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diff --git a/old/mkrd10.txt b/old/mkrd10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..40b060d --- /dev/null +++ b/old/mkrd10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3750 @@ +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 + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, MARK RUTHERFORD'S DELIVERANCE *** + + + + +Transcribed from the 1913 Hodder and Stoughton edition by David +Price, email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk + + + + +MARK RUTHERFORD'S DELIVERANCE + + + + +CHAPTER I--NEWSPAPERS + + + +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. + +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. + +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. +{1} + +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. + +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. + +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 +Gazette 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 +Gazette 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 AND 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, IS +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 x or y 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 Gazette. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + +CHAPTER II--M'KAY + + + +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. + +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. + +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 +HIS 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. + +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. {2} 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. + +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. + +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 ESCAPE. 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. + +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, HOW IS IT WITH THEE? 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, HOW +WOULD CHRIST HAVE IT? 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. + + + +CHAPTER III--MISS LEROY + + + +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 De Imitatione Christi 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 a 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. + +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 NOT 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 - + + +"Exults our rising soul, + Disburdened of her load, +And swells unutterably full + Of glory and of God." + + +This was NOT 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. + +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. + +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 pounds 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 paedo- +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. + +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. + +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 As You Like It, 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 INSIGNIFICANT, that +there was NOTHING MUCH IN ME, 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 NOTHING IN US, 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. + + + +CHAPTER IV--A NECESSARY DEVELOPMENT + + + +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 IN IT--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 MY 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. + +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. + +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:- + + +"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,--." + + +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 in rerum natura. +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 SO. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +One or two reflections may perhaps be permitted here on this passage +in Mrs. Butts' history. + +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 +IDEA 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. + +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 BECAUSE they were called, THEREFORE 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 OUGHT +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. + +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 "they drank of that +spiritual Rock which followed them, and that Rock was Christ." 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. + +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. + + + +CHAPTER V--WHAT IT ALL CAME TO + + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + +CHAPTER VI--DRURY LANE THEOLOGY + + + +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 WANTED 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 verbatim 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 OUR 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. + +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 THAT MAN HAS GONE, but this is as much a transgression of the +limits of certitude as if we were to say HE IS AN ANGEL IN BLISS. +The proper attitude, the attitude enjoined by the severest exercise +of the reason is, I DO NOT KNOW; 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. + +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. + +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_ +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, WE 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 KNOW 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. + + + +CHAPTER VII--QUI DEDIT IN MARI VIAM + + + +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:- + + +"A Widow Lady desires a situation as Daily Governess to little +children. Address E. B., care of Mrs. George Andrews, Fancy Bazaar, +High Street." + + +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 WAS 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 WAS 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 Bell's +Weekly Messenger. 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. + +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. + +"Have you been in the habit of teaching?" + +"No. The necessity for taking to it has only lately arisen." + +"What can you teach?" + +"Not much beyond what children of ten or eleven years old are +expected to know; but I could take charge of them entirely." + +"Have you any children of your own?" + +"One." + +"Could you take a situation as resident teacher if you have a child?" + +"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." + +"I should have thought that in your native town you would have been +easily able to find employment--you must be well known?" + +There was a pause, and after a moment or so she said:- + +"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." + +"May I ask what salary you will require if you live in the house?" + +"Five-and-thirty pounds a year, but I might take less if I were asked +to do so." + +"Are you a member of the Church of England?" + +"No." + +"To what religious body do you belong?" + +"I am an Independent, but I would go to Church if my employers wished +it." + +"I thought the Independents objected to go to Church." + +"They do; but I should not object, if I could hear anything at the +Church which would help me." + +"I am rather surprised at your indifference." + +"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." + +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. + +"I am afraid that this situation will not suit me. I could not go +backwards and forwards so far every day." + +"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." + +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. + + + +CHAPTER VIII--FLAGELLUM NON APPROQUINABIT TABERNACULO TUO + + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 +OUGHT 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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? + +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 NEVER WOULD I GIVE MYSELF TONGUE. +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + +CHAPTER IX--HOLIDAYS + + + +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 SHOT 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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, omnium consensu capax +imperii nisi imperasset, 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 WEIGHT 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. + +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. + +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. + + +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. + +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. + +R. S. + + + +Footnotes: + +{1} This was written many years ago, but is curiously pertinent to +the discussions of this year.--EDITOR, 1884. + +{2} Not exactly untrue, but it sounds strangely now when socialism, +nationalisation of the land, and other projects have renewed in men +the hope of regeneration by political processes. The reader will, +however, please remember the date of these memoirs.--EDITOR, 1884. + + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, MARK RUTHERFORD'S DELIVERANCE *** + +This file should be named mkrd10.txt or mkrd10.zip +Corrected EDITIONS of our eBooks get a new NUMBER, mkrd11.txt +VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, mkrd10a.txt + +Project Gutenberg eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US +unless a copyright notice is included. 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