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diff --git a/7379-h/7379-h.htm b/7379-h/7379-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..28987a4 --- /dev/null +++ b/7379-h/7379-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,2012 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html + PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=US-ASCII" /> +<title>The Early Life of Mark Rutherford, by Mark Rutherford</title> + <style type="text/css"> +/*<![CDATA[ XML blockout */ +<!-- + P { margin-top: .75em; + margin-bottom: .75em; + } + P.gutsumm { margin-left: 5%;} + P.poetry {margin-left: 3%; } + .GutSmall { font-size: 0.7em; } + H1, H2 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + } + H3, H4, H5 { + text-align: center; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; + } + BODY{margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + } + table { border-collapse: collapse; } +table {margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto;} + td { vertical-align: top; border: 1px solid black;} + td p { margin: 0.2em; } + .blkquot {margin-left: 4em; margin-right: 4em;} /* block indent */ + + .smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} + + .pagenum {position: absolute; + left: 92%; + font-size: small; + text-align: right; + font-weight: normal; + color: gray; + } + img { border: none; } + img.dc { float: left; width: 50px; height: 50px; } + p.gutindent { margin-left: 2em; } + div.gapspace { height: 0.8em; } + div.gapline { height: 0.8em; width: 100%; border-top: 1px solid;} + div.gapmediumline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + div.gapmediumdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 40%; margin-left:30%; + border-top: 1px solid; border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; + margin-left: 40%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid; } + div.gapdoubleline { height: 0.3em; width: 50%; + margin-left: 25%; border-top: 1px solid; + border-bottom: 1px solid;} + div.gapshortline { height: 0.3em; width: 20%; margin-left:40%; + border-top: 1px solid; } + .citation {vertical-align: super; + font-size: .8em; + text-decoration: none;} + img.floatleft { float: left; + margin-right: 1em; + margin-top: 0.5em; margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.floatright { float: right; + margin-left: 1em; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em; } + img.clearcenter {display: block; + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; margin-top: 0.5em; + margin-bottom: 0.5em} + --> + /* XML end ]]>*/ + </style> +</head> +<body> +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Early Life of Mark Rutherford, by Mark +Rutherford + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: The Early Life of Mark Rutherford + + +Author: Mark Rutherford + + + +Release Date: July 9, 2014 [eBook #7379] +[This file was first posted on April 22, 2003] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE EARLY LIFE OF MARK +RUTHERFORD*** +</pre> +<p>Transcribed from the 1913 Oxford University Press by David +Price, email ccx074@pglaf.org</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/fpb.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Mark Rutherford, aged about twelve, and his Father" +title= +"Mark Rutherford, aged about twelve, and his Father" +src="images/fps.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<h1>THE EARLY LIFE<br /> +<span class="GutSmall">OF</span><br /> +MARK RUTHERFORD</h1> +<p style="text-align: center">(W. HALE WHITE)</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span +class="smcap"><b>By</b></span><b> HIMSELF</b></p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center">HUMPHREY MILFORD</p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">OXFORD +UNIVERSITY PRESS</span></p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span class="GutSmall">LONDON +EDINBURGH NEW YORK TORONTO</span><br /> +<span class="GutSmall">MELBOURNE AND BOMBAY</span></p> +<p style="text-align: center"><span +class="GutSmall">1913</span></p> + +<div class="gapspace"> </div> +<p style="text-align: center"><a name="page2"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 2</span><span class="GutSmall">OXFORD: HORACE +HART</span><br /> +<span class="GutSmall">PRINTER TO THE UNIVERSITY</span></p> +<h2><a name="page3"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +3</span>Forward</h2> +<p>A <span class="smcap">few</span> years ago I asked my father +to put down some facts of his life for those of his family who +are too young to remember his early years. In his will he +bequeathed these “Notes” to my only sister, Mary +Theodora, who has lived with him all her life, but she hesitated, +in face of the last sentence, to publish them. Although it +is true they were not written with a view to publication, it is +evident, from a conversation my father had with his wife about +them, that he had no objection to their being made public.</p> +<p>My sister therefore prints them now, in the hope that they may +interest a few beyond the “two or three persons” for +whom they were intended.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">W. HALE WHITE.</p> +<p><i>June</i> 1913.</p> +<h2><a name="page4"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 4</span>List of +Illustrations</h2> +<table> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Mark Rutherford</span>, <span +class="smcap">aged about</span> 12, <span class="smcap">and His +Father</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><i>Frontispiece</i></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Bedford Bridge</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><i>Facing p.</i> <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page13">13</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">‘The Bedford Times’ +Coach</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><i>Facing p.</i> <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page15">15</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The Old Meeting-house</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><i>Facing p.</i> <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page16">16</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Mark Rutherford’s +Father</span></p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><i>Facing p.</i> <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page38">38</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">The School</span>, <span +class="smcap">Bedford</span>, <span class="smcap">in</span> +1831</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><i>Facing p.</i> <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page47">47</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Old Horne Lane</span>, <span +class="smcap">Bedford</span>, <span class="smcap">in</span> +1835</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><i>Facing p.</i> <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page50">50</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td><p><span class="smcap">Mark Rutherford at the Age of</span> +24</p> +</td> +<td><p style="text-align: right"><i>Facing p.</i> <span +class="indexpageno"><a href="#page88">88</a></span></p> +</td> +</tr> +</table> +<h2><a name="page5"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +5</span>Autobiographical Notes</h2> +<p>I <span class="smcap">have</span> been asked at 78 years old +to set down what I remember of my early life. A good deal +of it has been told before under a semi-transparent disguise, +with much added which is entirely fictitious. What I now +set down is fact.</p> +<p>I was born in Bedford High Street, on December 22, 1831. +I had two sisters and a brother, besides an elder sister who died +in infancy. My brother, a painter of much promise, died +young. Ruskin and Rossetti thought much of him. He +was altogether unlike the rest of us, in face, in temper, and in +quality of mind. He was very passionate, and at times +beyond control. <a name="page6"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 6</span>None of us understood how to manage +him. What would I not give to have my time with him over +again! Two letters to my father about him are copied +below:</p> +<blockquote><p style="text-align: right">(185—)</p> +<p>“<span class="smcap">My dear Sir</span>,</p> +<p>“I am much vexed with myself for not having written this +letter sooner. There were several things I wanted to say +respecting the need of perseverance in painting as well as in +other businesses, which it would take me too long to say in the +time I have at command—so I must just answer the main +question. Your son has very singular gifts for +painting. I think the work he has done at the College +nearly the most promising of any that has yet been done there, +and I sincerely trust the apparent want of perseverance has +hitherto been only the <a name="page7"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 7</span>disgust of a creature of strong +instincts who has not got into its own element—he seems to +me a fine fellow—and I hope you will be very proud of him +some day—but I very seriously think you must let him have +his bent in this matter—and then—if he does not work +steadily—take him to task to purpose. I think the +whole gist of education is to let the boy take his own shape and +element—and then to help—discipline and urge him +<i>in</i> that, but not to force him on work entirely painful to +him.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">“Very truly yours,</p> +<p style="text-align: right">(Signed) J. <span +class="smcap">Ruskin</span>.”</p> +<p style="text-align: center">“<span class="smcap">National +Gallery</span>, 3<i>rd</i> <i>April</i>.</p> +<p style="text-align: right">(185—)</p> +<p>“<span class="smcap">My dear Sir</span>,</p> +<p>“Do not send your son to Mr. Leigh: his school is wholly +inefficient. Your son should go through the usual course <a +name="page8"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 8</span>of instruction +given at the Royal Academy, which, with a good deal that is +wrong, gives something that is necessary and right, and which +cannot be otherwise obtained. Mr. Rossetti and I will take +care—(in fact your son’s judgement is I believe +formed enough to enable him to take care himself) that he gets no +mistaken bias in those schools. A ‘studio’ is +not necessary for him—but a little room with a cupboard in +it, and a chair—and nothing else—<i>is</i>. I +am very sanguine respecting him, I like both his face and his +work.</p> +<p>“Thank you for telling me that about my books. I +am happy in seeing much more of the springing of the green than +most sowers of seed are allowed to see, until very late in their +lives—but it is always a great help to me to hear of any, +for I never write with pleasure to myself, nor <a +name="page9"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 9</span>with purpose of +getting praise to myself. I hate writing, and know that +what I do does not deserve high praise, as literature; but I +write to tell truths which I can’t help crying out about, +and I <i>do</i> enjoy being believed and being of use.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">“Very faithfully yours,</p> +<p style="text-align: right">(Signed) J. <span +class="smcap">Ruskin</span>.</p> +<p>W. White, Esq.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>My mother, whose maiden name was Chignell, came from +Colchester. What her father and mother were I never +heard. I will say all I have to say about Colchester, and +then go back to my native town. My maternal grandmother was +a little, round, old lady, with a ruddy, healthy tinge on her +face. She lived in Queen Street in a house dated 1619 over +the doorway. There was a pleasant garden at the back, and +the scent of a privet hedge <a name="page10"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 10</span>in it has never to this day left +me. In one of the rooms was a spinet. The strings +were struck with quills, and gave a thin, twangling, or rather +twingling sound. In that house I was taught by a stupid +servant to be frightened at gipsies. She threatened me with +them after I was in bed. My grandmother was a most pious +woman. Every morning and night we had family prayer. +It was difficult for her to stoop, but she always took the great +quarto book of Devotions off the table and laid it on a chair, +put on her spectacles, and went through the portion for the +day. I had an uncle who was also pious, but sleepy. +One night he stopped dead in the middle of his prayer. I +was present and awake. I was much frightened, but my aunt, +who was praying by his side, poked him, and he went on all +right.</p> +<p>We children were taken to Colchester <a +name="page11"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 11</span>every summer +by my mother, and we generally spent half our holiday at +Walton-on-the-Naze, then a fishing village with only four or five +houses in it besides a few cottages. No living creature +could be more excitedly joyous than I was when I journeyed to +Walton in the tilted carrier’s cart. How I envied the +carrier! Happy man! All the year round he went to the +seaside three times a week!</p> +<p>I had an aunt in Colchester, a woman of singular originality, +which none of her neighbours could interpret, and consequently +they misliked it, and ventured upon distant insinuations against +her. She had married a baker, a good kind of man, but +tame. In summer-time she not infrequently walked at five +o’clock in the morning to a pretty church about a mile and +a half away, and read <i>George Herbert</i> in the porch. +She was no relation of mine, <a name="page12"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 12</span>except by marriage to my uncle, but +she was most affectionate to me, and always loaded me with nice +things whenever I went to see her. The survival in my +memory of her cakes, gingerbread, and kisses; has done me more +good, moral good—if you have a fancy for this +word—than sermons or punishment.</p> +<p>My christian name of “Hale” comes from my +grandmother, whose maiden name was Hale. At the beginning +of last century she and her two brothers, William and Robert +Hale, were living in Colchester. William Hale moved to +Homerton, and became a silk manufacturer in Spitalfields. +Homerton was then a favourite suburb for rich City people. +My great-uncle’s beautiful Georgian house had a marble bath +and a Grecian temple in the big garden. Of Robert Hale and +my grandfather I know nothing. The <a +name="page13"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 13</span>supposed +connexion with the Carolean Chief Justice is more than +doubtful.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p13b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Bedford Bridge, at the foot of which stood the house in which +‘Mark Rutherford’ was born" +title= +"Bedford Bridge, at the foot of which stood the house in which +‘Mark Rutherford’ was born" +src="images/p13s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>To return to Bedford. In my boyhood it differed, +excepting an addition northwards a few years before, much less +from Speed’s map of 1609 than the Bedford of 1910 differs +from the Bedford of 1831. There was but one bridge, but it +was not Bunyan’s bridge, and many of the gabled houses +still remained. To our house, much like the others in the +High Street, there was no real drainage, and our drinking-water +came from a shallow well sunk in the gravelly soil of the back +yard. A sewer, it is true, ran down the High Street, but it +discharged itself at the bridge-foot, in the middle of the town, +which was full of cesspools. Every now and then the river +was drawn off and the thick masses of poisonous filth which +formed its bed were dug out and carted away. In <a +name="page14"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 14</span>consequence +of the imperfect outfall we were liable to tremendous +floods. At such times a torrent roared under the bridge, +bringing down haystacks, dead bullocks, cows, and sheep. +Men with long poles were employed to fend the abutments from the +heavy blows by which they were struck. A flood in 1823 was +not forgotten for many years. One Saturday night in +November a man rode into the town, post-haste from Olney, warning +all inhabitants of the valley of the Ouse that the +“Buckinghamshire water” was coming down with alarming +force, and would soon be upon them. It arrived almost as +soon as the messenger, and invaded my uncle Lovell’s +dining-room, reaching nearly as high as the top of the table.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p14b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"‘The Bedford Times’ Coach, which made its last +journey to London on November 21, 1846" +title= +"‘The Bedford Times’ Coach, which made its last +journey to London on November 21, 1846" +src="images/p14s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>The goods traffic to and from London was carried on by an +enormous waggon, which made the journey once or twice <a +name="page15"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 15</span>a week. +Passengers generally travelled by the <i>Times</i> coach, a hobby +of Mr. Whitbread’s. It was horsed with four +magnificent cream-coloured horses, and did the fifty miles from +Bedford to London at very nearly ten miles an hour, or twelve +miles actual speed, excluding stoppages for change. Barring +accidents, it was always punctual to a minute, and every evening, +excepting Sundays, exactly as the clock of St. Paul’s +struck eight, it crossed the bridge. I have known it wait +before entering the town if it was five or six minutes too soon, +a kind of polish or artistic completeness being thereby given to +a performance in which much pride was taken.</p> +<p>The Bedford Charity was as yet hardly awake. No part of +the funds was devoted to the education of girls, but a very large +part went in almsgiving. The education <a +name="page16"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 16</span>of boys was +almost worthless. The head-mastership of the Grammar School +was in the gift of New College, Oxford, who of course always +appointed one of their Fellows. Including the income from +boarders, it was worth about £3,000 a year.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p16b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"The Old Meeting-house" +title= +"The Old Meeting-house" +src="images/p16s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>Dissent had been strong throughout the whole county ever since +the Commonwealth. The old meeting-house held about 700 +people, and was filled every Sunday. It was not the gifts +of the minister, certainly after the days of my early childhood, +which kept such a congregation steady. The reason why it +held together was the simple loyalty which prevents a soldier or +a sailor from mutinying, although the commanding officer may +deserve no respect. Most of the well-to-do tradesfolk were +Dissenters. They were taught what was called a +“moderate <a name="page17"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +17</span>Calvinism”, a phrase not easy to understand. +If it had any meaning, it was that predestination, election, and +reprobation, were unquestionably true, but they were dogmas about +which it was not prudent to say much, for some of the +congregation were a little Arminian, and St. James could not be +totally neglected. The worst of St. James was that when a +sermon was preached from his Epistle, there was always a danger +lest somebody in the congregation should think that it was +against him it was levelled. There was no such danger, at +any rate not so much, if the text was taken from the Epistle to +the Romans.</p> +<p>In the “singing-pew” sat a clarionet, a double +bass, a bassoon, and a flute: also a tenor voice which “set +the tune”. The carpenter, to whom the tenor voice +belonged, had a tuning-fork which he <a name="page18"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 18</span>struck on his desk and applied to his +ear. He then hummed the tuning-fork note, and the octave +below, the double bass screwed up and responded, the leader with +the tuning-fork boldly struck out, everybody following, including +the orchestra, and those of the congregation who had bass or +tenor voices sang the air. Each of the instruments demanded +a fair share of solos.</p> +<p>The institution strangest to me now was the Lord’s +Supper. Once a month the members of the church, while they +were seated in the pews, received the bread and wine at the hands +of the deacons, the minister reciting meanwhile passages from +Scripture. Those of the congregation who had not been +converted, and who consequently did not belong to the church and +were not communicants, watched the rite from the gallery. +What the reflective unconverted, <a name="page19"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 19</span>who were upstairs, thought I cannot +say. The master might with varying emotions survey the man +who cleaned his knives and boots. The wife might sit +beneath and the husband above, or, more difficult still, the +mistress might be seated aloft while her husband and her +conceited maid-of-all-work, Tabitha, enjoyed full gospel +privileges below.</p> +<p>Dependent on the mother “cause” were chapels in +the outlying villages. They were served by lay preachers, +and occasionally by the minister from the old +meeting-house. One village, Stagsden, had attained to the +dignity of a wind and a stringed instrument.</p> +<p>The elders of the church at Bedford belonged mostly to the +middle class in the town, but some of them were farmers. +Ignorant they were to a degree which would shock the most +superficial young <a name="page20"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +20</span>person of the present day; and yet, if the +farmer’s ignorance and the ignorance of the young person +could be reduced to the same denomination, I doubt whether it +would not be found that the farmer knew more than the +other. The farmer could not discuss Coleridge’s +metres or the validity of the maxim, “Art for Art’s +sake”, but he understood a good deal about the men around +him, about his fields, about the face of the sky, and he had +found it out all by himself, a fact of more importance than we +suppose. He understood also that he must be honest; he had +learnt how to be honest, and everything about him, house, +clothes, was a reality and not a sham. One of these elders +I knew well. He was perfectly straightforward, God-fearing +also, and therefore wise. Yet he once said to my father, +“I ain’t got no patience with men who talk pōtry +<a name="page21"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 21</span>(poetry) +in the pulpit. If you hear that, how can you wonder at your +children wanting to go to thēatres and +cathredrals?”</p> +<p>Of my father’s family, beyond my grandfather, I know +nothing. His forefathers had lived in Bedfordshire beyond +memory, and sleep indistinguishable, I am told, in Wilstead +churchyard. He was Radical, and almost Republican. +With two of his neighbours he refused to illuminate for our +victories over the French, and he had his windows smashed by a +Tory mob. One night he and a friend were riding home on +horseback, and at the entrance of the town they came upon +somebody lying in the road, who had been thrown from his horse +and was unconscious. My grandfather galloped forwards for a +doctor, and went back at once before the doctor could +start. On his way, and probably riding <a +name="page22"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 22</span>hard, he also +was thrown and was killed. He was found by those who had +followed him, and in the darkness and confusion they did not +recognize him. They picked him up, thinking he was the man +for whom they had been sent. When they reached the Swan Inn +they found out their mistake, and returned to the other +man. He recovered.</p> +<p>I had only one set of relations in Bedford, my aunt, who was +my father’s sister, her husband, Samuel Lovell, and their +children, my cousins. My uncle was a maltster and coal +merchant. Although he was slender and graceful when he was +young, he was portly when I first knew him. He always wore, +even in his counting-house and on his wharf, a spotless +shirt—seven a week—elaborately frilled in +front. He was clean-shaven, and his face was refined and +gentle. To me he was <a name="page23"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 23</span>kindness itself. He was in the +habit of driving two or three times a year to villages and +solitary farm-houses to collect his debts, and, to my great +delight, he used to take me with him. We were out all +day. His creditors were by no means punctual: they reckoned +on him with assurance. This is what generally +happened. Uncle draws up at the front garden gate and gets +out: I hold the reins. Blacksmith, in debt something like +£15 for smithery coal, comes from his forge at the side of +the house to meet him.</p> +<p>“Ah, Mr. Lovell, I’m glad to see you: how’s +the missus and the children? What weather it is!”</p> +<p>“I suppose you guess, Master Fitchew, what I’ve +come about: you’ve had this bill twice—I send my +bills out only once a year—and you’ve not paid a +penny.”</p> +<p><a name="page24"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 24</span>Fitchew +looks on the ground, and gives his head a shake on one side as if +he were mortified beyond measure.</p> +<p>“I know it, Mr. Lovell, nobody can be more vexed than I +am, but I can’t get nothing out of the farmers. Last +year was an awful year for them.”</p> +<p>Uncle tries with all his might to look severe, but does not +succeed.</p> +<p>“You’ve told me that tale every time I’ve +called for twenty years past: now mind, I’m not going to be +humbugged any longer. I must have half of that £15 +this month, or not another ounce of smithery coal do you get out +of me. You may try Warden if you like, and maybe +he’ll treat you better than I do.”</p> +<p>“Mr. Lovell, £10 you shall have next Saturday +fortnight as sure as my name’s Bill Fitchew.”</p> +<p>A little girl, about eight years old, who <a +name="page25"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 25</span>was hurried +into her white, Sunday frock with red ribbons, as soon as her +mother saw my uncle at the gate, runs up towards him according to +secret instructions, but stops short by about a yard, puts her +forefinger on her lip and looks at him.</p> +<p>“Hullo, my pretty dear, what’s your name? +Dear, what’s your name?”</p> +<p>“Say Keziah Fitchew, sir,” prompts Mrs. Fitchew, +appearing suddenly at the side door as if she had come to fetch +her child who had run out unawares.</p> +<p>After much hesitation: “Keziah Fitchew, sir.”</p> +<p>“Are you a good little girl? Do you say your +prayers every morning and every evening?”</p> +<p>“Yes, sir.”</p> +<p>“Would you know what to do with sixpence if I gave it +you? You’d put it in the missionary box, +wouldn’t you?”</p> +<p><a name="page26"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 26</span>Keziah +thinks, but does not reply. It is a problem of immense +importance. Uncle turns to Bill, so that Keziah cannot see +him, puts up his left hand to the side of his face and winks +violently.</p> +<p>“I suppose it’s one o’clock as usual, Mr. +Lovell, at the Red Lion?” My uncle laughs as he moves +to the gate.</p> +<p>“I tell you what it is, Mr. Fitchew, you’re a +precious rascal; that’s what you are.”</p> +<p>At one o’clock an immense dinner is provided at the Red +Lion, and thither the debtors come, no matter what may be the +state of their accounts, and drink my uncle’s health. +Such was Uncle Lovell. My father and mother often had +supper with him and my aunt. After I was ten years old I +was permitted to go. It was a solid, hot meal at nine +o’clock. It was followed by pipes and brandy and +water, <a name="page27"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +27</span>never more than one glass; and when this was finished, +at about half-past ten, there was the walk home across the silent +bridge, with a glimpse downward of the dark river slowly flowing +through the stone arches.</p> +<p>I now come to my father. My object is not to write his +life. I have not sufficient materials, nor would it be +worth recording at any length, but I should like to preserve the +memory of a few facts which are significant of him, and may +explain his influence upon me.</p> +<p>He was born in 1807, and was eight years old when his father +died: his mother died seven years earlier. He had a cruel +step-mother, who gave to her own child everything she had to +give. He was educated at the Grammar School, but the +teaching there, as I have said, was very poor. The +step-mother used to send <a name="page28"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 28</span>messages to the head master begging +him soundly to thrash her step-son, for he was sure to deserve +it, and school thrashing in those days was no joke. She +also compelled my father to clean boots, knives and forks, and do +other dirty work.</p> +<p>I do not know when he opened the shop in Bedford as a printer +and bookseller, but it must have been about 1830. He dealt +in old books, the works of the English divines of all parties, +both in the Anglican Church and outside it. The clergy, who +then read more than they read or can read now, were his principal +customers. From the time when he began business as a young +man in the town he had much to do with its affairs. He was +a Whig in politics, and amongst the foremost at elections, +specially at the election in 1832, when he and the Whig Committee +were besieged in the Swan Inn by the <a name="page29"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 29</span>mob. He soon became a trustee +of the Bedford Charity, and did good service for the +schools. In September 1843, the Rev. Edward Isaac Lockwood, +rector of St. John’s, in the town, and trustee of the +schools, carried a motion at a board meeting declaring that all +the masters under the Charity should be members of the Church of +England. The Charity maintained one or two schools besides +the Grammar School. The Act of Parliament, under which it +was administered, provided that the masters and ushers of the +Grammar School should be members of the Church of England, but +said nothing about the creed of the masters of the other +schools. The consternation in the town was great. It +was evident that the next step would be to close the schools to +Dissenters. Public meetings were held, and at the annual +election of trustees, Mr. Lockwood was at <a +name="page30"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 30</span>the bottom of +the poll. At the next meeting of the board, after the +election, my father carried a resolution which rescinded Mr. +Lockwood’s. The rector’s defeat was followed by +a series of newspaper letters in his defence from the Rev. Edward +Swann, mathematical master in the Grammar School. My father +replied in a pamphlet, published in 1844.</p> +<p>There was one endowment for which he was remarkable, the +purity of the English he spoke and wrote. He used to say he +owed it to Cobbett, whose style he certainly admired, but this is +but partly true. It was rather a natural consequence of the +clearness of his own mind and of his desire to make himself +wholly understood, both demanding the simplest and most forcible +expression. If the truth is of serious importance to us we +dare not obstruct it by phrase-making: we are compelled to be as +direct <a name="page31"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 31</span>as +our inherited feebleness will permit. The cannon +ball’s path is near to a straight line in proportion to its +velocity. “My boy,” my father once said to me, +“if you write anything you consider particularly fine, +strike it out.”</p> +<p>The <i>Reply</i> is an admirable specimen of the way in which +a controversy should be conducted; without heat, the writer +uniformly mindful of his object, which is not personal +distinction, but the conviction of his neighbour, poor as well as +rich, all the facts in order, every point answered, and not one +evaded. At the opening of the first letter, a saying of +Burkitt’s is quoted with approval. “Painted +glass is very beautiful, but plain glass is the most useful as it +lets through the most light.” A word, by the way, on +Burkitt. He was born in 1650, went to Cambridge, and became +rector, first of Milden, and then of <a name="page32"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 32</span>Dedham, both in Suffolk. As +rector of Dedham he died. There he wrote the <i>Poor +Man’s Help and Young Man’s Guide</i>, which went +through more than thirty editions in fifty years. There he +wrestled with the Baptists, and produced his <i>Argumentative and +Practical Discourse on Infant Baptism</i>. I have wandered +through these Dedham fields by the banks of the Stour. It +is Constable’s country, and in its way is not to be matched +in England. Although there is nothing striking in it, its +influence, at least upon me, is greater than that of celebrated +mountains and waterfalls. What a power there is to subdue +and calm in those low hills, overtopped, as you see it from East +Bergholt, by the magnificent Dedham half-cathedral church! +It is very probable that Burkitt, as he took his walks by the +Stour, and struggled with his <i>Argument</i>, never saw <a +name="page33"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 33</span>the placid, +winding stream; nor is it likely that anybody in Bedford, except +my father, had heard of him. For his defence of the schools +my father was presented at a town’s meeting with a silver +tea-service.</p> +<p>By degrees, when the battle was over, the bookselling business +very much fell off, and after a short partnership with his +brother-in-law in a tannery, my father was appointed assistant +door-keeper of the House of Commons by Lord Charles +Russell. He soon became door-keeper. While he was at +the door he wrote for a weekly paper his <i>Inner Life of the +House of Commons</i>, afterwards collected and published in book +form. He held office for twenty-one years, and on his +retirement, in 1875, 160 members of the House testified in a very +substantial manner their regard for him. He died at +Carshalton on <a name="page34"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +34</span>February 11, 1882. There were many obituary +notices of him. One was from Lord Charles Russell, who, as +Serjeant-at-Arms, had full opportunities of knowing him +well. Lord Charles recalled a meeting at Woburn, a quarter +of a century before, in honour of Lord John Russell. Lord +John spoke then, and so did Sir David Dundas, then +Solicitor-General, Lord Charles, and my father. +“His,” said Lord Charles, “was the finest +speech, and Sir David Dundas remarked to me, as Mr. White +concluded, ‘Why that is old Cobbett again <i>minus</i> his +vulgarity.’” He became acquainted with a good +many members during his stay at the House. New members +sought his advice and initiation into its ways. Some of his +friends were also mine. Amongst these were Sir John +Trelawney and his gifted wife. Sir John belonged to the +scholarly <a name="page35"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +35</span>Radical party, which included John Stuart Mill and +Roebuck. The visits to Sir John and Lady Trelawney will +never be forgotten, not so much because I was taught what to +think about certain political questions, but because I was +supplied with a standard by which all political questions were +judged, and this standard was fixed by reason. Looking at +the methods and the procedure of that little republic and at the +anarchy of to-day, with no prospect of the renewal of allegiance +to principles, my heart sinks. It was through one of the +Russells, with whom my father was acquainted, that I was +permitted with him to call on Carlyle, an event amongst the +greatest in my life, and all the happier for me because I did not +ask to go.</p> +<p>What I am going to say now I hardly like to mention, because +of its privacy, but it is so much to my father’s honour <a +name="page36"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 36</span>that I cannot +omit it. Besides, almost everybody concerned is now +dead. When he left Bedford he was considerably in debt, +through the falling off in his bookselling business which I have +just mentioned, caused mainly by his courageous +partisanship. His official salary was not sufficient to +keep him, and in order to increase it, he began to write for the +newspapers. During the session this was very hard +work. He could not leave the House till it rose, and was +often not at home till two o’clock in the morning or later, +too tired to sleep. He was never able to see a single +revise of what he wrote. In the end he paid his debts in +full.</p> +<p>My father was a perfectly honest man, and hated shiftiness +even worse than downright lying. The only time he gave me a +thrashing was for prevarication. He had a plain, but not a +dull mind, and <a name="page37"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +37</span>loved poetry of a sublime cast, especially Milton. +I can hear him even now repeat passages from the <i>Comus</i>, +which was a special favourite. Elsewhere I have told how +when he was young and stood at the composing desk in his printing +office, he used to declaim Byron by heart. That a Puritan +printer, one of the last men in the world to be carried away by a +fashion, should be vanquished by Byron, is as genuine a testimony +as any I know to the reality of his greatness. Up to 1849 +or thereabouts, my father in religion was Independent and +Calvinist, the creed which, as he thought then, best suited +him. But a change was at hand. His political opinions +remained unaltered to his death, but in 1851 he had completed his +discovery that the “simple gospel” which Calvinism +preached was by no means simple, but remarkably abstruse. +<a name="page38"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 38</span>It was the +<i>Heroes and Hero Worship</i> and the <i>Sartor Resartus</i> +which drew him away from the meeting-house. There is +nothing in these two books directly hostile either to church or +dissent, but they laid hold on him as no books had ever held, and +the expansion they wrought in him could not possibly tolerate the +limitations of orthodoxy. He was not converted to any other +religion. He did not run for help to those who he knew +could not give it. His portrait; erect, +straightforward-looking, firmly standing, one foot a little in +advance, helps me and decides me when I look at it. Of all +types of humanity the one which he represents would be the most +serviceable to the world at the present day. He was +generous, open-hearted, and if he had a temper, a trifle +explosive at times, nobody for whom he cared ever really suffered +from it, and occasionally it did <a name="page39"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 39</span>him good service. The chief +obituary notice of him declared with truth that he was the best +public speaker Bedford ever had, and the committee of the +well-known public library resolved unanimously “That this +institution records with regret the death of Mr. W. White, +formerly and for many years an active and most valuable member of +the committee, whose special and extensive knowledge of books was +always at its service, and to whom the library is indebted for +the acquisition of its most rare and valuable books.” +The first event in my own life is the attack by the mob upon our +house, at the general election in 1832, to which I have +referred. My cradle—as I have been told—had to +be carried from the front bedroom into the back, so that my head +might not be broken by the stones which smashed the windows.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p38b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Mark Rutherford’s Father" +title= +"Mark Rutherford’s Father" +src="images/p38s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p><a name="page40"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 40</span>The +first thing I can really see is the coronation of Queen Victoria +and a town’s dinner in St. Paul’s Square. About +this time, or soon after, I was placed in a “young +ladies’” school. At the front door of this +polite seminary I appeared one morning in a wheelbarrow. I +had persuaded a shop boy to give me a lift.</p> +<p>It was when I was about ten years old—surely it must +have been very early on some cloudless summer morning—that +Nurse Jane came to us. She was a faithful servant and a +dear friend for many years—I cannot say how many. +Till her death, not so long ago, I was always her “dear +boy”. She was as familiar with me as if I were her +own child. She left us when she married, but came back on +her husband’s death. Her father and mother lived in a +little thatched cottage at Oakley. They were very poor, but +her mother was <a name="page41"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +41</span>a Scotch girl, and knew how to make a little go a long +way. Jane had not infrequent holidays, and she almost +always took my sister and myself to spend them at Oakley. +This was a delight as keen as any which could be given me. +No entertainment, no special food was provided. As to +entertainment there was just the escape to a freer life, to a +room in which we cooked our food, ate it, and altogether lived +during waking hours when we were indoors. Oh, for a house +with this one room, a Homeric house! How much easier and +how much more natural should we be if we watched the pot or +peeled the potatoes as we talked, than it is now in a +drawing-room, where we do not know what chair to choose amongst a +dozen scattered about aimlessly; where there is no table to hide +the legs or support the arms; a room which compels an +uncomfortable <a name="page42"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +42</span>awkwardness, and forced conversation. Would it not +be more sincere if a saucepan took part in it than it is now, +when, in evening clothes, tea-cup in hand, we discuss the show at +the Royal Academy, while a lady at the piano sings a song from +<i>Aida</i>?</p> +<p>As to the food at Oakley, it was certainly rough, and included +dishes not often seen at home, but I liked it all the +better. My mother was by no means democratic. In fact +she had a slight weakness in favour of rank. Somehow or +other she had managed to know some people who lived in a +“park” about five or six miles from Bedford. It +was called a “park”, but in reality it was a big +garden, with a meadow beyond. However, and this was the +great point, none of my mother’s town friends were callers +at the Park. But, notwithstanding her little affectations, +<a name="page43"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 43</span>she was +always glad to let us go to Oakley with Jane, not that she wanted +to get rid of us, but because she loved her. Nothing but +good did I get from my wholly unlearned nurse and Oakley. +Never a coarse word, unbounded generosity, and an unreasoning +spontaneity, which I do think one of the most blessed of virtues, +suddenly making us glad when nothing is expected. A child +knows, no one so well, whereabouts in the scale of goodness to +place generosity. Nobody can estimate its true value so +accurately. Keeping the Sabbath, no swearing, very right +and proper, but generosity is first, although it is not in the +Decalogue. There was not much in my nurse’s cottage +with which to prove her liberality, but a quart of damsons for my +mother was enough. Going home from Oakley one +summer’s night I saw some magnificent apples in a window; I +had <a name="page44"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 44</span>a +penny in my pocket, and I asked how many I could have for that +sum. “Twenty.” How we got them home I do +not know. The price I dare say has gone up since that +evening. Talking about damsons and apples, I call to mind a +friend in Potter Street, whose name I am sorry to say I have +forgotten. He was a miller, tall, thin, slightly stooping, +wore a pepper-and-salt suit of clothes, and might have been about +sixty years old when I was ten or twelve. He lived in an +ancient house, the first floor of which overhung the street; the +rooms were low-pitched and dark. How Bedford folk managed +to sleep in them, windows all shut, is incomprehensible. At +the back of the house was a royal garden stretching down to the +lane which led to the mill. My memory especially dwells on +the currants, strawberries, and gooseberries. When we went +<a name="page45"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 45</span>to +“uncle’s”, as we called him, we were turned out +unattended into the middle of the fruit beds if the fruit was +ripe, and we could gather and eat what we liked. I am proud +to say that this Potter Street gentleman, a nobleman if ever +there was one, although not really an uncle, was in some way +related to my father.</p> +<p>The recollections of boyhood, so far as week-days go, are very +happy. Sunday, however, was not happy. I was taken to +a religious service, morning and evening, and understood +nothing. The evening was particularly trying. The +windows of the meeting-house streamed inside with condensed +breath, and the air we took into our lungs was poisonous. +Almost every Sunday some woman was carried out fainting. Do +what I could it was impossible to keep awake. When I was +quite little I was made to stand on the <a +name="page46"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 46</span>seat, a +spectacle, with other children in the like case, to the whole +congregation, and I often nearly fell down, overcome with +drowsiness. My weakness much troubled me, because, although +it might not be a heinous sin, such as bathing on Sunday, it +showed that I was not one of God’s children, like Samuel, +who ministered before the Lord girded with a linen ephod. +Bathing on Sunday, as the river was always before me, was +particularly prominent as a type of wickedness, and I read in +some book for children, by a certain divine named Todd, how a +wicked boy, bathing on the Sabbath, was drawn under a mill-wheel, +was drowned, and went to hell. I wish I could find that +book, for there was also in it a most conclusive argument +intended for a child’s mind against the doctrine, +propounded by people called philosophers, that the world <a +name="page47"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 47</span>was created +by chance. The refutation was in the shape of a dream by a +certain sage representing a world made by Chance and not by +God. Unhappily all that I recollect of the remarkable +universe thus produced is that the geese had hoofs, and +“clamped about like horses”. Such was the awful +consequence of creation by a No-God or nothing.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p47b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"The School, Bedford, as it was in 1831" +title= +"The School, Bedford, as it was in 1831" +src="images/p47s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>In 1841 or 1842—I forget exactly the date—I was +sent to what is now the Modern School. My father would not +let me go to the Grammar School, partly because he had such +dreadful recollections of his treatment there, and partly because +in those days the universities were closed to Dissenters. +The Latin and Greek in the upper school were not good for much, +but Latin in the lower school—Greek was not +taught—consisted almost entirely in learning the Eton Latin +grammar by heart, <a name="page48"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +48</span>and construing Cornelius Nepos. The boys in the +lower school were a very rough set. About a dozen were +better than the others, and kept themselves apart.</p> +<p>The recollections of school are not interesting to me in any +way, but it is altogether otherwise with playtime and +holidays. School began at seven in the morning during half +the year, but later in winter. At half-past eight or nine +there was an interval of an hour for breakfast. It was over +when I got home, and I had mine in the kitchen. It was +dispatched in ten minutes, and my delight in cold weather then +was to lie in front of the fire and read <i>Chambers’ +Journal</i>. Blessings on the brothers Chambers for that +magazine and for the <i>Miscellany</i>, which came later! +Then there was Charles and Mary Lamb’s <i>Tales of +Ulysses</i>. It was on a top shelf in the shop, and I +studied it whilst perched on the <a name="page49"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 49</span>shop ladder. Another memorable +volume was a huge atlas-folio, which my sister and I called the +Battle Book. It contained coloured prints, with +descriptions of famous battles of the British Army. We used +to lug it into the dining-room in the evening, and were never +tired of looking at it. A little later I managed to make an +electrical machine out of a wine bottle, and to produce sparks +three-quarters of an inch long. I had learned the words +“positive” and “negative”, and was +satisfied with them as an explanation, although I had not the +least notion what they meant, but I got together a few friends +and gave them a demonstration on electricity.</p> +<p>Never was there a town better suited to a boy than Bedford at +that time for out-of-door amusements. It was not too +big—its population was about 10,000—so <a +name="page50"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 50</span>that the +fields were then close at hand. The Ouse—immortal +stream—runs through the middle of the High Street. To +the east towards fenland, the country is flat, and the river is +broad, slow, and deep. Towards the west it is quicker, +involved, fold doubling almost completely on fold, so that it +takes sixty miles to accomplish thirteen as the crow flies. +Beginning at Kempston, and on towards Clapham, Oakley, Milton, +Harrold, it is bordered by the gentlest of hills or rather +undulations. At Bedford the navigation for barges stopped, +and there were very few pleasure boats, one of which was +mine. The water above the bridge was strictly preserved, +and the fishing was good. My father could generally get +leave for me, and more delightful days than those spent at +Kempston Mill and Oakley Mill cannot be imagined. The +morning generally began, <a name="page51"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 51</span>if I may be excused the bull, on the +evening before, when we walked about four miles to bait a +celebrated roach and bream hole. After I got home, and just +as I was going to bed, I tied a long string round one toe, and +threw the other end of the string out of window, so that it +reached the ground, having bargained with a boy to pull this end, +not too violently, at daybreak, about three-quarters of an hour +before the time when the fish would begin to bite well. At +noon we slept for a couple of hours on the bank. In the +evening we had two hours more sport, and then marched back to +town. Once, in order to make a short cut, we determined to +swim the river, which, at the point where we were, was about +sixty feet wide, deep, and what was of more consequence, bordered +with weeds. We stripped, tied our clothes on the top of our +heads and our boots to <a name="page52"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 52</span>one end of our fishing lines, +carrying the other end with us. When we got across we +pulled our boots through mud and water after us. Alas! to +our grief we found we could not get them on, and we were obliged +to walk without them. Swimming we had been taught by an old +sailor, who gave lessons to the school, and at last I could pick +up an egg from the bottom of the overfall, a depth of about ten +feet. I have also been upset from my boat, and had to lie +stark naked on the grass in the sun till my clothes were +dry. Twice I have been nearly drowned, once when I wandered +away from the swimming class, and once when I could swim +well. This later peril is worth a word or two, and I may as +well say them now. I was staying by the sea-side, and +noticed as I was lying on the beach about a couple of hundred +yards from the shore a small <a name="page53"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 53</span>vessel at anchor. I thought I +should like to swim round her. I reached her without any +difficulty, in perfect peace, luxuriously, I may say, and had +just begun to turn when I was suddenly overtaken by a mad +conviction that I should never get home. There was no real +danger of failure of strength, but my heart began to beat +furiously, the shore became dim, and I gave myself up for +lost. “This then is dying,” I said to myself, +but I also said—I remember how vividly—“There +shall be a struggle before I go down—one desperate +effort”—and I strove, in a way I cannot describe, to +bring my will to bear directly on my terror. In an instant +the horrible excitement was at an end, and <i>there was a great +calm</i>. I stretched my limbs leisurely, rejoicing in the +sea and the sunshine. This story is worth telling because +it shows that a person with <a name="page54"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 54</span>tremulous nerves, such as mine, never +ought to say that he has done all that he can do. Notice +also it was not nature or passion which carried me through, but a +conviction wrought by the reason. The next time I was in +extremity victory was tenfold easier.</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p50b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Old Horne Lane, Bedford, in 1835" +title= +"Old Horne Lane, Bedford, in 1835" +src="images/p50s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>In the winter, fishing and boating and swimming gave way to +skating. The meadows for miles were a great lake, and there +was no need to take off skates in order to get past mills and +weirs. The bare, flat Bedfordshire fields had also their +pleasures. I had an old flint musket which I found in an +outhouse. I loaded it with hard peas, and once killed a +sparrow. The fieldfares, or felts, as we called them, were +in flocks in winter, but with them I never succeeded. On +the dark November Wednesday and Saturday afternoons, when there +was not a breath of wind, and the fog <a name="page55"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 55</span>hung heavily over the brown, ploughed +furrows, we gathered sticks, lighted a fire, and roasted +potatoes. They were sweet as peaches. After dark we +would “go a bat-fowling”, with lanterns, some of us +on one side of the hedge and some on the other. I left +school when I was between fourteen and fifteen, and then came the +great event and the great blunder of my life, the mistake which +well-nigh ruined it altogether. My mother’s brother +had a son about five years older than myself, who was being +trained as an Independent minister. To him I owe +much. It was he who introduced me to Goethe. Some +time after he was ordained, he became heterodox, and was obliged +to separate himself from the Independents to whom he +belonged. My mother, as I have already said, was a little +weak in her preference for people who did not stand <a +name="page56"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 56</span>behind +counters, and she desired equality with her sister-in-law. +Besides, I can honestly declare that to her an Evangelical +ministry was a sacred calling, and the thought that I might be +the means of saving souls made her happy. Finally, it was +not possible now to get a living in Bedford as a +bookseller. The drawing class in the school was fairly +good, and I believe I had profited by it. Anyhow, I loved +drawing, and wished I might be an artist. The decision was +against me, and I was handed over to a private tutor to prepare +for the Countess of Huntingdon’s College at Cheshunt, which +admitted students other than those which belonged to the +Connexion, provided their creed did not materially differ from +that which governed the Connexion trusts.</p> +<p>Before I went to college I had to be +“admitted”. In most Dissenting communities <a +name="page57"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 57</span>there is a +singular ceremony called “admission”, through which +members of the congregation have to pass before they become +members of the church. It is a declaration that a certain +change called conversion has taken place in the soul. Two +deacons are appointed to examine the candidate privately, and +their report is submitted to a church-meeting. If it is +satisfactory, he is summoned before the whole church, and has to +make a confession of his faith, and give an account of his +spiritual history. As may be expected, it is very often +inaccurately picturesque, and is framed after the model of the +journey to Damascus. A sinner, for example, who swears at +his pious wife, and threatens to beat her, is suddenly smitten +with giddiness and awful pains. He throws himself on his +knees before her, and thenceforward he is a <a +name="page58"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +58</span>“changed character”. I had to tell the +church that my experience had not been eventful. I was +young, and had enjoyed the privilege of godly parents.</p> +<p>What was conversion? It meant not only that the novice +unhesitatingly avowed his belief in certain articles of faith, +but it meant something much more, and much more difficult to +explain. I was guilty of original sin, and also of sins +actually committed. For these two classes of sin I deserved +eternal punishment. Christ became my substitute, and His +death was the payment for my transgression. I had to feel +that His life and death were appropriated by me. This word +“appropriated” is the most orthodox I can find, but +it is almost unintelligible. I might perhaps say that I had +to feel assured that I, personally, was in God’s mind, and +was included in the atonement.</p> +<p><a name="page59"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 59</span>This +creed had as evil consequences that it concentrated my thoughts +upon myself, and made me of great importance. God had been +anxious about me from all eternity, and had been scheming to save +me. Another bad result was that I was satisfied I +understood what I did not in the least understand. This is +very near lying. I can see myself now—I was no more +than seventeen—stepping out of our pew, standing in the +aisle at the pew-door, and protesting to their content before the +minister of the church, father and mother protesting also to my +own complete content, that the witness of God in me to my own +salvation was as clear as noonday. Poor little mortal, a +twelvemonth out of round jackets, I did not in the least know who +God was, or what was salvation.</p> +<p>On entering the college I signed the Thirty-nine Articles, +excepting two or three at <a name="page60"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 60</span>most; for the Countess, so far as her +theology went, was always Anglican. One of her chaplains +was William Romaine, the famous incumbent of St. Anne’s, +Blackfriars, who on his first Good Friday in that church +administered to five hundred communicants. The book I was +directed to study by the theological professor after admission, +was a book on the Atonement, by somebody named Williams. He +justified the election of a minority to heaven and a majority to +hell on the ground that God owed us nothing, and being our Maker, +might do with us what He pleased. This struck me as +original, but I had forgotten that it is the doctrine of the +Epistle to the Romans. It is almost incredible to me now, +although I was hardly nineteen, that I should have accepted +without question such a terrible invention, and the only approach +to explanation I can give is that <a name="page61"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 61</span>all this belonged to a world totally +disconnected from my own, and that I never thought of making real +to myself anything which this supernatural world contained.</p> +<p>The most important changes in life are not those of one belief +for another, but of growth, in which nothing preceding is +directly contradicted, but something unexpected nevertheless +makes its appearance. On the bookshelf in our dining-room +lay a volume of Wordsworth. One day, when I was about +eighteen, I took it out, and fell upon the lines—</p> +<blockquote><p>“Knowing that Nature never did betray<br /> +The heart that loved her.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>What they meant was not clear to me, but they were a signal of +the approach of something which turned out to be of the greatest +importance, and altered my history.</p> +<p>It was a new capacity. There woke in <a +name="page62"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 62</span>me an aptness +for the love of natural beauty, a possibility of being excited to +enthusiasm by it, and of deriving a secret joy from it +sufficiently strong to make me careless of the world and its +pleasures. Another effect which Wordsworth had upon me, and +has had on other people, was the modification, altogether +unintentional on his part, of religious belief. He never +dreams of attacking anybody for his creed, and yet it often +becomes impossible for those who study him and care for him to be +members of any orthodox religious community. At any rate it +would have been impossible in the town of Bedford. His +poems imply a living God, different from the artificial God of +the churches. The revolution wrought by him goes far +deeper, and is far more permanent than any which is the work of +Biblical critics, and it was Wordsworth and not German <a +name="page63"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 63</span>research +which caused my expulsion from New College, of which a page or +two further on. For some time I had no thought of heresy, +but the seed was there, and was alive just as much as the +seed-corn is alive all the time it lies in the earth apparently +dead.</p> +<p>I have nothing particular to record of Cheshunt, the secluded +Hertfordshire village, where the Countess of Huntingdon’s +College then was. It stood in a delightful little half +park, half garden, through which ran the New River: the country +round was quiet, and not then suburban, but here and there was a +large handsome Georgian house. I learnt nothing at +Cheshunt, and did not make a single friend.</p> +<p>In 1851 or 1852 I was transferred, with two other students, to +New College, St. John’s Wood. On February 3, 1852, +the <a name="page64"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +64</span>Principal examined our theological class on an inaugural +lecture delivered at the opening of the college. The +subject of the lecture was the inspiration of the Bible. +The two students before mentioned were members of this class, and +asked some questions about the formation of the canon and the +authenticity of the separate books. They were immediately +stopped by the Principal in summary style. “I must +inform you that this is not an open question within these +walls. There is a great body of truth received as orthodoxy +by the great majority of Christians, the explanation of which is +one thing, but to doubt it is another, and the foundation must +not be questioned.” How well I recollect the face of +the Principal! He looked like a man who would write an +invitation to afternoon tea “within these +walls”. He consulted the <a name="page65"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 65</span>senate, and the senate consulted the +council, which consisted of the senate and some well-known +ministers. We were ordered to be present at a special +council meeting, and each one was called up separately before it +and catechized. Here are two or three of the questions, +put, it will be remembered, without notice, to a youth a little +over twenty, confronted by a number of solemn divines in white +neckerchiefs.</p> +<p>“Will you explain the mode in which you conceive the +sacred writers to have been influenced?”</p> +<p>“Do you believe a statement because it is in the Bible, +or merely because it is true?”</p> +<p>“You are aware that there are two great parties on this +question, one of which maintains that the inspiration of the +Scriptures differs in kind from that <a name="page66"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 66</span>of other books: the other that the +difference is one only of degree. To which of these parties +do you attach yourself?”</p> +<p>“Are you conscious of any divergence from the views +expounded by the Principal in this introductory +lecture?”</p> +<p>At a meeting of the council, on the 13th February, 1852, it +was resolved that our opinions were “incompatible” +with the “retention of our position as +students”. This resolution was sent to us with +another to the effect that at the next meeting of the council +“such measures” would be taken “as may be +thought advisable”. At this meeting my father, +together with the father of one of my colleagues attended, and +asked that our moral character should be placed above suspicion; +that the opinions for which we had been condemned should be +explicitly stated, and <a name="page67"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 67</span>that we should be furnished with a +copy of the creed by which we were judged. The next step on +the part of the council was the appointment of a committee to +interview us, and “prevent the possibility of a +misapprehension of our views”. We attended, underwent +examination once more, and once more repeated the three +requests. No notice was taken of them, but on 3rd March we +were asked if we would withdraw from the college for three months +in order that we might “reconsider our opinions”, so +that possibly we might “be led by Divine guidance to such +views as would be compatible with the retention of our present +position”. Idiomatic English was clearly not a strong +point with the council. Of course we refused. If we +had consented it might have been reasonably concluded that we had +taken very little trouble with our <a name="page68"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 68</span>“views”. Again we +asked for compliance with our requests, but the only answer we +got was that our “connexion with New College must +cease”, and that with regard to the three requests, the +council “having duly weighed them, consider that they have +already sufficiently complied with them”.</p> +<p>It is not now my purpose to discuss the doctrine of Biblical +Inspiration. It has gone the way of many other theological +dogmas. It has not been settled by a yea or nay, but by +indifference, and because yea or nay are both inapplicable. +The manner in which the trial was conducted was certainly +singular, and is worth a word or two. The Holy Office was +never more scandalously indifferent to any pretence of justice or +legality in its proceedings. We were not told what was the +charge against us, nor what were the <a name="page69"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 69</span>terms of the trust deed of the +college, if such a document existed; neither were we informed +what was the meaning of the indictment, and yet the council must +have been aware that nothing less than our ruin would probably be +the result of our condemnation.</p> +<p>My father wrote and published a defence of us, entitled <i>To +Think or not to Think</i>, with two noble mottoes, one from +Milton’s <i>Areopagitica</i> and the other some lines from +<i>In Memoriam</i>, which was read in those days by people who +were not sentimental fools, and who, strange to say, got out of +it something solid which was worth having. The days may +return when something worth having will be got out of it +again. To the question, “Will you explain the mode in +which you conceive the sacred writers to have been +influenced?” my father replied—“Rather a +profound question, <a name="page70"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +70</span>that. A profounder, I venture to say, never +agitated the mind of a German metaphysician. If the query +had been put to me, I should have taken the liberty to question +the questioner thus: ‘Can you explain to me the growth of a +tree? Can you explain how the will of man influences the +material muscles?—In fact the universe is full of forces or +influences. Can you trace whence it came and how it +came? Can’st thou by searching find out God? +Can’st thou find out the Almighty unto perfection?—it +is high as heaven; what can’st thou do? deeper than hell; +what can’st thou know?’” To the +council’s inquiry whether we believed a statement because +it was in the Bible or because it was true, my father replied +partly with a quotation from the celebrated Platonist divine, +John Smith, of <a name="page71"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +71</span>Cambridge—“All that knowledge which is +separate from an inward acquaintance with virtue and goodness is +of a far different nature from that which ariseth out of a living +sense of them which is the best discerner thereof, and by which +alone we know the true perfection, sweetness, energy, and +loveliness of them, and all that which is +οὔτε ῥητόν, +οὔτε yραπτόν, +that which can no more be known by a naked demonstration than +colours can be perceived of a blind man by any definition or +description which he can hear of them.”</p> +<p>This pamphlet was written in 1852, three years after I entered +Cheshunt College, when my father declared to me that “a +moderate Calvinism suited him best”. In 1852 he was +forty-five years old. He had not hardened: he was alive, +rejecting what was dead, laying hold of <a +name="page72"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 72</span>what was true +to him, and living by it. Nor was the change hurried or +ill-considered which took place in him between 1849 and +1852. What he became in 1852 he was substantially to the +end of his days.</p> +<p>The expulsion excited some notice in the world then, although, +as I have said, the controversy was without much +significance. The “views” of Dr. Harris and the +rest of the council were already condemned. Here are some +letters, not before printed, from Maurice and Kingsley on the +case. The closing paragraph of Maurice’s letter is +remarkable because in about a twelvemonth he himself was expelled +from King’s College.</p> +<blockquote><p>“<span class="smcap">My dear Sir</span>,</p> +<p>“I beg to thank you for your very able and interesting +pamphlet. I know <a name="page73"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 73</span>one of the expelled students, and +have every reason to think highly of his earnestness and +truthfulness.</p> +<p>“I feel a delicacy in pronouncing any judgement upon the +conduct of the Heads of the College, as I belong to another, and +I might seem to be biased by feelings of Sectarianism and of +rivalship. But there are many of your thoughts by which we +may all equally profit, and which I hope to lay to heart in case +I should be brought into circumstances like those of the judges +or of the criminals.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">“Faithfully yrs,</p> +<p style="text-align: right">“F. D. <span +class="smcap">Maurice</span>.</p> +<p>“<i>July</i> 27, 1852.<br /> + 21 Queen’s Square,<br /> + Bloomsbury.”</p> +</blockquote> + +<div class="gapshortline"> </div> +<blockquote><p style="text-align: right"><a +name="page74"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 74</span>“<span +class="smcap">Eversley</span>. <i>Saturday</i>.</p> +<p>“<span class="smcap">Dear Sir</span>,</p> +<p>“I beg to acknowledge the receipt of your very clever +and well-written pamphlet, which I have read with no surprise but +with most painful interest; and I beg to thank you for the +compliment implied in your sending it to me. Your son ought +to thank God for having a father who will stand by him in trouble +so manfully and wisely: and as you say, this may be of the very +greatest benefit to him: but it may also do him much harm, if it +makes him fancy that such men as have expelled him are the real +supporters of the Canon and inspiration of Scripture, and of +Orthodoxy in general.</p> +<p>“I said that I read your pamphlet without +surprise. I must explain my words. This is only one +symptom of a great and <a name="page75"></a><span +class="pagenum">p. 75</span>growing movement, which must end in +the absolute destruction of ‘Orthodox dissent’ among +the educated classes, and leave the lower, if unchecked, to +“Mormonism, Popery, and every kind of +Fetîche-worship. The Unitarians have first felt the +tide-wave: but all other sects will follow; and after them will +follow members of the Established Church in proportion as they +have been believing, not in the Catholic and Apostolic Faith, as +it is in the Bible, but in some compound or other of Calvinist +doctrine with Rabbinical theories of magical inspiration, such as +are to be found in Gaussen’s <i>Theopneustic</i>—a +work of which I cannot speak in terms of sufficient abhorrence, +however well meaning the writer may have been. Onward to +Strauss, <i>Transcendentalism</i>—and Mr. John +Chapman’s <i>Catholic Series</i> is the <a +name="page76"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 76</span>appointed +path, and God help them!—I speak as one who has been +through, already, much which I see with the deepest sympathy +perplexing others round me; and you write as a man who has had +the same experience. Whether or not we agree in our +conclusions at present, you will forgive me for saying, that +every week shows me more and more that the ‘Orthodox +Catholic and Apostolic Faith’, so far from being +incompatible with the most daring science, both physical, +metaphysical, and philological, or with the most extended notions +of inspiration, or with continual inrushes of new light from +above, assumes them, asserts them, and cannot be kept Catholic, +or true to itself, without the fullest submission to them. +I speak as a heartily orthodox priest of the Church of England; +you will excuse <a name="page77"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +77</span>my putting my thoughts in a general and abstract form in +so short a letter. But if your son—(I will not say +you—for your age must be, and your acquirements evidently +are—greater than my own) if your son would like to write to +me about these matters, I do believe before God, who sees me +write, that as one who has been through what he has, and more, I +may have something to tell him, or at least to set him thinking +over. I speak frankly. If I am taking a liberty, you +will pardon the act for the sake of the motive.</p> +<p style="text-align: center">“I am, dear Sir,</p> +<p style="text-align: right">“Your obedient and faithful +servant,<br /> +C. <span class="smcap">Kingsley</span>.”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>It would be a mistake to suppose that the creed in which I had +been brought up was or could be for ever cast away like <a +name="page78"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 78</span>an old +garment. The beliefs of childhood and youth cannot be thus +dismissed. I know that in after years I found that in a way +they revived under new forms, and that I sympathized more with +the Calvinistic Independency of the sixteenth and seventeenth +centuries than with the modern Christianity of church or +chapel. At first, after the abandonment of orthodoxy, I +naturally thought nothing in the old religion worth retaining, +but this temper did not last long. Many mistakes may be +pardoned in Puritanism in view of the earnestness with which it +insists on the distinction between right and wrong. This is +vital. In modern religion the path is flowery. The +absence of difficulty is a sure sign that no good is being +done. How far we are from the strait gate, from the way +that is narrow which leadeth unto life, the way which is found +only by <a name="page79"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +79</span>few! The great doctrines of Puritanism are also +much nearer to the facts of actual experience than we +suppose.</p> +<p>After the expulsion I was adrift, knowing no craft, belonging +to no religious body, and without social or political +interest. I engaged myself to a schoolmaster. The +story of my very brief stay with him has been elsewhere told with +some variation, but I may as well relate it here so as to make my +little history complete. The school was somewhere in Stoke +Newington. I got there in the evening when it was quite +dark. After a word or two with my chief I was shown into a +large school-room. Two candles were placed on a raised +desk, and this was all the light permitted for the illumination +of the great empty space round me. The walls were hung with +maps, and the place of honour on the end wall was occupied by a +huge <a name="page80"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +80</span>drawing of the globe, in perspective, carefully +coloured. This masterpiece was the work of the proprietor, +an example of the precious learning which might be acquired at +his “establishment”. After I had sat down for a +few minutes a servant brought me my supper, placed it on a desk, +and showed me my bedroom. I ate my meal, and after some +time, as nobody came to see me, I thought I had better go to +bed. I had to ascend a ladder, which I pulled up after +me. When I had shut the door I looked out of window. +Before me lay London and the dull glare of its lights. +There was no distinct noise perceptible; but a deadened roar came +up to me. Over in the south-west was the house of the +friend I had left, always a warm home for me when I was in +town. Then there fell upon me what was the beginning of a +trouble which has lasted all my life. <a +name="page81"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 81</span>The next +afternoon I went to the proprietor and told him I could not +stay. He was greatly amazed, and still more so because I +could give him no reason for leaving. He protested very +reasonably that I could not break my engagement at the beginning +of term, but he gave me permission to look for a +substitute. I found a Scotch graduate who, like myself, had +been accused of heresy, and had nothing to do. He came the +same day, and I went back to — Terrace, somewhere out by +Haverstock Hill. I forget its name; it was a dull row of +stuccoed ugliness. But to me that day Grasmere, the +Quantocks, or the Cornish sea-coast would have been nothing +compared with that stucco line. When I knocked at the door +the horrible choking fog had rolled away: I rushed inside; there +was a hearty embrace, and the sun shone gloriously. Still, +I had nothing to do.</p> +<p><a name="page82"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 82</span>At this +point I had intended to stop. A good part of my life +henceforward has appeared under disguise in one of my books, but +I think on reconsideration it will be better to record here also +what little remains to be told about myself, and to narrate it as +history. I called on several publishers and asked for +employment, but could get none till I came to John Chapman, +editor and proprietor of the <i>Westminster Review</i>, as well +as publisher, mainly of books which were theologically heretical, +and, I am sorry to say, did not pay. He lived at 142 +Strand.</p> +<p>As the New College council had tested my orthodoxy, so Chapman +tested my heresy and found that I was fit for the propagandist +work in No. 142 and for its society. He asked me if I +believed in miracles. I said “Yes and +no”. I did not believe that an actual Curtius leaped +<a name="page83"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 83</span>into the +gulf in the Forum and saved Rome, but I did believe in the +spiritual truth set forth in the legend. This reply was +allowed to pass, although my scepticism would have been more +satisfactory and more useful if it had been a little more +thorough.</p> +<p>I was soon taken off the <i>Westminster</i>, and my occupation +now was to write Chapman’s letters, to keep his accounts, +and, most disagreeable, to “subscribe” his +publications, that is to say, to call on booksellers and ask how +many copies they would take. Of George Eliot, who lodged at +No. 142, I have often spoken, and have nothing to add. It +is a lasting sorrow to me that I allowed my friendship with her +to drop, and that after I left Chapman I never called on +her. She was then unknown, except to a few friends, but I +did know what she was worth. I knew that she was not only +endowed with <a name="page84"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +84</span>extraordinary genius, but with human qualities even more +precious. She took the kindest notice of me, an awkward +creature not accustomed to society. It is sad that youth +should be so confident in its own resources that it will not +close its hand upon the treasure which is placed inside it. +It was not only George Eliot by whom I neglected to profit. +I might have seen Rachel. I recollect the evening, and I +believe I was offered a ticket. It was not worth while to +walk a couple of hundred yards to enrich myself for ever! I +knew intimate friends of Caroline Fox, but I made no effort to +become acquainted with her. What a difference it would make +to me now, living so much in the past, if Penjerrick, with a +dream of its lawn sloping southward and seaward, and its society +of all the most interesting people in England, should be amongst +my possessions, <a name="page85"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +85</span>thrusting out and replacing much that is ugly, +monotonous, and depressing. I would earnestly, so +earnestly, implore every boy and girl religiously to grasp their +chances. Lay up for yourselves treasure in heaven.</p> +<p>There was one opportunity, however, I did not miss, and this +was Caleb Morris. About him also I have written, but for +the sake of continuity I will repeat some of it. He had +singular influence, not only over me, but over nearly every young +man whom he met. He was originally an Independent minister +in Wales, where the people are mostly Dissenters, but he came to +London when he had not passed middle life, and took charge of the +church in Fetter Lane. He was tall, broad-shouldered, +handsome, erect, but was partly disabled by a strangely nervous +temperament which, with an obscure bodily <a +name="page86"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 86</span>trouble, +frequently prevented him from keeping his engagements. +Often and often messengers had to be dispatched late on Sunday +morning to find a substitute for him at Fetter Lane, and people +used to wait in the portico of the chapel until the service had +well begun, and then peep through the door to see who was in the +pulpit. He was the most eloquent speaker I ever +heard. I never shall forget his picture of the father, in +the parable of the prodigal son, watching for his child’s +return, all his thoughts swallowed up in one—<i>Will he +come back to-day</i>? When he did come—no word of +rebuke. The hardest thing in the world is to be completely +generous in forgiveness. The most magnanimous of men cannot +resist the temptation—<i>but at the same time you must +see</i>, <i>my dearest</i>, <i>don’t you</i>? Almost +equally difficult, but not quite, is the <a +name="page87"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 87</span>simple +confession without an extenuating word, <i>I have sinned against +Heaven</i>. The father does not hear. <i>Bring forth +the best robe and put it on him</i>, <i>and put a ring on his +hand and shoes on his feet</i>. A ring on his hand! +Shoes on his feet we can understand, but there is to be a ring, +honour, ennoblement! . . . The first movement of repentance +was—<i>I will arise and go to my father</i>. The +omissions in Morris’s comment were striking. There +was no word of the orthodox machinery of forgiveness. It +was through Morris that the Bible became what it always has been +to me. It has not solved directly any of the great problems +which disturb my peace, and Morris seldom touched them +controversially, but he uncovered such a wealth of wonder and +beauty in it that the problems were forgotten.</p> +<p>Lord Bacon was Morris’s hero, both for <a +name="page88"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 88</span>his method +and his personal character. These were the days before the +researches of Spedding, when Bacon was supposed to be a mass of +those impossible paradoxes in which Macaulay delighted. To +Morris, Bacon’s <i>Submission</i> and his renunciation of +all defence were sufficient. With what pathos he repeated +Bacon’s words when the Lords asked him whether the +subscription to the <i>Submission</i> was in his own hand. +“My Lords, it is my act, my hand, my heart. I beseech +your Lordships, be merciful to a broken reed.”</p> +<p style="text-align: center"> +<a href="images/p88b.jpg"> +<img alt= +"Portrait of Mark Rutherford at the age of twenty-four" +title= +"Portrait of Mark Rutherford at the age of twenty-four" +src="images/p88s.jpg" /> +</a></p> +<p>There is nothing more to be said about Chapman’s. +I left after an offer of partnership, which, it is needless to +say, I did not accept. Mr. Whitbread obtained for me a +clerkship in the Registrar-General’s office, Somerset +House. I was there two or three years, and was then +transferred to the Admiralty. Meanwhile I had married.</p> +<p><a name="page89"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 89</span>The +greater part of my life has been passed in what it is now usual +to contemn as the Victorian age. Whatever may be the +justice of the scorn poured out upon it by the superior persons +of the present generation, this Victorian age was distinguished +by an enthusiasm which can only be compared to a religious +revival. <i>Maud</i> was read at six in the morning as I +walked along Holborn; <i>Pippa Passes</i> late at night in my +dark little room in Serle Street, although of course it was a +long while after the poem made its appearance. +Wonderful! What did I see as I stood at my desk in my Serle +Street bedroom?</p> +<blockquote><p>“Day!<br /> +Faster and more fast,<br /> +O’er night’s brim, day boils at last;<br /> +Boils, pure gold, o’er the cloud-cup’s brim<br /> +Where spurting and suppresst it lay—”</p> +</blockquote> +<p>There on the horizon lies the cloud cup. <a +name="page90"></a><span class="pagenum">p. 90</span>Over the brim +boils, pure gold, the day! The day which is before me is +Pippa’s day, and not a day in the Strand: it is a +“twelve-hours treasure”: I am as eager as Pippa +“not to squander a wavelet of thee”. The vision +still lives. The friend who stood by my side is still with +me, although he died years and years ago. What was true of +me was true of half a score of my friends. If it is true +that the Victorian time was ugly and vulgar, it was the time of +the <i>Virginians</i>, of <i>David Copperfield</i>, of +Tennyson’s <i>Poems</i>, of Cromwell’s <i>Letters and +Speeches</i>, of the <i>Letters and Life of Lord Bacon</i>, of +Emerson’s <i>Essays</i>, of <i>Festus</i>, of the +<i>Dramatis Personæ</i>, and of the <i>Apologia</i>. +We were at the Academy at eight o’clock on a May morning to +see, at the very earliest moment, the Ophelia, the Order for +Release, the Claudio and Isabella, Seddon’s Jerusalem, +Lewis’s <a name="page91"></a><span class="pagenum">p. +91</span>Arab Scribe and his Frank Encampment in the +Desert. The last two, though, I think, were in the +exhibition of the Old Water Colour Society. The excitement +of those years between 1848 and 1890 was, as I have said, +something like that of a religious revival, but it was +reasonable.</p> +<p>These notes are not written for publication, but to please two +or three persons related to me by affection.</p> +<p>***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE EARLY LIFE OF MARK RUTHERFORD***</p> +<pre> + + +***** This file should be named 7379-h.htm or 7379-h.zip****** + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/7/3/7/7379 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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