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diff --git a/old/mkrd10h.htm b/old/mkrd10h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..56dbeda --- /dev/null +++ b/old/mkrd10h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,3731 @@ +<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN"> +<html> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII"> +<title>Mark Rutherford's Deliverance</title> +</head> +<body> +<h2> +<a href="#startoftext">Mark Rutherford's Deliverance, by Mark Rutherford</a> +</h2> +<pre> +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Mark Rutherford's Deliverance, by M. Rutherford +(##2 in our series by Mark Rutherford) + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the +copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing +this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook. + +This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project +Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the +header without written permission. + +Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the +eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is +important information about your specific rights and restrictions in +how the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a +donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved. + + +**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts** + +**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971** + +*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!***** + + +Title: Mark Rutherford's Deliverance + +Author: Mark Rutherford + +Release Date: March, 2004 [EBook #5338] +[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] +[This file was first posted on July 2, 2002] +[Most recently updated: July 2, 2002] + +Edition: 10 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII +</pre> +<p> +<a name="startoftext"></a> +Transcribed from the 1913 Hodder and Stoughton edition by David Price, +email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +MARK RUTHERFORD’S DELIVERANCE<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER I - NEWSPAPERS<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +When 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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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="citation1"></a><a href="#footnote1">{1}</a><br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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 manoeuvre 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.<br> +<br> +</i>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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER II - M’KAY<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +It 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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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="citation2"></a><a href="#footnote2">{2}</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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER III - MISS LEROY<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +During 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.<br> +<br> +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 -<br> +<br> +<br> +“Exults our rising soul,<br> + Disburdened of her load,<br> +And swells unutterably full<br> + Of glory and of God.”<br> +<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER IV - A NECESSARY DEVELOPMENT<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +The 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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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:-<br> +<br> +<br> +“MADAM, - 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, - .”<br> +<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +</i>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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +One or two reflections may perhaps be permitted here on this passage +in Mrs. Butts’ history.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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, 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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER V - WHAT IT ALL CAME TO<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +For 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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER VI - DRURY LANE THEOLOGY<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +Such 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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER VII - QUI DEDIT IN MARI VIAM<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +From 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:-<br> +<br> +<br> +“A Widow Lady desires a situation as Daily Governess to little +children. Address E. B., care of Mrs. George Andrews, Fancy Bazaar, +High Street.”<br> +<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +“Have you been in the habit of teaching?”<br> +<br> +“No. The necessity for taking to it has only lately arisen.”<br> +<br> +“What can you teach?”<br> +<br> +“Not much beyond what children of ten or eleven years old are +expected to know; but I could take charge of them entirely.”<br> +<br> +“Have you any children of your own?”<br> +<br> +“One.”<br> +<br> +“Could you take a situation as resident teacher if you have a +child?”<br> +<br> +“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.”<br> +<br> +“I should have thought that in your native town you would have +been easily able to find employment - you must be well known?”<br> +<br> +There was a pause, and after a moment or so she said:-<br> +<br> +“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.”<br> +<br> +“May I ask what salary you will require if you live in the house?”<br> +<br> +“Five-and-thirty pounds a year, but I might take less if I were +asked to do so.”<br> +<br> +“Are you a member of the Church of England?”<br> +<br> +“No.”<br> +<br> +“To what religious body do you belong?”<br> +<br> +“I am an Independent, but I would go to Church if my employers +wished it.”<br> +<br> +“I thought the Independents objected to go to Church.”<br> +<br> +“They do; but I should not object, if I could hear anything at +the Church which would help me.”<br> +<br> +“I am rather surprised at your indifference.”<br> +<br> +“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.”<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +“I am afraid that this situation will not suit me. I could +not go backwards and forwards so far every day.”<br> +<br> +“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.”<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER VIII - FLAGELLUM NON APPROQUINABIT TABERNACULO TUO<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +I suppose 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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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?<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +CHAPTER IX - HOLIDAYS<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +I have 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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +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.<br> +<br> +R. S.<br> +<br> +<br> +<br> +Footnotes:<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote1"></a><a href="#citation1">{1}</a> This was +written many years ago, but is curiously pertinent to the discussions +of this year. - EDITOR, 1884.<br> +<br> +<a name="footnote2"></a><a href="#citation2">{2}</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. 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