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<a href="#startoftext">Pages from a Journal with Other Papers, by Mark Rutherford</a>
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<p><a name="startoftext"></a></p>
<p>Transcribed from the 1901 T. Fisher Unwin edition by David Price,
email ccx074@coventry.ac.uk</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div>
<h1>PAGES FROM A JOURNAL, WITH OTHER PAPERS.</h1>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div>
<p>Contents:<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;A Visit to Carlyle in 1868<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Early
Morning in January<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;March<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;June<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;August<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The
End of October<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;November<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The
Break-up of a Great Drought<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Spinoza<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Supplementary
Note on the Devil<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Injustice<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Time
Settles Controversies<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Talking about our Troubles<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Faith<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Patience<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;An
Apology<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Belief, Unbelief, and Superstition<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Judas
Iscariot<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Sir Walter Scott's Use of the Supernatural<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;September,
1798<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Some Notes on Milton<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The
Morality of Byron's Poetry.&nbsp; &quot;The Corsair&quot;<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Byron,
Goethe, and Mr. Matthew Arnold<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;A Sacrifice<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The
Aged Three<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Conscience<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;The
Governess's Story<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;James Forbes<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Atonement<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;My
Aunt Eleanor<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Correspondence between George, Lucy,
M.A., and Hermione Russell, B.A.<br />&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Mrs. Fairfax</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h2>A VISIT TO CARLYLE IN 1868</h2>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>On Saturday, the 22nd of March, 1868, my father and I called on Carlyle
at 5, Cheyne Row, Chelsea, with a message from one of his intimate friends.</p>
<p>We were asked upstairs at once, and found Carlyle at breakfast.&nbsp;
The room was large, well-lighted, a bright fire was burning, and the
window was open in order to secure complete ventilation.&nbsp; Opposite
the fireplace was a picture of Frederick the Great and his sister.&nbsp;
There were also other pictures which I had not time to examine.&nbsp;
One of them Carlyle pointed out.&nbsp; It was a portrait of the Elector
of Saxony who assisted Luther.&nbsp; The letters V.D.M.I.&AElig;.&nbsp;
(&ldquo;Verbum Dei Manet in &AElig;ternum&rdquo;) were round it.&nbsp;
Everything in the room was in exact order, there was no dust or confusion,
and the books on the shelves were arranged in perfect <i>evenness</i>.&nbsp;
I noticed that when Carlyle replaced a book he took pains to get it
level with the others.&nbsp; The furniture was solid, neat, and I should
think expensive.&nbsp; I showed him the letter he had written to me
eighteen years ago.&nbsp; It has been published by Mr. Froude, but it
will bear reprinting.&nbsp; The circumstances under which it was written,
not stated by Mr. Froude, were these.&nbsp; In 1850, when the Latter-day
Pamphlets appeared - how well I remember the eager journey to the bookseller
for each successive number! - almost all the reviews united in a howl
of execration, criticism so called.&nbsp; I, being young, and owing
so much to Carlyle, wrote to him, the first and almost the only time
I ever did anything of the kind, assuring him that there was at least
one person who believed in him.&nbsp; This was his answer:-</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>&ldquo;CHELSEA, <i>9th March</i>, 1850.</p>
<p>&ldquo;MY GOOD YOUNG FRIEND, - I am much obliged by the regard you
entertain for me; and do not blame your enthusiasm, which well enough
beseems your young years.&nbsp; If my books teach you anything, don&rsquo;t
mind in the least whether other people believe it or not; but do you
for your own behoof lay it to heart as a real acquisition you have made,
more properly, as a real message left with you, which <i>you</i> must
set about fulfilling, whatsoever others do!&nbsp; This is really all
the counsel I can give you about what you read in my books or those
of others: <i>practise</i> what you learn there; instantly and in all
ways begin turning the belief into a fact, and continue at that - till
you get more and ever more beliefs, with which also do the like.&nbsp;
It is idle work otherwise to write books or to read them.</p>
<p>&ldquo;And be not surprised that &lsquo;people have no sympathy with
you&rsquo;; that is an accompaniment that will attend you all your days
if you mean to lead an earnest life.&nbsp; The &lsquo;people&rsquo;
could not save you with their &lsquo;sympathy&rsquo; if they had never
so much of it to give; a man can and must save himself, with or without
their sympathy, as it may chance.</p>
<p>&ldquo;And may all good be with you, my kind young friend, and a
heart stout enough for this adventure you are upon; that is the best
&lsquo;good&rsquo; of all.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I remain, yours very sincerely,</p>
<p>&ldquo;T. CARLYLE.&rdquo;</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>Carlyle had forgotten this letter, but said, &ldquo;It is undoubtedly
mine.&nbsp; It is what I have always believed . . . it has been so ever
since I was at college.&nbsp; I do not mean to say I was not loved there
as warmly by noble friends as ever man could be, but the world tumbled
on me, and has ever since then been tumbling on me rubbish, huge wagon-loads
of rubbish, thinking to smother me, and was surprised it did not smother
me - turned round with amazement and said, &lsquo;What, you alive yet?&rsquo;
. . . While I was writing my <i>Frederick</i> my best friends, out of
delicacy, did not call.&nbsp; Those who came were those I did not want
to come, and I saw very few of them.&nbsp; I shook off everything to
right and left.&nbsp; At last the work would have killed me, and I was
obliged to take to riding, chiefly in the dark, about fourteen miles
most days, plunging and floundering on.&nbsp; I ought to have been younger
to have undertaken such a task.&nbsp; If they were to offer me all Prussia,
all the solar system, I would not write <i>Frederick</i> again.&nbsp;
No bribe from God or man would tempt me to do it.&rdquo;</p>
<p>He was re-reading his <i>Frederick</i>, to correct it for the stereotyped
edition.&nbsp; &ldquo;On the whole I think it is very well done.&nbsp;
No man perhaps in England could have done it better.&nbsp; If you write
a book though now, you must just pitch it out of window and say, &lsquo;Ho!
all you jackasses, come and trample on it and trample it into mud, or
go on till you are tired.&rsquo;&rdquo;&nbsp; He laughed heartily at
this explosion.&nbsp; His laughter struck me - humour controlling his
wrath and in a sense <i>above</i> it, as if the final word were by no
means hatred or contempt, even for the jackass.&nbsp; &ldquo; . . .
No piece of news of late years has gladdened me like the victory of
the Prussians over the Austrians.&nbsp; It was the triumph of Prussian
over French and Napoleonic influence.&nbsp; The Prussians were a valiant,
pious people, and it was a question which should have the most power
in Germany, they or Napoleon.&nbsp; The French are sunk in all kinds
of filth.&nbsp; Compare what the Prussians did with what we did in the
Crimea.&nbsp; The English people are an incredible people.&nbsp; They
seem to think that it is not necessary that a general should have the
least knowledge of the art of war.&nbsp; It is as if you had the stone,
and should cry out to any travelling tinker or blacksmith and say, &lsquo;Here,
come here and cut me for the stone,&rsquo; and he <i>would</i> cut you!&nbsp;
Sir Charles Napier would have been a great general if he had had the
opportunity.&nbsp; He was much delighted with Frederick.&nbsp; &lsquo;Frederick
was a most extraordinary general,&rsquo; said Sir Charles, and on examination
I found out that all that Sir Charles had read of Frederick was a manual
for Prussian officers, published by him about 1760, telling them what
to do on particular occasions.&nbsp; I was very pleased at this admiration
of Frederick by Sir Charles . . .</p>
<p>&ldquo;Sir John Bowring was one of your model men; men who go about
imagining themselves the models of all virtues, and they are models
of something very different.&nbsp; He was one of your patriots, and
the Government to quiet him sent him out to China.&nbsp; When he got
there he went to war with a third of the human race!&nbsp; He, the patriot,
he who believed in the greatest-happiness principle, immediately went
to war with a third of the human race!&rdquo;&nbsp; (Great laughter
from T.C.)&nbsp; &ldquo;And so far as I can make out he was all wrong.</p>
<p>&ldquo;The <i>Frederick</i> is being translated into German.&nbsp;
It is being done by a man whose name I have forgotten, but it was begun
by one of the most faithful friends I ever had, Neuberg.&nbsp; I could
not work in the rooms in the offices where lay the State papers I wanted
to use, it brought on such a headache, but Neuberg went there, and for
six months worked all day copying.&nbsp; He was taken ill, and a surgical
operation was badly performed, and then in that wild, black weather
at the beginning of last year, just after I came back from Mentone,
the news came to me one night he was dead.&rdquo;</p>
<p>On leaving Carlyle shook hands with us both and said he was glad
to have seen us.&nbsp; &ldquo;It was pleasant to have friends coming
out of the dark in this way.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Perhaps a reflection or two which occurred to me after this interview
may not be out of place.&nbsp; Carlyle was perfectly frank, even to
us of whom he knew but little.&nbsp; He did not stand off or refuse
to talk on any but commonplace subjects.&nbsp; What was offered to us
was his best.&nbsp; And yet there is to be found in him a singular reserve,
and those shallow persons who taunt him with inconsistency because he
makes so much of silence, and yet talks so much, understand little or
nothing of him.&nbsp; In half a dozen pages one man may be guilty of
shameless garrulity, and another may be nobly reticent throughout a
dozen volumes.&nbsp; Carlyle feels the contradictions of the universe
as keenly as any man can feel them.&nbsp; He knows how easy it is to
appear profound by putting anew the riddles which nobody can answer;
he knows how strong is the temptation towards the insoluble.&nbsp; But
upon these subjects he also knows how to hold his tongue; he does not
shriek in the streets, but he bows his head.&nbsp; He has found no answer
- he no more than the feeblest of us, and yet in his inmost soul there
is a shrine, and he worships.</p>
<p>Carlyle is the champion of morals, ethics, law - call it what you
like - of that which says we must not always do a thing because it is
pleasant.&nbsp; There are two great ethical parties in the world, and,
in the main, but two.&nbsp; One of them asserts the claims of the senses.&nbsp;
Its doctrine is seductive because it is so right.&nbsp; It is necessary
that we should in a measure believe it, in order that life may be sweet.&nbsp;
But nature has heavily weighted the scale in its favour; its acceptance
requires no effort.&nbsp; It is easily perverted and becomes a snare.&nbsp;
In our day nearly all genius has gone over to it, and preaching it is
rather superfluous.&nbsp; The other party affirms what has been the
soul of all religions worth having, that it is by repression and self-negation
that men and States live.</p>
<p>It has been said that Carlyle is great because he is graphic, and
he is supposed to be summed up in &ldquo;mere picturesqueness,&rdquo;
the silliest of verdicts.&nbsp; A man may be graphic in two ways.&nbsp;
He may deal with his subject from the outside, and by dint of using
strong language may &ldquo;graphically&rdquo; describe an execution
or a drunken row in the streets.&nbsp; But he may be graphic by ability
to penetrate into essence, and to express it in words which are worthy
of it.&nbsp; What higher virtue than this can we imagine in poet, artist,
or prophet?</p>
<p>Like all great men, Carlyle is infinitely tender.&nbsp; That was
what struck me as I sat and looked in his eyes, and the best portraits
in some degree confirm me.&nbsp; It is not worth while here to produce
passages from his books to prove my point, but I could easily do so,
specially from the <i>Life of Sterling</i> and the <i>Cromwell</i>.
<a name="citation10"></a><a href="#footnote10">{10}</a>&nbsp; Much of
his fierceness is an inverted tenderness.</p>
<p>His greatest book is perhaps the <i>Frederick</i>, the biography
of a hero reduced more than once to such extremities that apparently
nothing but some miraculous intervention could save him, and who did
not yield, but struggled on and finally emerged victorious.&nbsp; When
we consider Frederick&rsquo;s position during the last part of the Seven
Years&rsquo; War, we must admit that no man was ever in such desperate
circumstances or showed such uncrushable determination.&nbsp; It was
as if the Destinies, in order to teach us what human nature can do,
had ordained that he who had the most fortitude should also encounter
the severest trial of it.&nbsp; Over and over again Frederick would
have been justified in acknowledging defeat, and we should have said
that he had done all that could be expected even of such a temper as
that with which he was endowed.&nbsp; If the struggle of the will with
the encompassing world is the stuff of which epics are made, then no
greater epic than that of <i>Frederick</i> has been written in prose
or verse, and it has the important advantage of being true.&nbsp; It
is interesting to note how attractive this primary virtue of which Frederick
is such a remarkable representative is to Carlyle, how <i>moral</i>
it is to him; and, indeed, is it not the sum and substance of all morality?&nbsp;
It should be noted also that it was due to no religious motive: that
it was bare, pure humanity.&nbsp; At times it is difficult not to believe
that Carlyle, notwithstanding his piety, loves it all the more on that
account.&nbsp; It is strange that an example so salutary and stimulating
to the poorest and meanest of us should be set by an unbelieving king,
and that my humdrum existence should be secretly supported by &ldquo;Frederick
II. Roi de Prusse.&rdquo;</p>
<p>* * *</p>
<p>Soon after Carlyle died I went to Ecclefechan and stood by his grave.&nbsp;
It was not a day that I would have chosen for such an errand, for it
was cold, grey, and hard, and towards the afternoon it rained a slow,
persistent, wintry rain.&nbsp; The kirkyard in Ecclefechan was dismal
and depressing, but my thoughts were not there.&nbsp; I remembered what
Carlyle was to the young men of thirty or forty years ago, in the days
of that new birth, which was so strange a characteristic of the time.&nbsp;
His books were read with excitement, with tears of joy, on lonely hills,
by the seashore and in London streets, and the readers were thankful
that it was their privilege to live when he also was alive.&nbsp; All
that excitement has vanished, but those who knew what it was are the
better for it.&nbsp; Carlyle now is almost nothing, but his day will
return, he will be put in his place as one of the greatest souls who
have been born amongst us, and his message will be considered as perhaps
the most important which has ever been sent to us.&nbsp; This is what
I thought as I stood in Ecclefechan kirkyard, and as I lingered I almost
doubted if Carlyle <i>could</i> be dead.&nbsp; Was it possible that
such as he could altogether die?&nbsp; Some touch, some turn, I could
not tell what or how, seemed all that was necessary to enable me to
see and to hear him.&nbsp; It was just as if I were perplexed and baffled
by a veil which prevented recognition of him, although I was sure he
was behind it.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h2>EARLY MORNING IN JANUARY</h2>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>A warm, still morning, with a clear sky and stars.&nbsp; At first
the hills were almost black, but, as the dawn ascended, they became
dark green, of a peculiarly delicate tint which is never seen in the
daytime.&nbsp; The quietude is profound, although a voice from an unseen
fishing-boat can now and then be heard.&nbsp; How strange the landscape
seems!&nbsp; It is not a variation of the old landscape; it is a new
world.&nbsp; The half-moon rides high in the sky, and near her is Jupiter.&nbsp;
A little way further to the left is Venus, and still further down is
Mercury, rare apparition, just perceptible where the deep blue of the
night is yielding to the green which foretells the sun.&nbsp; The east
grows lighter; the birds begin to stir in the bushes, and the cry of
a gull rises from the base of the cliff.&nbsp; The sea becomes responsive,
and in a moment is overspread with continually changing colour, partly
that of the heavens above it and partly self-contributed.&nbsp; With
what slow, majestic pomp is the day preceded, as though there had been
no day before it and no other would follow it!</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h2>MARCH</h2>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>It is a bright day in March, with a gentle south-west wind.&nbsp;
Sitting still in the copse and facing the sun it strikes warm.&nbsp;
It has already mounted many degrees on its way to its summer height,
and is regaining its power.&nbsp; The clouds are soft, rounded, and
spring-like, and the white of the blackthorn is discernible here and
there amidst the underwood.&nbsp; The brooks are running full from winter
rains but are not overflowing.&nbsp; All over the wood which fills up
the valley lies a thin, purplish mist, harmonising with the purple bloom
on the stems and branches.&nbsp; The buds are ready to burst, there
is a sense of movement, of waking after sleep; the tremendous upward
rush of life is almost felt.&nbsp; But how silent the process is!&nbsp;
There is no hurry for achievement, although so much has to be done -
such infinite intricacy to be unfolded and made perfect.&nbsp; The little
stream winding down the bottom turns and doubles on itself; a dead leaf
falls into it, is arrested by a twig, and lies there content.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h2>JUNE</h2>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>It is a quiet, warm day in June.&nbsp; The wind is westerly, but
there is only just enough of it to waft now and then a sound from the
far-off town, or the dull, subdued thunder of cannon-firing from ships
or forts distant some forty miles or more.&nbsp; Massive, white-bordered
clouds, grey underneath, sail overhead; there was heavy rain last night,
and they are lifting and breaking a little.&nbsp; Softly and slowly
they go, and one of them, darker than the rest, has descended in a mist
of rain, blotting out the ships.&nbsp; The surface of the water is paved
curiously in green and violet, and where the light lies on it scintillates
like millions of stars.&nbsp; The grass is not yet cut, and the showers
have brought it up knee-deep.&nbsp; Its gentle whisper is plainly heard,
the most delicate of all the voices in the world, and the meadow bends
into billows, grey, silvery, and green, when a breeze of sufficient
strength sweeps across it.&nbsp; The larks are so multitudinous that
no distinct song can be caught, and amidst the confused melody comes
the note of the thrush and the blackbird.&nbsp; A constant under-running
accompaniment is just audible in the hum of innumerable insects and
the sharp buzz of flies darting past the ear.&nbsp; Only those who live
in the open air and watch the fields and sea from hour to hour and day
to day know what they are and what they mean.&nbsp; The chance visitor,
or he who looks now and then, never understands them.&nbsp; While I
have lain here, the clouds have risen, have become more a&euml;rial,
and more suffused with light; the horizon has become better defined,
and the yellow shingle beach is visible to its extremest point clasping
the bay in its arms.&nbsp; The bay itself is the tenderest blue-green,
and on the rolling plain which borders it lies intense sunlight chequered
with moving shadows which wander eastwards.&nbsp; The wind has shifted
a trifle, and comes straight up the Channel from the illimitable ocean.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h2>AUGUST</h2>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>A few days ago it was very hot.&nbsp; Afterwards we had a thunderstorm,
followed by rain from the south-west.&nbsp; The wind has veered a point
northerly, and the barometer is rising.&nbsp; This morning at half-past
five the valley below was filled with white mist.&nbsp; Above it the
tops of the trees on the highest points emerged sharply distinct.&nbsp;
It was motionless, but gradually melted before the ascending sun, recalling
Plutarch&rsquo;s &ldquo;scenes in the beautiful temple of the world
which the gods order at their own festivals, when we are initiated into
their own mysteries.&rdquo;&nbsp; Here was a divine mystery, with initiation
for those who cared for it.&nbsp; No priests were waiting, no ritual
was necessary, the service was simple - solitary adoration and perfect
silence.</p>
<p>As the day advances, masses of huge, heavy clouds appear.&nbsp; They
are well defined at the edges, and their intricate folds and depths
are brilliantly illuminated.&nbsp; The infinitude of the sky is not
so impressive when it is quite clear as when it contains and supports
great clouds, and large blue spaces are seen between them.&nbsp; On
the hillsides the fields here and there are yellow and the corn is in
sheaves.&nbsp; The birds are mostly dumb, the glory of the furze and
broom has passed, but the heather is in flower.&nbsp; The trees are
dark, and even sombre, and, where they are in masses, look as if they
were in solemn consultation.&nbsp; A fore-feeling of the end of summer
steals upon me.&nbsp; Why cannot I banish this anticipation?&nbsp; Why
cannot I rest and take delight in what is before me?&nbsp; If some beneficent
god would but teach me how to take no thought for the morrow, I would
sacrifice to him all I possess.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h2>THE END OF OCTOBER</h2>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>It is the first south-westerly gale of the autumn.&nbsp; Its violence
is increasing every minute, although the rain has ceased for awhile.&nbsp;
For weeks sky and sea have been beautiful, but they have been tame.&nbsp;
Now for some unknown reason there is a complete change, and all the
strength of nature is awake.&nbsp; It is refreshing to be once more
brought face to face with her tremendous power, and to be reminded of
the mystery of its going and coming.&nbsp; It is soothing to feel so
directly that man, notwithstanding his science and pretentions, his
subjugation of steam and electricity, is as nothing compared with his
Creator.&nbsp; The air has a freshness and odour about it to which we
have long been strangers.&nbsp; It has been dry, and loaded with fine
dust, but now it is deliciously wet and clean.&nbsp; The wind during
the summer has changed lightly through all the points of the compass,
but it has never brought any scent save that of the land, nothing from
a distance.&nbsp; Now it is charged with messages from the ocean.</p>
<p>The sky is not uniformly overcast, but is covered with long horizontal
folds of cloud, very dark below and a little lighter where they turn
up one into the other.&nbsp; They are incessantly modified by the storm,
and fragments are torn away from them which sweep overhead.&nbsp; The
sea, looked at from the height, shows white edges almost to the horizon,
and although the waves at a distance cannot be distinguished, the tossing
of a solitary vessel labouring to get round the point for shelter shows
how vast they are.&nbsp; The prevailing colour of the water is greyish-green,
passing into deep-blue, and perpetually shifting in tint.&nbsp; A quarter
of a mile away the breakers begin, and spread themselves in a white
sheet to the land.</p>
<p>A couple of gulls rise from the base of the cliffs to a height of
about a hundred feet above them.&nbsp; They turn their heads to the
south-west, and hover like hawks, but without any visible movement of
their wings.&nbsp; They are followed by two more, who also poise themselves
in the same way.&nbsp; Presently all four mount higher, and again face
the tempest.&nbsp; They do not appear to defy it, nor even to exert
themselves in resisting it.&nbsp; What to us below is fierce opposition
is to them a support and delight.&nbsp; How these wonderful birds are
able to accomplish this feat no mathematician can tell us.&nbsp; After
remaining stationary a few minutes, they wheel round, once more ascend,
and then without any effort go off to sea directly in the teeth of the
hurricane.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h2>NOVEMBER</h2>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>A November day at the end of the month - the country is left to those
who live in it.&nbsp; The scattered visitors who took lodgings in the
summer in the villages have all departed, and the recollection that
they have been here makes the solitude more complete.&nbsp; The woods
in which they wandered are impassable, for the rain has been heavy,
and the dry, baked clay of August has been turned into a slough a foot
deep.&nbsp; The wind, what there is of it, is from the south-west, soft,
sweet and damp; the sky is almost covered with bluish-grey clouds, which
here and there give way and permit a dim, watery gleam to float slowly
over the distant pastures.&nbsp; The grass for the most part is greyish-green,
more grey than green where it has not been mown, but on the rocky and
broken ground there is a colour like that of an emerald, and the low
sun when it comes out throws from the projections on the hillside long
and beautifully shaped shadows.&nbsp; Multitudes of gnats in these brief
moments of sunshine are seen playing in it.&nbsp; The leaves have not
all fallen, down in the hollow hardly any have gone, and the trees are
still bossy, tinted with the delicate yellowish-brown and brown of different
stages of decay.&nbsp; The hedges have been washed clean of the white
dust; the roads have been washed; a deep drain has just begun to trickle
and on the meadows lie little pools of the clearest rainwater, reflecting
with added loveliness any blue patch of the heavens disclosed above
them.&nbsp; The birds are silent save the jackdaws and the robin, who
still sings his recollections of the summer, or his anticipations of
the spring, or perhaps his pleasure in the late autumn.&nbsp; The finches
are in flocks, and whirl round in the air with graceful, shell-like
convolutions as they descend, part separating, for no reason apparently,
and forming a second flock which goes away over the copse.&nbsp; There
is hardly any farm-work going on, excepting in the ditches, which are
being cleaned in readiness for the overflow when the thirsty ground
shall have sucked its fill.&nbsp; Under a bank by the roadside a couple
of men employed in carting stone for road-mending are sitting on a sack
eating their dinner.&nbsp; The roof of the barn beyond them is brilliant
with moss and lichens; it has not been so vivid since last February.&nbsp;
It is a delightful time.&nbsp; No demand is made for ecstatic admiration;
everything is at rest, nature has nothing to do but to sleep and wait.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h2>THE BREAK-UP OF A GREAT DROUGHT</h2>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>For three months there had been hardly a drop of rain.&nbsp; The
wind had been almost continuously north-west, and from that to east.&nbsp;
Occasionally there were light airs from the south-west, and vapour rose,
but there was nothing in it; there was no true south-westerly breeze,
and in a few hours the weather-cock returned to the old quarter.&nbsp;
Not infrequently the clouds began to gather, and there was every sign
that a change was at hand.&nbsp; The barometer at these times fell gradually
day after day until at last it reached a point which generally brought
drenching storms, but none appeared, and then it began slowly to rise
again and we knew that our hopes were vain, and that a week at least
must elapse before it would regain its usual height and there might
be a chance of declining.&nbsp; At last the disappointment was so keen
that the instrument was removed.&nbsp; It was better not to watch it,
but to hope for a surprise.&nbsp; The grass became brown, and in many
places was killed down to the roots; there was no hay; myriads of swarming
caterpillars devoured the fruit trees; the brooks were all dry; water
for cattle had to be fetched from ponds and springs miles away; the
roads were broken up; the air was loaded with grit; and the beautiful
green of the hedges was choked with dust.&nbsp; Birds like the rook,
which fed upon worms, were nearly starved, and were driven far and wide
for strange food.&nbsp; It was pitiable to see them trying to pick the
soil of the meadow as hard as a rock.&nbsp; The everlasting glare was
worse than the gloom of winter, and the sense of universal parching
thirst became so distressing that the house was preferred to the fields.&nbsp;
We were close to a water famine!&nbsp; The Atlantic, the source of all
life, was asleep, and what if it should never wake!&nbsp; We know not
its ways, it mocks all our science.&nbsp; Close to us lies this great
mystery, incomprehensible, and yet our very breath depends upon it.&nbsp;
Why should not the sweet tides of soft moist air cease to stream in
upon us?&nbsp; No reason could be given why every green herb and living
thing should not perish; no reason, save a faith which was blind.&nbsp;
For aught we <i>knew</i>, the ocean-begotten a&euml;rial current might
forsake the land and it might become a desert.</p>
<p>One night grey bars appeared in the western sky, but they had too
often deluded us, and we did not believe in them.&nbsp; On this particular
evening they were a little heavier, and the window-cords were damp.&nbsp;
The air which came across the cliff was cool, and if we had dared to
hope we should have said it had a scent of the sea in it.&nbsp; At four
o&rsquo;clock in the morning there was a noise of something beating
against the panes - they were streaming!&nbsp; It was impossible to
lie still, and I rose and went out of doors.&nbsp; No creature was stirring,
there was no sound save that of the rain, but a busier time there had
not been for many a long month.&nbsp; Thousands of millions of blades
of grass and corn were eagerly drinking.&nbsp; For sixteen hours the
downpour continued, and when it was dusk I again went out.&nbsp; The
watercourses by the side of the roads had a little water in them, but
not a drop had reached those at the edge of the fields, so thirsty was
the earth.&nbsp; The drought, thank God, was at an end!</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h2>SPINOZA</h2>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>Now that twenty years have passed since I began the study of Spinoza
it is good to find that he still holds his ground.&nbsp; Much in him
remains obscure, but there is enough which is sufficiently clear to
give a direction to thought and to modify action.&nbsp; To the professional
metaphysician Spinoza&rsquo;s work is already surpassed, and is absorbed
in subsequent systems.&nbsp; We are told to read him once because he
is historically interesting, and then we are supposed to have done with
him.&nbsp; But if &ldquo;Spinozism,&rdquo; as it is called, is but a
stage of development there is something in Spinoza which can be superseded
as little as the <i>Imitation of Christ</i> or the <i>Pilgrim&rsquo;s
Progress</i>, and it is this which continues to draw men to him.&nbsp;
Goethe never cared for set philosophical systems.&nbsp; Very early in
life he thought he had found out that they were useless pieces of construction,
but to the end of his days he clung to Spinoza, and Philina, of all
persons in the world, repeats one of the finest sayings in the <i>Ethic</i>.&nbsp;
So far as the metaphysicians are carpenters, and there is much carpentering
in most of them, Goethe was right, and the larger part of their industry
endures wind and weather but for a short time.&nbsp; Spinoza&rsquo;s
object was not to make a scheme of the universe.&nbsp; He felt that
the things on which men usually set their hearts give no permanent satisfaction,
and he cast about for some means by which to secure &ldquo;a joy continuous
and supreme to all eternity.&rdquo;&nbsp; I propose now, without attempting
to connect or contrast Spinoza with Descartes or the Germans, to name
some of those thoughts in his books by which he conceived he had attained
his end.</p>
<p>The sorrow of life is the rigidity of the material universe in which
we are placed.&nbsp; We are bound by physical laws, and there is a constant
pressure of matter-of-fact evidence to prove that we are nothing but
common and cheap products of the earth to which in a few moments or
years we return.&nbsp; Spinoza&rsquo;s chief aim is to free us from
this sorrow, and to free us from it by <i>thinking</i>.&nbsp; The emphasis
on this word is important.&nbsp; He continually insists that a thing
is not unreal because we cannot imagine it.&nbsp; His own science, mathematics,
affords him examples of what <i>must</i> be, although we cannot picture
it, and he believes that true consolation lies in the region of that
which cannot be imaged but can be thought.</p>
<p>Setting out on his quest, he lays hold at the very beginning on the
idea of Substance, which he afterwards identifies with the idea of God.&nbsp;
&ldquo;By Substance I understand that which is in itself and is conceived
through itself; in other words, that, the conception of which does not
need the conception of another thing from which it must be formed.&rdquo;
<a name="citation34a"></a><a href="#footnote34a">{34a}</a>&nbsp; &ldquo;By
God, I understand Being absolutely infinite, that is to say, substance
consisting of infinite attributes, each one of which expresses eternal
and infinite essence.&rdquo; <a name="citation34b"></a><a href="#footnote34b">{34b}</a>&nbsp;
&ldquo;God, or substance consisting of infinite attributes, each one
of which expresses eternal and infinite essence, necessarily exists.&rdquo;
<a name="citation34c"></a><a href="#footnote34c">{34c}</a>&nbsp; By
the phrases &ldquo;in itself&rdquo; and &ldquo;by itself,&rdquo; we
are to understand that this conception cannot be explained in other
terms.&nbsp; Substance must be posited, and there we must leave it.&nbsp;
The demonstration of the last-quoted proposition, the 11th, is elusive,
and I must pass it by, merely observing that the objection that no idea
involves existence, and that consequently the idea of God does not involve
it, is not a refutation of Spinoza, who might rejoin that it is impossible
not to affirm existence of God as the <i>Ethic</i> defines him.&nbsp;
Spinoza escapes one great theological difficulty.&nbsp; Directly we
begin to reflect we are dissatisfied with a material God, and the nobler
religions assert that God is a Spirit.&nbsp; But if He be a pure spirit
whence comes the material universe?&nbsp; To Spinoza pure spirit and
pure matter are mere artifices of the understanding.&nbsp; His God is
the Substance with infinite attributes of which thought and extension
are the two revealed to man, and he goes further, for he maintains that
they are one and the same thing viewed in different ways, inside and
outside of the same reality.&nbsp; The conception of God, strictly speaking,
is not incomprehensible, but it is not <i>circum</i>-prehensible; if
it were it could not be the true conception of Him.</p>
<p>Spinoza declares that &ldquo;the human mind possesses an adequate
knowledge of the eternal and infinite essence of God&rdquo; <a name="citation36"></a><a href="#footnote36">{36}</a>
- not of God in His completeness, but it is adequate.&nbsp; The demonstration
of this proposition is at first sight unsatisfactory, because we look
for one which shall enable us to form an image of God like that which
we can form of a triangle.&nbsp; But we cannot have &ldquo;a knowledge
of God as distinct as that which we have of common notions, because
we cannot imagine God as we can bodies.&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;To your
question,&rdquo; says Spinoza to Boxel, &ldquo;whether I have as clear
an idea of God as I have of a triangle?&nbsp; I answer, Yes.&nbsp; But
if you ask me whether I have as clear an image of God as I have of a
triangle I shall say, No; for we cannot imagine God, but we can in a
measure understand Him.&nbsp; Here also, it is to be observed that I
do not say that I altogether know God, but that I understand some of
His attributes - not all, nor the greatest part, and it is clear that
my ignorance of very many does not prevent my knowledge of certain others.&nbsp;
When I learned the elements of Euclid, I very soon understood that the
three angles of a triangle are equal to two right angles, and I clearly
perceived this property of a triangle, although I was ignorant of many
others.&rdquo; <a name="citation37a"></a><a href="#footnote37a">{37a}</a></p>
<p>&ldquo;Individual things are nothing but affections or modes of God&rsquo;s
attributes, expressing those attributes in a certain and determinate
manner,&rdquo; <a name="citation37b"></a><a href="#footnote37b">{37b}</a>
and hence &ldquo;the more we understand individual objects, the more
we understand God.&rdquo; <a name="citation37c"></a><a href="#footnote37c">{37c}</a></p>
<p>The intellect of God in no way resembles the human intellect, for
we cannot conceive Him as proposing an end and considering the means
to attain it.&nbsp; &ldquo;The intellect of God, in so far as it is
conceived to constitute His essence, is in truth the cause of things,
both of their essence and of their existence - a truth which seems to
have been understood by those who have maintained that God&rsquo;s intellect,
will, and power are one and the same thing.&rdquo; <a name="citation37d"></a><a href="#footnote37d">{37d}</a></p>
<p>The whole of God is <i>fact</i>, and Spinoza denies any reserve in
Him of something unexpressed.&nbsp; &ldquo;The omnipotence of God has
been actual from eternity, and in the same actuality will remain to
eternity,&rdquo; <a name="citation38"></a><a href="#footnote38">{38}</a>
not of course in the sense that everything which exists has always existed
as we now know it, or that nothing will exist hereafter which does not
exist now, but that in God everything that has been, and will be, eternally
<i>is.</i></p>
<p>The reader will perhaps ask, What has this theology to do with the
&ldquo;joy continuous and supreme&rdquo;?&nbsp; We shall presently meet
with some deductions which contribute to it, but it is not difficult
to understand that Spinoza, to use his own word, might call the truths
set forth in these propositions &ldquo;blessed.&rdquo;&nbsp; Let a man
once believe in that God of infinite attributes of which thought and
extension are those by which He manifests Himself to us; let him see
that the opposition between thought and matter is fictitious; that his
mind &ldquo;is a part of the infinite intellect of God&rdquo;; that
he is not a mere transient, outside interpreter of the universe, but
himself the soul or law, which is the universe, and he will feel a relationship
with infinity which will emancipate him.</p>
<p>It is not true that in Spinoza&rsquo;s God there is so little that
is positive that it is not worth preserving.&nbsp; All Nature is in
Him, and if the objector is sincere he will confess that it is not the
lack of contents in the idea which is disappointing, but a lack of contents
particularly interesting to himself.</p>
<p>The opposition between the mind and body of man as two diverse entities
ceases with that between thought and extension.&nbsp; It would be impossible
briefly to explain in all its fulness what Spinoza means by the proposition:
&ldquo;The object of the idea constituting the human mind is a body&rdquo;
<a name="citation39"></a><a href="#footnote39">{39}</a>; it is sufficient
here to say that, just as extension and thought are one, considered
in different aspects, so body and mind are one.&nbsp; We shall find
in the fifth part of the <i>Ethic</i> that Spinoza affirms the eternity
of the mind, though not perhaps in the way in which it is usually believed.</p>
<p>Following the order of the <i>Ethic</i> we now come to its more directly
ethical maxims.&nbsp; Spinoza denies the freedom commonly assigned to
the will, or perhaps it is more correct to say he denies that it is
intelligible.&nbsp; The will is determined by the intellect.&nbsp; The
idea of the triangle involves the affirmation or volition that its three
angles are equal to two right angles.&nbsp; If we understand what a
triangle is we are not &ldquo;free&rdquo; to believe that it contains
more or less than two right angles, nor to act as if it contained more
or less than two.&nbsp; The only real freedom of the mind is obedience
to the reason, and the mind is enslaved when it is under the dominion
of the passions.&nbsp; &ldquo;God does not act from freedom of the will,&rdquo;
<a name="citation40a"></a><a href="#footnote40a">{40a}</a> and consequently
&ldquo;things could have been produced by God in no other manner and
in no other order than that in which they have been produced.&rdquo;
<a name="citation40b"></a><a href="#footnote40b">{40b}</a></p>
<p>&ldquo;If you will but reflect,&rdquo; Spinoza tells Boxel, &ldquo;that
indifference is nothing but ignorance or doubt, and that a will always
constant and in all things determinate is a virtue and a necessary property
of the intellect, you will see that my words are entirely in accord
with the truth.&rdquo; <a name="citation40c"></a><a href="#footnote40c">{40c}</a>&nbsp;
To the same effect is a passage in a letter to Blyenbergh, &ldquo;Our
liberty does not consist in a certain contingency nor in a certain indifference,
but in the manner of affirming or denying, so that in proportion as
we affirm or deny anything with less indifference, are we the more free.&rdquo;
<a name="citation41a"></a><a href="#footnote41a">{41a}</a>&nbsp; So
also to Schuller, &ldquo;I call that thing free which exists and acts
solely from the necessity of its own nature: I call that thing coerced
which is determined to exist and to act in a certain and determinate
manner by another.&rdquo; <a name="citation41b"></a><a href="#footnote41b">{41b}</a>&nbsp;
With regard to this definition it might be objected that the necessity
does not lie solely in the person who wills but is also in the object.&nbsp;
The triangle as well as the nature of man contains the necessity.&nbsp;
What Spinoza means is that the free man by the necessity of his nature
is bound to assert the truth of what follows from the definition of
a triangle and that the stronger he feels the necessity the more free
he is.&nbsp; Hence it follows that the wider the range of the intellect
and the more imperative the necessity which binds it, the larger is
its freedom.</p>
<p>In genuine freedom Spinoza rejoices.&nbsp; &ldquo;The doctrine is
of service in so far as it teaches us that we do everything by the will
of God alone, and that we are partakers of the divine nature in proportion
as our actions become more and more perfect and we more and more understand
God.&nbsp; This doctrine, therefore, besides giving repose in every
way to the soul, has also this advantage, that it teaches us in what
our highest happiness or blessedness consists, namely, in the knowledge
of God alone, by which we are drawn to do those things only which love
and piety persuade.&rdquo; <a name="citation42a"></a><a href="#footnote42a">{42a}</a>&nbsp;
In other words, being part of the whole, the grandeur and office of
the whole are ours.&nbsp; We are anxious about what we call &ldquo;personality,&rdquo;
but in truth there is nothing in it of any worth, and the less we care
for it the more &ldquo;blessed&rdquo; we are.</p>
<p>&ldquo;By the desire which springs from reason we follow good directly
and avoid evil indirectly&rdquo; <a name="citation42b"></a><a href="#footnote42b">{42b}</a>:
our aim should be the good; in obtaining that we are delivered from
evil.&nbsp; To the same purpose is the conclusion of the fifth book
of the <i>Ethic</i> that &ldquo;No one delights in blessedness because
he has restrained his affects, but, on the contrary, the power of restraining
his lusts springs from blessedness itself.&rdquo; <a name="citation43a"></a><a href="#footnote43a">{43a}</a>&nbsp;
This is exactly what the Gospel says to the Law.</p>
<p>Fear is not the motive of a free man to do what is good.&nbsp; &ldquo;A
free man thinks of nothing less than of death, and his wisdom is not
a meditation upon death, but upon life.&rdquo; <a name="citation43b"></a><a href="#footnote43b">{43b}</a>&nbsp;
This is the celebrated sixty-seventh proposition of the fourth part.&nbsp;
If we examine the proof which directly depends on the sixty-third proposition
of the same part - &ldquo;he who is led by fear, and does what is good
in order that he may avoid what is evil, is not led by reason&rdquo;
- we shall see that Spinoza is referring to the fear of the &ldquo;evil&rdquo;
of hell-fire.</p>
<p>All Spinoza&rsquo;s teaching with regard to the passions is a consequence
of what he believes of God and man.&nbsp; He will study the passions
and not curse them.&nbsp; He finds that by understanding them &ldquo;we
can bring it to pass that we suffer less from them.&nbsp; We have, therefore,
mainly to strive to acquire a clear and distinct knowledge of each affect.&rdquo;
<a name="citation43c"></a><a href="#footnote43c">{43c}</a>&nbsp; &ldquo;If
the human mind had none but adequate ideas it would form no notion of
evil.&rdquo; <a name="citation44a"></a><a href="#footnote44a">{44a}</a>&nbsp;
&ldquo;The difference between a man who is led by affect or opinion
alone and one who is led by reason&rdquo; is that &ldquo;the former,
whether he wills it or not, does those things of which he is entirely
ignorant, but the latter does the will of no one but himself.&rdquo;
<a name="citation44b"></a><a href="#footnote44b">{44b}</a>&nbsp; <i>They
know not what they do.</i></p>
<p>The direct influence of Spinoza&rsquo;s theology is also shown in
his treatment of pity, hatred, laughter, and contempt.&nbsp; &ldquo;The
man who has properly understood that everything follows from the necessity
of the divine nature, and comes to pass according to the eternal laws
and rules of nature, will in truth discover nothing which is worthy
of hatred, laughter, or contempt, nor will he pity any one, but, so
far as human virtue is able, he will endeavour to <i>do well</i>, as
we say, and to <i>rejoice</i>.&rdquo; <a name="citation44c"></a><a href="#footnote44c">{44c}</a>&nbsp;
By pity is to be understood mere blind sympathy.&nbsp; The good that
we do by this pity with the eyes of the mind shut ought to be done with
them open.&nbsp; &ldquo;He who lives according to the guidance of reason
strives as much as possible to repay the hatred, anger, or contempt
of others towards himself with love or generosity. . . . He who wishes
to avenge injuries by hating in return does indeed live miserably.&nbsp;
But he who, on the contrary, strives to drive out hatred by love, fights
joyfully and confidently, with equal ease resisting one man or a number
of men, and needing scarcely any assistance from fortune.&nbsp; Those
whom he conquers yield gladly, not from defect of strength, but from
an increase of it.&rdquo; <a name="citation45a"></a><a href="#footnote45a">{45a}</a></p>
<p>&ldquo;Joy is the passion by which the mind passes to a greater perfection:
sorrow, on the other hand, is the passion by which it passes to a less
perfection.&rdquo; <a name="citation45b"></a><a href="#footnote45b">{45b}</a>&nbsp;
&ldquo;No God and no human being, except an envious one, is delighted
by my impotence or my trouble, or esteems as any virtue in us tears,
sighs, fears, and other things of this kind, which are signs of mental
impotence; on the contrary, the greater the joy with which we are affected,
the greater the perfection to which we pass thereby; that is to say,
the more do we necessarily partake of the divine nature.&rdquo; <a name="citation46"></a><a href="#footnote46">{46}</a>&nbsp;
It would be difficult to find an account of joy and sorrow which is
closer to the facts than that which Spinoza gives.&nbsp; He lived amongst
people Roman Catholic and Protestant who worshipped sorrow.&nbsp; Sorrow
was the divinely decreed law of life and joy was merely a permitted
exception.&nbsp; He reversed this order and his claim to be considered
in this respect as one of the great revolutionary religious and moral
reformers has not been sufficiently recognised.&nbsp; It is remarkable
that, unlike other reformers, he has not contradicted error by an exaggeration,
which itself very soon stands in need of contradiction, but by simple
sanity which requires no correction.&nbsp; One reason for this peculiarity
is that the <i>Ethic</i> was the result of long meditation.&nbsp; It
was published posthumously and was discussed in draft for many years
before his death.&nbsp; Usually what we call our convictions are propositions
which we have not thoroughly examined in quietude, but notions which
have just come into our heads and are irreversible to us solely because
we are committed to them.&nbsp; Much may be urged against the <i>Ethic</i>
and on behalf of hatred, contempt, and sorrow.&nbsp; The &ldquo;other
side&rdquo; may be produced mechanically to almost every truth; the
more easily, the more divine that truth is, and against no truths is
it producible with less genuine mental effort than against those uttered
by the founder of Christianity.&nbsp; The question, however, if we are
dealing with the New Testament, is not whether the Sermon on the Mount
can be turned inside out in a debating society, but whether it does
not represent better than anything which the clever leader of the opposition
can formulate the principle or temper which should govern our conduct.</p>
<p>There is a group of propositions in the last part of the <i>Ethic</i>,
which, although they are difficult, it may be well to notice, because
they were evidently regarded by Spinoza as helping him to the end he
had in view.&nbsp; The difficulty lies in a peculiar combination of
religious ideas and scientific form.&nbsp; These propositions are the
following:- <a name="citation47"></a><a href="#footnote47">{47}</a></p>
<p>&ldquo;The mind can cause all the affections of the body or the images
of things to be related to the idea of God.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;He who clearly and distinctly understands himself and his
affects loves God, and loves Him better the better he understands himself
and his affects.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;This love to God above everything else ought to occupy the
mind.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;God is free from passions, nor is He affected with any affect
of joy or sorrow.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;No one can hate God.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;He who loves God cannot strive that God should love him in
return.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;This love to God cannot be defiled either by the effect of
envy or jealousy, but is the more strengthened the more people we imagine
to be connected with God by the same bond of love.&rdquo;</p>
<p>The proof of the first of these propositions, using language somewhat
different from that of the text, is as follows:- There is no affection
of the body of which the mind cannot form some clear and distinct conception,
that is to say, of everything perceived it is capable of forming a clear
and adequate idea, not exhaustive, as Spinoza is careful to warn us,
but an idea not distorted by our personality, and one which is in accordance
with the thing itself, adequate as far as it goes.&nbsp; Newton&rsquo;s
perception that the moon perpetually falls to the earth by the same
numerical law under which a stone falls to it was an adequate perception.&nbsp;
&ldquo;Therefore,&rdquo; continues the demonstration (quoting the fifteenth
proposition of the first part - &ldquo;Whatever is, is in God, and nothing
can either be or be conceived without God&rdquo;), &ldquo;the mind can
cause all the affections of the body to be related to the idea of God.&rdquo;&nbsp;
Spinoza, having arrived at his adequate idea thus takes a further step
to the idea of God.&nbsp; What is perceived is not an isolated external
phenomenon.&nbsp; It is a reality in God: it <i>is</i> God: there is
nothing more to be thought or said of God than the affirmation of such
realities as these.&nbsp; The &ldquo;relation to the idea of God&rdquo;
means that in the affirmation He is affirmed.&nbsp; &ldquo;Nothing,&rdquo;
that is to say, no reality &ldquo;can be conceived without God.&rdquo;</p>
<p>But it is possible for the word &ldquo;love&rdquo; to be applied
to the relationship between man and God.&nbsp; He who has a clear and
adequate perception passes to greater perfection, and therefore rejoices.&nbsp;
Joy, accompanied with the idea of a cause, is love.&nbsp; By the fourteenth
proposition this joy is accompanied by the idea of God as its cause,
and therefore love to God follows.&nbsp; The demonstration seems formal,
and we ask ourselves, What is the actual emotion which Spinoza describes?&nbsp;
It is not new to him, for in the <i>Short Treatise</i>, which is an
early sketch for the <i>Ethic</i>, he thus writes:- &ldquo;Hence it
follows incontrovertibly that it is knowledge which is the cause of
love, so that when we learn to know God in this way, we must necessarily
unite ourselves to Him, for He cannot be known, nor can he reveal Himself,
save as that which is supremely great and good.&nbsp; In this union
alone, as we have already said, our happiness consists.&nbsp; I do not
say that we must know Him adequately; but it is sufficient for us, in
order to be united with Him, to know Him in a measure, for the knowledge
we have of the body is not of such a kind that we can know it as it
is or perfectly; and yet what a union! what love!&rdquo; <a name="citation50"></a><a href="#footnote50">{50}</a></p>
<p>Perhaps it may clear the ground a little if we observe that Spinoza
often avoids a negative by a positive statement.&nbsp; Here he may intend
to show us what the love of God is not, that it is not what it is described
in the popular religion to be.&nbsp; &ldquo;The only love of God I know,&rdquo;
we may imagine him saying, &ldquo;thus arises.&nbsp; The adequate perception
is the keenest of human joys for thereby I see God Himself.&nbsp; That
which I see is not a thing or a person, but nevertheless what I feel
towards it can be called by no other name than love.&nbsp; Although
the object of this love is not thing or person it is not indefinite,
it is this only which is definite; &lsquo;thing&rsquo; and &lsquo;person&rsquo;
are abstract and unreal.&nbsp; There was a love to God in Kepler&rsquo;s
heart when the three laws were revealed to him.&nbsp; If it was not
love to God, what is love to Him?&rdquo;</p>
<p>To the eighteenth proposition, &ldquo;No one can hate God,&rdquo;
there is a scholium which shows that the problem of pain which Spinoza
has left unsolved must have occurred to him.&nbsp; &ldquo;But some may
object that if we understand God to be the cause of all things, we do
for that very reason consider Him to be the cause of sorrow.&nbsp; But
I reply that in so far as we understand the causes of sorrow, it ceases
to be a passion (Prop. 3, pt. 5), that is to say (Prop. 59, pt. 3) it
ceases to be a sorrow; and therefore in so far as we understand God
to be the cause of sorrow do we rejoice.&rdquo;&nbsp; The third proposition
of the fifth part which he quotes merely proves that in so far as we
understand passion it ceases to be a passion.&nbsp; He replies to those
&ldquo;who ask why God has not created all men in such a manner that
they might be controlled by the dictates of reason alone,&rdquo; <a name="citation52"></a><a href="#footnote52">{52}</a>
&ldquo;Because to Him material was not wanting for the creation of everything,
from the highest down to the very lowest grade of perfection; or, to
speak more properly, because the laws of His nature were so ample that
they sufficed for the production of everything which can be conceived
by an infinite intellect.&rdquo;&nbsp; Nevertheless of pain we have
no explanation.&nbsp; Pain is not lessened by understanding it, nor
is its mystery penetrated if we see that to God material could not have
been wanting for the creation of men or animals who have to endure it
all their lives.&nbsp; But if Spinoza is silent in the presence of pain,
so also is every religion and philosophy which the world has seen.&nbsp;
Silence is the only conclusion of the Book of Job, and patient fortitude
in the hope of future enlightenment is the conclusion of Christianity.</p>
<p>It is a weak mistake, however, to put aside what religions and philosophies
tell us because it is insufficient.&nbsp; To Job it is not revealed
why suffering is apportioned so unequally or why it exists, but the
answer of the Almighty from the whirlwind he cannot dispute, and although
Spinoza has nothing more to say about pain than he says in the passages
just quoted and was certainly not exempt from it himself, it may be
impossible that any man should hate God.</p>
<p>We now come to the final propositions of the <i>Ethic</i>, those
in which Spinoza declares his belief in the eternity of mind.&nbsp;
The twenty-second and twenty-third propositions of the fifth part are
as follows:-</p>
<p>&ldquo;In God, nevertheless, there necessarily exists an idea which
expresses the essence of this or that human body under the form of eternity.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;The human mind cannot be absolutely destroyed with the body,
but something of it remains which is eternal.&rdquo;</p>
<p>The word &ldquo;nevertheless&rdquo; is a reference to the preceding
proposition which denies the continuity of memory or imagination excepting
so long as the body lasts.&nbsp; The demonstration of the twenty-third
proposition is not easy to grasp, but the substance of it is that although
the mind is the idea of the body, that is to say, the mind is body as
thought and body is thought as extension, the mind, or essence of the
body, is not completely destroyed with the body.&nbsp; It exists as
an eternal idea, and by an eternal necessity in God.&nbsp; Here again
we must not think of that personality which is nothing better than a
material notion, an image from the concrete applied to mind, but we
must cling fast to thought, to the thoughts which alone makes us what
we <i>are</i>, and these, says Spinoza, are in God and are not to be
defined by time.&nbsp; They have always been and always will be.&nbsp;
The enunciation of the thirty-third proposition is, &ldquo;The intellectual
love of God which arises from the third kind of knowledge is eternal.&rdquo;&nbsp;
The &ldquo;third kind of knowledge&rdquo; is that intuitive science
which &ldquo;advances from an adequate idea of the formal essence of
certain attributes of God to the adequate knowledge of the essence of
things; <a name="citation54"></a><a href="#footnote54">{54}</a> &ldquo;No
love except intellectual love is eternal,&rdquo; <a name="citation55a"></a><a href="#footnote55a">{55a}</a>
and the scholium to this proposition adds, &ldquo;If we look at the
common opinion of men, we shall see that they are indeed conscious of
the eternity of their minds, but they confound it with duration, and
attribute it to imagination or memory, which they believe remain after
death.&rdquo;&nbsp; The intellectual love of the mind towards God is
the very &ldquo;love with which He loves Himself, not in so far as He
is infinite, but in so far as He can be manifested through the essence
of the human mind, considered under the form of eternity; that is to
say, the intellectual love of the mind towards God is part of the infinite
love with which God loves Himself.&rdquo; <a name="citation55b"></a><a href="#footnote55b">{55b}</a>&nbsp;
&ldquo;Hence it follows that God, in so far as He loves Himself, loves
men, and consequently that the love of God towards men and the intellectual
love of the mind towards God are one and the same thing.&rdquo; <a name="citation55c"></a><a href="#footnote55c">{55c}</a>&nbsp;
The more adequate ideas the mind forms &ldquo;the less it suffers from
those affects which are evil, and the less it fears death&rdquo; because
&ldquo;the greater is that part which remains unharmed, and the less
consequently does it suffer from the affects.&rdquo;&nbsp; It is possible
even &ldquo;for the human mind to be of such a nature that that part
of it which we have shown perishes with its body, in comparison with
the part of it which remains, is of no consequence.&rdquo; <a name="citation56a"></a><a href="#footnote56a">{56a}</a></p>
<p>Spinoza, it is clear, holds that in some way - in what way he will
not venture to determine - the more our souls are possessed by the intellectual
love of God, the less is death to be dreaded, for the smaller is that
part of us which can die.&nbsp; Three parallel passages may be appended.&nbsp;
One will show that this was Spinoza&rsquo;s belief from early years
and the other two that it is not peculiar to him.&nbsp; &ldquo;If the
soul is united with some other thing which is and remains unchangeable,
it must also remain unchangeable and permanent.&rdquo; <a name="citation56b"></a><a href="#footnote56b">{56b}</a>&nbsp;
&ldquo;Further, this creative reason does not at one time think, at
another time not think [it thinks eternally]: and when separated from
the body it remains nothing but what it essentially is: and thus it
is alone immortal and eternal.&nbsp; Of this unceasing work of thought,
however, we retain no memory, because this reason is unaffected by its
objects; whereas the receptive, passive intellect (which is affected)
is perishable, and can really think nothing without the support of the
creative intellect.&rdquo; <a name="citation57a"></a><a href="#footnote57a">{57a}</a>&nbsp;
The third quotation is from a great philosophic writer, but one to whom
perhaps we should not turn for such a coincidence.&nbsp; &ldquo;I believe,&rdquo;
said Pantagruel, &ldquo;that all intellectual souls are exempt from
the scissors of Atropos.&nbsp; They are all immortal.&rdquo; <a name="citation57b"></a><a href="#footnote57b">{57b}</a></p>
<p>I have not tried to write an essay on Spinoza, for in writing an
essay there is a temptation to a consistency and completeness which
are contributed by the writer and are not to be found in his subject.&nbsp;
The warning must be reiterated that here as elsewhere we are too desirous,
both writers and readers, of clear definition where none is possible.&nbsp;
We do not stop where the object of our contemplation stops for our eyes.&nbsp;
For my own part I must say that there is much in Spinoza which is beyond
me, much which I cannot <i>extend</i>, and much which, if it can be
extended, seems to involve contradiction.&nbsp; But I have also found
his works productive beyond those of almost any man I know of that <i>acquiescentia
mentis</i> which enables us to live.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<h2>SUPPLEMENTARY NOTE ON THE DEVIL</h2>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>Spinoza denies the existence of the Devil, and says, in the <i>Short
Treatise</i>, that if he is the mere opposite of God and has nothing
from God, he is simply the Nothing.&nbsp; But if a philosophical doctrine
be true, it does not follow that as it stands it is applicable to practical
problems.&nbsp; For these a rule may have to be provided, which, although
it may not be inconsistent with the scientific theorem, differs from
it in form.&nbsp; The Devil is not an invention of priests for priestly
purposes, nor is he merely a hypothesis to account for facts, but he
has been forced upon us in order that we may be able to deal with them.&nbsp;
Unless we act as though there were an enemy to be resisted and chained,
if we fritter away differences of kind into differences of degree, we
shall make poor work of life.&nbsp; Spinoza himself assumes that other
commands than God&rsquo;s may be given to us, but that we are unhesitatingly
to obey His and His only.&nbsp; &ldquo;Ad fidem ergo catholicam,&rdquo;
he says, &ldquo;ea solummodo pertinent, qu&aelig; erga Deum <i>obedientia</i>
absolute ponit.&rdquo;&nbsp; Consciousness seems to testify to the presence
of two mortal foes within us - one Divine and the other diabolic - and
perhaps the strongest evidence is not the rebellion of the passions,
but the picturing and the mental processes which are almost entirely
beyond our control, and often greatly distress us.&nbsp; We look down
upon them; they are not ours, and yet they are ours, and we cry out
with St. Paul against the law warring with the law of our minds.&nbsp;
Bunyan of course knows the practical problem and the rule, and to him
the Devil is not merely the tempter to crimes, but the great Adversary.&nbsp;
In the <i>Holy War</i> the chosen regiments of Diabolus are the Doubters,
and notwithstanding their theologic names, they carried deadlier weapons
than the theologic doubters of to-day.&nbsp; The captain over the Grace-doubters
was Captain Damnation; he over the Felicity-doubters was Captain Past-hope,
and his ancient-bearer was Mr. Despair.&nbsp; The nature of the Doubters
is &ldquo;to put a question upon every one of the truths of Emanuel,
and their country is called the Land of Doubting, and that land lieth
off and furthest remote to the north between the land of Darkness and
that called the Valley of the Shadow of Death.&rdquo;&nbsp; They are
not children of the sun, and although they are not sinners in the common
sense of the word, those that were caught in Mansoul were promptly executed.</p>
<p>There is nothing to be done but to fight and wait for the superior
help which will come if we do what we can.&nbsp; Emanuel at first delayed
his aid in the great battle, and the first brunt was left to Captain
Credence.&nbsp; Presently, however, Emanuel appeared &ldquo;with colours
flying, trumpets sounding, and the feet of his men scarce touched the
ground; they hasted with such celerity towards the captains that were
engaged that . . . there was not left so much as one Doubter alive,
they lay spread upon the ground dead men as one would spread dung on
the land.&rdquo;&nbsp; The dead were buried &ldquo;lest the fumes and
ill-favours that would arise from them might infect the air and so annoy
the famous town of Mansoul.&rdquo;&nbsp; But it will be a fight to the
end for Diabolus, and the lords of the pit escaped.</p>
<p>After Emanuel had finally occupied Mansoul he gave the citizens some
advice.&nbsp; The policy of Diabolus was &ldquo;to make of their castle
a warehouse.&rdquo;&nbsp; Emanuel made it a fortress and a palace, and
garrisoned the town.&nbsp; &ldquo;O my Mansoul,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;nourish
my captains; make not my captains sick, O Mansoul.&rdquo;</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h2>INJUSTICE</h2>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>A notion, self-begotten in me, of the limitations of my friend is
answerable for the barrenness of my intercourse with him.&nbsp; I set
him down as hard; I speak to him as if he were hard and from that which
is hard in myself.&nbsp; Naturally I evoke only that which is hard,
although there may be fountains of tenderness in him of which I am altogether
unaware.&nbsp; It is far better in conversation not to regulate it according
to supposed capacities or tempers, which are generally those of some
fictitious being, but to be simply ourselves.&nbsp; We shall often find
unexpected and welcome response.</p>
<p>Our estimates of persons, unless they are frequently revived by personal
intercourse, are apt to alter insensibly and to become untrue.&nbsp;
They acquire increased definiteness but they lose in comprehensiveness.</p>
<p>Especially is this true of those who are dead.&nbsp; If I do not
read a great author for some time my mental abstract of him becomes
summary and false.&nbsp; I turn to him again, all summary judgments
upon him become impossible, and he partakes of infinitude.&nbsp; Writers,
and people who are in society and talk much are apt to be satisfied
with an algebraic symbol for a man of note, and their work is done not
with him but with <i>x</i>.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h2>TIME SETTLES CONTROVERSIES</h2>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>We ought to let Time have his own way in the settlement of our disputes.&nbsp;
It is a commonplace how much he is able to do with some of our troubles,
such as loss of friends or wealth; but we do not sufficiently estimate
his power to help our arguments.&nbsp; If I permit myself to dispute,
I always go beyond what is necessary for my purpose, and my continual
iteration and insistence do nothing but provoke opposition.&nbsp; Much
better would it be simply to state my case and leave it.&nbsp; To do
more is not only to distrust it, but to distrust that in my friend which
is my best ally, and will more surely assist me than all my vehemence.&nbsp;
Sometimes - nay, often - it is better to say nothing, for there is a
constant tendency in Nature towards rectification, and her quiet protest
and persuasiveness are hindered by personal interference.&nbsp; If anybody
very dear to me were to fall into any heresy of belief or of conduct,
I am not sure that I ought to rebuke him, and that he would not sooner
be converted by observing my silent respect for him than by preaching
to him.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h2>TALKING ABOUT OUR TROUBLES</h2>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>We may talk about our troubles to those persons who can give us direct
help, but even in this case we ought as much as possible to come to
a provisional conclusion before consultation; to be perfectly clear
to ourselves within our own limits.&nbsp; Some people have a foolish
trick of applying for aid before they have done anything whatever to
aid themselves, and in fact try to talk themselves into perspicuity.&nbsp;
The only way in which they can think is by talking, and their speech
consequently is not the expression of opinion already and carefully
formed, but the manufacture of it.</p>
<p>We may also tell our troubles to those who are suffering if we can
lessen their own.&nbsp; It may be a very great relief to them to know
that others have passed through trials equal to theirs and have survived.&nbsp;
There are obscure, nervous diseases, hypochondriac fancies, almost uncontrollable
impulses, which terrify by their apparent singularity.&nbsp; If we could
believe that they are common, the worst of the fear would vanish.</p>
<p>But, as a rule, we should be very careful for our own sake not to
speak much about what distresses us.&nbsp; Expression is apt to carry
with it exaggeration, and this exaggerated form becomes henceforth that
under which we represent our miseries to ourselves, so that they are
thereby increased.&nbsp; By reserve, on the other hand, they are diminished,
for we attach less importance to that which it was not worth while to
mention.&nbsp; Secrecy, in fact, may be our salvation.</p>
<p>It is injurious to be always treated as if something were the matter
with us.&nbsp; It is health-giving to be dealt with as if we were healthy,
and the man who imagines his wits are failing becomes stronger and sounder
by being entrusted with a difficult problem than by all the assurances
of a doctor.</p>
<p>They are poor creatures who are always craving for pity.&nbsp; If
we are sick, let us prefer conversation upon any subject rather than
upon ourselves.&nbsp; Let it turn on matters that lie outside the dark
chamber, upon the last new discovery, or the last new idea.&nbsp; So
shall we seem still to be linked to the living world.&nbsp; By perpetually
asking for sympathy an end is put to real friendship.&nbsp; The friend
is afraid to intrude anything which has no direct reference to the patient&rsquo;s
condition lest it should be thought irrelevant.&nbsp; No love even can
long endure without complaint, silent it may be, an invalid who is entirely
self-centred; and what an agony it is to know that we are tended simply
as a duty by those who are nearest to us, and that they will really
be relieved when we have departed!&nbsp; From this torture we may be
saved if we early apprentice ourselves to the art of self-suppression
and sternly apply the gag to eloquence upon our own woes.&nbsp; Nobody
who really cares for us will mind waiting on us even to the long-delayed
last hour if we endure in fortitude.</p>
<p>There is no harm in confronting our disorders or misfortunes.&nbsp;
On the contrary, the attempt is wholesome.&nbsp; Much of what we dread
is really due to indistinctness of outline.&nbsp; If we have the courage
to say to ourselves, What <i>is</i> this thing, then? let the worst
come to the worst, and what then? we shall frequently find that after
all it is not so terrible.&nbsp; What we have to do is to subdue tremulous,
nervous, insane fright.&nbsp; Fright is often prior to an object; that
is to say, the fright comes first and something is invented or discovered
to account for it.&nbsp; There are certain states of body and mind which
are productive of objectless fright, and the most ridiculous thing in
the world is able to provoke it to activity.&nbsp; It is perhaps not
too much to say that any calamity the moment it is apprehended by the
reason alone loses nearly all its power to disturb and unfix us.&nbsp;
The conclusions which are so alarming are not those of the reason, but,
to use Spinoza&rsquo;s words, of the &ldquo;affects.&rdquo;</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h2>FAITH</h2>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>Faith is nobly seen when a man, standing like Columbus upon the shore
with a dark, stormy Atlantic before him, resolves to sail, and although
week after week no land be visible, still believes and still sails on;
but it is nobler when there is no America as the goal of our venture,
but something which is unsubstantial, as, for example, self-control
and self-purification.&nbsp; It is curious, by the way, that discipline
of this kind should almost have disappeared.&nbsp; Possibly it is because
religion is now a matter of belief in certain propositions; but, whatever
the cause may be, we do not train ourselves day by day to become better
as we train ourselves to learn languages or science.&nbsp; To return
from this parenthesis, we say that when no applause nor even recognition
is expected, to proceed steadily and alone for its own sake in the work
of saving the soul is truer heroism than that which leads a martyr cheerfully
to the stake.</p>
<p>Faith is at its best when we have to wrestle with despair, not only
of ourselves but of the Universe; when we strain our eyes and see nothing
but blackness.&nbsp; In the <i>Gorgias</i> Socrates maintains, not only
that it is always better to suffer injustice than to commit it, but
that it is better to be punished for injustice than to escape, and better
to die than to do wrong; and it is better not only because of the effect
on others but for our own sake.&nbsp; We are naturally led to ask what
support a righteous man unjustly condemned could find, supposing he
were about to be executed, if he had no faith in personal immortality
and knew that his martyrdom could not have the least effect for good.&nbsp;
Imagine him, for example, shut up in a dungeon and about to be strangled
in it and that not a single inquiry will be made about him - where will
he look for help? what hope will compose him?&nbsp; He may say that
in a few hours he will be asleep, and that nothing will then be of any
consequence to him, but that thought surely will hardly content him.&nbsp;
He may reflect that he at least prevents the evil which would be produced
by his apostasy; and very frequently in life, when we abstain from doing
wrong, we have to be satisfied with a negative result and with the simple
absence (which nobody notices) of some direct mischief, although the
abstention may cost more than positive well-doing.&nbsp; This too, however,
is but cold consolation when the cord is brought and the grave is already
dug.</p>
<p>It must be admitted that Reason cannot give any answer.&nbsp; Socrates,
when his reasoning comes to an end, often permits himself to tell a
story.&nbsp; &ldquo;My dialectic,&rdquo; he seems to say, &ldquo;is
of no further use; but here is a tale for you,&rdquo; and as he goes
on with it we can see his satyr eyes gleam with an intensity which shows
that he did not consider he was inventing a mere fable.&nbsp; That was
the way in which he taught theology.&nbsp; Perhaps we may find that
something less than logic and more than a dream may be of use to us.&nbsp;
We may figure to ourselves that this universe of souls is the manifold
expression of the One, and that in this expression there is a purpose
which gives importance to all the means of which it avails itself.&nbsp;
Apparent failure may therefore be a success, for the mind which has
been developed into perfect virtue falls back into the One, having served
(by its achievements) the end of its existence.&nbsp; The potential
in the One has become actual, has become real, and the One is the richer
thereby.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h2>PATIENCE</h2>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>What is most to be envied in really religious people of the earlier
type is their intellectual and moral peace.&nbsp; They had obtained
certain convictions, a certain conception of the Universe, by which
they could live.&nbsp; Their horizon may have been encompassed with
darkness; experience sometimes contradicted their faith, but they trusted
- nay, they knew - that the opposition was not real and that the truths
were not to be shaken.&nbsp; Their conduct was marked by a corresponding
unity.&nbsp; They determined once for all that there were rules which
had to be obeyed, and when any particular case arose it was not judged
according to the caprice of the moment, but by statute.</p>
<p>We, on the other hand, can only doubt.&nbsp; So far as those subjects
are concerned on which we are most anxious to be informed, we are sure
of nothing.&nbsp; What we have to do is to accept the facts and wait.&nbsp;
We must take care not to deny beauty and love because we are forced
also to admit ugliness and hatred.&nbsp; Let us yield ourselves up utterly
to the magnificence and tenderness of the sunrise, though the East End
of London lies over the horizon.&nbsp; That very same Power, and it
is no other, which blasts a country with the cholera or drives the best
of us to madness has put the smile in a child&rsquo;s face and is the
parent of Love.&nbsp; It is curious, too, that the curse seems in no
way to qualify the blessing.&nbsp; The sweetness and majesty of Nature
are so exquisite, so pure, that when they are before us we cannot imagine
they could be better if they proceeded from an omnipotently merciful
Being and no pestilence had ever been known.&nbsp; We must not worry
ourselves with attempts at reconciliation.&nbsp; We must be satisfied
with a hint here and there, with a ray of sunshine at our feet, and
we must do what we can to make the best of what we possess.&nbsp; Hints
and sunshine will not be wanting, and science, which was once considered
to be the enemy of religion, is dissolving by its later discoveries
the old gross materialism, the source of so much despair.</p>
<p>The conduct of life is more important than speculation, but the lives
of most of us are regulated by no principle whatever.&nbsp; We read
our Bible, Thomas &agrave; Kempis, and Bunyan, and we are persuaded
that our salvation lies in the perpetual struggle of the higher against
the lower self, the spirit against the flesh, and that the success of
the flesh is damnation.&nbsp; We take down Horace and Rabelais and we
admit that the body also has its claims.&nbsp; We have no power to dominate
both sets of books, and consequently they supersede one another alternately.&nbsp;
Perhaps life is too large for any code we can as yet frame, and the
dissolution of all codes, the fluid, unstable condition of which we
complain, may be a necessary antecedent of new and more lasting combinations.&nbsp;
One thing is certain, that there is not a single code now in existence
which is not false; that the graduation of the vices and virtues is
wrong, and that in the future it will be altered.&nbsp; We must not
hand ourselves over to a despotism with no Divine right, even if there
be a risk of anarchy.&nbsp; In the determination of our own action,
and in our criticism of other people, we must use the whole of ourselves
and not mere fragments.&nbsp; If we do this we need not fear.&nbsp;
We may suppose we are in danger because the stone tables of the Decalogue
have gone to dust, but it is more dangerous to attempt to control men
by fictions.&nbsp; Better no chart whatever than one which shows no
actually existing perils, but warns us against Scylla, Charybdis, and
the Cyclops.&nbsp; If we are perfectly honest with ourselves we shall
not find it difficult to settle whether we ought to do this or that
particular thing, and we may be content.&nbsp; The new legislation will
come naturally at the appointed time, and it is not impossible to live
while it is on the way.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h2>AN APOLOGY</h2>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>In these latter days of anarchy and tumult, when there is no gospel
of faith or morals, when democracy seems bent on falsifying every prediction
of earlier democratic enthusiasts by developing worse dangers to liberty
than any which our forefathers had to encounter, and when the misery
of cities is so great, it appears absurd, not to say wrong, that we
should sit still and read books.&nbsp; I am ashamed when I go into my
own little room and open Milton or Shakespeare after looking at a newspaper
or walking through the streets of London.&nbsp; I feel that Milton and
Shakespeare are luxuries, and that I really belong to the class which
builds palaces for its pleasure, although men and women may be starving
on the roads.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, if I were placed on a platform I should be obliged
to say, &ldquo;My brethren, I plainly perceive the world is all wrong,
but I cannot see how it is to be set right,&rdquo; and I should descend
the steps and go home.&nbsp; There may be others who have a clearer
perception than mine, and who may be convinced that this way or that
way lies regeneration.&nbsp; I do not wish to discourage them; I wish
them God-speed, but I cannot help them nor become their disciple.&nbsp;
Possibly I am doing nothing better than devising excuses for lotus-eating,
but here they are.</p>
<p>To take up something merely because I am idle is useless.&nbsp; The
message must come to me, and with such urgency that I cannot help delivering
it.&nbsp; Nor is it of any use to attempt to give my natural thoughts
a force which is not inherent in them.</p>
<p>The disease is often obvious, but the remedies are doubtful.&nbsp;
The accumulation of wealth in a few hands, generally by swindling, is
shocking, but if it were distributed to-morrow we should gain nothing.&nbsp;
The working man objects to the millionaire, but would gladly become
a millionaire himself, even if his million could be piled up in no other
way than by sweating thousands of his fellows.&nbsp; The usurpation
of government by the ignorant will bring disaster, but how in these
days could a wise man reign any longer than ignorance permitted him?&nbsp;
The everlasting veerings of the majority, without any reason meanwhile
for the change, show that, except on rare occasions of excitement, the
opinion of the voters is of no significance.&nbsp; But when we are asked
what substitute for elections can be proposed, none can be found.&nbsp;
So with the relationship between man and woman, the marriage laws and
divorce.&nbsp; The calculus has not been invented which can deal with
such complexities.&nbsp; We are in the same position as that in which
Leverrier and Adams would have been, if, observing the irregularities
of Uranus, which led to the discovery of Neptune, they had known nothing
but the first six books of Euclid and a little algebra.</p>
<p>There has never been any reformation as yet without dogma and supernaturalism.&nbsp;
Ordinary people acknowledge no real reasons for virtue except heaven
and hell-fire.&nbsp; When heaven and hell-fire cease to persuade, custom
for a while is partly efficacious, but its strength soon decays.&nbsp;
Some good men, knowing the uselessness of rational means to convert
or to sustain their fellows, have clung to dogma with hysterical energy,
but without any genuine faith in it.&nbsp; They have failed, for dogma
cannot be successful unless it be the <i>inevitable</i> expression of
the inward conviction.</p>
<p>The voices now are so many and so contradictory that it is impossible
to hear any one of them distinctly, no matter what its claim on our
attention may be.&nbsp; The newspaper, the circulating library, the
free library, and the magazine are doing their best to prevent unity
of direction and the din and confusion of tongues beget a doubt whether
literature and the printing press have actually been such a blessing
to the race as enlightenment universally proclaims them to be.</p>
<p>The great currents of human destiny seem more than ever to move by
forces which tend to no particular point.&nbsp; There is a drift, tremendous
and overpowering, due to nobody in particular, but to hundreds of millions
of small impulses.&nbsp; Achilles is dead, and the turn of the Myrmidons
has come.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>&ldquo;Myrmdons, race f&eacute;conde<br />Myrmidons,<br />Enfin nous
commandons:</p>
<p>Jupiter livre le monde<br />Aux Myrmidons, aux Myrmidons.</p>
<p>Voyant qu&rsquo; Achille succombe,<br />Ses Myrmidons, hors des rangs,<br />Disent:
Dansons sur sa tombe<br />Ses petits vont &ecirc;tre grands.&rdquo;</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>My last defence is that the Universe is an organic unity, and so
subtle and far-reaching are the invisible threads which pass from one
part of it to another that it is impossible to limit the effect which
even an insignificant life may have.&nbsp; &ldquo;Were a single dust-atom
destroyed, the universe would collapse.&rdquo;</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>&ldquo; . . . who of men can tell<br />That flowers would bloom,
or that green fruit would swell<br />To melting pulp, that fish would
have bright mail,<br />The earth its dower of river, wood, and vale,<br />The
meadows runnels, runnels pebble-stones,<br />The seed its harvest, or
the lute its tones,<br />Tones ravishment, or ravishment its sweet<br />If
human souls did never kiss and greet?&rdquo;</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h2>BELIEF, UNBELIEF, AND SUPERSTITION</h2>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>True belief is rare and difficult.&nbsp; There is no security that
the fictitious beliefs which have been obtained by no genuine mental
process, that is to say, are not vitally held, may not be discarded
for those which are exactly contrary.&nbsp; We flatter ourselves that
we have secured a method and freedom of thought which will not permit
us to be the victims of the absurdities of the Middle Ages, but, in
fact, there is no solid obstacle to our conversion to some new grotesque
religion more miraculous than Roman Catholicism.&nbsp; Modern scepticism,
distinguishing it from scholarly scepticism, is nothing but stupidity
or weakness.&nbsp; Few people like to confess outright that they do
not believe in a God, although the belief in a personal devil is considered
to be a sign of imbecility.&nbsp; Nevertheless, men, as a rule, have
no ground for believing in God a whit more respectable than for disbelief
in a devil.&nbsp; The devil is not seen nor is God seen.&nbsp; The work
of the devil is as obvious as that of God.&nbsp; Nay, as the devil is
a limited personality, belief in him is not encumbered with the perplexities
which arise when we attempt to apprehend the infinite Being.&nbsp; Belief
may often be tested; that is to say, we may be able to discover whether
it is an active belief or not by inquiring what disbelief it involves.&nbsp;
So also the test of disbelief is its correspondent belief.</p>
<p>Superstition is a name generally given to a few only of those beliefs
for which it is imagined that there is no sufficient support, such as
the belief in ghosts, witches, and, if we are Protestants, in miracles
performed after a certain date.&nbsp; Why these particular beliefs have
been selected as solely deserving to be called superstitious it is not
easy to discover.&nbsp; If the name is to be extended to all beliefs
which we have not attempted to verify, it must include the largest part
of those we possess.&nbsp; We vote at elections as we are told to vote
by the newspaper which we happen to read, and our opinions upon a particular
policy are based upon no surer foundation than those of the Papist on
the authenticity of the lives of the Saints.</p>
<p>Superstition is a matter of <i>relative</i> evidence.&nbsp; A thousand
years ago it was not so easy as it is now to obtain rigid demonstration
in any department except mathematics.&nbsp; Much that was necessarily
the basis of action was as incapable of proof as the story of St. George
and the Dragon, and consequently it is hardly fair to say that the dark
ages were more superstitious than our own.&nbsp; Nor does every belief,
even in supernatural objects, deserve the name of superstition.&nbsp;
Suppose that the light which struck down St. Paul on his journey to
Damascus was due to his own imagination, the belief that it came from
Jesus enthroned in the heavens was a sign of strength and not of weakness.&nbsp;
Beliefs of this kind, in so far as they exalt man, prove greatness and
generosity, and may be truer than the scepticism which is formally justified
in rejecting them.&nbsp; If Christ never rose from the dead, the women
who waited at the sepulchre were nearer to reality than the Sadducees,
who denied the resurrection.</p>
<p>There is a half-belief, which we find in Virgil that is not superstition,
nor inconstancy, nor cowardice.&nbsp; A child-like faith in the old
creed is no longer possible, but it is equally impossible to surrender
it.&nbsp; I refer now not to those who select from it what they think
to be in accordance with their reason, and throw overboard the remainder
with no remorse, but rather to those who cannot endure to touch with
sacrilegious hands the ancient histories and doctrines which have been
the depositaries of so much that is eternal, and who dread lest with
the destruction of a story something precious should also be destroyed.&nbsp;
The so-called superstitious ages were not merely transitionary.&nbsp;
Our regret that they have departed is to be explained not by a mere
idealisation of the past, but by a conviction that truths have been
lost, or at least have been submerged.&nbsp; Perhaps some day they may
be recovered, and in some other form may again become our religion.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h2>JUDAS ISCARIOT - WHAT CAN BE SAID FOR HIM?</h2>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>Judas Iscariot has become to Christian people an object of horror
more loathsome than even the devil himself.&nbsp; The devil rebelled
because he could not brook subjection to the Son of God, a failing which
was noble compared with treachery to the Son of man.&nbsp; The hatred
of Judas is not altogether virtuous.&nbsp; We compound thereby for our
neglect of Jesus and His precepts: it is easier to establish our Christianity
by cursing the wretched servant than by following his Master.&nbsp;
The heinousness also of the crime in Gethsemane has been aggravated
by the exaltation of Jesus to the Redeemership of the world.&nbsp; All
that can be known of Judas is soon collected.&nbsp; He was chosen one
of the twelve apostles, and received their high commission to preach
the kingdom of heaven, to heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the
lepers, and cast out devils.&nbsp; He was appointed treasurer to the
community.&nbsp; John in telling the story of the anointing at Bethany
says that he was a thief, but John also makes him the sole objector
to the waste of the ointment.&nbsp; According to the other evangelists
all the disciples objected.&nbsp; Since he remained in office it could
hardly have been known at the time of the visit to Bethany that he was
dishonest, nor could it have been known at any time to Matthew and Mark,
for they would not have lost the opportunity of adding such a touch
to the portrait.&nbsp; The probability, therefore, is that the robbery
of the bag is unhistorical.&nbsp; When the chief priests and scribes
sought how they might apprehend Jesus they made a bargain with Judas
to deliver Him to them for thirty pieces of silver.&nbsp; He was present
at the Last Supper but went and betrayed his Lord.&nbsp; A few hours
afterwards, when he found out that condemnation to death followed, he
repented himself and brought again the thirty pieces of silver to his
employers, declared that he had sinned in betraying innocent blood,
cast down the money at their feet, and went and hanged himself.</p>
<p>This is all that is discoverable about Judas, and it has been considered
sufficient for a damnation deeper than any allotted to the worst of
the sons of Adam.&nbsp; Dante places him in the lowest round of the
ninth or last of the hellish circles, where he is eternally &ldquo;champed&rdquo;
by Satan, &ldquo;bruised as with ponderous engine,&rdquo; his head within
the diabolic jaws and &ldquo;plying the feet without.&rdquo;&nbsp; In
the absence of a biography with details, it is impossible to make out
with accuracy what the real Judas was.&nbsp; We can, however, by dispassionate
examination of the facts determine their sole import, and if we indulge
in inferences we can deduce those which are fairly probable.&nbsp; As
Judas was treasurer, he must have been trusted.&nbsp; He could hardly
have been naturally covetous, for he had given up in common with the
other disciples much, if not all, to follow Jesus.&nbsp; The thirty
pieces of silver - some four or five pounds of our money - could not
have been considered by him as a sufficient bribe for the ignominy of
a treason which was to end in legal murder.&nbsp; He ought perhaps to
have been able to measure the ferocity of an established ecclesiastical
order and to have known what would have been the consequence of handing
over to it perfect, and therefore heretical, sincerity and purity, but
there is no evidence that he did know: nay, we are distinctly informed,
as we have just seen, that when he became aware what was going to happen
his sorrow for his wicked deed took a very practical shape.</p>
<p>We cannot allege with confidence that it was any permanent loss of
personal attachment to Jesus which brought about his defection.&nbsp;
It came when the belief in a theocracy near at hand filled the minds
of the disciples.&nbsp; These ignorant Galilean fishermen expected that
in a very short time they would sit on twelve thrones judging the twelve
tribes of Israel.&nbsp; The custodian of the bag, gifted with more common
sense than his colleagues, probably foresaw the danger of a collision
with Rome, and may have desired by a timely arrest to prevent an open
revolt, which would have meant immediate destruction of the whole band
with women and children.&nbsp; Can any position be imagined more irritating
that that of a careful man of business who is keeper of the purse for
a company of heedless enthusiasts professing complete indifference to
the value of money, misunderstanding the genius of their chief, and
looking out every morning for some sign in the clouds, a prophecy of
their immediate appointment as vicegerents of a power that would supersede
the awful majesty of the Imperial city?&nbsp; He may have been heated
by a long series of petty annoyances to such a degree that at last they
may have ended in rage and a sudden flinging loose of himself from the
society.&nbsp; It is the impulsive man who frequently suffers what appears
to be inversion, and Judas was impulsive exceedingly.&nbsp; Matthew,
and Matthew only, says that Judas asked for money from the chief priests.&nbsp;
&ldquo;What will ye give me, and I will deliver Him unto you?&rdquo;&nbsp;
According to Mark, whose account of the transaction is the same as Luke&rsquo;s,
&ldquo;Judas . . . went unto the chief priests to betray Him unto them.&nbsp;
And when they heard it, they were glad, and promised to give him money.&rdquo;&nbsp;
If the priests were the tempters, a slight difference is established
in favour of Judas, but this we will neglect.&nbsp; The sin of taking
money and joining in that last meal in any case is black enough, although,
as we have before pointed out, Judas did not at the time know what the
other side of the bargain was.&nbsp; Admitting, however, everything
that can fairly be urged against him, all that can be affirmed with
certainty is that we are in the presence of strange and unaccountable
inconsistency, and that an apostle who had abandoned his home, who had
followed Jesus for three years amidst contempt and persecution, and
who at last slew himself in self-reproach, could be capable of committing
the meanest of sins.&nbsp; Is the co-existence of irreconcilable opposites
in human nature anything new?&nbsp; The story of Judas may be of some
value if it reminds us that man is incalculable, and that, although
in theory, and no doubt in reality, he is a unity, the point from which
the divergent forces in him rise is often infinitely beyond our exploration;
a lesson not merely in psychology but for our own guidance, a warning
that side by side with heroic virtues there may sleep in us not only
detestable vices, but vices by which those virtues are contradicted
and even for the time annihilated.&nbsp; The mode of betrayal, with
a kiss, has justly excited loathing, but it is totally unintelligible.&nbsp;
Why should he have taken the trouble to be so base when the movement
of a finger would have sufficed?&nbsp; Why was any sign necessary to
indicate one who was so well known?&nbsp; The supposition that the devil
compelled him to superfluous villainy in order that he might be secured
with greater certainty and tortured with greater subtlety is one that
can hardly be entertained except by theologians.&nbsp; It is equally
difficult to understand why Jesus submitted to such an insult, and why
Peter should not have smitten down its perpetrator.&nbsp; Peter was
able to draw his sword, and it would have been safer and more natural
to kill Judas than to cut off the ear of the high priest&rsquo;s servant.&nbsp;
John, who shows a special dislike to Judas, knows nothing of the kiss.&nbsp;
According to John, Jesus asked the soldiers whom they sought, and then
stepped boldly forward and declared Himself.&nbsp; &ldquo;Judas,&rdquo;
adds John, &ldquo;was standing with them.&rdquo;&nbsp; As John took
such particular notice of what happened, the absence of the kiss in
his account can hardly have been accidental.&nbsp; It is a sound maxim
in criticism that what is simply difficult of explanation is likely
to be authentic.&nbsp; An awkward reading in a manuscript is to be preferred
to one which is easier.&nbsp; But an historical improbability, especially
if no corroboration of it is to be found in a better authority, may
be set aside, and in this case we are justified in neglecting the kiss.&nbsp;
Whatever may have been the exact shade of darkness in the crime of Judas,
it was avenged with singular swiftness, and he himself was the avenger.&nbsp;
He did not slink away quietly and poison himself in a ditch.&nbsp; He
boldly encountered the sacred college, confessed his sin and the innocence
of the man they were about to crucify.&nbsp; Compared with these pious
miscreants who had no scruples about corrupting one of the disciples,
but shuddered at the thought of putting back into the treasury the money
they had taken from it, Judas becomes noble.&nbsp; His remorse is so
unendurable that it drives him to suicide.</p>
<p>If a record could be kept of those who have abjured Jesus through
love of gold, through fear of the world or of the scribes and Pharisees,
we should find many who are considered quite respectable, or have even
been canonised, and who, nevertheless, much more worthily than Iscariot,
are entitled to &ldquo;champing&rdquo; by the jaws of Sathanas.&nbsp;
Not a single scrap from Judas himself has reached us.&nbsp; He underwent
no trial, and is condemned without plea or excuse on his own behalf,
and with no cross-examination of the evidence.&nbsp; No witnesses have
been called to his character.&nbsp; What would his friends at Kerioth
have said for him?&nbsp; What would Jesus have said?&nbsp; If He had
met Judas with the halter in his hand would He not have stopped him?&nbsp;
Ah!&nbsp; I can see the Divine touch on the shoulder, the passionate
prostration of the repentant in the dust, the hands gently lifting him,
the forgiveness because he knew not what he did, and the seal of a kiss
indeed from the sacred lips.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h2>SIR WALTER SCOTT&rsquo;S USE OF THE SUPERNATURAL IN THE &ldquo;BRIDE
OF LAMMERMOOR&rdquo;</h2>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>The supernatural machinery in Sir Walter Scott&rsquo;s <i>Monastery</i>
is generally and, no doubt, correctly, set down as a mistake.&nbsp;
Sir Walter fails, not because the White Lady of Avenel is a miracle,
but because being miraculous, she is made to do what sometimes is not
worthy of her.&nbsp; This, however, is not always true, for nothing
can be finer than the change in Halbert Glendinning after he has seen
the spirit, and the great master himself has never drawn a nobler stroke
than that in which he describes the effect which intercourse with her
has had upon Mary.&nbsp; Halbert, on the morning of the duel between
himself and Sir Piercie Shafton, is trying to persuade her that he intends
no harm, and that he and Sir Piercie are going on a hunting expedition.&nbsp;
&ldquo;Say not thus,&rdquo; said the maiden, interrupting him, &ldquo;say
not thus to me.&nbsp; Others thou may&rsquo;st deceive, but me thou
can&rsquo;st not.&nbsp; There has been that in me from the earliest
youth which fraud flies from, and which imposture cannot deceive.&rdquo;&nbsp;
The transforming influence of the Lady is here just what it should be,
and the consequence is that she becomes a reality.</p>
<p>But it is in the <i>Bride of Lammermoor</i> more particularly that
the use of the supernatural is not only blameless but indispensable.&nbsp;
We begin to rise to it in that scene in which the Master of Ravenswood
meets Alice.&nbsp; &ldquo;Begone from among them,&rdquo; she says, &ldquo;and
if God has destined vengeance on the oppressor&rsquo;s house, do not
you be the instrument. . . .&nbsp; If you remain here, her destruction
or yours, or that of both, will be the inevitable consequence of her
misplaced attachment.&rdquo;&nbsp; A little further on, with great art,
Scott having duly prepared us by what has preceded, adds intensity and
colour.&nbsp; He apologises for the &ldquo;tinge of superstition,&rdquo;
but, not believing, he evidently believes, and we justly surrender ourselves
to him.&nbsp; The Master of Ravenswood after the insult received from
Lady Ashton wanders round the Mermaiden&rsquo;s Well on his way to Wolf&rsquo;s
Crag and sees the wraith of Alice.&nbsp; Scott makes horse as well as
man afraid so that we may not immediately dismiss the apparition as
a mere ordinary product of excitement.&nbsp; Alice at that moment was
dying, and had &ldquo;prayed powerfully that she might see her master&rsquo;s
son and renew her warning.&rdquo;&nbsp; Observe the difference between
this and any vulgar ghost story.&nbsp; From the very first we feel that
the Superior Powers are against this match, and that it will be cursed.&nbsp;
The beginning of the curse lies far back in the hereditary temper of
the Ravenswoods, in the intrigues of the Ashtons, and in the feuds of
the times.&nbsp; When Love intervenes we discover in an instant that
he is not sent by the gods to bring peace, but that he is the awful
instrument of destruction.&nbsp; The spectral appearance of Alice at
the hour of her departure, on the very spot &ldquo;on which Lucy Ashton
had reclined listening to the fatal tale of woe . . . holding up her
shrivelled hand as if to prevent his coming more near,&rdquo; is necessary
in order to intimate that the interdict is pronounced not by a mortal
human being but by a dread, supernal authority.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h2>SEPTEMBER, 1798.&nbsp; &ldquo;THE LYRICAL BALLADS.&rdquo;</h2>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>The year 1798 was a year of great excitement: England was alone in
the struggle against Buonaparte; the mutiny at the Nore had only just
been quelled: the 3 per cent. Consols had been marked at 49 or 50; the
Gazettes were occupied with accounts of bloody captures of French ships;
Ireland may be said to have been in rebellion, and horrible murders
were committed there; the King sent a message to Parliament telling
it that an invasion might be expected and that it was to be assisted
by &ldquo;incendiaries&rdquo; at home; and the Archbishop of Canterbury
and eleven bishops passed a resolution declaring that if the French
should land, or a dangerous insurrection should break out, it would
be the duty of the clergy to take up arms against an enemy whom the
Bishop of Rochester described as &ldquo;instigated by that desperate
malignity against the Faith he has abandoned, which in all ages has
marked the horrible character of the vile apostate.&rdquo;</p>
<p>In the midst of this raving political excitement three human beings
were to be found who although they were certainly not unmoved by it,
were able to detach themselves from it when they pleased, and to seclude
themselves in a privacy impenetrable even to an echo of the tumult around
them.</p>
<p>In April or May, 1798, the <i>Nightingale</i> was written, and these
are the sights and sounds which were then in young Coleridge&rsquo;s
eyes and ears:-</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>&ldquo;No cloud, no relique of the sunken day<br />Distinguishes
the West, no long thin slip<br />Of sullen light, no obscure trembling
hues.<br />Come, we will rest on this old mossy bridge!<br />You see
the glimmer of the stream beneath,<br />But hear no murmuring: it flows
silently,<br />O&rsquo;er its soft bed of verdure.&nbsp; All is still,<br />A
balmy night! and tho&rsquo; the stars be dim,<br />Yet let us think
upon the vernal showers<br />That gladden the green earth, and we shall
find<br />A pleasure in the dimness of the stars.&rdquo;</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>We happen also to have Dorothy Wordsworth&rsquo;s journal for April
and May.&nbsp; Here are a few extracts from it:-</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>April 6th. - &ldquo;Went a part of the way home with Coleridge. .
. .&nbsp; The spring still advancing very slowly.&nbsp; The horse-chestnuts
budding, and the hedgerows beginning to look green, but nothing fully
expanded.&rdquo;</p>
<p>April 9th. - &ldquo;Walked to Stowey . . . The sloe in blossom, the
hawthorns green, the larches in the park changed from black to green
in two or three days.&nbsp; Met Coleridge in returning.&rdquo;</p>
<p>April 12th. - &ldquo; . . .&nbsp; The spring advances rapidly, multitudes
of primroses, dog-violets, periwinkles, stitchwort.&rdquo;</p>
<p>April 27th. - &ldquo;Coleridge breakfasted and drank tea, strolled
in the wood in the morning, went with him in the evening through the
wood, afterwards walked on the hills: the moon; a many-coloured sea
and sky.&rdquo;</p>
<p>May 6th, Sunday. - &ldquo;Expected the painter <a name="citation101"></a><a href="#footnote101">{101}</a>
and Coleridge.&nbsp; A rainy morning - very pleasant in the evening.&nbsp;
Met Coleridge as we were walking out.&nbsp; Went with him to Stowey;
heard the nightingale; saw a glow-worm.&rdquo;</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>What was it which these three young people (for Dorothy certainly
must be included as one of its authors) proposed to achieve by their
book?&nbsp; Coleridge, in the <i>Biographia Literaria</i>, says (vol.
ii. c. 1): &ldquo;During the first year that Mr. Wordsworth and I were
neighbours, our conversations turned frequently on the two cardinal
points of poetry, the power of exciting the sympathy of the reader by
a faithful adherence to the truth of nature, and the power of giving
the interest of novelty by the modifying colours of imagination.&nbsp;
The sudden charm, which accidents of light and shade, which moonlight
or sunset diffused over a known and familiar landscape, appeared to
represent the practicability of combining both.&nbsp; These are the
poetry of nature.&nbsp; The thought suggested itself - (to which of
us I do not recollect) - that a series of poems might be composed of
two sorts.&nbsp; In the one, the agents and incidents were to be, in
part at least, supernatural; and the excellence aimed at was to consist
in the interesting of the affections by the dramatic truth of such emotions,
as would naturally accompany such situations, supposing them real.&nbsp;
And real in this sense they have been to every human being who, from
whatever source of delusion, has at any time believed himself under
supernatural agency.&nbsp; For the second class, subjects were to be
chosen from ordinary life; the characters and incidents were to be such
as will be found in every village and its vicinity, where there is a
meditative and feeling mind to seek after them, or to notice them, when
they present themselves.</p>
<p>&ldquo;In this idea originated the plan of the LYRICAL BALLADS; in
which it was agreed, that my endeavours should be directed to persons
and characters supernatural, or at least romantic; yet so as to transfer
from our inward nature a human interest and a semblance of truth sufficient
to procure for these shadows of imagination that willing suspension
of disbelief for the moment, which constitutes poetic faith.&nbsp; Mr.
Wordsworth, on the other hand, was to propose to himself as his object,
to give the charm of novelty to things of everyday and to excite a feeling
<i>analogous to the supernatural</i>, <a name="citation103"></a><a href="#footnote103">{103}</a>
by awakening the mind&rsquo;s attention to the lethargy of custom, and
directing it to the loveliness and the wonders of the world before us;
an inexhaustible treasure, but for which, in consequence of the film
of familiarity and selfish solicitude we have eyes, yet see not, ears
that hear not, and hearts that neither feel nor understand.</p>
<p>&ldquo;With this view I wrote THE ANCIENT MARINER, and was preparing,
among other poems, THE DARK LADIE and the CHRISTABEL, in which I should
have more nearly have realised my ideal, than I had done in my first
attempt.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Coleridge, when he wrote to Cottle offering him the <i>Lyrical Ballads</i>,
affirms that &ldquo;the volumes offered to you are, to a certain degree,
<i>one work in kind</i>&rdquo; <a name="citation104a"></a><a href="#footnote104a">{104a}</a>
(<i>Reminiscences</i>, p. 179); and Wordsworth declares, &ldquo;I should
not, however, have requested this assistance, had I not believed that
the poems of my Friend would in a great measure <i>have the same tendency
as my own</i>, <a name="citation104b"></a><a href="#footnote104b">{104b}</a>
and that though there would be found a difference, there would be found
no discordance in the colours of our style; as our opinions on the subject
of poetry do almost entirely coincide&rdquo; (Preface to <i>Lyrical
Ballads</i>, 1800).</p>
<p>It is a point carefully to be borne in mind that we have the explicit
and contemporary authority of both poets that their aim was the same.</p>
<p>There are difficulties in the way of believing that <i>The Ancient
Mariner</i> was written for the <i>Lyrical Ballads</i>.&nbsp; It was
planned in 1797 and was originally intended for a magazine.&nbsp; Nevertheless,
it may be asserted that the purpose of <i>The Ancient Mariner</i> and
of <i>Christabel</i> (which was originally intended for the <i>Ballads</i>)
was, as their author said, <i>truth</i>, living truth.&nbsp; He was
the last man in the world to care for a story simply as a chain of events
with no significance, and in these poems the supernatural, by interpenetration
with human emotions, comes closer to us than an event of daily life.&nbsp;
In return the emotions themselves, by means of the supernatural expression,
gain intensity.&nbsp; The texture is so subtly interwoven that it is
difficult to illustrate the point by example, but take the following
lines:-</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>&ldquo;Alone, alone, all, all alone,<br />Alone on a wide wide sea!<br />And
never a saint took pity on<br />My soul in agony.</p>
<p>The many men, so beautiful!<br />And they all dead did lie:<br />And
a thousand thousand slimy things<br />Lived on; and so did I.</p>
<p><i>* * * *</i></p>
<p>The self-same moment I could pray:<br />And from my neck so free<br />The
Albatross fell off, and sank<br />Like lead into the sea.</p>
<p><i>* * *</i> *</p>
<p>And the hay was white with silent light<br />Till rising from the
same,<br />Full many shapes, that shadows were,<br />In crimson colours
came.</p>
<p>A little distance from the prow<br />Those crimson shadows were:<br />I
turned my eyes upon the deck -<br />Oh, Christ! what saw I there!</p>
<p>Each corse lay flat, lifeless and flat,<br />And, by the holy rood!<br />A
man all light, a seraph-man,<br />On every corse there stood.&rdquo;</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>Coleridge&rsquo;s marginal gloss to these last stanzas is &ldquo;The
angelic spirits leave the dead bodies, and appear in their own forms
of light.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Once more from <i>Christabel</i>:-</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>&ldquo;The maid, alas! her thoughts are gone,<br />She nothing sees
- no sight but one!<br />The maid, devoid of guile and sin,<br />I know
not how, in fearful wise,<br />So deeply had she drunken in<br />That
look, those shrunken serpent eyes,<br />That all her features were resigned<br />To
this sole image in her mind:<br />And passively did imitate<br />That
look of dull and treacherous hate.&rdquo;</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>What Wordsworth intended we have already heard from Coleridge, and
Wordsworth confirms him.&nbsp; It was, says the Preface of 1802, &ldquo;to
present ordinary things to the mind in an unusual way.&rdquo;&nbsp;
In Wordsworth the miraculous inherent in the commonplace, but obscured
by &ldquo;the film of familiarity,&rdquo; is restored to it.&nbsp; This
translation is effected by the imagination, which is not fancy nor dreaming,
as Wordsworth is careful to warn us, but that power by which we see
things as they are.&nbsp; The authors of <i>The Ancient Mariner</i>
and <i>Simon Lee</i> are justified in claiming a common object.&nbsp;
It is to prove that the metaphysical in Shakespeare&rsquo;s sense of
the word interpenetrates the physical, and serves to make us see and
feel it.</p>
<p>Poetry, if it is to be good for anything, must help us to live.&nbsp;
It is to this we come at last in our criticism, and if it does not help
us to live it may as well disappear, no matter what its fine qualities
may be.&nbsp; The help to live, however, that is most wanted is not
remedies against great sorrows.&nbsp; The chief obstacle to the enjoyment
of life is its dulness and the weariness which invades us because there
is nothing to be seen or done of any particular value.&nbsp; If the
supernatural becomes natural and the natural becomes supernatural, the
world regains its splendour and charm.&nbsp; Lines may be drawn from
their predecessors to Coleridge and the Wordsworths, but the work they
did was distinctly original, and renewed proof was given of the folly
of despair even when fertility seems to be exhausted.&nbsp; There is
always a hidden conduit open into an unknown region whence at any moment
streams may rush and renew the desert with foliage and flowers.</p>
<p>The reviews which followed the publication of the <i>Lyrical Ballads</i>
were nearly all unfavourable.&nbsp; Even Southey discovered nothing
in <i>The Ancient Mariner</i> but &ldquo;a Dutch attempt at German sublimity.&rdquo;&nbsp;
A certain learned pig thought it &ldquo;the strangest story of a cock
and bull that he ever saw on paper,&rdquo; and not a single critic,
not even the one or two who had any praise to offer, discerned the secret
of the book.&nbsp; The publisher was so alarmed that he hastily sold
his stock.&nbsp; Nevertheless Coleridge, Wordsworth, and his sister
quietly went off to Germany without the least disturbance of their faith,
and the <i>Ballads</i> are alive to this day.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h2>SOME NOTES ON MILTON</h2>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>Much of the criticism on Milton, if not hostile, is apologetic, and
it is considered quite correct to say we &ldquo;do not care&rdquo; for
him.&nbsp; Partly this indifference is due to his Nonconformity.&nbsp;
The &ldquo;superior&rdquo; Englishman who makes a jest of the doctrines
and ministers of the Established Church always pays homage to it because
it is <i>respectable</i>, and sneers at Dissent.&nbsp; Another reason
why Milton does not take his proper place is that his theme is a theology
which for most people is no longer vital.&nbsp; A religious poem if
it is to be deeply felt must embody a living faith.&nbsp; The great
poems of antiquity are precious to us in proportion to our acceptance,
now, as fact, of what they tell us about heaven and earth.&nbsp; There
are only a few persons at present who perceive that in substance the
account which was given in the seventeenth century of the relation between
man and God is immortal and worthy of epic treatment.&nbsp; A thousand
years hence a much better estimate of Milton will be possible than that
which can be formed to-day.&nbsp; We attribute to him mechanic construction
in dead material because it is dead to ourselves.&nbsp; Even Mr. Ruskin
who was far too great not to recognise in part at least Milton&rsquo;s
claims, says that &ldquo;Milton&rsquo;s account of the most important
event in his whole system of the universe, the fall of the angels, is
evidently unbelievable to himself; and the more so, that it is wholly
founded on, and in a great part spoiled and degraded from, Hesiod&rsquo;s
account of the decisive war of the younger gods with the Titans.&nbsp;
The rest of his poem is a picturesque drama, in which every artifice
of invention is visibly and consciously employed; not a single fact
being for an instant conceived as tenable by any living faith&rdquo;
(<i>Sesame and Lilies</i>, section iii.).</p>
<p>Mr. Mark Pattison, quoting part of this passage, remarks with justice,
&ldquo;on the contrary, we shall not rightly apprehend either the poetry
or the character of the poet until we feel that throughout <i>Paradise
Lost</i>, as in <i>Paradise Regained</i> and <i>Samson</i>, Milton felt
himself to be standing on the sure ground of fact and reality&rdquo;
(<i>English Men of Letters</i> - Milton, p. 186, ed. 1879).</p>
<p>St. Jude for ages had been sufficient authority for the angelic revolt,
and in a sense it was a reasonable dogma, for although it did not explain
the mystery of the origin of evil it pushed it a step further backwards,
and without such a revolt the Christian scheme does not well hold together.&nbsp;
So also with the entrance of the devil into the serpent.&nbsp; It is
not expressly taught in any passage of the canonical Scriptures, but
to the Church and to Milton it was as indisputable as the presence of
sin in the world.&nbsp; Milton, I repeat, <i>believed</i> in the framework
of his poem, and unless we can concede this to him we ought not to attempt
to criticise him.&nbsp; He was impelled to turn his religion into poetry
in order to bring it closer to him.&nbsp; The religion of every Christian
if it is real is a poem.&nbsp; He pictures a background of Holy Land
scenery, and he creates a Jesus who continually converses with him and
reveals to him much more than is found in the fragmentary details of
the Gospels.&nbsp; When Milton goes beyond his documents he does not
imagine for the purpose of filling up: the additions are expression.</p>
<p>Milton belonged to that order of poets whom the finite does not satisfy.&nbsp;
Like Wordsworth, but more eminently, he was &ldquo;powerfully affected&rdquo;
only by that &ldquo;which is conversant with or turns upon infinity,&rdquo;
and man is to him a being with such a relationship to infinity that
Heaven and Hell contend over him.&nbsp; Every touch which sets forth
the eternal glory of Heaven and the scarcely subordinate power of Hell
magnifies him.&nbsp; Johnson, whose judgment on Milton is unsatisfactory
because he will not deliver himself sufficiently to beauty which he
must have recognised, nevertheless says of the <i>Paradise Lost</i>,
that &ldquo;its end is to raise the thoughts above sublunary cares,&rdquo;
and this is true.&nbsp; The other great epic poems worthy to be compared
with Milton&rsquo;s, the Iliad, Odyssey, &AElig;neid, and Divine Comedy,
all agree in representing man as an object of the deepest solicitude
to the gods or God.&nbsp; Milton&rsquo;s conception of God is higher
than Homer&rsquo;s, Virgil&rsquo;s, or Dante&rsquo;s, but the care of
the Miltonic God for his offspring is greater, and the profound truth
unaffected by Copernican discoveries and common to all these poets is
therefore more impressive in Milton than in the others.</p>
<p>There is nothing which the most gifted of men can create that is
not mixed up with earth, and Milton, too, works it up with his gold.&nbsp;
The weakness of the <i>Paradise Lost</i> is not, as Johnson affirms,
its lack of human interest, for the <i>Prometheus Bound</i> has just
as little, nor is Johnson&rsquo;s objection worth anything that the
angels are sometimes corporeal and at other times independent of material
laws.&nbsp; Spirits could not be represented to a human mind unless
they were in a measure subject to the conditions of time and space.&nbsp;
The principal defect in <i>Paradise Lost</i> is the justification which
the Almighty gives of the creation of man with a liability to fall.&nbsp;
It would have been better if Milton had contented himself with telling
the story of the Satanic insurrection, of its suppression, of its author&rsquo;s
revenge, of the expulsion from Paradise, and the promise of a Redeemer.&nbsp;
But he wanted to &ldquo;justify the ways of God to man,&rdquo; and in
order to do this he thought it was necessary to show that man must be
endowed with freedom of will, and consequently could not be directly
preserved from yielding to the assaults of Satan.</p>
<p><i>Paradise Regained</i> comes, perhaps, closer to us than <i>Paradise
Lost</i> because its temptations are more nearly our own, and every
amplification which Milton introduces is designed to make them more
completely ours than they seem to be in the New Testament.&nbsp; It
has often been urged against <i>Paradise Regained</i> that Jesus recovered
Paradise for man by the Atonement and not merely by resistance to the
devil&rsquo;s wiles, but inasmuch as Paradise was lost by the devil&rsquo;s
triumph through human weakness it is natural that <i>Paradise Regained</i>
should present the triumph of the Redeemer&rsquo;s strength.&nbsp; It
is this victory which proves Jesus to be the Son of God and consequently
able to save us.</p>
<p>He who has now become incarnated for our redemption is that same
Messiah who, when He rode forth against the angelic rebels,</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&ldquo;into terror chang&rsquo;d<br />His count&rsquo;nance
too severe to be beheld,<br />And full of wrath bent on his enemies.&rdquo;</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>It is He who</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&ldquo;on his impious foes right onward drove,<br />Gloomy
as night:&rdquo;</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>whose right hand grasped</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&ldquo;ten thousand thunders, which he sent <br />Before
him, such as in their souls infix&rsquo;d<br />Plagues.&rdquo;<br />(<i>P.
L</i>. vi. 824-38.)</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>Now as Son of Man he is confronted with that same Archangel, and
he conquers by &ldquo;strong sufferance.&rdquo;&nbsp; He comes with
no fourfold visage of a charioteer flashing thick flames, no eye which
glares lightning, no victory eagle-winged and quiver near her with three-bolted
thunder stored, but in &ldquo;weakness,&rdquo; and with this he is to
&ldquo;overcome satanic strength.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Milton sees in the temptation to turn the stones into bread a devilish
incitement to use miraculous powers and not to trust the Heavenly Father.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>&ldquo;Why dost thou then suggest to me distrust,<br />Knowing who
I am, as I know who thou art?&rdquo;<br />(<i>P. R</i>. i. 355-6.)</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>Finding his enemy steadfast, Satan disappears,</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&ldquo;bowing low<br />His gray dissimulation,&rdquo;<br />(<i>P.
R</i>. i. 497-8.)</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>and calls to council his peers.&nbsp; He disregards the proposal
of Belial to attempt the seduction of Jesus with women.&nbsp; If he
is vulnerable it will be to objects</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&ldquo;such as have more shew<br />Of worth, of
honour, glory, and popular praise,<br />Rocks whereon greatest men have
oftest wreck&rsquo;d;<br />Or that which only seems to satisfy<br />Lawful
desires of Nature, not beyond.&rdquo;<br />(<i>P. R</i>. ii. 226-30.)</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>The former appeal is first of all renewed.&nbsp; &ldquo;Tell me,&rdquo;
says Satan,</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&ldquo;&lsquo;if food were now before thee set<br />Would&rsquo;st
thou not eat?&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;Thereafter as I like<br />The giver,&rsquo;
answered Jesus.&rdquo;<br />(<i>P. R</i>. ii. 320-22.)</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>A banquet is laid, and Satan invites Jesus to partake of it.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>&ldquo;What doubts the Son of God to sit and eat?<br />These are
not fruits forbidd&rsquo;n.&rdquo;<br />(<i>P. R</i>. ii. 368-9.)</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>But Jesus refuses to touch the devil&rsquo;s meat -</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>&ldquo;Thy pompous delicacies I contemn,<br />And count thy specious
gifts no gifts, but guiles.&rdquo;<br />(<i>P. R</i>. ii. 390-1.)</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>So they were, for at a word</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>&ldquo;Both table and provision vanish&rsquo;d quite, <br />With
sound of harpies&rsquo; wings and talons heard.&rdquo;<br />(<i>P. R</i>.
ii. 402-3.)</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>If but one grain of that enchanted food had been eaten, or one drop
of that enchanted liquor had been drunk, there would have been no Cross,
no Resurrection, no salvation for humanity.</p>
<p>The temptation on the mountain is expanded by Milton through the
close of the second book, the whole of the third and part of the fourth.&nbsp;
It is a temptation of peculiar strength because it is addressed to an
aspiration which Jesus has acknowledged.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&ldquo;Yet this not all<br />To which my spirit
aspir&rsquo;d: victorious deeds <br />Flam&rsquo;d in my heart, heroic
acts.&rdquo;<br />(<i>P. R</i>. i. 214-16.)</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>But he denies that the glory of mob-applause is worth anything.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&ldquo;What is glory but the blaze of fame,<br />The
people&rsquo;s praise, if always praise unmixt?<br />And what the people
but a herd confus&rsquo;d,<br />A miscellaneous rabble, who extol<br />Things
vulgar, and, well weigh&rsquo;d, scarce worth the praise?&rdquo;<br />(<i>P.
R</i>. iii. 47-51.)</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>To the Jesus of the New Testament this answer is, in a measure, inappropriate.&nbsp;
He would not have called the people &ldquo;a herd confus&rsquo;d, a
miscellaneous rabble.&rdquo;&nbsp; But although inappropriate it is
Miltonic.&nbsp; The devil then tries the Saviour with a more subtle
lure, an appeal to duty.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>&ldquo;If kingdom move thee not, let move thee zeal<br />And duty;
zeal and duty are not slow;<br />But on occasion&rsquo;s forelock watchful
wait.<br />They themselves rather are occasion best,<br />Zeal of thy
father&rsquo;s house, duty to free<br />Thy country from her heathen
servitude.&rdquo;<br />(<i>P. R</i>. iii. 171-6.)</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>But zeal and duty, the endeavour to hurry that which cannot and must
not be hurried may be a suggestion from hell.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>&ldquo;If of my reign prophetic writ hath told<br />That it shall
never end, so when begin<br />The Father in His purpose hath decreed.&rdquo;<br />(<i>P.
R</i>. iii. 184-6.)</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>Acquiescence, a conviction of the uselessness of individual or organised
effort to anticipate what only slow evolution can bring, is characteristic
of increasing years, and was likely enough to be the temper of Milton
when he had seen the failure of the effort to make actual on earth the
kingdom of Heaven.&nbsp; The temptation is developed in such a way that
every point supposed to be weak is attacked.&nbsp; &ldquo;You may be
what you claim to be,&rdquo; insinuates the devil, &ldquo;but are rustic.&rdquo;</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>&ldquo;Thy life hath yet been private, most part spent<br />At home,
scarce view&rsquo;d the Galilean towns, <br />And once a year Jerusalem.&rdquo;<br />(<i>P.
R</i>. iii. 232-4.)</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>Experience and alliances are plausibly urged as indispensable for
success.&nbsp; But Jesus knew that the sum total of a man&rsquo;s power
for good is precisely what of good there is in him and that if it be
expressed even in the simplest form, all its strength is put forth and
its office is fulfilled.&nbsp; To suppose that it can be augmented by
machinery is a foolish delusion.&nbsp; The</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&ldquo;projects deep<br />Of enemies, of aids,
battles and leagues, <br />Plausible to the world&rdquo;<br />(<i>P.
R</i>. iii. 395-3.)</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>are to the Founder of the kingdom not of this world &ldquo;worth
naught.&rdquo;&nbsp; Another side of the mountain is tried.&nbsp; Rome
is presented with Tiberius at Capre&aelig;.&nbsp; Could it possibly
be anything but a noble deed to</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&ldquo;expel this monster from his throne<br />Now
made a sty, and in his place ascending, <br />A victor people free from
servile yoke!&rdquo;<br />(<i>P. R</i>. iv. 100-102.)</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>&ldquo;<i>And with my help thou may&rsquo;st</i>.&rdquo;&nbsp; With
the devil&rsquo;s help and not without can this glorious revolution
be achieved!&nbsp; &ldquo;For him,&rdquo; is the Divine reply, &ldquo;I
was not sent.&rdquo;&nbsp; The attack is then directly pressed.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>&ldquo;The kingdoms of the world, to thee I give;<br />For, giv&rsquo;n
to me, I give to whom I please,<br />No trifle; yet with this reserve,
not else,<br />On this condition, if thou wilt fall down<br />And worship
me as thy superior lord.&rdquo;<br />(<i>P. R</i>. iv. 163-7.)</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>This, then, is the drift and meaning of it all.&nbsp; The answer
is taken verbally from the gospel.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&ldquo;&lsquo;Thou shalt worship<br />The Lord
thy God, and only Him shalt serve.&rsquo;&rdquo;<br />(<i>P. R</i>.
iv. 176-7.)</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>That is to say, Thou shalt submit thyself to God&rsquo;s commands
and God&rsquo;s methods and thou shalt submit thyself to <i>no other.</i></p>
<p>Omitting the Athenian and philosophic episode, which is unnecessary
and a little unworthy even of the Christian poet, we encounter not an
amplification of the Gospel story but an interpolation which is entirely
Milton&rsquo;s own.&nbsp; Night gathers and a new assault is delivered
in darkness.&nbsp; Jesus wakes in the storm which rages round Him.&nbsp;
The diabolic hostility is open and avowed and He hears the howls and
shrieks of the infernals.&nbsp; He cannot banish them though He is so
far master of Himself that He is able to sit &ldquo;unappall&rsquo;d
in calm and sinless peace.&rdquo;&nbsp; He has to endure the hellish
threats and tumult through the long black hours</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&ldquo;till morning fair<br />Came forth with pilgrim
steps in amice gray,<br />Who with her radiant finger still&rsquo;d
the roar<br />Of thunder, chas&rsquo;d the clouds, and laid the winds,<br />And
grisly spectres, which the Fiend had rais&rsquo;d<br />To tempt the
Son of God with terrors dire.<br />But now the sun with more effectual
beams<br />Had cheer&rsquo;d the face of earth, and dri&rsquo;d the
wet<br />From drooping plant, or dropping tree; the birds,<br />Who
all things now beheld more fresh and green,<br />After a night of storm
so ruinous,<br />Clear&rsquo;d up their choicest notes in bush and spray<br />To
gratulate the sweet return of morn.&rdquo;<br />(<i>P. R</i>. iv. 426-38.)</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>There is nothing perhaps in <i>Paradise Lost</i> which possesses
the peculiar quality of this passage, nothing which like these verses
brings into the eyes the tears which cannot be repressed when a profound
experience is set to music.</p>
<p>The temptation on the pinnacle occupies but a few lines only of the
poem.&nbsp; Hitherto Satan admits that Jesus had conquered, but he had
done no more than any wise and good man could do.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>&ldquo;Now show thy progeny; if not to stand,<br />Cast thyself down;
safely, if Son of God;<br />For it is written, &lsquo;He will give command<br />Concerning
thee to His angels; in their hands<br />They shall uplift thee, lest
at any time<br />Thou chance to dash thy foot against a stone.&rsquo;&rdquo;<br />(<i>P.
R</i>. iv. 554-9.)</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>The promise of Divine aid is made in mockery.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>&ldquo;To whom thus Jesus: &lsquo;Also it is written,<br />Tempt
not the Lord thy God.&rsquo;&nbsp; He said, and stood:<br />But Satan,
smitten with amazement, fell.&rdquo;<br />(<i>P. R</i>. iv. 560-2.)</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>It is not meant, &ldquo;thou shalt not tempt <i>me</i>,&rdquo; but
rather, &ldquo;it is not permitted me to tempt God.&rdquo;&nbsp; In
this extreme case Jesus depends on God&rsquo;s protection.&nbsp; This
is the devil&rsquo;s final defeat and the seraphic company for which
our great Example had refused to ask instantly surrounds and receives
him.&nbsp; Angelic quires</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&ldquo;the Son of God, our Saviour meek, <br />Sung
victor, and from heavenly feast refresh&rsquo;t, <br />Brought on His
way with joy; He unobserv&rsquo;d, <br />Home to His mother&rsquo;s
house private return&rsquo;d.&rdquo;<br />(<i>P. R</i>. iv. 636-9.)</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>Warton wished to expunge this passage, considering it an unworthy
conclusion.&nbsp; It is to be hoped that there are many readers of Milton
who are able to see what is the value of these four lines, particularly
of the last.</p>
<p>It is hardly necessary to say more in order to show how peculiarly
Milton is endowed with that quality which is possessed by all great
poets - the power to keep in contact with the soul of man.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h2>THE MORALITY OF BYRON&rsquo;S POETRY.&nbsp; &ldquo;THE CORSAIR.&rdquo;</h2>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>[This is an abstract of an essay four times as long written many
years ago.&nbsp; Although so much has been struck out, the substance
is unaltered, and the conclusion is valid for the author now as then.]</p>
<p>Byron above almost all other poets, at least in our day, has been
set down as immoral.&nbsp; In reality he is moral, using the word in
its proper sense, and he is so, not only in detached passages, but in
the general drift of most of his poetry.&nbsp; We will take as an example
&ldquo;The Corsair.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Conrad is not a debauched buccaneer.&nbsp; He was not -</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&ldquo;by Nature sent<br />To lead the guilty -
guilt&rsquo;s worst instrument.&rdquo;</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>He had been betrayed by misplaced confidence.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>&ldquo;Doom&rsquo;d by his very virtues for a dupe,<br />He cursed
those virtues as the cause of ill,<br />And not the traitors who betray&rsquo;d
him still;<br />Nor deem&rsquo;d that gifts bestow&rsquo;d on better
men<br />Had left him joy, and means to give again,<br />Fear&rsquo;d
- shunn&rsquo;d - belied - ere youth had lost her force,<br />He hated
man too much to feel remorse,<br />And thought the voice of wrath a
sacred call,<br />To pay the injuries of some on all.&rdquo;</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>Conrad was not, and could not be, mean and selfish.&nbsp; A selfish
Conrad would be an absurdity.&nbsp; His motives are not gross -</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&ldquo;he shuns the grosser joys of sense,<br />&ldquo;His
mind seems nourished by that abstinence.&rdquo;</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>He is protected by a charm against undistinguishing lust -</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>&ldquo;Though fairest captives daily met his eye,<br />He shunn&rsquo;d,
nor sought, but coldly pass&rsquo;d them by;&rdquo;</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>and even Gulnare, his deliverer, fails to seduce him.</p>
<p>Mr. Ruskin observes that Byron makes much of courage.&nbsp; It is
Conrad, the leader, who undertakes the dangerous errand of surprising
Seyd; it is he who determines to save the harem.&nbsp; His courage is
not the mere excitement of battle.&nbsp; When he is captured -</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>&ldquo;A conqueror&rsquo;s more than captive&rsquo;s air is seen,&rdquo;</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>and he is not insensible to all fear.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>&ldquo;Each has some fear, and he who least betrays, <br />The only
hypocrite deserving praise.</p>
<p>* * * * *</p>
<p>One thought alone he could not - dared not meet - <br />&lsquo;Oh,
how these tidings will Medora greet?&rsquo;&rdquo;</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>Gulnare announces his doom to him, hut he is calm.&nbsp; He cannot
stoop even to pray.&nbsp; He has deserted his Maker, and it would be
baseness now to prostrate himself before Him.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>&ldquo;I have no thought to mock his throne with prayer <br />Wrung
from the coward crouching of despair;<br />It is enough - I breathe
- and I can bear.&rdquo;</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>He has no martyr-hope with which to console himself; his endurance
is of the finest order - simple, sheer resolution, a resolve that with
no reward, he will never disgrace himself.&nbsp; He knows what it is</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>&ldquo;To count the hours that struggle to thine end, <br />With
not a friend to animate, and tell<br />To other ears that death became
thee well,&rdquo;</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>but he does not break down.</p>
<p>Gulnare tries to persuade him that the only way by which he can save
himself from tortures and impalement is by the assassination of Seyd,
but he refuses to accept the terms -</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>&ldquo;Who spares a woman&rsquo;s seeks not slumber&rsquo;s life&rdquo;
-</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>and dismisses her.&nbsp; When she has done the deed and he sees the
single spot of blood upon her, he, the Corsair, is unmanned as he had
never been in battle, prison, or by consciousness of guilt.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>&ldquo;But ne&rsquo;er from strife - captivity - remorse - <br />From
all his feelings in their inmost force - <br />So thrill&rsquo;d - so
shudder&rsquo;d every creeping vein,<br />As now they froze before that
purple stain.<br />That spot of blood, that light but guilty streak,<br />Had
banish&rsquo;d all the beauty from her cheek!&rdquo;</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>The Corsair&rsquo;s misanthropy had not destroyed him.&nbsp; Small
creatures alone are wholly converted into spite and scepticism by disappointment
and repulse.&nbsp; Those who are larger avenge themselves by devotion.&nbsp;
Conrad&rsquo;s love for Medora was intensified and exalted by his hatred
of the world.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>&ldquo;Yes, it was Love - unchangeable - unchanged, <br />Felt but
for one from whom he never ranged;&rdquo;</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>and she was worthy of him, the woman who could sing -</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>&ldquo;Deep in my soul that tender secret dwells,<br />Lonely and
lost to light for evermore, <br />Save when to thine my heart responsive
swells, <br />Then trembles into silence as before.</p>
<p>There, in its centre, a sepulchral lamp<br />Burns the slow flame,
eternal - but unseen;<br />Which not the darkness of despair can damp,<br />Though
vain its ray as it had never been.&rdquo;</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>He finds Medora dead, and -</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&ldquo;his mother&rsquo;s softness crept<br />To
those wild eyes, which like an infant&rsquo;s wept.&rdquo;</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>If his crimes and love could be weighed in a celestial balance, weight
being apportioned to the rarity and value of the love, which would descend?</p>
<p>The points indicated in Conrad&rsquo;s character are not many, but
they are sufficient for its delineation, and it is a moral character.&nbsp;
We must, of course, get rid of the notion that the relative magnitude
of the virtues and vices according to the priest or society is authentic.&nbsp;
A reversion to the natural or divine scale has been almost the sole
duty preached to us by every prophet.&nbsp; If we could incorporate
Conrad with ourselves we should find that the greater part of what is
worst in us would be neutralised.&nbsp; The sins of which we are ashamed,
the dirty, despicable sins, Conrad could not have committed; and in
these latter days they are perhaps the most injurious.</p>
<p>We do not understand how moral it is to yield unreservedly to enthusiasm,
to the impression which great objects would fain make upon us, and to
embody that impression in worthy language.&nbsp; It is rare to meet
now even with young people who will abandon themselves to a heroic emotion,
or who, if they really feel it, do not try to belittle it in expression.&nbsp;
Byron&rsquo;s poetry, above most, tempts and almost compels surrender
to that which is beyond the commonplace self.</p>
<p>It is not true that &ldquo;The Corsair&rdquo; is insincere.&nbsp;
He who hears a note of insincerity in Conrad and Medora may have ears,
but they must be those of the translated Bottom who was proud of having
&ldquo;a reasonable good ear in music.&rdquo;&nbsp; Byron&rsquo;s romance
has been such a power exactly because men felt that it was not fiction
and that his was one of the strongest minds of his day.&nbsp; He was
incapable of toying with the creatures of the fancy which had no relationship
with himself and through himself with humanity.</p>
<p>A word as to Byron&rsquo;s hold upon the people.&nbsp; He was able
to obtain a hearing from ordinary men and women, who knew nothing even
of Shakespeare, save what they had seen at the theatre.&nbsp; Modern
poetry is the luxury of a small cultivated class.&nbsp; We may say what
we like of popularity, and if it be purchased by condescension to popular
silliness it is nothing.&nbsp; But Byron secured access to thousands
of readers in England and on the Continent by strength and loveliness,
a feat seldom equalled and never perhaps surpassed.&nbsp; The present
writer&rsquo;s father, a compositor in a dingy printing office, repeated
verses from &ldquo;Childe Harold&rdquo; at the case.&nbsp; Still more
remarkable, Byron reached one of this writer&rsquo;s friends, an officer
in the Navy, of the ancient stamp; and the attraction, both to printer
and lieutenant, lay in nothing lower than that which was best in him.&nbsp;
It is surely a service sufficient to compensate for many more faults
than can be charged against him that wherever there was any latent poetic
dissatisfaction with the vulgarity and meanness of ordinary life he
gave it expression, and that he has awakened in the <i>people</i> lofty
emotions which, without him, would have slept.&nbsp; The cultivated
critics, and the refined persons who have <i>schrecklich viel gelesen</i>,
are not competent to estimate the debt we owe to Byron.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h2>BYRON, GOETHE, AND MR. MATTHEW ARNOLD</h2>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>(<i>Reprinted, with corrections, by permission from the</i> &ldquo;<i>Contemporary
Review</i>,&rdquo; <i>August</i>, 1881.)</p>
<p>Mr. Matthew Arnold has lately published a remarkable essay <a name="citation133"></a><a href="#footnote133">{133}</a>
upon Lord Byron.&nbsp; Mr. Arnold&rsquo;s theory about Byron is, that
he is neither artist nor thinker - that &ldquo;he has no light, cannot
lead us from the past to the future;&rdquo; &ldquo;the moment he reflects,
he is a child;&rdquo; &ldquo;as a poet he has no fine and exact sense
for word and structure and rhythm; he has not the artist&rsquo;s nature
and gifts.&rdquo;&nbsp; The excellence of Byron mainly consists in his
&ldquo;sincerity and strength;&rdquo; in his rhetorical power; in his
&ldquo;irreconcilable revolt and battle&rdquo; against the political
and social order of things in which he lived.&nbsp; &ldquo;Byron threw
himself upon poetry as his organ; and in poetry his topics were not
Queen Mab, and the Witch of the Atlas, and the Sensitive Plant, they
were the upholders of the old order, George the Third and Lord Castlereagh
and the Duke of Wellington and Southey, and they were the canters and
tramplers of the great world, and they were his enemies and himself.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Mr. Arnold appeals to Goethe as an authority in his favour.&nbsp;
In order, therefore, that English people may know what Goethe thought
about Byron I have collected some of the principal criticisms upon him
which I can find in Goethe&rsquo;s works.&nbsp; The text upon which
Mr. Arnold enlarges is the remark just quoted which Goethe made about
Byron to Eckermann: &ldquo;<i>so bald er reflectirt ist er ein Kind</i>&rdquo;
- <i>as soon as he reflects he is a child.</i></p>
<p>Goethe, it is true, did say this; but the interpretation of the saying
depends upon the context, which Mr. Arnold omits.&nbsp; I give the whole
passage, quoting from Oxenford&rsquo;s translation of the <i>Eckermann
Conversations</i>, vol. i. p. 198 (edition 1850):-</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>&ldquo;&lsquo;Lord Byron,&rsquo; said Eckermann, &lsquo;is no wiser
when he takes &lsquo;Faust&rsquo; to pieces and thinks you found one
thing here, the other there.&rsquo;&nbsp; &lsquo;The greater part of
those fine things cited by Lord Byron,&rsquo; Goethe replied, &lsquo;I
have never even read; much less did I think of them when I was writing
&ldquo;Faust.&rdquo;&nbsp; But Lord Byron is only great as a poet; as
soon as he reflects he is a child.&nbsp; He knows not how to help himself
against the stupid attacks of the same kind made upon him by his own
countrymen.&nbsp; He ought to have expressed himself more strongly against
them.&nbsp; &lsquo;What is there is mine,&rsquo; he should have said,
&lsquo;and whether I got it from a book or from life is of no consequence;
the only point is, whether I have made a right use of it.&rsquo;&nbsp;
Walter Scott used a scene from my &lsquo;Egmont,&rsquo; and he had a
right to do so; and because he did it well, he deserves praise.&rsquo;&rdquo;</p>
<p>Goethe certainly does not mean that Byron was unable to reflect in
the sense in which Mr. Arnold interprets the word.&nbsp; What was really
meant we shall see in a moment.</p>
<p>We will, however, continue the quotations from the <i>Eckermann</i>:-</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>&ldquo;We see how the inadequate dogmas of the Church work upon a
free mind like Byron&rsquo;s and how by such a piece (&lsquo;Cain&rsquo;)
he struggles to get rid of a doctrine which has been forced upon him&rdquo;
(vol. i. p. 129).</p>
<p>&ldquo;The world to him was transparent, and he could paint by way
of anticipation&rdquo; (vol. i. p. 140).</p>
<p>&ldquo;That which I call invention I never saw in any one in the
world to a greater degree than in him&rdquo; (vol. i. p. 205).</p>
<p>&ldquo;Lord Byron is to be regarded as a man, as an Englishman, and
as a great talent.&nbsp; His good qualities belong chiefly to the man,
his bad to the Englishman and the peer, his talent is incommensurable.&nbsp;
All Englishmen are, as such, without reflection properly so-called;
distractions and party-spirit will not permit them to perfect themselves
in quiet.&nbsp; But they are great as practical men.&nbsp; Thus, Lord
Byron could never attain reflection on himself, and on this account
his maxims in general are not successful. . . .&nbsp; But where he will
create, he always succeeds; and we may truly say that, with him, inspiration
supplies the place of reflection.&nbsp; He was always obliged to go
on poetizing, and then everything that came from the man, especially
from his heart, was excellent.&nbsp; He produced his best things, as
women do pretty children, without thinking about it, or knowing how
it was done.&nbsp; He is a great talent, a born talent, and I never
saw the true poetical power greater in any man than in him.&nbsp; In
the apprehension of external objects, and a clear penetration into past
situations, he is quite as great as Shakespeare.&nbsp; But as a pure
individuality, Shakespeare is his superior&rdquo; (vol. i. p. 209).</p>
<p>We see now what Goethe means by &ldquo;reflection.&rdquo;&nbsp; It
is the faculty of self-separation, or conscious <i>consideration</i>,
a faculty which would have enabled Byron, as it enabled Goethe, to reply
successfully to a charge of plagiarism.&nbsp; It is not thought in its
widest sense, nor creation, and it has not much to do with the production
of poems of the highest order - the poems that is to say, which are
written by the impersonal thought.</p>
<p>But again - </p>
<p>&ldquo;The English may think of Byron as they please; but this is
certain, that they can show no poet who is to be compared to him.&nbsp;
He is different from all the others, and for the most part, greater&rdquo;
(vol. i. p. 290).</p>
<p>This passage is one which Mr. Arnold quotes, and he strives to diminish
its importance by translating <i>der ihm zu vergleichen w&auml;re</i>,
by &ldquo;who is his parallel,&rdquo; and maintains that Goethe &ldquo;was
not so much thinking of the strict rank, as poetry, of Byron&rsquo;s
production; he was thinking of that wonderful personality of Byron which
so enters into his poetry.&rdquo;&nbsp; It is just possible; but if
Goethe did think this, he used words which are misleading, and if the
phrase <i>der ihm zu vergleichen w&auml;re</i> simply indicates parallelism,
it has no point, for in that sense it might have been applied to Scott
or to Southey.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I have read once more Byron&rsquo;s &lsquo;Deformed Transformed,&rsquo;
and must say that to me his talent appears greater than ever.&nbsp;
His devil was suggested by my Mephistopheles; but it is no imitation
- it is thoroughly new and original; close, genuine, and spirited.&nbsp;
There are no weak passages - not a place where you could put the head
of a pin, where you do not find <i>invention and thought</i> [italics
mine].&nbsp; Were it not for his hypochondriacal negative turn, he would
be as great as Shakespeare and the ancients&rdquo; (vol. i. p. 294).</p>
<p>Eckermann expressed his surprise.&nbsp; &ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said Goethe,
&ldquo;you may believe me, I have studied him anew and am confirmed
in this opinion.&rdquo;&nbsp; The position which Byron occupies in the
Second Part of &ldquo;Faust&rdquo; is well known.&nbsp; Eckermann talked
to Goethe about it, and Goethe said, &ldquo;I could not make use of
any man as the representative of the modern poetical era except him,
who undoubtedly is to be regarded as the greatest genius of our century&rdquo;
(vol. i. p. 425).&nbsp; Mr. Arnold translates this word &ldquo;genius&rdquo;
by &ldquo;talent.&rdquo;&nbsp; The word in the original is <i>talent</i>,
and I will not dispute with so accomplished a German scholar as Mr.
Arnold as to what is the precise meaning of <i>talent</i>.&nbsp; In
both the English translations of Eckermann the word is rendered &ldquo;genius,&rdquo;
and after the comparison between Byron, Shakespeare, and the ancients
just quoted, we can hardly admit that Goethe meant to distinguish scientifically
between the two orders of intellect and to assign the lower to Byron.</p>
<p>But, last of all, I will translate Goethe&rsquo;s criticism upon
&ldquo;Cain.&rdquo;&nbsp; So far as I know, it has not yet appeared
in English.&nbsp; It is to be found in the Stuttgart and T&uuml;bingen
edition of Goethe, 1840, vol. xxxiii. p. 157.&nbsp; Some portions which
are immaterial I have omitted:-</p>
<p>&ldquo;After I had listened to the strangest things about this work
for almost a year, I at last took it myself in hand, and it excited
in me astonishment and admiration; an effect which will produce in the
mind which is simply susceptible, everything good, beautiful, and great.
. . .&nbsp; The poet who, surpassing the limit of all our conceptions,
has penetrated with burning spiritual vision the past and present, and
consequently the future, has now subdued new regions under his limitless
talent, but what he will accomplish therein can be predicted by no human
being.&nbsp; His procedure, however, we can nevertheless in a measure
more closely determine.&nbsp; He adheres to the letter of the Biblical
tradition, for he allows the first pair of human beings to exchange
their original purity and innocence for a guilt mysterious in its origin;
the punishment which is its consequence descending upon all posterity.&nbsp;
The monstrous burden of such an event he lays upon the shoulders of
Cain as the representative of a wretched humanity, plunged for no fault
of its own into the depths of misery.</p>
<p>&ldquo;To this primitive son of man, bowed down and heavily burdened,
death, which as yet he has not seen, is an especial trouble; and although
he may desire the end of his present distress, it seems still more hateful
to exchange it for a condition altogether unknown.&nbsp; Hence we already
see that the full weight of a dogmatic system, explaining, mediating,
yet always in conflict with itself, just as it still for ever occupies
us, was imposed on the first miserable son of man.&nbsp; These contradictions,
which are not strange to human nature, possessed his mind, and could
not be brought to rest, either through the divinely-given gentleness
of his father and brother, or the loving and alleviating co-operation
of his sister-wife.&nbsp; In order to sharpen them to the point of impossibility
of endurance, Satan comes upon the scene, a mighty and misleading spirit,
who begins by unsettling him morally, and then conducts him miraculously
through all worlds, causing him to see the past as overwhelmingly vast,
the present as small and of no account, and the future as full of foreboding
and void of consolation.</p>
<p>&ldquo;So he turns back to his own family, more excited, but not
worse than before; and finding in the family circle everything as he
has left it, the urgency of Abel, who wishes to make him offer a sacrifice,
becomes altogether insupportable.&nbsp; More say we not, excepting that
the motivation of the scene in which Abel perishes is of the rarest
excellence, and what follows is equally great and priceless.&nbsp; There
now lies Abel!&nbsp; That now is Death - there was so much talk about
it, and man knows about it as little as he did before.</p>
<p>&ldquo;We must not forget, that through the whole piece there runs
a kind of presentiment of a Saviour, so that the poet at this point,
as well as in all others, has known how to bring himself near to the
ideas by which we explain things, and to our modes of faith.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Of the scene with the parents, in which Eve at last curses
the speechless Cain, which our western neighbour lifts into such striking
prominence, there remains nothing more for us to say: we have to approach
the conclusion with astonishment and reverence.</p>
<p>&ldquo;With regard to this conclusion, an intelligent and fair friend,
related to us through esteem for Byron, has asserted that everything
religious and moral in the world was put into the last three words of
the piece.&rdquo; <a name="citation143"></a><a href="#footnote143">{143}</a></p>
<p>We have now heard enough from Goethe to prove that Mr. Arnold&rsquo;s
interpretation of &ldquo;<i>so bald er reflectirt ist er ein Kind</i>&rdquo;
is not Goethe&rsquo;s interpretation of Byron.&nbsp; It is to be remembered
that Goethe was not a youth overcome by Mr. Arnold&rsquo;s &ldquo;vogue&rdquo;
when he read Byron.&nbsp; He was a singularly self-possessed old man.</p>
<p>Many persons will be inclined to think that Goethe, so far from putting
Byron on a lower level than that usually assigned to him, has over-praised
him, and will question the &ldquo;burning spiritual vision&rdquo; which
the great German believed the great Englishman to possess.&nbsp; But
if we consider what Goethe calls the &ldquo;motivation&rdquo; of Cain;
if we reflect on what the poet has put into the legend; on the exploration
of the universe with Lucifer as a guide; on its result, on the mode
in which the death of Abel is reached; on the doom of the murderer -
the limitless wilderness henceforth and no rest; on the fidelity of
Adah, who, with the true instinct of love, separates between the man
and the crime; on the majesty of the principal character, who stands
before us as the representative of the insurgence of the human intellect,
so that, if we know him, we know a whole literature; if we meditate
hereon, we shall say that Goethe has not exaggerated.&nbsp; It is the
same with the rest of Byron&rsquo;s dramas.&nbsp; Over and above the
beauty of detached passages, there is in each one of them a large and
universal meaning, or rather meaning within meaning, precisely the same
for no reader, but none the less certain, and as inexhaustible as the
meanings of Nature.&nbsp; This is one reason why the wisdom of a selection
from Byron is so doubtful.&nbsp; The worth of &ldquo;Cain,&rdquo; of
&ldquo;Sardanapalus,&rdquo; of &ldquo;Manfred,&rdquo; of &ldquo;Marino
Faliero,&rdquo; is the worth of an outlook over the sea; and we cannot
take a sample of the scene from a cliff by putting a pint of water into
a bottle.&nbsp; But Byron&rsquo;s critics and the compilers tell us
of failures, which ought not to survive, and that we are doing a kindness
to him if we suppress these and exhibit him at his best.&nbsp; No man
who seriously cares for Byron will assent to this doctrine.&nbsp; We
want to know the whole of him, his weakness as well as his strength;
for the one is not intelligible without the other.&nbsp; A human being
is an indivisible unity, and his weakness <i>is</i> his strength, and
his strength <i>is</i> his weakness.</p>
<p>It is not my object now, however, to justify what Mr. Arnold calls
the Byronic &ldquo;superstition.&rdquo;&nbsp; I hope I could justify
a good part of it, but this is not the opportunity.&nbsp; I cannot resist,
however, saying a word by way of conclusion on the manner in which Byron
has fulfilled what seems to me one of the chief offices of the poet.&nbsp;
Mr. Arnold, although he is so dissatisfied with Byron because he &ldquo;cannot
reflect,&rdquo; would probably in another mood admit that &ldquo;reflections&rdquo;
are not what we demand of a poet.&nbsp; We do not ask of him a rhymed
book of proverbs.&nbsp; He should rather be the articulation of what
in Nature is great but inarticulate.&nbsp; In him the thunder, the sea,
the peace of morning, the joy of youth, the rush of passion, the calm
of old age, should find words, and men should through him become aware
of the unrecognised wealth of existence.&nbsp; Byron had the power above
most poets of acting as a kind of tongue to Nature.&nbsp; His descriptions
are on everybody&rsquo;s lips, and it is superfluous to quote them.&nbsp;
He represented things not as if they were aloof from him, but as if
they were the concrete embodiment of his soul.&nbsp; The woods, the
wilds, the waters of Nature are to him -</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>&ldquo;the intense<br />Reply of <i>hers</i> to our intelligence.&rdquo;</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>His success is equally marked when he portrays men or women whose
character attracts him.&nbsp; Take, for example, the girl in &ldquo;The
Island&rdquo;:-</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>&ldquo;The sunborn blood suffused her neck, and threw<br />O&rsquo;er
her clear nutbrown skin a lucid hue,<br />Like coral reddening through
the darken&rsquo;d wave,<br />Which draws the diver to the crimson cave.<br />Such
was this daughter of the southern seas,<br /><i>Herself a billow in
her energies</i>.</p>
<p>* * * * *</p>
<p>Her smiles and tears had pass&rsquo;d, as light winds pass<br />O&rsquo;er
lakes to ruffle, not destroy, their glass,<br /><i>Whose depths unsearch&rsquo;d,
and fountains from the hill,<br />Restore their surface, in itself so
still</i>.&rdquo;</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>Passages like these might be quoted without end from Byron, and they
explain why he is and must be amongst the immortals.&nbsp; He may have
been careless in expression; he may have been a barbarian and not a
&epsilon;&upsilon;&phi;&upsilon;&eta;&sigmaf;, as Mr. Matthew Arnold
affirms, but he was <i>great</i>.&nbsp; This is the word which describes
him.&nbsp; He was a mass of living energy, and therefore he is sanative.&nbsp;
Energy, power, is the one thing after which we pine in this sickly age.&nbsp;
We do not want carefully and consciously constructed poems of mosaic.&nbsp;
Strength is what we need and what will heal us.&nbsp; Strength is true
morality, and true beauty.&nbsp; It is the strength in Byron that falsifies
the accusation of affectation and posing, which is brought against him.&nbsp;
All that is meant by affectation and posing was a mere surface trick.&nbsp;
The real man, Byron, and his poems are perfectly unconscious, as unconscious
as the wind.&nbsp; The books which have lived and always will live have
this unconsciousness in them, and what is manufactured, self-centred,
and self-contemplative will perish.&nbsp; The world&rsquo;s literature
is the work of men, who, to use Byron&rsquo;s own words -</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>&ldquo;Strip off this fond and false identity;&rdquo;</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>who are lost in their object, who write because they cannot help
it, imperfectly or perfectly, as the case may be, and who do not sit
down to fit in this thing and that thing from a commonplace book.&nbsp;
Many novelists there are who know their art better than Charlotte Bront&euml;,
but she, like Byron - and there are more points of resemblance between
them than might at first be supposed - is imperishable because she speaks
under overwhelming pressure, self-annihilated, we may say, while the
spirit breathes through her.&nbsp; The Byron &ldquo;vogue&rdquo; will
never pass so long as men and women are men and women.&nbsp; Mr. Arnold
and the critics may remind us of his imperfections of form, but Goethe
is right after all, for not since Shakespeare have we had any one <i>der
ihm zu vergleichen w&auml;re.</i></p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h2>A SACRIFICE</h2>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>A fatal plague devastated the city.&nbsp; The god had said that it
would continue to rage until atonement for a crime had been offered
by the sacrifice of a man.&nbsp; He was to be perfect in body; he must
not desire to die because he no longer loved life, or because he wished
for fame.&nbsp; A statue must not be erected to his memory; no poem
must be composed for him; his name must not appear in the city&rsquo;s
records.</p>
<p>A few volunteers presented themselves, but none of them satisfied
all the conditions.&nbsp; At last a young man came who had served as
the model for the image of the god in his temple.&nbsp; There was no
question, therefore, of soundness of limb, and when he underwent the
form of examination no spot nor blemish was found on him.&nbsp; The
priest asked him whether he was in trouble, and especially whether he
was disappointed in love.&nbsp; He said he was in no trouble; that he
was betrothed to a girl to whom he was devoted, and that they had intended
to be married that month.&nbsp; &ldquo;I am,&rdquo; he declared, &ldquo;the
happiest man in the city.&rdquo;&nbsp; The priest doubted and watched
him that evening, but he saw him walking side by side with this girl,
and the two were joyous as a youth and a maiden ought to be in the height
of their passion.&nbsp; She sat down and sang to him he played to her,
and they embraced one another tenderly at parting.</p>
<p>The next morning was the day on which he was to be slain.&nbsp; There
was an altar in front of the temple, and a great crowd assembled, ranked
round the open space.&nbsp; At the appointed hour the priest appeared,
and with him was the youth, holding his beloved by the hand, but she
was blindfolded.&nbsp; He let go her hand, knelt down, and in a moment
the sacrificial knife was drawn across his throat.&nbsp; His body was
placed upon the wood, and the priest was about to kindle it when a flash
from heaven struck it into a blaze with such heat that when the fire
dropped no trace of the victim remained.&nbsp; The girl, too, had disappeared,
and was never seen again.</p>
<p>In accordance with the god&rsquo;s decree, no statue was erected,
no poem was composed, and no entry was made in the city records.&nbsp;
But tradition did not forget that the saviour of the city was he who
survived in the great image on which the name of the god was inscribed.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h2>THE AGED TREE</h2>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>An aged tree, whose companions had gone, having still a little sap
in its bark and a few leaves which grew therefrom, prayed it might see
yet another spring.&nbsp; Its prayer was granted: and spring came, but
the old tree had no leaves save one or two near the ground, and a great
fungus fixed itself on its trunk.&nbsp; It had a dull life in its roots,
but not enough to know that its moss and fungus were not foliage.&nbsp;
It stood there, an unlovely mass of decay, when the young trees were
all bursting.&nbsp; &ldquo;That rotten thing,&rdquo; said the master,
&ldquo;ought to have been cut down long ago.&rdquo;</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h2>CONSCIENCE</h2>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>&ldquo;Conscience,&rdquo; said I, &ldquo;her conscience would have
told her.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Yes,&rdquo; said my father.&nbsp; &ldquo;The strongest amongst
the many objections to the Roman Catholic doctrine of confession is
that it weakens our dependence on the conscience.&nbsp; If we seek for
an external command to do what ought to be done in obedience to that
inward monitor, whose voice is always clear if we will but listen, its
authority will gradually be lost, and in the end it will cease to speak.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Conscience,&rdquo; said my grandmother musingly (turning to
my father).&nbsp; &ldquo;You will remember Phyllis Eyre?&nbsp; She was
one of my best friends, and it is now two years since she died, unmarried.&nbsp;
She was once governess to the children of Sir Robert Walsh, but remained
in the house as companion to Lady Walsh long after her pupils had grown
up.&nbsp; She was, in fact, more than a companion, for Lady Walsh trusted
her and loved her.&nbsp; She was by birth a lady; she had been well
educated, and, like her mistress, she was devoutly and evangelically
pious.&nbsp; She was also very handsome, and this you may well believe,
for, as you know, she was handsome as an old woman, stately and erect,
with beautiful, undimmed eyes.&nbsp; When Evelina Walsh, the eldest
daughter, was about one and twenty, Charles Fysshe, the young heir to
the Fysshe property, came to stay with her brother, and Phyllis soon
discovered, or thought she discovered, that he was in love with Evelina.&nbsp;
He seemed to court her society, and paid her attentions which could
be explained on one hypothesis only.&nbsp; Phyllis was delighted, for
the match in every way was most suitable, and must gladden the hearts
of Evelina&rsquo;s parents.&nbsp; The young man would one day be the
possessor of twenty thousand acres; he had already taken a position
in the county, and his soul was believed to be touched with Divine grace.&nbsp;
Evelina certainly was in love with him, and Phyllis was not backward
in urging his claims.&nbsp; She congratulated herself, and with justice,
that if the marriage should ever take place, it would be acknowledged
that she had had a hand in it.&nbsp; It might even be doubted whether
Evelina, without Phyllis&rsquo;s approval, would have permitted herself
to indulge her passion, for she was by nature diffident, and so beset
with reasons for and against when she had to make up her mind on any
important matter, that a decision was always most difficult to her.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Charles stayed for about six weeks, and was then called home.&nbsp;
He promised that he would pay another visit of a week in the autumn,
when Sir Robert was to entertain the Lord Lieutenant and there were
to be grand doings at the Hall.&nbsp; Conversation naturally turned
upon him during his absence, and Phyllis, as usual, was warm in his
praise.&nbsp; One evening, after she had reached her own room and had
lain down to sleep, a strange apparition surprised her.&nbsp; It was
something more than a suspicion that she herself loved Charles.&nbsp;
She strove to rid herself of this intrusion: she called to mind the
difference in their rank; that she was five years his senior, and that
if she yielded she would be guilty of treachery to Evelina.&nbsp; It
was all in vain; the more she resisted the more vividly did his image
present itself, and she was greatly distressed.&nbsp; What was the meaning
of this outbreak of emotion, not altogether spiritual, of this loss
of self-possession, such as she had never known before?&nbsp; Her usual
remedies against evil thoughts failed her, and, worst of all, there
was the constant suggestion that these particular thoughts were not
evil.&nbsp; Hitherto, when temptation had attacked her, she was sure
whence it came, but she was not sure now.&nbsp; It might be an interposition
of Providence, but how would it appear to Evelina?&nbsp; I myself, my
dears, have generally found that to resist the devil is not difficult
if I am quite certain that the creature before me is the devil, but
it does tax my wits sometimes to find out if he is really the enemy
or not.&nbsp; When Apollyon met Christian he was not in doubt for an
instant, for the monster was hideous to behold: he had scales like a
fish, wings like a dragon, feet like a bear, out of his belly came fire
and smoke, and his mouth was as the mouth of a lion.&nbsp; After some
parleying he cast his dreadful dart, but Christian, without more ado,
put up his shield, drew his sword, and presently triumphed.&nbsp; If
Satan had turned himself, from his head to his ankles, into a man, and
had walked by Christian&rsquo;s side, and had talked with him, and had
agreed with him in everything he had to say, the bear&rsquo;s claws
might have peeped out, but Christian, instead of fighting, would have
begun to argue with himself whether the evidence of the face or the
foot was the stronger.&nbsp; He would have been just as likely to trust
the face, and in a few moments he would have been snapped up and carried
off to hell.&nbsp; To go on with my story: the night wore on in sophistry
and struggle, and no inner light dawned with the sun.&nbsp; Phyllis
was much agitated, for in the afternoon Charles was to return, and although
amidst the crowd of visitors she might be overlooked, she could not
help seeing him.&nbsp; She did see him, but did not speak to him.&nbsp;
He sat next to Evelina at dinner, who was happy and expectant.&nbsp;
The next day there was a grand meet of the hounds, and almost all the
party disappeared.&nbsp; Phyllis pleaded a headache, and obtained permission
to stay at home.&nbsp; It was a lovely morning in November, without
a movement in the air, calm and cloudless, one of those mornings not
uncommon when the year begins to die.&nbsp; She went into the woods
at the outer edge of the park, and had scarcely entered them, when lo!
to her astonishment, there was Charles.&nbsp; She could not avoid him,
and he came up to her.</p>
<p>&ldquo;&lsquo;Why, Miss Eyre, what are you doing here?&rsquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;&lsquo;I had a headache; I could not go with the others, and
came out for a stroll.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;&lsquo;I, too, was not very well, and have been left behind.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;They walked together side by side.</p>
<p>&ldquo;&lsquo;I wanted to speak to you, Miss Eyre.&nbsp; I wonder
if you have suspected anything lately.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;&lsquo;Suspected?&nbsp; I do not quite comprehend: you are
very vague.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;&lsquo;Well, must I be more explicit?&nbsp; Have you fancied
that I care more for somebody you know than I care for all the world
besides?&nbsp; I suppose you have not, for I thought it better to hide
as much as possible what I felt.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;&lsquo;I should be telling an untruth if I were to say I do
not understand you, and I trust you will pardon me if I tell you that
a girl more worthy of you than Evelina, and one more likely to make
you happy, I have never seen.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;&lsquo;Gracious God! what have I done? what a mistake!&nbsp;
Miss Eyre, it is you I mean; it is you I love.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;There was not an instant&rsquo;s hesitation.</p>
<p>&ldquo;&lsquo;Sir, I thank you, but I can answer at once.&nbsp; <i>Never</i>
can I be yours.&nbsp; That decision is irrevocable.&nbsp; I admire you,
but cannot love you.&rsquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;She parted from him abruptly, but no sooner had she left him
than she was confounded, and wondered who or what it was which gave
that answer.&nbsp; She wavered, and thought of going back, but she did
not.&nbsp; Later on in the day she heard that Charles had gone home,
summoned by sudden business.&nbsp; Two years afterwards his engagement
with Evelina was announced, and in three years they were married.&nbsp;
It was not what I should call a happy marriage, although they never
quarrelled and had five children.&nbsp; To the day of her death Phyllis
was not sure whether she had done right or wrong, nor am I.&rdquo;</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h2>THE GOVERNESS&rsquo;S STORY</h2>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>In the year 1850 I was living as governess in the small watering-place
S., on the south coast of England.&nbsp; Amongst my friends was a young
doctor, B., who had recently come to the town.&nbsp; He had not bought
a practice, but his family was known to one or two of the principal
inhabitants, and he had begun to do well.&nbsp; He deserved his success,
for he was skilful, frank, and gentle, and he did not affect that mystery
which in his elder colleagues was already suspected to be nothing but
ignorance.&nbsp; He was one of the early graduates of the University
of London, and representative of the new school of medical science,
relying not so much upon drugs as upon diet and regimen.&nbsp; I was
one of his first patients.&nbsp; I had a severe illness lasting for
nearly three months; he watched over me carefully and cured me.&nbsp;
As I grew better he began to talk on other matters than my health when
he visited me.&nbsp; We found that we were both interested in the same
books: he lent me his and I lent him mine.&nbsp; It is almost impossible,
I should think, for a young man and a young woman to be friends and
nothing more, and I confess that my sympathy with him in his admiration
of the Elizabethan poets, and my gratitude to him for my recovery passed
into affection.&nbsp; I am sure also that he felt affection for me.&nbsp;
He became confidential, and told me all his history and troubles.&nbsp;
There was one peculiarity in his conversation which was new to me: he
never talked down to me, and he was not afraid at times to discuss subjects
that in the society to which I had been accustomed were prohibited.&nbsp;
Not a word that was improper ever escaped his lips, but he treated me
in a measure as if I were a man, and I was flattered that he should
put me on a level with himself.&nbsp; It is true that sometimes I fancied
he was so unreserved with me because he was sure he was quite safe,
for I was poor. and although I was not ugly I was not handsome.&nbsp;
However, on the whole, I was very happy in his society, and there was
more than a chance that I should become his wife.</p>
<p>After six months of our acquaintanceship had passed, M., an old schoolfellow
of mine, took lodgings near me for the summer.&nbsp; She was a remarkable
girl.&nbsp; If she was not beautiful, she was better-looking than I
was, and she possessed a something, I know not what, more powerful than
beauty to fascinate men.&nbsp; Perhaps it was her unconstrained naturalness.&nbsp;
In walking, sitting, standing - whatever she did - her movements and
attitudes were not impeded or unduly masked by artificial restrictions.&nbsp;
I should not have called her profound, but what she said upon the commonest
subjects was interesting, because it was so entirely her own.&nbsp;
If she disliked a neighbour, she almost always disliked her for a reason
which we saw, directly it was pointed out to us, to be just, but it
was generally one which had not been given before.&nbsp; Her talk upon
matters externally trivial was thus much more to me than many discourses
upon the most important topics.&nbsp; On moral questions she expressed
herself without any regard to prejudices.&nbsp; She did not controvert
the authenticity of the ordinary standards, but nevertheless behaved
as if she herself were her only law.&nbsp; The people in R., her little
native borough, considered her to be dangerous, and I myself was once
or twice weak enough to wonder that she held on a straight course with
so little help from authority, forgetting that its support, in so far
as it possesses any vital strength, is derived from the same internal
source which supplied strength to her.</p>
<p>When she came to S. she was unwell, and consulted my friend B.&nbsp;
He did not at first quite like attending her, and she reported to me
with great laughter how she had been told that he had made some inquiries
about her from one of her neighbours at home with whom he happened to
be acquainted, and how he had man&oelig;uvred in his visits to get the
servants or the landlady into the room.&nbsp; I met him soon afterwards,
and he informed me that he had a new patient.&nbsp; When he heard that
I knew her - I did not say how much I knew - he became inquisitive,
and at last, after much beating about the bush, knitting his eyebrows
and lowering his voice, he asked me whether I was aware that she was
not quite - quite <i>above suspicion</i>!&nbsp; My goodness, how I flamed
up!&nbsp; I defended her with vehemence: I exaggerated her prudence
and her modesty; I declared, what was the simple truth, that she was
the last person in the world against whom such a scandalous insinuation
should be directed, and that she was singularly inaccessible to vulgar
temptation.&nbsp; I added that notwithstanding her seeming lawlessness
she was not only remarkably sensitive to any accusation of bad manners,
but that upon certain matters she could not endure even a joke.&nbsp;
The only quarrel I remember to have had with her was when I lapsed into
some commonplace jest about her intimacy with a music-master who gave
her lessons.&nbsp; The way in which she took that jest I shall never
forget.&nbsp; If I had made it to any other woman, I should have passed
on, unconscious of anything inconsistent with myself, but she in an
instant made me aware with hardly half a dozen words that I had disgraced
myself.&nbsp; I was ashamed, not so much because I had done what was
in the abstract wrong, but because it was something which was not in
keeping with my real character.&nbsp; I hope it will not be thought
that I am prosing if I take this opportunity of saying that the laws
peculiar to each of us are those which we are at the least pains to
discover and those which we are most prone to neglect.&nbsp; We think
we have done our duty when we have kept the commandments common to all
of us, but we may perhaps have disgracefully neglected it.</p>
<p>Oh, how that afternoon with B. burnt itself into my memory for ever!&nbsp;
I was sitting on my little sofa with books piled round me.&nbsp; He
removed a few of the books, and I removed the others.&nbsp; He sat down
beside me, and, taking my hand, said he hoped I had forgiven him, and
that I would remember that in such a little place he was obliged to
be very careful, and to be quite sure of his patients, if they were
women.&nbsp; He trusted I should believe that there was no other person
<i>in the world</i> (the emphasis on that word!) to whom he would have
ventured to impart such a secret.&nbsp; I was appeased, especially when,
after a few minutes&rsquo; silence, he took my hand and kissed it, the
first and last kiss.&nbsp; He said nothing further, and departed.&nbsp;
The next time I saw him he was more than usually deferential, more than
ever desirous to come closer to me, and I thought the final word must
soon be spoken.</p>
<p>M. remained in S. till far into the autumn, but I did not see much
of her.&nbsp; My work had begun again.&nbsp; B. continued to call on
me as my health was not quite re-established.&nbsp; We had agreed to
read the same author at the same time, in order that we might discuss
him together whilst our impressions were still fresh.&nbsp; Somehow
his interest in these readings began to flag; he informed me presently
that I had now almost, entirely recovered, and weeks often passed without
meeting him.&nbsp; One afternoon I was surprised to find M. in my room
when I returned from a walk with my pupils.&nbsp; She had been waiting
for me nearly half an hour, and I could not at first conjecture the
reason.&nbsp; Gradually she drew the conversation towards B. and at
last asked me what I thought of him.&nbsp; Instantly I saw what had
happened.&nbsp; What I imagined was once mine had been stolen, stolen
perhaps unconsciously, but nevertheless stolen, my sole treasure.&nbsp;
She was rich, she had a father and mother, she had many friends and
would certainly have been married had she never seen B.&nbsp; I, as
I have said, was almost penniless; I was an orphan, with few friends;
he was my first love, and I knew he would be my last.</p>
<p>I was condemned, I foresaw, henceforth to solitude, and that most
terrible of all calamities, heart-starvation.&nbsp; What B. had said
about M. came into my mind and rose to my lips.&nbsp; I knew, or thought
I knew, that if I revealed it to her she would be so angry that she
would cast him off.&nbsp; Probably I was mistaken, but in my despair
the impulse to disclose it was almost irresistible.&nbsp; I struggled
against it, however, and when she pressed me, I praised him and strove
in my praise to be sincere.&nbsp; Whether it was something in my tone,
quite unintentional, I know not, but she stopped me almost in the middle
of a sentence and said she believed I had kept something back which
I did not wish her to hear; that she was certain he had talked to me
about her, and that she wished to know what he had said.&nbsp; I protested
he had never uttered a word which could be interpreted as disparaging
her, and she seemed to be content.&nbsp; She kissed me a little more
vehemently than usual, and went away.&nbsp; We ought always, I suppose,
to be glad when other people are happy, but God knows that sometimes
it is very difficult to be so, and that their happiness is hard to bear.</p>
<p>The Elizabethan studies had now altogether come to an end.&nbsp;
In about a couple of months I heard that M. and B. were engaged.&nbsp;
M. went home, and B. moved into a larger town.&nbsp; In a twelvemonth
the marriage took place, and M. wrote to me after her wedding trip.&nbsp;
I replied, but she never wrote again.&nbsp; I heard that she had said
that I had laid myself out to catch B. and that she was afraid that
in so doing I had hinted there was something against her.&nbsp; I heard
also that B. had discouraged his wife&rsquo;s correspondence with me,
no other reason being given than that he would rather the acquaintanceship
should be dropped.&nbsp; The interpretation of this reason by those
to whom it was given can be guessed.&nbsp; Did he fear lest I should
boast of what I had been to him or should repeat his calumny?&nbsp;
Ah, he little knew me if he dreamed that such treachery was possible
to me!</p>
<p>I remained at the vicarage for three years.&nbsp; The children grew
up and I was obliged to leave, but I continued to teach in different
families till I was about five-and-forty.&nbsp; After five-and-forty
I could not obtain another situation, and I had to support myself by
letting apartments at Brighton.&nbsp; My strength is now failing; I
cannot look after my servant properly, nor wait upon my lodgers myself.&nbsp;
Those who have to get their living by a lodging-house know what this
means and what the end will be.&nbsp; I have occasionally again wished
I could have seen my way partially to explain myself to M., and have
thought it hard to die misrepresented, but I am glad I have not spoken.&nbsp;
I should have disturbed her peace, and I care nothing about justification
or misrepresentation now.&nbsp; With eternity so near, what does it
matter?</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>INSCRIPTION ON THE ENVELOPE.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>&ldquo;TO MY NIECE JUDITH, - You have been so kind to your aunt,
the only human being, at last, who was left to love her, that she could
not refrain from telling you the one passage in her history which is
of any importance or interest.&rdquo;</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h2>JAMES FORBES</h2>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>&ldquo;It is all a lie, and it is hard to believe that people who
preach it do not know it to be a lie.&rdquo;</p>
<p>So said James Forbes to Elizabeth Castleton, the young woman to whom
he was engaged.&nbsp; She was the daughter of a clergyman, and James,
who had been brought up at Rugby and Oxford, was now in his last year
at a London hospital, and was going to be a doctor.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I am sure my father does not know it to be a lie, and I do
not myself know it to be a lie.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I was not thinking of your father, but of the clergy generally,
and you <i>do</i> know it to be a lie.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;It is not true of my brother, and, excepting my father and
brother, you have not been in company with parsons, as you call them,
for half an hour in your life.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Do you mean to tell me you have any doubts about this discredited
rubbish?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;If I have I would rather not speak about them now.&nbsp; Jim,
dear Jim, let us drop the subject and talk of something else.&rdquo;</p>
<p>He was walking by her side, with his hands in his coat pockets.&nbsp;
She drew out one of his hands; he did not return the pressure, and presently
released himself.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I thought you were to be my intellectual companion.&nbsp;
I have heard you say yourself that a marriage which is not a marriage
of mind is no marriage.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;But, Jim, is there nothing in the world to think about but
this?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;There is nothing so important.&nbsp; Are we to be dumb all
our lives about what you say is religion?&rdquo;</p>
<p>They separated and soon afterwards the engagement was broken off.&nbsp;
Jim had really loved Elizabeth, but at that time he was furious against
what he called &ldquo;creeds.&rdquo;&nbsp; He waited for three or four
years till he had secured a fair practice, and then married a clever
and handsome young woman who wrote poems, and had captivated him by
telling him a witty story from Heine.&nbsp; Elizabeth never married.</p>
<p>Thirty years passed, and Jim, now a famous physician, had to go a
long distance down the Great Western Railway to attend a consultation.&nbsp;
At Bath an elderly lady entered the carriage carrying a handbag with
the initials &ldquo;E. C.&rdquo; upon it.&nbsp; She sat in the seat
farthest away from him on the opposite side, and looked at him steadfastly.&nbsp;
He also looked at her, but no word was spoken for a minute.&nbsp; He
then crossed over, fell on his knees, and buried his head with passionate
sobbing on her knees.&nbsp; She put her hands on him and her tears fell.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Five years,&rdquo; at last he said; &ldquo;I may live five
years with care.&nbsp; She has left me.&nbsp; I will give up everything
and go abroad with you.&nbsp; Five years; it is not much, but it will
be something, everything.&nbsp; I shall die with your face over me.&rdquo;</p>
<p>The train was slackening speed for Bristol; she bent down and kissed
him.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Dearest Jim,&rdquo; she whispered, &ldquo;I have waited a
long time, but I was sure we should come together again at last.&nbsp;
It is enough.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;You will go with me, then?&rdquo;</p>
<p>Again she kissed him.&nbsp; &ldquo;It must not be.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Before he could reply the train was stopping at the platform, and
a gentleman with a lady appeared at the door.&nbsp; Miss Castleton stepped
out and was at once driven away in a carriage with her companions.</p>
<p>He lived three years and then died almost suddenly of the disease
which he had foreseen would kill him.&nbsp; He had no children, but
few relatives, and his attendant was a hospital nurse.&nbsp; But the
day before his death a lady appeared who announced herself as a family
friend, and the nurse was superseded.&nbsp; It was Elizabeth: she came
to his bedside, and he recognised her.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Not till this morning,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;did I hear
you were ill.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Happy,&rdquo; he cried, &ldquo;though I die to-night.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Soon afterwards - it was about sundown - he became unconscious; she
sat there alone with him till the morning broke, and then he passed
away, and she closed his eyes.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h2>ATONEMENT</h2>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>&ldquo;You ask me how I lost my foot?&nbsp; You I see that dog?&rdquo;
- an unattractive beast lying before the fire - &ldquo;well, when I
tell you how I came by him you will know how I lost it;&rdquo; and he
then related the following story:-</p>
<p>I was in Westmoreland with my wife and children for a holiday and
we had brought our dog with us, for we knew he would be unhappy with
the strangers to whom we had let our house.&nbsp; The weather was very
wet and our lodgings were not comfortable; we were kept indoors for
days together, and my temper, always irritable, became worse.&nbsp;
My wife never resisted me when I was in these moods and the absence
of opposition provoked me all the more.&nbsp; Had she stood up against
me and told me I ought to be ashamed of myself it would have been better
for me.&nbsp; One afternoon everything seemed to go wrong.&nbsp; A score
of petty vexations, not one of which was of any moment, worked me up
to desperation.&nbsp; I threw my book across the room, to the astonishment
of my children, and determined to go out, although it was raining hard.&nbsp;
My dog, a brown retriever, was lying on the mat just outside the door,
and I nearly fell over him.&nbsp; &ldquo;God damn you!&rdquo; said I,
and kicked him.&nbsp; He howled with pain, but, although he was the
best of house-dogs and would have brought down any thief who came near
him, he did not growl at me, and quietly followed me.&nbsp; I am not
squeamish, but I was frightened directly the oath had escaped my lips.&nbsp;
I felt as if I had created something horrible which I could not annihilate,
and that it would wait for me and do me some mischief.&nbsp; The dog
kept closely to my heels for about a mile and I could not make him go
on in front.&nbsp; Usually the least word of encouragement or even the
mere mention of his name would send him scampering with delight in advance.&nbsp;
I began to think of something else, but in about a quarter of an hour
I looked round and found he was not behind me.&nbsp; I whistled and
called, but he did not come.&nbsp; In a renewed rage, which increased
with every step I took, I turned back to seek him.&nbsp; Suddenly I
came upon him lying dead by the roadside.&nbsp; Never shall I forget
that shock - the reproach, the appeal of that poor lifeless animal!&nbsp;
I stroked him, I kissed him, I whispered his name in his ear, but it
was all in vain.&nbsp; I lifted up his beautiful broad paw which he
was wont to lay on my knee, I held it between my hands, and when I let
it go it fell heavily to the ground.&nbsp; I could not carry him home,
and with bitter tears and a kind of dread I drew him aside a little
way up the hill behind a rock.&nbsp; I went to my lodgings, returned
towards dusk with a spade, dug his grave in a lonely spot near the bottom
of a waterfall where he would never be disturbed, and there I buried
him, reverently smoothing the turf over him.&nbsp; What a night that
was for me!&nbsp; I was haunted incessantly by the vivid image of the
dead body and by the terror which accompanies a great crime.&nbsp; I
had repaid all his devotion with horrible cruelty.&nbsp; I had repented,
but he would never know it.&nbsp; It was not the dog only which I had
slain; I had slain Divine faithfulness and love.&nbsp; That <i>God damn
you</i> sounded perpetually in my ears.&nbsp; The Almighty had registered
and executed the curse, but it had fallen upon the murderer and not
on the victim.&nbsp; When I rose in the morning I distinctly felt the
blow of the kick in my foot, and the sensation lasted all day.&nbsp;
For weeks I was in a miserable condition.&nbsp; A separate consciousness
seemed to establish itself in this foot; there was nothing to be seen
and no pain, but there was a dull sort of pressure of which I could
not rid myself.&nbsp; If I slept I dreamed of the dog, and generally
dreamed I was caressing him, waking up to the dreadful truth of the
corpse on the path in the rain.&nbsp; I got it into my head - for I
was half-crazy - that only by some expiation I should be restored to
health and peace; but how to make any expiation I could not tell.&nbsp;
Unhappy is the wretch who longs to atone for a sin and no atonement
is prescribed to him!</p>
<p>One night I was coming home late and heard the cry of &ldquo;Fire!&rdquo;&nbsp;
I ran down the street and found a house in flames.&nbsp; The fire-escape
was at the window, and had rescued a man, his wife and child.&nbsp;
Every living creature was safe, I was told, save a dog in the front
room on the ground-floor.&nbsp; I pushed the people aside, rushed in,
half-blinded with smoke, and found him.&nbsp; I could not escape by
the passage, and dropped out of the window into the area with him in
my arms.&nbsp; I fell heavily on <i>that</i> foot, and when I was helped
up the steps I could not put it to the ground.&nbsp; &ldquo;You may
have him for your pains,&rdquo; said his owner to me; &ldquo;he is a
useless cur.&nbsp; I wouldn&rsquo;t have ventured the singeing of a
hair for him.&rdquo;&nbsp; &ldquo;May I?&rdquo; I replied, with an eagerness
which must have seemed very strange.&nbsp; He was indeed not worth half
a crown, but I drew him closely to me and took him into the cab.&nbsp;
I was in great agony, and when the surgeon came it was discovered that
my ankle was badly fractured.&nbsp; An attempt was made to set it, but
in the end it was decided that the foot must be amputated.&nbsp; I rejoiced
when I heard the news, and on the day on which the operation was performed
I was calm and even cheerful.&nbsp; Our own doctor who came with the
surgeon told him I had &ldquo;a highly nervous temperament,&rdquo; and
both of them were amazed at my fortitude.&nbsp; The dog is a mongrel,
as you see, but he loves me, and if you were to offer me ten thousand
golden guineas I would not part with him.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h2>LETTERS FROM MY AUNT ELEANOR <a name="citation180"></a><a href="#footnote180">{180}</a>
TO HER DAUGHTER SOPHIA, AND A FRAGMENT FROM MY AUNT&rsquo;S DIARY.</h2>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>January 31, 1837.</p>
<p>My Dearest Child, - It is now a month since your father died.&nbsp;
It was a sore trial to me that you should have broken down, and that
you could not be here when he was laid in his grave, but I would not
for worlds have allowed you to make the journey.&nbsp; I am glad I forced
you away.&nbsp; The doctor said he would not answer for the consequences
unless you were removed.&nbsp; But I must not talk, not even to you.&nbsp;
I will write again soon.</p>
<p>Your most affectionate mother,</p>
<p>ELEANOR CHARTERIS.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>February 5, 1837.</p>
<p>I have been alone in the library from morning to night every day.&nbsp;
How foolish all the books look!&nbsp; There is nothing in them which
can do me any good.&nbsp; He is <i>not</i>: what is there which can
alter that fact?&nbsp; Had he died later I could have borne it better.&nbsp;
I am only fifty years old, and may have long to wait.&nbsp; I always
knew I loved him devotedly; now I see how much I depended on him.&nbsp;
I had become so knit up with him that I imagined his strength to be
mine.&nbsp; His support was so continuous and so soft that I was unconscious
of it.&nbsp; How clear-headed and resolute he was in difficulty and
danger!&nbsp; You do not remember the great fire?&nbsp; We were waked
up out of our sleep; the flames spread rapidly; a mob filled the street,
shouting and breaking open doors.&nbsp; The man in charge of the engines
lost his head, but your father was perfectly cool.&nbsp; He got on horseback,
directed two or three friends to do the same; they galloped into the
town and drove the crowd away.&nbsp; He controlled all the operations
and saved many lives and many thousands of pounds.&nbsp; Is there any
happiness in the world like that of the woman who hangs on such a husband?</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>February 10, 1837.</p>
<p>I feel as if my heart would break if I do not see you, but I cannot
come to your Aunt&rsquo;s house just now.&nbsp; She is very kind, but
she would be unbearable to me.&nbsp; Have patience: the sea air is doing
you good; you will soon be able to walk, and then you can return.&nbsp;
O, to feel your head upon my neck!&nbsp; I have many friends, but I
have always needed a human being to whom I was everything.&nbsp; To
your father I believe I was everything, and that thought was perpetual
heaven to me.&nbsp; My love for him did not make me neglect other people.&nbsp;
On the contrary, it gave them their proper value.&nbsp; Without it I
should have put them by.&nbsp; When a man is dying for want of water
he cares for nothing around him.&nbsp; Satisfy his thirst, and he can
then enjoy other pleasures.&nbsp; I was his first love, he was my first,
and we were lovers to the end.&nbsp; I know the world would be dark
to you also were I to leave it.&nbsp; Perhaps it is wicked of me to
rejoice that you would suffer so keenly.&nbsp; I cannot tell how much
of me is pure love and how much of me is selfishness.&nbsp; I remember
my uncle&rsquo;s death.&nbsp; For ten days or so afterwards everybody
in the house looked solemn, and occasionally there was a tear, but at
the end of a fortnight there was smiling and at the end of a month there
was laughter.&nbsp; I was but a child then, but I thought much about
the ease and speed with which the gap left by death was closed.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>February 20, 1837.</p>
<p>In a fortnight you will be here?&nbsp; The doctor really believes
you will be able to travel?&nbsp; I am glad you can get out and taste
the sea air.&nbsp; I count the hours which must pass till I see you.&nbsp;
A short week, and then - &ldquo;the day after to-morrow, and the day
after to-morrow of that day,&rdquo; and so I shall be able to reach
forward to the Monday.&nbsp; It is strange that the nearer Monday comes
the more impatient I am.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>March 3, 1837.</p>
<p>With what sickening fear I opened your letter!&nbsp; I was sure it
contained some dreadful news.&nbsp; You have decided not to come till
Wednesday, because your cousin Tom can accompany you on that day.&nbsp;
I <i>know</i> you are quite right.&nbsp; It is so much better, as you
are not strong, that Tom should look after you, and it would be absurd
that you should make the journey two days before him.&nbsp; I should
have reproved you seriously if you had done anything so foolish.&nbsp;
But those two days are hard to bear.&nbsp; I shall not meet you at the
coach, nor shall I be downstairs.&nbsp; Go straight to the library;
I shall be there by myself.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>DIARY.</p>
<p>January 1, 1838. - Three days ago she died.&nbsp; Henceforth there
is no living creature to whom my existence is of any real importance.&nbsp;
Crippled as she was, she could never have married.&nbsp; I might have
held her as long as she lived.&nbsp; She could have expected no love
but mine.&nbsp; God forgive me!&nbsp; Perhaps I did unconsciously rejoice
in that disabled limb because it kept her closer to me.&nbsp; Now He
has taken her from me.&nbsp; I may have been wicked, but has He no mercy?&nbsp;
&ldquo;I would speak to the Almighty, and I desire to reason with God.&rdquo;&nbsp;
An answer in anger could better be borne than this impregnable silence.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>January 3rd. - A day of snow and bitter wind.&nbsp; There were very
few at the grave, and I should have been better pleased if there had
been none.&nbsp; What claim had they to be there?&nbsp; I have come
home alone, and they no doubt are comforting themselves with the reflection
that it is all over except the half-mourning.&nbsp; Her death makes
me hate them.&nbsp; Mr. Maxwell, our rector, told me when my child was
ill to remember that I had no right to her.&nbsp; &ldquo;Right!&rdquo;
what did he mean by that stupid word?&nbsp; How trouble tries words!&nbsp;
All I can say is that from her birth I had owned her, and that now,
when I want her most, I am dispossessed.&nbsp; &ldquo;Self, self&rdquo;
- I know the reply, but it is unjust, for I would have stood up cheerfully
to be shot if I could have saved her pain.&nbsp; Doubly unjust, for
my passion for her was a blessing to her as well as to me.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>January 6th. - Henceforth I suppose I shall have to play with people,
to pretend to take an interest in their clothes and their parties, or,
with the superior sort, to discuss politics or books.&nbsp; I care nothing
for their rags or their gossip, for Lord Melbourne, Sir Robert Peel,
or Mr. James Montgomery.&nbsp; I must learn how to take the tip of a
finger instead of a hand, and to accept with gratitude comfits when
I hunger for bread - I, who have known - but I dare say nothing even
to myself of my hours with him - I, who have heard Sophy cry out in
the night for me; I, who have held her hand and have prayed by her bedside.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>January 10th. - I must be still.&nbsp; I have learned this lesson
before - that speech even to myself does harm.&nbsp; If I admit no conversation
nor debate with myself, I certainly will not admit the chatter of outsiders.&nbsp;
Mr. Maxwell called again to-day.&nbsp; &ldquo;Not a syllable on that
subject,&rdquo; said I when he began in the usual strain.&nbsp; He then
suggested that as this house was too large for me, and must have what
he called &ldquo;melancholy associations,&rdquo; I should move.&nbsp;
He had suggested this before, when my husband died.&nbsp; How can I
leave the home to which I was brought as a bride? how can I endure the
thought that strangers are in our room, or in that other room where
Sophy lay?&nbsp; Mr. Maxwell would think it sacrilege to turn his church
into an inn, and it is a worse sacrilege to me to permit the profanation
of the sanctuary which has been consecrated by Love and Death.&nbsp;
I do not know what might happen to me if I were to leave.&nbsp; I have
been what I am through shadowy nothings which other people despise.&nbsp;
To me they are realities and a law.&nbsp; I shall stay where I am.&nbsp;
&ldquo;A villa,&rdquo; forsooth, on the outskirts of the town!&nbsp;
My existence would be fractured: it will at least preserve its continuity
here.&nbsp; Across the square I can see the house in which I was born,
and I can watch the shadow of the church in the afternoon slowly crossing
the churchyard.&nbsp; The townsfolk stand in the street and go up and
down it just as they did forty years ago - not the same persons, but
in a sense the same people.&nbsp; My brother will call me extravagant
if I remain here.&nbsp; He buys a horse and does not consider it extravagant,
and my money is not wasted if I spend it in the only way in which it
is of any value to me.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>January 12th. - I had thought I could be dumb, but I cannot.&nbsp;
My sorrow comes in rushes.&nbsp; I lift up my head above the waves for
an instant, and immediately I am overwhelmed - &ldquo;all Thy waves
and Thy billows have gone over me.&rdquo;&nbsp; My nights are a terror
to me, and I fear for my reason.&nbsp; That last grip of Sophy&rsquo;s
hand is distinctly on mine now, palpable as the pressure of a fleshly
hand could be.&nbsp; It is strange that without any external circumstances
to account for it, she and I often thought the same things at the same
moment.&nbsp; She seemed to know instinctively what was passing in my
mind, so that I was afraid to harbour any unworthy thought, feeling
sure that she would detect it.&nbsp; Blood of my blood was she.&nbsp;
She said &ldquo;goodbye&rdquo; to me with perfect clearness, and in
a quarter of an hour she had gone.&nbsp; In that quarter of an hour
there could not be the extinction of so much.&nbsp; Such a creature
as Sophy could not instantaneously <i>not be</i>.&nbsp; I cannot believe
it, but still the volume of my life here is closed, the story is at
an end; what remains will be nothing but a few notes on what has gone
before.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>January 21st. - I went to church to-day for the first time since
the funeral.&nbsp; Mr. Maxwell preached a dull, doctrinal sermon.&nbsp;
Whilst my husband and Sophy lived, I was a regular attendant at church,
and never thought of disputing anything I heard.&nbsp; It did not make
much impression on me, but I accepted it, and if I had been asked whether
I believed it, I should have said, &ldquo;Certainly.&rdquo;&nbsp; But
now a new standard of belief has been set up in me, and the word &ldquo;belief&rdquo;
has a different meaning.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>February 3rd. - Whenever I saw anything beautiful I always asked
Tom or Sophy to look.&nbsp; Now I ask nobody.&nbsp; Early this morning,
after the storm in the night, the sky cleared, and I went out about
dawn through the garden up to the top of the orchard and watched the
disappearance of the night in the west.&nbsp; The loveliness of that
silent conquest was unsurpassable.&nbsp; Eighteen months ago I should
have run indoors and have dragged Tom and Sophy back with me.&nbsp;
I saw it alone now, and although the promise in the slow transformation
of darkness to azure moved me to tears, I felt it was no promise for
me.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>March 1st. - Nothing that is <i>prescribed</i> does me any good.&nbsp;
I cannot leave off going to church, but the support I want I must find
out for myself.&nbsp; Perhaps if I had been born two hundred years ago,
I might have been caught by some strong enthusiastic organisation and
have been a private in a great army.&nbsp; A miserable time is this
when each man has to grope his way unassisted, and all the incalculable
toil of founders of churches goes for little or nothing. . . .&nbsp;
I do not pray for any more pleasure: I ask only for strength to endure,
till I can lie down and rest.&nbsp; I have had more rapture in a day
than my neighbours and relations have had in all their lives.&nbsp;
Tom once said to me that he would sooner have had twenty-four hours
with me as his wife than youth and manhood with any other woman he ever
knew.&nbsp; He said that, not when we were first married, but a score
of years afterwards.&nbsp; I remember the place and the hour.&nbsp;
It was in the garden one morning in July, just before breakfast.&nbsp;
It was a burning day, and massive white clouds were forming themselves
on the horizon.&nbsp; The storm on that day was the heaviest I recollect,
and the lightning struck one of our chimneys and dashed it through the
roof.&nbsp; His passion was informed with intellect, and his intellect
glowed with passion.&nbsp; There was nothing in him merely animal or
merely rational. . . .&nbsp; To endure, to endure!&nbsp; Can there be
any endurance without a motive?&nbsp; I have no motive.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>March 10th. - My sister and my brother-in-law came to-day and I wished
them away.&nbsp; Now that my husband is dead I discover that the frequent
visitors to our house came to see him and not me.&nbsp; There must be
something in me which prevents people, especially women, from being
really intimate with me.&nbsp; To be able to make friends is a talent
which I do not possess, and if those who call on me are prompted by
kindness only, I would rather be without them.&nbsp; The only attraction
towards me which I value is that which is irresistible.&nbsp; Perhaps
I am wrong, and ought to accept with thankfulness whatever is left to
me if it has any savour of goodness in it.&nbsp; I have no right to
compare and to reject. . . I provide myself with little maxims, and
a breath comes and sweeps them away.&nbsp; What is permanent behind
these little flickerings is black night: that is the real background
of my life.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>April 24th. - I have been to London, and on Easter Sunday I went
to High Mass at a Roman Catholic Church.&nbsp; I was obliged to leave,
for I was overpowered and hysterical.&nbsp; Were I to go often my reason
might be drowned, and I might become a devotee.&nbsp; And yet I do not
think I should.&nbsp; If I could prostrate myself at a shrine I should
want an answer.&nbsp; When I came out into the open air I saw again
the <i>plainness</i> of the world: the skies, the sea, the fields are
not in accord with incense or gorgeous ceremonies.&nbsp; Incense and
ceremonies are beyond the facts, and to the facts we must cleave, no
matter how poor and thin they may be.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>May 5th. - If I am ill, I shall depend entirely on paid service.&nbsp;
God grant I may die suddenly and not linger in imbecility.&nbsp; So
much of me is dead that what is left is not worth preserving.&nbsp;
Nearly everything I have done all my life has been done for love.&nbsp;
I shall now have to act for duty&rsquo;s sake.&nbsp; It is an entire
reconstruction of myself, the insertion of a new motive.&nbsp; I do
not much believe in duty, nor, if I read my New Testament aright, did
the Apostle Paul.&nbsp; For Jesus he would do anything.&nbsp; That sacred
face would have drawn me whither the Law would never have driven me.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>May 7th. - It is painful to me to be so completely set aside.&nbsp;
When Tom was alive I was in the midst of the current of affairs.&nbsp;
Few men, except Maxwell, come to the house now.&nbsp; My property is
in the hands of trustees.&nbsp; Tom continually consulted me in business
matters.&nbsp; I have nothing to look after except my house, and I sit
at my window and see the stream of life pass without touching me.&nbsp;
I cannot take up work merely for the sake of taking it up.&nbsp; Nobody
would value it, nor would it content me.&nbsp; How I used to pity my
husband&rsquo;s uncle, Captain Charteris!&nbsp; He had been a sailor;
he had fought the French; he had been in imminent danger of shipwreck,
and from his youth upwards perpetual demands had been made upon his
resources and courage.&nbsp; At fifty he retired, a strong, active man;
and having a religious turn, he helped the curate with school-treats
and visiting.&nbsp; He pined away and died in five years.&nbsp; The
bank goes on.&nbsp; I have my dividends, but not a word reaches me about
it.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>October 10th. - Five months, I see, have passed since I made an entry
in my diary.&nbsp; What a day this is!&nbsp; The turf is once more soft,
the trees and hedges are washed, the leaves are turning yellow and are
ready to fall.&nbsp; I have been sitting in the garden alone, reading
the forty-ninth chapter of Genesis.&nbsp; I must copy the closing verses.&nbsp;
It does me good to write them.</p>
<p>&ldquo;And Jacob charged them, and said unto them, I am to be gathered
unto my people: bury me with my fathers in the cave that is in the field
of Ephron the Hittite, in the cave that is in the field of Machpelah,
which is before Mamre, in the land of Canaan, which Abraham bought with
the field of Ephron the Hittite for a possession of a burying-place.&nbsp;
There they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife; there they buried Isaac
and Rebekah his wife; and there I buried Leah.&nbsp; The purchase of
the field and of the cave that is therein was from the children of Heth.&nbsp;
And when Jacob had made an end of commanding his sons, he gathered up
his feet into the bed, and yielded up the ghost, and was gathered unto
his people.&rdquo;&nbsp; There is no distress here: he gathers up his
feet and departs.&nbsp; Perhaps our wild longings are unnatural, and
yet it seems but nature <i>not</i> to be content with what contented
the patriarch.&nbsp; Anyhow, wherever and whatever my husband and Sophy
are I shall be.&nbsp; This at least is beyond dispute.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>October 12th. - I do not wish to forget past joys, but I must simply
remember them and not try to paint them.&nbsp; I must cut short any
yearning for them.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>October 20th. - We do not say the same things to ourselves with sufficient
frequency.&nbsp; In these days of book-reading fifty fine thoughts come
into our heads in a day, and the next morning are forgotten.&nbsp; Not
one of them becomes a religion.&nbsp; In the Bible how few the thoughts
are, and how incessantly they are repeated!&nbsp; If my life could be
controlled by two or three divine ideas, I would burn my library.&nbsp;
I often feel that I would sooner be a Levitical priest, supposing I
believed in my office, than be familiar with all these great men whose
works are stacked around me.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>October 22nd. - Sometimes, especially at night, the thought not only
that I personally have lost Tom and Sophy, but that the exquisite fabric
of these relationships, so intricate, so delicate, so highly organised,
could be cast aside, to all appearance so wastefully, is almost unendurable.
. . .&nbsp; I went up to the moor on the top of the hill this morning,
where I could see, far away, the river broaden and lose itself in the
Atlantic.&nbsp; I lay on the heather looking through it and listening
to it.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>October 23rd. - The 131st Psalm came into my mind when I was on the
moor again.&nbsp; &ldquo;Neither do I exercise myself in great matters,
or in things too high for me.&nbsp; Surely I have behaved and quieted
myself, as a child that is weaned of its mother: my soul is even as
a weaned child.&rdquo;</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>October 28th - Tom once said to me that reasoning is often a bad
guide for us, and that loyalty to the silent Leader is true wisdom.&nbsp;
Wesley, when he was in trouble, asked himself &ldquo;whether he should
fight against it by thinking, or by not thinking of it,&rdquo; and a
wise man told him &ldquo;to be still and go on.&rdquo;&nbsp; A certain
blind instinct seems to carry me forward.&nbsp; What is it? an indication
of a purpose I do not comprehend? an order given by the Commander-in-Chief
which is to be obeyed although the strategy is not understood?</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>November 3rd. - Palmer, my maid, who has been with me ever since
I began to keep house, was very good-looking at one-and-twenty.&nbsp;
When she had been engaged to be married about a twelvemonth, she burned
her face and the burn left a bad scar.&nbsp; Her lover found excuses
for breaking off the engagement.&nbsp; He must have been a scoundrel,
and I should like to have had him whipped with wire.&nbsp; She was very
fond of him.&nbsp; She had an offer of marriage ten years afterwards,
but she refused.&nbsp; I believe she feared lest the scar, seen every
day, would make her husband loathe her.&nbsp; Her case is worse than
mine, for she never knew such delights as mine.</p>
<p>She has subsisted on mere friendliness and civility.&nbsp; &ldquo;Oh,&rdquo;
it is suggested at once to me, &ldquo;you are more sensitive than she
is.&rdquo;&nbsp; How dare I say that?&nbsp; How hateful is the assumption
of superior sensitiveness as an excuse for want of endurance!</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>November 4th. - Ellen Charteris, my husband&rsquo;s cousin, belongs
to a Roman Catholic branch of the family, and is an abbess.&nbsp; I
remember saying to her that I wondered that she and her nuns could spend
such useless lives.&nbsp; She replied that although she and all good
Catholics believe in the atonement of Christ, they also believe that
works of piety in excess of what may be demanded of us, even if they
are done in secret, are a set-off against the sins of the world.&nbsp;
In this form the doctrine has not much to commend itself to me, and
it is assumed that the nuns&rsquo; works are pious.&nbsp; But in a sense
it is true.&nbsp; &ldquo;The very hairs of your head are all numbered.&rdquo;&nbsp;
The fall of a grain of dust is recorded.</p>
<p>November 7th - A kind of peace occasionally visits me.&nbsp; It is
not the indifference begotten of time, for my husband and my child are
nearer and dearer than ever to me.&nbsp; I care not to analyse it.&nbsp;
I return to my patriarch.&nbsp; With Joseph before him, the father,
who had refused to be comforted when he thought his son was dead, gathered
up his feet into the bed and slept.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h2>CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN GEORGE LUCY M.A., AND HIS GODCHILD, HERMIONE
RUSSELL, B.A.</h2>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>My Dear Hermione, - I have sent you my little volume of verse translations
into English, and you will find appended a few attempts at Latin and
Greek renderings of favourite English poems.&nbsp; You must tell me
what you think of them, and you must not spare a single blunder or inelegance.&nbsp;
I do not expect any reviews, and if there should be none it will not
matter, for I proposed to myself nothing more than my own amusement
and that of my friends.&nbsp; I would rather have thoroughly good criticism
from you than a notice, even if it were laudatory, from a magazine or
a newspaper.&nbsp; You have worked hard at your Latin and Greek since
we read Homer and Virgil, and you have had better instruction than I
had at Winchester.&nbsp; These trifles were published about three months
ago, but I purposely did not send you a copy then.&nbsp; You are enjoying
your holiday deep in the country, and may be inclined to pardon that
incurable old idler, your godfather and former tutor, for a waste of
time which perhaps you would not forgive when you are teaching in London.&nbsp;
Verse-making is out of fashion now.&nbsp; Goodbye.&nbsp; I should like
to spend a week with you wandering through those Devonshire lanes if
I could carry my two rooms with me and stick them in a field.</p>
<p>Affectionately,<br />G. L.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>My Dear Godfather, - The little <i>Mus&aelig;</i> came safely.&nbsp;
My love to you for them, and for the pretty inscription.&nbsp; I positively
refuse to say a single syllable on your scholarship.&nbsp; I have deserted
my Latin and Greek, and they were never good enough to justify me in
criticising yours.&nbsp; I have latterly turned my attention to Logic,
History, and Moral Philosophy, and with the help of my degree I have
obtained a situation as teacher of these sciences.&nbsp; I confess I
do not regret the change.&nbsp; They are certainly of supreme importance.&nbsp;
There is something to be learned about them from Latin and Greek authors,
but this can be obtained more easily from modern writers or translations
than by the laborious study of the originals.&nbsp; Do not suppose I
am no longer sensible to the charm of classical art.&nbsp; It is wonderful,
but I have come to the conclusion that the time spent on the classics,
both here and in Germany, is mostly thrown away.&nbsp; Take even Homer.&nbsp;
I admit the greatness of the Iliad and the Odyssey, but do tell me,
my dear godfather, whether in this nineteenth century, when scores of
urgent social problems are pressing for solution, our young people ought
to give themselves up to a study of ancient legends?&nbsp; What, however,
are Horace, Catullus, and Ovid compared with Homer?&nbsp; Much in them
is pernicious, and there is hardly anything in them which helps us to
live.&nbsp; Besides, we have surely enough in Chaucer, Spenser, Shakspeare,
and Milton, to say nothing of the poets of this century, to satisfy
the imagination of anybody.&nbsp; Boys spend years over the <i>Metamorphoses</i>
or the story of the wars of &AElig;neas, and enter life with no knowledge
of the simplest facts of psychology.&nbsp; I look forward to a time
not far distant, I hope, when our whole p&aelig;dagogic system will
be remodelled.&nbsp; Greek and Latin will then occupy the place which
Assyrian or Egyptian hieroglyphic occupies now, and children will be
directly prepared for the duties which await them.</p>
<p>I have in preparation a book which I expect soon to publish, entitled
<i>Positive Education</i>.&nbsp; It will appear anonymously, for society
being constituted as it is, I am afraid that my name on the title-page
would prevent me from finding employment.&nbsp; My object is to show
how the moral fabric can be built up without the aid of theology or
metaphysics.&nbsp; I profess no hostility to either, but as educational
instruments I believe them to be useless.&nbsp; I begin with Logic as
the foundation of all science, and then advance by easy steps (<i>a</i>)
to the laws of external nature commencing with number, and (<i>b</i>)
to the rules of conduct, reasons being given for them, with History
and Biography as illustrations.&nbsp; One modern foreign language, to
be learned as thoroughly as it is possible to learn it in this country,
will be included.&nbsp; I desire to banish all magic in school training.&nbsp;
Everything taught shall be understood.&nbsp; It is easier, and in some
respects more advantageous, not to explain, but the mischief of habituating
children to bow to the unmeaning is so great that I would face any inconvenience
in order to get rid of it.&nbsp; All kinds of objections, some of them
of great weight, may be urged against me, but the question is on which
side do they preponderate?&nbsp; Is it no objection to our present system
that the simple laws most necessary to society should be grounded on
something which is unintelligible, that we should be brought up in ignorance
of any valid obligation to obey moral precepts, that we should be unable
to give any account of the commonest physical phenomena, that we should
never even notice them, that we should be unaware, for example, of the
nightly change in the position of planets and stars, and that we should
nevertheless busy ourselves with niceties of expression in a dead tongue,
and with tales about Jupiter and Juno?&nbsp; For what glorious results
may we not look when children from their earliest years learn that which
is essential, but which now, alas! is picked up unmethodically and by
chance?&nbsp; I cannot help saying all this to you, for your <i>Mus&aelig;</i>
arrived just as my youngest brother came home from Winchester.&nbsp;
He was delighted with it, for he is able to write very fair Latin and
Greek.&nbsp; That boy is nearly eighteen.&nbsp; He does not know why
the tides rise and fall, and has never heard that there has been any
controversy as to the basis of ethics.</p>
<p>Your affectionate godchild,<br />HERMIONE.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>My Dear Hermione, - Your letter was something like a knock-down blow.&nbsp;
I am sorry you have abandoned your old friends, and I felt that you
intended to rebuke me for trifling.&nbsp; A great deal of what you say
I am sure is true, but I cannot write about it.&nbsp; Whether Greek
and Latin ought to be generally taught I am unable to decide.&nbsp;
I am glad I learned them.&nbsp; My apology for my little <i>Mus&aelig;</i>
must be that it is too late to attempt to alter the habits in which
I was brought up.&nbsp; Remember, my dear child, that I am an old bachelor
with seventy years behind me last Christmas, and remember also my natural
limits.&nbsp; I am not so old, nevertheless, that I cannot wish you
God-speed in all your undertakings.</p>
<p>Your affectionate godfather,<br />G. L.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>My Dear Godfather, - What a blunderer I am!&nbsp; What deplorable
want of tact!&nbsp; If I wanted your opinion on classical education
or my scheme I surely might have found a better opportunity for requesting
it.&nbsp; It is always the way with me.&nbsp; I get a thing into my
head, and out it comes at the most unseasonable moment.&nbsp; It is
almost as important that what is said should be relevant as that it
should be true.&nbsp; Well, the mistake is made, and I cannot unmake
it.&nbsp; I will not trouble you with another syllable - directly at
any rate - about Latin and Greek, but I do want to know what you think
about the exclusion of theology and metaphysics from the education of
the young.&nbsp; I must have <i>debate</i>, so that before publication
my ideas may become clear and objections may be anticipated.&nbsp; I
cannot discuss the matter with my father.&nbsp; You were at college
with him, and you will remember his love for Aristotle, who, as I think,
has enslaved him.&nbsp; If I may say so without offence, you are not
a philosopher.&nbsp; You are more likely, therefore, to give a sound,
unprofessional opinion.&nbsp; You have never had much to do with children,
but this does not matter; in fact, it is rather an advantage, for actual
children would have distorted your judgment.&nbsp; What has theology
done?&nbsp; It is only half-believed, and its rewards and punishments
are too remote to be of practical service.&nbsp; They are not seen when
they are most required.&nbsp; As to metaphysics, its propositions are
too loose.&nbsp; They may with equal ease be affirmed or denied.&nbsp;
Conduct cannot be controlled by what is shadowy and uncertain.&nbsp;
We have been brought up on theology and metaphysics for centuries, and
we are still at daggers drawn upon matters of life and death.&nbsp;
We are as warlike as ever, and not a single social problem has been
settled by bishops or professors.&nbsp; I wish to try a more direct
and, as I believe, a more efficient method.&nbsp; I wish to see what
the effect will be of teaching children from their infancy the lesson
that morality and the enjoyment of life are identical; that if, for
example, they lie, they lose.&nbsp; I should urge this on them perpetually,
until at last, by association, lying would become impossible.&nbsp;
Restraint which is exercised in accordance with rational principles,
inasmuch as it proceeds from Nature, must be more efficacious than an
external prohibition.&nbsp; So with other virtues.&nbsp; I should deduce
most of them in the same way.&nbsp; If I could not, I should let them
go, assured that we could do without them.&nbsp; Now, my dear godfather,
do open out to me, and don&rsquo;t put me off.</p>
<p>Your affectionate godchild,<br />HERMIONE.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>My Dear Hermione, - You terrify me.&nbsp; These matters are really
not in my way.&nbsp; I have never been able to tackle big questions.&nbsp;
Unhappily for me, all questions nowadays are big.&nbsp; I do not see
many people, as you know, and potter about in my garden from morning
to night, but Mrs. Lindsay occasionally brings down her friends from
London, and the subjects of conversation are so immense that I am bewildered.&nbsp;
I admit that some people are too rich and others are too poor, and that
if I could give you a vote you should have one, and that boys and girls
might be better taught, but upon Socialism, Enfranchisement of Women,
and Educational Reform, I have not a word to say.&nbsp; Is not this
very unsatisfactory?&nbsp; Nobody is more willing to admit it than I
am.&nbsp; It is so disappointing in talking to myself or to others to
stop short of generalisation and to be obliged to confess that <i>sometimes
it is and sometimes it is not</i>.&nbsp; I bless my stars that I am
not a politician or a newspaper writer.&nbsp; When I was young these
great matters, at least in our village, were not such common property
as they are now.&nbsp; A man, even if he was a scholar, thought he had
done his duty by living an honest and peaceable life.&nbsp; He was justified
if he was kind to his neighbours and amused himself with his bees and
flowers.&nbsp; He had no desire to be remembered for any achievement,
and was content to be buried with a few tears and then to be forgotten.&nbsp;
All Mrs. Lindsay&rsquo;s folk want to do something outside their own
houses or parishes which shall make their names immortal. . . .&nbsp;
I was interrupted by a tremendous thunderstorm and hail.&nbsp; That
wonderful rose-bush which, you will recollect, stood on the left-hand
side of the garden door, has been stripped just as if it had been scourged
with whips.&nbsp; If you have done, quite done with the Orelli you borrowed
about two years ago, please let me have it.&nbsp; Why could you not
bring it?&nbsp; Mrs. Lindsay was saying only the other day how glad
she should be if you would stay with her for a fortnight before you
return to town.</p>
<p>Your affectionate godfather,<br />G. L.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>My Dear Godfather, - I have sent back the Orelli.&nbsp; How I should
love to come and to wander about the meadows with you by the river or
sit in the boat with you under the willows.&nbsp; But I cannot, for
I have promised to speak at a Woman&rsquo;s Temperance Meeting next
week, and in the week following I am going to read a paper called &ldquo;An
Educational Experiment,&rdquo; before our Ethical Society.&nbsp; This,
I think, will be interesting.&nbsp; I have placed my pupils in difficult
historical positions, and have made them tell me what they would have
done, giving the reasons.&nbsp; I am thus enabled to detect any weakness
and to strengthen character on that side.&nbsp; Most of the girls are
embarrassed by the conflict of motives, and I have to impress upon them
the necessity in life of disregarding those which are of less importance
and of prompt action on the stronger.&nbsp; I have classified my results
in tables, so that it may be seen at a glance what impulses are most
generally operative.</p>
<p>But to go back to your letter.&nbsp; I will not have you shuffle.&nbsp;
You can say so much if you like.&nbsp; Talk to me just as you did when
we last sat under the cedar-tree.&nbsp; I <i>must</i> know your mind
about theology and metaphysics.</p>
<p>Your affectionate godchild,<br />HERMIONE.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>My Dear Hermione, - I am sorry you could not come.&nbsp; I am sorry
that what people call a &ldquo;cause&rdquo; should have kept you away.&nbsp;
If any of your friends had been ill; if it had been a dog or a cat,
I should not have cared so much.&nbsp; You are dreadful!&nbsp; Theology
and metaphysics!&nbsp; I do not understand what they are as formal sciences.&nbsp;
Everything seems to me theological and metaphysical.&nbsp; What Shakespeare
says now and then carries me further than anything I have read in the
system-books into which I have looked.&nbsp; I cannot take up a few
propositions, bind them into faggots, and say, &ldquo;This is theology,
and that is metaphysics.&rdquo;&nbsp; There is much &ldquo;discourse
of God&rdquo; in a May blossom, and my admiration of it is &ldquo;beyond
nature,&rdquo; but I am not sure upon this latter point, for I do not
know in the least what &phi;&upsilon;&sigma;&iota;&sigmaf; or Nature
is.&nbsp; We love justice and generosity, and hate injustice and meanness,
but the origin of virtue, the life of the soul, is as much beyond me
as the origin of life in a plant or animal, and I do not bother myself
with trying to find it out.&nbsp; I do feel, however, that justice and
generosity have somehow a higher authority than I or any human being
can give them, and if I had children of my own this is what I should
try, not exactly to teach them, but to breathe into them.&nbsp; I really,
my dear child, dare not attempt an essay on the influence which priests
and professors have had upon the world, nor am I quite clear that &ldquo;shadowy&rdquo;
and &ldquo;uncertain&rdquo; mean the same thing.&nbsp; All ultimate
facts in a sense are shadowy, but they are not uncertain.&nbsp; When
you try to pinch them between your fingers they seem unsubstantial,
but they are very real.&nbsp; Are you sure that you yourself stand on
solid granite?</p>
<p>Your affectionate godfather,<br />G. L.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>My Dear Godfather, - You are most disappointing and evasive.&nbsp;
I gave up the discussion on Latin and Greek, but I did and do want your
reply to a most simple question.&nbsp; If you had to teach children
- you surely can imagine yourself in such a position - would you teach
them <i>what are generally known as theology and metaphysics</i>? -
excuse the emphasis.&nbsp; You have an answer, I am certain, and you
may just as well give it me.&nbsp; I know that you had rather, or affect
you had rather, talk about Catullus, but I also know that you think
upon serious subjects sometimes.&nbsp; These matters cannot now be put
aside.&nbsp; We live in a world in which certain problems are forced
upon us and we are compelled to come to some conclusion upon them.&nbsp;
I cannot shut myself up and determine that I will have no opinion upon
Education or Socialism or Women&rsquo;s Rights.&nbsp; The fact that
these questions are here is plain proof that it is my duty not to ignore
them.&nbsp; You hate large generalisations, but how can we exist without
them?&nbsp; They may never be entirely true, but they are indispensable,
and, if you never commit yourself to any, you are much more likely to
be practically wrong than if you use them.</p>
<p>Take, for example, the Local Veto.&nbsp; I admitted in my speech
that there is much to be urged against it.&nbsp; It might act harshly,
and it is quite true that poor men in large towns cannot spend their
evenings in their filthy homes; but I <i>must</i> be for it or against
it, and I am enthusiastically for it, because on the whole it will do
good.&nbsp; So with Socialism.&nbsp; The evils of Capitalism are so
monstrous that any remedy is better than none.&nbsp; Socialism may not
be the direct course: it may be a tremendously awkward tack, but it
is only by tacking that we get along.&nbsp; So with positive education,
but I have enlarged upon this already.&nbsp; What a sermon to my dear
godfather!&nbsp; Forgive me, but you will have to take sides, and do,
please, be a little more definite about my book.</p>
<p>Your affectionate godchild,<br />HERMIONE.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>My Dear Hermione, - I haven&rsquo;t written for some time, for I
was unwell for nearly a month.&nbsp; The doctor has given me physic,
but my age is really the mischief, and it is incurable.&nbsp; I caught
cold through sitting out of doors after dinner with the rector, a good
fellow if he would not smoke on my port.&nbsp; To smoke on good port
is a sin.&nbsp; He knows my infirmity, that I cannot sit still long,
and he excuses my attendance at church.&nbsp; Would you believe it?&nbsp;
When I was very bad, and thought I might die, I read Horace again, whom
you detest.&nbsp; I often wonder what he really thought upon many things
when he looked out on the</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;taciturna noctis<br />signa.&rdquo;</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>Justice is not often done to him.&nbsp; He saw a long way, but he
did not make believe he saw beyond his limit, and was content with it.&nbsp;
A rare virtue is intellectual content!</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>&ldquo;Tu ne qu&aelig;sieris, scire nefas, quem mihi, quem tibi<br />Finem
d&icirc; dederint, Leuconoe, nec Babylonios<br />Tentaris numeros.&rdquo;</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>The rector was telling me about Tom Pavenham&rsquo;s wedding.&nbsp;
He has married Margaret Loxley, as you may perhaps have seen in the
paper I sent you.&nbsp; Mrs. Loxley, her mother, was a Barfield, and
old Pavenham, when he was a youth, fell in love with her.&nbsp; She
was also in love with him.&nbsp; He was well-to-do, and farmed about
seven hundred acres, but he was not thought good enough by the elder
Barfields, who lived in what was called a park.&nbsp; They would not
hear of the match.&nbsp; She was sent to France, and he went to Buenos
Ayres.&nbsp; After some years had passed he married out there, and she
married.&nbsp; His wife died when her first child, a boy, was born.&nbsp;
Loxley also died, leaving his wife with an only daughter.&nbsp; Pavenham
retired from business in South America, and came back with his son to
his native village, where he meant to spend the rest of his days.&nbsp;
Tom and Margaret were at once desperately smitten with one another.&nbsp;
The father and mother have kept their own flame alive, and I believe
it is as bright as it ever was.&nbsp; It is delightful to see them together.&nbsp;
They called on me with the children after the betrothal.&nbsp; He was
so courteous and attentive to her, and she seemed to bask in his obvious
affection.&nbsp; I noticed how they looked at one another and smiled
happily as the boy and girl wandered off together towards the filbert
walk.&nbsp; The rector told me that he was talking to old Pavenham one
evening, and said to him: &ldquo;Jem, aren&rsquo;t you sometimes sad
when you think of what ought to have happened?&rdquo;&nbsp; His voice
shook a bit as he replied gently: &ldquo;God be thanked for what we
have!&nbsp; Besides, it has all come to pass in Tom and Margaret.&rdquo;</p>
<p>You must not be angry with me if I say nothing more about Positive
Education.&nbsp; It is a great strain on me to talk upon such matters,
and when I do I always feel afterwards that I have said much which is
mere words.&nbsp; That is a sure test; I must obey my d&aelig;mon.&nbsp;
I wish I could give you what you want for what you have given me; but
when do we get what we want in exchange for what we give?&nbsp; Our
trafficking is a clumsy barter.&nbsp; A man sells me a sheep, and I
pay him in return with my grandfather&rsquo;s old sextant.&nbsp; This
is not quite true for you and me.&nbsp; Love is given and love is returned.&nbsp;
&Agrave; Dieu - not adieu.&nbsp; Remember that the world is very big,
and that there may be room in it for a few creatures like</p>
<p>Your affectionate godfather,<br />G. L.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<h2>MRS. FAIRFAX</h2>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>The town of Langborough in 1839 had not been much disturbed since
the beginning of the preceding century.&nbsp; The new houses were nearly
all of them built to replace others which had fallen into decay; there
were no drains; the drinking-water came from pumps; the low fever killed
thirty or forty people every autumn; the Moot Hall still stood in the
middle of the High Street; the newspaper came but once a week; nobody
read any books; and the Saturday market and the annual fair were the
only events in public local history.&nbsp; Langborough, being seventy
miles from London and eight from the main coach-road, had but little
communication with the outside world.&nbsp; Its inhabitants intermarried
without crossing from other stocks, and men determined their choice
mainly by equality of fortune and rank.&nbsp; The shape of the nose
and lips and colour of the eyes may have had some influence in masculine
selection, but not much: the doctor took the lawyer&rsquo;s daughter,
the draper took the grocer&rsquo;s, and the carpenter took the blacksmith&rsquo;s.&nbsp;
Husbands and wives, as a rule, lived comfortably with one another; there
was no reason why they should quarrel.&nbsp; The air of the place was
sleepy; the men attended to their business, and the women were entirely
apart, minding their household affairs and taking tea with one another.&nbsp;
In Langborough, dozing as it had dozed since the days of Queen Anne,
it was almost impossible that any woman should differ so much from another
that she could be the cause of passionate preference.</p>
<p>One day in the spring of 1839 Langborough was stirred to its depths.&nbsp;
No such excitement had been felt in the town since the run upon the
bank in 1825, when one of the partners went up to London, brought down
ten thousand pounds in gold with him by the mail, and was met at Thaxton
cross-roads by a post-chaise, which was guarded into Langborough by
three men with pistols.&nbsp; A circular printed in London was received
on that spring day in 1839 by all the respectable ladies in the town
stating that a Mrs. Fairfax was about to begin business in Ferry Street
as a dressmaker.&nbsp; She had taken the only house to be let in Ferry
Street.&nbsp; It was a cottage with a front and back sitting-room, and
belonged to an old lady in Lincoln, who inherited it from her brother,
who once lived in it but had been dead forty years.&nbsp; Before a week
had gone by four-fifths of the population of Langborough had re-inspected
it.&nbsp; The front room was the shop, and in the window was a lay-figure
attired in an evening robe of rose-coloured silk, the like of which
for style and fit no native lady had ever seen.&nbsp; Underneath it
was a card - &ldquo;Mrs. Fairfax, Milliner and Dressmaker.&rdquo;&nbsp;
The circular stated that Mrs. Fairfax could provide materials or would
make up those brought to her by her customers.</p>
<p>Great was the debate which followed this unexpected apparition.&nbsp;
Who Mrs. Fairfax was could not be discovered.&nbsp; Her furniture and
the lay-figure had come by the waggon, and the only information the
driver could give was that he was directed at the &ldquo;George and
Blue Boar&rdquo; in Holborn to fetch them from Great Ormond Street.&nbsp;
After much discussion it was agreed that Mrs. Bingham, the wife of the
wine merchant, should call on Mrs. Fairfax and inquire the price of
a gown.&nbsp; Mrs. Bingham was at the head of society in Langborough,
and had the reputation of being very clever.&nbsp; It was hoped, and
indeed fully expected, that she would be able to penetrate the mystery.&nbsp;
She went, opened the door, a little bell sounded, and Mrs. Fairfax presented
herself.&nbsp; Mrs. Bingham&rsquo;s eyes fell at once upon Mrs. Fairfax&rsquo;s
dress.&nbsp; It was black, with no ornament, and constructed with an
accuracy and grace which proved at once to Mrs. Bingham that its maker
was mistress of her art.&nbsp; Mrs. Bingham, although she could not
entirely desert the linendraper&rsquo;s wife, whose husband was a good
customer for brandy, had some of her clothes made in London when she
stayed with her sister in town, and, to use her own phrase, &ldquo;knew
what was what.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Mrs. Fairfax?&rdquo;</p>
<p>A bow.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Will you please tell me what a gown would cost made somewhat
like that in the window?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;For yourself, madam?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Pardon me; I am afraid that colour would not suit you.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Mrs. Bingham was a stout woman with a ruddy complexion.</p>
<p>&ldquo;One colour costs no more than another?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;No, madam: twelve guineas; that silk is expensive.&nbsp; Will
you not take a seat?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I am afraid you will find twelve guineas too much for anybody
here.&nbsp; Have you nothing cheaper?&rdquo;</p>
<p>Mrs. Fairfax produced some patterns and fashion-plates.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I suppose the gown in the window is your own make?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;My own make and design.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Then you are not beginning business?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I hope I may say that I thoroughly understand it.&rdquo;</p>
<p>The door leading into the back parlour opened, and a little girl
about nine or ten years old entered.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Mother, I want - &rdquo;</p>
<p>Mrs. Fairfax, without saying a word, gently led the child into the
parlour again.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Dear me, what a pretty little girl!&nbsp; Is that yours?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Yes, she is mine.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Mrs. Bingham noticed that Mrs. Fairfax did not wear a widow&rsquo;s
cap, and that she had a wedding-ring on her finger.</p>
<p>&ldquo;You will find it rather lonely here.&nbsp; Have you been accustomed
to solitude?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Yes.&nbsp; That silk, now, would suit you admirably.&nbsp;
With less ornament it would be ten guineas.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Thank you: I must not be so extravagant at present.&nbsp;
May I look at something which will do for walking?&nbsp; You would not,
I suppose, make a walking-dress for Langborough exactly as you would
have made it in London?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;If you mean for walking about the roads here, it would differ
slightly from one which would be suitable for London.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Will you show me what you have usually made for town?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;This is what is worn now.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Mrs. Bingham was baffled but not defeated.&nbsp; She gave an order
for a walking-dress, and hoped that Mrs. Fairfax might be more communicative.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Have you any introductions here?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;None whatever.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;It is rather a risk if you are unknown.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Perhaps you have been exempt from risks: some people are obliged
constantly to encounter them.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;&lsquo;Exempt,&rsquo; &lsquo;encounter,&rdquo;&rsquo; thought
Mrs. Bingham: &ldquo;she must have been to a good school.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;When will you be ready to try on?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;On Friday,&rdquo; and Mrs. Fairfax opened the door.</p>
<p>As Mrs. Bingham went out she noticed a French book lying on a side
table.</p>
<p>The day following was Sunday, and Mrs. Fairfax and her daughter were
at church.&nbsp; They sat at the back, and all the congregation turned
on entering, looked at them, and thought about them during the service.&nbsp;
They went out as soon as it was over, but Mrs. Harrop, wife of the ironmonger,
and Mrs. Cobb, wife of the coal merchant, escaped with equal promptitude
and were close behind them.</p>
<p>&ldquo;There isn&rsquo;t a crease in that body,&rdquo; said Mrs.
Harrop.</p>
<p>On Monday Mrs. Bingham was at the post-office.&nbsp; She took care
to be there at the dinner hour, when the postmaster&rsquo;s wife generally
came to the counter.</p>
<p>&ldquo;A newcomer, Mrs. Carter.&nbsp; Have you seen Mrs. Fairfax?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Once or twice, ma&rsquo;am.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Has she many letters?&rdquo;</p>
<p>The door between the office and the parlour was open.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I&rsquo;ve no doubt she will have, ma&rsquo;am, if her business
succeeds.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I wonder where she lived before she came here.&nbsp; It is
curious, isn&rsquo;t it, that nobody knows her?&nbsp; Did you ever notice
how her letters are stamped?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Can&rsquo;t say as I have, ma&rsquo;am.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Mrs. Carter shut the parlour door.&nbsp; &ldquo;The smell of those
onions,&rdquo; she whispered to her husband, &ldquo;blows right in here.&rdquo;&nbsp;
She then altered her tone a trifle.</p>
<p>&ldquo;One of &rsquo;em, Mrs. Bingham, had the Portsmouth postmark
on it; but this is in the strictest confidence, and I should never dream
of letting it out to anybody but you, but I don&rsquo;t mind you, because
I know you won&rsquo;t repeat it, and if my husband was to hear me he&rsquo;d
be in a fearful rage, for there was a dreadful row when I told Lady
Caroline at Thaxton Manor about the letters Miss Margaret was getting,
and it was found out that it was me as told her, and some gentleman
in London wrote to the Postmaster-General about it.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;You may depend upon me, Mrs. Carter.&rdquo;&nbsp; Mrs. Bingham
considered she had completely satisfied her conscience when she imposed
an oath of secrecy on Mrs. Harrop, who was also self-exonerated when
she had imposed a similar oath on Mrs. Cobb.</p>
<p>A fortnight after the visit to the post-office there was a tea-party.&nbsp;
Mrs. Harrop, Mrs. Cobb, Mrs. Sweeting, the grocer&rsquo;s wife, and
Miss Tarrant, an elderly lady, living on a small annuity, but most genteel,
were invited to Mrs. Bingham&rsquo;s.&nbsp; They began to talk of Mrs.
Fairfax directly they had tasted the hot buttered toast.&nbsp; They
had before them the following facts: the carrier&rsquo;s deposition
that the goods came from Great Ormond Street; the lay-figure and what
it wore; Mrs. Fairfax&rsquo;s prices; the little girl; the wedding-ring
but no widow&rsquo;s weeds; the Portsmouth postmark; the French book;
Mrs. Bingham&rsquo;s new gown, and lastly - a piece of information contributed
by Mrs. Sweeting and considered to be of great importance, as we shall
see presently - that Mrs. Fairfax bought her coffee whole and ground
it herself.&nbsp; On these facts, nine in all, the ladies had to construct
- it was imperative that they should construct it - an explanation of
Mrs. Fairfax, and it must be confessed that they were not worse equipped
than many a picturesque and successful historian.&nbsp; At the request
of the company, Mrs. Bingham went upstairs and put on the gown.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Do you mind coming to the window, Mrs. Bingham?&rdquo; asked
Mrs. Harrop.</p>
<p>Mrs. Bingham rose and went to the window.&nbsp; Her guests also rose.&nbsp;
She held her arms down and then held them up, and was surveyed from
every point of the compass.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I thought it was a pucker, but it&rsquo;s only the shadow,&rdquo;
observed Mrs. Harrop.</p>
<p>Mrs. Cobb stroked the body and shook the skirt.&nbsp; Not a single
depreciatory criticism was ventured.&nbsp; Excepting the wearer, nobody
present had seen such a masterpiece.&nbsp; But although for half a lifetime
we may have beheld nothing better than an imperfect actual, we recognise
instantly the superiority and glory of the realised Ideal when it is
presented to us.&nbsp; Mrs. Harrop, Mrs. Cobb, Mrs. Sweeting, and Miss
Tarrant became suddenly aware of possibilities of which they had not
hitherto dreamed.&nbsp; Mrs. Swanley, the linendraper&rsquo;s wife,
was degraded and deposed.</p>
<p>&ldquo;She must have learned that in London,&rdquo; said Mrs. Harrop.</p>
<p>&ldquo;London! my dear Mrs. Harrop,&rdquo; replied Mrs. Bingham,
&ldquo;I know London pretty well, and how things are cut there.&nbsp;
I told you there was a French book on the table.&nbsp; Take my word
for it, she has lived in Paris.&nbsp; She <i>must</i> have lived there.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Where is Great Ormond Street, Mrs. Bingham?&rdquo; inquired
Mrs. Sweeting.</p>
<p>&ldquo;A great many foreigners live there; it is somewhere near Leicester
Square.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Mrs. Bingham knew nothing about the street, but having just concluded
a residence in Paris from the French book, that conclusion led at once
to a further conclusion, clear as noonday, as to the quality of the
people who inhabited Great Ormond Street, and consequently to the final
deduction of its locality.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Did you not say, Mrs. Sweeting, that she buys her coffee whole?&rdquo;
added Mrs. Bingham, as if inspiration had flashed into her.&nbsp; &ldquo;If
you want additional proof that she is French, there it is.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Portsmouth,&rdquo; mused Mrs. Cobb.&nbsp; &ldquo;You say,
Mrs. Bingham, there are a good many officers there.&nbsp; Let me see
- 1815 - it&rsquo;s twenty-four years ago since the battle.&nbsp; A
captain may have picked her up in Paris.&nbsp; I&rsquo;ll be bound that,
if she ever was married, she was married when she was sixteen or seventeen.&nbsp;
They are always obliged to marry those French girls when they are nothing
but chits, I&rsquo;ve been told - those of them, least-ways, that don&rsquo;t
live with men without being married.&nbsp; That would make her about
forty, and then he found her out and left her, and she went back to
Paris and learned dressmaking.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;But he writes to her from Portsmouth,&rdquo; said Mrs. Bingham,
who had not been told that the solitary letter from Portsmouth was addressed
in a man&rsquo;s handwriting.</p>
<p>&ldquo;He may not have broken with her altogether,&rdquo; replied
Mrs. Cobb.&nbsp; &ldquo;If he isn&rsquo;t a downright brute he&rsquo;ll
want to hear about his daughter.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said Mrs. Sweeting, twitching her eyes as she
was wont to do when she was about to give an opinion which she knew
would disturb any of her friends, &ldquo;you may talk as you like, but
the last thing Swanley made for me looked as if it had been to the wash
and hung on me to dry.&nbsp; French or English, captain or no captain,
I shall go to Mrs. Fairfax.&nbsp; Her character&rsquo;s got nothing
to do with her cut.&nbsp; Suppose she <i>is</i> divorced; judging from
that body of yours, Mrs. Bingham, I shan&rsquo;t have to send back a
pelisse half a dozen times to get it altered.&nbsp; When it comes to
that you get sick of the thing, and may just as well give it away.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Mrs. Sweeting occupied the lowest rank in this particular section
of Langborough society.&nbsp; As a grocer Mr. Sweeting was not quite
on a level with the coal dealer, who was a merchant, nor with the ironmonger,
who repaired ploughs, and he was certainly below Mr. Bingham.&nbsp;
Miss Tarrant, never having been &ldquo;connected with trade&rdquo; -
her father was chief clerk in the bank - considered herself superior
to all her acquaintances, but her very small income prevented her from
claiming her superiority so effectively as she desired.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Mrs. Sweeting,&rdquo; she said, &ldquo;I am surprised at you!&nbsp;
You do not consider what the moral effect on the lower orders of patronising
a female of this kind will be, probably an abandoned woman.&nbsp; The
child, no doubt, was not born in wedlock.&nbsp; We are sinners ourselves
if we support sinners.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Miss Tarrant,&rdquo; retorted Mrs. Sweeting, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m
the respectable mother of five children, and I don&rsquo;t want any
sermons on sin except in church.&nbsp; If it wasn&rsquo;t a sin of Swanley
to charge me three guineas for that pelisse, and wouldn&rsquo;t take
it back, I don&rsquo;t know what sin.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Mrs. Bingham, although she was accustomed to tea-table disputes,
and even enjoyed them, was a little afraid of Mrs. Sweeting&rsquo;s
tongue, and thought it politic to interfere.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I agree with you entirely, Mrs. Sweeting, about the inferiority
of Mrs. Swanley to this newcomer, but we must consider Miss Tarrant&rsquo;s
position in the parish and her responsibilities.&nbsp; She is no doubt
right from her point of view.&rdquo;</p>
<p>So the conversation ended, but Mrs. Fairfax&rsquo;s biography, which
was to be published under authority in Langborough, was now rounded
off and complete.&nbsp; She was a Parisian, father and mother unknown,
was found in Paris in 1815 by Captain Fairfax, who, by her intrigues
and threats of exposure, was forced into a marriage with her.&nbsp;
A few years afterwards he had grounds for a divorce, but not wishing
a scandal, consented to a compromise and voluntary separation.&nbsp;
He left one child in her custody, as it showed signs of resemblance
to its mother, to whom he gave a small monthly allowance.&nbsp; She
had been apprenticed as a dressmaker in Paris, had returned thither
in order to master her trade, and then came back to England.&nbsp; In
a very little time, so clever was she that she learned to speak English
fluently, although, as Mrs. Bingham at once noticed, the French accent
was very perceptible.&nbsp; It was a good, intelligible, working theory,
and that was all that was wanted.&nbsp; This was Mrs. Fairfax so far
as her female neighbours were concerned.&nbsp; To the men in Langborough
she was what she was to the women, but with a difference.&nbsp; When
she went to Mr. Sweeting&rsquo;s shop to order her groceries, Mr. Sweeting,
notwithstanding the canonical legend of her life, served her himself,
and was much entangled by her dark hair, and was drawn down by it into
a most polite bow.&nbsp; Mr. Cobb, who had a little cabin of an office
in his coal-yard, hastened back to it from superintending the discharge
of a lighter, when Mrs. Fairfax called to pay her little bill, actually
took off his hat, begged her to be seated, and hoped she did not find
the last lot of coals dusty.&nbsp; He was now unloading some of the
best Wallsend that ever came up the river, and would take care that
the next half ton should not have an ounce of small in it.</p>
<p>&ldquo;You&rsquo;ll find it chilly where you are living, ma&rsquo;am,
but it isn&rsquo;t damp, that&rsquo;s one comfort.&nbsp; The bottom
of your street is damp, and down here in a flood anything like what
we had fourteen years ago, we are nearly drowned.&nbsp; If you&rsquo;ll
step outside with me I&rsquo;ll show you how high the water rose.&rdquo;&nbsp;
He opened the door, and Mrs. Fairfax thought it courteous not to refuse.&nbsp;
He walked to the back of his cabin bareheaded, although the morning
was cold, and pointed out to her the white paint mark on the wall.&nbsp;
She, dropped her receipted bill in the black mud and stooped to pick
it up.&nbsp; Mr. Cobb plunged after it and wiped it carefully on his
silk pocket-handkerchief.&nbsp; Mrs. Cobb&rsquo;s bay window commanded
the whole length of the coal-yard.&nbsp; In this bay window she always
sat and worked and nodded to the customers, or gossiped with them as
they passed.&nbsp; She turned her back on Mrs. Fairfax both when she
entered the yard and when she left it, but watched her carefully.&nbsp;
Mr. Cobb came into dinner, but his wife bided her time, knowing that,
as he took snuff, the handkerchief would be used.&nbsp; It was very
provoking, he was absent-minded, and forgot his usual pinch before he
sat down to his meal.&nbsp; For three-quarters of an hour his wife was
afflicted with painfully uneasy impatience, and found it very difficult
to reply to Mr. Cobb&rsquo;s occasional remarks.&nbsp; At last the cheese
was finished, the snuff-box appeared, and after it the handkerchief.</p>
<p>&ldquo;A pretty mess that handkerchief is in, Cobb.&rdquo;&nbsp;
She always called him simply &ldquo;Cobb.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Yes, it was an a-a-accident.&nbsp; I must have a clean one.&nbsp;
I didn&rsquo;t think it was so dirty.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;The washing of your snuffy handkerchiefs costs quite enough
as it is, Cobb, without using them in that way.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;What way?&rdquo; said Mr. Cobb weakly.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Oh, I saw it all, going out without your hat and standing
there like a silly fool cleaning that bit of paper.&nbsp; I wonder what
the lightermen thought of you.&rdquo;</p>
<p>It will already have been noticed that the question what other people
thought was always the test which was put in Langborough whenever anything
was done or anything happened not in accordance with the usual routine,
and Mrs. Cobb struck at her husband&rsquo;s conscience by referring
him to his lightermen.&nbsp; She continued -</p>
<p>&ldquo;And you know what she is as well as I do, and if she&rsquo;d
been respectable you&rsquo;d have been rude to her, as you generally
are.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;You bought that last new gown of her, and you never had one
as fitted you so well.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;What&rsquo;s that got to do with it?&nbsp; You may be sure
I knew my place when I went there.&nbsp; Fit?&nbsp; Yes, it did fit;
them sort of women, it stands to reason, are just the women to fit you.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Mr. Cobb was silent.&nbsp; He was a mild man, and he knew by much
experience how unprofitable controversy with Mrs. Cobb was.&nbsp; He
could not forget Mrs. Fairfax&rsquo;s stooping figure when she was about
to pick up the bill.&nbsp; She caused in all the Langborough males an
unaccustomed quivering and warmth, the same in each, physical, perhaps,
but salutary, for the monotony of life was relieved thereby and a deference
and even a grace were begotten which did not usually distinguish Langborough
manners.&nbsp; Not one of Mrs. Fairfax&rsquo;s admirers, however, could
say that she showed any desire for conversation with him, nor could
any direct evidence be obtained as to what she thought of things in
general.&nbsp; There was, to be sure, the French book, and there were
other circumstances already mentioned from which suspicion or certainty
(suspicion, as we have seen, passing immediately into certainty in Langborough)
of infidelity or disreputable conduct followed, but no corroborating
word from her could be adduced.&nbsp; She attended to her business,
accepted orders with thanks and smiles, talked about the weather and
the accident to the coach, was punctual in her attendance at church,
calm and inscrutable as the Sphinx.&nbsp; The attendance at church was,
of course, set down to &ldquo;business considerations,&rdquo; and was
held to be quite consistent with the scepticism and loose morality deducible
from the French book and the unground coffee.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>In speaking of the male creatures of the town we have left out Dr.
Midleton.&nbsp; He was forty-eight years old, and had been rector twenty
years.&nbsp; He had obtained high mathematical honours at Cambridge,
and became a tutor in a grammar school, but was soon presented by his
college with the living of Langborough.&nbsp; He was tall, spare, clean-shaven,
grey-eyed, dark-haired, thin-faced, his lips were curved and compressed,
and he stooped slightly.&nbsp; He was a widower with no children, and
the Rectory was efficiently kept in order by an aged housekeeper.&nbsp;
Tractarianism had not arisen in 1839, but he was High Church and an
enemy to all kinds of fanaticism, apt to be satirical, even in his sermons,
on the right of private judgment to interpret texts as it pleased in
ignorance of Hebrew and Greek.&nbsp; He was respected and feared more
than any other man in the parish.&nbsp; He had a great library, and
had taken up arch&aelig;ology as a hobby.&nbsp; He knew the history
of every church in the county, and more about the Langborough records
than was known by the town clerk.&nbsp; He was chairman of a Board of
Governors charged with the administration of wealthy trust for alms
and schools.&nbsp; When he first took office he found that this trust
was controlled almost entirely by a man named Jackson, a local solicitor,
whose salary as clerk was &pound;400 a year and who had a large private
practice.&nbsp; The alms were allotted to serve political purposes,
and the headmaster of the school enjoyed a salary of &pound;800 a year
for teaching forty boys, of whom twenty were boarders.&nbsp; Mr. Midleton
- he was Mr. Midleton then - very soon determined to alter this state
of things.&nbsp; Jackson went about sneering at the newcomer who was
going to turn the place upside down, and having been accustomed to interfere
in the debates in the Board-room, interrupted the Rector at the third
or fourth meeting.</p>
<p>&ldquo;You&rsquo;ll get yourself in a mess if you do that, Mr. Chairman.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Mr. Jackson,&rdquo; replied the Rector, rising slowly, &ldquo;it
may perhaps save trouble if I remind you now, once for all, that I am
chairman and you are the clerk.&nbsp; Mr. Bingham, you were about to
speak.&rdquo;</p>
<p>It was Dr. Midleton who obtained the new Act of Parliament remodelling
the trust, whereby a much larger portion of its funds was devoted to
education.&nbsp; Jackson died, partly from drink and partly from spite
and vexation, and the headmaster was pensioned.&nbsp; The Rector was
not popular with the middle class.&nbsp; He was not fond of paying visits,
but he never neglected his duty, and by the poor was almost beloved,
for he was careless and intimate in his talk with them and generous
to real distress.&nbsp; Everybody admired his courage.&nbsp; The cholera
in 1831 was very bad in Langborough, and the people were in a panic
at the new disease, which was fatal in many cases within six hours after
the first attack.&nbsp; The Rector through that dark time was untouched
by the contagious dread which overpowered his parishioners, and his
presence carried confidence and health.&nbsp; On the worst day, sultry,
stifling, with no sun, an indescribable terror crept abroad, and Mr.
Cobb, standing at his gate, was overcome by it.&nbsp; In five minutes
he had heard of two deaths, and he began to feel what were called &ldquo;premonitory
symptoms.&rdquo;&nbsp; He carried a brandy flask in his pocket, brandy
being then considered a remedy, and he drank freely, but imagined himself
worse.&nbsp; He was about to rush indoors and tell Mrs. Cobb to send
for the surgeon, when the Rector passed.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Ah, Mr. Cobb!&nbsp; I was just about to call on you; glad
to see you looking so well when there&rsquo;s so much sickness.&nbsp;
We shall want you on the School Committee this evening,&rdquo; and then
he explained some business which was to be discussed.&nbsp; Mr. Cobb
afterwards was fond of telling the story of this interview.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Would you believe it?&rdquo; said he.&nbsp; &ldquo;He spoke
to me about nothing much but the trust, but somehow my stomach seemed
quieter at once.&nbsp; The sinking - just <i>here</i>, you know - was
dreadful before he came up, and the brandy was no good.&nbsp; It was
a something in his way that did it.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Dr. Midleton was obliged to call on Mrs. Fairfax as a newcomer.&nbsp;
He found Mrs. Harrop there, and Mrs. Fairfax asked him to step into
the back parlour, into which no one in Langborough had hitherto been
admitted.&nbsp; Gowns were tried on in the shop, the door being bolted
and the blind drawn.&nbsp; Dr. Midleton found four little shelves of
books on the cupboard by the side of the fireplace.&nbsp; Some were
French, but most of them were English.&nbsp; Although it was such a
small collection, his book-lover&rsquo;s instinct compelled him to look
at it.&nbsp; His eyes fell upon a <i>Religio Medici</i>, and he opened
it hastily.&nbsp; On the fly-leaf was written &ldquo;Mary Leighton,
from R. L.&rdquo;&nbsp; He had just time, before its owner entered,
to replace it and to muse for an instant.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Richard Leighton of Trinity: it is not a common name, but
it cannot be he - have lost sight of him for years; heard he was married,
and came to no good.&rdquo;</p>
<p>He was able to watch her for a minute as she stood by the table giving
some directions to her child, who was sent on an errand.&nbsp; In that
minute he saw her as she had not been seen by anybody in Langborough.&nbsp;
To Mrs. Bingham and her friends Mrs. Fairfax was the substratum of a
body and skirt, with the inestimable advantage over a substratum of
cane and padding that a scandalous history of it could be invented and
believed.&nbsp; To Langborough men, married and single, she was a member
of &ldquo;the sex,&rdquo; as women were called in those days, who possessed
in a remarkable degree the power of exciting that quivering and warmth
we have already observed.&nbsp; Dr. Midleton saw before him a lady,
tall but delicately built, with handsome face and dark brown hair just
streaked with grey, and he saw also diffused over every feature a light
which in her eyes, forward-looking and earnest, became concentrated
into a vivid, steady flame.&nbsp; The few words she spoke to her daughter
were sharply cut, a delightful contrast in his ear to the dialect to
which he was accustomed, distinguished by its universal vowel and suppression
of the consonants.&nbsp; How he inwardly rejoiced to hear the sound
of the second &ldquo;t&rdquo; in the word &ldquo;distinct,&rdquo; when
she told her little messenger that Mr. Cobb had been &ldquo;distinctly&rdquo;
ordered to send the coals yesterday.&nbsp; He remained standing until
the child had gone.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Pray be seated,&rdquo; she said.&nbsp; She went to the fireplace,
leaned on the mantelpiece, and poked the fire.&nbsp; The attitude struck
him.&nbsp; She was about to put some coals in the grate, but he interfered
with an &ldquo;Allow me,&rdquo; and performed the office for her.&nbsp;
She thanked him simply, and sat down opposite to him, facing the light.&nbsp;
She began the conversation.</p>
<p>&ldquo;It is good of you to call on me; calling on people, especially
on newcomers must be an unpleasant part of a clergyman&rsquo;s duty.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;It is so, madam, sometimes - there are not many newcomers.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;It is an advantage in your profession that you must generally
be governed by duty.&nbsp; It is often easier to do what we are obliged
to do, even if it be disagreeable, than to choose our path by our likes
and dislikes.&rdquo;</p>
<p>The bell rang, and Mrs. Fairfax went into the shop.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Who can she be?&rdquo; said the Doctor to himself.&nbsp; Such
an experience as this he had not known since he had been rector.&nbsp;
Langborough did not deal in ideas.&nbsp; It was content to affirm that
Miss Tarrant now and then gave herself airs, that Mrs. Sweeting had
a way of her own, that Mr. Cobb lacked spirit and was downtrodden by
his wife.</p>
<p>She returned and sat down again.</p>
<p>&ldquo;You know nobody in these parts, Mrs. Fairfax?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Nobody.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Yours is a bold venture, is it not?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;It is - certainly.&nbsp; A good many plans were projected,
of which this was one, and there were equal difficulties in the way
of all.&nbsp; When that is the case we may almost as well draw lots.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Ah, that is what I often say to some of the weaker sort among
my parishioners.&nbsp; I said it to poor Cobb the other day.&nbsp; He
did not know whether he should do this or do that.&nbsp; &lsquo;It doesn&rsquo;t
matter much,&rsquo; said I, &lsquo;what you do, but do something.&nbsp;
<i>Do</i> it, with all your strength.&rsquo;&rdquo;</p>
<p>The Doctor was thoroughly Tory, and he slid away to his favourite
doctrine.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Our ancestors, madam, were not such fools as we often take
them to be.&nbsp; They consulted the <i>sortes</i> or lots, and at the
last election - we have a potwalloping constituency here - three parts
of the voters would have done better if they had trusted to the toss-up
of a penny instead of their reason.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Mrs. Fairfax leaned back in her chair.&nbsp; Dr. Midleton noticed
her wedding-ring, and also a handsome sapphire ring.&nbsp; She spoke
rather slowly and meditatively.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Life is so complicated; so few of the consequences of many
actions of the greatest moment can be foreseen, that the belief in the
lot is not unnatural.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;You have some books, I see - Sir Thomas Browne.&rdquo;&nbsp;
He took down the volume.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Leighton!&nbsp; Leighton! how odd!&nbsp; Was it Richard Leighton?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Really; and you knew him?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;He was a friend of my brother.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Do you know what has become of him?&nbsp; He was at Cambridge
with me, but was younger.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I have not seen him for some time.&nbsp; Do you mind if I
open the window a little?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Certainly not.&rdquo;</p>
<p>She stood at the window for a moment, looking out on the garden,
with her hand on the top of the sash.&nbsp; The Doctor had turned his
chair a little and his eyes were fixed on her there with her uplifted
arm.&nbsp; A picture which belonged to his father instantly came back
to him.&nbsp; He recollected it so well.&nbsp; It represented a woman
watching a young man in a courtyard who is just mounting his horse.&nbsp;
We are every now and then reminded of pictures by a group, an attitude,
or the arrangement of a landscape which, thereby, acquires a new charm.</p>
<p>Suddenly the shop bell rang again, and Mrs. Fairfax&rsquo;s little
girl rushed into the parlour.&nbsp; She had fallen down and cut her
wrist terribly with a piece of a bottle containing some harts-horn which
she had to buy at the druggist&rsquo;s on her way home from Mr. Cobb&rsquo;s.&nbsp;
The blood flowed freely, but Mrs. Fairfax, unbewildered, put her thumb
firmly on the wrist just above the wound and instructed the doctor how
to use his pocket-handkerchief as a tourniquet.&nbsp; As he was tying
it, although such careful attention to the operation was necessary,
he noticed Mrs. Fairfax&rsquo;s hands, and he almost forgot himself
and the accident.</p>
<p>&ldquo;There is glass in the wrist,&rdquo; she said.&nbsp; &ldquo;Will
you kindly fetch the surgeon?&nbsp; I do not like to leave.&rdquo;</p>
<p>He went at once, and fortunately met him in his gig.</p>
<p>On the third day after the mishap Dr. Midleton thought he ought to
inquire after the child.&nbsp; The glass had been extracted and she
was doing well.&nbsp; Her mother was at work in the back-parlour.&nbsp;
She made no apology for her occupation, but laid down her tools.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Pray go on, madam.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Certainly not.&nbsp; I am afraid I might make a mistake with
my scissors if I were to listen to you; or, worse, if I were to pay
attention to them I should not pay attention to you.&rdquo;</p>
<p>He smiled.&nbsp; &ldquo;It is an art, I should think, which requires
not only much attention but practice.&rdquo;</p>
<p>She evaded the implied question.&nbsp; &ldquo;It is difficult to
fit, but it is more difficult to please.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;That is true in my own profession.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;But you are not obliged to please.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;No, not obliged, I am happy to say.&nbsp; If my parishioners
do not hear the truth I have no excuse.&nbsp; It must be rather trying
to the temper of a lady like yourself to humour the caprices of the
vulgar.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;No; they are my customers, and even if they are unpleasant
they are so not to me personally but to their servant, who ceases to
be their servant when she ceases to be employed upon their clothes.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;You are a philosopher, madam; that sentiment is worthy of
Epictetus.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I have read Epictetus in Mrs. Carter&rsquo;s translation.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;You have read Epictetus?&nbsp; That is remarkable!&nbsp; I
should think no other woman in the county has read him.&rdquo;&nbsp;
He leaned forward a little and his face was lighted up.&nbsp; &ldquo;I
have a library, madam, a large library; I should like to show it to
you, if - if it can be managed without difficulty.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;It will give me great pleasure to see it some day.&nbsp; It
must be a delightful solace to you in a town like this, in which I daresay
you have but few friends.&nbsp; I suppose, though, you visit a good
deal?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;No; I do not visit much.&nbsp; I differ from my brother Sinclair
in the next parish.&nbsp; He is always visiting.&nbsp; What is the consequence?
- gossip and, as I conceive, a loss of dignity and self-respect.&nbsp;
I will go wherever there is trouble or wherever I am wanted, but I will
not go anywhere for idle talk.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I think you are right.&nbsp; A priest should not make himself
cheap and common.&nbsp; He should be representative of sacred interests
superior to the ordinary interests of life.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I am grateful to you, madam, very grateful to you for these
observations.&nbsp; They are as just as they are unusual.&nbsp; I sincerely
hope that we - &rdquo;&nbsp; But there was a knock at the door.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Come in.&rdquo;&nbsp; It was Mrs. Harrop.&nbsp; &ldquo;Your
bell rang, Mrs. Fairfax, but maybe you didn&rsquo;t hear it as you were
engaged in conversation.&nbsp; Good morning, Dr. Midleton.&nbsp; I hope
I don&rsquo;t intrude?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;No, you do not.&rdquo;</p>
<p>He bowed to the ladies, and as he went out, the parlour-door being
open, he moved the outer door backwards and forwards.</p>
<p>&ldquo;It would be as well, Mrs. Fairfax, to have a bell hung there
which would act properly.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know quite what Dr. Midleton means,&rdquo; said
Mrs. Harrop when he had gone.&nbsp; &ldquo;The bell did ring, loud enough
for most people to have heard it, and I waited ever so long.&rdquo;</p>
<p>He walked down the street with his customary firm step, and met Mr.
Bingham who stopped him, half smiling and not quite at his ease.</p>
<p>&ldquo;We are sorry, Doctor, you did not give Hutchings your vote
for the almshouse last Thursday; we expected you would have gone with
us.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;You expected?&nbsp; Why?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Well, you see, sir, Hutchings has always worked hard for our
side.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I am astonished, Mr. Bingham, that you should suppose that
I will ever consent to divert the funds of a trust for party purposes.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Mr. Bingham, although he had just determined to give the Doctor a
bit of his mind, felt his strength depart from him.&nbsp; His sentences
lacked power to stand upright and fell sprawling.&nbsp; &ldquo;No offence,
Doctor, I merely wanted you to know - not so much my own views - difficulty
to keep our friends together.&nbsp; Short - you know Tom Short - was
saying to me he was afraid - &rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Pay no attention to fools.&nbsp; Good morning.&rdquo;</p>
<p>The Doctor came in that night from a vestry meeting to which he went
after dinner.&nbsp; The clock was striking nine, the chimes played their
tune, and as the last note sounded the housekeeper and servants filed
into the study for prayers.&nbsp; Prayers over they rose and went out,
and he sat down.&nbsp; His habits were becoming fixed and for some years
he had always read in the evening the friends of his youth.&nbsp; No
sermon was composed then; no ecclesiastical literature was studied.&nbsp;
Pope and Swift were favourites and, curiously enough, Lord Byron.&nbsp;
His case is not uncommon, for it often happens that men who are forced
into reserve or opposition preserve a secret, youthful, poetic passion
and are even kept alive by it.&nbsp; On this particular evening, however,
Pope, Byron, and Swift remained on his shelves.&nbsp; He meditated.</p>
<p>&ldquo;A wedding-ring on her finger; no widow&rsquo;s weeds; he may
nevertheless be dead - I believe I heard he was - and she has discontinued
that frightful disfigurement.&nbsp; Leighton had the thickest crop of
black hair I ever saw on a man: what thick, black hair that child has!&nbsp;
A lady; a reader of books; nobody to be compared with her here.&rdquo;&nbsp;
At this point he rose and walked about the room for a quarter of an
hour.&nbsp; He sat down again and took up an important paper about the
Trust.&nbsp; He had forgotten it and it was to be discussed the next
day.&nbsp; His eyes wandered over it but he paid no attention to it;
and somewhat disgusted with himself he went to bed.</p>
<p>Mrs. Fairfax had happened to tell him that she was fond of walking
soon after breakfast before she opened her shop, and generally preferred
the lane on the west side of the Common.&nbsp; From his house the direct
road to the lane lay down the High Street, but about a fortnight after
that evening in his study he found himself one morning in Deadman&rsquo;s
Rents, a narrow, dirty alley which led to the east side of the Common.&nbsp;
Deadman&rsquo;s Rents was inhabited by men who worked in brickyards
and coalyards, who did odd jobs, and by washerwomen and charwomen.&nbsp;
It contained also three beershops.&nbsp; The dwellers in the Rents were
much surprised to see the Doctor amongst them at that early hour, and
conjectured he must have come on a professional errand.&nbsp; Every
one of the Deadman ladies who was at her door - and they were generally
at their doors in the daytime - vigilantly watched him.&nbsp; He went
straight through the Rents to the Common, whereupon Mrs. Wiggins, who
supported herself by the sale of firewood, jam, pickles, and peppermints,
was particularly disturbed and was obliged to go over to the &ldquo;Kicking
Donkey,&rdquo; partly to communicate what she had seen and partly to
ward off by half a quartern of rum the sinking which always threatened
her when she was in any way agitated.&nbsp; When he reached the common
it struck him that for the first time in his life he had gone a roundabout
way to escape being seen.&nbsp; Some people naturally take to side-streets;
he, on the contrary, preferred the High Street; it was his quarter-deck
and he paraded it like a captain.&nbsp; &ldquo;Was he doing wrong?&rdquo;
he said to himself.&nbsp; Certainly not; he desired a little intelligent
conversation and there was no need to tell everybody what he wanted.&nbsp;
It was unfortunate, nevertheless, that it was necessary to go through
Deadman&rsquo;s Rents in order to get it.&nbsp; He soon saw Mrs. Fairfax
and her little girl in front of him.&nbsp; He overtook her, and she
showed no surprise at seeing him.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I have been thinking,&rdquo; said he, &ldquo;about what you
told me&rdquo; - this was a reference to an interview not recorded.&nbsp;
&ldquo;I am annoyed that Mrs. Harrop should have been impertinent to
you.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;You need not be annoyed.&nbsp; The import of a word is not
fixed.&nbsp; If anything annoying is said to me, I always ask myself
what it means - not to me but to the speaker.&nbsp; Besides, as I have
told you before, shop insolence is nothing.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;You may be justified in not resenting it, but Mrs. Harrop
cannot be excused.&nbsp; I am not surprised to find that she can use
such language, but I am astonished that she should use it to you.&nbsp;
It shows an utter lack of perception.&nbsp; Your Epictetus has been
studied to some purpose.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I have quite forgotten him.&nbsp; I do not recollect books,
but I never forget the lessons taught me by my own trade.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;You have had much trouble?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I have had my share: probably not in excess.&nbsp; It is difficult
for anybody to know whether his suffering is excessive: there is no
means of measuring it with that of others.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Have you no friends with whom you can share it?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I have known but one woman intimately, and she is now dead.&nbsp;
I have known two or three men whom I esteemed, but close friendship
between a woman and a man, unless he is her husband, as a rule is impossible.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Do you really think so?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I am certain of it.&nbsp; I am speaking now of a friendship
which would justify a demand for sympathy with real sorrows.&rdquo;</p>
<p>They continued their walk in silence for the next two or three minutes.</p>
<p>&ldquo;We are now near the end of the lane.&nbsp; I must turn and
go back.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I will go with you.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Thank you: I should detain you: I have to make a call on business
at the White House.&nbsp; Good morning.&rdquo;</p>
<p>They parted.</p>
<p>Dr. Midleton presently met Mrs. Jenkins of Deadman&rsquo;s Rents,
who was going to the White House to do a day&rsquo;s washing.&nbsp;
A few steps further he met Mr. Harrop in his gig, who overtook Mrs.
Fairfax.&nbsp; Thus it came to pass that Deadman&rsquo;s Rents and the
High Street knew before nightfall that Dr. Midleton and Mrs. Fairfax
had been seen on the Common that morning.&nbsp; Mrs. Jenkins protested,
that &ldquo;if she was to be burnt alive with fuz-faggits and brimstone,
nothink but what she witnessed with her own eyes should pass her lips,
whatsomever she might think, and although they were a-walkin&rsquo;
- him with his arm round her waist - she did <i>not</i> see him a-kissin&rsquo;
of her - how could she when they were a hundred yards off?&rdquo;</p>
<p>The Doctor prolonged his stroll and reached home about half-past
eleven.&nbsp; A third of his life had been spent in Langborough.&nbsp;
He remembered the day he came and the unpacking of his books.&nbsp;
They lined the walls of his room, some of them rare, all of them his
friends.&nbsp; Nobody in Langborough had ever asked him to lend a single
volume.&nbsp; The solitary scholar never forsook his studies, but at
times he sighed over them and they seemed a little vain.&nbsp; They
were not entirely without external effect, for Pope and Swift in disguise
often spoke to the vestry or the governors, and the Doctor&rsquo;s manners
even in the shops were moulded by his intercourse with the classic dead.&nbsp;
Their names, however, in Langborough were almost unknown.&nbsp; He had
now become hardened by constant unsympathetic contact.&nbsp; Suddenly
a stranger had appeared who was an inhabitant of his own world and talked
his own tongue.&nbsp; The prospect of genuine intercourse disclosed
itself.&nbsp; None but those who have felt it can imagine the relief,
the joyous expansion, which follow the discovery after long years of
imprisonment with decent people of a person before whom it is unnecessary
to stifle what we most care to express.&nbsp; No wonder he was excited!</p>
<p>But the stranger was a woman.&nbsp; He meditated much that morning
on her singular aptitude for reflection, but he presently began to dream
over figure, hair, eyes, hands.&nbsp; A picture in the most vivid colours
painted itself before him, and he could not close his eyes to it.&nbsp;
He was distressed to find himself the victim of this unaccustomed tyranny.&nbsp;
He did not know that it is impossible for a man to love a woman&rsquo;s
soul without loving her body.&nbsp; There is no such thing as a spiritual
love apart from a corporeal love, the one celestial and the other earthly,
and the spiritual love begets a passion peculiar in its intensity.&nbsp;
He was happily diverted by Mr. Bingham, who called about a coming contested
election for the governorships.</p>
<p>Next week there was another tea-party at Mrs. Cobb&rsquo;s.&nbsp;
The ladies were in high spirits, for a subject of conversation was assured.&nbsp;
If there had been an inquest, or a marriage, or a highway robbery before
one of these parties, or if the contents of a will had just been made
known, or still better, if any scandal had just come to light, the guests
were always cheerful.&nbsp; Now, of course, the topic was Dr. Midleton
and Mrs. Fairfax.</p>
<p>&ldquo;When I found him in that back parlour,&rdquo; said Mrs. Harrop,
&ldquo;I thought he wasn&rsquo;t there to pay the usual call.&nbsp;
Somehow it didn&rsquo;t seem as if he was like a clergyman.&nbsp; I
felt quite queer: it came over me all of a sudden.&nbsp; And then we
know he&rsquo;s been there once or twice since.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t wonder at your feeling queer, Mrs. Harrop,&rdquo;
quoth Mrs. Cobb.&nbsp; &ldquo;I&rsquo;m sure I should have fainted;
and what brazen boldness to walk out together on the Common at nine
o&rsquo;clock in the morning.&nbsp; That girl who brought in the tea
- it&rsquo;s my belief that a young man goes after her - but even they
wouldn&rsquo;t demean themselves to be seen at it just after breakfast.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;You don&rsquo;t mean to say as your Deborah encourages a man,
Mrs. Cobb!&nbsp; I don&rsquo;t know what we are a-comin&rsquo; to.&nbsp;
You&rsquo;ve always been so particular, and she seemed so respectable.&nbsp;
I <i>am</i> sorry.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Mrs. Cobb did not quite relish Mrs. Harrop&rsquo;s pity.</p>
<p>&ldquo;You may be sure, Mrs. Harrop, she was respectable when I took
her, and if she isn&rsquo;t I shan&rsquo;t keep her.&nbsp; I <i>am</i>
particular, more so than most folk, and I don&rsquo;t mind who knows
it.&rdquo;&nbsp; Mrs. Cobb threw back her cap strings.&nbsp; The denial
that she minded who knew it may not appear relevant, but desiring to
be spiteful she could not at the moment find a better way of showing
her spite than by declaring her indifference to the publication of her
virtues.&nbsp; If there was no venom in the substance of the declaration
there was much in the manner of it.&nbsp; Mrs. Bingham brought back
the conversation to the point.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I suppose you&rsquo;ve heard what Mrs. Jenkins says?&nbsp;
Your husband also, Mrs. Harrop, met them both.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Yes he did.&nbsp; He was not quite in time to see as much
as Mrs. Jenkins saw, and I&rsquo;m glad he didn&rsquo;t.&nbsp; I shouldn&rsquo;t
have felt comfortable if I&rsquo;d known he had.&nbsp; A clergyman,
too! it is shocking.&nbsp; A nice business, this, for the Dissenters.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Well,&rdquo; said Mrs. Bingham, &ldquo;what are we to do?&nbsp;
I had thought of going to her and giving her a bit of my mind, but she
has got that yellow gown to make.&nbsp; What is your opinion, Miss Tarrant?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I would not degrade myself, Mrs. Bingham, by any expostulations
with her.&nbsp; I would have nothing more to do with her.&nbsp; Could
you not relieve her of the unfinished gown?&nbsp; Mrs. Swanley, I am
sure, under the circumstances would be only too happy to complete it
for you.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Mrs. Swanley cannot come near her.&nbsp; I should look ridiculous
in her body and one of Swanley&rsquo;s skirts.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;As to the Doctor,&rdquo; continued Miss Tarrant, &ldquo;I
wonder that he can expect to maintain any authority in matters of religion
if he marries a dressmaker of that stamp.&nbsp; It would be impossible
even if her character were unimpeachable.&nbsp; I am astonished, if
he wishes to enter into the matrimonial state, that he does not seek
some one who would be able to support him in his position and offer
him the sympathy which a man who has had a University education might
justifiably demand.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Mrs. Sweeting had hitherto listened in silence.&nbsp; Miss Tarrant
provoked her.</p>
<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s all a fuss about nothing, that&rsquo;s my opinion.&nbsp;
What has she done that you know to be wrong?&nbsp; And as to the Doctor,
he&rsquo;s got a right to please himself.&nbsp; I&rsquo;m surprised
at you, Miss Tarrant, for <i>you&rsquo;ve</i> always stuck for him through
thick and thin.&nbsp; As for that Mrs. Jenkins, I&rsquo;ll take my Bible
oath that the last time she washed for me she stunk of gin enough to
poison me, and went away with two bits of soap in her pocket.&nbsp;
You may credit what she says: <i>I</i> don&rsquo;t, and never demean
myself to listen to her.&rdquo;</p>
<p>The ladies came to no conclusion.&nbsp; Mrs. Bingham said that she
had suggested a round robin to Dr. Midleton, but that her husband decidedly
&ldquo;discountenanced the proposal.&rdquo;&nbsp; Within a fortnight
the election of governors was to take place.&nbsp; There was always
a fight at these elections, and this year the Radicals had a strong
list.&nbsp; The Doctor, whose term of office had expired, was the most
prominent of the Tory and Church candidates, and never doubted his success.&nbsp;
He was ignorant of all the gossip about him.&nbsp; One day in that fortnight
he might have been seen in Ferry Street.&nbsp; He went into Mrs. Fairfax&rsquo;s
shop and was invited as before into the back parlour.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I have brought you a basket of pears, and the book I promised
you, the <i>Utopia</i>.&rdquo;&nbsp; He sat down.&nbsp; &ldquo;I am
afraid you will think my visits too frequent.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;They are not too frequent for me: they may be for yourself.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Ah! since I last entered your house I have not seen any books
excepting my own.&nbsp; You hardly know what life in Langborough is
like.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Does nobody take any interest in arch&aelig;ology?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Nobody within five miles.&nbsp; Sinclair cares nothing about
it: he is Low Church, as I have told you.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Why does that prevent his caring about it?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Being Low Church he is narrow-minded, or, perhaps it would
be more correct to say, being narrow-minded he is Low Church.&nbsp;
He is an indifferent scholar, and occupies himself with his religious
fancies and those of his flock.&nbsp; He can reign supreme there.&nbsp;
He is not troubled in that department by the difficulties of learning
and is not exposed to criticism or contradiction.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I suppose it is a fact of the greatest importance to him that
he and his parishioners have souls to be saved, and that in comparison
with that fact others are immaterial.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;We all believe we have souls to be saved.&nbsp; Having set
forth God&rsquo;s way of saving them we have done all we ought to do.&nbsp;
God&rsquo;s way is not sufficient for Sinclair.&nbsp; He enlarges it
out of his own head, and instructs his silly, ignorant friends to do
the same.&nbsp; He will not be satisfied with what God and the Church
tell him.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;God and the Church, according to Dr. Midleton&rsquo;s account,
have not been very effective in Langborough.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;They hear from me, madam, all I am commissioned to say, and
if they do not attend I cannot help it&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I have read your paper in the Arch&aelig;ological Transactions
on the history of Langborough Abbey.&nbsp; It excited my imagination,
which is never excited in reading ordinary histories.&nbsp; In your
essay I am in company with the men who actually lived in the time of
Henry the Second and Henry the Eighth.&nbsp; I went over the ruins again,
and found them much more beautiful after I understood something about
them.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Yes: exactly what I have said a hundred times: knowledge is
indispensable.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;If you had not pointed it out, I should never have noticed
the Early English doorway in the Chapter-house, so distinct in style
from the Refectory.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;You noticed the brackets of that doorway: you noticed the
quatrefoils in the head?&nbsp; The Refectory is later by three centuries,
and is exquisite, but is not equal to the Chapter-house.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Yes, I noticed the brackets and quatrefoils particularly.&nbsp;
If knowledge is not necessary in order that we may admire, its natural
tendency is to deepen our admiration.&nbsp; Without it we pass over
so much.&nbsp; In my own small way I have noticed how my slight botanical
knowledge of flowers by the mere attention involved increases my wonder
at their loveliness.&rdquo;</p>
<p>There was the usual interruption by the shop-bell.&nbsp; How he hated
that bell!&nbsp; Mrs. Fairfax answered it, closing the parlour door.&nbsp;
The customer was Mrs. Bingham.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I will not disturb you now, Mrs. Fairfax.&nbsp; I was going
to say something about the black trimming you recommended.&nbsp; I really
think red would suit me better, but, never mind, I will call again as
I saw the Doctor come in.&nbsp; He is rather a frequent visitor.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Not frequent: he comes occasionally.&nbsp; We are both interested
in a subject which I believe is not much studied in Langborough.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Dear me! not dressmaking?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;No, madam, arch&aelig;ology.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Mrs. Bingham went out once more discomfited, and Mrs. Fairfax returned
to the parlour.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I am sure I am taking up too much of your time,&rdquo; said
the Doctor, &ldquo;but I cannot tell you what a privilege it is to spend
a few minutes with a lady like yourself.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Mrs. Fairfax was silent for a minute.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Mrs. Bingham has been here, and I think I ought to tell you
that she has made some significant remarks about you.&nbsp; Forgive
me if I suggest that we should partially, at any rate, discontinue our
intercourse.&nbsp; I should be most unhappy if your friendship with
me were to do you any harm.&rdquo;</p>
<p>The Doctor rose in a passion, planting his stick on the floor.</p>
<p>&ldquo;When the cackling of the geese or the braying of the asses
on Langborough Common prevent my crossing it, then, and not till then,
will my course be determined by Mrs. Bingham and her colleagues.&rdquo;</p>
<p>He sat down again with his elbow on the arm of the chair and half
shading his eyes with his hand.&nbsp; His whole manner altered.&nbsp;
Not a trace of the rector remained in him: the decisiveness vanished
from his voice; it became musical, low, and hesitating.&nbsp; It was
as if some angel had touched him, and had suddenly converted all his
strength into tenderness, a transformation not impossible, for strength
is tenderness and tenderness is strength.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I shall be forty-nine years old next birthday,&rdquo; he said.&nbsp;
&ldquo;Never until now have I been sure that I loved a woman.&nbsp;
I was married when I was twenty-five.&nbsp; I had seen two or three
girls whom I thought I could love, and at last chose one.&nbsp; It was
the arbitrary selection of a weary will.&nbsp; My wife died within two
years of her marriage.&nbsp; After her death I was thrown in the way
of women who attracted me, but I wavered.&nbsp; If I made up my mind
at night, I shrank back in the morning.&nbsp; I thought my irresolution
was mere cowardice.&nbsp; It was not so.&nbsp; It was a warning that
the time had not come.&nbsp; I resolved at last that there was to be
no change in my life, that I would resign myself to my lot, expect no
affection, and do the duty blindly which had been imposed upon me.&nbsp;
But a miracle has been wrought, and I have a perfectly clear direction:
with you for the first time in my life I am <i>sure</i>.&nbsp; You have
known what it is to be in a fog, unable to tell which way to turn, and
all at once the cold, wet mist was lifted, the sun came out, the fields
were lighted up, the sea revealed itself to the horizon, and your road
lay straight before you stretching over the hill.&nbsp; I will not shame
myself by apologies that I am no longer young.&nbsp; My love has remained
with me.&nbsp; It is a passion for you, and it is a reverence for a
mind to which it will be a perpetual joy to submit.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;God pardon me,&rdquo; she said after a moment&rsquo;s pause,
&ldquo;for having drawn you to this!&nbsp; I did not mean it.&nbsp;
If you knew all you would forgive me.&nbsp; It cannot, cannot be!&nbsp;
Leave me.&rdquo;&nbsp; He hesitated.&nbsp; &ldquo;Leave me, leave me
at once!&rdquo; she cried.</p>
<p>He rose, she took his right hand in both of hers: there was one look
straight into his eyes from her own which were filling with tears, a
half sob, her hands after one more grasp fell, and he found that he
had left the house.&nbsp; He went home.&nbsp; How strange it is to return
to a familiar chamber after a great event has happened!&nbsp; On his
desk lay a volume of Cicero&rsquo;s letters.&nbsp; The fire had not
been touched and was almost out: the door leading to the garden was
open: the self of two hours before seemed to confront him.&nbsp; When
the tumult in him began to subside he was struck by the groundlessness
of his double assumption that Mrs. Fairfax was Mrs. Leighton and that
she was free.&nbsp; He had made no inquiry.&nbsp; He had noticed the
wedding-ring, and he had come to some conclusion about it which was
supported by no evidence.&nbsp; Doubtless she could not be his: her
husband was still alive.&nbsp; At last the hour for which unconsciously
he had been waiting had struck, and his true self, he not having known
hitherto what it was, had been declared.&nbsp; But it was all for nothing.&nbsp;
It was as if some autumn-blooming plant had put forth on a sunny October
morning the flower of the year, and had been instantaneously blasted
and cut down to the root.&nbsp; The plant might revive next spring,
but there could be no revival for him.&nbsp; There could be nothing
now before him but that same dull duty, duty to the dull, duty without
enthusiasm.&nbsp; He had no example for his consolation.&nbsp; The Bible
is the record of heroic suffering: there is no story there of a martyrdom
to monotony and life-weariness.&nbsp; He was a pious man, but loved
prescription and form: he loved to think of himself as a member of the
great Catholic Church and not as an isolated individual, and he found
more relief in praying the prayers which millions had before him than
in extempore effusion; humbly trusting that what he was seeking in consecrated
petitions was all that he really needed.&nbsp; &ldquo;In proportion
as your prayers are peculiar,&rdquo; he once told his congregation in
a course of sermons on Dissent, &ldquo;they are worthless.&rdquo;&nbsp;
There was nothing, though, in the prayer-book which met his case.&nbsp;
He was in no danger from temptation, nor had he trespassed.&nbsp; He
was not in want of his daily bread, and although he desired like all
good men to see the Kingdom of God, the advent of that celestial kingdom
which had for an instant been disclosed to him was for ever impossible.</p>
<p>The servant announced Mrs. Sweeting, who was asked to come in.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Sit down, Mrs. Sweeting.&nbsp; What can I do for you?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Well, sir, perhaps you may remember - and if you don&rsquo;t,
I do - how you helped my husband in that dreadful year 1825.&nbsp; I
shall never forget that act of yours, Dr. Midleton, and I&rsquo;d stick
up for you if Mrs. Bingham and Mrs. Harrop and Mrs. Cobb and Miss Tarrant
were to swear against you and you a-standing in the dock.&nbsp; As for
that Miss Tarrant, there&rsquo;s that a-rankling in her that makes her
worse than any of them, and if you don&rsquo;t know what it is, being
too modest, forgive me for saying so, I do.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;But what&rsquo;s the matter, Mrs. Sweeting?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Matter, sir!&nbsp; Why, I can hardly bring it out, seeing
that I&rsquo;m only the wife of a tradesman, but one thing I will say
as I ain&rsquo;t like the serpent in Genesis, a-crawling about on its
belly and spitting poison and biting people by their heels.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;You have not yet told me what is wrong.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Dr. Midleton, you shall have it, but recollect I come here
as your friend: leastways I hope you&rsquo;ll forgive me if I call myself
so, for if you were ill and you were to hold up your finger for me not
another soul should come near you night nor day till you were well again
or it had pleased God Almighty to take you to Himself.&nbsp; Dr. Midleton,
there&rsquo;s a conspiracy.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;A what?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;A conspiracy: that&rsquo;s right, I believe.&nbsp; You are
acquainted with Mrs. Fairfax.&nbsp; To make a long and a short of it,
they say you are always going there, more than you ought, leastways
unless you mean to marry her, and that she&rsquo;s only a dressmaker,
and nobody knows where she comes from, and they ain&rsquo;t open and
free: they won&rsquo;t come and tell you themselves; but you&rsquo;ll
be turned out at the election the day after to-morrow.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;But what do you say yourself?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Me, Dr. Midleton?&nbsp; Why, I&rsquo;ve spoke up pretty plainly.&nbsp;
I told Mrs. Cobb it would be a good thing if you were married, provided
you wouldn&rsquo;t be trod upon as some people&rsquo;s husbands are,
and I was pretty well sure you never would be, and that you knew a lady
when you saw her better than most folk; and as for her being a dressmaker
what&rsquo;s that got to do with it?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;You are too well acquainted with me, Mrs. Sweeting, to suppose
I should condescend to notice this contemptible stuff or alter my course
to please all Langborough.&nbsp; Why did you take the trouble to report
it to me?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Because, sir, I wouldn&rsquo;t for the world you should think
I was mixed up with them; and if my husband doesn&rsquo;t vote for you
my name isn&rsquo;t Sweeting.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I am much obliged to you.&nbsp; I see your motives: you are
straightforward and I respect you.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Mrs. Sweeting thanked him and departed.&nbsp; His first feeling was
wrath.&nbsp; Never was there a man less likely to be cowed.&nbsp; He
put on his hat and walked to his committee-room, where he found Mr.
Bingham.</p>
<p>&ldquo;No doubt, I suppose, Mr. Bingham?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t know, Doctor; the Radicals have got a strong candidate
in Jem Casey.&nbsp; Some of our people will turn, I&rsquo;m afraid,
and split their votes.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Split votes! with a fellow like that!&nbsp; How can there
be any splitting between an honest man and a rascal?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;There shouldn&rsquo;t be, sir, but - &rdquo; Mr. Bingham hesitated
- &ldquo;I suppose there may be personal considerations.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Personal considerations! what do you mean?&nbsp; Let us have
no more of these Langborough tricks.&nbsp; Out with it, Bingham!&nbsp;
Who are the persons and what are the considerations?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I really can&rsquo;t say, Doctor, but perhaps you may not
be as popular as you were.&nbsp; You&rsquo;ve - &rdquo; but Mr. Bingham&rsquo;s
strength again completely failed him, and he took a sudden turn - &ldquo;You&rsquo;ve
taken a decided line lately at several of our meetings.&rdquo;</p>
<p>The Doctor looked steadily at Mr. Bingham, who felt that every corner
of his pitiful soul was visible.</p>
<p>&ldquo;The line I have taken you have generally supported.&nbsp;
That is not what you mean.&nbsp; If I am defeated I shall be defeated
by equivocating cowardice, and I shall consider myself honoured.&rdquo;</p>
<p>The Doctor strode out of the room.&nbsp; He knew now that he was
the common property of the town, and that every tongue was wagging about
him and a woman, but he was defiant.&nbsp; The next morning he saw painted
in white paint on his own wall -</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>&ldquo;My dearly beloved, for all you&rsquo;re so bold,<br />To-morrow
you&rsquo;ll find you&rsquo;re left out in the cold;<br />And, Doctor,
the reason you need not to ax,<br />It&rsquo;s because of a dressmaker
- Mrs. F---fax.&rdquo;</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>He was going out just as the gardener was about to obliterate the
inscription.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Leave it, Robert, leave it; let the filthy scoundrels perpetuate
their own disgrace.&rdquo;</p>
<p>The result of the election was curious.&nbsp; Two of the Church candidates
were returned at the top of the poll.&nbsp; Jem Casey came next.&nbsp;
Dr. Midleton and the other two Radical and Dissenting candidates were
defeated.&nbsp; There were between seventy and eighty plumpers for the
two successful Churchmen, and about five-and-twenty split votes for
them and Casey, who had distinguished himself by his coarse attacks
on the Doctor.&nbsp; Mr. Bingham had a bad cold, and did not vote.&nbsp;
On the following Sunday the church was fuller than usual.&nbsp; The
Doctor preached on behalf of the Society for the Propagation of the
Gospel.&nbsp; He did not allude directly to any of the events of the
preceding week, but at the close of his sermon he said - &ldquo;It has
been frequently objected that we ought not to spend money on missions
to the heathen abroad as there is such a field of labour at home.&nbsp;
The answer to that objection is that there is more hope of the heathen
than of many of our countrymen.&nbsp; This has been a nominally Christian
land for centuries, but even now many deadly sins are not considered
sinful, and it is an easier task to save the savage than to convince
those, for example, whose tongue, to use the words of the apostle, is
set on fire of hell, that they are in danger of damnation.&nbsp; I hope,
therefore, my brethren, that you will give liberally.&rdquo;</p>
<p>On Monday Langborough was amazed to find Mrs. Fairfax&rsquo;s shop
closed.&nbsp; She had left the town.&nbsp; She had taken a post-chaise
on Saturday and had met the up-mail at Thaxton cross-roads.&nbsp; Her
scanty furniture had disappeared.&nbsp; The carrier could but inform
Langborough that he had orders to deliver her goods at Great Ormond
Street whence he brought them.&nbsp; Mrs. Bingham went to London shortly
afterwards and called at Great Ormond Street to inquire for Mrs. Fairfax.&nbsp;
Nobody of that name lived there, and the door was somewhat abruptly
shut in her face.&nbsp; She came back convinced that Mrs. Fairfax was
what Mrs. Cobb called &ldquo;a bad lot.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Do you believe,&rdquo; said she, &ldquo;that a woman who gives
a false name can be respectable?&nbsp; We want no further proof.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Nobody wanted further proof.&nbsp; No Langborough lady needed any
proof if a reputation was to be blasted.</p>
<p>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s an <i>alibi</i>,&rdquo; said Mrs. Harrop.&nbsp;
&ldquo;That&rsquo;s what Tom Cranch the poacher did, and he was hung.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;An <i>alias</i>, I believe, is the correct term,&rdquo; said
Miss Tarrant.&nbsp; &ldquo;It means the assumption of a name which is
not your own, a most discreditable device, one to which actresses and
women to whose occupation I can only allude, uniformly resort.&nbsp;
How thankful we ought to be that our respected Rector&rsquo;s eyes must
now be opened and that he has escaped the snare!&nbsp; It was impossible
that he could be permanently attracted by vice and vulgarity.&nbsp;
It is singular how much more acute a woman&rsquo;s perception often
is than a man&rsquo;s.&nbsp; I saw through this creature at once.&rdquo;</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines1"><br /></div>
<p>Eighteen months passed.&nbsp; The doctor one day was unpacking a
book he had bought at Peterborough.&nbsp; Inside the brown paper was
a copy of the <i>Stamford Mercury</i>, a journal which had a wide circulation
in the Midlands.&nbsp; He generally read it, but he must have omitted
to see this number.&nbsp; His eye fell on the following announcement
- &ldquo;On the 24th June last, Richard Leighton, aged 44 years.&rdquo;&nbsp;
The notice was late, for the date of the paper was the 18th November.&nbsp;
The next afternoon he was in London.&nbsp; He had been to Great Ormond
Street before and had inquired for Mrs. Fairfax, but could find no trace
of her.&nbsp; He now called again.</p>
<p>&ldquo;You will remember,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;my inquiry about
Mrs. Fairfax: can you tell me anything about Mrs. Leighton?&rdquo;&nbsp;
He put his hand in his pocket and pulled out five shillings.</p>
<p>&ldquo;She isn&rsquo;t here: she went away when her husband died.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;He died abroad?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Where has she gone?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t know quite: her friends wouldn&rsquo;t have anything
to do with her.&nbsp; She said she was going to Plymouth.&nbsp; She
had heard of something in the dressmaking line there.&rdquo;</p>
<p>He handed over his five shillings, procured a substitute for next
Sunday, and went to Plymouth.&nbsp; He wandered through the streets
but could see no dressmaker&rsquo;s shop which looked as if it had recently
changed hands.&nbsp; He walked backwards and forwards on the Hoe in
the evening: the Eddystone light glimmered far away on the horizon;
and the dim hope arose in him that it might be a prophecy of success,
but his hope was vain.&nbsp; It came into his mind that it was not likely
that she would be there after dusk, and he remembered her preference
for early exercise.&nbsp; The first morning was a failure, but on the
second - it was sunny and warm - he saw her sitting on a bench facing
the sea.&nbsp; He went up unobserved and sat down.&nbsp; She did not
turn towards him till he said &ldquo;Mrs. Leighton!&rdquo;&nbsp; She
started and recognised him.&nbsp; Little was spoken as they walked home
to her lodgings, a small private house.&nbsp; On her way she called
at a large shop where she was employed and obtained leave of absence
until after dinner.</p>
<p>&ldquo;At last!&rdquo; said the doctor when the door was shut.</p>
<p>She stood gazing in silence at the dull red cinder of the dying fire.</p>
<p>&ldquo;You put the advertisement in the <i>Stamford Mercury</i>?&rdquo;
he said.</p>
<p>&ldquo;Yes.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I did not see it until a day or two ago.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;I had better tell you at once.&nbsp; My husband, whom you
knew, was convicted of forgery, and died at Botany Bay.&rdquo;&nbsp;
Her eyes still watched the red cinders.</p>
<p>The Doctor&rsquo;s countenance showed no surprise, for no news could
have had any power over the emotion which mastered him.&nbsp; The long,
slow years were fulfilled.&nbsp; Long and slow and the fulfilment late,
but the joy it brought was the greater.&nbsp; Youthful passion is sweet,
but it is not sweeter than the discovery when we begin to count the
years which are left to us, and to fear there will be nothing in them
better than in those which preceded them that for us also love is reserved.</p>
<p>Mrs. Leighton was obliged to go back to her work in the afternoon,
but she gave notice that night to leave in a week.</p>
<p>In a couple of months Langborough was astounded at the news of the
Rector&rsquo;s marriage with a Mrs. Leighton whom nobody in Langborough
knew.&nbsp; The advertisement in the <i>Stamford Mercury</i> said that
the lady was the widow of Richard Leighton, Esq., and eldest daughter
of the late Marmaduke Sutton, Esq.&nbsp; Langborough spared no pains
to discover who she was.&nbsp; Mrs. Bingham found out that the Suttons
were a Devonshire family, and she ascertained from an Exeter friend
that Mr. Marmaduke Sutton was the son of an Honourable, and that Mrs.
Leighton was consequently a high-born lady.&nbsp; She had married as
her first husband a man who had done well at Cambridge, but who took
to gambling and drink, and treated her with such brutality that they
separated.&nbsp; At last he forged a signature and was transported.&nbsp;
What became of his wife afterwards was not known.&nbsp; Langborough
was not only greatly moved by this intelligence, but was much perplexed.&nbsp;
Miss Tarrant&rsquo;s estimate of the Doctor was once more reversed.&nbsp;
She was decidedly of opinion that the marriage was a scandal.&nbsp;
A woman who had consented to link herself with such a reprobate as the
convict must have been from the beginning could not herself have possessed
any reputation.&nbsp; Living apart, too, was next door to divorce, and
who could associate with a creature who had been divorced?&nbsp; No
doubt she was physically seductive, and the doctor had fallen a victim
to her snares.&nbsp; Miss Tarrant, if she had not known so well what
men are, would never have dreamed that Dr. Midleton, a scholar and a
divine, could surrender to corporeal attractions.&nbsp; She declared
that she could no longer expect any profit from his ministrations, and
that she should leave the parish.&nbsp; Miss Tarrant&rsquo;s friends,
however, did not go quite so far, and Mrs. Harrop confessed to Mrs.
Cobb that &ldquo;she for one wouldn&rsquo;t lay it down like Medes and
Persians, that we should have nothing to do with a woman because her
husband had made a fool of himself.&nbsp; I&rsquo;m not a Mede nor a
Persian, Mrs. Cobb.&nbsp; I say let us wait and see what she is like.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Mrs. Bingham was of the same mind.&nbsp; She dwelt much to herself
on the fact that Mrs. Midleton&rsquo;s great-grandfather must have been
a lord.&nbsp; She secretly hoped that as a wine merchant&rsquo;s wife
she might obtain admission into a &ldquo;sphere,&rdquo; as she called
it, from which the other ladies in the town might be excluded.&nbsp;
Mrs. Bingham already foretasted the bliss of an invitation to the rectory
to meet Lady Caroline from Thaxton Manor; she already foretasted the
greater bliss of not meeting her intimate friends there, and that most
exquisite conceivable bliss of telling them afterwards all about the
party.</p>
<p>Mrs. Midleton and her husband returned on a Saturday afternoon.&nbsp;
The road from Thaxton cross-roads did not lie through the town: the
carriage was closed and nobody saw her.&nbsp; When they came to the
rectory the Doctor pointed to the verse in white paint on the wall,
&ldquo;It shall be taken out,&rdquo; he said, &ldquo;before to-morrow
morning: to-morrow is Sunday.&rdquo;&nbsp; He was expected to preach
on that day and the church was crammed a quarter of an hour before the
service began.&nbsp; At five minutes to eleven a lady and child entered
and walked to the rector&rsquo;s pew.&nbsp; The congregation was stupefied
with amazement.&nbsp; Mouths were agape, a hum of exclamations arose,
and people on the further side of the church stood up.</p>
<p>It was Mrs. Fairfax!&nbsp; Nobody had conjectured that she and Mrs.
Leighton were the same person.&nbsp; It was unimaginable that a dressmaker
should have had near ancestors in the peerage.&nbsp; It was more than
a year and a half since she left the town.&nbsp; Mrs. Carter was able
to say that not a single letter had been addressed to her, and she was
almost forgotten.</p>
<p>A few days afterwards Mrs. Sweeting had a little note requesting
her to take tea with the Rector and his wife.&nbsp; Nobody was asked
to meet her.&nbsp; Mrs. Bingham had called the day before, and had been
extremely apologetic.</p>
<p>&ldquo;I am afraid, Mrs. Midleton, you must have thought me sometimes
very rude to you.&rdquo;</p>
<p>To which Mrs. Midleton replied graciously, &ldquo;I am sure if you
had been it would have been quite excusable.&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Extremely kind of you to say so, Mrs. Midleton.&rdquo;</p>
<p>Mrs. Cobb also called.&nbsp; &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll just let her see,&rdquo;
said Mrs. Cobb to herself; and she put on a gown which Mrs. Midleton
as Mrs. Fairfax had made for her.</p>
<p>&ldquo;You&rsquo;ll remember this gown, Mrs. Midleton?&rdquo;</p>
<p>&ldquo;Perfectly well.&nbsp; It is not quite a fit on the shoulders.&nbsp;
If you will let me have it back again it will give me great pleasure
to alter it for you.&rdquo;</p>
<p>By degrees, however, Mrs. Midleton came to be loved by many people
in Langborough.&nbsp; Mr. Sweeting not long afterwards died in debt,
and Mrs. Sweeting, the old housekeeper being also dead, was taken into
the rectory as her successor, and became Mrs. Midleton&rsquo;s trusted
friend.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines2"><br /><br /></div>
<p>Footnotes:</p>
<p><a name="footnote10"></a><a href="#citation10">{10}</a>&nbsp; Since
1868 the <i>Reminiscences</i> and his <i>Life</i> have been published
which put this estimate of him beyond all doubt.&nbsp; It is much to
be regretted that a certain theory, a certain irresistible tendency
to arrange facts so as to prove preconceived notions, a tendency more
dangerous and unhistorical even than direct suppression of the truth
or invention of what is not true, should have ruined Carlyle&rsquo;s
biography.&nbsp; Professor Norton&rsquo;s edition of the <i>Reminiscences</i>
should be compared with Mr. Froude&rsquo;s.</p>
<p><a name="footnote34a"></a><a href="#citation34a">{34a}</a>&nbsp;
<i>Ethic</i> pt. 1, def. 3.</p>
<p><a name="footnote34b"></a><a href="#citation34b">{34b}</a>&nbsp;
Ibid., pt. 1, def. 6.</p>
<p><a name="footnote34c"></a><a href="#citation34c">{34c}</a>&nbsp;
Ibid., pt. 1, prop. 11.</p>
<p><a name="footnote36"></a><a href="#citation36">{36}</a>&nbsp; <i>Ethic</i>,
pt. 2, prop. 47.</p>
<p><a name="footnote37a"></a><a href="#citation37a">{37a}</a>&nbsp;
Letter 56 (Van Vloten and Land&rsquo;s ed.).</p>
<p><a name="footnote37b"></a><a href="#citation37b">{37b}</a>&nbsp;
<i>Ethic</i>, pt. 1, coroll. prop. 25.</p>
<p><a name="footnote37c"></a><a href="#citation37c">{37c}</a>&nbsp;
Ibid., pt. 5, prop. 24.</p>
<p><a name="footnote37d"></a><a href="#citation37d">{37d}</a>&nbsp;
Ibid., pt. 1, schol. to prop. 17.</p>
<p><a name="footnote38"></a><a href="#citation38">{38}</a>&nbsp; <i>Ethic</i>,
pt. 1, schol. to prop. 17.</p>
<p><a name="footnote39"></a><a href="#citation39">{39}</a>&nbsp; <i>Ethic</i>,
pt. 2, prop. 13.</p>
<p><a name="footnote40a"></a><a href="#citation40a">{40a}</a>&nbsp;
<i>Ethic</i>, pt. 1, coroll. 1, prop. 32.</p>
<p><a name="footnote40b"></a><a href="#citation40b">{40b}</a>&nbsp;
Ibid., pt. 1, prop. 33.</p>
<p><a name="footnote40c"></a><a href="#citation40c">{40c}</a>&nbsp;
Letter 56</p>
<p><a name="footnote41a"></a><a href="#citation41a">{41a}</a>&nbsp;
Letter 21.</p>
<p><a name="footnote41b"></a><a href="#citation41b">{41b}</a>&nbsp;
Letter 58.</p>
<p><a name="footnote42a"></a><a href="#citation42a">{42a}</a>&nbsp;
<i>Ethic</i>, pt. 2, schol. prop. 49.</p>
<p><a name="footnote42b"></a><a href="#citation42b">{42b}</a>&nbsp;
Ibid., pt. 4, coroll. prop. 63.</p>
<p><a name="footnote43a"></a><a href="#citation43a">{43a}</a>&nbsp;
<i>Ethic</i>, pt. 5, or pp. 42.</p>
<p><a name="footnote43b"></a><a href="#citation43b">{43b}</a>&nbsp;
&ldquo;Agis being asked on a time how a man might continue free all
his life; he answered, &lsquo;By despising death.&rsquo;&rdquo;&nbsp;
(Plutarch&rsquo;s &ldquo;Morals.&rdquo;&nbsp; Laconic Apophthegms.)</p>
<p><a name="footnote43c"></a><a href="#citation43c">{43c}</a>&nbsp;
<i>Ethic</i>, pt. 5, schol. prop. 4.</p>
<p><a name="footnote44a"></a><a href="#citation44a">{44a}</a>&nbsp;
<i>Ethic</i>, pt. 4, coroll. prop. 64.</p>
<p><a name="footnote44b"></a><a href="#citation44b">{44b}</a>&nbsp;
Ibid., pt. 4, schol. prop. 66.</p>
<p><a name="footnote44c"></a><a href="#citation44c">{44c}</a>&nbsp;
Ibid., pt. 4, schol. prop. 50.</p>
<p><a name="footnote45a"></a><a href="#citation45a">{45a}</a>&nbsp;
<i>Ethic</i>, pt. 4, prop. 46 and schol.</p>
<p><a name="footnote45b"></a><a href="#citation45b">{45b}</a>&nbsp;
Ibid., pt. 3, schol. prop. 11.</p>
<p><a name="footnote46"></a><a href="#citation46">{46}</a>&nbsp; <i>Ethic</i>,
pt. 4, schol. prop. 45.</p>
<p><a name="footnote47"></a><a href="#citation47">{47}</a>&nbsp; <i>Ethic</i>,
pt. 5, props. 14-20.</p>
<p><a name="footnote50"></a><a href="#citation50">{50}</a>&nbsp; <i>Short
Treatise</i>, pt. 2, chap. 22.</p>
<p><a name="footnote52"></a><a href="#citation52">{52}</a>&nbsp; <i>Ethic</i>,
pt. 1, Appendix.</p>
<p><a name="footnote54"></a><a href="#citation54">{54}</a>&nbsp; <i>Ethic</i>,
pt. 2, schol. 2, prop. 40.</p>
<p><a name="footnote55a"></a><a href="#citation55a">{55a}</a>&nbsp;
<i>Ethic</i>, pt. 5, coroll. prop. 34.</p>
<p><a name="footnote55b"></a><a href="#citation55b">{55b}</a>&nbsp;
Ibid., pt. 5, prop. 36.</p>
<p><a name="footnote55c"></a><a href="#citation55c">{55c}</a>&nbsp;
Ibid., pt. 5, prop. 36, coroll.</p>
<p><a name="footnote56a"></a><a href="#citation56a">{56a}</a>&nbsp;
<i>Ethic</i>, pt. 5, prop. 38.</p>
<p><a name="footnote56b"></a><a href="#citation56b">{56b}</a>&nbsp;
<i>Short Treatise</i>, pt. 2, chap. 23.</p>
<p><a name="footnote57a"></a><a href="#citation57a">{57a}</a>&nbsp;
Aristotle&rsquo;s <i>Psychology</i> (Wallace&rsquo;s translation), p.
161.</p>
<p><a name="footnote57b"></a><a href="#citation57b">{57b}</a>&nbsp;
Rabelais, <i>Pantagruel</i>, book 4, chap. 27.</p>
<p><a name="footnote101"></a><a href="#citation101">{101}</a>&nbsp;
Hazlitt.</p>
<p><a name="footnote103"></a><a href="#citation103">{103}</a>&nbsp;
Italics mine. - M. R.</p>
<p><a name="footnote104a"></a><a href="#citation104a">{104a}</a>&nbsp;
Italics mine. - M. R.</p>
<p><a name="footnote104b"></a><a href="#citation104b">{104b}</a>&nbsp;
Italics mine. - M. R.</p>
<p><a name="footnote133"></a><a href="#citation133">{133}</a>&nbsp;
<i>Poetry of Byron chosen and arranged by Matthew Arnold</i> - 1881.</p>
<p><a name="footnote143"></a><a href="#citation143">{143}</a>&nbsp;
&ldquo;<i>Adah</i>. - Peace be with him (Abel).<br /><i>Cain</i>. -
But with <i>me</i>!&rdquo;</p>
<p><a name="footnote180"></a><a href="#citation180">{180}</a>&nbsp;
My aunt Eleanor was thought to be a bit of a pagan by the evangelical
part of our family.&nbsp; My mother when speaking of her to me used
to say, &ldquo;Your heathen aunt.&rdquo;&nbsp; She was well-educated,
but the better part of her education she received abroad after her engagement,
which took place when she was eighteen years old.&nbsp; She was the
only member of our family in the upper middle class.&nbsp; Her husband
was Thomas Charteris, junior partner in a bank.</p>
<div class="GutenbergBlankLines3"><br /><br /><br /></div>
<p>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, PAGES FROM A JOURNAL ***</p>
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