. We reached Hastings at about eleven +o’clock, and strolled westwards towards Bexhill. Our +pleasure was exquisite. Who can tell, save the imprisoned +Londoner, the joy of walking on the clean sea-sand! What a +delight that was, to say nothing of the beauty of the +scenery! To be free of the litter and filth of a London +suburb, of its broken hedges, its brickbats, its torn +advertisements, its worn and trampled grass in fields half given +over to the speculative builder: in place of this, to tread the +immaculate shore over which breathed a wind not charged with +soot; to replace the dull, shrouding obscurity of the smoke by a +distance so distinct that the masts of the ships whose hulls were +buried below the horizon were visible—all this was perfect +bliss. It was not very poetic bliss, perhaps; but +nevertheless it is a fact that the cleanness of the sea and the +sea air was as attractive to us as any of the sea +attributes. We had a wonderful time. Only in the +country is it possible to note the change of morning into +mid-day, of mid-day into afternoon, and of afternoon into +evening; and it is only in the country, therefore, that a day +seems stretched out into its proper length. We had brought +all our food with us, and sat upon the shore in the shadow of a +piece of the cliff. A row of heavy white clouds lay along +the horizon almost unchangeable and immovable, with their +summit-lines and the part of the mass just below them steeped in +sunlight. The level opaline water differed only from a +floor by a scarcely perceptible heaving motion, which broke into +the faintest of ripples at our feet. So still was the great +ocean, so quietly did everything lie in it, that the wavelets +which licked the beach were as pure and bright as if they were a +part of the mid-ocean depths. About a mile from us, at one +o’clock, a long row of porpoises appeared, showing +themselves in graceful curves for half-an-hour or so, till they +went out farther to sea off Fairlight. Some fishing-boats +were becalmed just in front of us. Their shadows slept, or +almost slept, upon the water, a gentle quivering alone showing +that it was not complete sleep, or if sleep, that it was sleep +with dreams. The intensity of the sunlight sharpened the +outlines of every little piece of rock, and of the pebbles, in a +manner which seemed supernatural to us Londoners. In London +we get the heat of the sun, but not his light, and the separation +of individual parts into such vivid isolation was so surprising +that even Marie noticed it, and said it “all seemed as if +she were looking through a glass.” It was +perfect—perfect in its beauty—and perfect because, +from the sun in the heavens down to the fly with burnished wings +on the hot rock, there was nothing out of harmony. +Everything breathed one spirit. Marie played near us; Ellen +and I sat still, doing nothing. We wanted nothing, we had +nothing to achieve; there were no curiosities to be seen, there +was no particular place to be reached, no “plan of +operations,” and London was forgotten for the time. +It lay behind us in the north-west, and the cliff was at the back +of us shutting out all thought of it. No reminiscences and +no anticipations disturbed us; the present was sufficient, and +occupied us totally.</p> +<p>I should like, if I could, to write an essay upon the art of +enjoying a holiday. It is sad to think how few people know +how to enjoy one, although they are so precious. We do not +sufficiently consider that enjoyment of every kind is an art +carefully to be learnt, and specially the art of making the most +of a brief space set apart for pleasure. It is foolish, for +example, if a man, city bred, has but twelve hours before him, to +spend more of it in eating and drinking than is necessary. +Eating and drinking produce stupidity, at least in some degree, +which may just as well be reserved for town. It is foolish +also to load the twelve hours with a task—so much to be +done. The sick person may perhaps want exercise, but to the +tolerably healthy the best of all recreation is the freedom from +fetters even when they are self-imposed.</p> +<p>Our train homewards was due at Bexhill a little after +seven. By five o’clock a change gradual but swift was +observed. The clouds which had charmed us all through the +morning and afternoon were in reality thunder-clouds, which woke +up like a surprised army under perfect discipline, and moved +magnificently towards us. Already afar off we heard the +softened echoing roll of the thunder. Every now and then we +saw a sharp thrust of lightning down into the water, and +shuddered when we thought that perhaps underneath that stab there +might be a ship with living men. The battle at first was at +such a distance that we watched it with intense and solemn +delight. As yet not a breath of air stirred, but presently, +over in the south-east, a dark ruffled patch appeared on the +horizon, and we agreed that it was time to go. The +indistinguishable continuous growl now became articulated into +distinct crashes. I had miscalculated the distance to the +station, and before we got there the rain, skirmishing in +advance, was upon us. We took shelter in a cottage for a +moment in order that Ellen might get a glass of +water—bad-looking stuff it was, but she was very +thirsty—and put on her cloak. We then started again +on our way. We reached the station at about half-past six, +before the thunder was overhead, but not before Ellen had got +wet, despite all my efforts to protect her. She was also +very hot from hurrying, and yet there was nothing to be done but +to sit in a kind of covered shed till the train came up. +The thunder and lightning were, however, so tremendous, that we +thought of nothing else. When they were at their worst, the +lightning looked like the upset of a cauldron of white glowing +metal—with such strength, breadth, and volume did it +descend. Just as the train arrived, the roar began to +abate, and in about half-an-hour it had passed over to the north, +leaving behind the rain, cold and continuous, which fell all +round us from a dark, heavy, grey sky. The carnage in which +we were was a third-class, with seats arranged parallel to the +sides. It was crowded, and we were obliged to sit in the +middle, exposed to the draught which the tobacco smoke made +necessary. Some of the company were noisy, and before we +got to Red Hill became noisier, as the brandy-flasks which had +been well filled at Hastings began to work. Many were +drenched, and this was an excuse for much of the drinking; +although for that matter, any excuse or none is generally +sufficient. At Red Hill we were stopped by other trains, +and before we came to Croydon we were an hour late. We had +now become intolerably weary. The songs were disgusting, +and some of the women who were with the men had also been +drinking, and behaved in a manner which it was not pleasant that +Ellen and Marie should see. The carriage was lighted +fortunately by one dim lamp only which hung in the middle, and I +succeeded at last in getting seats at the further end, where +there was a knot of more decent persons who had huddled up there +away from the others. All the glory of the morning was +forgotten. Instead of three happy, exalted creatures, we +were three dejected, shivering mortals, half poisoned with foul +air and the smell of spirits. We crawled up to London +Bridge at the slowest pace, and, finally, the railway company +discharged us on the platform at ten minutes past eleven. +Not a place in any omnibus could be secured, and we therefore +walked for a mile or so till I saw a cab, which—unheard-of +expense for me—I engaged, and we were landed at our own +house exactly at half-past twelve. The first thing to be +done was to get Marie to bed. She was instantly asleep, and +was none the worse for her journey. With Ellen the case was +different. She could not sleep, and the next morning was +feverish. She insisted that it was nothing more than a bad +cold, and would on no account permit me even to give her any +medicine. She would get up presently, and she and Marie +could get on well enough together. But when I reached home +on Monday evening, Ellen was worse, and was still in bed.</p> +<p>I sent at once for the doctor, who would give no opinion for a +day or two, but meanwhile directed that she was to remain where +she was, and take nothing but the lightest food. Tuesday +night passed, and the fever still increased. I had become +very anxious, but I dared not stay with her, for I knew not what +might happen if I were absent from my work. I was obliged +to try and think of somebody who would come and help us. +Our friend Taylor, who once was the coal-porter at Somerset +House, came into my mind. He, as I have said when talking +about him, was married, but had no children. To him +accordingly I went. I never shall forget the alacrity with +which he prompted his wife to go, and with which she +consented. I was shut up in my own sufferings, but I +remember a flash of joy that all our efforts in our room had not +been in vain. I was delighted that I had secured +assistance, but I do believe the uppermost thought was delight +that we had been able to develop gratitude and affection. +Mrs. Taylor was an “ordinary woman.” She was +about fifty, rather stout, and entirely uneducated. But +when she took charge at our house, all her best qualities found +expression. It is true enough, <i>omnium consensu capax +imperii nisi imperasset</i>, but it is equally true that under +the pressure of trial and responsibility we are often stronger +than when there is no pressure. Many a man will acknowledge +that in difficulty he has surprised himself by a resource and +coolness which he never suspected before. Mrs. Taylor I +always thought to be rather weak and untrustworthy, but I found +that when <i>weight</i> was placed upon her, she was steady as a +rock, a systematic and a perfect manager. There was no +doubt in a very short time as to the nature of the disease. +It was typhoid fever, the cause probably being the impure water +drunk as we were coming home. I have no mind to describe +what Ellen suffered. Suffice it to say, that her treatment +was soon reduced to watching her every minute night and day, and +administering small quantities of milk. Her prostration and +emaciation were excessive, and without the most constant +attention she might at any moment have slipped out of our +hands. I was like a man shipwrecked and alone in a polar +country, whose existence depends upon one spark of fire, which he +tries to cherish, left glimmering in a handful of ashes. Oh +those days, prolonged to weeks, during which that dreadful +struggle lasted—days swallowed up with one sole, intense, +hungry desire that her life might be spared!—days filled +with a forecast of the blackness and despair before me if she +should depart. I tried to obtain release from the +office. The answer was that nobody could of course prevent +my being away, but that it was not usual for a clerk to be absent +merely because his wife was not well. The brute added with +a sneer that a wife was “a luxury” which he should +have thought I could hardly afford. We divided between us, +however, at home the twenty-four hours during which we stood +sentinels against death, and occasionally we were relieved by one +or two friends. I went on duty from about eight in the +evening till one in the morning, and was then relieved by Mrs. +Taylor, who remained till ten or eleven. She then went to +bed, and was replaced by little Marie. What a change came +over that child! I was amazed at her. All at once she +seemed to have found what she was born to do. The key had +been discovered, which unlocked and revealed what there was in +her, of which hitherto I had been altogether unaware. +Although she was so little, she became a perfect nurse. Her +levity disappeared; she was grave as a matron, moved about as if +shod in felt, never forgot a single direction, and gave proper +and womanly answers to strangers who called. Faculties +unsuspected grew almost to full height in a single day. +Never did she relax during the whole of that dreadful time, or +show the slightest sign of discontent. She sat by her +mother’s side, intent, vigilant; and she had her little +dinner prepared and taken up into the sickroom by Mrs. Taylor +before she went to bed. I remember once going to her cot in +the night, as she lay asleep, and almost breaking my heart over +her with remorse and thankfulness—remorse, that I, with +blundering stupidity, had judged her so superficially; and +thankfulness, that it had pleased God to present to me so much of +His own divinest grace. Fool that I was, not to be aware +that messages from Him are not to be read through the envelope in +which they are enclosed. I never should have believed, if +it had not been for Marie, that any grown-up man could so love a +child. Such love, I should have said, was only possible +between man and woman, or, perhaps, between man and man. +But now I doubt whether a love of that particular kind could be +felt towards any grown-up human being, love so pure, so +imperious, so awful. My love to Marie was love of God +Himself as He is—an unrestrained adoration of an efflux +from Him, adoration transfigured into love, because the +revelation had clothed itself with a child’s form. It +was, as I say, the love of God as He is. It was not +necessary, as it so often is necessary, to qualify, to subtract, +to consider the other side, to deplore the obscurity or the +earthly contamination with which the Word is delivered to +us. This was the Word itself, without even consciousness on +the part of the instrument selected for its vocalisation. I +may appear extravagant, but I can only put down what I felt and +still feel. I appeal, moreover, to Jesus Himself for +justification. I had seen the kingdom of God through a +little child. I, in fact, have done nothing more than beat +out over a page in my own words what passed through His mind when +He called a little child and set him in the midst of His +disciples. How I see the meaning of those words now! and so +it is that a text will be with us for half a lifetime, recognised +as great and good, but not penetrated till the experience comes +round to us in which it was born.</p> +<p>Six weeks passed before the faint blue point of light which +flickered on the wick began to turn white and show some +strength. At last, however, day by day, we marked a slight +accession of vitality which increased with change of diet. +Every evening when I came home I was gladdened by the tidings +which showed advance, and Ellen, I believe, was as much pleased +to see how others rejoiced over her recovery as she was pleased +for her own sake. She, too, was one of those creatures who +always generously admit improvement. For my own part, I +have often noticed that when I have been ill, and have been +getting better, I have refused to acknowledge it, and that it has +been an effort to me to say that things were not at their +worst. She, however, had none of this niggardly baseness, +and always, if only for the sake of her friends, took the +cheerful side. Mrs. Taylor now left us. She left us a +friend whose friendship will last, I hope, as long as life +lasts. She had seen all our troubles and our poverty: we +knew that she knew all about us: she had helped us with the most +precious help—what more was there necessary to knit her to +us?—and it is worth noting that the assistance which she +rendered, and her noble self-sacrifice, so far from putting us, +in her opinion, in her debt, only seemed to her a reason why she +should be more deeply attached to us.</p> +<p>It was late in the autumn before Ellen had thoroughly +recovered, but at last we said that she was as strong as she was +before, and we determined to celebrate our deliverance by one +more holiday before the cold weather came. It was again +Sunday—a perfectly still, warm, autumnal day, with a high +barometer and the gentlest of airs from the west. The +morning in London was foggy, so much so that we doubted at first +whether we should go; but my long experience of London fog told +me that we should escape from it with that wind if we got to the +chalk downs away out by Letherhead and Guildford. We took +the early train to a point at the base of the hills, and wound +our way up into the woods at the top. We were beyond the +smoke, which rested like a low black cloud over the city in the +north-east, reaching a third of the way up to the zenith. +The beech had changed colour, and glowed with reddish-brown +fire. We sat down on a floor made of the leaves of last +year. At mid-day the stillness was profound, broken only by +the softest of whispers descending from the great trees which +spread over us their protecting arms. Every now and then it +died down almost to nothing, and then slowly swelled and died +again, as if the Gods of the place were engaged in divine and +harmonious talk. By moving a little towards the external +edge of our canopy we beheld the plain all spread out before us, +bounded by the heights of Sussex and Hampshire. It was +veiled with the most tender blue, and above it was spread a sky +which was white on the horizon and deepened by degrees into azure +over our heads. The exhilaration of the air satisfied +Marie, although she had no playmate, and there was nothing +special with which she could amuse herself. She wandered +about looking for flowers and ferns, and was content. We +were all completely happy. We strained our eyes to see the +furthest point before us, and we tried to find it on the map we +had brought with us. The season of the year, which is +usually supposed to make men pensive, had no such effect upon +us. Everything in the future, even the winter in London, +was painted by Hope, and the death of the summer brought no +sadness. Rather did summer dying in such fashion fill our +hearts with repose, and even more than repose—with actual +joy.</p> + +<div class="gapshortline"> </div> +<p>Here ends the autobiography. A month after this last +holiday my friend was dead and buried. He had unsuspected +disease of the heart, and one day his master, of whom we have +heard something, was more than usually violent. Mark, as +his custom was, was silent, but evidently greatly excited. +His tyrant left the room; and in a few minutes afterwards Mark +was seen to turn white and fall forward in his chair. It +was all over! His body was taken to a hospital and thence +sent home. The next morning his salary up to the day of his +death came in an envelope to his widow, without a single word +from his employers save a request for acknowledgment. +Towards mid-day, his office coat, and a book found in his drawer, +arrived in a brown paper parcel, carriage unpaid.</p> +<p>On looking over his papers, I found the sketch of his life and +a mass of odds and ends, some apparently written for +publication. Many of these had evidently been in envelopes, +and had most likely, therefore, been offered to editors or +publishers, but all, I am sure, had been refused. I add one +or two by way of appendix, and hope they will be thought worth +saving.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">R. S.</p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall"><span +class="smcap">London</span></span><span class="GutSmall">: +</span><span class="GutSmall"><span class="smcap">Hodder and +Stoughton</span></span><span class="GutSmall">, 1913.</span></p> +<h2>FOOTNOTES</h2> +<p><a name="footnote7"></a><a href="#citation7" +class="footnote">[7]</a> This was written many years ago, +but is curiously pertinent to the discussions of this +year.—<span class="smcap">Editor</span>, 1884.</p> +<p><a name="footnote31"></a><a href="#citation31" +class="footnote">[31]</a> Not exactly untrue, but it sounds +strangely now when socialism, nationalisation of the land, and +other projects have renewed in men the hope of regeneration by +political processes. The reader will, however, please +remember the date of these memoirs.—<span +class="smcap">Editor</span>, 1884.</p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MARK RUTHERFORD'S DELIVERANCE***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 5338-h.htm or 5338-h.zip****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/5/3/3/5338 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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