MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/related; boundary="----=_NextPart_01D08C20.375A47D0" This document is a Single File Web Page, also known as a Web Archive file. If you are seeing this message, your browser or editor doesn't support Web Archive files. Please download a browser that supports Web Archive, such as Windows® Internet Explorer®. ------=_NextPart_01D08C20.375A47D0 Content-Location: file:///C:/2473C10E/FamiliarStudiesofMen.htm Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Type: text/html; charset="us-ascii"
Familiar Studies Of Men & Bo=
oks
By
Robert Louis Stevenson
Contents
CHAPTER
I - VICTOR HUGO'S ROMANCES
CHAPTER
II - SOME ASPECTS OF ROBERT BURNS.
CHAPTER
IV - HENRY DAVID THOREAU: HIS CHARACTER AND OPINIONS.
CHAPTER
VI - FRANCOIS VILLON, STUDENT, POET, AND HOUSEBREAKER.
CHAPTER
VII - CHARLES OF ORLEANS
CHAPTER
IX - JOHN KNOX AND HIS RELATIONS TO WOMEN..
THESE studies are collected from the monthly
press. One appeared in the NEW
QUARTERLY, one in MACMILLAN'S, and the rest in the CORNHILL MAGAZINE. To the CORNHILL I owe a double deb=
t of
thanks; first, that I was received there in the very best society, and under
the eye of the very best of editors; and second, that the proprietors have
allowed me to republish so considerable an amount of copy.
These nine worthies have been brought together
from many different ages and countries.&nb=
sp;
Not the most erudite of men could be perfectly prepared to deal with=
so
many and such various sides of human life and manners. To pass a true judgment upon Knox =
and
Burns implies a grasp upon the very deepest strain of thought in Scotland, =
- a
country far more essentially different from England than many parts of Amer=
ica;
for, in a sense, the first of these men re-created Scotland, and the second=
is
its most essentially national production.&=
nbsp;
To treat fitly of Hugo and Villon would involve yet wider knowledge,=
not
only of a country foreign to the author by race, history, and religion, but=
of
the growth and liberties of art. Of
the two Americans, Whitman and Thoreau, each is the type of something not so
much realised as widely sought after among the late generations of their co=
untrymen;
and to see them clearly in a nice relation to the society that brought them
forth, an author would require a large habit of life among modern
Americans. As for Yoshida, I =
have already
disclaimed responsibility; it was but my hand that held the pen.
In truth, these are but the readings of a lite=
rary
vagrant. One book led to another, one study to another. The first was published with
trepidation. Since no bones w=
ere
broken, the second was launched with greater confidence. So, by insensible degrees, a young=
man
of our generation acquires, in his own eyes, a kind of roving judicial
commission through the ages; and, having once escaped the perils of the
Freemans and the Furnivalls, sets himself up to right the wrongs of univers=
al
history and criticism. Now, i=
t is
one thing to write with enjoyment on a subject while the story is hot in yo=
ur
mind from recent reading, coloured with recent prejudice; and it is quite
another business to put these writings coldly forth again in a bound
volume. We are most of us att=
ached
to our opinions; that is one of the "natural affections" of which=
we
hear so much in youth; but few of us are altogether free from paralysing do=
ubts
and scruples. For my part, I =
have a
small idea of the degree of accuracy possible to man, and I feel sure these
studies teem with error. One =
and
all were written with genuine interest in the subject; many, however, have =
been
conceived and finished with imperfect knowledge; and all have lain, from
beginning to end, under the disadvantages inherent in this style of writing=
.
Of these disadvantages a word must here be
said. The writer of short stu=
dies,
having to condense in a few pages the events of a whole lifetime, and the
effect on his own mind of many various volumes, is bound, above all things,=
to
make that condensation logical and striking. For the only justification of his
writing at all is that he shall present a brief, reasoned, and memorable
view. By the necessity of the=
case,
all the more neutral circumstances are omitted from his narrative; and that=
of
itself, by the negative exaggeration of which I have spoken in the text, le=
nds
to the matter in hand a certain false and specious glitter. By the necessity of the case, agai=
n, he
is forced to view his subject throughout in a particular illumination, like=
a studio
artifice. Like Hales with Pep=
ys, he
must nearly break his sitter's neck to get the proper shadows on the portra=
it. It
is from one side only that he has time to represent his subject. The side selected will either be t=
he one
most striking to himself, or the one most obscured by controversy; and in b=
oth
cases that will be the one most liable to strained and sophisticated
reading. In a biography, this=
and that
is displayed; the hero is seen at home, playing the flute; the different
tendencies of his work come, one after another, into notice; and thus somet=
hing
like a true, general impression of the subject may at last be struck. But in the short study, the writer,
having seized his "point of view," must keep his eye steadily to =
that. He seeks, perhaps, rather to
differentiate than truly to characterise.&=
nbsp;
The proportions of the sitter must be sacrificed to the proportions =
of
the portrait; the lights are heightened, the shadows overcharged; the chosen
expression, continually forced, may degenerate at length into a grimace; an=
d we
have at best something of a caricature, at worst a calumny. Hence, if they =
be
readable at all, and hang together by their own ends, the peculiar convinci=
ng
force of these brief representations.
They take so little a while to read, and yet in that little while the
subject is so repeatedly introduced in the same light and with the same
expression, that, by sheer force of repetition, that view is imposed upon t=
he
reader. The two English maste=
rs of
the style, Macaulay and Carlyle, largely exemplify its dangers. Carlyle, indeed, had so much more =
depth
and knowledge of the heart, his portraits of mankind are felt and rendered =
with
so much more poetic comprehension, and he, like his favourite Ram Dass, had=
a
fire in his belly so much more hotly burning than the patent reading lamp by
which Macaulay studied, that it seems at first sight hardly fair to bracket
them together. But the "=
point
of view" was imposed by Carlyle on the men he judged of in his writings
with an austerity not only cruel but almost stupid. They are too often broken outright=
on
the Procrustean bed; they are probably always disfigured. The rhetorical artifice of Macaula=
y is
easily spied; it will take longer to appreciate the moral bias of Carlyle.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> So with all writers who insist on
forcing some significance from all that comes before them; and the writer of
short studies is bound, by the necessity of the case, to write entirely in =
that
spirit. What he cannot vivify=
he
should omit.
Had it been possible to rewrite some of these
papers, I hope I should have had the courage to attempt it. But it is not possible. Short studies are, or should be, t=
hings
woven like a carpet, from which it is impossible to detach a strand. What is
perverted has its place there for ever, as a part of the technical means by
which what is right has been presented.&nb=
sp;
It is only possible to write another study, and then, with a new
"point of view," would follow new perversions and perhaps a fresh
caricature. Hence, it will be=
, at
least, honest to offer a few grains of salt to be taken with the text; and =
as
some words of apology, addition, correction, or amplification fall to be sa=
id
on almost every study in the volume, it will be most simple to run them ove=
r in
their order. But this must no=
t be
taken as a propitiatory offering to the gods of shipwreck; I trust my cargo=
unreservedly
to the chances of the sea; and do not, by criticising myself, seek to disarm
the wrath of other and less partial critics.
HUGO'S ROMANCES. - This is an instance of the
"point of view." Th=
e five
romances studied with a different purpose might have given different result=
s,
even with a critic so warmly interested in their favour. The great contemporary master of
wordmanship, and indeed of all literary arts and technicalities, had not
unnaturally dazzled a beginner. But
it is best to dwell on merits, for it is these that are most often overlook=
ed.
BURNS. - I have left the introductory sentence=
s on
Principal Shairp, partly to explain my own paper, which was merely suppleme=
ntal
to his amiable but imperfect book, partly because that book appears to me t=
ruly
misleading both as to the character and the genius of Burns. This seems ungracious, but Mr. Sha=
irp
has himself to blame; so good a Wordsworthian was out of character upon that
stage.
This half apology apart, nothing more falls to=
be
said except upon a remark called forth by my study in the columns of a lite=
rary
Review. The exact terms in wh=
ich
that sheet disposed of Burns I cannot now recall; but they were to this eff=
ect
- that Burns was a bad man, the impure vehicle of fine verses; and that this
was the view to which all criticism tended. Now I knew, for my own part, that =
it was
with the profoundest pity, but with a growing esteem, that I studied the ma=
n's
desperate efforts to do right; and the more I reflected, the stranger it
appeared to me that any thinking being should feel otherwise. The complete letters shed, indeed,=
a
light on the depths to which Burns had sunk in his character of Don Juan, b=
ut
they enhance in the same proportion the hopeless nobility of his marrying
Jean. That I ought to have st=
ated
this more noisily I now see; but that any one should fail to see it for
himself, is to me a thing both incomprehensible and worthy of open scorn. If Burns, on the facts dealt with =
in
this study, is to be called a bad man, I question very much whether either =
I or
the writer in the Review have ever encountered what it would be fair to cal=
l a
good one. All have some fault=
. The fault of each grinds down the =
hearts
of those about him, and - let us not blink the truth - hurries both him and
them into the grave. And when we find a man persevering indeed, in his faul=
t,
as all of us do, and openly overtaken, as not all of us are, by its
consequences, to gloss the matter over, with too polite biographers, is to =
do
the work of the wrecker disfiguring beacons on a perilous seaboard; but to =
call
him bad, with a self-righteous chuckle, is to be talking in one's sleep wit=
h Heedless
and Too-bold in the arbour.
Yet it is undeniable that much anger and distr=
ess
is raised in many quarters by the least attempt to state plainly, what every
one well knows, of Burns's profligacy, and of the fatal consequences of his
marriage. And for this there =
are
perhaps two subsidiary reasons.
For, first, there is, in our drunken land, a certain privilege exten=
ded
to drunkenness. In Scotland, =
in
particular, it is almost respectable, above all when compared with any
"irregularity between the sexes." The selfishness of the one, so muc=
h more
gross in essence, is so much less immediately conspicuous in its results th=
at
our demiurgeous Mrs. Grundy smiles apologetically on its victims. It is oft=
en
said - I have heard it with these ears - that drunkenness "may lead to
vice." Now I did not thi=
nk it
at all proved that Burns was what is called a drunkard; and I was obliged to
dwell very plainly on the irregularity and the too frequent vanity and mean=
ness
of his relations to women. Hence, in the eyes of many, my study was a step
towards the demonstration of Burns's radical badness.
But second, there is a certain class, professo=
rs
of that low morality so greatly more distressing than the better sort of vi=
ce,
to whom you must never represent an act that was virtuous in itself, as
attended by any other consequences than a large family and fortune. To hint that Burns's marriage had =
an
evil influence is, with this class, to deny the moral law. Yet such is the fact. It was bravely done; but he had pr=
esumed
too far on his strength. One =
after another
the lights of his life went out, and he fell from circle to circle to the
dishonoured sickbed of the end. And
surely for any one that has a thing to call a soul he shines out tenfold mo=
re
nobly in the failure of that frantic effort to do right, than if he had tur=
ned
on his heel with Worldly Wiseman, married a congenial spouse, and lived ord=
erly
and died reputably an old man. It
is his chief title that he refrained from "the wrong that amendeth
wrong." But the common, =
trashy
mind of our generation is still aghast, like the Jews of old, at any word o=
f an
unsuccessful virtue. Job has =
been
written and read; the tower of Siloam fell nineteen hundred years ago; yet =
we
have still to desire a little Christianity, or, failing that, a little even=
of
that rude, old, Norse nobility of soul, which saw virtue and vice alike go
unrewarded, and was yet not shaken in its faith.
WALT WHITMAN. - This is a case of a second
difficulty which lies continually before the writer of critical studies: th=
at he
has to mediate between the author whom he loves and the public who are
certainly indifferent and frequently averse. Many articles had been written=
on
this notable man. One after a=
nother
had leaned, in my eyes, either to praise or blame unduly. In the last case, they helped to
blindfold our fastidious public to an inspiring writer; in the other, by an=
excess
of unadulterated praise, they moved the more candid to revolt. I was here on the horns of a dilem=
ma;
and between these horns I squeezed myself with perhaps some loss to the sub=
stance
of the paper. Seeing so much =
in
Whitman that was merely ridiculous, as well as so much more that was unsurp=
assed
in force and fitness, - seeing the true prophet doubled, as I thought, in
places with the Bull in a China Shop, - it appeared best to steer a middle
course, and to laugh with the scorners when I thought they had any excuse, =
while
I made haste to rejoice with the rejoicers over what is imperishably good,
lovely, human, or divine, in his extraordinary poems. That was perhaps the right road; y=
et I cannot
help feeling that in this attempt to trim my sails between an author whom I
love and honour and a public too averse to recognise his merit, I have been=
led
into a tone unbecoming from one of my stature to one of Whitman's. But the good and the great man wil=
l go
on his way not vexed with my little shafts of merriment. He, first of any one, will underst=
and
how, in the attempt to explain him credibly to Mrs. Grundy, I have been led
into certain airs of the man of the world, which are merely ridiculous in m=
e,
and were not intentionally discourteous to himself. But there is a worse side to the
question; for in my eagerness to be all things to all men, I am afraid I may
have sinned against proportion. It will be enough to say here that Whitman's
faults are few and unimportant when they are set beside his surprising meri=
ts. I had written another paper full of
gratitude for the help that had been given me in my life, full of enthusiasm
for the intrinsic merit of the poems, and conceived in the noisiest extreme=
of
youthful eloquence. The prese=
nt
study was a rifacimento. From=
it,
with the design already mentioned, and in a fit of horror at my old excess,=
the
big words and emphatic passages were ruthlessly excised. But this sort of p=
rudence
is frequently its own punishment; along with the exaggeration, some of the
truth is sacrificed; and the result is cold, constrained, and grudging. In short, I might almost everywher=
e have
spoken more strongly than I did.
THOREAU. - Here is an admirable instance of the
"point of view" forced throughout, and of too earnest reflection =
on imperfect
facts. Upon me this pure, nar=
row,
sunnily-ascetic Thoreau had exercised a great charm. I have scarce written ten sentences
since I was introduced to him, but his influence might be somewhere detecte=
d by
a close observer. Still it was as a writer that I had made his acquaintance=
; I took
him on his own explicit terms; and when I learned details of his life, they
were, by the nature of the case and my own PARTI-PRIS, read even with a cer=
tain
violence in terms of his writings.
There could scarce be a perversion more justifiable than that; yet it
was still a perversion. The s=
tudy
indeed, raised so much ire in the breast of Dr. Japp (H. A. Page), Thoreau's
sincere and learned disciple, that had either of us been men, I please myse=
lf
with thinking, of less temper and justice, the difference might have made u=
s enemies
instead of making us friends. To
him who knew the man from the inside, many of my statements sounded like in=
versions
made on purpose; and yet when we came to talk of them together, and he had
understood how I was looking at the man through the books, while he had long
since learned to read the books through the man, I believe he understood th=
e spirit
in which I had been led astray.
On two most important points, Dr. Japp added t=
o my
knowledge, and with the same blow fairly demolished that part of my critici=
sm. First, if Thoreau were content to =
dwell
by Walden Pond, it was not merely with designs of self-improvement, but to
serve mankind in the highest sense.
Hither came the fleeing slave; thence was he despatched along the ro=
ad
to freedom. That shanty in the
woods was a station in the great Underground Railroad; that adroit and
philosophic solitary was an ardent worker, soul and body, in that so much m=
ore than
honourable movement, which, if atonement were possible for nations, should =
have
gone far to wipe away the guilt of slavery. But in history sin always meets wi=
th
condign punishment; the generation passes, the offence remains, and the
innocent must suffer. No
underground railroad could atone for slavery, even as no bills in Parliament
can redeem the ancient wrongs of Ireland.&=
nbsp;
But here at least is a new light shed on the Walden episode.
Second, it appears, and the point is capital, =
that
Thoreau was once fairly and manfully in love, and, with perhaps too much ap=
ing
of the angel, relinquished the woman to his brother. Even though the brother were like =
to die
of it, we have not yet heard the last opinion of the woman. But be that as it may, we have her=
e the
explanation of the "rarefied and freezing air" in which I complai=
ned
that he had taught himself to breathe.&nbs=
p;
Reading the man through the books, I took his professions in good
faith. He made a dupe of me, =
even
as he was seeking to make a dupe of himself, wresting philosophy to the nee=
ds
of his own sorrow. But in the=
light
of this new fact, those pages, seemingly so cold, are seen to be alive with
feeling. What appeared to be =
a lack
of interest in the philosopher turns out to have been a touching insincerit=
y of
the man to his own heart; and that fine-spun airy theory of friendship, so
devoid, as I complained, of any quality of flesh and blood, a mere anodyne =
to
lull his pains. The most temperate of living critics once marked a passage =
of my
own with a cross ar d the words, "This seems nonsense." It not on=
ly
seemed; it was so. It was a p=
rivate
bravado of my own, which I had so often repeated to keep up my spirits, tha=
t I
had grown at last wholly to believe it, and had ended by setting it down as=
a
contribution to the theory of life. So with the more icy parts of this
philosophy of Thoreau's. He was affecting the Spartanism he had not; and the
old sentimental wound still bled afresh, while he deceived himself with
reasons.
Thoreau's theory, in short, was one thing and
himself another: of the first, the reader will find what I believe to be a
pretty faithful statement and a fairly just criticism in the study; of the
second he will find but a contorted shadow. So much of the man as fitted ni=
cely
with his doctrines, in the photographer's phrase, came out. But that large part which lay outs=
ide
and beyond, for which he had found or sought no formula, on which perhaps h=
is
philosophy even looked askance, is wanting in my study, as it was wanting i=
n the
guide I followed. In some way=
s a
less serious writer, in all ways a nobler man, the true Thoreau still remai=
ns
to be depicted.
VILLON. - I am tempted to regret that I ever w=
rote
on this subject, not merely because the paper strikes me as too picturesque=
by
half, but because I regarded Villon as a bad fellow. Others still think well of him, an=
d can
find beautiful and human traits where I saw nothing but artistic evil; and =
by
the principle of the art, those should have written of the man, and not I.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> Where you see no good, silence is =
the
best. Though this penitence c=
omes
too late, it may be well, at least, to give it expression.
The spirit of Villon is still living in the
literature of France. Fat Peg=
is
oddly of a piece with the work of Zola, the Goncourts, and the infinitely
greater Flaubert; and, while similar in ugliness, still surpasses them in
native power. The old author,
breaking with an ECLAT DE VOIX, out of his tongue-tied century, has not yet
been touched on his own ground, and still gives us the most vivid and shock=
ing impression
of reality. Even if that were=
not
worth doing at all, it would be worth doing as well as he has done it; for =
the
pleasure we take in the author's skill repays us, or at least reconciles us=
to
the baseness of his attitude. Fat
Peg (LA GROSSE MARGOT) is typical of much; it is a piece of experience that=
has
nowhere else been rendered into literature; and a kind of gratitude for the
author's plainness mingles, as we read, with the nausea proper to the busin=
ess. I shall quote here a verse of an o=
ld
students' song, worth laying side by side with Villon's startling ballade.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> This singer, also, had an unworthy
mistress, but he did not choose to share the wages of dishonour; and it is =
thus,
with both wit and pathos, that he laments her fall:-
Nunc plango florem AEtatis tenerae Nitidiorem =
Veneris
sidere: Tunc columbinam Mentis dulcedinem, Nunc serpentinam Amaritudinem. V=
erbo
rogantes Removes ostio, Munera dantes Foves cubiculo, Illos abire praecipis=
A
quibus nihil accipis, Caecos claudosque recipis, Viros illustres decipis Cum
melle venenosa. (1)
(1) GAUDEAMUS: CARMINA VAGORUM SELECTA. Leipsic. Trubner. 1879.
But our illustrious writer of ballades it was
unnecessary to deceive; it was the flight of beauty alone, not that of hone=
sty
or honour, that he lamented in his song; and the nameless mediaeval vagabond
has the best of the comparison.
There is now a Villon Society in England; and =
Mr.
John Payne has translated him entirely into English, a task of unusual diff=
iculty. I regret to find that Mr. Payne an=
d I
are not always at one as to the author's meaning; in such cases I am bound =
to
suppose that he is in the right, although the weakness of the flesh withhol=
ds
me from anything beyond a formal submission. He is now upon a larger venture, p=
romising
us at last that complete Arabian Nights to which we have all so long looked
forward.
CHARLES OF ORLEANS. - Perhaps I have done scan=
ty
justice to the charm of the old Duke's verses, and certainly he is too much
treated as a fool. The period=
is
not sufficiently remembered. =
What
that period was, to what a blank of imbecility the human mind had fallen, c=
an
only be known to those who have waded in the chronicles. Excepting Comines and La Salle and
Villon, I have read no author who did not appal me by his torpor; and even =
the
trial of Joan of Arc, conducted as it was by chosen clerks, bears witness t=
o a dreary,
sterile folly, - a twilight of the mind peopled with childish phantoms. In relation to his contemporaries,=
Charles
seems quite a lively character.
It remains for me to acknowledge the kindness =
of
Mr. Henry Pyne, who, immediately on the appearance of the study, sent me his
edition of the Debate between the Heralds: a courtesy from the expert to the
amateur only too uncommon in these days.
KNOX. - Knox, the second in order of interest
among the reformers, lies dead and buried in the works of the learned and
unreadable M'Crie. It remains=
for
some one to break the tomb and bring him forth, alive again and breathing, =
in a
human book. With the best
intentions in the world, I have only added two more flagstones, ponderous l=
ike
their predecessors, to the mass of obstruction that buries the reformer from
the world; I have touched him in my turn with that "mace of death,&quo=
t;
which Carlyle has attributed to Dryasdust; and my two dull papers are, in t=
he
matter of dulness, worthy additions to the labours of M'Crie. Yet I believe they are worth repri=
nting
in the interest of the next biographer of Knox. I trust his book may be a masterpi=
ece; and
I indulge the hope that my two studies may lend him a hint or perhaps spare=
him
a delay in its composition.
Of the PEPYS I can say nothing; for it has been
too recently through my hands; and I still retain some of the heat of compo=
sition. Yet it may serve as a text for the=
last
remark I have to offer. To Pe=
pys I
think I have been amply just; to the others, to Burns, Thoreau, Whitman,
Charles of Orleans, even Villon, I have found myself in the retrospect ever=
too
grudging of praise, ever too disrespectful in manner. It is not easy to see why I should=
have
been most liberal to the man of least pretensions. Perhaps some cowardice withheld me=
from
the proper warmth of tone; perhaps it is easier to be just to those nearer =
us
in rank of mind. Such at leas=
t is the
fact, which other critics may explain.&nbs=
p;
For these were all men whom, for one reason or another, I loved; or =
when
I did not love the men, my love was the greater to their books. I had read =
them
and lived with them; for months they were continually in my thoughts; I see=
med
to rejoice in their joys and to sorrow with them in their griefs; and behol=
d,
when I came to write of them, my tone was sometimes hardly courteous and se=
ldom
wholly just.
R. L. S.
Apres le roman pittoresque mais prosaique de Walter Scott il lestera un autre roman a creer, plus beau et plus complet e= ncore selon nous. C'est le roman, a= la fois drame et epopee, pittoresque mais poetique, reel mais ideal, vrai mais= grand, qui enchassera Walter Scott dans Homere. - Victor Hugo on QUENTIN DURWARD.<= o:p>
=
VICTOR
HUGO'S romances occupy an important position in the history of literature; =
many
innovations, timidly made elsewhere, have in them been carried boldly out to
their last consequences; much that was indefinite in literary tendencies has
attained to definite maturity; many things have come to a point and been
distinguished one from the other; and it is only in the last romance of all,
QUATRE VINGT TREIZE, that this culmination is most perfect. This is in the nature of things. Men who are in any way typical of a
stage of progress may be compared more justly to the hand upon the dial of =
the
clock, which continues to advance as it indicates, than to the stationary
milestone, which is only the measure of what is past. The movement is not arrested. That
significant something by which the work of such a man differs from that of =
his
predecessors, goes on disengaging itself and becoming more and more articul=
ate
and cognisable. The same principle of growth that carried his first book be=
yond
the books of previous writers, carries his last book beyond his first. And just as the most imbecile prod=
uction
of any literary age gives us sometimes the very clue to comprehension we ha=
ve
sought long and vainly in contemporary masterpieces, so it may be the very
weakest of an author's books that, coming in the sequel of many others, ena=
bles
us at last to get hold of what underlies the whole of them - of that spinal
marrow of significance that unites the work of his life into something orga=
nic
and rational. This is what ha=
s been
done by QUATRE VINGT TREIZE for the earlier romances of Victor Hugo, and,
through them, for a whole division of modern literature. We have here the legitimate contin=
uation
of a long and living literary tradition; and hence, so far, its
explanation. When many lines
diverge from each other in direction so slightly as to confuse the eye, we =
know
that we have only to produce them to make the chaos plain: this is continua=
lly
so in literary history; and we shall best understand the importance of Vict=
or
Hugo's romances if we think of them as some such prolongation of one of the
main lines of literary tendency.
When we compare the novels of Walter Scott wit= h those of the man of genius who preceded him, and whom he delighted to honour as a master in the art - I mean Henry Fielding - we shall be somewhat puzzled, at the first moment, to state the difference that there is between these two.<= span style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> Fielding has as much human science= ; has a far firmer hold upon the tiller of his story; has a keen sense of charact= er, which he draws (and Scott often does so too) in a rather abstract and academical manner; and finally, is quite as humorous and quite as good- hum= oured as the great Scotchman. With = all these points of resemblance between the men, it is astonishing that their w= ork should be so different. The f= act is, that the English novel was looking one way and seeking one set of effec= ts in the hands of Fielding; and in the hands of Scott it was looking eagerly = in all ways and searching for all the effects that by any possibility it could utilise. The difference betwe= en these two men marks a great enfranchisement. With Scott the Romantic movement, = the movement of an extended curiosity and an enfranchised imagination, has begun. This is a trite thing = to say; but trite things are often very indefinitely comprehended: and this enfranchisement, in as far as it regards the technical change that came over modern prose romance, has never perhaps been explained with any clearness.<= o:p>
To do so, it will be necessary roughly to comp=
are
the two sets of conventions upon which plays and romances are respectively
based. The purposes of these =
two
arts are so much alike, and they deal so much with the same passions and in=
terests,
that we are apt to forget the fundamental opposition of their methods. And yet such a fundamental opposit=
ion
exists. In the drama the acti=
on is
developed in great measure by means of things that remain outside of the ar=
t;
by means of real things, that is, and not artistic conventions for things.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> This is a sort of realism that is =
not to
be confounded with that realism in painting of which we hear so much. The realism in painting is a thing=
of purposes;
this, that we have to indicate in the drama, is an affair of method. We have heard a story, indeed, of =
a painter
in France who, when he wanted to paint a sea-beach, carried realism from his
ends to his means, and plastered real sand upon his canvas; and that is
precisely what is done in the drama.
The dramatic author has to paint his beaches with real sand: real li=
ve
men and women move about the stage; we hear real voices; what is feigned me=
rely
puts a sense upon what is; we do actually see a woman go behind a screen as=
Lady
Teazle, and, after a certain interval, we do actually see her very shameful=
ly
produced again. Now all these=
things,
that remain as they were in life, and are not transmuted into any artistic
convention, are terribly stubborn and difficult to deal with; and hence the=
re
are for the dramatist many resultant limitations in time and space. These
limitations in some sort approximate towards those of painting: the dramatic
author is tied down, not indeed to a moment, but to the duration of each sc=
ene
or act; he is confined to the stage, almost as the painter is confined with=
in
his frame. But the great
restriction is this, that a dramatic author must deal with his actors, and =
with
his actors alone. Certain mom=
ents
of suspense, certain significant dispositions of personages, a certain logi=
cal growth
of emotion, these are the only means at the disposal of the playwright. It is true that, with the assistan=
ce of the
scene-painter, the costumier and the conductor of the orchestra, he may add=
to
this something of pageant, something of sound and fury; but these are, for =
the
dramatic writer, beside the mark, and do not come under the vivifying touch=
of his
genius. When we turn to roman=
ce, we
find this no longer. Here nothing is reproduced to our senses directly. Not only the main conception of the
work, but the scenery, the appliances, the mechanism by which this concepti=
on
is brought home to us, have been put through the crucible of another man's
mind, and come out again, one and all, in the form of written words. With the loss of every degree of su=
ch
realism as we have described, there is for art a clear gain of liberty and
largeness of competence. Thus,
painting, in which the round outlines of things are thrown on to a flat boa=
rd,
is far more free than sculpture, in which their solidity is preserved. It is by giving up these identitie=
s that
art gains true strength. And =
so in
the case of novels as compared with the stage. Continuous narration is the flat b=
oard
on to which the novelist throws everything. And from this there results for hi=
m a
great loss of vividness, but a great compensating gain in his power over the
subject; so that he can now subordinate one thing to another in importance,=
and
introduce all manner of very subtle detail, to a degree that was before
impossible. He can render jus=
t as
easily the flourish of trumpets before a victorious emperor and the gossip =
of
country market women, the gradual decay of forty years of a man's life and =
the
gesture of a passionate moment. He
finds himself equally unable, if he looks at it from one point of view -
equally able, if he looks at it from another point of view - to reproduce a=
colour,
a sound, an outline, a logical argument, a physical action. He can show his readers, behind and
around the personages that for the moment occupy the foreground of his stor=
y,
the continual suggestion of the landscape; the turn of the weather that will
turn with it men's lives and fortunes, dimly foreshadowed on the horizon; t=
he
fatality of distant events, the stream of national tendency, the salient fr=
amework
of causation. And all this th=
rown
upon the flat board - all this entering, naturally and smoothly, into the t=
exture
of continuous intelligent narration.
This touches the difference between Fielding a=
nd
Scott. In the work of the lat=
ter,
true to his character of a modern and a romantic, we become suddenly consci=
ous
of the background. Fielding, on the other hand, although he had recognised =
that
the novel was nothing else than an epic in prose, wrote in the spirit not o=
f the
epic, but of the drama. This =
is
not, of course, to say that the drama was in any way incapable of a
regeneration similar in kind to that of which I am now speaking with regard=
to
the novel. The notorious cont=
rary fact
is sufficient to guard the reader against such a misconstruction. All that is meant is, that Fieldin=
g remained
ignorant of certain capabilities which the novel possesses over the drama; =
or,
at least, neglected and did not develop them. To the end he continued to see thi=
ngs as
a playwright sees them. The w=
orld
with which he dealt, the world he had realised for himself and sought to
realise and set before his readers, was a world of exclusively human intere=
st. As for landscape, he was content to
underline stage directions, as it might be done in a play-book: Tom and Mol=
ly
retire into a practicable wood. As
for nationality and public sentiment, it is curious enough to think that To=
m Jones
is laid in the year forty-five, and that the only use he makes of the rebel=
lion
is to throw a troop of soldiers into his hero's way. It is most really important, howev=
er, to
remark the change which has been introduced into the conception of characte=
r by
the beginning of the romantic movement and the consequent introduction into
fiction of a vast amount of new material.&=
nbsp;
Fielding tells us as much as he thought necessary to account for the
actions of his creatures; he thought that each of these actions could be de=
composed
on the spot into a few simple personal elements, as we decompose a force in=
a
question of abstract dynamics. The larger motives are all unknown to him; he
had not understood that the nature of the landscape or the spirit of the ti=
mes
could be for anything in a story; and so, naturally and rightly, he said
nothing about them. But Scott=
's instinct,
the instinct of the man of an age profoundly different, taught him otherwis=
e;
and, in his work, the individual characters begin to occupy a comparatively
small proportion of that canvas on which armies manoeuvre, and great hills =
pile
themselves upon each other's shoulders. Fielding's characters were always g=
reat
to the full stature of a perfectly arbitrary will. Already in Scott we begin to have a
sense of the subtle influences that moderate and qualify a man's personalit=
y;
that personality is no longer thrown out in unnatural isolation, but is res=
umed
into its place in the constitution of things.
It is this change in the manner of regarding m=
en
and their actions first exhibited in romance, that has since renewed and
vivified history. For art pre=
cedes
philosophy and even science. =
People
must have noticed things and interested themselves in them before they begi=
n to
debate upon their causes or influence.&nbs=
p;
And it is in this way that art is the pioneer of knowledge; those
predilections of the artist he knows not why, those irrational acceptations=
and
recognitions, reclaim, out of the world that we have not yet realised, ever
another and another corner; and after the facts have been thus vividly brou=
ght
before us and have had time to settle and arrange themselves in our minds, =
some
day there will be found the man of science to stand up and give the
explanation. Scott took an in=
terest
in many things in which Fielding took none; and for this reason, and no oth=
er, he
introduced them into his romances.
If he had been told what would be the nature of the movement that he=
was
so lightly initiating, he would have been very incredulous and not a little
scandalised. At the time when=
he
wrote, the real drift of this new manner of pleasing people in fiction was =
not
yet apparent; and, even now, it is only by looking at the romances of Victor
Hugo that we are enabled to form any proper judgment in the matter. These books are not only descended=
by
ordinary generation from the Waverley novels, but it is in them chiefly tha=
t we
shall find the revolutionary tradition of Scott carried farther that we sha=
ll
find Scott himself, in so far as regards his conception of prose fiction and
its purposes, surpassed in his own spirit, instead of tamely followed. We have here, as I said before, a =
line
of literary tendency produced, and by this production definitely separated =
from
others. When we come to Hugo,=
we
see that the deviation, which seemed slight enough and not very serious bet=
ween
Scott and Fielding, is indeed such a great gulph in thought and sentiment as
only successive generations can pass over: and it is but natural that one of
the chief advances that Hugo has made upon Scott is an advance in
self-consciousness. Both men =
follow
the same road; but where the one went blindly and carelessly, the other
advances with all deliberation and forethought. There never was artist much more
unconscious than Scott; and there have been not many more conscious than
Hugo. The passage at the head=
of
these pages shows how organically he had understood the nature of his own
changes. He has, underlying e=
ach of
the five great romances (which alone I purpose here to examine), two delibe=
rate
designs: one artistic, the other consciously ethical and intellectual. This is a man living in a different
world from Scott, who professes sturdily (in one of his introductions) that=
he
does not believe in novels having any moral influence at all; but still Hug=
o is
too much of an artist to let himself be hampered by his dogmas; and the tru=
th
is that the artistic result seems, in at least one great instance, to have =
very
little connection with the other, or directly ethical result.
The artistic result of a romance, what is left
upon the memory by any really powerful and artistic novel, is something so =
complicated
and refined that it is difficult to put a name upon it and yet something as
simple as nature. These two propositions may seem mutually destructive, but=
they
are so only in appearance. Th=
e fact
is that art is working far ahead of language as well as of science, realisi=
ng
for us, by all manner of suggestions and exaggerations, effects for which as
yet we have no direct name; nay, for which we may never perhaps have a dire=
ct
name, for the reason that these effects do not enter very largely into the =
necessities
of life. Hence alone is that
suspicion of vagueness that often hangs about the purpose of a romance: it =
is
clear enough to us in thought; but we are not used to consider anything cle=
ar
until we are able to formulate it in words, and analytical language has not
been sufficiently shaped to that end.
We all know this difficulty in the case of a picture, simple and str=
ong
as may be the impression that it has left with us; and it is only because
language is the medium of romance, that we are prevented from seeing that t=
he two
cases are the same. It is not=
that
there is anything blurred or indefinite in the impression left with us, it =
is just
because the impression is so very definite after its own kind, that we find=
it
hard to fit it exactly with the expressions of our philosophical speech.
It is this idea which underlies and issues fro=
m a
romance, this something which it is the function of that form of art to cre=
ate,
this epical value, that I propose chiefly to seek and, as far as may be, to
throw into relief, in the present study.&n=
bsp;
It is thus, I believe, that we shall see most clearly the great stri=
de
that Hugo has taken beyond his predecessors, and how, no longer content with
expressing more or less abstract relations of man to man, he has set before
himself the task of realising, in the language of romance, much of the
involution of our complicated lives.
This epical value is not to be found, let it be
understood, in every so-called novel.
The great majority are not works of art in anything but a very secon=
dary
signification. One might almo=
st
number on one's fingers the works in which such a supreme artistic intention
has been in any way superior to the other and lesser aims, themselves more =
or
less artistic, that generally go hand in hand with it in the conception of =
prose
romance. The purely critical =
spirit
is, in most novels, paramount. At
the present moment we can recall one man only, for whose works it would have
been equally possible to accomplish our present design: and that man is Haw=
thorne.
There is a unity, an unwavering creative purpose, about some at least of
Hawthorne's romances, that impresses itself on the most indifferent reader;=
and
the very restrictions and weaknesses of the man served perhaps to strengthen
the vivid and single impression of his works. There is nothing of this kind in H=
ugo:
unity, if he attains to it, is indeed unity out of multitude; and it is the
wonderful power of subordination and synthesis thus displayed, that gives us
the measure of his talent. No=
amount
of mere discussion and statement, such as this, could give a just conceptio=
n of
the greatness of this power. =
It
must be felt in the books themselves, and all that can be done in the prese=
nt
essay is to recall to the reader the more general features of each of the f=
ive
great romances, hurriedly and imperfectly, as space will permit, and rather=
as
a suggestion than anything more complete.
The moral end that the author had before him in
the conception of NOTRE DAME DE PARIS was (he tells us) to "denounce&q=
uot;
the external fatality that hangs over men in the form of foolish and inflex=
ible
superstition. To speak plainl=
y,
this moral purpose seems to have mighty little to do with the artistic
conception; moreover it is very questionably handled, while the artistic
conception is developed with the most consummate success. Old Paris lives for us with newnes=
s of
life: we have ever before our eyes the city cut into three by the two arms =
of
the river, the boat- shaped island "moored" by five bridges to the
different shores, and the two unequal towns on either hand. We forget all that enumeration of
palaces and churches and convents which occupies so many pages of admirable
description, and the thoughtless reader might be inclined to conclude from =
this,
that they were pages thrown away; but this is not so: we forget, indeed, the
details, as we forget or do not see the different layers of paint on a
completed picture; but the thing desired has been accomplished, and we carry
away with us a sense of the "Gothic profile" of the city, of the =
"surprising
forest of pinnacles and towers and belfries," and we know not what of =
rich
and intricate and quaint. And=
throughout,
Notre Dame has been held up over Paris by a height far greater than that of=
its
twin towers: the Cathedral is present to us from the first page to the last=
; the
title has given us the clue, and already in the Palace of Justice the story
begins to attach itself to that central building by character after
character. It is purely an ef=
fect
of mirage; Notre Dame does not, in reality, thus dominate and stand out abo=
ve
the city; and any one who should visit it, in the spirit of the Scott-touri=
sts
to Edinburgh or the Trossachs, would be almost offended at finding nothing =
more
than this old church thrust away into a corner. It is purely an effect of mirage, =
as we
say; but it is an effect that permeates and possesses the whole book with
astonishing consistency and strength.
And then, Hugo has peopled this Gothic city, and, above all, this Go=
thic
church, with a race of men even more distinctly Gothic than their surroundi=
ngs.
We know this generation already: we have seen them clustered about the worn
capitals of pillars, or craning forth over the church-leads with the open
mouths of gargoyles. About th=
em all
there is that sort of stiff quaint unreality, that conjunction of the
grotesque, and even of a certain bourgeois snugness, with passionate contor=
tion
and horror, that is so characteristic of Gothic art. Esmeralda is somewhat an exception=
; she
and the goat traverse the story like two children who have wandered in a
dream. The finest moment of t=
he
book is when these two share with the two other leading characters, Dom Cla=
ude
and Quasimodo, the chill shelter of the old cathedral. It is here that we touch most inti=
mately
the generative artistic idea of the romance: are they not all four taken ou=
t of
some quaint moulding, illustrative of the Beatitudes, or the Ten Commandmen=
ts,
or the seven deadly sins? Wha=
t is
Quasimodo but an animated gargoyle?
What is the whole book but the reanimation of Gothic art?
It is curious that in this, the earliest of the
five great romances, there should be so little of that extravagance that la=
tterly
we have come almost to identify with the author's manner. Yet even here we are distressed by
words, thoughts, and incidents that defy belief and alienate the sympathies=
. The
scene of the IN PACE, for example, in spite of its strength, verges dangero=
usly
on the province of the penny novelist.&nbs=
p;
I do not believe that Quasimodo rode upon the bell; I should as soon
imagine that he swung by the clapper. And again the following two sentences,
out of an otherwise admirable chapter, surely surpass what it has ever ente=
red into
the heart of any other man to imagine (vol. ii. p. 180): "Il souffrait
tant que par instants il s'arrachait des poignees de cheveux, POUR VOIR S'I=
LS
NE BLANCHISSAIENT PAS." And, p. 181: "Ses pensees etaient si
insupportables qu'il prenait sa tete a deux mains et tachait de l'arracher =
de
ses epaules POUR LA BRISER SUR LE PAVE."
One other fault, before we pass on. In spite of the horror and misery =
that
pervade all of his later work, there is in it much less of actual melodrama
than here, and rarely, I should say never, that sort of brutality, that use=
less
insufferable violence to the feelings, which is the last distinction between
melodrama and true tragedy. N=
ow, in
NOTRE DAME, the whole story of Esmeralda's passion for the worthless archer=
is
unpleasant enough; but when she betrays herself in her last hiding-place,
herself and her wretched mother, by calling out to this sordid hero who has
long since forgotten her - well, that is just one of those things that read=
ers will
not forgive; they do not like it, and they are quite right; life is hard en=
ough
for poor mortals, without having it indefinitely embittered for them by bad
art.
We look in vain for any similar blemish in LES
MISERABLES. Here, on the other hand, there is perhaps the nearest approach =
to
literary restraint that Hugo has ever made: there is here certainly the rip=
est
and most easy development of his powers.&n=
bsp;
It is the moral intention of this great novel to awaken us a little,=
if
it may be - for such awakenings are unpleasant - to the great cost of this
society that we enjoy and profit by, to the labour and sweat of those who
support the litter, civilisation, in which we ourselves are so smoothly car=
ried
forward. People are all glad =
to
shut their eyes; and it gives them a very simple pleasure when they can for=
get
that our laws commit a million individual injustices, to be once roughly ju=
st
in the general; that the bread that we eat, and the quiet of the family, and
all that embellishes life and makes it worth having, have to be purchased by
death - by the deaths of animals, and the deaths of men wearied out with
labour, and the deaths of those criminals called tyrants and revolutionarie=
s,
and the deaths of those revolutionaries called criminals. It is to something of all this that
Victor Hugo wishes to open men's eyes in LES MISERABLES; and this moral les=
son
is worked out in masterly coincidence with the artistic effect. The deadly weight of civilisation =
to
those who are below presses sensibly on our shoulders as we read. A sort of
mocking indignation grows upon us as we find Society rejecting, again and
again, the services of the most serviceable; setting Jean Valjean to pick
oakum, casting Galileo into prison, even crucifying Christ. There is a haunting and horrible s=
ense
of insecurity about the book. The terror we thus feel is a terror for the
machinery of law, that we can hear tearing, in the dark, good and bad betwe=
en its
formidable wheels with the iron stolidity of all machinery, human or
divine. This terror incarnates
itself sometimes and leaps horribly out upon us; as when the crouching
mendicant looks up, and Jean Valjean, in the light of the street lamp,
recognises the face of the detective; as when the lantern of the patrol fla=
shes
suddenly through the darkness of the sewer; or as when the fugitive comes f=
orth
at last at evening, by the quiet riverside, and finds the police there also,
waiting stolidly for vice and stolidly satisfied to take virtue instead.
With so gloomy a design this great work is sti=
ll
full of life and light and love.
The portrait of the good Bishop is one of the most agreeable things =
in
modern literature. The whole =
scene
at Montfermeil is full of the charm that Hugo knows so well how to throw ab=
out
children. Who can forget the
passage where Cosette, sent out at night to draw water, stands in admiration
before the illuminated booth, and the huckster behind "lui faisait un =
peu
l'effet d'etre le Pere eternel?" The pathos of the forlorn sabot laid
trustingly by the chimney in expectation of the Santa Claus that was not, t=
akes
us fairly by the throat; there is nothing in Shakespeare that touches the h=
eart
more nearly. The loves of Cos=
ette
and Marius are very pure and pleasant, and we cannot refuse our affection to
Gavroche, although we may make a mental reservation of our profound disbeli=
ef
in his existence. Take it for=
all
in all, there are few books in the world that can be compared with it. There is as much calm and serenity=
as Hugo
has ever attained to; the melodramatic coarsenesses that disfigured NOTRE D=
AME
are no longer present. There =
is certainly
much that is painfully improbable; and again, the story itself is a little =
too
well constructed; it produces on us the effect of a puzzle, and we grow
incredulous as we find that every character fits again and again into the p=
lot,
and is, like the child's cube, serviceable on six faces; things are not so =
well
arranged in life as all that comes to.&nbs=
p;
Some of the digressions, also, seem out of place, and do nothing but
interrupt and irritate. But w=
hen
all is said, the book remains of masterly conception and of masterly
development, full of pathos, full of truth, full of a high eloquence.
Superstition and social exigency having been t=
hus
dealt with in the first two members of the series, it remained for LES TRAV=
AILLEURS
DE LA MER to show man hand to hand with the elements, the last form of exte=
rnal
force that is brought against him.
And here once more the artistic effect and the moral lesson are work=
ed
out together, and are, indeed, one. Gilliat, alone upon the reef at his
herculean task, offers a type of human industry in the midst of the vague
"diffusion of forces into the illimitable," and the visionary dev=
elopment
of "wasted labour" in the sea, and the winds, and the clouds. No character was ever thrown into =
such
strange relief as Gilliat. The
great circle of sea-birds that come wanderingly around him on the night of =
his
arrival, strikes at once the note of his pre-eminence and isolation. He fills the whole reef with his
indefatigable toil; this solitary spot in the ocean rings with the clamour =
of his
anvil; we see him as he comes and goes, thrown out sharply against the clear
background of the sea. And ye=
t his
isolation is not to be compared with the isolation of Robinson Crusoe, for =
example;
indeed, no two books could be more instructive to set side by side than LES
TRAVAILLEURS and this other of the old days before art had learnt to occupy
itself with what lies outside of human will. Crusoe was one sole centre of inte=
rest
in the midst of a nature utterly dead and utterly unrealised by the artist;=
but
this is not how we feel with Gilliat; we feel that he is opposed by a
"dark coalition of forces," that an "immense animosity"
surrounds him; we are the witnesses of the terrible warfare that he wages w=
ith
"the silent inclemency of phenomena going their own way, and the great
general law, implacable and passive:" "a conspiracy of the
indifferency of things" is against him. There is not one interest on the r=
eef,
but two. Just as we recognise
Gilliat for the hero, we recognise, as implied by this indifferency of thin=
gs,
this direction of forces to some purpose outside our purposes, yet another
character who may almost take rank as the villain of the novel, and the two
face up to one another blow for blow, feint for feint, until, in the storm,=
they
fight it epically out, and Gilliat remains the victor; - a victor, however,=
who
has still to encounter the octopus.
I need say nothing of the gruesome, repulsive excellence of that fam=
ous
scene; it will be enough to remind the reader that Gilliat is in pursuit of=
a
crab when he is himself assaulted by the devil fish, and that this, in its =
way,
is the last touch to the inner significance of the book; here, indeed, is t=
he
true position of man in the universe.
But in LES TRAVAILLEURS, with all its strength,
with all its eloquence, with all the beauty and fitness of its main situati=
ons,
we cannot conceal from ourselves that there is a thread of something that w=
ill
not bear calm scrutiny. There=
is
much that is disquieting about the storm, admirably as it begins. I am very doubtful whether it woul=
d be
possible to keep the boat from foundering in such circumstances, by any amo=
unt
of breakwater and broken rock. I do
not understand the way in which the waves are spoken of, and prefer just to=
take
it as a loose way of speaking, and pass on. And lastly, how does it happen tha=
t the
sea was quite calm next day? =
Is this
great hurricane a piece of scene-painting after all? And when we have forgi=
ven
Gilliat's prodigies of strength (although, in soberness, he reminds us more=
of
Porthos in the Vicomte de Bragelonne than is quite desirable), what is to b=
e said
to his suicide, and how are we to condemn in adequate terms that unprincipl=
ed
avidity after effect, which tells us that the sloop disappeared over the
horizon, and the head under the water, at one and the same moment? Monsieur Hugo may say what he will=
, but
we know better; we know very well that they did not; a thing like that rais=
es
up a despairing spirit of opposition in a man's readers; they give him the =
lie
fiercely, as they read. Lastl=
y, we
have here already some beginning of that curious series of English blunders=
, that
makes us wonder if there are neither proof-sheets nor judicious friends in =
the
whole of France, and affects us sometimes with a sickening uneasiness as to
what may be our own exploits when we touch upon foreign countries and forei=
gn tongues. It is here that we shall find the =
famous
"first of the fourth," and many English words that may be compreh=
ensible
perhaps in Paris. It is here =
that
we learn that "laird" in Scotland is the same title as
"lord" in England. =
Here,
also, is an account of a Highland soldier's equipment, which we recommend to
the lovers of genuine fun.
In L'HOMME QUI RIT, it was Hugo's object to
'denounce' (as he would say himself) the aristocratic principle as it was e=
xhibited
in England; and this purpose, somewhat more unmitigatedly satiric than that=
of
the two last, must answer for much that is unpleasant in the book. The repulsiveness of the scheme of=
the
story, and the manner in which it is bound up with impossibilities and
absurdities, discourage the reader at the outset, and it needs an effort to
take it as seriously as it deserves.
And yet when we judge it deliberately, it will be seen that, here ag=
ain,
the story is admirably adapted to the moral. The constructive ingenuity exhibit=
ed
throughout is almost morbid.
Nothing could be more happily imagined, as a REDUCTIO AD ABSURDUM of=
the
aristocratic principle, than the adventures of Gwynplaine, the itinerant
mountebank, snatched suddenly out of his little way of life, and installed
without preparation as one of the hereditary legislators of a great
country. It is with a very bi=
tter
irony that the paper, on which all this depends, is left to float for years=
at
the will of wind and tide. Wh=
at, again,
can be finer in conception than that voice from the people heard suddenly in
the House of Lords, in solemn arraignment of the pleasures and privileges of
its splendid occupants? The
horrible laughter, stamped for ever "by order of the king" upon t=
he
face of this strange spokesman of democracy, adds yet another feature of
justice to the scene; in all time, travesty has been the argument of
oppression; and, in all time, the oppressed might have made this answer: &q=
uot;If
I am vile, is it not your system that has made me so?" This ghastly
laughter gives occasion, moreover, for the one strain of tenderness running
through the web of this unpleasant story: the love of the blind girl Dea, f=
or
the monster. It is a most ben=
ignant
providence that thus harmoniously brings together these two misfortunes; it=
is
one of those compensations, one of those afterthoughts of a relenting desti=
ny,
that reconcile us from time to time to the evil that is in the world; the
atmosphere of the book is purified by the presence of this pathetic love; it
seems to be above the story somehow, and not of it, as the full moon over t=
he
night of some foul and feverish city.
There is here a quality in the narration more
intimate and particular than is general with Hugo; but it must be owned, on=
the
other hand, that the book is wordy, and even, now and then, a little
wearisome. Ursus and his wolf=
are
pleasant enough companions; but the former is nearly as much an abstract ty=
pe
as the latter. There is a
beginning, also, of an abuse of conventional conversation, such as may be q=
uite
pardonable in the drama where needs must, but is without excuse in the
romance. Lastly, I suppose on=
e must
say a word or two about the weak points of this not immaculate novel; and if
so, it will be best to distinguish at once. The large family of English blunde=
rs, to
which we have alluded already in speaking of LES TRAVAILLEURS, are of a sort
that is really indifferent in art.
If Shakespeare makes his ships cast anchor by some seaport of Bohemi=
a, if
Hugo imagines Tom-Tim- Jack to be a likely nickname for an English sailor, =
or
if either Shakespeare, or Hugo, or Scott, for that matter, be guilty of
"figments enough to confuse the march of a whole history - anachronisms
enough to overset all, chronology," (1) the life of their creations, t=
he
artistic truth and accuracy of their work, is not so much as compromised. But when we come upon a passage li=
ke the
sinking of the "Ourque" in this romance, we can do nothing but co=
ver
our face with our hands: the conscientious reader feels a sort of disgrace =
in
the very reading. For such ar=
tistic
falsehoods, springing from what I have called already an unprincipled avidi=
ty
after effect, no amount of blame can be exaggerated; and above all, when the
criminal is such a man as Victor Hugo.&nbs=
p;
We cannot forgive in him what we might have passed over in a third-r=
ate sensation
novelist. Little as he seems =
to
know of the sea and nautical affairs, he must have known very well that ves=
sels
do not go down as he makes the "Ourque" go down; he must have kno=
wn
that such a liberty with fact was against the laws of the game, and
incompatible with all appearance of sincerity in conception or workmanship.=
(1) Prefatory letter to PEVERIL OF THE PEAK.
In each of these books, one after another, the=
re
has been some departure from the traditional canons of romance; but taking =
each
separately, one would have feared to make too much of these departures, or =
to
found any theory upon what was perhaps purely accidental. The appearance of QUATRE VINGT TRE=
IZE
has put us out of the region of such doubt. Like a doctor who has long been
hesitating how to classify an epidemic malady, we have come at last upon a =
case
so well marked that our uncertainty is at an end. It is a novel built upon "a s=
ort of
enigma," which was at that date laid before revolutionary France, and
which is presented by Hugo to Tellmarch, to Lantenac, to Gauvain, and very
terribly to Cimourdain, each of whom gives his own solution of the question,
clement or stern, according to the temper of his spirit. That enigma was this: "Can a =
good
action be a bad action? Does =
not he
who spares the wolf kill the sheep?" This question, as I say, meets wi=
th
one answer after another during the course of the book, and yet seems to re=
main
undecided to the end. And som=
ething
in the same way, although one character, or one set of characters, after an=
other
comes to the front and occupies our attention for the moment, we never iden=
tify
our interest with any of these temporary heroes nor regret them after they =
are
withdrawn. We soon come to regard them somewhat as special cases of a gener=
al
law; what we really care for is something that they only imply and body for=
th
to us. We know how history co=
ntinues
through century after century; how this king or that patriot disappears from
its pages with his whole generation, and yet we do not cease to read, nor d=
o we
even feel as if we had reached any legitimate conclusion, because our inter=
est
is not in the men, but in the country that they loved or hated, benefited or
injured. And so it is here: G=
auvain
and Cimourdain pass away, and we regard them no more than the lost armies of
which we find the cold statistics in military annals; what we regard is what
remains behind; it is the principle that put these men where they were, that
filled them for a while with heroic inspiration, and has the power, now that
they are fallen, to inspire others with the same courage. The interest of the novel centres =
about revolutionary
France: just as the plot is an abstract judicial difficulty, the hero is an
abstract historical force. An=
d this
has been done, not, as it would have been before, by the cold and cumbersome
machinery of allegory, but with bold, straightforward realism, dealing only
with the objective materials of art, and dealing with them so masterfully t=
hat
the palest abstractions of thought come before us, and move our hopes and
fears, as if they were the young men and maidens of customary romance.
The episode of the mother and children in QUAT=
RE
VINGT TREIZE is equal to anything that Hugo has ever written. There is one chapter in the second
volume, for instance, called "SEIN GUERI, COEUR SAIGNANT," that is
full of the very stuff of true tragedy, and nothing could be more delightful
than the humours of the three children on the day before the assault. The
passage on La Vendee is really great, and the scenes in Paris have much of =
the
same broad merit. The book is=
full,
as usual, of pregnant and splendid sayings. But when thus much is conceded by =
way of
praise, we come to the other scale of the balance, and find this, also,
somewhat heavy. There is here=
a yet
greater over-employment of conventional dialogue than in L'HOMME QUI RIT; a=
nd
much that should have been said by the author himself, if it were to be sai=
d at
all, he has most unwarrantably put into the mouths of one or other of his
characters. We should like to=
know
what becomes of the main body of the troop in the wood of La Saudraie during
the thirty pages or so in which the foreguard lays aside all discipline, and
stops to gossip over a woman and some children. We have an unpleasant idea forced =
upon
us at one place, in spite of all the good-natured incredulity that we can
summon up to resist it. Is it
possible that Monsieur Hugo thinks they ceased to steer the corvette while =
the
gun was loose? Of the chapter=
in
which Lantenac and Halmalho are alone together in the boat, the less said t=
he
better; of course, if there were nothing else, they would have been swamped
thirty times over during the course of Lantenac's harangue. Again, after Lantenac has landed, =
we
have scenes of almost inimitable workmanship that suggest the epithet "=
;statuesque"
by their clear and trenchant outline; but the tocsin scene will not do, and=
the
tocsin unfortunately pervades the whole passage, ringing continually in our
ears with a taunting accusation of falsehood. And then, when we come to the place
where Lantenac meets the royalists, under the idea that he is going to meet=
the
republicans, it seems as if there were a hitch in the stage mechanism. I have tried it over in every way,=
and I
cannot conceive any disposition that would make the scene possible as narra=
ted.
Such then, with their faults and their signal
excellences, are the five great novels.
Romance is a language in which many persons le=
arn
to speak with a certain appearance of fluency; but there are few who can ev=
er
bend it to any practical need, few who can ever be said to express themselv=
es
in it. It has become abundant=
ly plain
in the foregoing examination that Victor Hugo occupies a high place among t=
hose
few. He has always a perfect =
command
over his stories; and we see that they are constructed with a high regard to
some ulterior purpose, and that every situation is informed with moral
significance and grandeur. Of=
no
other man can the same thing be said in the same degree. His romances are not to be confuse=
d with
"the novel with a purpose" as familiar to the English reader: thi=
s is
generally the model of incompetence; and we see the moral clumsily forced i=
nto
every hole and corner of the story, or thrown externally over it like a car=
pet
over a railing. Now the moral
significance, with Hugo, is of the essence of the romance; it is the organi=
sing
principle. If you could someh=
ow
despoil LES MISERABLES OR LES TRAVAILLEURS of their distinctive lesson, you
would find that the story had lost its interest and the book was dead.
Having thus learned to subordinate his story t=
o an
idea, to make his art speak, he went on to teach it to say things heretofore
unaccustomed. If you look bac=
k at
the five books of which we have now so hastily spoken, you will be astonish=
ed
at the freedom with which the original purposes of story-telling have been =
laid
aside and passed by. Where ar=
e now
the two lovers who descended the main watershed of all the Waverley novels,=
and
all the novels that have tried to follow in their wake? Sometimes they are almost lost sig=
ht of
before the solemn isolation of a man against the sea and sky, as in LES
TRAVAILLEURS; sometimes, as in LES MISERABLES, they merely figure for awhil=
e,
as a beautiful episode in the epic of oppression; sometimes they are entire=
ly
absent, as in QUATRE VINGT TREIZE.
There is no hero in NOTRE DAME: in LES MISERABLES it is an old man: =
in
L'HOMME QUI RIT it is a monster: in QUATRE VINGT TREIZE it is the
Revolution. Those elements th=
at
only began to show themselves timidly, as adjuncts, in the novels of Walter
Scott, have usurped ever more and more of the canvas; until we find the who=
le
interest of one of Hugo's romances centring around matter that Fielding wou=
ld
have banished from his altogether, as being out of the field of fiction.
Art, thus conceived, realises for men a larger
portion of life, and that portion one that it is more difficult for them to=
realise
unaided; and, besides helping them to feel more intensely those restricted
personal interests which are patent to all, it awakes in them some
consciousness of those more general relations that are so strangely invisib=
le
to the average man in ordinary moods.
It helps to keep man in his place in nature, and, above all, it helps
him to understand more intelligently the responsibilities of his place in s=
ociety. And in all this generalisation of
interest, we never miss those small humanities that are at the opposite pol=
e of
excellence in art; and while we admire the intellect that could see life th=
us
largely, we are touched with another sentiment for the tender heart that
slipped the piece of gold into Cosette's sabot, that was virginally trouble=
d at
the fluttering of her dress in the spring wind, or put the blind girl beside
the deformity of the laughing man.
This, then, is the last praise that we can award to these romances.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> The author has shown a power of ju=
st
subordination hitherto unequalled; and as, in reaching forward to one class=
of effects,
he has not been forgetful or careless of the other, his work is more nearly
complete work, and his art, with all its imperfections, deals more
comprehensively with the materials of life than that of any of his otherwise
more sure and masterly predecessors.
These five books would have made a very great =
fame
for any writer, and yet they are but one facade of the monument that Victor
Hugo has erected to his genius.
Everywhere we find somewhat the same greatness, somewhat the same
infirmities. In his poems and plays there are the same unaccountable proter=
vities
that have already astonished us in the romances. There, too, is the same
feverish strength, welding the fiery iron of his idea under forge-hammer
repetitions - an emphasis that is somehow akin to weaknesses - strength tha=
t is
a little epileptic. He stands=
so
far above all his contemporaries, and so incomparably excels them in richne=
ss, breadth,
variety, and moral earnestness, that we almost feel as if he had a sort of
right to fall oftener and more heavily than others; but this does not recon=
cile
us to seeing him profit by the privilege so freely. We like to have, in our great men,
something that is above question; we like to place an implicit faith in the=
m,
and see them always on the platform of their greatness; and this, unhappily,
cannot be with Hugo. As Heine=
said
long ago, his is a genius somewhat deformed; but, deformed as it is, we acc=
ept
it gladly; we shall have the wisdom to see where his foot slips, but we sha=
ll
have the justice also to recognise in him one of the greatest artists of our
generation, and, in many ways, one of the greatest artists of time. If we look back, yet once, upon th=
ese
five romances, we see blemishes such as we can lay to the charge of no other
man in the number of the famous; but to what other man can we attribute such
sweeping innovations, such a new and significant presentment of the life of
man, such an amount, if we merely think of the amount, of equally consummate
performance?
To write with authority about another man, we =
must
have fellow-feeling and some common ground of experience with our subject.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> We may praise or blame according a=
s we
find him related to us by the best or worst in ourselves; but it is only in
virtue of some relationship that we can be his judges, even to condemn. Feelings which we share and unders=
tand
enter for us into the tissue of the man's character; those to which we are
strangers in our own experience we are inclined to regard as blots, excepti=
ons,
inconsistencies, and excursions of the diabolic; we conceive them with
repugnance, explain them with difficulty, and raise our hands to heaven in
wonder when we find them in conjunction with talents that we respect or vir=
tues
that we admire. David, king of
Israel, would pass a sounder judgment on a man than either Nathaniel or Dav=
id
Hume. Now, Principal Shairp's
recent volume, although I believe no one will read it without respect and
interest, has this one capital defect - that there is imperfect sympathy
between the author and the subject, between the critic and the personality
under criticism. Hence an
inorganic, if not an incoherent, presentation of both the poems and the
man. Of HOLY WILLIE'S PRAYER,
Principal Shairp remarks that "those who have loved most what was best=
in
Burns's poetry must have regretted that it was ever written." To the JOLLY BEGGARS, so far as my=
memory
serves me, he refers but once; and then only to remark on the "strange,
not to say painful," circumstance that the same hand which wrote the
COTTER'S SATURDAY NIGHT should have stooped to write the JOLLY BEGGARS. The SATURDAY NIGHT may or may not =
be an
admirable poem; but its significance is trebled, and the power and range of=
the
poet first appears, when it is set beside the JOLLY BEGGARS. To take a man's work piecemeal, ex=
cept
with the design of elegant extracts, is the way to avoid, and not to perfor=
m,
the critic's duty. The same defect is displayed in the treatment of Burns a=
s a man,
which is broken, apologetical, and confused. The man here presented to us is no=
t that
Burns, TERES ATQUE ROTUNDUS - a burly figure in literature, as, from our
present vantage of time, we have begun to see him. This, on the other hand, is Burns =
as he
may have appeared to a contemporary clergyman, whom we shall conceive to ha=
ve
been a kind and indulgent but orderly and orthodox person, anxious to be
pleased, but too often hurt and disappointed by the behaviour of his red-ho=
t PROTEGE,
and solacing himself with the explanation that the poet was "the most
inconsistent of men." If=
you
are so sensibly pained by the misconduct of your subject, and so paternally
delighted with his virtues, you will always be an excellent gentleman, but a
somewhat questionable biographer. Indeed, we can only be sorry and surprised
that Principal Shairp should have chosen a theme so uncongenial. When we find a man writing on Burn=
s, who
likes neither HOLY WILLIE, nor the BEGGARS, nor the ORDINATION, nothing is
adequate to the situation but the old cry of Geronte: "Que diable alla=
it- il
faire dans cette galere?" And
every merit we find in the book, which is sober and candid in a degree unus=
ual
with biographies of Burns, only leads us to regret more heartily that good =
work
should be so greatly thrown away.
It is far from my intention to tell over again=
a
story that has been so often told; but there are certainly some points in t=
he
character of Burns that will bear to be brought out, and some chapters in h=
is
life that demand a brief rehearsal. The unity of the man's nature, for all =
its
richness, has fallen somewhat out of sight in the pressure of new informati=
on
and the apologetical ceremony of biographers. Mr. Carlyle made an inimitable
bust of the poet's head of gold; may I not be forgiven if my business should
have more to do with the feet, which were of clay?
=
YOUTH.
=
Any
view of Burns would be misleading which passed over in silence the influenc=
es
of his home and his father. T=
hat father,
William Burnes, after having been for many years a gardener, took a farm,
married, and, like an emigrant in a new country, built himself a house with=
his
own hands. Poverty of the most distressing sort, with sometimes the near pr=
ospect
of a gaol, embittered the remainder of his life. Chill, backward, and auste=
re
with strangers, grave and imperious in his family, he was yet a man of very
unusual parts and of an affectionate nature. On his way through life he had rem=
arked
much upon other men, with more result in theory than practice; and he had
reflected upon many subjects as he delved the garden. His great delight was in solid con=
versation;
he would leave his work to talk with the schoolmaster Murdoch; and Robert, =
when
he came home late at night, not only turned aside rebuke but kept his father
two hours beside the fire by the charm of his merry and vigorous talk. Nothing is more characteristic of =
the
class in general, and William Burnes in particular, than the pains he took =
to
get proper schooling for his boys, and, when that was no longer possible, t=
he
sense and resolution with which he set himself to supply the deficiency by =
his
own influence. For many years he was their chief companion; he spoke with t=
hem
seriously on all subjects as if they had been grown men; at night, when wor=
k was
over, he taught them arithmetic; he borrowed books for them on history,
science, and theology; and he felt it his duty to supplement this last - the
trait is laughably Scottish - by a dialogue of his own composition, where h=
is
own private shade of orthodoxy was exactly represented. He would go to his daughter as she
stayed afield herding cattle, to teach her the names of grasses and wild
flowers, or to sit by her side when it thundered. Distance to strangers, de=
ep
family tenderness, love of knowledge, a narrow, precise, and formal reading=
of
theology - everything we learn of him hangs well together, and builds up a
popular Scotch type. If I men=
tion
the name of Andrew Fairservice, it is only as I might couple for an instant=
Dugald
Dalgetty with old Marshal Loudon, to help out the reader's comprehension by=
a
popular but unworthy instance of a class.&=
nbsp;
Such was the influence of this good and wise man that his household
became a school to itself, and neighbours who came into the farm at meal-ti=
me
would find the whole family, father, brothers, and sisters, helping themsel=
ves with
one hand, and holding a book in the other.=
We are surprised at the prose style of Robert; that of Gilbert need =
surprise
us no less; even William writes a remarkable letter for a young man of such
slender opportunities. One an=
ecdote
marks the taste of the family.
Murdoch brought TITUS ANDRONICUS, and, with such dominie elocution a=
s we
may suppose, began to read it aloud before this rustic audience; but when he
had reached the passage where Tamora insults Lavinia, with one voice and
"in an agony of distress" they refused to hear it to an end. In such a father and with such a h=
ome,
Robert had already the making of an excellent education; and what Murdoch
added, although it may not have been much in amount, was in character the v=
ery
essence of a literary training.
Schools and colleges, for one great man whom they complete, perhaps
unmake a dozen; the strong spirit can do well upon more scanty fare.
Robert steps before us, almost from the first,=
in
his complete character - a proud, headstrong, impetuous lad, greedy of
pleasure, greedy of notice; in his own phrase "panting after
distinction," and in his brother's "cherishing a particular jealo=
usy
of people who were richer or of more consequence than himself:" with a=
ll
this, he was emphatically of the artist nature. Already he made a conspicuous figu=
re in
Tarbolton church, with the only tied hair in the parish, "and his plai=
d,
which was of a particular colour, wrapped in a particular manner round his
shoulders." Ten years la=
ter, when
a married man, the father of a family, a farmer, and an officer of Excise, =
we
shall find him out fishing in masquerade, with fox-skin cap, belted great-c=
oat,
and great Highland broadsword. He
liked dressing up, in fact, for its own sake. This is the spirit which leads to =
the
extravagant array of Latin Quarter students, and the proverbial velveteen of
the English landscape-painter; and, though the pleasure derived is in itself
merely personal, it shows a man who is, to say the least of it, not pained =
by
general attention and remark. His
father wrote the family name BURNES; Robert early adopted the orthography
BURNESS from his cousin in the Mearns; and in his twenty-eighth year change=
d it
once more to BURNS. It is pla=
in
that the last transformation was not made without some qualm; for in addres=
sing
his cousin he adheres, in at least one more letter, to spelling number
two. And this, again, shows a=
man
preoccupied about the manner of his appearance even down to the name, and
little willing to follow custom.
Again, he was proud, and justly proud, of his powers in
conversation. To no other man=
's
have we the same conclusive testimony from different sources and from every=
rank
of life. It is almost a commo=
nplace
that the best of his works was what he said in talk. Robertson the historian "scar=
cely
ever met any man whose conversation displayed greater vigour;" the Duc=
hess
of Gordon declared that he "carried her off her feet;" and, when =
he
came late to an inn, the servants would get out of bed to hear him talk.
A leading trait throughout his whole career was
his desire to be in love. NE =
FAIT
PAS CE TOUR QUI VEUT. His
affections were often enough touched, but perhaps never engaged. He was all his life on a voyage of
discovery, but it does not appear conclusively that he ever touched the hap=
py
isle. A man brings to love a =
deal
of ready-made sentiment, and even from childhood obscurely prognosticates t=
he
symptoms of this vital malady.
Burns was formed for love; he had passion, tenderness, and a singular
bent in the direction; he could foresee, with the intuition of an artist, w=
hat
love ought to be; and he could not conceive a worthy life without it. But he had ill-fortune, and was be=
sides
so greedy after every shadow of the true divinity, and so much the slave of=
a strong
temperament, that perhaps his nerve was relaxed and his heart had lost the
power of self-devotion before an opportunity occurred. The circumstances of his youth dou=
btless
counted for something in the result.
For the lads of Ayrshire, as soon as the day's work was over and the=
beasts
were stabled, would take the road, it might be in a winter tempest, and tra=
vel
perhaps miles by moss and moorland to spend an hour or two in courtship.
I think we can conceive him, in these early ye=
ars,
in that rough moorland country, poor among the poor with his seven pounds a
year, looked upon with doubt by respectable elders, but for all that the be=
st
talker, the best letter-writer, the most famous lover and confidant, the
laureate poet, and the only man who wore his hair tied in the parish. He says he had then as high a noti=
on of
himself as ever after; and I can well believe it. Among the youth he walked FACILE
PRINCEPS, an apparent god; and even if, from time to time, the Reverend Mr.
Auld should swoop upon him with the thunders of the Church, and, in company
with seven others, Rab the Ranter must figure some fine Sunday on the stool=
of
repentance, would there not be a sort of glory, an infernal apotheosis, in =
so
conspicuous a shame? Was not
Richelieu in disgrace more idolised than ever by the dames of Paris? and wh=
en
was the highwayman most acclaimed but on his way to Tyburn? Or, to take a simile from nearer h=
ome,
and still more exactly to the point, what could even corporal punishment av=
ail,
administered by a cold, abstract, unearthly school-master, against the
influence and fame of the school's hero?
And now we come to the culminating point of
Burns's early period. He bega=
n to
be received into the unknown upper world.&=
nbsp;
His fame soon spread from among his fellow-rebels on the benches, and
began to reach the ushers and monitors of this great Ayrshire academy. This arose in part from his lax vi=
ews
about religion; for at this time that old war of the creeds and confessors,
which is always grumbling from end to end of our poor Scotland, brisked up =
in
these parts into a hot and virulent skirmish; and Burns found himself
identified with the opposition party, - a clique of roaring lawyers and hal=
f-heretical
divines, with wit enough to appreciate the value of the poet's help, and not
sufficient taste to moderate his grossness and personality. We may judge of their surprise whe=
n HOLY
WILLIE was put into their hand; like the amorous lads of Tarbolton, they
recognised in him the best of seconds.&nbs=
p;
His satires began to go the round in manuscript; Mr. Aiken, one of t=
he
lawyers, "read him into fame;" he himself was soon welcome in many
houses of a better sort, where his admirable talk, and his manners, which he
had direct from his Maker, except for a brush he gave them at a country dan=
cing
school, completed what his poems had begun. We have a sight of him at his f=
irst
visit to Adamhill, in his ploughman's shoes, coasting around the carpet as
though that were sacred ground. But
he soon grew used to carpets and their owners; and he was still the superio=
r of
all whom he encountered, and ruled the roost in conversation. Such was the impression made, that=
a
young clergyman, himself a man of ability, trembled and became confused whe=
n he
saw Robert enter the church in which he was to preach. It is not surprising that the poet
determined to publish: he had now stood the test of some publicity, and und=
er
this hopeful impulse he composed in six winter months the bulk of his more =
important
poems. Here was a young man w=
ho,
from a very humble place, was mounting rapidly; from the cynosure of a pari=
sh,
he had become the talk of a county; once the bard of rural courtships, he w=
as
now about to appear as a bound and printed poet in the world's bookshops.
A few more intimate strokes are necessary to
complete the sketch. This str=
ong
young plough-man, who feared no competitor with the flail, suffered like a =
fine
lady from sleeplessness and vapours; he would fall into the blackest melanc=
holies,
and be filled with remorse for the past and terror for the future. He was still not perhaps devoted t=
o religion,
but haunted by it; and at a touch of sickness prostrated himself before God=
in
what I can only call unmanly penitence.&nb=
sp;
As he had aspirations beyond his place in the world, so he had taste=
s,
thoughts, and weaknesses to match. He loved to walk under a wood to the sou=
nd
of a winter tempest; he had a singular tenderness for animals; he carried a
book with him in his pocket when he went abroad, and wore out in this servi=
ce
two copies of the MAN OF FEELING.
With young people in the field at work he was very long-suffering; a=
nd
when his brother Gilbert spoke sharply to them - "O man, ye are no for
young folk," he would say, and give the defaulter a helping hand and a
smile. In the hearts of the m=
en
whom he met, he read as in a book; and, what is yet more rare, his knowledg=
e of
himself equalled his knowledge of others.&=
nbsp;
There are no truer things said of Burns than what is to be found in =
his
own letters. Country Don Juan=
as he
was, he had none of that blind vanity which values itself on what it is not=
; he
knew his own strength and weakness to a hair: he took himself boldly for wh=
at
he was, and, except in moments of hypochondria, declared himself content.
=
THE
LOVE STORIES.
=
On the
night of Mauchline races, 1785, the young men and women of the place joined=
in
a penny ball, according to their custom.&n=
bsp;
In the same set danced Jean Armour, the master- mason's daughter, and
our dark-eyed Don Juan. His d=
og
(not the immortal Luath, but a successor unknown to fame, CARET QUIA VATE
SACRO), apparently sensible of some neglect, followed his master to and fro=
, to
the confusion of the dancers. Some
mirthful comments followed; and Jean heard the poet say to his partner - or=
, as
I should imagine, laughingly launch the remark to the company at large - th=
at
"he wished he could get any of the lasses to like him as well as his d=
og." Some time after, as the girl was
bleaching clothes on Mauchline green, Robert chanced to go by, still accomp=
anied
by his dog; and the dog, "scouring in long excursion," scampered =
with
four black paws across the linen.
This brought the two into conversation; when Jean, with a somewhat h=
oydenish
advance, inquired if "he had yet got any of the lasses to like him as =
well
as his dog?"
It is one of the misfortunes of the profession=
al
Don Juan that his honour forbids him to refuse battle; he is in life like t=
he
Roman soldier upon duty, or like the sworn physician who must attend on all
diseases. Burns accepted the =
provocation;
hungry hope reawakened in his heart; here was a girl - pretty, simple at le=
ast,
if not honestly stupid, and plainly not averse to his attentions: it seemed=
to
him once more as if love might here be waiting him. Had he but known the truth! for th=
is facile
and empty-headed girl had nothing more in view than a flirtation; and her
heart, from the first and on to the end of her story, was engaged by another
man. Burns once more commenced the celebrated process of "battering
himself into a warm affection;" and the proofs of his success are to be
found in many verses of the period. Nor did he succeed with himself only; J=
ean,
with her heart still elsewhere, succumbed to his fascination, and early in =
the
next year the natural consequence became manifest. It was a heavy stroke for this
unfortunate couple. They had =
trifled
with life, and were now rudely reminded of life's serious issues. Jean awoke to the ruin of her hope=
s; the
best she had now to expect was marriage with a man who was a stranger to her
dearest thoughts; she might now be glad if she could get what she would nev=
er
have chosen. As for Burns, at=
the
stroke of the calamity he recognised that his voyage of discovery had led h=
im
into a wrong hemisphere - that he was not, and never had been, really in lo=
ve
with Jean. Hear him in the pr=
essure
of the hour. "Against tw=
o things,"
he writes, "I am as fixed as fate - staying at home, and owning her
conjugally. The first, by hea=
ven, I
will not do! - the last, by hell, I will never do!" And then he adds, perhaps already =
in a
more relenting temper: "If you see Jean, tell her I will meet her, so =
God
help me in my hour of need." They met accordingly; and Burns, touched =
with
her misery, came down from these heights of independence, and gave her a wr=
itten
acknowledgment of marriage. I=
t is
the punishment of Don Juanism to create continually false positions - relat=
ions
in life which are wrong in themselves, and which it is equally wrong to bre=
ak
or to perpetuate. This was su=
ch a case. Worldly Wiseman would have laughed=
and
gone his way; let us be glad that Burns was better counselled by his heart.=
When
we discover that we can be no longer true, the next best is to be kind. I daresay he came away from that
interview not very content, but with a glorious conscience; and as he went
homeward, he would sing his favourite, "How are Thy servants blest, O
Lord!" Jean, on the other hand, armed with her "lines," conf=
ided
her position to the master-mason, her father, and his wife. Burns and his brother were then in=
a fair
way to ruin themselves in their farm; the poet was an execrable match for a=
ny
well-to-do country lass; and perhaps old Armour had an inkling of a previous
attachment on his daughter's part.
At least, he was not so much incensed by her slip from virtue as by =
the
marriage which had been designed to cover it. Of this he would not hear a word. =
Jean,
who had besought the acknowledgment only to appease her parents, and not at=
all
from any violent inclination to the poet, readily gave up the paper for
destruction; and all parties imagined, although wrongly, that the marriage =
was thus
dissolved. To a proud man like
Burns here was a crushing blow. The
concession which had been wrung from his pity was now publicly thrown back =
in
his teeth. The Armour family =
preferred
disgrace to his connection. S=
ince
the promise, besides, he had doubtless been busy "battering himself&qu=
ot;
back again into his affection for the girl; and the blow would not only take
him in his vanity, but wound him at the heart.
He relieved himself in verse; but for such a
smarting affront manuscript poetry was insufficient to console him. He must find a more powerful remed=
y in
good flesh and blood, and after this discomfiture, set forth again at once =
upon
his voyage of discovery in quest of love.&=
nbsp;
It is perhaps one of the most touching things in human nature, as it=
is
a commonplace of psychology, that when a man has just lost hope or confiden=
ce
in one love, he is then most eager to find and lean upon another. The universe could not be yet exha=
usted;
there must be hope and love waiting for him somewhere; and so, with his head
down, this poor, insulted poet ran once more upon his fate. There was an innocent and gentle H=
ighland
nursery-maid at service in a neighbouring family; and he had soon battered
himself and her into a warm affection and a secret engagement. Jean's marriage lines had not been
destroyed till March 13, 1786; yet all was settled between Burns and Mary
Campbell by Sunday, May 14, when they met for the last time, and said farew=
ell
with rustic solemnities upon the banks of Ayr. They each wet their hands in a str=
eam,
and, standing one on either bank, held a Bible between them as they vowed
eternal faith. Then they exch=
anged
Bibles, on one of which Burns, for greater security, had inscribed texts as=
to
the binding nature of an oath; and surely, if ceremony can do aught to fix =
the wandering
affections, here were two people united for life. Mary came of a superstiti=
ous
family, so that she perhaps insisted on these rites; but they must have been
eminently to the taste of Burns at this period; for nothing would seem supe=
rfluous,
and no oath great enough, to stay his tottering constancy.
Events of consequence now happened thickly in =
the
poet's life. His book was
announced; the Armours sought to summon him at law for the aliment of the
child; he lay here and there in hiding to correct the sheets; he was under =
an engagement
for Jamaica, where Mary was to join him as his wife; now, he had "orde=
rs
within three weeks at latest to repair aboard the NANCY, Captain Smith;&quo=
t;
now his chest was already on the road to Greenock; and now, in the wild aut=
umn weather
on the moorland, he measures verses of farewell:-
=
"The
bursting tears my heart declare; Farewell the bonny banks of Ayr!"
=
But
the great master dramatist had secretly another intention for the piece; by=
the
most violent and complicated solution, in which death and birth and sudden =
fame
all play a part as interposing deities, the act-drop fell upon a scene of t=
ransformation. Jean was brought to bed of twins, =
and,
by an amicable arrangement, the Burnses took the boy to bring up by hand, w=
hile
the girl remained with her mother.
The success of the book was immediate and emphatic; it put 20 pounds=
at once
into the author's purse; and he was encouraged upon all hands to go to
Edinburgh and push his success in a second and larger edition. Third and last in these series of =
interpositions,
a letter came one day to Mossgiel Farm for Robert. He went to the window to read it; a
sudden change came over his face, and he left the room without a word. Years
afterwards, when the story began to leak out, his family understood that he=
had
then learned the death of Highland Mary.&n=
bsp;
Except in a few poems and a few dry indications purposely misleading=
as
to date, Burns himself made no reference to this passage of his life; it wa=
s an
adventure of which, for I think sufficient reasons, he desired to bury the
details. Of one thing we may =
be
glad: in after years he visited the poor girl's mother, and left her with t=
he
impression that he was "a real warm-hearted chield."
Perhaps a month after he received this
intelligence, he set out for Edinburgh on a pony he had borrowed from a fri=
end.
The town that winter was "agog with the ploughman poet." Robertso=
n,
Dugald Stewart, Blair, "Duchess Gordon and all the gay world," we=
re
of his acquaintance. Such a
revolution is not to be found in literary history. He was now, it must be remembered,
twenty-seven years of age; he had fought since his early boyhood an obstina=
te
battle against poor soil, bad seed, and inclement seasons, wading deep in
Ayrshire mosses, guiding the plough in the furrow wielding "the thresh=
er's
weary flingin'-tree;" and his education, his diet, and his pleasures, =
had
been those of a Scotch countryman.
Now he stepped forth suddenly among the polite and learned. We can see him as he then was, in =
his
boots and buckskins, his blue coat and waistcoat striped with buff and blue,
like a farmer in his Sunday best; the heavy ploughman's figure firmly plant=
ed
on its burly legs; his face full of sense and shrewdness, and with a somewh=
at
melancholy air of thought, and his large dark eye "literally glowing&q=
uot;
as he spoke. "I never sa=
w such
another eye in a human head," says Walter Scott, "though I have s=
een
the most distinguished men of my time." With men, whether they were lords =
or
omnipotent critics, his manner was plain, dignified, and free from bashfuln=
ess
or affectation. If he made a =
slip,
he had the social courage to pass on and refrain from explanation. He was not embarrassed in this soc=
iety,
because he read and judged the men; he could spy snobbery in a titled lord;
and, as for the critics, he dismissed their system in an epigram. "The=
se
gentlemen," said he, "remind me of some spinsters in my country w=
ho
spin their thread so fine that it is neither fit for weft nor woof." Ladies, on the other hand, surpris=
ed him;
he was scarce commander of himself in their society; he was disqualified by=
his
acquired nature as a Don Juan; and he, who had been so much at his ease with
country lasses, treated the town dames to an extreme of deference. One lady, who met him at a ball, g=
ave
Chambers a speaking sketch of his demeanour. "His manner was not preposses=
sing -
scarcely, she thinks, manly or natural.&nb=
sp;
It seemed as if he affected a rusticity or LANDERTNESS, so that when=
he
said the music was `bonnie, bonnie,' it was like the expression of a
child." These would be company manners; and doubtless on a slight degr=
ee
of intimacy the affectation would grow less. And his talk to women had always &=
quot;a
turn either to the pathetic or humorous, which engaged the attention
particularly."
The Edinburgh magnates (to conclude this episo=
de
at once) behaved well to Burns from first to last. Were heaven-born genius to revisit=
us in
similar guise, I am not venturing too far when I say that he need expect
neither so warm a welcome nor such solid help. Although Burns was only a peasant,=
and one
of no very elegant reputation as to morals, he was made welcome to their
homes. They gave him a great =
deal
of good advice, helped him to some five hundred pounds of ready money, and =
got
him, as soon as he asked it, a place in the Excise. Burns, on his part, bore the eleva=
tion
with perfect dignity; and with perfect dignity returned, when the time had =
come,
into a country privacy of life. His
powerful sense never deserted him, and from the first he recognised that hi=
s Edinburgh
popularity was but an ovation and the affair of a day. He wrote a few letters in a high-f=
lown,
bombastic vein of gratitude; but in practice he suffered no man to intrude =
upon
his self-respect. On the other
hand, he never turned his back, even for a moment, on his old associates; a=
nd
he was always ready to sacrifice an acquaintance to a friend, although the
acquaintance were a duke. He =
would
be a bold man who should promise similar conduct in equally exacting circum=
stances. It was, in short, an admirable
appearance on the stage of life - socially successful, intimately self- res=
pecting,
and like a gentleman from first to last.
In the present study, this must only be taken =
by
the way, while we return to Burns's love affairs. Even on the road to Edinburgh he h=
ad
seized upon the opportunity of a flirtation, and had carried the
"battering" so far that when next he moved from town, it was to s=
teal
two days with this anonymous fair one.&nbs=
p;
The exact importance to Burns of this affair may be gathered from the
song in which he commemorated its occurrence. "I love the dear lassie,"=
; he
sings, "because she loves me;" or, in the tongue of prose: "=
Finding
an opportunity, I did not hesitate to profit by it, and even now, if it
returned, I should not hesitate to profit by it again." A love thus founded has no interes=
t for
mortal man. Meantime, early in the winter, and only once, we find him regre=
tting
Jean in his correspondence.
"Because" - such is his reason - "because he does not
think he will ever meet so delicious an armful again;" and then, after=
a
brief excursion into verse, he goes straight on to describe a new episode i=
n the
voyage of discovery with the daughter of a Lothian farmer for a heroine.
About the beginning of December (1787), a new
period opens in the story of the poet's random affections. He met at a tea party one Mrs. Agn=
es
M'Lehose, a married woman of about his own age, who, with her two children,=
had
been deserted by an unworthy husband.
She had wit, could use her pen, and had read WERTHER with
attention. Sociable, and even
somewhat frisky, there was a good, sound, human kernel in the woman; a warm=
th
of love, strong dogmatic religious feeling, and a considerable, but not
authoritative, sense of the proprieties.&n=
bsp;
Of what biographers refer to daintily as "her somewhat voluptuo=
us
style of beauty," judging from the silhouette in Mr. Scott Douglas's
invaluable edition, the reader will be fastidious if he does not approve. Take her for all in all, I believe=
she
was the best woman Burns encountered.
The pair took a fancy for each other on the spot; Mrs. M'Lehose, in =
her
turn, invited him to tea; but the poet, in his character of the Old Hawk,
preferred a TETE-A- TETE, excused himself at the last moment, and offered a
visit instead. An accident co=
nfined
him to his room for nearly a month, and this led to the famous Clarinda and
Sylvander correspondence. It =
was
begun in simple sport; they are already at their fifth or sixth exchange, w=
hen
Clarinda writes: "It is really curious so much FUN passing between two=
persons
who saw each other only ONCE;" but it is hardly safe for a man and wom=
an
in the flower of their years to write almost daily, and sometimes in terms =
too
ambiguous, sometimes in terms too plain, and generally in terms too warm, f=
or
mere acquaintance. The exerci=
se
partakes a little of the nature of battering, and danger may be apprehended
when next they meet. It is
difficult to give any account of this remarkable correspondence; it is too =
far
away from us, and perhaps, not yet far enough, in point of time and manner;=
the
imagination is baffled by these stilted literary utterances, warming, in br=
avura
passages, into downright truculent nonsense. Clarinda has one famous senten=
ce
in which she bids Sylvander connect the thought of his mistress with the
changing phases of the year; it was enthusiastically admired by the swain, =
but
on the modern mind produces mild amazement and alarm. "Oh, Clarinda,&q=
uot;
writes Burns, "shall we not meet in a state - some yet unknown state -=
of
being, where the lavish hand of Plenty shall minister to the highest wish of
Benevolence, and where the chill north wind of Prudence shall never blow ov=
er the
flowery field of Enjoyment?"
The design may be that of an Old Hawk, but the style is more suggest=
ive
of a Bird of Paradise. It is
sometimes hard to fancy they are not gravely making fun of each other as th=
ey
write. Religion, poetry, love=
, and
charming sensibility, are the current topics. "I am delighted, charming Cla=
rinda,
with your honest enthusiasm for religion," writes Burns; and the pair
entertained a fiction that this was their "favourite subject."
We are approaching the solution. In mid-winter, Jean, once more in =
the
family way, was turned out of doors by her family; and Burns had her receiv=
ed
and cared for in the house of a friend.&nb=
sp;
For he remained to the last imperfect in his character of Don Juan, =
and
lacked the sinister courage to desert his victim. About the middle of February (1788=
), he had
to tear himself from his Clarinda and make a journey into the south-west on
business. Clarinda gave him t=
wo
shirts for his little son. Th=
ey
were daily to meet in prayer at an appointed hour. Burns, too late for the post at Gl=
asgow,
sent her a letter by parcel that she might not have to wait. Clarinda on her
part writes, this time with a beautiful simplicity: "I think the stree=
ts
look deserted-like since Monday; and there's a certain insipidity in good k=
ind
folks I once enjoyed not a little.
Miss Wardrobe supped here on Monday. She once named you, which kept me =
from
falling asleep. I drank your =
health
in a glass of ale - as the lasses do at Hallowe'en - 'in to mysel'.'
" Arrived at Mauchline, =
Burns
installed Jean Armour in a lodging, and prevailed on Mrs. Armour to promise=
her
help and countenance in the approaching confinement. This was kind at least; but hear h=
is
expressions: "I have taken her a room; I have taken her to my arms; I =
have
given her a mahogany bed; I have given her a guinea. . . . I swore her
privately and solemnly never to attempt any claim on me as a husband, even
though anybody should persuade her she had such a claim - which she has not=
, neither
during my life nor after my death.
She did all this like a good girl." And then he took advantage of the =
situation. To Clarinda he wrote: "I this=
morning
called for a certain woman. I=
am
disgusted with her; I cannot endure her;" and he accused her of
"tasteless insipidity, vulgarity of soul, and mercenary
fawning." This was alrea=
dy in
March; by the thirteenth of that month he was back in Edinburgh. On the 17th, he wrote to Clarinda:
"Your hopes, your fears, your cares, my love, are mine; so don't mind
them. I will take you in my h=
and
through the dreary wilds of this world, and scare away the ravening bird or
beast that would annoy you." Again, on the 21st: "Will you open, =
with
satisfaction and delight, a letter from a man who loves you, who has loved =
you,
and who will love you, to death, through death, and for ever. . . . How ric=
h am
I to have such a treasure as you! . . . 'The Lord God knoweth,' and, perhap=
s,
'Israel he shall know,' my love and your merit. Adieu, Clarinda! I am going to remember you in my
prayers." By the 7th of =
April,
seventeen days later he had already decided to make Jean Armour publicly his
wife.
A more astonishing stage-trick is not to be
found. And yet his conduct is=
seen,
upon a nearer examination, to be grounded both in reason and in kindness. He was now about to embark on a so=
lid
worldly career; he had taken a farm; the affair with Clarinda, however
gratifying to his heart, was too contingent to offer any great consolation =
to a
man like Burns, to whom marriage must have seemed the very dawn of hope and
self-respect. This is to rega=
rd the
question from its lowest aspect; but there is no doubt that he entered on t=
his
new period of his life with a sincere determination to do right. He had just helped his brother wit=
h a
loan of a hundred and eighty pounds; should he do nothing for the poor girl
whom he had ruined? It was tr=
ue he
could not do as he did without brutally wounding Clarinda; that was the pun=
ishment
of his bygone fault; he was, as he truly says, "damned with a choice o=
nly
of different species of error and misconduct." To be professional Don Juan, to ac=
cept
the provocation of any lively lass upon the village green, may thus lead a =
man
through a series of detestable words and actions, and land him at last in an
undesired and most unsuitable union for life. If he had been strong enough to re=
frain
or bad enough to persevere in evil; if he had only not been Don Juan at all=
, or
been Don Juan altogether, there had been some possible road for him through=
out
this troublesome world; but a man, alas! who is equally at the call of his
worse and better instincts, stands among changing events without foundation=
or
resource. (1)
(1) For the love affairs see, in particular, M=
r.
Scott Douglas's edition under the different dates.
=
DOWNWARD
COURSE.
=
It may
be questionable whether any marriage could have tamed Burns; but it is at l=
east
certain that there was no hope for him in the marriage he contracted. He did right, but then he had done=
wrong
before; it was, as I said, one of those relations in life which it seems
equally wrong to break or to perpetuate.&n=
bsp;
He neither loved nor respected his wife. "God knows," he writes,
"my choice was as random as blind man's buff." He consoles himself by the thought=
that
he has acted kindly to her; that she "has the most sacred enthusiasm o=
f attachment
to him;" that she has a good figure; that she has a "wood-note
wild," "her voice rising with ease to B natural," no less. The effect on the reader is one of=
unmingled
pity for both parties concerned.
This was not the wife who (in his own words) could "enter into =
his
favourite studies or relish his favourite authors;" this was not even =
a wife,
after the affair of the marriage lines, in whom a husband could joy to place
his trust. Let her manage a f=
arm with
sense, let her voice rise to B natural all day long, she would still be a
peasant to her lettered lord, and an object of pity rather than of equal
affection. She could now be f=
aithful,
she could now be forgiving, she could now be generous even to a pathetic and
touching degree; but coming from one who was unloved, and who had scarce sh=
own
herself worthy of the sentiment, these were all virtues thrown away, which
could neither change her husband's heart nor affect the inherent destiny of
their relation. From the outs=
et, it
was a marriage that had no root in nature; and we find him, ere long, lyric=
ally
regretting Highland Mary, renewing correspondence with Clarinda in the warm=
est
language, on doubtful terms with Mrs. Riddel, and on terms unfortunately be=
yond
any question with Anne Park.
Alas! this was not the only ill circumstance in
his future. He had been idle for some eighteen months, superintending his n=
ew
edition, hanging on to settle with the publisher, travelling in the Highlan=
ds
with Willie Nichol, or philandering with Mrs. M'Lehose; and in this period =
the radical
part of the man had suffered irremediable hurt. He had lost his habits of industry=
, and
formed the habit of pleasure.
Apologetical biographers assure us of the contrary; but from the fir=
st,
he saw and recognised the danger for himself; his mind, he writes, is
"enervated to an alarming degree" by idleness and dissipation; an=
d again,
"my mind has been vitiated with idleness." It never fairly recovered. To business he could bring the req=
uired
diligence and attention without difficulty; but he was thenceforward incapa=
ble,
except in rare instances, of that superior effort of concentration which is
required for serious literary work. He may be said, indeed, to have worked =
no
more, and only amused himself with letters. The man who had written a volume of
masterpieces in six months, during the remainder of his life rarely found c=
ourage
for any more sustained effort than a song.=
And the nature of the songs is itself characteristic of these idle l=
ater
years; for they are often as polished and elaborate as his earlier works we=
re
frank, and headlong, and colloquial; and this sort of verbal elaboration in
short flights is, for a man of literary turn, simply the most agreeable of
pastimes. The change in manne=
r coincides
exactly with the Edinburgh visit.
In 1786 he had written the ADDRESS TO A LOUSE, which may be taken as=
an extreme
instance of the first manner; and already, in 1787, we come upon the rosebud
pieces to Miss Cruikshank, which are extreme examples of the second. The change was, therefore, the dir=
ect
and very natural consequence of his great change in life; but it is not the=
less
typical of his loss of moral courage that he should have given up all larger
ventures, nor the less melancholy that a man who first attacked literature =
with
a hand that seemed capable of moving mountains, should have spent his later
years in whittling cherry-stones.
Meanwhile, the farm did not prosper; he had to
join to it the salary of an exciseman; at last he had to give it up, and re=
ly
altogether on the latter resource.
He was an active officer; and, though he sometimes tempered severity
with mercy, we have local testimony oddly representing the public feeling of
the period, that, while "in everything else he was a perfect gentleman,
when he met with anything seizable he was no better than any other
gauger."
There is but one manifestation of the man in t=
hese
last years which need delay us: and that was the sudden interest in politics
which arose from his sympathy with the great French Revolution. His only political feeling had been
hitherto a sentimental Jacobitism, not more or less respectable than that of
Scott, Aytoun, and the rest of what George Borrow has nicknamed the
"Charlie over the water" Scotchmen. It was a sentiment almost entirely
literary and picturesque in its origin, built on ballads and the adventures=
of
the Young Chevalier; and in Burns it is the more excusable, because he lay =
out
of the way of active politics in his youth. With the great French Revolution,
something living, practical, and feasible appeared to him for the first tim=
e in
this realm of human action. T=
he
young ploughman who had desired so earnestly to rise, now reached out his
sympathies to a whole nation animated with the same desire. Already in 1788 we find the old
Jacobitism hand in hand with the new popular doctrine, when, in a letter of
indignation against the zeal of a Whig clergyman, he writes: "I daresay
the American Congress in 1776 will be allowed to be as able and as enlighte=
ned
as the English Convention was in 1688; and that their posterity will celebr=
ate
the centenary of their deliverance from us, as duly and sincerely as we do =
ours
from the oppressive measures of the wrong-headed house of Stuart." As =
time
wore on, his sentiments grew more pronounced and even violent; but there wa=
s a
basis of sense and generous feeling to his hottest excess. What he asked was a fair chance fo=
r the
individual in life; an open road to success and distinction for all classes=
of
men. It was in the same spiri=
t that
he had helped to found a public library in the parish where his farm was
situated, and that he sang his fervent snatches against tyranny and
tyrants. Witness, were it alo=
ne,
this verse:-
=
"Here's
freedom to him that wad read, Here's freedom to him that wad write; There's
nane ever feared that the truth should be heard But them wham the truth wad
indite."
=
Yet
his enthusiasm for the cause was scarce guided by wisdom. Many stories are
preserved of the bitter and unwise words he used in country coteries; how he
proposed Washington's health as an amendment to Pitt's, gave as a toast
"the last verse of the last chapter of Kings," and celebrated
Dumouriez in a doggrel impromptu full of ridicule and hate. Now his sympathies would inspire h=
im
with SCOTS, WHA HAE; now involve him in a drunken broil with a loyal office=
r,
and consequent apologies and explanations, hard to offer for a man of Burns=
's
stomach. Nor was this the fro=
nt of
his offending. On February 27, 1792, he took part in the capture of an arme=
d smuggler,
bought at the subsequent sale four carronades, and despatched them with a
letter to the French Assembly. Letter
and guns were stopped at Dover by the English officials; there was trouble =
for
Burns with his superiors; he was reminded firmly, however delicately, that,=
as
a paid official, it was his duty to obey and to be silent; and all the bloo=
d of
this poor, proud, and falling man must have rushed to his head at the
humiliation. His letter to Mr=
. Erskine,
subsequently Earl of Mar, testifies, in its turgid, turbulent phrases, to a
perfect passion of alarmed self- respect and vanity. He had been muzzled, and muzzled, =
when all
was said, by his paltry salary as an exciseman; alas! had he not a family to
keep? Already, he wrote, he l=
ooked forward
to some such judgment from a hackney scribbler as this: "Burns,
notwithstanding the FANFARONNADE of independence to be found in his works, =
and
after having been held forth to view and to public estimation as a man of s=
ome genius,
yet, quite destitute of resources within himself to support his borrowed
dignity, he dwindled into a paltry exciseman, and shrunk out the rest of his
insignificant existence in the meanest of pursuits, and among the vilest of=
mankind." And then on he goes, in a style of
rhodomontade, but filled with living indignation, to declare his right to a=
political
opinion, and his willingness to shed his blood for the political birthright=
of
his sons. Poor, perturbed spi=
rit!
he was indeed exercised in vain; those who share and those who differ from =
his
sentiments about the Revolution, alike understand and sympathise with him in
this painful strait; for poetry and human manhood are lasting like the race,
and politics, which are but a wrongful striving after right, pass and change
from year to year and age to age.
The TWA DOGS has already outlasted the constitution of Sieyes and the
policy of the Whigs; and Burns is better known among English-speaking races
than either Pitt or Fox.
Meanwhile, whether as a man, a husband, or a p=
oet,
his steps led downward. He kn=
ew,
knew bitterly, that the best was out of him; he refused to make another vol=
ume,
for he felt that it would be a disappointment; he grew petulantly alive to =
criticism,
unless he was sure it reached him from a friend. For his songs, he would ta=
ke
nothing; they were all that he could do; the proposed Scotch play, the prop=
osed
series of Scotch tales in verse, all had gone to water; and in a fling of p=
ain
and disappointment, which is surely noble with the nobility of a viking, he
would rather stoop to borrow than to accept money for these last and inadeq=
uate
efforts of his muse. And this
desperate abnegation rises at times near to the height of madness; as when =
he
pretended that he had not written, but only found and published, his immort=
al
AULD LANG SYNE. In the same s=
pirit
he became more scrupulous as an artist; he was doing so little, he would fa=
in
do that little well; and about two months before his death, he asked Thomso=
n to
send back all his manuscripts for revisal, saying that he would rather write
five songs to his taste than twice that number otherwise. The battle of his life was lost; i=
n forlorn
efforts to do well, in desperate submissions to evil, the last years flew
by. His temper is dark and
explosive, launching epigrams, quarrelling with his friends, jealous of you=
ng
puppy officers. He tries to b=
e a
good father; he boasts himself a libertine. Sick, sad, and jaded, he can refus=
e no
occasion of temporary pleasure, no opportunity to shine; and he who had once
refused the invitations of lords and ladies is now whistled to the inn by a=
ny
curious stranger. His death (=
July
21, 1796), in his thirty-seventh year, was indeed a kindly dispensation.
=
WORKS.
=
The
somewhat cruel necessity which has lain upon me throughout this paper only =
to
touch upon those points in the life of Burns where correction or amplificat=
ion
seemed desirable, leaves me little opportunity to speak of the works which =
have
made his name so famous. Yet,=
even
here, a few observations seem necessary.
At the time when the poet made his appearance =
and
great first success, his work was remarkable in two ways. For, first, in an age when poetry =
had
become abstract and conventional, instead of continuing to deal with shephe=
rds,
thunderstorms, and personifications, he dealt with the actual circumstances=
of
his life, however matter-of-fact and sordid these might be. And, second, in a time when English
versification was particularly stiff, lame, and feeble, and words were used=
with
ultra-academical timidity, he wrote verses that were easy, racy, graphic, a=
nd
forcible, and used language with absolute tact and courage as it seemed most
fit to give a clear impression. If
you take even those English authors whom we know Burns to have most admired=
and
studied, you will see at once that he owed them nothing but a warning. Take Shenstone, for instance, and =
watch
that elegant author as he tries to grapple with the facts of life. He has a description, I remember, =
of a
gentleman engaged in sliding or walking on thin ice, which is a little mira=
cle
of incompetence. You see my m=
emory
fails me, and I positively cannot recollect whether his hero was sliding or
walking; as though a writer should describe a skirmish, and the reader, at =
the
end, be still uncertain whether it were a charge of cavalry or a slow and s=
tubborn
advance of foot. There could =
be no
such ambiguity in Burns; his work is at the opposite pole from such indefin=
ite
and stammering performances; and a whole lifetime passed in the study of
Shenstone would only lead a man further and further from writing the ADDRES=
S TO
A LOUSE. Yet Burns, like most=
great
artists, proceeded from a school and continued a tradition; only the school=
and
tradition were Scotch, and not English.&nb=
sp;
While the English language was becoming daily more pedantic and
inflexible, and English letters more colourless and slack, there was anothe=
r dialect
in the sister country, and a different school of poetry tracing its descent,
through King James I., from Chaucer.
The dialect alone accounts for much; for it was then written
colloquially, which kept it fresh and supple; and, although not shaped for
heroic flights, it was a direct and vivid medium for all that had to do with
social life. Hence, whenever Scotch poets left their laborious imitations of
bad English verses, and fell back on their own dialect, their style would
kindle, and they would write of their convivial and somewhat gross existenc=
es
with pith and point. In Ramsay, and far more in the poor lad Fergusson, the=
re
was mettle, humour, literary courage, and a power of saying what they wishe=
d to
say definitely and brightly, which in the latter case should have justified
great anticipations. Had Burn=
s died
at the same age as Fergusson, he would have left us literally nothing worth
remark. To Ramsay and to Ferg=
usson,
then, he was indebted in a very uncommon degree, not only following their
tradition and using their measures, but directly and avowedly imitating the=
ir
pieces. The same tendency to =
borrow
a hint, to work on some one else's foundation, is notable in Burns from fir=
st
to last, in the period of song-writing as well as in that of the early poem=
s; and
strikes one oddly in a man of such deep originality, who left so strong a p=
rint
on all he touched, and whose work is so greatly distinguished by that chara=
cter
of "inevitability" which Wordsworth denied to Goethe.
When we remember Burns's obligations to his
predecessors, we must never forget his immense advances on them. They had already "discovered&=
quot;
nature; but Burns discovered poetry - a higher and more intense way of thin=
king
of the things that go to make up nature, a higher and more ideal key of wor=
ds
in which to speak of them. Ra=
msay
and Fergusson excelled at making a popular - or shall we say vulgar? - sort=
of
society verses, comical and prosaic, written, you would say, in taverns whi=
le a
supper party waited for its laureate's word; but on the appearance of Burns,
this coarse and laughing literature was touched to finer issues, and learned
gravity of thought and natural pathos.
What he had gained from his predecessors was a
direct, speaking style, and to walk on his own feet instead of on academical
stilts. There was never a man=
of
letters with more absolute command of his means; and we may say of him, wit=
hout
excess, that his style was his slave.
Hence that energy of epithet, so concise and telling, that a foreign=
er is
tempted to explain it by some special richness or aptitude in the dialect he
wrote. Hence that Homeric jus=
tice
and completeness of description which gives us the very physiognomy of natu=
re,
in body and detail, as nature is. Hence, too, the unbroken literary quality=
of
his best pieces, which keeps him from any slip into the weariful trade of w=
ord-painting,
and presents everything, as everything should be presented by the art of wo=
rds,
in a clear, continuous medium of thought.&=
nbsp;
Principal Shairp, for instance, gives us a paraphrase of one tough v=
erse
of the original; and for those who know the Greek poets only by paraphrase,
this has the very quality they are accustomed to look for and admire in
Greek. The contemporaries of =
Burns
were surprised that he should visit so many celebrated mountains and
waterfalls, and not seize the opportunity to make a poem. Indeed, it is not for those who ha=
ve a
true command of the art of words, but for peddling, professional amateurs, =
that
these pointed occasions are most useful and inspiring. As those who speak French imperfec=
tly
are glad to dwell on any topic they may have talked upon or heard others ta=
lk
upon before, because they know appropriate words for it in French, so the
dabbler in verse rejoices to behold a waterfall, because he has learned the
sentiment and knows appropriate words for it in poetry. But the dialect of Burns was fitte=
d to
deal with any subject; and whether it was a stormy night, a shepherd's coll=
ie,
a sheep struggling in the snow, the conduct of cowardly soldiers in the fie=
ld,
the gait and cogitations of a drunken man, or only a village cockcrow in the
morning, he could find language to give it freshness, body, and relief. He =
was
always ready to borrow the hint of a design, as though he had a difficulty =
in
commencing - a difficulty, let us say, in choosing a subject out of a world
which seemed all equally living and significant to him; but once he had the
subject chosen, he could cope with nature single-handed, and make every str=
oke
a triumph. Again, his absolute
mastery in his art enabled him to express each and all of his different hum=
ours,
and to pass smoothly and congruously from one to another. Many men invent a dialect for only=
one
side of their nature - perhaps their pathos or their humour, or the delicac=
y of
their senses - and, for lack of a medium, leave all the others
unexpressed. You meet such an=
one,
and find him in conversation full of thought, feeling, and experience, whic=
h he
has lacked the art to employ in his writings. But Burns was not thus hampered in=
the
practice of the literary art; he could throw the whole weight of his nature
into his work, and impregnate it from end to end. If Doctor Johnson, that stilted and
accomplished stylist, had lacked the sacred Boswell, what should we have kn=
own
of him? and how should we have delighted in his acquaintance as we do? Those who spoke with Burns tell us=
how
much we have lost who did not. But
I think they exaggerate their privilege: I think we have the whole Burns in=
our
possession set forth in his consummate verses.
It was by his style, and not by his matter, th=
at
he affected Wordsworth and the world.
There is, indeed, only one merit worth considering in a man of lette=
rs -
that he should write well; and only one damning fault - that he should write
ill. We are little the better for the reflections of the sailor's parrot in=
the
story. And so, if Burns helpe=
d to
change the course of literary history, it was by his frank, direct, and mas=
terly
utterance, and not by his homely choice of subjects. That was imposed upon =
him,
not chosen upon a principle. =
He wrote
from his own experience, because it was his nature so to do, and the tradit=
ion
of the school from which he proceeded was fortunately not oppose to homely
subjects. But to these homely
subjects he communicated the rich commentary of his nature; they were all
steeped in Burns; and they interest us not in themselves, but because they =
have
been passed through the spirit of so genuine and vigorous a man. Such is the
stamp of living literature; and there was never any more alive than that of
Burns.
What a gust of sympathy there is in him someti=
mes
flowing out in byways hitherto unused, upon mice, and flowers, and the devil
himself; sometimes speaking plainly between human hearts; sometimes ringing=
out
in exultation like a peal of beals!
When we compare the FARMER'S SALUTATION TO HIS AULD MARE MAGGIE, with
the clever and inhumane production of half a century earlier, THE AULD MAN'S
MARE'S DEAD, we see in a nutshell the spirit of the change introduced by
Burns. And as to its manner, =
who
that has read it can forget how the collie, Luath, in the TWA DOGS, describ=
es
and enters into the merry-making in the cottage?
=
"The
luntin' pipe an' sneeshin' mill, Are handed round wi' richt guid will; The
canty auld folks crackin' crouse, The young anes rantin' through the house =
- My
heart has been sae fain to see them That I for joy hae barkit wi' them.&quo=
t;
=
It was
this ardent power of sympathy that was fatal to so many women, and, through
Jean Armour, to himself at last. His humour comes from him in a stream so d=
eep
and easy that I will venture to call him the best of humorous poets. He turns about in the midst to utt=
er a
noble sentiment or a trenchant remark on human life, and the style changes =
and rises
to the occasion. I think it is
Principal Shairp who says, happily, that Burns would have been no Scotchman=
if
he had not loved to moralise; neither, may we add, would he have been his
father's son; but (what is worthy of note) his moralisings are to a large
extent the moral of his own career.
He was among the least impersonal of artists. Except in the JOLLY
BEGGARS, he shows no gleam of dramatic instinct. Mr. Carlyle has complained that TA=
M O'
SHANTER is, from the absence of this quality, only a picturesque and extern=
al
piece of work; and I may add that in the TWA DOGS it is precisely in the
infringement of dramatic propriety that a great deal of the humour of the
speeches depends for its existence and effect. Indeed, Burns was so full of his id=
entity
that it breaks forth on every page; and there is scarce an appropriate rema=
rk
either in praise or blame of his own conduct, but he has put it himself into
verse. Alas! for the tenor of=
these
remarks! They are, indeed, hi=
s own pitiful
apology for such a marred existence and talents so misused and stunted; and
they seem to prove for ever how small a part is played by reason in the con=
duct
of man's affairs. Here was on=
e, at
least, who with unfailing judgment predicted his own fate; yet his knowledge
could not avail him, and with open eyes he must fulfil his tragic destiny. =
Ten
years before the end he had written his epitaph; and neither subsequent eve=
nts,
nor the critical eyes of posterity, have shown us a word in it to alter.
=
"Then
gently scan your brother man, Still gentler sister woman; Though they may g=
ang
a kennin wrang, To step aside is human: One point must still be greatly dar=
k -
"
One?
Alas! I fear every man=
and
woman of us is "greatly dark" to all their neighbours, from the d=
ay
of birth until death removes them, in their greatest virtues as well as in =
their
saddest faults; and we, who have been trying to read the character of Burns,
may take home the lesson and be gentle in our thoughts.
OF late years the name of Walt Whitman has bee=
n a
good deal bandied about in books and magazines. It has become familiar both in goo=
d and
ill repute. His works have be=
en
largely bespattered with praise by his admirers, and cruelly mauled and man=
gled
by irreverent enemies. Now, w=
hether
his poetry is good or bad as poetry, is a matter that may admit of a differ=
ence
of opinion without alienating those who differ. We could not keep the peace
with a man who should put forward claims to taste and yet depreciate the
choruses in SAMSON AGONISTES; but, I think, we may shake hands with one who
sees no more in Walt Whitman's volume, from a literary point of view, than a
farrago of incompetent essays in a wrong direction. That may not be at all our own
opinion. We may think that, w=
hen a
work contains many unforgettable phrases, it cannot be altogether devoid of
literary merit. We may even s=
ee
passages of a high poetry here and there among its eccentric contents. But when all is said, Walt Whitman=
is neither
a Milton nor a Shakespeare; to appreciate his works is not a condition
necessary to salvation; and I would not disinherit a son upon the question,=
nor
even think much the worse of a critic, for I should always have an idea wha=
t he
meant.
What Whitman has to say is another affair from=
how
he says it. It is not possibl=
e to
acquit any one of defective intelligence, or else stiff prejudice, who is n=
ot
interested by Whitman's matter and the spirit it represents. Not as a poet, but as what we must=
call
(for lack of a more exact expression) a prophet, he occupies a curious and
prominent position. Whether h=
e may
greatly influence the future or not, he is a notable symptom of the
present. As a sign of the tim=
es, it
would be hard to find his parallel.
I should hazard a large wager, for instance, that he was not unacqua=
inted
with the works of Herbert Spencer; and yet where, in all the history books,
shall we lay our hands on two more incongruous contemporaries? Mr. Spencer so decorous - I had al=
most
said, so dandy - in dissent; and Whitman, like a large shaggy dog, just
unchained, scouring the beaches of the world and baying at the moon. And when was an echo more curiousl=
y like
a satire, than when Mr. Spencer found his Synthetic Philosophy reverberated
from the other shores of the Atlantic in the "barbaric yawp" of
Whitman?
=
I.
=
Whitman,
it cannot be too soon explained, writes up to a system. He was a theoriser about society b=
efore
he was a poet. He first perce=
ived
something wanting, and then sat down squarely to supply the want. The reader, running over his works=
, will
find that he takes nearly as much pleasure in critically expounding his the=
ory
of poetry as in making poems. This
is as far as it can be from the case of the spontaneous village minstrel de=
ar
to elegy, who has no theory whatever, although sometimes he may have fully =
as
much poetry as Whitman. The w=
hole
of Whitman's work is deliberate and preconceived. A man born into a society comparat=
ively
new, full of conflicting elements and interests, could not fail, if he had =
any
thoughts at all, to reflect upon the tendencies around him. He saw much good and evil on all s=
ides,
not yet settled down into some more or less unjust compromise as in older
nations, but still in the act of settlement. And he could not but wonder what it
would turn out; whether the compromise would be very just or very much the
reverse, and give great or little scope for healthy human energies. From idle wonder to active speculat=
ion is
but a step; and he seems to have been early struck with the inefficacy of
literature and its extreme unsuitability to the conditions. What he calls "Feudal
Literature" could have little living action on the tumult of American
democracy; what he calls the "Literature of Wo," meaning the whole
tribe of Werther and Byron, could have no action for good in any time or pl=
ace.
Both propositions, if art had none but a direct moral influence, would be t=
rue
enough; and as this seems to be Whitman's view, they were true enough for
him. He conceived the idea of=
a
Literature which was to inhere in the life of the present; which was to be,
first, human, and next, American; which was to be brave and cheerful as per
contract; to give culture in a popular and poetical presentment; and, in so
doing, catch and stereotype some democratic ideal of humanity which should =
be
equally natural to all grades of wealth and education, and suited, in one of
his favourite phrases, to "the average man." To the formation of some such lite=
rature
as this his poems are to be regarded as so many contributions, one sometimes
explaining, sometimes superseding, the other: and the whole together not so
much a finished work as a body of suggestive hints. He does not profess to have built =
the
castle, but he pretends he has traced the lines of the foundation. He has not made the poetry, but he
flatters himself he has done something towards making the poets.
His notion of the poetic function is ambitious=
, and
coincides roughly with what Schopenhauer has laid down as the province of t=
he
metaphysician. The poet is to
gather together for men, and set in order, the materials of their
existence. He is "The
Answerer;" he is to find some way of speaking about life that shall
satisfy, if only for the moment, man's enduring astonishment at his own
position. And besides having =
an
answer ready, it is he who shall provoke the question. He must shake people out of their
indifference, and force them to make some election in this world, instead of
sliding dully forward in a dream.
Life is a business we are all apt to mismanage; either living reckle=
ssly
from day to day, or suffering ourselves to be gulled out of our moments by =
the
inanities of custom. We should
despise a man who gave as little activity and forethought to the conduct of=
any
other business. But in this, =
which
is the one thing of all others, since it contains them all, we cannot see t=
he forest
for the trees. One brief impr=
ession
obliterates another. There is
something stupefying in the recurrence of unimportant things. And it is only on rare provocation=
s that
we can rise to take an outlook beyond daily concerns, and comprehend the na=
rrow
limits and great possibilities of our existence. It is the duty of the poet to indu=
ce
such moments of clear sight. =
He is
the declared enemy of all living by reflex action, of all that is done betw=
ixt
sleep and waking, of all the pleasureless pleasurings and imaginary duties =
in which
we coin away our hearts and fritter invaluable years. He has to electrify h=
is
readers into an instant unflagging activity, founded on a wide and eager
observation of the world, and make them direct their ways by a superior pru=
dence,
which has little or nothing in common with the maxims of the copy-book. That many of us lead such lives as=
they
would heartily disown after two hours' serious reflection on the subject is=
, I
am afraid, a true, and, I am sure, a very galling thought. The Enchanted Ground of dead- alive
respectability is next, upon the map, to the Beulah of considerate virtue.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> But there they all slumber and tak=
e their
rest in the middle of God's beautiful and wonderful universe; the drowsy he=
ads
have nodded together in the same position since first their fathers fell
asleep; and not even the sound of the last trumpet can wake them to a singl=
e active
thought.
The poet has a hard task before him to stir up
such fellows to a sense of their own and other people's principles in life.=
And it happens that literature is, in some way=
s,
but an indifferent means to such an end.&n=
bsp;
Language is but a poor bull's-eye lantern where-with to show off the
vast cathedral of the world; and yet a particular thing once said in words =
is
so definite and memorable, that it makes us forget the absence of the many
which remain unexpressed; like a bright window in a distant view, which daz=
zles
and confuses our sight of its surroundings. There are not words enough in all =
Shakespeare
to express the merest fraction of a man's experience in an hour. The speed of the eyesight and the =
hearing,
and the continual industry of the mind, produce, in ten minutes, what it wo=
uld
require a laborious volume to shadow forth by comparisons and roundabout
approaches. If verbal logic w=
ere
sufficient, life would be as plain sailing as a piece of Euclid. But, as a matter of fact, we make =
a travesty
of the simplest process of thought when we put it into words for the words =
are
all coloured and forsworn, apply inaccurately, and bring with them, from fo=
rmer
uses ideas of praise and blame that have nothing to do with the question in=
hand. So we must always see to it nearly=
, that
we judge by the realities of life and not by the partial terms that represe=
nt
them in man's speech; and at times of choice, we must leave words upon one
side, and act upon those brute convictions, unexpressed and perhaps
inexpressible, which cannot be flourished in an argument, but which are tru=
ly
the sum and fruit of our experience.
Words are for communication, not for judgment. This is what every thoughtful man =
knows
for himself, for only fools and silly schoolmasters push definitions over f=
ar
into the domain of conduct; and the majority of women, not learned in these=
scholastic
refinements, live all-of-a-piece and unconsciously, as a tree grows, without
caring to put a name upon their acts or motives. Hence, a new difficulty for Whitma=
n's
scrupulous and argumentative poet; he must do more than waken up the sleepe=
rs
to his words; he must persuade them to look over the book and at life with
their own eyes.
This side of truth is very present to Whitman;=
it
is this that he means when he tells us that "To glance with an eye con=
founds
the learning of all times."
But he is not unready. He is never weary of descanting on the
undebatable conviction that is forced upon our minds by the presence of oth=
er
men, of animals, or of inanimate things.&n=
bsp;
To glance with an eye, were it only at a chair or a park railing, is=
by
far a more persuasive process, and brings us to a far more exact conclusion,
than to read the works of all the logicians extant. If both, by a large allowance, may=
be
said to end in certainty, the certainty in the one case transcends the othe=
r to
an incalculable degree. If pe=
ople
see a lion, they run away; if they only apprehend a deduction, they keep wa=
ndering
around in an experimental humour.
Now, how is the poet to convince like nature, and not like books?
Here we have the key to Whitman's attitude.
=
II.
=
We are
accustomed nowadays to a great deal of puling over the circumstances in whi=
ch
we are placed. The great refi=
nement
of many poetical gentlemen has rendered them practically unfit for the jost=
ling
and ugliness of life, and they record their unfitness at considerable
length. The bold and awful po=
etry
of Job's complaint produces too many flimsy imitators; for there is always
something consolatory in grandeur, but the symphony transposed for the piano
becomes hysterically sad. This
literature of woe, as Whitman calls it, this MALADIE DE RENE, as we like to
call it in Europe, is in many ways a most humiliating and sickly
phenomenon. Young gentlemen w=
ith
three or four hundred a year of private means look down from a pinnacle of
doleful experience on all the grown and hearty men who have dared to say a =
good
word for life since the beginning of the world. There is no prophet but the melanc=
holy
Jacques, and the blue devils dance on all our literary wires.
It would be a poor service to spread culture, =
if
this be its result, among the comparatively innocent and cheerful ranks of
men. When our little poets ha=
ve to
be sent to look at the ploughman and learn wisdom, we must be careful how we
tamper with our ploughmen. Wh=
ere a
man in not the best of circumstances preserves composure of mind, and relis=
hes
ale and tobacco, and his wife and children, in the intervals of dull and
unremunerative labour; where a man in this predicament can afford a lesson =
by
the way to what are called his intellectual superiors, there is plainly som=
ething
to be lost, as well as something to be gained, by teaching him to think
differently. It is better to =
leave
him as he is than to teach him whining.&nb=
sp;
It is better that he should go without the cheerful lights of cultur=
e,
if cheerless doubt and paralysing sentimentalism are to be the
consequence. Let us, by all m=
eans,
fight against that hide-bound stolidity of sensation and sluggishness of mi=
nd
which blurs and decolorises for poor natures the wonderful pageant of consc=
iousness;
let us teach people, as much as we can, to enjoy, and they will learn for
themselves to sympathise; but let us see to it, above all, that we give the=
se
lessons in a brave, vivacious note, and build the man up in courage while we
demolish its substitute, indifference.
Whitman is alive to all this. He sees that, if the poet is to be=
of
any help, he must testify to the livableness of life. His poems, he tells us, are to be
"hymns of the praise of things."=
They are to make for a certain high joy in living, or what he calls
himself "a brave delight fit for freedom's athletes." And he has had no difficulty in in=
troducing
his optimism: it fitted readily enough with his system; for the average man=
is
truly a courageous person and truly fond of living. One of Whitman's remarks upon this=
head
is worth quotation, as he is there perfectly successful, and does precisely
what he designs to do throughout: Takes ordinary and even commonplace
circumstances; throws them out, by a happy turn of thinking, into significa=
nce
and something like beauty; and tacks a hopeful moral lesson to the end.
=
"The
passionate tenacity of hunters, woodmen, early risers, cultivators of garde=
ns
and orchards and fields, he says, the love of healthy women for the manly f=
orm,
seafaring persons, drivers of horses, the passion for light and the open ai=
r, -
all is an old unvaried sign of the unfailing perception of beauty, and of a
residence of the poetic in outdoor people."
=
There
seems to me something truly original in this choice of trite examples. You will remark how adroitly Whitm=
an
begins, hunters and woodmen being confessedly romantic. And one thing more. If he had said "the love of h=
ealthy
men for the female form," he would have said almost a silliness; for t=
he thing
has never been dissembled out of delicacy, and is so obvious as to be a pub=
lic
nuisance. But by reversing it=
, he tells
us something not unlike news; something that sounds quite freshly in words;
and, if the reader be a man, gives him a moment of great self-satisfaction =
and
spiritual aggrandisement. In =
many
different authors you may find passages more remarkable for grammar, but fe=
w of
a more ingenious turn, and none that could be more to the point in our
connection. The tenacity of m=
any
ordinary people in ordinary pursuits is a sort of standing challenge to eve=
rybody
else. If one man can grow abs=
orbed
in delving his garden, others may grow absorbed and happy over something el=
se. Not to be upsides in this with any=
groom
or gardener, is to be very meanly organised. A man should be ashamed to take hi=
s food
if he has not alchemy enough in his stomach to turn some of it into intense=
and
enjoyable occupation.
Whitman tries to reinforce this cheerfulness by
keeping up a sort of outdoor atmosphere of sentiment. His book, he tells us, should be r=
ead
"among the cooling influences of external nature;" and this
recommendation, like that other famous one which Hawthorne prefixed to his
collected tales, is in itself a character of the work. Every one who has been upon a walk=
ing or
a boating tour, living in the open air, with the body in constant exercise =
and
the mind in fallow, knows true ease and quiet. The irritating action of the brain=
is
set at rest; we think in a plain, unfeverish temper; little things seem big
enough, and great things no longer portentous; and the world is smilingly
accepted as it is. This is the
spirit that Whitman inculcates and parades. He thinks very ill of the atmosphe=
re of
parlours or libraries. Wisdom=
keeps
school outdoors. And he has t=
he art
to recommend this attitude of mind by simply pluming himself upon it as a
virtue; so that the reader, to keep the advantage over his author which mos=
t readers
enjoy, is tricked into professing the same view. And this spirit, as it is his chief
lesson, is the greatest charm of his work.=
Thence, in spite of an uneven and emphatic key of expression, someth=
ing
trenchant and straightforward, something simple and surprising, distinguish=
es
his poems. He has sayings tha=
t come
home to one like the Bible. W=
e fall
upon Whitman, after the works of so many men who write better, with a sense=
of
relief from strain, with a sense of touching nature, as when one passes out=
of
the flaring, noisy thoroughfares of a great city into what he himself has c=
alled,
with unexcelled imaginative justice of language, "the huge and thought=
ful
night." And his book in
consequence, whatever may be the final judgment of its merit, whatever may =
be
its influence on the future, should be in the hands of all parents and
guardians as a specific for the distressing malady of being seventeen years
old. Green-sickness yields to=
his
treatment as to a charm of magic; and the youth, after a short course of
reading, ceases to carry the universe upon his shoulders.
=
III.
=
Whitman
is not one of those who can be deceived by familiarity. He considers it just as wonderful =
that
there are myriads of stars, as that one man should rise from the dead. He declares "a hair on the ba=
ck of
his hand just as curious as any special revelation." His whole life is to him what it w=
as to
Sir Thomas Browne, one perpetual miracle. Everything is strange, everything
unaccountable, everything beautiful; from a bug to the moon, from the sight=
of
the eyes to the appetite for food.
He makes it his business to see things as if he saw them for the fir=
st
time, and professes astonishment on principle. But he has no leaning towards myth=
ology;
avows his contempt for what he calls "unregenerate poetry;" and d=
oes
not mean by nature
=
"The
smooth walks, trimmed hedges, butterflies, posies, and nightingales of the =
English
poets, but the whole orb, with its geologic history, the Kosmos, carrying f=
ire
and snow, that rolls through the illimitable areas, light as a feather thou=
gh
weighing billions of tons."
=
Nor is
this exhaustive; for in his character of idealist all impressions, all
thoughts, trees and people, love and faith, astronomy, history, and religio=
n,
enter upon equal terms into his notion of the universe. He is not against religion; not, i=
ndeed,
against any religion. He wish=
es to
drag with a larger net, to make a more comprehensive synthesis, than any or
than all of them put together. In
feeling after the central type of man, he must embrace all eccentricities; =
his cosmology
must subsume all cosmologies, and the feelings that gave birth to them; his
statement of facts must include all religion and all irreligion, Christ and
Boodha, God and the devil. The
world as it is, and the whole world as it is, physical, and spiritual, and
historical, with its good and bad, with its manifold inconsistencies, is wh=
at
he wishes to set forth, in strong, picturesque, and popular lineaments, for=
the
understanding of the average man.
One of his favourite endeavours is to get the whole matter into a nu=
tshell;
to knock the four corners of the universe, one after another, about his
readers' ears; to hurry him, in breathless phrases, hither and thither, back
and forward, in time and space; to focus all this about his own momentary p=
ersonality;
and then, drawing the ground from under his feet, as if by some cataclysm of
nature, to plunge him into the unfathomable abyss sown with enormous suns a=
nd
systems, and among the inconceivable numbers and magnitudes and velocities =
of
the heavenly bodies. So that =
he
concludes by striking into us some sense of that disproportion of things wh=
ich
Shelley has illuminated by the ironical flash of these eight words: The des=
ire
of the moth for the star.
The same truth, but to what a different
purpose! Whitman's moth is mi=
ghtily
at his ease about all the planets in heaven, and cannot think too highly of=
our
sublunary tapers. The univers=
e is
so large that imagination flags in the effort to conceive it; but here, in =
the
meantime, is the world under our feet, a very warm and habitable corner.
"The earth, that is sufficient; I do not want the constellations any
nearer," he remarks. And
again: "Let your soul stand cool and composed," says he, "be=
fore
a million universes." It=
is
the language of a transcendental common sense, such as Thoreau held and
sometimes uttered. But Whitma=
n, who
has a somewhat vulgar inclination for technical talk and the jargon of phil=
osophy,
is not content with a few pregnant hints; he must put the dots upon his i's=
; he
must corroborate the songs of Apollo by some of the darkest talk of human
metaphysic. He tells his disc=
iples
that they must be ready "to confront the growing arrogance of
Realism." Each person is=
, for
himself, the keystone and the occasion of this universal edifice. "Not=
hing,
not God," he says, "is greater to one than oneself is;" a
statement with an irreligious smack at the first sight; but like most start=
ling
sayings, a manifest truism on a second.&nb=
sp;
He will give effect to his own character without apology; he sees
"that the elementary laws never apologise." "I reckon,"=
he
adds, with quaint colloquial arrogance, "I reckon I behave no prouder =
than
the level I plant my house by, after all." The level follows the law of its b=
eing;
so, unrelentingly, will he; everything, every person, is good in his own pl=
ace
and way; God is the maker of all and all are in one design. For he believes in God, and that w=
ith a
sort of blasphemous security.
"No array of terms," quoth he, "no array of terms can=
say
how much at peace I am about God and about death." There certainly never was a prophe=
t who carried
things with a higher hand; he gives us less a body of dogmas than a series =
of
proclamations by the grace of God; and language, you will observe, positive=
ly
fails him to express how far he stands above the highest human doubts and t=
repidations.
But next in order of truths to a person's subl=
ime
conviction of himself, comes the attraction of one person for another, and =
all
that we mean by the word love:-
=
"The
dear love of man for his comrade - the attraction of friend for friend, Of =
the
well-married husband and wife, of children and parents, Of city for city and
land for land."
=
The
solitude of the most sublime idealist is broken in upon by other people's
faces; he sees a look in their eyes that corresponds to something in his own
heart; there comes a tone in their voices which convicts him of a startling
weakness for his fellow-creatures.
While he is hymning the EGO and commencing with God and the universe=
, a
woman goes below his window; and at the turn of her skirt, or the colour of=
her
eyes, Icarus is recalled from heaven by the run. Love is so startlingly real that it
takes rank upon an equal footing of reality with the consciousness of perso=
nal
existence. We are as heartily
persuaded of the identity of those we love as of our own identity. And so sympathy pairs with self-as=
sertion,
the two gerents of human life on earth; and Whitman's ideal man must not on=
ly
be strong, free, and self-reliant in himself, but his freedom must be bound=
ed
and his strength perfected by the most intimate, eager, and long-suffering =
love
for others. To some extent th=
is is
taking away with the left hand what has been so generously given with the
right. Morality has been ceremoniously extruded from the door only to be
brought in again by the window. We
are told, on one page, to do as we please; and on the next we are sharply u=
pbraided
for not having done as the author pleases.=
We are first assured that we are the finest fellows in the world in =
our
own right; and then it appears that we are only fine fellows in so far as we
practise a most quixotic code of morals.&n=
bsp;
The disciple who saw himself in clear ether a moment before is plung=
ed
down again among the fogs and complications of duty. And this is all the more overwhelm=
ing
because Whitman insists not only on love between sex and sex, and between
friends of the same sex, but in the field of the less intense political
sympathies; and his ideal man must not only be a generous friend but a
conscientious voter into the bargain.
His method somewhat lessens the difficulty.
So far, you see, the doctrine is pretty cohere=
nt
as a doctrine; as a picture of man's life it is incomplete and misleading,
although eminently cheerful. =
This
he is himself the first to acknowledge; for if he is prophetic in anything,=
it
is in his noble disregard of consistency.&=
nbsp;
"Do I contradict myself?" he asks somewhere; and then pat
comes the answer, the best answer ever given in print, worthy of a sage, or
rather of a woman: "Very well, then, I contradict myself!" with t=
his
addition, not so feminine and perhaps not altogether so satisfactory: "=
;I
am large - I contain multitudes."&nbs=
p;
Life, as a matter of fact, partakes largely of the nature of
tragedy. The gospel according=
to
Whitman, even if it be not so logical, has this advantage over the gospel a=
ccording
to Pangloss, that it does not utterly disregard the existence of temporal
evil. Whitman accepts the fac=
t of disease
and wretchedness like an honest man; and instead of trying to qualify it in=
the
interest of his optimism, sets himself to spur people up to be helpful. He expresses a conviction, indeed,=
that
all will be made up to the victims in the end; that "what is untried a=
nd
afterward" will fail no one, not even "the old man who has lived
without purpose and feels it with bitterness worse than gall." But this is not to palliate our se=
nse of
what is hard or melancholy in the present.=
Pangloss, smarting under one of the worst things that ever was suppo=
sed
to come from America, consoled himself with the reflection that it was the
price we have to pay for cochineal.
And with that murderous parody, logical optimism and the praises of =
the
best of possible words went irrevocably out of season, and have been no more
heard of in the mouths of reasonable men.&=
nbsp;
Whitman spares us all allusions to the cochineal; he treats evil and
sorrow in a spirit almost as of welcome; as an old sea-dog might have welco=
med the
sight of the enemy's topsails off the Spanish Main. There, at least, he seems to say, =
is
something obvious to be done. I do
not know many better things in literature than the brief pictures, - brief =
and
vivid like things seen by lightning, - with which he tries to stir up the
world's heart upon the side of mercy.
He braces us, on the one hand, with examples of heroic duty and
helpfulness; on the other, he touches us with pitiful instances of people
needing help. He knows how to make the heart beat at a brave story; to infl=
ame
us with just resentment over the hunted slave; to stop our mouths for shame
when he tells of the drunken prostitute.&n=
bsp;
For all the afflicted, all the weak, all the wicked, a good word is =
said
in a spirit which I can only call one of ultra-Christianity; and however wi=
ld,
however contradictory, it may be in parts, this at least may be said for his
book, as it may be said of the Christian Gospels, that no one will read it,
however respectable, but he gets a knock upon his conscience; no one however
fallen, but he finds a kindly and supporting welcome.
=
IV.
=
Nor
has he been content with merely blowing the trumpet for the battle of
well-doing; he has given to his precepts the authority of his own brave
example. Naturally a grave, b=
elieving
man, with little or no sense of humour, he has succeeded as well in life as=
in
his printed performances. The spirit that was in him has come forth most
eloquently in his actions. Ma=
ny who
have only read his poetry have been tempted to set him down as an ass, or e=
ven
as a charlatan; but I never met any one who had known him personally who di=
d not
profess a solid affection and respect for the man's character. He practises as he professes; he f=
eels
deeply that Christian love for all men, that toleration, that cheerful deli=
ght
in serving others, which he often celebrates in literature with a doubtful
measure of success. And perha=
ps,
out of all his writings, the best and the most human and convincing passages
are to be found in "these soil'd and creas'd little livraisons, each
composed of a sheet or two of paper, folded small to carry in the pocket, a=
nd
fastened with a pin," which he scribbled during the war by the bedside=
s of
the wounded or in the excitement of great events. They are hardly literature in the =
formal
meaning of the word; he has left his jottings for the most part as he made
them; a homely detail, a word from the lips of a dying soldier, a business =
memorandum,
the copy of a letter-short, straightforward to the point, with none of the
trappings of composition; but they breathe a profound sentiment, they give =
us a
vivid look at one of the sides of life, and they make us acquainted with a =
man
whom it is an honour to love.
Whitman's intense Americanism, his unlimited
belief in the future of These States (as, with reverential capitals, he lov=
es
to call them), made the war a period of great trial to his soul. The new virtue, Unionism, of which=
he is
the sole inventor, seemed to have fallen into premature unpopularity. All t=
hat
he loved, hoped, or hated, hung in the balance. And the game of war was not only
momentous to him in its issues; it sublimated his spirit by its heroic
displays, and tortured him intimately by the spectacle of its horrors. It was a theatre, it was a place of
education, it was like a season of religious revival. He watched Lincoln going daily to =
his work;
he studied and fraternised with young soldiery passing to the front; above =
all,
he walked the hospitals, reading the Bible, distributing clean clothes, or
apples, or tobacco; a patient, helpful, reverend man, full of kind speeches=
.
His memoranda of this period are almost
bewildering to read. From one point of view they seem those of a district
visitor; from another, they look like the formless jottings of an artist in=
the
picturesque. More than one wo=
man,
on whom I tried the experiment, immediately claimed the writer for a fellow=
-woman. More than one literary purist might
identify him as a shoddy newspaper correspondent without the necessary facu=
lty
of style. And yet the story t=
ouches
home; and if you are of the weeping order of mankind, you will certainly fi=
nd your
eyes fill with tears, of which you have no reason to be ashamed. There is only one way to character=
ise a
work of this order, and that is to quote.&=
nbsp;
Here is a passage from a letter to a mother, unknown to Whitman, who=
se
son died in hospital:-
=
"Frank,
as far as I saw, had everything requisite in surgical treatment, nursing,
etc. He had watches much of t=
he
time. He was so good and well-behaved, and affectionate, I myself liked him
very much. I was in the habit=
of
coming in afternoons and sitting by him, and he liked to have me - liked to=
put
out his arm and lay his hand on my knee - would keep it so a long while.
"He was perfectly willing to die - he had
become very weak, and had suffer'd a good deal, and was perfectly resign'd,=
poor
boy. I do not know his past l=
ife,
but I feel as if it must have been good.&n=
bsp;
At any rate what I saw of him here, under the most trying circumstan=
ces,
with a painful wound, and among strangers, I can say that he behaved so bra=
ve,
so composed, and so sweet and affectionate, it could not be surpassed. And now, like many other noble and=
good
men, after serving his country as a soldier, he has yielded up his young li=
fe
at the very outset in her service.
Such things are gloomy - yet there is a text, `God doeth all things =
well,'
the meaning of which, after due time, appears to the soul.
"I thought perhaps a few words, though fr=
om a
stranger, about your son, from one who was with him at the last, might be w=
orth
while, for I loved the young man, though I but saw him immediately to lose
him."
=
It is
easy enough to pick holes in the grammar of this letter, but what are we to=
say
of its profound goodness and tenderness?&n=
bsp;
It is written as though he had the mother's face before his eyes, and
saw her wincing in the flesh at every word. And what, again, are we to say of =
its
sober truthfulness, not exaggerating, not running to phrases, not seeking to
make a hero out of what was only an ordinary but good and brave young man?<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> Literary reticence is not Whitman's
stronghold; and this reticence is not literary, but humane; it is not that =
of a
good artist but that of a good man.
He knew that what the mother wished to hear about was Frank; and he =
told
her about her Frank as he was.
=
V.
=
Something
should be said of Whitman's style, for style is of the essence of
thinking. And where a man is =
so
critically deliberate as our author, and goes solemnly about his poetry for=
an
ulterior end, every indication is worth notice. He has chosen a rough, unrhymed, l=
yrical
verse; sometimes instinct with a fine processional movement; often so rugge=
d and
careless that it can only be described by saying that he has not taken the
trouble to write prose. I bel=
ieve
myself that it was selected principally because it was easy to write, altho=
ugh
not without recollections of the marching measures of some of the prose in =
our
English Old Testament. According to Whitman, on the other hand, "the t=
ime
has arrived to essentially break down the barriers of form between Prose and
Poetry . . . for the most cogent purposes of those great inland states, and=
for
Texas, and California, and Oregon;" - a statement which is among the
happiest achievements of American humour.&=
nbsp;
He calls his verses "recitatives," in easily followed allu=
sion
to a musical form. "Easily-written, loose-fingered chords," he cr=
ies,
"I feel the thrum of your climax and close." Too often, I fear, he is the only =
one
who can perceive the rhythm; and in spite of Mr. Swinburne, a great part of=
his
work considered as verses is poor bald stuff. Considered, not as verse, but as s=
peech,
a great part of it is full of strange and admirable merits. The right detai=
l is
seized; the right word, bold and trenchant, is thrust into its place. Whitman has small regard to litera=
ry
decencies, and is totally free from literary timidities. He is neither afraid of being slan=
gy nor
of being dull; nor, let me add, of being ridiculous. The result is a most surprising co=
mpound
of plain grandeur, sentimental affectation, and downright nonsense. It would be useless to follow his
detractors and give instances of how bad he can be at his worst; and perhap=
s it
would be not much wiser to give extracted specimens of how happily he can w=
rite
when he is at his best. These=
come
in to most advantage in their own place; owing something, it may be, to the
offset of their curious surroundings.
And one thing is certain, that no one can appreciate Whitman's
excellences until he has grown accustomed to his faults. Until you are content to pick poet=
ry out
of his pages almost as you must pick it out of a Greek play in Bohn's
translation, your gravity will be continually upset, your ears perpetually
disappointed, and the whole book will be no more to you than a particularly=
flagrant
production by the Poet Close.
A writer of this uncertain quality was, perhap=
s,
unfortunate in taking for thesis the beauty of the world as it now is, not =
only
on the hill-tops but in the factory; not only by the harbour full of stately
ships, but in the magazine of the hopelessly prosaic hatter. To show beauty in common things is=
the
work of the rarest tact. It i=
s not
to be done by the wishing. It=
is
easy to posit as a theory, but to bring it home to men's minds is the probl=
em
of literature, and is only accomplished by rare talent, and in comparatively
rare instances. To bid the wh=
ole
world stand and deliver, with a dogma in one's right hand by way of pistol;=
to
cover reams of paper in a galloping, headstrong vein; to cry louder and lou=
der
over everything as it comes up, and make no distinction in one's enthusiasm
over the most incomparable matters; to prove one's entire want of sympathy =
for
the jaded, literary palate, by calling, not a spade a spade, but a hatter a
hatter, in a lyrical apostrophe; - this, in spite of all the airs of
inspiration, is not the way to do it.
It may be very wrong, and very wounding to a respectable branch of
industry, but the word "hatter" cannot be used seriously in emoti=
onal
verse; not to understand this, is to have no literary tact; and I would, for
his own sake, that this were the only inadmissible expression with which
Whitman had bedecked his pages. The
book teems with similar comicalities; and, to a reader who is determined to
take it from that side only, presents a perfect carnival of fun.
A good deal of this is the result of theory
playing its usual vile trick upon the artist. It is because he is a Democrat that
Whitman must have in the hatter. If
you may say Admiral, he reasons, why may you not say Hatter? One man is as good as another, and=
it is
the business of the "great poet" to show poetry in the life of the
one as well as the other. A m=
ost
incontrovertible sentiment surely, and one which nobody would think of
controverting, where - and here is the point - where any beauty has been
shown. But how, where that is=
not the
case? where the hatter is simply introduced, as God made him and as his
fellow-men have miscalled him, at the crisis of a high-flown rhapsody? And what are we to say, where a ma=
n of
Whitman's notable capacity for putting things in a bright, picturesque, and
novel way, simply gives up the attempt, and indulges, with apparent exultat=
ion,
in an inventory of trades or implements, with no more colour or coherence t=
han
so many index-words out of a dictionary?&n=
bsp;
I do not know that we can say anything, but that it is a prodigiously
amusing exhibition for a line or so. The worst of it is, that Whitman must =
have
known better. The man is a gr=
eat
critic, and, so far as I can make out, a good one; and how much criticism d=
oes
it require to know that capitulation is not description, or that fingering =
on a
dumb keyboard, with whatever show of sentiment and execution, is not at all=
the
same thing as discoursing music? I
wish I could believe he was quite honest with us; but, indeed, who was ever
quite honest who wrote a book for a purpose? It is a flight beyond the reach of=
human
magnanimity.
One other point, where his means failed him, m=
ust
be touched upon, however shortly.
In his desire to accept all facts loyally and simply, it fell within=
his
programme to speak at some length and with some plainness on what is, for I
really do not know what reason, the most delicate of subjects. Seeing in th=
at
one of the most serious and interesting parts of life, he was aggrieved tha=
t it
should be looked upon as ridiculous or shameful. No one speaks of maternity with hi=
s tongue
in his cheek; and Whitman made a bold push to set the sanctity of fatherhood
beside the sanctity of motherhood, and introduce this also among the things
that can be spoken of without either a blush or a wink. But the Philistines have been too
strong; and, to say truth, Whitman has rather played the fool. We may be thoroughly conscious tha=
t his
end is improving; that it would be a good thing if a window were opened on
these close privacies of life; that on this subject, as on all others, he n=
ow
and then lets fall a pregnant saying.
But we are not satisfied. We
feel that he was not the man for so difficult an enterprise. He loses our sympathy in the chara=
cter
of a poet by attracting too much of our attention in that of a Bull in a Ch=
ina
Shop. And where, by a little =
more
art, we might have been solemnised ourselves, it is too often Whitman alone=
who
is solemn in the face of an audience somewhat indecorously amused.
=
VI.
=
Lastly,
as most important, after all, to human beings in our disputable state, what=
is
that higher prudence which was to be the aim and issue of these deliberate
productions?
Whitman is too clever to slip into a succinct
formula. If he could have
adequately said his say in a single proverb, it is to be presumed he would =
not
have put himself to the trouble of writing several volumes. It was his programme to state as m=
uch as
he could of the world with all its contradictions, and leave the upshot with
God who planned it. What he h=
as made
of the world and the world's meanings is to be found at large in his
poems. These altogether give =
his
answers to the problems of belief and conduct; in many ways righteous and h=
igh-spirited,
in some ways loose and contradictory.
And yet there are two passages from the preface to the LEAVES OF GRA=
SS
which do pretty well condense his teaching on all essential points, and yet
preserve a measure of his spirit.
=
"This
is what you shall do," he says in the one, "love the earth, and s=
un,
and animals, despise riches, give alms to every one that asks, stand up for=
the
stupid and crazy, devote your income and labour to others, hate tyrants, ar=
gue not
concerning God, have patience and indulgence towards the people, take off y=
our
hat to nothing known or unknown, or to any man or number of men; go freely =
with
powerful uneducated persons, and with the young, and mothers of families, r=
ead these
leaves (his own works) in the open air every season of every year of your l=
ife;
re-examine all you have been told at school or church, or in any book, and
dismiss whatever insults your own soul."
"The prudence of the greatest poet,"=
he
adds in the other - and the greatest poet is, of course, himself - "kn=
ows
that the young man who composedly perilled his life and lost it, has done e=
xceeding
well for himself; while the man who has not perilled his life, and retains =
it
to old age in riches and ease, has perhaps achieved nothing for himself wor=
th mentioning;
and that only that person has no great prudence to learn, who has learnt to=
prefer
real long-lived things, and favours body and soul the same, and perceives t=
he indirect
surely following the direct, and what evil or good he does leaping onward a=
nd
waiting to meet him again, and who in his spirit, in any emergency whatever,
neither hurries nor avoids death."
=
There
is much that is Christian in these extracts, startlingly Christian. Any reader who bears in mind Whitm=
an's
own advice and "dismisses whatever insults his own soul" will find
plenty that is bracing, brightening, and chastening to reward him for a lit=
tle
patience at first. It seems h=
ardly
possible that any being should get evil from so healthy a book as the LEAVE=
S OF
GRASS, which is simply comical wherever it falls short of nobility; but if
there be any such, who cannot both take and leave, who cannot let a single
opportunity pass by without some unworthy and unmanly thought, I should hav=
e as
great difficulty, and neither more nor less, in recommending the works of
Whitman as in lending them Shakespeare, or letting them go abroad outside of
the grounds of a private asylum.
I.
=
THOREAU'S
thin, penetrating, big-nosed face, even in a bad woodcut, conveys some hint=
of
the limitations of his mind and character.=
With his almost acid sharpness of insight, with his almost animal
dexterity in act, there went none of that large, unconscious geniality of t=
he
world's heroes. He was not ea=
sy,
not ample, not urbane, not even kind; his enjoyment was hardly smiling, or =
the
smile was not broad enough to be convincing; he had no waste lands nor
kitchen-midden in his nature, but was all improved and sharpened to a
point. "He was bred to no
profession," says Emerson; "he never married; he lived alone; he
never went to church; he never voted; he refused to pay a tax to the State;=
he
ate no flesh, he drank no wine, he never knew the use of tobacco and, thoug=
h a naturalist,
he used neither trap nor gun. When
asked at dinner what dish he preferred, he answered, `the nearest.'" So
many negative superiorities begin to smack a little of the prig. From his later works he was in the=
habit
of cutting out the humorous passages, under the impression that they were
beneath the dignity of his moral muse; and there we see the prig stand publ=
ic and
confessed. It was "much
easier," says Emerson acutely, much easier for Thoreau to say NO than =
YES;
and that is a characteristic which depicts the man. It is a useful accomplishment to b=
e able
to say NO, but surely it is the essence of amiability to prefer to say YES
where it is possible. There is
something wanting in the man who does not hate himself whenever he is
constrained to say no. And th=
ere
was a great deal wanting in this born dissenter. He was almost shockingly devoid of
weaknesses; he had not enough of them to be truly polar with humanity; whet=
her
you call him demi-god or demi-man, he was at least not altogether one of us,
for he was not touched with a feeling of our infirmities. The world's heroes
have room for all positive qualities, even those which are disreputable, in=
the
capacious theatre of their dispositions.&n=
bsp;
Such can live many lives; while a Thoreau can live but one, and that
only with perpetual foresight.
He was no ascetic, rather an Epicurean of the
nobler sort; and he had this one great merit, that he succeeded so far as t=
o be
happy. "I love my fate t=
o the
core and rind," he wrote once; and even while he lay dying, here is wh=
at
he dictated (for it seems he was already too feeble to control the pen): &q=
uot;You
ask particularly after my health. =
span>I
SUPPOSE that I have not many months to live, but of course know nothing abo=
ut
it. I may say that I am enjoying existence as much as ever, and regret
nothing." It is not give=
n to
all to bear so clear a testimony to the sweetness of their fate, nor to any
without courage and wisdom; for this world in itself is but a painful and
uneasy place of residence, and lasting happiness, at least to the
self-conscious, comes only from within.&nb=
sp;
Now Thoreau's content and ecstasy in living was, we may say, like a
plant that he had watered and tended with womanish solicitude; for there is=
apt
to be something unmanly, something almost dastardly, in a life that does not
move with dash and freedom, and that fears the bracing contact of the world=
. In one word, Thoreau was a skulker=
. He did not wish virtue to go out o=
f him
among his fellow-men, but slunk into a corner to hoard it for himself. He left all for the sake of certain
virtuous self-indulgences. It=
is
true that his tastes were noble; that his ruling passion was to keep himself
unspotted from the world; and that his luxuries were all of the same healthy
order as cold tubs and early rising. But a man may be both coldly cruel in =
the
pursuit of goodness, and morbid even in the pursuit of health. I cannot lay my hands on the passa=
ge in
which he explains his abstinence from tea and coffee, but I am sure I have =
the meaning
correctly. It is this; He tho=
ught
it bad economy and worthy of no true virtuoso to spoil the natural rapture =
of the
morning with such muddy stimulants; let him but see the sun rise, and he was
already sufficiently inspirited for the labours of the day. That may be reason good enough to =
abstain
from tea; but when we go on to find the same man, on the same or similar
grounds, abstain from nearly everything that his neighbours innocently and
pleasurably use, and from the rubs and trials of human society itself into =
the
bargain, we recognise that valetudinarian healthfulness which is more delic=
ate
than sickness itself. We need=
have
no respect for a state of artificial training. True health is to be able to do wi=
thout
it. Shakespeare, we can imagi=
ne,
might begin the day upon a quart of ale, and yet enjoy the sunrise to the f=
ull
as much as Thoreau, and commemorate his enjoyment in vastly better verses.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> A man who must separate himself fr=
om his
neighbours' habits in order to be happy, is in much the same case with one =
who
requires to take opium for the same purpose. What we want to see is one who can
breast into the world, do a man's work, and still preserve his first and pu=
re enjoyment
of existence.
Thoreau's faculties were of a piece with his m=
oral
shyness; for they were all delicacies.&nbs=
p;
He could guide himself about the woods on the darkest night by the t=
ouch
of his feet. He could pick up=
at once
an exact dozen of pencils by the feeling, pace distances with accuracy, and
gauge cubic contents by the eye.
His smell was so dainty that he could perceive the foetor of
dwelling-houses as he passed them by at night; his palate so unsophisticated
that, like a child, he disliked the taste of wine - or perhaps, living in A=
merica,
had never tasted any that was good; and his knowledge of nature was so comp=
lete
and curious that he could have told the time of year, within a day or so, by
the aspect of the plants. In =
his
dealings with animals, he was the original of Hawthorne's Donatello. He pul=
led
the woodchuck out of its hole by the tail; the hunted fox came to him for p=
rotection;
wild squirrels have been seen to nestle in his waistcoat; he would thrust h=
is
arm into a pool and bring forth a bright, panting fish, lying undismayed in=
the
palm of his hand. There were =
few
things that he could not do. =
He could
make a house, a boat, a pencil, or a book.=
He was a surveyor, a scholar, a natural historian. He could run, walk, climb, skate, =
swim,
and manage a boat. The smalle=
st occasion
served to display his physical accomplishment; and a manufacturer, from mer=
ely
observing his dexterity with the window of a railway carriage, offered him a
situation on the spot. "=
The
only fruit of much living," he observes, "is the ability to do so=
me
slight thing better." Bu=
t such
was the exactitude of his senses, so alive was he in every fibre, that it s=
eems
as if the maxim should be changed in his case, for he could do most things =
with
unusual perfection. And perha=
ps he
had an approving eye to himself when he wrote: "Though the youth at la=
st
grows indifferent, the laws of the universe are not indifferent, BUT ARE FOR
EVER ON THE SIDE OF THE MOST SENSITIVE."
=
II.
=
Thoreau
had decided, it would seem, from the very first to lead a life of
self-improvement: the needle did not tremble as with richer natures, but
pointed steadily north; and as he saw duty and inclination in one, he turned
all his strength in that direction.
He was met upon the threshold by a common difficulty. In this world, in spite of its many
agreeable features, even the most sensitive must undergo some drudgery to
live. It is not possible to d=
evote
your time to study and meditation without what are quaintly but happily
denominated private means; these absent, a man must contrive to earn his br=
ead
by some service to the public such as the public cares to pay him for; or, =
as
Thoreau loved to put it, Apollo must serve Admetus. This was to Thoreau even a sourer =
necessity
than it is to most; there was a love of freedom, a strain of the wild man, =
in
his nature, that rebelled with violence against the yoke of custom; and he =
was
so eager to cultivate himself and to be happy in his own society, that he c=
ould
consent with difficulty even to the interruptions of friendship. "SUCH ARE MY ENGAGEMENTS TO M=
YSELF
that I dare not promise," he once wrote in answer to an invitation; an=
d the
italics are his own. Marcus
Aurelius found time to study virtue, and between whiles to conduct the impe=
rial
affairs of Rome; but Thoreau is so busy improving himself, that he must thi=
nk
twice about a morning call. A=
nd now
imagine him condemned for eight hours a day to some uncongenial and unmeani=
ng
business! He shrank from the =
very
look of the mechanical in life; all should, if possible, be sweetly spontan=
eous
and swimmingly progressive. T=
hus he
learned to make lead-pencils, and, when he had gained the best certificate =
and
his friends began to congratulate him on his establishment in life, calmly
announced that he should never make another. "Why should I?" said he
"I would not do again what I have done once." For when a thing has once been don=
e as
well as it wants to be, it is of no further interest to the self-improver.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> Yet in after years, and when it be=
came needful
to support his family, he returned patiently to this mechanical art - a step
more than worthy of himself.
The pencils seem to have been Apollo's first
experiment in the service of Admetus; but others followed. "I have thoroughly tried
school-keeping," he writes, "and found that my expenses were in
proportion, or rather out of proportion, to my income; for I was obliged to
dress and train, not to say think and believe, accordingly, and I lost my t=
ime
into the bargain. As I did not
teach for the benefit of my fellow-men, but simply for a livelihood, this w=
as a
failure. I have tried trade, but I found that it would take ten years to get
under way in that, and that then I should probably be on my way to the
devil." Nothing, indeed,=
can
surpass his scorn for all so-called business. Upon that subject gall squirts fro=
m him
at a touch. "The whole
enterprise of this nation is not illustrated by a thought," he writes;
"it is not warmed by a sentiment; there is nothing in it for which a m=
an
should lay down his life, nor even his gloves." And again: "If our merchants =
did
not most of them fail, and the banks too, my faith in the old laws of this
world would be staggered. The
statement that ninety-six in a hundred doing such business surely break dow=
n is
perhaps the sweetest fact that statistics have revealed." The wish was probably father to the
figures; but there is something enlivening in a hatred of so genuine a bran=
d,
hot as Corsican revenge, and sneering like Voltaire.
Pencils, school-keeping, and trade being thus
discarded one after another, Thoreau, with a stroke of strategy, turned the=
position. He saw his way to get his board and
lodging for practically nothing; and Admetus never got less work out of any
servant since the world began. It
was his ambition to be an oriental philosopher; but he was always a very Ya=
nkee
sort of oriental. Even in the
peculiar attitude in which he stood to money, his system of personal econom=
ics,
as we may call it, he displayed a vast amount of truly down-East calculatio=
n,
and he adopted poverty like a piece of business. Yet his system is based on=
one
or two ideas which, I believe, come naturally to all thoughtful youths, and=
are
only pounded out of them by city uncles.&n=
bsp;
Indeed, something essentially youthful distinguishes all Thoreau's
knock-down blows at current opinion.
Like the posers of a child, they leave the orthodox in a kind of
speechless agony. These know =
the
thing is nonsense. They are s=
ure
there must be an answer, yet somehow cannot find it. So it is with his system of econom=
y. He
cuts through the subject on so new a plane that the accepted arguments appl=
y no
longer; he attacks it in a new dialect where there are no catchwords ready =
made
for the defender; after you have been boxing for years on a polite, gladiat=
orial
convention, here is an assailant who does not scruple to hit below the belt=
.
"The cost of a thing," says he, &quo=
t;is
THE AMOUNT OF WHAT I WILL CALL LIFE which is required to be exchanged for i=
t, immediately
or in the long run." I h=
ave
been accustomed to put it to myself, perhaps more clearly, that the price w=
e have
to pay for money is paid in liberty.
Between these two ways of it, at least, the reader will probably not
fail to find a third definition of his own; and it follows, on one or other,
that a man may pay too dearly for his livelihood, by giving, in Thoreau's
terms, his whole life for it, or, in mine, bartering for it the whole of his
available liberty, and becoming a slave till death. There are two questions to be cons=
idered
- the quality of what we buy, and the price we have to pay for it. Do you want a thousand a year, a t=
wo thousand
a year, or a ten thousand a year livelihood? and can you afford the one you
want? It is a matter of taste=
; it
is not in the least degree a question of duty, though commonly supposed
so. But there is no authority=
for
that view anywhere. It is now=
here
in the Bible. It is true that=
we might
do a vast amount of good if we were wealthy, but it is also highly improbab=
le;
not many do; and the art of growing rich is not only quite distinct from th=
at
of doing good, but the practice of the one does not at all train a man for =
practising
the other. "Money might =
be of
great service to me," writes Thoreau; "but the difficulty now is =
that
I do not improve my opportunities, and therefore I am not prepared to have =
my
opportunities increased." It
is a mere illusion that, above a certain income, the personal desires will =
be satisfied
and leave a wider margin for the generous impulse. It is as difficult to be
generous, or anything else, except perhaps a member of Parliament, on thirty
thousand as on two hundred a year.
Now Thoreau's tastes were well defined. He loved to be free, to be master =
of his
times and seasons, to indulge the mind rather than the body; he preferred l=
ong
rambles to rich dinners, his own reflections to the consideration of societ=
y, and
an easy, calm, unfettered, active life among green trees to dull toiling at=
the
counter of a bank. And such b=
eing
his inclination he determined to gratify it. A poor man must save off something=
; he
determined to save off his livelihood. "When a man has attained those
things which are necessary to life," he writes, "there is another
alternative than to obtain the superfluities; HE MAY ADVENTURE ON LIFE NOW,=
his
vacation from humbler toil having commenced." Thoreau would get shelter, some ki=
nd of
covering for his body, and necessary daily bread; even these he should get =
as
cheaply as possible; and then, his vacation from humbler toil having commen=
ced,
devote himself to oriental philosophers, the study of nature, and the work =
of
self-improvement.
Prudence, which bids us all go to the ant for
wisdom and hoard against the day of sickness, was not a favourite with Thor=
eau. He preferred that other, whose nam=
e is
so much misappropriated: Faith.
When he had secured the necessaries of the moment, he would not reck=
on
up possible accidents or torment himself with trouble for the future. He had no toleration for the man
"who ventures to live only by the aid of the mutual insurance company,
which has promised to bury him decently." He would trust himself a little to=
the
world. "We may safely trust a good deal more than we do," says he=
. "How
much is not done by us! or what if we had been taken sick?" And then, with a stab of satire, he
describes contemporary mankind in a phrase: "All the day long on the a=
lert,
at night we unwillingly say our prayers and commit ourselves to
uncertainties." It is not
likely that the public will be much affected by Thoreau, when they blink th=
e direct
injunctions of the religion they profess; and yet, whether we will or no, we
make the same hazardous ventures; we back our own health and the honesty of=
our
neighbours for all that we are worth; and it is chilling to think how many =
must
lose their wager.
In 1845, twenty-eight years old, an age by whi=
ch
the liveliest have usually declined into some conformity with the world,
Thoreau, with a capital of something less than five pounds and a borrowed a=
xe,
walked forth into the woods by Walden Pond, and began his new experiment in
life. He built himself a dwel=
ling,
and returned the axe, he says with characteristic and workman-like pride,
sharper than when he borrowed it; he reclaimed a patch, where he cultivated
beans, peas, potatoes, and sweet corn; he had his bread to bake, his farm to
dig, and for the matter of six weeks in the summer he worked at surveying,
carpentry, or some other of his numerous dexterities, for hire.
For more than five years, this was all that he
required to do for his support, and he had the winter and most of the summe=
r at
his entire disposal. For six =
weeks
of occupation, a little cooking and a little gentle hygienic gardening, the=
man,
you may say, had as good as stolen his livelihood. Or we must rather allow that he ha=
d done
far better; for the thief himself is continually and busily occupied; and e=
ven one
born to inherit a million will have more calls upon his time than Thoreau.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> Well might he say, "What old =
people
tell you you cannot do, you try and find you can." And how surprising is his conclusi=
on:
"I am convinced that TO MAINTAIN ONESELF ON THIS EARTH IS NOT A HARDSH=
IP,
BUT A PASTIME, if we will live simply and wisely; AS THE PURSUITS OF SIMPLER
NATIONS ARE STILL THE SPORTS OF THE MORE ARTIFICIAL."
When he had enough of that kind of life, he sh=
owed
the same simplicity in giving it up as in beginning it. There are some who could have done=
the
one, but, vanity forbidding, not the other; and that is perhaps the story of
the hermits; but Thoreau made no fetish of his own example, and did what he=
wanted
squarely. And five years is l=
ong
enough for an experiment and to prove the success of transcendental Yankeei=
sm. It is not his frugality which is w=
orthy
of note; for, to begin with, that was inborn, and therefore inimitable by
others who are differently constituted; and again, it was no new thing, but=
has
often been equalled by poor Scotch students at the universities. The point is the sanity of his vie=
w of
life, and the insight with which he recognised the position of money, and
thought out for himself the problem of riches and a livelihood. Apart from his eccentricities, he =
had
perceived, and was acting on, a truth of universal application. For money enters in two different
characters into the scheme of life.
A certain amount, varying with the number and empire of our desires,=
is
a true necessary to each one of us in the present order of society; but bey=
ond
that amount, money is a commodity to be bought or not to be bought, a luxur=
y in
which we may either indulge or stint ourselves, like any other. And there are many luxuries that w=
e may
legitimately prefer to it, such as a grateful conscience, a country life, or
the woman of our inclination. Trite, flat, and obvious as this conclusion m=
ay
appear, we have only to look round us in society to see how scantily it has
been recognised; and perhaps even ourselves, after a little reflection, may
decide to spend a trifle less for money, and indulge ourselves a trifle mor=
e in
the article of freedom.
=
III.
=
"To
have done anything by which you earned money merely," says Thoreau,
"is to be" (have been, he means) "idle and worse." There are two passages in his lett=
ers,
both, oddly enough, relating to firewood, which must be brought together to=
be
rightly understood. So taken,=
they
contain between them the marrow of all good sense on the subject of work in=
its
relation to something broader than mere livelihood. Here is the first: "I suppose=
I
have burned up a good-sized tree to-night - and for what? I settled with Mr. Tarbell for it =
the
other day; but that wasn't the final settlement. I got off cheaply from him. At last one will say: 'Let us see,=
how much
wood did you burn, sir?' And I
shall shudder to think that the next question will be, 'What did you do whi=
le
you were warm?'" Even af=
ter we
have settled with Admetus in the person of Mr. Tarbell, there comes, you se=
e, a
further question. It is not e=
nough
to have earned our livelihood. Either the earning itself should have been
serviceable to mankind, or something else must follow. To live is sometimes very difficul=
t, but
it is never meritorious in itself; and we must have a reason to allege to o=
ur
own conscience why we should continue to exist upon this crowded earth.
If Thoreau had simply dwelt in his house at Wa=
lden,
a lover of trees, birds, and fishes, and the open air and virtue, a reader =
of
wise books, an idle, selfish self-improver, he would have managed to cheat
Admetus, but, to cling to metaphor, the devil would have had him in the
end. Those who can avoid toil
altogether and dwell in the Arcadia of private means, and even those who ca=
n,
by abstinence, reduce the necessary amount of it to some six weeks a year,
having the more liberty, have only the higher moral obligation to be up and
doing in the interest of man.
The second passage is this: "There is a f=
ar
more important and warming heat, commonly lost, which precedes the burning =
of
the wood. It is the smoke of
industry, which is incense. I had been so thoroughly warmed in body and spi=
rit,
that when at length my fuel was housed, I came near selling it to the ashma=
n,
as if I had extracted all its heat."&=
nbsp;
Industry is, in itself and when properly chosen, delightful and
profitable to the worker; and when your toil has been a pleasure, you have =
not,
as Thoreau says, "earned money merely," but money, health, deligh=
t,
and moral profit, all in one.
"We must heap up a great pile of doing for a small diameter of
being," he says in another place; and then exclaims, "How admirab=
ly
the artist is made to accomplish his self-culture by devotion to his
art!" We may escape
uncongenial toil, only to devote ourselves to that which is congenial. It is only to transact some higher
business that even Apollo dare play the truant from Admetus. We must all work for the sake of w=
ork;
we must all work, as Thoreau says again, in any "absorbing pursuit - it
does not much matter what, so it be honest;" but the most profitable w=
ork
is that which combines into one continued effort the largest proportion of =
the
powers and desires of a man's nature; that into which he will plunge with
ardour, and from which he will desist with reluctance; in which he will know
the weariness of fatigue, but not that of satiety; and which will be ever
fresh, pleasing, and stimulating to his taste. Such work holds a man together, br=
aced
at all points; it does not suffer him to doze or wander; it keeps him activ=
ely
conscious of himself, yet raised among superior interests; it gives him the
profit of industry with the pleasures of a pastime. This is what his art should be to =
the
true artist, and that to a degree unknown in other and less intimate
pursuits. For other professio=
ns
stand apart from the human business of life; but an art has its seat at the
centre of the artist's doings and sufferings, deals directly with his
experiences, teaches him the lessons of his own fortunes and mishaps, and
becomes a part of his biography. So
says Goethe:
=
"Spat
erklingt was fruh erklang; Gluck und Ungluck wird Gesang."
= Now Thoreau's art was literature; and it was one of which he had conceived most ambitiously. He loved and bel= ieved in good books. He said well, "Life is not habitually seen from any common platform so truly and unexaggerated as in the light of literature." But the literature he loved was of= the heroic order. "Books, not which afford us a cowering enjoyment, but in which each thought is of unusual dar= ing; such as an idle man cannot read, and a timid one would not be entertained b= y, which even make us dangerous to existing institutions - such I call good bo= oks." He did not think them easy to be read. "The heroic books,= " he says, "even if printed in the character of our mother-tongue, will always be in a language dead to degenerate times; and we must laboriously s= eek the meaning of each word and line, conjecturing a larger sense than common = use permits out of what wisdom and valour and generosity we have." Nor does he suppose that such book= s are easily written. "Great p= rose, of equal elevation, commands our respect more than great verse," says = he, "since it implies a more permanent and level height, a life more perva= ded with the grandeur of the thought. The poet often only makes an irruption, like the Parthian, and is off again, shooting while he retreats; but the prose writer has conquered like a Roman and settled colonies." We may ask ourselves, almost with dismay, whether such works exist a= t all but in the imagination of the student.&nbs= p; For the bulk of the best of books is apt to be made up with ballast;= and those in which energy of thought is combined with any stateliness of uttera= nce may be almost counted on the fingers. Looking round in English for a book that should answer Thoreau's two demands of a style like poetry and sense that shall be both original and inspiriting, I come to Milton's AREOPAGITICA, and can name no other instance for the moment. Two things at= least are plain: that if a man will condescend to nothing more commonplace in the= way of reading, he must not look to have a large library; and that if he propos= es himself to write in a similar vein, he will find his work cut out for him.<= o:p>
Thoreau composed seemingly while he walked, or=
at
least exercise and composition were with him intimately connected; for we a=
re
told that "the length of his walk uniformly made the length of his
writing." He speaks in o=
ne
place of "plainness and vigour, the ornaments of style," which is=
rather
too paradoxical to be comprehensively, true.
In another he remarks: "As for style of
writing, if one has anything to say it drops from him simply as a stone fal=
ls to
the ground." We must
conjecture a very large sense indeed for the phrase "if one has anythi=
ng
to say." When truth flow=
s from
a man, fittingly clothed in style and without conscious effort, it is becau=
se
the effort has been made and the work practically completed before he sat d=
own
to write. It is only out of fulness of thinking that expression drops perfe=
ct
like a ripe fruit; and when Thoreau wrote so nonchalantly at his desk, it w=
as
because he had been vigorously active during his walk. For neither clearness compression,=
nor
beauty of language, come to any living creature till after a busy and a
prolonged acquaintance with the subject on hand. Easy writers are those who, like W=
alter Scott,
choose to remain contented with a less degree of perfection than is
legitimately within the compass of their powers. We hear of Shakespeare and his cle=
an
manuscript; but in face of the evidence of the style itself and of the vari=
ous
editions of HAMLET, this merely proves that Messrs. Hemming and Condell were
unacquainted with the common enough phenomenon called a fair copy. He who would recast a tragedy alre=
ady
given to the world must frequently and earnestly have revised details in the
study. Thoreau himself, and in
spite of his protestations, is an instance of even extreme research in one
direction; and his effort after heroic utterance is proved not only by the
occasional finish, but by the determined exaggeration of his style. "I trust you realise what an
exaggerator I am - that I lay myself out to exaggerate," he writes.
Thoreau's true subject was the pursuit of
self-improvement combined with an unfriendly criticism of life as it goes o=
n in
our societies; it is there that he best displays the freshness and surprisi=
ng
trenchancy of his intellect; it is there that his style becomes plain and
vigorous, and therefore, according to his own formula, ornamental. Yet he did not care to follow this=
vein
singly, but must drop into it by the way in books of a different purport. WALDEN, OR LIFE IN THE WOODS, A WE=
EK ON
THE CONCORD AND MERRIMACK RIVERS, THE MAINE WOODS, - such are the titles he
affects. He was probably reminded by his delicate critical perception that =
the
true business of literature is with narrative; in reasoned narrative, and t=
here
alone, that art enjoys all its advantages, and suffers least from its
defects. Dry precept and
disembodied disquisition, as they can only be read with an effort of
abstraction, can never convey a perfectly complete or a perfectly natural
impression. Truth, even in li=
terature,
must be clothed with flesh and blood, or it cannot tell its whole story to =
the
reader. Hence the effect of
anecdote on simple minds; and hence good biographies and works of high,
imaginative art, are not only far more entertaining, but far more edifying,
than books of theory or precept.
Now Thoreau could not clothe his opinions in the garment of art, for
that was not his talent; but he sought to gain the same elbow-room for hims=
elf,
and to afford a similar relief to his readers, by mingling his thoughts wit=
h a
record of experience.
Again, he was a lover of nature. The quality which we should call m=
ystery
in a painting, and which belongs so particularly to the aspect of the exter=
nal
world and to its influence upon our feelings, was one which he was never we=
ary
of attempting to reproduce in his books.&n=
bsp;
The seeming significance of nature's appearances, their unchanging
strangeness to the senses, and the thrilling response which they waken in t=
he mind
of man, continued to surprise and stimulate his spirits. It appeared to him=
, I
think, that if we could only write near enough to the facts, and yet with no
pedestrian calm, but ardently, we might transfer the glamour of reality dir=
ect upon
our pages; and that, if it were once thus captured and expressed, a new and
instructive relation might appear between men's thoughts and the phenomena =
of
nature. This was the eagle th=
at he
pursued all his life long, like a schoolboy with a butterfly net. Hear him to a friend: "Let me
suggest a theme for you - to state to yourself precisely and completely what
that walk over the mountains amounted to for you, returning to this essay a=
gain
and again until you are satisfied that all that was important in your
experience is in it. Don't su=
ppose
that you can tell it precisely the first dozen times you try, but at 'em ag=
ain;
especially when, after a sufficient pause you suspect that you are touching=
the
heart or summit of the matter, reiterate your blows there, and account for =
the
mountain to yourself. Not tha=
t the
story need be long, but it will take a long while to make it short." Such was the method, not consisten=
t for
a man whose meanings were to "drop from him as a stone falls to the gr=
ound." Perhaps the most successful work t=
hat
Thoreau ever accomplished in this direction is to be found in the passages =
relating
to fish in the WEEK. These are
remarkable for a vivid truth of impression and a happy suitability of langu=
age,
not frequently surpassed.
Whatever Thoreau tried to do was tried in fair,
square prose, with sentences solidly built, and no help from bastard rhythm=
s. Moreover, there is a progression -=
I
cannot call it a progress - in his work towards a more and more strictly pr=
osaic
level, until at last he sinks into the bathos of the prosy. Emerson mentions having once remar=
ked to
Thoreau: "Who would not like to write something which all can read, li=
ke
ROBINSON CRUSOE? and who does not see with regret that his page is not solid
with a right materialistic treatment which delights everybody?" I must say in passing that it is n=
ot the
right materialistic treatment which delights the world in ROBINSON, but the
romantic and philosophic interest of the fable. The same treatment does quite the
reverse of delighting us when it is applied, in COLONEL JACK, to the manage=
ment
of a plantation. But I cannot=
help
suspecting Thoreau to have been influenced either by this identical remark =
or
by some other closely similar in meaning.&=
nbsp;
He began to fall more and more into a detailed materialistic treatme=
nt;
he went into the business doggedly, as one who should make a guide-book; he=
not
only chronicled what had been important in his own experience, but whatever
might have been important in the experience of anybody else; not only what =
had
affected him, but all that he saw or heard. His ardour had grown less, or perh=
aps it
was inconsistent with a right materialistic treatment to display such emoti=
ons
as he felt; and, to complete the eventful change, he chose, from a sense of
moral dignity, to gut these later works of the saving quality of humour.
There are but three books of his that will be =
read
with much pleasure: the WEEK, WALDEN, and the collected letters. As to his poetry, Emerson's word s=
hall
suffice for us, it is so accurate and so prettily said: "The thyme and
majoram are not yet honey." In
this, as in his prose, he relied greatly on the goodwill of the reader, and
wrote throughout in faith. It was an exercise of faith to suppose that many
would understand the sense of his best work, or that any could be exhilarat=
ed
by the dreary chronicling of his worst.&nb=
sp;
"But," as he says, "the gods do not hear any rude or
discordant sound, as we learn from the echo; and I know that the nature tow=
ards
which I launch these sounds is so rich that it will modulate anew and
wonderfully improve my rudest strain."
=
IV.
=
"What
means the fact," he cries, "that a soul which has lost all hope f=
or
itself can inspire in another listening soul such an infinite confidence in=
it,
even while it is expressing its despair?" The question is an echo and an ill=
ustration
of the words last quoted; and it forms the key- note of his thoughts on
friendship. No one else, to m=
y knowledge,
has spoken in so high and just a spirit of the kindly relations; and I doubt
whether it be a drawback that these lessons should come from one in many wa=
ys
so unfitted to be a teacher in this branch. The very coldness and egoism of hi=
s own intercourse
gave him a clearer insight into the intellectual basis of our warm, mutual
tolerations; and testimony to their worth comes with added force from one w=
ho was
solitary and obliging, and of whom a friend remarked, with equal wit and
wisdom, "I love Henry, but I cannot like him."
He can hardly be persuaded to make any distinc=
tion
between love and friendship; in such rarefied and freezing air, upon the
mountain-tops of meditation, had he taught himself to breathe. He was, indeed, too accurate an ob=
server
not to have remarked that "there exists already a natural disintereste=
dness
and liberality" between men and women; yet, he thought, "friendsh=
ip
is no respecter of sex."
Perhaps there is a sense in which the words are true; but they were =
spoken
in ignorance; and perhaps we shall have put the matter most correctly, if we
call love a foundation for a nearer and freer degree of friendship than can=
be
possible without it. For there are delicacies, eternal between persons of t=
he
same sex, which are melted and disappear in the warmth of love.
To both, if they are to be right, he attributes
the same nature and condition.
"We are not what we are," says he, "nor do we treat or
esteem each other for such, but for what we are capable of being." "A friend is one who incessan=
tly pays
us the compliment of expecting all the virtues from us, and who can appreci=
ate
them in us." "The f=
riend
asks no return but that his friend will religiously accept and wear and not
disgrace his apotheosis of him."
"It is the merit and preservation of friendship that it takes p=
lace
on a level higher than the actual characters of the parties would seem to
warrant." This is to put
friendship on a pedestal indeed; and yet the root of the matter is there; a=
nd
the last sentence, in particular, is like a light in a dark place, and makes
many mysteries plain. We are
different with different friends; yet if we look closely we shall find that
every such relation reposes on some particular apotheosis of oneself; with =
each
friend, although we could not distinguish it in words from any other, we ha=
ve
at least one special reputation to preserve: and it is thus that we run, wh=
en
mortified, to our friend or the woman that we love, not to hear ourselves c=
alled
better, but to be better men in point of fact. We seek this society to flatter
ourselves with our own good conduct.
And hence any falsehood in the relation, any incomplete or perverted
understanding, will spoil even the pleasure of these visits. Thus says Thoreau again: "Onl=
y lovers
know the value of truth." And
yet again: "They ask for words and deeds, when a true relation is word=
and
deed."
But it follows that since they are neither of =
them
so good as the other hopes, and each is, in a very honest manner, playing a
part above his powers, such an intercourse must often be disappointing to
both. "We may bid farewe=
ll
sooner than complain," says Thoreau, "for our complaint is too we=
ll grounded
to be uttered." "We=
have
not so good a right to hate any as our friend."
=
"It
were treason to our love And a sin to God above, One iota to abate Of a pur=
e,
impartial hate."
=
Love
is not blind, nor yet forgiving.
"O yes, believe me," as the song says, "Love has
eyes!" The nearer the
intimacy, the more cuttingly do we feel the unworthiness of those we love; =
and
because you love one, and would die for that love to-morrow, you have not
forgiven, and you never will forgive, that friend's misconduct. If you want a person's faults, go =
to
those who love him. They will=
not
tell you, but they know. And =
herein
lies the magnanimous courage of love, that it endures this knowledge without
change.
It required a cold, distant personality like t=
hat
of Thoreau, perhaps, to recognise and certainly to utter this truth; for a =
more
human love makes it a point of honour not to acknowledge those faults of wh=
ich
it is most conscious. But his=
point
of view is both high and dry. He
has no illusions; he does not give way to love any more than to hatred, but=
preserves
them both with care like valuable curiosities. A more bald-headed picture of life=
, if I
may so express myself, has seldom been presented. He is an egoist; he does not remem=
ber,
or does not think it worth while to remark, that, in these near intimacies,=
we
are ninety-nine times disappointed in our beggarly selves for once that we =
are disappointed
in our friend; that it is we who seem most frequently undeserving of the lo=
ve
that unites us; and that it is by our friend's conduct that we are continua=
lly
rebuked and yet strengthened for a fresh endeavour. Thoreau is dry, priggish, and
selfish. It is profit he is a=
fter
in these intimacies; moral profit, certainly, but still profit to himself.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> If you will be the sort of friend I
want, he remarks naively, "my education cannot dispense with your soci=
ety." His education! as though a friend =
were a
dictionary. And with all this=
, not
one word about pleasure, or laughter, or kisses, or any quality of flesh and
blood. It was not inappropriate, surely, that he had such close relations w=
ith
the fish. We can understand t=
he friend
already quoted, when he cried: "As for taking his arm, I would as soon
think of taking the arm of an elm-tree!"
As a matter of fact he experienced but a broken
enjoyment in his intimacies. =
He
says he has been perpetually on the brink of the sort of intercourse he wan=
ted,
and yet never completely attained it.
And what else had he to expect when he would not, in a happy phrase =
of
Carlyle's, "nestle down into it"? Truly, so it will be always if you=
only
stroll in upon your friends as you might stroll in to see a cricket match; =
and
even then not simply for the pleasure of the thing, but with some afterthou=
ght
of self-improvement, as though you had come to the cricket match to bet.
The secret of his retirement lies not in
misanthropy, of which he had no tincture, but part in his engrossing design=
of
self-improvement and part in the real deficiencies of social intercourse. He was not so much difficult about=
his fellow
human beings as he could not tolerate the terms of their association. He could take to a man for any gen=
uine qualities,
as we see by his admirable sketch of the Canadian woodcutter in WALDEN; but=
he
would not consent, in his own words, to "feebly fabulate and paddle in=
the
social slush." It seemed to him, I think, that society is precisely th=
e reverse
of friendship, in that it takes place on a lower level than the characters =
of
any of the parties would warrant us to expect. The society talk of even the most
brilliant man is of greatly less account than what you will get from him in=
(as
the French say) a little committee.
And Thoreau wanted geniality; he had not enough of the superficial, =
even
at command; he could not swoop into a parlour and, in the naval phrase,
"cut out" a human being from that dreary port; nor had he inclina=
tion
for the task. I suspect he lo=
ved books
and nature as well and near as warmly as he loved his fellow-creatures, - a
melancholy, lean degeneration of the human character.
"As for the dispute about solitude and
society," he thus sums up: "Any comparison is impertinent. It is an idling down on the plain =
at the
base of the mountain instead of climbing steadily to its top. Of course you will be glad of all =
the society
you can get to go up with? Wi=
ll you
go to glory with me? is the burden of the song. It is not that we love to be alone=
, but
that we love to soar, and when we do soar the company grows thinner and thi=
nner
till there is none at all. It is either the tribune on the plain, a sermon =
on
the mount, or a very private ecstasy still higher up. Use all the society that will abet
you." But surely it is n=
o very
extravagant opinion that it is better to give than to receive, to serve tha=
n to
use our companions; and above all, where there is no question of service up=
on
either side, that it is good to enjoy their company like a natural man. It is curious and in some ways
dispiriting that a writer may be always best corrected out of his own mouth;
and so, to conclude, here is another passage from Thoreau which seems aimed
directly at himself: "Do not be too moral; you may cheat yourself out =
of
much life so. . . . ALL FABLE=
S, INDEED,
HAVE THEIR MORALS; BUT THE INNOCENT ENJOY THE STORY."
=
V.
=
"The
only obligation," says he, "which I have a right to assume is to =
do
at any time what I think right."
"Why should we ever go abroad, even across the way, to ask a
neighbour's advice?"
"There is a nearer neighbour within, who is incessantly telling=
us
how we should behave. BUT WE =
WAIT
FOR THE NEIGHBOUR WITHOUT TO TELL US OF SOME FALSE, EASIER WAY." "=
;The
greater part of what my neighbours call good I believe in my soul to be
bad." To be what we are,=
and
to become what we are capable of becoming, is the only end of life. It is "when we fall behind
ourselves" that "we are cursed with duties and the neglect of
duties." "I love the
wild," he says, "not less than the good." And again: "The life of a goo=
d man
will hardly improve us more than the life of a freebooter, for the inevitab=
le
laws appear as plainly in the infringement as in the observance, and"
(mark this) "OUR LIVES ARE SUSTAINED BY A NEARLY EQUAL EXPENSE OF VIRT=
UE
OF SOME KIND." Even alth=
ough
he were a prig, it will be owned he could announce a startling doctrine.
There is a rude nobility, like that of a barba=
rian
king, in this unshaken confidence in himself and indifference to the wants,
thoughts, or sufferings of others.
In his whole works I find no trace of pity. This was partly the result of theo=
ry,
for he held the world too mysterious to be criticised, and asks conclusivel=
y:
"What right have I to grieve who have not ceased to wonder?" But it sprang still more from
constitutional indifference and superiority; and he grew up healthy, compos=
ed,
and unconscious from among life's horrors, like a green bay-tree from a fie=
ld
of battle. It was from this l=
ack in
himself that he failed to do justice to the spirit of Christ; for while he
could glean more meaning from individual precepts than any score of Christi=
ans,
yet he conceived life in such a different hope, and viewed it with such
contrary emotions, that the sense and purport of the doctrine as a whole se=
ems
to have passed him by or left him unimpressed. He could understand the idealism o=
f the Christian
view, but he was himself so unaffectedly unhuman that he did not recognise =
the
human intention and essence of that teaching. Hence he complained that Christ di=
d not
leave us a rule that was proper and sufficient for this world, not having
conceived the nature of the rule that was laid down; for things of that
character that are sufficiently unacceptable become positively non-existent=
to
the mind. But perhaps we shal=
l best
appreciate the defect in Thoreau by seeing it supplied in the case of
Whitman. For the one, I feel
confident, is the disciple of the other; it is what Thoreau clearly whisper=
ed
that Whitman so uproariously bawls; it is the same doctrine, but with how
immense a difference! the same argument, but used to what a new conclusion!=
Thoreau
had plenty of humour until he tutored himself out of it, and so forfeited t=
hat
best birthright of a sensible man; Whitman, in that respect, seems to have =
been
sent into the world naked and unashamed; and yet by a strange consummation,=
it
is the theory of the former that is arid, abstract, and claustral. Of these two philosophies so nearly
identical at bottom, the one pursues Self-improvement - a churlish, mangy d=
og;
the other is up with the morning, in the best of health, and following the
nymph Happiness, buxom, blithe, and debonair. Happiness, at least, is not solita=
ry; it
joys to communicate; it loves others, for it depends on them for its existe=
nce;
it sanctions and encourages to all delights that are not unkind in themselv=
es;
if it lived to a thousand, it would not make excision of a single humorous
passage; and while the self-improver dwindles towards the prig, and, if he =
be
not of an excellent constitution may even grow deformed into an Obermann, t=
he
very name and appearance of a happy man breathe of good-nature, and help the
rest of us to live.
In the case of Thoreau, so great a show of doc=
trine
demands some outcome in the field of action. If nothing were to be done but bui=
ld a
shanty beside Walden Pond, we have heard altogether too much of these
declarations of independence. That the man wrote some books is nothing to t=
he
purpose, for the same has been done in a suburban villa. That he kept himself happy is perh=
aps a
sufficient excuse, but it is disappointing to the reader. We may be unjust, but when a man
despises commerce and philanthropy alike, and has views of good so soaring =
that
he must take himself apart from mankind for their cultivation, we will not =
be
content without some striking act.
It was not Thoreau's fault if he were not martyred; had the occasion
come, he would have made a noble ending.&n=
bsp;
As it is, he did once seek to interfere in the world's course; he ma=
de
one practical appearance on the stage of affairs; and a strange one it was,=
and
strangely characteristic of the nobility and the eccentricity of the man. It was forced on him by his calm b=
ut
radical opposition to negro slavery.
"Voting for the right is doing nothing for it," he saw;
"it is only expressing to men feebly your desire that it should
prevail." For his part, =
he
would not "for an instant recognise that political organisation for HI=
S government
which is the SLAVE'S government also." "I do not hesitate to say,&qu=
ot; he
adds, "that those who call themselves Abolitionists should at once
effectually withdraw their support, both in person and property, from the
government of Massachusetts."
That is what he did: in 1843 he ceased to pay the poll-tax. The highway-tax he paid, for he sa=
id he was
as desirous to be a good neighbour as to be a bad subject; but no more poll=
-tax
to the State of Massachusetts. Thoreau had now seceded, and was a polity un=
to
himself; or, as he explains it with admirable sense, "In fact, I quiet=
ly declare
war with the State after my fashion, though I will still make what use and =
get
what advantage of her I can, as is usual in such cases." He was put in prison; but that was=
a
part of his design. "Und=
er a
government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is a=
lso
a prison. I know this well, that if one thousand, if one hundred, if ten men
whom I could name - ay, if ONE HONEST man, in this State of Massachusetts,
CEASING TO HOLD SLAVES, were actually to withdraw from this copartnership, =
and
be locked up in the county gaol therefor, it would be the abolition of slav=
ery
in America. For it matters no=
t how
small the beginning may seem to be; what is once well done is done for
ever." Such was his theo=
ry of
civil disobedience.
And the upshot? A friend paid the tax for him; con=
tinued
year by year to pay it in the sequel; and Thoreau was free to walk the woods
unmolested. It was a FIASCO, =
but to
me it does not seem laughable; even those who joined in the laughter at the
moment would be insensibly affected by this quaint instance of a good man's
horror for injustice. We may =
compute
the worth of that one night's imprisonment as outweighing half a hundred vo=
ters
at some subsequent election: and if Thoreau had possessed as great a power =
of persuasion
as (let us say) Falstaff, if he had counted a party however small, if his
example had been followed by a hundred or by thirty of his fellows, I cannot
but believe it would have greatly precipitated the era of freedom and justi=
ce. We feel the misdeeds of our countr=
y with
so little fervour, for we are not witnesses to the suffering they cause; but
when we see them wake an active horror in our fellow-man, when we see a
neighbour prefer to lie in prison rather than be so much as passively
implicated in their perpetration, even the dullest of us will begin to real=
ise them
with a quicker pulse.
Not far from twenty years later, when Captain =
John
Brown was taken at Harper's Ferry, Thoreau was the first to come forward in=
his
defence. The committees wrote=
to
him unanimously that his action was premature. "I did not send to you for
advice," said he, "but to announce that I was to speak." I have used the word
"defence;" in truth he did not seek to defend him, even declared =
it
would be better for the good cause that he should die; but he praised his
action as I think Brown would have liked to hear it praised.
Thus this singularly eccentric and independent
mind, wedded to a character of so much strength, singleness, and purity, pu=
rsued
its own path of self-improvement for more than half a century, part
gymnosophist, part backwoodsman; and thus did it come twice, though in a
subaltern attitude, into the field of political history.
=
NOTE.
- For many facts in the above essay, among which I may mention the incident=
of
the squirrel, I am indebted to THOREAU: HIS LIFE AND AIMS, by J. A. Page, o=
r,
as is well known, Dr. Japp.
THE name at the head of this page is probably
unknown to the English reader, and yet I think it should become a household=
word
like that of Garibaldi or John Brown.
Some day soon, we may expect to hear more fully the details of Yoshi=
da's
history, and the degree of his influence in the transformation of Japan; ev=
en
now there must be Englishmen acquainted with the subject, and perhaps the
appearance of this sketch may elicit something more complete and exact. I wish to say that I am not, right=
ly
speaking, the author of the present paper: I tell the story on the authorit=
y of
an intelligent Japanese gentleman, Mr. Taiso Masaki, who told it me with an
emotion that does honour to his heart; and though I have taken some pains, =
and
sent my notes to him to be corrected, this can be no more than an imperfect
outline.
Yoshida-Torajiro was son to the hereditary
military instructor of the house of Choshu. The name you are to pronounc=
e with
an equality of accent on the different syllables, almost as in French, the
vowels as in Italian, but the consonants in the English manner - except the=
J,
which has the French sound, or, as it has been cleverly proposed to write i=
t,
the sound of ZH. Yoshida was =
very
learned in Chinese letters, or, as we might say, in the classics, and in his
father's subject; fortification was among his favourite studies, and he was=
a
poet from his boyhood. He was=
born
to a lively and intelligent patriotism; the condition of Japan was his great
concern; and while he projected a better future, he lost no opportunity of
improving his knowledge of her present state. With this end he was continually t=
ravelling
in his youth, going on foot and sometimes with three days' provision on his
back, in the brave, self-helpful manner of all heroes. He kept a full diary while he was =
thus upon
his journeys, but it is feared that these notes have been destroyed. If their value were in any respect=
such
as we have reason to expect from the man's character, this would be a loss =
not
easy to exaggerate. It is sti=
ll
wonderful to the Japanese how far he contrived to push these explorations; a
cultured gentleman of that land and period would leave a complimentary poem
wherever he had been hospitably entertained; and a friend of Mr. Masaki, who
was likewise a great wanderer, has found such traces of Yoshida's passage i=
n very
remote regions of Japan.
Politics is perhaps the only profession for wh=
ich
no preparation is thought necessary; but Yoshida considered otherwise, and =
he
studied the miseries of his fellow- countrymen with as much attention and
research as though he had been going to write a book instead of merely to
propose a remedy. To a man of=
his
intensity and singleness, there is no question but that this survey was
melancholy in the extreme. His
dissatisfaction is proved by the eagerness with which he threw himself into=
the
cause of reform; and what would have discouraged another braced Yoshida for=
his
task. As he professed the theory of arms, it was firstly the defences of Ja=
pan
that occupied his mind. The
external feebleness of that country was then illustrated by the manners of
overriding barbarians, and the visit of big barbarian war ships: she was a
country beleaguered. Thus the=
patriotism
of Yoshida took a form which may be said to have defeated itself: he had it
upon him to keep out these all- powerful foreigners, whom it is now one of =
his
chief merits to have helped to introduce; but a man who follows his own vir=
tuous
heart will be always found in the end to have been fighting for the best. One thing leads naturally to anoth=
er in
an awakened mind, and that with an upward progress from effect to cause.
He was but twenty-two, and already all this was
clear in his mind, when news reached Choshu that Commodore Perry was lying =
near
to Yeddo. Here, then, was the
patriot's opportunity. Among the Samurai of Choshu, and in particular among=
the
councillors of the Daimio, his general culture, his views, which the
enlightened were eager to accept, and, above all, the prophetic charm, the
radiant persuasion of the man, had gained him many and sincere disciples. He had thus a strong influence at =
the
provincial Court; and so he obtained leave to quit the district, and, by wa=
y of
a pretext, a privilege to follow his profession in Yeddo. Thither he hurried, and arrived in=
time
to be too late: Perry had weighed anchor, and his sails had vanished from t=
he
waters of Japan. But Yoshida,
having put his hand to the plough, was not the man to go back; he had enter=
ed
upon this business, and, please God, he would carry it through; and so he g=
ave
up his professional career and remained in Yeddo to be at hand against the =
next
opportunity. By this behaviou=
r he
put himself into an attitude towards his superior, the Daimio of Choshu, wh=
ich
I cannot thoroughly explain.
Certainly, he became a RONYIN, a broken man, a feudal outlaw; certai=
nly
he was liable to be arrested if he set foot upon his native province; yet I=
am
cautioned that "he did not really break his allegiance," but only=
so
far separated himself as that the prince could no longer be held accountable
for his late vassal's conduct.
There is some nicety of feudal custom here that escapes my
comprehension.
In Yeddo, with this nondescript political stat=
us,
and cut off from any means of livelihood, he was joyfully supported by those
who sympathised with his design.
One was Sakuma- Shozan, hereditary retainer of one of the Shogun's c=
ouncillors,
and from him he got more than money or than money's worth. A steady, respectable man, with an=
eye
to the world's opinion, Sakuma was one of those who, if they cannot do great
deeds in their own person, have yet an ardour of admiration for those who c=
an,
that recommends them to the gratitude of history. They aid and abet greatness more, =
perhaps,
than we imagine. One thinks o=
f them
in connection with Nicodemus, who visited our Lord by night. And Sakuma was in a position to he=
lp
Yoshida more practically than by simple countenance; for he could read Dutc=
h,
and was eager to communicate what he knew.
While the young Ronyin thus lay studying in Ye=
ddo,
news came of a Russian ship at Nangasaki.&=
nbsp;
No time was to be lost. Sakuma contributed "a long copy of
encouraging verses and off set Yoshida on foot for Nangasaki. His way lay through his own provin=
ce of
Choshu; but, as the highroad to the south lay apart from the capital, he was
able to avoid arrest. He supp=
orted
himself, like a TROUVERE, by his proficiency in verse. He carried his works along with hi=
m, to
serve as an introduction. Whe=
n he
reached a town he would inquire for the house of any one celebrated for
swordsmanship, or poetry, or some of the other acknowledged forms of cultur=
e;
and there, on giving a taste of his skill, he would be received and
entertained, and leave behind him, when he went away, a compliment in
verse. Thus he travelled thro=
ugh
the Middle Ages on his voyage of discovery into the nineteenth century. Whe=
n he
reached Nangasaki he was once more too late. The Russians were gone. But he made a profit on his journe=
y in spite
of fate, and stayed awhile to pick up scraps of knowledge from the Dutch
interpreters - a low class of men, but one that had opportunities; and then,
still full of purpose, returned to Yeddo on foot, as he had come.
It was not only his youth and courage that
supported him under these successive disappointments, but the continual aff=
luence
of new disciples. The man had=
the
tenacity of a Bruce or a Columbus, with a pliability that was all his own. =
He
did not fight for what the world would call success; but for "the wage=
s of
going on." Check him off=
in a
dozen directions, he would find another outlet and break forth. He missed one vessel after another=
, and
the main work still halted; but so long as he had a single Japanese to
enlighten and prepare for the better future, he could still feel that he was
working for Japan. Now, he had
scarce returned from Nangasaki, when he was sought out by a new inquirer, t=
he
most promising of all. This w=
as a
common soldier, of the Hemming class, a dyer by birth, who had heard vaguely
(1) of Yoshida's movements, and had become filled with wonder as to their
design. This was a far differ=
ent
inquirer from Sakuma- Shozan, or the councillors of the Daimio of Choshu. This was no two-sworded gentleman,=
but
the common stuff of the country, born in low traditions and unimproved by
books; and yet that influence, that radiant persuasion that never failed Yo=
shida
in any circumstance of his short life, enchanted, enthralled, and converted=
the
common soldier, as it had done already with the elegant and learned. The man instantly burned up into a=
true
enthusiasm; his mind had been only waiting for a teacher; he grasped in a
moment the profit of these new ideas; he, too, would go to foreign, outland=
ish parts,
and bring back the knowledge that was to strengthen and renew Japan; and in=
the
meantime, that he might be the better prepared, Yoshida set himself to teac=
h,
and he to learn, the Chinese literature.&n=
bsp;
It is an episode most honourable to Yoshida, and yet more honourable
still to the soldier, and to the capacity and virtue of the common people of
Japan.
(1) Yoshida, when on his way to Nangasaki, met=
the
soldier and talked with him by the roadside; they then parted, but the sold=
ier
was so much struck by the words he heard, that on Yoshida's return he sought
him out and declared his intention of devoting his life to the good cause.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> I venture, in the absence of the w=
riter,
to insert this correction, having been present when the story was told by M=
r.
Masaki. - F. J. And I, there =
being
none to settle the difference, must reproduce both versions. - R. L. S.
And now, at length, Commodore Perry returned to
Simoda. Friends crowded round Yoshida with help, counsels, and encouragemen=
t. One presented him with a great swo=
rd,
three feet long and very heavy, which, in the exultation of the hour, he sw=
ore
to carry throughout all his wanderings, and to bring back - a far-travelled
weapon - to Japan. A long let=
ter
was prepared in Chinese for the American officers; it was revised and corre=
cted
by Sakuma, and signed by Yoshida, under the name of Urinaki-Manji, and by t=
he
soldier under that of Ichigi-Koda.
Yoshida had supplied himself with a profusion of materials for writi=
ng;
his dress was literally stuffed with paper which was to come back again
enriched with his observations, and make a great and happy kingdom of Japan=
. Thus equipped, this pair of emigra=
nts
set forward on foot from Yeddo, and reached Simoda about nightfall. At no period within history can tr=
avel
have presented to any European creature the same face of awe and terror as =
to
these courageous Japanese. The
descent of Ulysses into hell is a parallel more near the case than the bold=
est
expedition in the Polar circles.
For their act was unprecedented; it was criminal; and it was to take
them beyond the pale of humanity into a land of devils. It is not to be wondered at if the=
y were
thrilled by the thought of their unusual situation; and perhaps the soldier
gave utterance to the sentiment of both when he sang, "in Chinese
singing" (so that we see he had already profited by his lessons), these
two appropriate verses:
=
"We
do not know where we are to sleep to-night, In a thousand miles of desert w=
here
we can see no human smoke."
=
In a
little temple, hard by the sea-shore, they lay down to repose; sleep overto=
ok
them as they lay; and when they awoke, "the east was already white&quo=
t;
for their last morning in Japan. They seized a fisherman's boat and rowed o=
ut -
Perry lying far to sea because of the two tides. Their very manner of boarding was
significant of determination; for they had no sooner caught hold upon the s=
hip
than they kicked away their boat to make return impossible. And now you would have thought tha=
t all
was over. But the Commodore w=
as
already in treaty with the Shogun's Government; it was one of the stipulati=
ons
that no Japanese was to be aided in escaping from Japan; and Yoshida and his
followers were handed over as prisoners to the authorities at Simoda. That night he who had been to expl=
ore
the secrets of the barbarian slept, if he might sleep at all, in a cell too
short for lying down at full length, and too low for standing upright. There are some disappointments too=
great
for commentary.
Sakuma, implicated by his handwriting, was sent
into his own province in confinement, from which he was soon released. Yosh=
ida
and the soldier suffered a long and miserable period of captivity, and the
latter, indeed, died, while yet in prison, of a skin disease. But such a spirit as that of Yoshi=
da-Torajiro
is not easily made or kept a captive; and that which cannot be broken by
misfortune you shall seek in vain to confine in a bastille. He was indefatigably active, writi=
ng
reports to Government and treatises for dissemination. These latter were contraband; and =
yet he
found no difficulty in their distribution, for he always had the jailor on =
his
side. It was in vain that the=
y kept
changing him from one prison to another; Government by that plan only haste=
ned
the spread of new ideas; for Yoshida had only to arrive to make a convert.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> Thus, though he himself has laid b=
y the
heels, he confirmed and extended his party in the State.
At last, after many lesser transferences, he w=
as
given over from the prisons of the Shogun to those of his own superior, the
Daimio of Choshu. I conceive =
it
possible that he may then have served out his time for the attempt to leave
Japan, and was now resigned to the provincial Government on a lesser count,=
as
a Ronyin or feudal rebel. But,
however that may be, the change was of great importance to Yoshida; for by =
the influence
of his admirers in the Daimio's council, he was allowed the privilege,
underhand, of dwelling in his own house.&n=
bsp;
And there, as well to keep up communication with his fellow-reformer=
s as
to pursue his work of education, he received boys to teach. It must not be supposed that he wa=
s free;
he was too marked a man for that; he was probably assigned to some small
circle, and lived, as we should say, under police surveillance; but to him,=
who
had done so much from under lock and key, this would seem a large and profi=
table
liberty.
It was at this period that Mr. Masaki was brou=
ght
into personal contact with Yoshida; and hence, through the eyes of a boy of
thirteen, we get one good look at the character and habits of the hero. He was ugly and laughably disfigur=
ed with
the smallpox; and while nature had been so niggardly with him from the firs=
t,
his personal habits were even sluttish.&nb=
sp;
His clothes were wretched; when he ate or washed he wiped his hands =
upon
his sleeves; and as his hair was not tied more than once in the two months,=
it
was often disgusting to behold.
With such a picture, it is easy to believe that he never married.
(1) I understood that the merchant was
endeavouring surreptitiously to obtain for his son instruction to which he =
was
not entitled. - F. J.
This is the sight we have of him as he appeare=
d to
schoolboys, but not related in the schoolboy spirit. A man so careless of the graces mu=
st be
out of court with boys and women.
And, indeed, as we have all been more or less to school, it will
astonish no one that Yoshida was regarded by his scholars as a
laughing-stock. The schoolboy=
has a
keen sense of humour. Heroes =
he
learns to understand and to admire in books; but he is not forward to recog=
nise
the heroic under the traits of any contemporary man, and least of all in a
brawling, dirty, and eccentric teacher.&nb=
sp;
But as the years went by, and the scholars of Yoshida continued in v=
ain to
look around them for the abstractly perfect, and began more and more to
understand the drift of his instructions, they learned to look back upon th=
eir
comic school-master as upon the noblest of mankind.
The last act of this brief and full existence =
was
already near at hand. Some of=
his
work was done; for already there had been Dutch teachers admitted into
Nangasaki, and the country at large was keen for the new learning. But though the renaissance had beg=
un, it
was impeded and dangerously threatened by the power of the Shogun. His minister - the same who was
afterwards assassinated in the snow in the very midst of his bodyguard - not
only held back pupils from going to the Dutchmen, but by spies and detectiv=
es,
by imprisonment and death, kept thinning out of Japan the most intelligent =
and
active spirits. It is the old=
story
of a power upon its last legs - learning to the bastille, and courage to th=
e block;
when there are none left but sheep and donkeys, the State will have been
saved. But a man must not thi=
nk to
cope with a Revolution; nor a minister, however fortified with guards, to h=
old
in check a country that had given birth to such men as Yoshida and his
soldier-follower. The violenc=
e of
the ministerial Tarquin only served to direct attention to the illegality of
his master's rule; and people began to turn their allegiance from Yeddo and=
the
Shogun to the long- forgotten Mikado in his seclusion at Kioto. At this juncture, whether in conse=
quence
or not, the relations between these two rulers became strained; and the
Shogun's minister set forth for Kioto to put another affront upon the right=
ful
sovereign. The circumstance w=
as
well fitted to precipitate events.
It was a piece of religion to defend the Mikado; it was a plain piec=
e of
political righteousness to oppose a tyrannical and bloody usurpation. To Yoshida the moment for action s=
eemed
to have arrived. He was himse=
lf still
confined in Choshu. Nothing w=
as
free but his intelligence; but with that he sharpened a sword for the Shogu=
n's
minister. A party of his foll=
owers
were to waylay the tyrant at a village on the Yeddo and Kioto road, present=
him
with a petition, and put him to the sword.=
But Yoshida and his friends were closely observed; and the too great=
expedition
of two of the conspirators, a boy of eighteen and his brother, wakened the
suspicion of the authorities, and led to a full discovery of the plot and t=
he
arrest of all who were concerned.
In Yeddo, to which he was taken, Yoshida was
thrown again into a strict confinement.&nb=
sp;
But he was not left destitute of sympathy in this last hour of
trial. In the next cell lay o=
ne
Kusakabe, a reformer from the southern highlands of Satzuma. They were in prison for different =
plots
indeed, but for the same intention; they shared the same beliefs and the sa=
me
aspirations for Japan; many and long were the conversations they held throu=
gh
the prison wall, and dear was the sympathy that soon united them. It fell first to the lot of Kusaka=
be to
pass before the judges; and when sentence had been pronounced he was led
towards the place of death below Yoshida's window. To turn the head would have been t=
o implicate
his fellow-prisoner; but he threw him a look from his eye, and bade him
farewell in a loud voice, with these two Chinese verses:-
=
"It
is better to be a crystal and be broken, Than to remain perfect like a tile
upon the housetop."
=
So
Kusakabe, from the highlands of Satzuma, passed out of the theatre of this
world. His death was like an
antique worthy's.
A little after, and Yoshida too must appear be=
fore
the Court. His last scene was of a piece with his career, and fitly crowned
it. He seized on the opportun=
ity of
a public audience, confessed and gloried in his design, and, reading his
auditors a lesson in the history of their country, told at length the
illegality of the Shogun's power and the crimes by which its exercise was s=
ullied. So, having said his say for once, =
he was
led forth and executed, thirty-one years old.
A military engineer, a bold traveller (at leas=
t in
wish), a poet, a patriot, a schoolmaster, a friend to learning, a martyr to
reform, - there are not many men, dying at seventy, who have served their
country in such various characters.
He was not only wise and provident in thought, but surely one of the
fieriest of heroes in execution. It
is hard to say which is most remarkable - his capacity for command, which
subdued his very jailors; his hot, unflagging zeal; or his stubborn superio=
rity
to defeat. He failed in each
particular enterprise that he attempted; and yet we have only to look at his
country to see how complete has been his general success. His friends and
pupils made the majority of leaders in that final Revolution, now some twel=
ve
years old; and many of them are, or were until the other day, high placed a=
mong
the rulers of Japan. And when=
we
see all round us these brisk intelligent students, with their strange forei=
gn
air, we should never forget how Yoshida marched afoot from Choshu to Yeddo,=
and
from Yeddo to Nangasaki, and from Nangasaki back again to Yeddo; how he boa=
rded
the American ship, his dress stuffed with writing material; nor how he lang=
uished
in prison, and finally gave his death, as he had formerly given all his life
and strength and leisure, to gain for his native land that very benefit whi=
ch
she now enjoys so largely. It=
is
better to be Yoshida and perish, than to be only Sakuma and yet save the
hide. Kusakabe, of Satzuma, h=
as
said the word: it is better to be a crystal and be broken.
I must add a word; for I hope the reader will =
not
fail to perceive that this is as much the story of a heroic people as that =
of a
heroic man. It is not enough =
to
remember Yoshida; we must not forget the common soldier, nor Kusakabe, nor =
the boy
of eighteen, Nomura, of Choshu, whose eagerness betrayed the plot. It is exhilarating to have lived i=
n the
same days with these great-hearted gentlemen. Only a few miles from us, to speak=
by
the proportion of the universe, while I was droning over my lessons, Yoshida
was goading himself to be wakeful with the stings of the mosquito; and while
you were grudging a penny income tax, Kusakabe was stepping to death with a
noble sentence on his lips.
PERHAPS one of the most curious revolutions in
literary history is the sudden bull's-eye light cast by M. Longnon on the
obscure existence of Francois Villon. (1) His book is not remarkable m=
erely
as a chapter of biography exhumed after four centuries. To readers of the poet it will rec=
all,
with a flavour of satire, that characteristic passage in which he bequeaths=
his
spectacles - with a humorous reservation of the case - to the hospital for
blind paupers known as the Fifteen-Score.&=
nbsp;
Thus equipped, let the blind paupers go and separate the good from t=
he
bad in the cemetery of the Innocents!
For his own part the poet can see no distinction. Much have the dead
people made of their advantages.
What does it matter now that they have lain in state beds and nouris=
hed
portly bodies upon cakes and cream!
Here they all lie, to be trodden in the mud; the large estate and th=
e small,
sounding virtue and adroit or powerful vice, in very much the same conditio=
n;
and a bishop not to be distinguished from a lamp-lighter with even the
strongest spectacles.
(1) ETUDE BIOGRAPHIQUE SUR FRANCOIS VILLON.
Such was Villon's cynical philosophy. Four hundred years after his death=
, when
surely all danger might be considered at an end, a pair of critical spectac=
les
have been applied to his own remains; and though he left behind him a
sufficiently ragged reputation from the first, it is only after these four =
hundred
years that his delinquencies have been finally tracked home, and we can ass=
ign
him to his proper place among the good or wicked. It is a staggering thought, and on=
e that
affords a fine figure of the imperishability of men's acts, that the stealt=
h of
the private inquiry office can be carried so far back into the dead and dus=
ty
past. We are not so soon quit=
of
our concerns as Villon fancied. In
the extreme of dissolution, when not so much as a man's name is remembered,=
when
his dust is scattered to the four winds, and perhaps the very grave and the
very graveyard where he was laid to rest have been forgotten, desecrated, a=
nd
buried under populous towns, - even in this extreme let an antiquary fall
across a sheet of manuscript, and the name will be recalled, the old infamy
will pop out into daylight like a toad out of a fissure in the rock, and the
shadow of the shade of what was once a man will be heartily pilloried by his
descendants. A little while a=
go and
Villon was almost totally forgotten; then he was revived for the sake of his
verses; and now he is being revived with a vengeance in the detection of hi=
s misdemeanours. How unsubstantial is this projecti=
on of
a man's existence, which can lie in abeyance for centuries and then be brus=
hed
up again and set forth for the consideration of posterity by a few dips in =
an
antiquary's inkpot! This prec=
arious
tenure of fame goes a long way to justify those (and they are not few) who
prefer cakes and cream in the immediate present.
=
A WILD
YOUTH.
=
Francois
de Montcorbier, ALIAS Francois des Loges, ALIAS Francois Villon, ALIAS Mich=
el
Mouton, Master of Arts in the=
University
of Paris, was born in that city in the summer of 1431. It was a memorable year for France=
on
other and higher considerations. A
great-hearted girl and a poor-hearted boy made, the one her last, the other=
his
first appearance on the public stage of that unhappy country. On the 30th of May the ashes of Jo=
an of
Arc were thrown into the Seine, and on the 2d of December our Henry Sixth m=
ade
his Joyous Entry dismally enough into disaffected and depopulating Paris. Sword and fire still ravaged the o=
pen
country. On a single April Sa=
turday
twelve hundred persons, besides children, made their escape out of the star=
ving
capital. The hangman, as is n=
ot uninteresting
to note in connection with Master Francis, was kept hard at work in 1431; on
the last of April and on the 4th of May alone, sixty-two bandits swung from
Paris gibbets. (1) A more con=
fused
or troublous time it would have been difficult to select for a start in
life. Not even a man's nation=
ality
was certain; for the people of Paris there was no such thing as a
Frenchman. The English were t=
he
English indeed, but the French were only the Armagnacs, whom, with Joan of =
Arc
at their head, they had beaten back from under their ramparts not two years
before. Such public sentiment=
as
they had centred about their dear Duke of Burgundy, and the dear Duke had no
more urgent business than to keep out of their neighbourhood. . . . At least, and whether he liked it =
or
not, our disreputable troubadour was tubbed and swaddled as a subject of the
English crown.
(1) BOUGEOIS DE PARIS, ed. Pantheon, pp. 688, 689.
We hear nothing of Villon's father except that=
he
was poor and of mean extraction.
His mother was given piously, which does not imply very much in an o=
ld
Frenchwoman, and quite uneducated.
He had an uncle, a monk in an abbey at Angers, who must have prosper=
ed
beyond the family average, and was reported to be worth five or six hundred
crowns. Of this uncle and his
money-box the reader will hear once more.&=
nbsp;
In 1448 Francis became a student of the University of Paris; in 1450=
he
took the degree of Bachelor, and in 1452 that of Master of Arts. His BOURSE, or the sum paid weekly=
for
his board, was of the amount of two sous.&=
nbsp;
Now two sous was about the price of a pound of salt butter in the bad
times of 1417; it was the price of half-a-pound in the worse times of 1419;=
and
in 1444, just four years before Villon joined the University, it seems to h=
ave
been taken as the average wage for a day's manual labour. (1) In short, it cannot have been a ve=
ry
profuse allowance to keep a sharp-set lad in breakfast and supper for seven
mortal days; and Villon's share of the cakes and pastry and general good ch=
eer,
to which he is never weary of referring, must have been slender from the fi=
rst.
(1) BOURGEOIS, pp. 627, 636, and 725.
The educational arrangements of the University=
of
Paris were, to our way of thinking, somewhat incomplete. Worldly and monkish elements were
presented in a curious confusion, which the youth might disentangle for
himself. If he had an opportu=
nity,
on the one hand, of acquiring much hair-drawn divinity and a taste for form=
al
disputation, he was put in the way of much gross and flaunting vice upon the
other. The lecture room of a
scholastic doctor was sometimes under the same roof with establishments of a
very different and peculiarly unedifying order. The students had extraordinary pri=
vileges,
which by all accounts they abused extraordinarily. And while some condemned themselve=
s to
an almost sepulchral regularity and seclusion, others fled the schools,
swaggered in the street "with their thumbs in their girdle," pass=
ed
the night in riot, and behaved themselves as the worthy forerunners of Jehan
Frollo in the romance of NOTRE DAME DE PARIS. Villon tells us himself that he wa=
s among
the truants, but we hardly needed his avowal. The burlesque erudition in which he
sometimes indulged implies no more than the merest smattering of knowledge;
whereas his acquaintance with blackguard haunts and industries could only h=
ave
been acquired by early and consistent impiety and idleness. He passed his degrees, it is true;=
but
some of us who have been to modern universities will make their own reflect=
ions
on the value of the test. As =
for
his three pupils, Colin Laurent, Girard Gossouyn, and Jehan Marceau - if th=
ey
were really his pupils in any serious sense - what can we say but God help
them! And sure enough, by his=
own description,
they turned out as ragged, rowdy, and ignorant as was to be looked for from=
the
views and manners of their rare preceptor.
At some time or other, before or during his
university career, the poet was adopted by Master Guillaume de Villon, chap=
lain
of Saint Benoit-le-Betourne near the Sorbonne. From him he borrowed the surname by
which he is known to posterity. It
was most likely from his house, called the PORTE ROUGE, and situated in a
garden in the cloister of St. Benoit, that Master Francis heard the bell of=
the
Sorbonne ring out the Angelus while he was finishing his SMALL TESTAMENT at
Christmastide in 1546. Toward=
s this
benefactor he usually gets credit for a respectable display of gratitude. But with his trap and pitfall styl=
e of
writing, it is easy to make too sure.
His sentiments are about as much to be relied on as those of a
professional beggar; and in this, as in so many other matters, he comes tow=
ards
us whining and piping the eye, and goes off again with a whoop and his fing=
er
to his nose. Thus, he calls G=
uillaume
de Villon his "more than father," thanks him with a great show of
sincerity for having helped him out of many scrapes, and bequeaths him his
portion of renown. But the po=
rtion
of renown which belonged to a young thief, distinguished (if, at the period
when he wrote this legacy, he was distinguished at all) for having written =
some
more or less obscene and scurrilous ballads, must have been little fitted to
gratify the self-respect or increase the reputation of a benevolent ecclesi=
astic. The same remark applies to a subse=
quent
legacy of the poet's library, with specification of one work which was plai=
nly
neither decent nor devout. We=
are
thus left on the horns of a dilemma.
If the chaplain was a godly, philanthropic personage, who had tried =
to
graft good principles and good behaviour on this wild slip of an adopted so=
n,
these jesting legacies would obviously cut him to the heart. The position of an adopted son tow=
ards
his adoptive father is one full of delicacy; where a man lends his name he =
looks
for great consideration. And =
this
legacy of Villon's portion of renown may be taken as the mere fling of an u=
nregenerate
scapegrace who has wit enough to recognise in his own shame the readiest we=
apon
of offence against a prosy benefactor's feelings. The gratitude of Master Francis fi=
gures,
on this reading, as a frightful MINUS quantity. If, on the other hand, those jests=
were
given and taken in good humour, the whole relation between the pair degener=
ates
into the unedifying complicity of a debauched old chaplain and a witty and
dissolute young scholar. At t=
his
rate the house with the red door may have rung with the most mundane minstr=
elsy;
and it may have been below its roof that Villon, through a hole in the plas=
ter,
studied, as he tells us, the leisures of a rich ecclesiastic.
It was, perhaps, of some moment in the poet's =
life
that he should have inhabited the cloister of Saint Benoit. Three of the most remarkable among=
his
early acquaintances are Catherine de Vausselles, for whom he entertained a =
short-
lived affection and an enduring and most unmanly resentment; Regnier de
Montigny, a young blackguard of good birth; and Colin de Cayeux, a fellow w=
ith
a marked aptitude for picking locks.
Now we are on a foundation of mere conjecture, but it is at least
curious to find that two of the canons of Saint Benoit answered respectivel=
y to
the names of Pierre de Vaucel and Etienne de Montigny, and that there was a
householder called Nicolas de Cayeux in a street - the Rue des Poirees - in=
the
immediate neighbourhood of the cloister.&n=
bsp;
M. Longnon is almost ready to identify Catherine as the niece of Pie=
rre;
Regnier as the nephew of Etienne, and Colin as the son of Nicolas. Without going so far, it must be o=
wned
that the approximation of names is significant. As we go on to see the part played=
by
each of these persons in the sordid melodrama of the poet's life, we shall =
come
to regard it as even more notable.
Is it not Clough who has remarked that, after all, everything lies in
juxtaposition? Many a man's d=
estiny
has been settled by nothing apparently more grave than a pretty face on the
opposite side of the street and a couple of bad companions round the corner=
.
Catherine de Vausselles (or de Vaucel - the ch=
ange
is within the limits of Villon's licence) had plainly delighted in the poet=
's
conversation; near neighbours or not, they were much together and Villon ma=
de
no secret of his court, and suffered himself to believe that his feeling was
repaid in kind. This may have=
been
an error from the first, or he may have estranged her by subsequent miscond=
uct
or temerity. One can easily i=
magine
Villon an impatient wooer. One
thing, at least, is sure: that the affair terminated in a manner bitterly
humiliating to Master Francis. In
presence of his lady-love, perhaps under her window and certainly with her =
connivance,
he was unmercifully thrashed by one Noe le Joly - beaten, as he says himsel=
f,
like dirty linen on the washing- board.&nb=
sp;
It is characteristic that his malice had notably increased between t=
he
time when he wrote the SMALL TESTAMENT immediately on the back of the
occurrence, and the time when he wrote the LARGE TESTAMENT five years
after. On the latter occasion
nothing is too bad for his "damsel with the twisted nose," as he
calls her. She is spared neit=
her
hint nor accusation, and he tells his messenger to accost her with the vile=
st
insults. Villon, it is though=
t, was
out of Paris when these amenities escaped his pen; or perhaps the strong ar=
m of
Noe le Joly would have been again in requisition. So ends the love story, if love st=
ory it
may properly be called. Poets are not necessarily fortunate in love; but th=
ey
usually fall among more romantic circumstances and bear their disappointment
with a better grace.
The neighbourhood of Regnier de Montigny and C=
olin
de Cayeux was probably more influential on his after life than the contempt=
of
Catherine. For a man who is g=
reedy
of all pleasures, and provided with little money and less dignity of charac=
ter,
we may prophesy a safe and speedy voyage downward. Humble or even truckling
virtue may walk unspotted in this life.&nb=
sp;
But only those who despise the pleasures can afford to despise the
opinion of the world. A man o=
f a
strong, heady temperament, like Villon, is very differently tempted. His eyes lay hold on all provocati=
ons
greedily, and his heart flames up at a look into imperious desire; he is sn=
ared
and broached-to by anything and everything, from a pretty face to a piece of
pastry in a cookshop window; he will drink the rinsing of the wine cup, stay
the latest at the tavern party; tap at the lit windows, follow the sound of
singing, and beat the whole neighbourhood for another reveller, as he goes =
reluctantly
homeward; and grudge himself every hour of sleep as a black empty period in
which he cannot follow after pleasure.&nbs=
p;
Such a person is lost if he have not dignity, or, failing that, at l=
east
pride, which is its shadow and in many ways its substitute. Master Francis, I fancy, would fol=
low his
own eager instincts without much spiritual struggle. And we soon find him fallen among
thieves in sober, literal earnest, and counting as acquaintances the most
disreputable people he could lay his hands on: fellows who stole ducks in P=
aris
Moat; sergeants of the criminal court, and archers of the watch; blackguards
who slept at night under the butchers' stalls, and for whom the aforesaid
archers peered about carefully with lanterns; Regnier de Montigny, Colin de=
Cayeux,
and their crew, all bound on a favouring breeze towards the gallows; the
disorderly abbess of Port Royal, who went about at fair time with soldiers =
and
thieves, and conducted her abbey on the queerest principles, and most likely
Perette Mauger, the great Paris receiver of stolen goods, not yet dreaming,
poor woman! of the last scene of her career when Henry Cousin, executor of =
the
high justice, shall bury her, alive and most reluctant, in front of the new=
Montigny
gibbet. (1) Nay, our friend s=
oon
began to take a foremost rank in this society. He could string off verses, which =
is
always an agreeable talent; and he could make himself useful in many other
ways. The whole ragged army o=
f Bohemia,
and whosoever loved good cheer without at all loving to work and pay for it,
are addressed in contemporary verses as the "Subjects of Francois
Villon." He was a good g=
enius to
all hungry and unscrupulous persons; and became the hero of a whole legenda=
ry
cycle of tavern tricks and cheateries. At best, these were doubtful levitie=
s,
rather too thievish for a schoolboy, rather too gamesome for a thief. But he would not linger long in th=
is
equivocal border land. He mus=
t soon
have complied with his surroundings.
He was one who would go where the cannikin clinked, not caring who
should pay; and from supping in the wolves' den, there is but a step to hun=
ting
with the pack. And here, as I=
am on
the chapter of his degradation, I shall say all I mean to say about its dar=
kest
expression, and be done with it for good.&=
nbsp;
Some charitable critics see no more than a JEU D'ESPRIT, a graceful =
and
trifling exercise of the imagination, in the grimy ballad of Fat Peg (GROSSE
MARGOT). I am not able to fol=
low
these gentlemen to this polite extreme.&nb=
sp;
Out of all Villon's works that ballad stands forth in flaring realit=
y, gross
and ghastly, as a thing written in a contraction of disgust. M. Longnon shows us more and more
clearly at every page that we are to read our poet literally, that his name=
s are
the names of real persons, and the events he chronicles were actual
events. But even if the tende=
ncy of
criticism had run the other way, this ballad would have gone far to prove
itself. I can well understand=
the
reluctance of worthy persons in this matter; for of course it is unpleasant=
to think
of a man of genius as one who held, in the words of Marina to Boult-
=
"A
place, for which the pained'st fiend Of hell would not in reputation
change."
=
But
beyond this natural unwillingness, the whole difficulty of the case springs
from a highly virtuous ignorance of life. Paris now is not so different from
the Paris of then; and the whole of the doings of Bohemia are not written in
the sugar- candy pastorals of Murger.
It is really not at all surprising that a young man of the fifteenth
century, with a knack of making verses, should accept his bread upon disgra=
ceful
terms. The race of those who =
do is not
extinct; and some of them to this day write the prettiest verses imaginable=
. .
. . After this, it were impos=
sible
for Master Francis to fall lower: to go and steal for himself would be an
admirable advance from every point of view, divine or human.
(1) CHRONIQUE SCANDALEUSE, ed. Pantheon, p. 237.
And yet it is not as a thief, but as a homicid=
e,
that he makes his first appearance before angry justice. On June 5, 1455, when he was about
twenty-four, and had been Master of Arts for a matter of three years, we be=
hold
him for the first time quite definitely.&n=
bsp;
Angry justice had, as it were, photographed him in the act of his
homicide; and M. Longnon, rummaging among old deeds, has turned up the nega=
tive
and printed it off for our instruction.&nb=
sp;
Villon had been supping - copiously we may believe - and sat on a st=
one
bench in front of the Church of St. Benoit, in company with a priest called
Gilles and a woman of the name of Isabeau.=
It was nine o'clock, a mighty late hour for the period, and evidentl=
y a
fine summer's night. Master F=
rancis
carried a mantle, like a prudent man, to keep him from the dews (SERAIN), a=
nd
had a sword below it dangling from his girdle. So these three dallied in fr=
ont
of St Benoit, taking their pleasure (POUR SOY ESBATRE). Suddenly there arrived upon the sc=
ene a
priest, Philippe Chermoye or Sermaise, also with sword and cloak, and
accompanied by one Master Jehan le Mardi.&=
nbsp;
Sermaise, according to Villon's account, which is all we have to go
upon, came up blustering and denying God; as Villon rose to make room for h=
im
upon the bench, thrust him rudely back into his place; and finally drew his
sword and cut open his lower lip, by what I should imagine was a very clumsy
stroke. Up to this point, Vil=
lon
professes to have been a model of courtesy, even of feebleness: and the bra=
wl, in
his version, reads like the fable of the wolf and the lamb. But now the lamb was roused; he dr=
ew his
sword, stabbed Sermaise in the groin, knocked him on the head with a big st=
one,
and then, leaving him to his fate, went away to have his own lip doctored b=
y a
barber of the name of Fouquet. In one version, he says that Gilles, Isabeau,
and Le Mardi ran away at the first high words, and that he and Sermaise had=
it
out alone; in another, Le Mardi is represented as returning and wresting
Villon's sword from him: the reader may please himself. Sermaise was picked up, lay all th=
at night
in the prison of Saint Benoit, where he was examined by an official of the
Chatelet and expressly pardoned Villon, and died on the following Saturday =
in
the Hotel Dieu.
This, as I have said, was in June. Not before January of the next year
could Villon extract a pardon from the king; but while his hand was in, he =
got
two. One is for "Francoi=
s des Loges,
alias (AUTREMENT DIT) de Villon;" and the other runs in the name of
Francois de Montcorbier. Nay,=
it
appears there was a further complication; for in the narrative of the first=
of
these documents, it is mentioned that he passed himself off upon Fouquet, t=
he
barber-surgeon, as one Michel Mouton.
M. Longnon has a theory that this unhappy accident with Sermaise was=
the
cause of Villon's subsequent irregularities; and that up to that moment he =
had
been the pink of good behaviour.
But the matter has to my eyes a more dubious air. A pardon necessary for Des Loges a=
nd
another for Montcorbier? and these two the same person? and one or both of =
them
known by the ALIAS OF Villon, however honestly come by? and lastly, in the =
heat
of the moment, a fourth name thrown out with an assured countenance? A ship is not to be trusted that s=
ails
under so many colours. This i=
s not
the simple bearing of innocence. No
- the young master was already treading crooked paths; already, he would st=
art
and blench at a hand upon his shoulder, with the look we know so well in the
face of Hogarth's Idle Apprentice; already, in the blue devils, he would see
Henry Cousin, the executor of high justice, going in dolorous procession
towards Montfaucon, and hear the wind and the birds crying around Paris gib=
bet.
=
A GANG
OF THIEVES.
=
In
spite of the prodigious number of people who managed to get hanged, the
fifteenth century was by no means a bad time for criminals. A great confusion of parties and g=
reat
dust of fighting favoured the escape of private housebreakers and quiet fel=
lows
who stole ducks in Paris Moat.
Prisons were leaky; and as we shall see, a man with a few crowns in =
his pocket
and perhaps some acquaintance among the officials, could easily slip out and
become once more a free marauder. There was no want of a sanctuary where he
might harbour until troubles blew by; and accomplices helped each other with
more or less good faith. Cler=
ks,
above all, had remarkable facilities for a criminal way of life; for they w=
ere privileged,
except in cases of notorious incorrigibility, to be plucked from the hands =
of
rude secular justice and tried by a tribunal of their own. In 1402, a couple of thieves, both
clerks of the University, were condemned to death by the Provost of Paris.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> As they were taken to Montfaucon, =
they kept
crying "high and clearly" for their benefit of clergy, but were n=
one
the less pitilessly hanged and gibbeted. Indignant Alma Mater interfered be=
fore
the king; and the Provost was deprived of all royal offices, and condemned =
to return
the bodies and erect a great stone cross, on the road from Paris to the gib=
bet
graven with the effigies of these two holy martyrs. (1) We shall hear more of the benefit =
of clergy;
for after this the reader will not be surprised to meet with thieves in the
shape of tonsured clerks, or even priests and monks.
(1) Monstrelet: PANTHEON LITTERAIRE, p. 26.
To a knot of such learned pilferers our poet
certainly belonged; and by turning over a few more of M. Longnon's negative=
s,
we shall get a clear idea of their character and doings. Montigny and De Cayeux are names a=
lready
known; Guy Tabary, Petit-Jehan, Dom Nicolas, little Thibault, who was both
clerk and goldsmith, and who made picklocks and melted plate for himself and
his companions - with these the reader has still to become acquainted. Petit-Jehan and De Cayeux were han=
dy
fellows and enjoyed a useful pre-eminence in honour of their doings with the
picklock. "DICTUS DES CA=
HYEUS
EST FORTIS OPERATOR CROCHETORUM," says Tabary's interrogation, "S=
ED
DICTUS PETIT-JEHAN, EJUS SOCIUS, EST FORCIUS OPERATOR." But the flower of the flock was li=
ttle Thibault;
it was reported that no lock could stand before him; he had a persuasive ha=
nd;
let us salute capacity wherever we may find it. Perhaps the term GANG is not quite=
properly
applied to the persons whose fortunes we are now about to follow; rather th=
ey
were independent malefactors, socially intimate, and occasionally joining
together for some serious operation just as modern stockjobbers form a synd=
icate
for an important loan. Nor we=
re
they at all particular to any branch of misdoing. They did not scrupulously confine
themselves to a single sort of theft, as I hear is common among modern
thieves. They were ready for =
anything,
from pitch-and-toss to manslaughter.
Montigny, for instance, had neglected neither of these extremes, and=
we find
him accused of cheating at games of hazard on the one hand, and on the othe=
r of
the murder of one Thevenin Pensete in a house by the Cemetery of St. John.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> If time had only spared us some pa=
rticulars,
might not this last have furnished us with the matter of a grisly winter's
tale?
At Christmas-time in 1456, readers of Villon w=
ill
remember that he was engaged on the SMALL TESTAMENT. About the same period, CIRCA FESTUM
NATIVITATIS DOMINI, he took part in a memorable supper at the Mule Tavern, =
in
front of the Church of St. Mathurin.
Tabary, who seems to have been very much Villon's creature, had orde=
red
the supper in the course of the afternoon.=
He was a man who had had troubles in his time and languished in the
Bishop of Paris's prisons on a suspicion of picking locks; confiding,
convivial, not very astute - who had copied out a whole improper romance wi=
th
his own right hand. This
supper-party was to be his first introduction to De Cayeux and Petit-Jehan,
which was probably a matter of some concern to the poor man's muddy wits; in
the sequel, at least, he speaks of both with an undisguised respect, based =
on
professional inferiority in the matter of picklocks. Dom Nicolas, a Picardy monk, was t=
he
fifth and last at table. When
supper had been despatched and fairly washed down, we may suppose, with whi=
te
Baigneux or red Beaune, which were favourite wines among the fellowship, Ta=
bary
was solemnly sworn over to secrecy on the night's performances; and the par=
ty
left the Mule and proceeded to an unoccupied house belonging to Robert de
Saint-Simon. This, over a low=
wall,
they entered without difficulty.
All but Tabary took off their upper garments; a ladder was found and=
applied
to the high wall which separated Saint-Simon's house from the court of the
College of Navarre; the four fellows in their shirt-sleeves (as we might sa=
y)
clambered over in a twinkling; and Master Guy Tabary remained alone beside =
the overcoats. From the court the burglars made t=
heir
way into the vestry of the chapel, where they found a large chest, strength=
ened
with iron bands and closed with four locks. One of these locks they picked, and
then, by levering up the corner, forced the other three. Inside was a small coffer, of waln=
ut
wood, also barred with iron, but fastened with only three locks, which were=
all
comfortably picked by way of the keyhole.&=
nbsp;
In the walnut coffer - a joyous sight by our thieves' lantern - were
five hundred crowns of gold. =
There was
some talk of opening the aumries, where, if they had only known, a booty ei=
ght
or nine times greater lay ready to their hand; but one of the party (I have=
a
humorous suspicion it was Dom Nicolas, the Picardy monk) hurried them
away. It was ten o'clock when=
they
mounted the ladder; it was about midnight before Tabary beheld them coming
back. To him they gave ten cr=
owns,
and promised a share of a two-crown dinner on the morrow; whereat we may
suppose his mouth watered. In=
course
of time, he got wind of the real amount of their booty and understood how
scurvily he had been used; but he seems to have borne no malice. How could he, against such superb =
operators
as Petit-Jehan and De Cayeux; or a person like Villon, who could have made a
new improper romance out of his own head, instead of merely copying an old =
one
with mechanical right hand?
The rest of the winter was not uneventful for =
the
gang. First they made a demonstration against the Church of St. Mathurin af=
ter
chalices, and were ignominiously chased away by barking dogs. Then Tabary fell out with Casin Ch=
ollet,
one of the fellows who stole ducks in Paris Moat, who subsequently became a
sergeant of the Chatelet and distinguished himself by misconduct, followed =
by
imprisonment and public castigation, during the wars of Louis Eleventh. The
quarrel was not conducted with a proper regard to the king's peace, and the
pair publicly belaboured each other until the police stepped in, and Master
Tabary was cast once more into the prisons of the Bishop. While he still lay in durance, ano=
ther
job was cleverly executed by the band in broad daylight, at the Augustine
Monastery. Brother Guillaume
Coiffier was beguiled by an accomplice to St. Mathurin to say mass; and dur=
ing
his absence, his chamber was entered and five or six hundred crowns in money
and some silver plate successfully abstracted. A melancholy man was Coiffier on h=
is
return! Eight crowns from this
adventure were forwarded by little Thibault to the incarcerated Tabary; and
with these he bribed the jailor and reappeared in Paris taverns. Some time before or shortly after =
this,
Villon set out for Angers, as he had promised in the SMALL TESTAMENT. The
object of this excursion was not merely to avoid the presence of his cruel
mistress or the strong arm of Noe le Joly, but to plan a deliberate robbery=
on
his uncle the monk. As soon as he had properly studied the ground, the othe=
rs were
to go over in force from Paris - picklocks and all - and away with my uncle=
's
strongbox! This throws a comi=
cal sidelight
on his own accusation against his relatives, that they had "forgotten
natural duty" and disowned him because he was poor. A poor relation is a distasteful
circumstance at the best, but a poor relation who plans deliberate robberie=
s against
those of his blood, and trudges hundreds of weary leagues to put them into
execution, is surely a little on the wrong side of toleration. The uncle at Angers may have been =
monstrously
undutiful; but the nephew from Paris was upsides with him.
On the 23d April, that venerable and discreet =
person,
Master Pierre Marchand, Curate and Prior of Paray-le-Monial, in the diocese=
of
Chartres, arrived in Paris and put up at the sign of the Three Chandeliers,=
in
the Rue de la Huchette. Next =
day,
or the day after, as he was breakfasting at the sign of the Armchair, he fe=
ll
into talk with two customers, one of whom was a priest and the other our fr=
iend
Tabary. The idiotic Tabary be=
came
mighty confidential as to his past life.&n=
bsp;
Pierre Marchand, who was an acquaintance of Guillaume Coiffier's and=
had
sympathised with him over his loss, pricked up his ears at the mention of
picklocks, and led on the transcriber of improper romances from one thing t=
o another,
until they were fast friends. For
picklocks the Prior of Paray professed a keen curiosity; but Tabary, upon s=
ome
late alarm, had thrown all his into the Seine. Let that be no difficulty, however=
, for
was there not little Thibault, who could make them of all shapes and sizes,=
and
to whom Tabary, smelling an accomplice, would be only too glad to introduce=
his
new acquaintance? On the morr=
ow,
accordingly, they met; and Tabary, after having first wet his whistle at the
prior's expense, led him to Notre Dame and presented him to four or five
"young companions," who were keeping sanctuary in the church. They were all clerks, recently esc=
aped,
like Tabary himself, from the episcopal prisons. Among these we may notice
Thibault, the operator, a little fellow of twenty-six, wearing long hair
behind. The Prior expressed,
through Tabary, his anxiety to become their accomplice and altogether such =
as
they were (DE LEUR SORTS ET DE LEURS COMPLICES). Mighty polite they showed themselv=
es, and
made him many fine speeches in return.&nbs=
p;
But for all that, perhaps because they had longer heads than Tabary,
perhaps because it is less easy to wheedle men in a body, they kept obstina=
tely
to generalities and gave him no information as to their exploits, past,
present, or to come. I suppose
Tabary groaned under this reserve; for no sooner were he and the Prior out =
of
the church than he fairly emptied his heart to him, gave him full details of
many hanging matters in the past, and explained the future intentions of the
band. The scheme of the hour =
was to
rob another Augustine monk, Robert de la Porte, and in this the Prior agree=
d to
take a hand with simulated greed.
Thus, in the course of two days, he had turned this wineskin of a Ta=
bary
inside out. For a while longe=
r the
farce was carried on; the Prior was introduced to Petit-Jehan, whom he
describes as a little, very smart man of thirty, with a black beard and a s=
hort
jacket; an appointment was made and broken in the de la Porte affair; Tabary
had some breakfast at the Prior's charge and leaked out more secrets under =
the
influence of wine and friendship; and then all of a sudden, on the 17th of =
May,
an alarm sprang up, the Prior picked up his skirts and walked quietly over =
to
the Chatelet to make a deposition, and the whole band took to their heels a=
nd
vanished out of Paris and the sight of the police.
Vanish as they like, they all go with a clog a=
bout
their feet. Sooner or later, =
here
or there, they will be caught in the fact, and ignominiously sent home. From our vantage of four centuries
afterwards, it is odd and pitiful to watch the order in which the fugitives=
are
captured and dragged in.
Montigny was the first. In August of that same year, he wa=
s laid
by the heels on many grievous counts; sacrilegious robberies, frauds,
incorrigibility, and that bad business about Thevenin Pensete in the house =
by
the cemetery of St. John. He =
was
reclaimed by the ecclesiastical authorities as a clerk; but the claim was
rebutted on the score of incorrigibility, and ultimately fell to the ground;
and he was condemned to death by the Provost of Paris. It was a very rude hour for Montig=
ny, but
hope was not yet over. He was=
a
fellow of some birth; his father had been king's pantler; his sister, proba=
bly
married to some one about the Court, was in the family way, and her health
would be endangered if the execution was proceeded with. So down comes Charles the Seventh =
with
letters of mercy, commuting the penalty to a year in a dungeon on bread and
water, and a pilgrimage to the shrine of St. James in Galicia. Alas! the document was incomplete;=
it
did not contain the full tale of Montigny's enormities; it did not recite t=
hat
he had been denied benefit of clergy, and it said nothing about Thevenin Pe=
nsete. Montigny's hour was at hand. Benefit of clergy, honourable desc=
ent
from king's pantler, sister in the family way, royal letters of commutation=
-
all were of no avail. He had =
been
in prison in Rouen, in Tours, in Bordeaux, and four times already in Paris;=
and
out of all these he had come scatheless; but now he must make a little
excursion as far as Montfaucon with Henry Cousin, executor of high justice.=
There
let him swing among the carrion crows.
About a year later, in July 1458, the police l=
aid
hands on Tabary. Before the
ecclesiastical commissary he was twice examined, and, on the latter occasio=
n,
put to the question ordinary and extraordinary. What a dismal change from pleasant
suppers at the Mule, where he sat in triumph with expert operators and great
wits! He is at the lees of li=
fe, poor
rogue; and those fingers which once transcribed improper romances are now
agonisingly stretched upon the rack.
We have no sure knowledge, but we may have a shrewd guess of the con=
clusion. Tabary, the admirer, would go the =
same
way as those whom he admired.
The last we hear of is Colin de Cayeux. He was caught in autumn 1460, in t=
he
great Church of St. Leu d'Esserens, which makes so fine a figure in the
pleasant Oise valley between Creil and Beaumont. He was reclaimed by no less than t=
wo bishops;
but the Procureur for the Provost held fast by incorrigible Colin. 1460 was an ill-starred year: for =
justice
was making a clean sweep of "poor and indigent persons, thieves, cheat=
s,
and lockpickers," in the neighbourhood of Paris; (1) and Colin de Caye=
ux,
with many others, was condemned to death and hanged. (2)
(1) CHRON.&nb=
sp;
SCAND. ut supra. (2) Here and there, principally in the order of eve=
nts,
this article differs from M. Longnon's own reading of his material. The ground on which he defers the
execution of Montigny and De Cayeux beyond the date of their trials seems i=
nsufficient. There is a law of parsimony for th=
e construction
of historical documents; simplicity is the first duty of narration; and han=
ged
they were.
=
VILLON
AND THE GALLOWS.
=
Villon
was still absent on the Angers expedition when the Prior of Paray sent such=
a
bombshell among his accomplices; and the dates of his return and arrest rem=
ain
undiscoverable. M. Campaux plausibly enough opined for the autumn of 1457, =
which
would make him closely follow on Montigny, and the first of those denounced=
by
the Prior to fall into the toils. We may suppose, at least, that it was not
long thereafter; we may suppose him competed for between lay and clerical
Courts; and we may suppose him alternately pert and impudent, humble and
fawning, in his defence. But =
at the
end of all supposing, we come upon some nuggets of fact. For first, he was put to the quest=
ion by
water. He who had tossed off =
so many
cups of white Baigneux or red Beaune, now drank water through linen folds,
until his bowels were flooded and his heart stood still. After so much raising of the elbow=
, so much
outcry of fictitious thirst, here at last was enough drinking for a
lifetime. Truly, of our pleas=
ant
vices, the gods make whips to scourge us.&=
nbsp;
And secondly he was condemned to be hanged. A man may have been expecting a
catastrophe for years, and yet find himself unprepared when it arrives. Cer=
tainly,
Villon found, in this legitimate issue of his career, a very staggering and
grave consideration. Every be=
ast,
as he says, clings bitterly to a whole skin. If everything is lost, and even ho=
nour,
life still remains; nay, and it becomes, like the ewe lamb in Nathan's para=
ble,
as dear as all the rest. &quo=
t;Do
you fancy," he asks, in a lively ballad, "that I had not enough
philosophy under my hood to cry out: 'I appeal'? If I had made any bones about the =
matter,
I should have been planted upright in the fields, the St, Denis Road" -
Montfaucon being on the way to St. Denis. An appeal to Parliament, as we sa=
w in
the case of Colin de Cayeux, did not necessarily lead to an acquittal or a =
commutation;
and while the matter was pending, our poet had ample opportunity to reflect=
on
his position. Hanging is a sh=
arp
argument, and to swing with many others on the gibbet adds a horrible corol=
lary
for the imagination. With the=
aspect
of Montfaucon he was well acquainted; indeed, as the neighbourhood appears =
to
have been sacred to junketing and nocturnal picnics of wild young men and
women, he had probably studied it under all varieties of hour and weather. =
And
now, as he lay in prison waiting the mortal push, these different aspects
crowded back on his imagination with a new and startling significance; and =
he
wrote a ballad, by way of epitaph for himself and his companions, which rem=
ains
unique in the annals of mankind. It
is, in the highest sense, a piece of his biography:-
=
"La
pluye nous a debuez et lavez, Et le soleil dessechez et noirciz; Pies,
corbeaulx, nous ont les yeux cavez, Et arrachez la barbe et les sourcilz. J=
amais,
nul temps, nous ne sommes rassis; Puis ca, puis la, comme le vent varie, A =
son plaisir
sans cesser nous charie, Plus becquetez d'oiscaulx que dez a couldre. Ne so=
yez
donc de nostre confrairie, Mais priez Dieu que tous nous vueille
absouldre."
=
Here
is some genuine thieves' literature after so much that was spurious; sharp =
as
an etching, written with a shuddering soul. There is an intensity of considera=
tion
in the piece that shows it to be the transcript of familiar thoughts. It is the quintessence of many a d=
oleful
nightmare on the straw, when he felt himself swing helpless in the wind, and
saw the birds turn about him, screaming and menacing his eyes.
And, after all, the Parliament changed his
sentence into one of banishment; and to Roussillon, in Dauphiny, our poet m=
ust carry
his woes without delay. Trave=
llers
between Lyons and Marseilles may remember a station on the line, some way b=
elow
Vienne, where the Rhone fleets seaward between vine-clad hills. This was Villon's Siberia. It would be a little warm in summer
perhaps, and a little cold in winter in that draughty valley between two gr=
eat
mountain fields; but what with the hills, and the racing river, and the fie=
ry
Rhone wines, he was little to be pitied on the conditions of his exile. Villon, in a remarkably bad ballad,
written in a breath, heartily thanked and fulsomely belauded the Parliament;
the ENVOI, like the proverbial postscript of a lady's letter, containing the
pith of his performance in a request for three days' delay to settle his
affairs and bid his friends farewell.
He was probably not followed out of Paris, like Antoine Fradin, the
popular preacher, another exile of a few years later, by weeping multitudes;
(1) but I daresay one or two rogues of his acquaintance would keep him comp=
any
for a mile or so on the south road, and drink a bottle with him before they=
turned. For banished people, in those days=
, seem
to have set out on their own responsibility, in their own guard, and at the=
ir
own expense. It was no joke t=
o make
one's way from Paris to Roussillon alone and penniless in the fifteenth
century. Villon says he left =
a rag
of his tails on every bush. I=
ndeed,
he must have had many a weary tramp, many a slender meal, and many a to-do =
with
blustering captains of the Ordonnance.&nbs=
p;
But with one of his light fingers, we may fancy that he took as good=
as
he gave; for every rag of his tail, he would manage to indemnify himself up=
on
the population in the shape of food, or wine, or ringing money; and his rou=
te
would be traceable across France and Burgundy by housewives and inn-keepers
lamenting over petty thefts, like the track of a single human locust. A strange figure he must have cut =
in the
eyes of the good country people: this ragged, blackguard city poet, with a =
smack
of the Paris student, and a smack of the Paris street arab, posting along t=
he
highways, in rain or sun, among the green fields and vineyards. For himself, he had no taste for r=
ural
loveliness; green fields and vineyards would be mighty indifferent to Master
Francis; but he would often have his tongue in his cheek at the simplicity =
of
rustic dupes, and often, at city gates, he might stop to contemplate the gi=
bbet
with its swinging bodies, and hug himself on his escape.
(1) CHRON. SCAND., p. 338.
How long he stayed at Roussillon, how far he
became the protege of the Bourbons, to whom that town belonged, or when it =
was
that he took part, under the auspices of Charles of Orleans, in a rhyming
tournament to be referred to once again in the pages of the present volume,=
are
matters that still remain in darkness, in spite of M. Longnon's diligent ru=
mmaging
among archives. When we next =
find
him, in summer 1461, alas! he is once more in durance: this time at Meun- s=
ur-Loire,
in the prisons of Thibault d'Aussigny, Bishop of Orleans. He had been lowered in a basket in=
to a
noisome pit, where he lay, all summer, gnawing hard crusts and railing upon
fate. His teeth, he says, wer=
e like
the teeth of a rake: a touch of haggard portraiture all the more real for b=
eing
excessive and burlesque, and all the more proper to the man for being a
caricature of his own misery. His
eyes were "bandaged with thick walls." It might blow hurricanes overhead;=
the
lightning might leap in high heaven; but no word of all this reached him in=
his
noisome pit. "Il n'entre=
, ou
gist, n'escler ni tourbillon."
Above all, he was fevered with envy and anger at the freedom of othe=
rs;
and his heart flowed over into curses as he thought of Thibault d'Aussigny,
walking the streets in God's sunlight, and blessing people with extended
fingers. So much we find shar=
ply
lined in his own poems. Why h=
e was
cast again into prison - how he had again managed to shave the gallows - th=
is we
know not, nor, from the destruction of authorities, are we ever likely to
learn. But on October 2d, 146=
1, or
some day immediately preceding, the new King, Louis Eleventh, made his joyo=
us
entry into Meun. Now it was a=
part
of the formality on such occasions for the new King to liberate certain pri=
soners;
and so the basket was let down into Villon's pit, and hastily did Master
Francis scramble in, and was most joyfully hauled up, and shot out, blinking
and tottering, but once more a free man, into the blessed sun and wind. Now or never is the time for
verses! Such a happy revoluti=
on
would turn the head of a stocking-weaver, and set him jingling rhymes. And so - after a voyage to Paris, =
where
he finds Montigny and De Cayeux clattering, their bones upon the gibbet, and
his three pupils roystering in Paris streets, "with their thumbs under
their girdles," - down sits Master Francis to write his LARGE TESTAMEN=
T,
and perpetuate his name in a sort of glorious ignominy.
=
THE
LARGE TESTAMENT.
=
Of
this capital achievement and, with it, of Villon's style in general, it is =
here
the place to speak. The LARGE=
TESTAMENT
is a hurly-burly of cynical and sentimental reflections about life, jesting
legacies to friends and enemies, and, interspersed among these many admirab=
le ballades,
both serious and absurd. With=
so
free a design, no thought that occurred to him would need to be dismissed w=
ithout
expression; and he could draw at full length the portrait of his own bedevi=
lled
soul, and of the bleak and blackguardly world which was the theatre of his
exploits and sufferings. If t=
he
reader can conceive something between the slap-dash inconsequence of Byron's
DON JUAN and the racy humorous gravity and brief noble touches that disting=
uish
the vernacular poems of Burns, he will have formed some idea of Villon's
style. To the latter writer -
except in the ballades, which are quite his own, and can be paralleled from=
no
other language known to me - he bears a particular resemblance. In common with Burns he has a cert=
ain
rugged compression, a brutal vivacity of epithet, a homely vigour, a deligh=
t in
local personalities, and an interest in many sides of life, that are often
despised and passed over by more effete and cultured poets. Both also, in their strong, easy c=
olloquial
way, tend to become difficult and obscure; the obscurity in the case of Vil=
lon
passing at times into the absolute darkness of cant language. They are perhaps the only two great
masters of expression who keep sending their readers to a glossary.
"Shall we not dare to say of a thief,&quo=
t;
asks Montaigne, "that he has a handsome leg?" It is a far more serious claim tha=
t we
have to put forward in behalf of Villon.&n=
bsp;
Beside that of his contemporaries, his writing, so full of colour, s=
o eloquent,
so picturesque, stands out in an almost miraculous isolation. If only one or two of the chronicl=
ers
could have taken a leaf out of his book, history would have been a pastime,=
and
the fifteenth century as present to our minds as the age of Charles
Second. This gallows-bird was=
the
one great writer of his age and country, and initiated modern literature for
France. Boileau, long ago, in=
the
period of perukes and snuff-boxes, recognised him as the first articulate p=
oet
in the language; and if we measure him, not by priority of merit, but living
duration of influence, not on a comparison with obscure forerunners, but wi=
th
great and famous successors, we shall instal this ragged and disreputable f=
igure
in a far higher niche in glory's temple than was ever dreamed of by the
critic. It is, in itself, a m=
emorable
fact that, before 1542, in the very dawn of printing, and while modern Fran=
ce
was in the making, the works of Villon ran through seven different
editions. Out of him flows mu=
ch of
Rabelais; and through Rabelais, directly and indirectly, a deep, permanent,=
and
growing inspiration. Not only his style, but his callous pertinent way of
looking upon the sordid and ugly sides of life, becomes every day a more
specific feature in the literature of France. And only the other year, a work of=
some
power appeared in Paris, and appeared with infinite scandal, which owed its
whole inner significance and much of its outward form to the study of our r=
hyming
thief.
The world to which he introduces us is, as bef=
ore
said, blackguardly and bleak. Paris
swarms before us, full of famine, shame, and death; monks and the servants =
of
great lords hold high wassail upon cakes and pastry; the poor man licks his
lips before the baker's window; people with patched eyes sprawl all night u=
nder
the stalls; chuckling Tabary transcribes an improper romance; bare-bosomed
lasses and ruffling students swagger in the streets; the drunkard goes stum=
bling
homewards; the graveyard is full of bones; and away on Montfaucon, Colin de
Cayeux and Montigny hang draggled in the rain. Is there nothing better to be seen=
than
sordid misery and worthless joys?
Only where the poor old mother of the poet kneels in church below
painted windows, and makes tremulous supplication to the Mother of God.
In our mixed world, full of green fields and h=
appy
lovers, where not long before, Joan of Arc had led one of the highest and
noblest lives in the whole story of mankind, this was all worth chronicling
that our poet could perceive. His
eyes were indeed sealed with his own filth. He dwelt all his life in a pit more
noisome than the dungeon at Meun.
In the moral world, also, there are large phenomena not cognisable o=
ut
of holes and corners. Loud wi=
nds
blow, speeding home deep-laden ships and sweeping rubbish from the earth; t=
he
lightning leaps and cleans the face of heaven; high purposes and brave pass=
ions
shake and sublimate men's spirits; and meanwhile, in the narrow dungeon of =
his
soul, Villon is mumbling crusts and picking vermin.
Along with this deadly gloom of outlook, we mu=
st
take another characteristic of his work: its unrivalled insincerity. I can give no better similitude of=
this
quality than I have given already: that he comes up with a whine, and runs =
away
with a whoop and his finger to his nose.&n=
bsp;
His pathos is that of a professional mendicant who should happen to =
be a
man of genius; his levity that of a bitter street arab, full of bread. On a first reading, the pathetic
passages preoccupy the reader, and he is cheated out of an alms in the shap=
e of
sympathy. But when the thing =
is
studied the illusion fades away: in the transitions, above all, we can dete=
ct
the evil, ironical temper of the man; and instead of a flighty work, where =
many
crude but genuine feelings tumble together for the mastery as in the lists =
of
tournament, we are tempted to think of the LARGE TESTAMENT as of one long-d=
rawn
epical grimace, pulled by a merry-andrew, who has found a certain despicable
eminence over human respect and human affections by perching himself astride
upon the gallows. Between the=
se two
views, at best, all temperate judgments will be found to fall; and rather, =
as I
imagine, towards the last.
There were two things on which he felt with
perfect and, in one case, even threatening sincerity.
The first of these was an undisguised envy of
those richer than himself. He=
was
for ever drawing a parallel, already exemplified from his own words, between
the happy life of the well-to-do and the miseries of the poor. Burns, too proud and honest not to=
work,
continued through all reverses to sing of poverty with a light, defiant
note. Beranger waited till he=
was
himself beyond the reach of want, before writing the OLD VAGABOND or
JACQUES. Samuel Johnson, alth=
ough
he was very sorry to be poor, "was a great arguer for the advantages of
poverty" in his ill days. Thus
it is that brave men carry their crosses, and smile with the fox burrowing =
in
their vitals. But Villon, who=
had
not the courage to be poor with honesty, now whiningly implores our sympath=
y,
now shows his teeth upon the dung-heap with an ugly snarl. He envies bitterly, envies
passionately. Poverty, he pro=
tests,
drives men to steal, as hunger makes the wolf sally from the forest. The po=
or,
he goes on, will always have a carping word to say, or, if that outlet be
denied, nourish rebellious thoughts. It is a calumny on the noble army of t=
he
poor. Thousands in a small wa=
y of
life, ay, and even in the smallest, go through life with tenfold as much ho=
nour
and dignity and peace of mind, as the rich gluttons whose dainties and
state-beds awakened Villon's covetous temper. And every morning's sun sees thous=
ands
who pass whistling to their toil.
But Villon was the "mauvais pauvre" defined by Victor Hugo=
, and,
in its English expression, so admirably stereotyped by Dickens. He was the first wicked
sansculotte. He is the man of
genius with the moleskin cap. He is
mighty pathetic and beseeching here in the street, but I would not go down a
dark road with him for a large consideration.
The second of the points on which he was genui=
ne
and emphatic was common to the middle ages; a deep and somewhat snivelling =
conviction
of the transitory nature of this life and the pity and horror of death. Old age and the grave, with some d=
ark and
yet half-sceptical terror of an after-world - these were ideas that clung a=
bout
his bones like a disease. An =
old
ape, as he says, may play all the tricks in its repertory, and none of them
will tickle an audience into good humour. "Tousjours vieil synge est
desplaisant." It is not =
the
old jester who receives most recognition at a tavern party, but the young
fellow, fresh and handsome, who knows the new slang, and carries off his vi=
ce
with a certain air. Of this, =
as a
tavern jester himself, he would be pointedly conscious. As for the women wi=
th
whom he was best acquainted, his reflections on their old age, in all their
harrowing pathos, shall remain in the original for me. Horace has disgraced himself to
something the same tune; but what Horace throws out with an ill-favoured la=
ugh,
Villon dwells on with an almost maudlin whimper.
It is in death that he finds his truest
inspiration in the swift and sorrowful change that overtakes beauty; in the=
strange
revolution by which great fortunes and renowns are diminished to a handful =
of
churchyard dust; and in the utter passing away of what was once lovable and
mighty. It is in this that the
mixed texture of his thought enables him to reach such poignant and terrible
effects, and to enchance pity with ridicule, like a man cutting capers to a
funeral march. It is in this,=
also,
that he rises out of himself into the higher spheres of art. So, in the ballade by which he is =
best
known, he rings the changes on names that once stood for beautiful and quee=
nly
women, and are now no more than letters and a legend. "Where are the snows of yeste=
r year?"
runs the burden. And so, in a=
nother
not so famous, he passes in review the different degrees of bygone men, fro=
m the
holy Apostles and the golden Emperor of the East, down to the heralds,
pursuivants, and trumpeters, who also bore their part in the world's
pageantries and ate greedily at great folks' tables: all this to the refrai=
n of
"So much carry the winds away!"&=
nbsp;
Probably, there was some melancholy in his mind for a yet lower grad=
e,
and Montigny and Colin de Cayeux clattering their bones on Paris gibbet.
* * * *
The date of the LARGE TESTAMENT is the last da=
te
in the poet's biography. After
having achieved that admirable and despicable performance, he disappears in=
to
the night from whence he came. How
or when he died, whether decently in bed or trussed up to a gallows, remain=
s a
riddle for foolhardy commentators.
It appears his health had suffered in the pit at Meun; he was thirty
years of age and quite bald; with the notch in his under lip where Sermaise=
had
struck him with the sword, and what wrinkles the reader may imagine. In default of portraits, this is a=
ll I
have been able to piece together, and perhaps even the baldness should be t=
aken
as a figure of his destitution. A
sinister dog, in all likelihood, but with a look in his eye, and the loose
flexile mouth that goes with wit and an overweening sensual temperament.
FOR one who was no great politician, nor (as m=
en
go) especially wise, capable or virtuous, Charles of Orleans is more than
usually enviable to all who love that better sort of fame which consists in
being known not widely, but intimately.&nb=
sp;
"To be content that time to come should know there was such a m=
an,
not caring whether they knew more of him, or to subsist under naked
denominations, without deserts or noble acts," is, says Sir Thomas Bro=
wne,
a frigid ambition. It is to s=
ome
more specific memory that youth looks forward in its vigils. Old kings are sometimes disinterre=
d in
all the emphasis of life, the hands untainted by decay, the beard that had =
so
often wagged in camp or senate still spread upon the royal bosom; and in bu=
sts
and pictures, some similitude of the great and beautiful of former days is
handed down. In this way, pub=
lic
curiosity may be gratified, but hardly any private aspiration after fame. It is not likely that posterity wi=
ll
fall in love with us, but not impossible that it may respect or sympathise;=
and
so a man would rather leave behind him the portrait of his spirit than a
portrait of his face, FIGURA ANIMI MAGIS QUAM CORPORIS. Of those who have t=
hus
survived themselves most completely, left a sort of personal seduction behi=
nd
them in the world, and retained, after death, the art of making friends,
Montaigne and Samuel Johnson certainly stand first. But we have portraits of
all sorts of men, from august Caesar to the king's dwarf; and all sorts of
portraits, from a Titian treasured in the Louvre to a profile over the groc=
er's
chimney shelf. And so in a le=
ss
degree, but no less truly, than the spirit of Montaigne lives on in the
delightful Essays, that of Charles of Orleans survives in a few old songs a=
nd
old account-books; and it is still in the choice of the reader to make this
duke's acquaintance, and, if their humours suit, become his friend.
=
I.
=
His
birth - if we are to argue from a man's parents - was above his merit. It is not merely that he was the
grandson of one king, the father of another, and the uncle of a third; but
something more specious was to be looked for from the son of his father, Lo=
uis
de Valois, Duke of Orleans, brother to the mad king Charles VI., lover of Q=
ueen
Isabel, and the leading patron of art and one of the leading politicians in=
France. And the poet might have inherited =
yet
higher virtues from his mother, Valentina of Milan, a very pathetic figure =
of
the age, the faithful wife of an unfaithful husband, and the friend of a mo=
st
unhappy king. The father,
beautiful, eloquent, and accomplished, exercised a strange fascination over=
his
contemporaries; and among those who dip nowadays into the annals of the time
there are not many - and these few are little to be envied - who can resist=
the
fascination of the mother. All
mankind owe her a debt of gratitude because she brought some comfort into t=
he
life of the poor madman who wore the crown of France.
Born (May 1391) of such a noble stock, Charles=
was
to know from the first all favours of nature and art. His father's gardens were the admi=
ration
of his contemporaries; his castles were situated in the most agreeable part=
s of
France, and sumptuously adorned. We
have preserved, in an inventory of 1403, the description of tapestried rooms
where Charles may have played in childhood. (1) "A green room, with the ceili=
ng
full of angels, and the DOSSIER of shepherds and shepherdesses seeming (FAI=
SANT
CONTENANCE) to eat nuts and cherries.
A room of gold, silk and worsted, with a device of little children i=
n a
river, and the sky full of birds. =
span>A
room of green tapestry, showing a knight and lady at chess in a pavilion. Another green room, with shepherde=
sses
in a trellised garden worked in gold and silk. A carpet representing cherry-trees,
where there is a fountain, and a lady gathering cherries in a basin."<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> These were some of the pictures ov=
er
which his fancy might busy itself of an afternoon, or at morning as he lay
awake in bed. With our deeper=
and
more logical sense of life, we can have no idea how large a space in the
attention of mediaeval men might be occupied by such figured hangings on the
wall. There was something tim=
id and
purblind in the view they had of the world. Morally, they saw nothing outside =
of
traditional axioms; and little of the physical aspect of things entered viv=
idly
into their mind, beyond what was to be seen on church windows and the walls=
and
floors of palaces. The reader=
will remember
how Villon's mother conceived of heaven and hell and took all her scanty st=
ock
of theology from the stained glass that threw its light upon her as she
prayed. And there is scarcely=
a
detail of external effect in the chronicles and romances of the time, but m=
ight
have been borrowed at second hand from a piece of tapestry. It was a stage in the history of m=
ankind
which we may see paralleled, to some extent, in the first infant school, wh=
ere
the representations of lions and elephants alternate round the wall with mo=
ral
verses and trite presentments of the lesser virtues. So that to live in a house of many
pictures was tantamount, for the time, to a liberal education in itself.
(1) Champollion-Figeac's LOUIS ET CHARLES
D'ORLEANS, p. 348.
At Charles's birth an order of knighthood was
inaugurated in his honour. At=
nine
years old, he was a squire; at eleven, he had the escort of a chaplain and a
schoolmaster; at twelve, his uncle the king made him a pension of twelve th=
ousand
livres d'or. (1) He saw the m=
ost
brilliant and the most learned persons of France, in his father's Court; an=
d would
not fail to notice that these brilliant and learned persons were one and all
engaged in rhyming. Indeed, i=
f it is
difficult to realise the part played by pictures, it is perhaps even more
difficult to realise that played by verses in the polite and active history=
of
the age. At the siege of Pont=
oise,
English and French exchanged defiant ballades over the walls. (2) If a scandal happened, as in the
loathsome thirty-third story of the CENT NOUVELLES NOUVELLES, all the wits =
must
make rondels and chansonettes, which they would hand from one to another wi=
th
an unmanly sneer. Ladies carr=
ied
their favourite's ballades in their girdles. (3) Margaret of Scotland, all =
the
world knows already, kissed Alain Chartier's lips in honour of the many
virtuous thoughts and golden sayings they had uttered; but it is not so wel=
l known,
that this princess was herself the most industrious of poetasters, that she=
is
supposed to have hastened her death by her literary vigils, and sometimes w=
rote
as many as twelve rondels in the day. (4)&=
nbsp;
It was in rhyme, even, that the young Charles should learn his
lessons. He might get all man=
ner of
instruction in the truly noble art of the chase, not without a smack of eth=
ics
by the way, from the compendious didactic poem of Gace de la Bigne. Nay, and it was in rhyme that he s=
hould
learn rhyming: in the verses of his father's Maitre d'Hotel, Eustache
Deschamps, which treated of "l'art de dictier et de faire chancons,
ballades, virelais et rondeaux," along with many other matters worth a=
ttention,
from the courts of Heaven to the misgovernment of France. (5) At this rate, all knowledge is to =
be had
in a goody, and the end of it is an old song. We need not wonder when we hear fr=
om
Monstrelet that Charles was a very well educated person. He could string Latin texts togeth=
er by
the hour, and make ballades and rondels better than Eustache Deschamps
himself. He had seen a mad ki=
ng who
would not change his clothes, and a drunken emperor who could not keep his =
hand
from the wine-cup. He had spo=
ken a
great deal with jesters and fiddlers, and with the profligate lords who hel=
ped
his father to waste the revenues of France. He had seen ladies dance on into b=
road
daylight, and much burning of torches and waste of dainties and good wine.
(6) And when all is said, it =
was no
very helpful preparation for the battle of life. "I believe Louis XI.," w=
rites
Comines, "would not have saved himself, if he had not been very differ=
ently
brought up from such other lords as I have seen educated in this country; f=
or
these were taught nothing but to play the jackanapes with finery and fine
words." (7) I am afraid
Charles took such lessons to heart, and conceived of life as a season
principally for junketing and war.
His view of the whole duty of man, so empty, vain, and wearisome to =
us,
was yet sincerely and consistently held.&n=
bsp;
When he came in his ripe years to compare the glory of two kingdoms,
England and France, it was on three points only, - pleasures, valour, and
riches, - that he cared to measure them; and in the very outset of that tra=
ct
he speaks of the life of the great as passed, "whether in arms, as in
assaults, battles, and sieges, or in jousts and tournaments, in high and
stately festivities and in funeral solemnities." (8)
(1) D'Hericault's admirable MEMOIR, prefixed t=
o his
edition of Charles's works, vol. i. p. xi. (2) Vallet de Viriville, CHARLES
VII. ET SON EPOQUE, ii. 428, note 2. (3) See Lecoy de la Marche, LE ROI REN=
E,
i. 167. (4) Vallet, CHARLES VII, ii. 85, 86, note 2. (5) Champollion-Figeac,
193-198. (6) Champollion-Figeac, 209. (7) The student will see that there a=
re
facts cited, and expressions borrowed, in this paragraph, from a period ext=
ending
over almost the whole of Charles's life, instead of being confined entirely=
to
his boyhood. As I do not beli=
eve there
was any change, so I do not believe there is any anachronism involved. (8) =
THE
DEBATE BETWEEN THE HERALDS OF FRANCE AND ENGLAND, translated and admirably
edited by Mr. Henry Pyne. For=
the attribution
of this tract to Charles, the reader is referred to Mr. Pyne's conclusive
argument.
When he was no more than thirteen, his father =
had
him affianced to Isabella, virgin-widow of our Richard II. and daughter of =
his
uncle Charles VI.; and, two years after (June 29, 1406), the cousins were
married at Compiegne, he fifteen, she seventeen years of age. It was in every way a most desirab=
le
match. The bride brought five
hundred thousand francs of dowry.
The ceremony was of the utmost magnificence, Louis of Orleans figuri=
ng
in crimson velvet, adorned with no less than seven hundred and ninety-five =
pearls,
gathered together expressly for this occasion. And no doubt it must have been very
gratifying for a young gentleman of fifteen, to play the chief part in a
pageant so gaily put upon the stage.
Only, the bridegroom might have been a little older; and, as ill-luck
would have it, the bride herself was of this way of thinking, and would not=
be consoled
for the loss of her title as queen, or the contemptible age of her new
husband. PLEUROIT FORT LADITE=
ISABEAU;
the said Isabella wept copiously. (1)
It is fairly debatable whether Charles was much to be pitied when, t=
hree
years later (September 1409), this odd marriage was dissolved by death. Short as it was, however, this
connection left a lasting stamp upon his mind; and we find that, in the las=
t decade
of his life, and after he had remarried for perhaps the second time, he had=
not
yet forgotten or forgiven the violent death of Richard II. "Ce mauvais cas" - that =
ugly business,
he writes, has yet to be avenged.
(1) Des Ursins.
The marriage festivity was on the threshold of
evil days. The great rivalry between Louis of Orleans and John the Fearless,
Duke of Burgundy, had been forsworn with the most reverend solemnities. But the feud was only in abeyance,=
and John
of Burgundy still conspired in secret.&nbs=
p;
On November 23, 1407 - in that black winter when the frost lasted
six-and- sixty days on end - a summons from the king reached Louis of Orlea=
ns
at the Hotel Barbette, where he had been supping with Queen Isabel. It was seven or eight in the eveni=
ng,
and the inhabitants of the quarter were abed. He set forth in haste, accompanied=
by
two squires riding on one horse, a page, and a few varlets running with
torches. As he rode, he humme=
d to himself
and trifled with his glove. A=
nd so
riding, he was beset by the bravoes of his enemy and slain. My lord of Burgundy set an ill pre=
cedent
in this deed, as he found some years after on the bridge of Montereau; and =
even
in the meantime he did not profit quietly by his rival's death. The horror of the other princes se=
ems to
have perturbed himself; he avowed his guilt in the council, tried to brazen=
it
out, finally lost heart and fled at full gallop, cutting bridges behind him,
towards Bapaume and Lille. An=
d so
there we have the head of one faction, who had just made himself the most f=
ormidable
man in France, engaged in a remarkably hurried journey, with black care on =
the
pillion. And meantime, on the=
other
side, the widowed duchess came to Paris in appropriate mourning, to demand =
justice
for her husband's death. Char=
les
VI., who was then in a lucid interval, did probably all that he could, when=
he
raised up the kneeling suppliant with kisses and smooth words. Things were at a dead-lock. The criminal might be in the sorri=
est
fright, but he was still the greatest of vassals. Justice was easy to ask and not
difficult to promise; how it was to be executed was another question. No one in France was strong enough=
to punish
John of Burgundy; and perhaps no one, except the widow, very sincere in wis=
hing
to punish him.
She, indeed, was eaten up of zeal; but the
intensity of her eagerness wore her out; and she died about a year after th=
e murder,
of grief and indignation, unrequited love and unsatisfied resentment. It was during the last months of h=
er life
that this fiery and generous woman, seeing the soft hearts of her own child=
ren,
looked with envy on a certain natural son of her husband's destined to beco=
me
famous in the sequel as the Bastard of Orleans, or the brave Dunois. "YOU WERE STOLEN FROM ME,&quo=
t; she
said; "it is you who are fit to avenge your father." These are not the words of ordinar=
y mourning,
or of an ordinary woman. It i=
s a
saying, over which Balzac would have rubbed his episcopal hands. That the child who was to avenge h=
er
husband had not been born out of her body, was a thing intolerable to Valen=
tina
of Milan; and the expression of this singular and tragic jealousy is preser=
ved
to us by a rare chance, in such straightforward and vivid words as we are
accustomed to hear only on the stress of actual life, or in the theatre.
With these instancies of his dying mother - al=
most
a voice from the tomb - still tingling in his ears, the position of young
Charles of Orleans, when he was left at the head of that great house, was
curiously similar to that of Shakspeare's Hamlet. The times were out of joint; here =
was a murdered
father to avenge on a powerful murderer; and here, in both cases, a lad of
inactive disposition born to set these matters right. Valentina's commendation of Dunois=
involved
a judgment on Charles, and that judgment was exactly correct. Whoever might be, Charles was not =
the
man to avenge his father. Like
Hamlet, this son of a dear father murdered was sincerely grieved at heart.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> Like Hamlet, too, he could unpack =
his
heart with words, and wrote a most eloquent letter to the king, complaining
that what was denied to him would not be denied "to the lowest born and
poorest man on earth." Even in his private hours he strove to preserve=
a
lively recollection of his injury, and keep up the native hue of resolution=
. He had gems engraved with appropri=
ate
legends, hortatory or threatening: "DIEU LE SCET," God knows it; =
or "SOUVENEZ-VOUS
DE - " Remember! (1) It =
is
only towards the end that the two stories begin to differ; and in some poin=
ts the
historical version is the more tragic.&nbs=
p;
Hamlet only stabbed a silly old councillor behind the arras; Charles=
of Orleans
trampled France for five years under the hoofs of his banditti. The miscarriage of Hamlet's vengea=
nce
was confined, at widest, to the palace; the ruin wrought by Charles of Orle=
ans was
as broad as France.
(1) Michelet, iv. App. 179, p. 337.
Yet the first act of the young duke is worthy =
of
honourable mention. Prodigal =
Louis
had made enormous debts; and there is a story extant, to illustrate how lig=
htly
he himself regarded these commercial obligations. It appears that Louis, after a nar=
row
escape he made in a thunder-storm, had a smart access of penitence, and
announced he would pay his debts on the following Sunday. More than eight hundred creditors
presented themselves, but by that time the devil was well again, and they w=
ere
shown the door with more gaiety than politeness. A time when such cynical dishonest=
y was possible
for a man of culture is not, it will be granted, a fortunate epoch for
creditors. When the original =
debtor
was so lax, we may imagine how an heir would deal with the incumbrances of =
his
inheritance. On the death of =
Philip
the Forward, father of that John the Fearless whom we have seen at work, the
widow went through the ceremony of a public renunciation of goods; taking o=
ff
her purse and girdle, she left them on the grave, and thus, by one notable =
act,
cancelled her husband's debts and defamed his honour. The conduct of young Charles of Or=
leans
was very different. To meet t=
he
joint liabilities of his father and mother (for Valentina also was lavish),=
he
had to sell or pledge a quantity of jewels; and yet he would not take advan=
tage
of a pretext, even legally valid, to diminish the amount. Thus, one Godefroi Lefevre, having
disbursed many odd sums for the late duke, and received or kept no vouchers,
Charles ordered that he should be believed upon his oath. (1) To a modern mind this seems as
honourable to his father's memory as if John the Fearless had been hanged as
high as Haman. And as things =
fell
out, except a recantation from the University of Paris, which had justified=
the
murder out of party feeling, and various other purely paper reparations, th=
is
was about the outside of what Charles was to effect in that direction. He l=
ived
five years, and grew up from sixteen to twenty-one, in the midst of the most
horrible civil war, or series of civil wars, that ever devastated France; a=
nd
from first to last his wars were ill-starred, or else his victories useless=
. Two years after the murder (March =
1409),
John the Fearless having the upper hand for the moment, a shameful and usel=
ess
reconciliation took place, by the king's command, in the church of Our Lady=
at
Chartres. The advocate of the=
Duke of
Burgundy stated that Louis of Orleans had been killed "for the good of=
the
king's person and realm."
Charles and his brothers, with tears of shame, under protest, POUR NE
PAS DESOBEIR AU ROI, forgave their father's murderer and swore peace upon t=
he
missal. It was, as I say, a
shameful and useless ceremony; the very greffier, entering it in his regist=
er,
wrote in the margin, "PAX, PAX, INQUIT PROPHETA, ET NON EST PAX."
(2) Charles was soon after al=
lied
with the abominable Bernard d'Armagnac, even betrothed or married to a daug=
hter
of his, called by a name that sounds like a contradiction in terms, Bonne
d'Armagnac. From that time fo=
rth,
throughout all this monstrous period - a very nightmare in the history of
France - he is no more than a stalking-horse for the ambitious Gascon. Sometimes the smoke lifts, and you=
can
see him for the twinkling of an eye, a very pale figure; at one moment ther=
e is
a rumour he will be crowned king; at another, when the uproar has subsided,=
he will
be heard still crying out for justice; and the next (1412), he is showing
himself to the applauding populace on the same horse with John of
Burgundy. But these are excep=
tional
seasons, and, for the most part, he merely rides at the Gascon's bridle over
devastated France. His very p=
arty
go, not by the name of Orleans, but by the name of Armagnac, Paris is in the
hands of the butchers: the peasants have taken to the woods. Alliances are made and broken as i=
f in a
country dance; the English called in, now by this one, now by the other.
(1) Champollion-Figeac, pp. 279-82. (2) Michel=
et,
iv. pp. 123-4.
=
II.
=
From
the battle of Agincourt (Oct. 1415) dates the second period of Charles's
life. The English reader will
remember the name of Orleans in the play of HENRY V.; and it is at least odd
that we can trace a resemblance between the puppet and the original. The interjection, "I have hea=
rd a
sonnet begin so to one's mistress" (Act iii. scene 7), may very well i=
ndicate
one who was already an expert in that sort of trifle; and the game of prove=
rbs
he plays with the Constable in the same scene, would be quite in character =
for
a man who spent many years of his life capping verses with his courtiers. Certainly, Charles was in the great
battle with five hundred lances (say, three thousand men), and there he was
made prisoner as he led the van.
According to one story, some ragged English archer shot him down; and
some diligent English Pistol, hunting ransoms on the field of battle, extra=
cted
him from under a heap of bodies and retailed him to our King Henry. He was the most important capture =
of the
day, and used with all consideration.
On the way to Calais, Henry sent him a present of bread and wine (and
bread, you will remember, was an article of luxury in the English camp), but
Charles would neither eat nor drink.
Thereupon, Henry came to visit him in his quarters. "Noble cousin," said he,=
"how
are you?" Charles replie=
d that
he was well. "Why, then,=
do
you neither eat nor drink?"
And then with some asperity, as I imagine, the young duke told him t=
hat
"truly he had no inclination for food." And our Henry improved the occasio=
n with
something of a snuffle, assuring his prisoner that God had fought against t=
he
French on account of their manifold sins and transgressions. Upon this there supervened the ago=
nies
of a rough sea passage; and many French lords, Charles, certainly, among the
number, declared they would rather endure such another defeat than such ano=
ther
sore trial on shipboard. Char=
les,
indeed, never forgot his sufferings.
Long afterwards, he declared his hatred to a seafaring life, and
willingly yielded to England the empire of the seas, "because there is
danger and loss of life, and God knows what pity when it storms; and
sea-sickness is for many people hard to bear; and the rough life that must =
be
led is little suitable for the nobility:" (1) which, of all babyish
utterances that ever fell from any public man, may surely bear the bell.
(1) DEBATE BETWEEN THE HERALDS. (2) Sir H.
Nicholas, AGINCOURT.
His captivity was not without alleviations. For five-and-twenty years he could=
not
go where he would, or do what he liked, or speak with any but his gaolers.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> We may talk very wisely of allevia=
tions;
there is only one alleviation for which the man would thank you: he would t=
hank
you to open the door. With wh=
at
regret Scottish James I. bethought him (in the next room perhaps to Charles=
) of
the time when he rose "as early as the day." What would he not have given to we=
t his
boots once more with morning dew, and follow his vagrant fancy among the
meadows? The only alleviation=
to
the misery of constraint lies in the disposition of the prisoner. To each one this place of discipli=
ne
brings his own lesson. It sti=
rs
Latude or Baron Trenck into heroic action; it is a hermitage for pious and =
conformable
spirits. Beranger tells us he=
found
prison life, with its regular hours and long evenings, both pleasant and pr=
ofitable. THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS and DON QUI=
XOTE
were begun in prison. It was =
after
they were become (to use the words of one of them), "Oh, worst
imprisonment - the dungeon of themselves!" that Homer and Milton worke=
d so
hard and so well for the profit of mankind. In the year 1415 Henry V. had two
distinguished prisoners, French Charles of Orleans and Scottish James I., w=
ho
whiled away the hours of their captivity with rhyming. Indeed, there can be no better pas=
time
for a lonely man than the mechanical exercise of verse. Such intricate forms as Charles ha=
d been
used to from childhood, the ballade with its scanty rhymes; the rondel, with
the recurrence first of the whole, then of half the burthen, in thirteen
verses, seem to have been invented for the prison and the sick bed. The common Scotch saying, on the s=
ight
of anything operose and finical, "he must have had little to do that m=
ade
that!" might be put as epigraph on all the song books of old France. Making such sorts of verse belongs=
to
the same class of pleasures as guessing acrostics or "burying
proverbs." It is almost =
purely
formal, almost purely verbal. It
must be done gently and gingerly.
It keeps the mind occupied a long time, and never so intently as to =
be
distressing; for anything like strain is against the very nature of the
craft. Sometimes things go ea=
sily,
the refrains fall into their place as if of their own accord, and it becomes
something of the nature of an intellectual tennis; you must make your poem =
as
the rhymes will go, just as you must strike your ball as your adversary pla=
yed
it. So that these forms are
suitable rather for those who wish to make verses, than for those who wish =
to
express opinions. Sometimes, on the other hand, difficulties arise: rival v=
erses
come into a man's head, and fugitive words elude his memory. Then it is that he enjoys at the s=
ame
time the deliberate pleasures of a connoisseur comparing wines, and the ard=
our
of the chase. He may have been
sitting all day long in prison with folded hands; but when he goes to bed, =
the
retrospect will seem animated and eventful.
Besides confirming himself as an habitual make=
r of
verses, Charles acquired some new opinions during his captivity. He was perpetually reminded of the
change that had befallen him. He found the climate of England cold and
"prejudicial to the human frame;" he had a great contempt for Eng=
lish
fruit and English beer; even the coal fires were unpleasing in his eyes.
(1) He was rooted up from amo=
ng his
friends and customs and the places that had known him. And so in this strange land he beg=
an to
learn the love of his own. Sa=
d people
all the world over are like to be moved when the wind is in some particular
quarter. So Burns preferred w=
hen it
was in the west, and blew to him from his mistress; so the girl in the ball=
ade,
looking south to Yarrow, thought it might carry a kiss betwixt her and her
gallant; and so we find Charles singing of the "pleasant wind that com=
es
from France." (2) One da=
y, at
"Dover-on-the-Sea," he looked across the straits, and saw the
sandhills about Calais. And it
happened to him, he tells us in a ballade, to remember his happiness over t=
here
in the past; and he was both sad and merry at the recollection, and could n=
ot
have his fill of gazing on the shores of France. (3) Although guilty of unpatriotic act=
s, he
had never been exactly unpatriotic in feeling. But his sojourn in England gave, f=
or the
time at least, some consistency to what had been a very weak and ineffectual
prejudice. He must have been =
under
the influence of more than usually solemn considerations, when he proceeded=
to
turn Henry's puritanical homily after Agincourt into a ballade, and reproach
France, and himself by implication, with pride, gluttony, idleness, unbridl=
ed
covetousness, and sensuality. (4)
For the moment, he must really have been thinking more of France tha=
n of
Charles of Orleans.
(1) DEBATE BETWEEN THE HERALDS. (2) Works (ed.
d'Hericault), i. 43. (3) IBID. 143. (4) Works (ed. d'Hericault), i. 190.
And another lesson he learned. He who was only to be released in =
case
of peace, begins to think upon the disadvantages of war. "Pray for
peace," is his refrain: a strange enough subject for the ally of Berna=
rd
d'Armagnac. (1) But this less=
on was
plain and practical; it had one side in particular that was specially
attractive for Charles; and he did not hesitate to explain it in so many wo=
rds.
"Everybody," he writes - I translate roughly - "everybody sh=
ould
be much inclined to peace, for everybody has a deal to gain by it." (2=
)
(1) IBID. 144. (2) IBID. 158.
Charles made laudable endeavours to acquire
English, and even learned to write a rondel in that tongue of quite average=
mediocrity.
(1) He was for some time bill=
eted
on the unhappy Suffolk, who received fourteen shillings and fourpence a day=
for
his expenses; and from the fact that Suffolk afterwards visited Charles in
France while he was negotiating the marriage of Henry VI., as well as the t=
erms
of that nobleman's impeachment, we may believe there was some not unkindly
intercourse between the prisoner and his gaoler: a fact of considerable
interest when we remember that Suffolk's wife was the granddaughter of the =
poet
Geoffrey Chaucer. (2) Apart from this, and a mere catalogue of dates and
places, only one thing seems evident in the story of Charles's captivity. It seems evident that, as these
five-and-twenty years drew on, he became less and less resigned. Circumstan=
ces
were against the growth of such a feeling.=
One after another of his fellow-prisoners was ransomed and went home=
. More than once he was himself perm=
itted
to visit France; where he worked on abortive treaties and showed himself mo=
re
eager for his own deliverance than for the profit of his native land. Resignation may follow after a rea=
sonable
time upon despair; but if a man is persecuted by a series of brief and
irritating hopes, his mind no more attains to a settled frame of resolution,
than his eye would grow familiar with a night of thunder and lightning. Years after, when he was speaking =
at the
trial of that Duke of Alencon, who began life so hopefully as the boyish
favourite of Joan of Arc, he sought to prove that captivity was a harder
punishment than death. "=
For I
have had experience myself," he said; "and in my prison of Englan=
d,
for the weariness, danger, and displeasure in which I then lay, I have many=
a
time wished I had been slain at the battle where they took me." (3)
(1) M. Champollion-Figeac gives many in his
editions of Charles's works, most (as I should think) of very doubtful auth=
enticity,
or worse. (2) Rymer, x. 564.
D'Hericault's MEMOIR, p. xli.
Gairdner's PASTON LETTERS, i. 27, 99. (3) Champollion-Figeac, 377.
John the Fearless had been murdered in his tur=
n on
the bridge of Montereau so far back as 1419. His son, Philip the Good - partly =
to
extinguish the feud, partly that he might do a popular action, and partly, =
in
view of his ambitious schemes, to detach another great vassal from the thro=
ne
of France - had taken up the cause of Charles of Orleans, and negotiated di=
ligently
for his release. In 1433 a
Burgundian embassy was admitted to an interview with the captive duke, in t=
he presence
of Suffolk. Charles shook han=
ds
most affectionately with the ambassadors.&=
nbsp;
They asked after his health.
"I am well enough in body," he replied, "but far from
well in mind. I am dying of grief at having to pass the best days of my lif=
e in
prison, with none to sympathise."&nbs=
p;
The talk falling on the chances of peace, Charles referred to Suffol=
k if
he were not sincere and constant in his endeavours to bring it about. "If peace depended on me,&quo=
t; he
said, "I should procure it gladly, were it to cost me my life seven da=
ys
after." We may take this=
as
showing what a large price he set, not so much on peace, as on seven days of
freedom. Seven days! - he wou=
ld
make them seven years in the employment.&n=
bsp;
Finally, he assured the ambassadors of his good will to Philip of Bu=
rgundy;
squeezed one of them by the hand and nipped him twice in the arm to signify
things unspeakable before Suffolk; and two days after sent them Suffolk's
barber, one Jean Carnet, a native of Lille, to testify more freely of his s=
entiments. "As I speak French," sai=
d this
emissary, "the Duke of Orleans is more familiar with me than with any
other of the household; and I can bear witness he never said anything again=
st
Duke Philip." (1) It wil=
l be
remembered that this person, with whom he was so anxious to stand well, was=
no
other than his hereditary enemy, the son of his father's murderer. But the honest fellow bore no mali=
ce, indeed
not he. He began exchanging
ballades with Philip, whom he apostrophises as his companion, his cousin, a=
nd
his brother. He assures him t=
hat,
soul and body, he is altogether Burgundian; and protests that he has given =
his heart
in pledge to him. Regarded as=
the
history of a vendetta, it must be owned that Charles's life has points of s=
ome
originality. And yet there is=
an
engaging frankness about these ballades which disarms criticism. (2) You see Charles throwing himself
headforemost into the trap; you hear Burgundy, in his answers begin to insp=
ire
him with his own prejudices, and draw melancholy pictures of the misgovernm=
ent of
France. But Charles's own spi=
rits
are so high and so amiable, and he is so thoroughly convinced his cousin is=
a fine
fellow, that one's scruples are carried away in the torrent of his happiness
and gratitude. And his would =
be a sordid
spirit who would not clap hands at the consummation (Nov. 1440); when Charl=
es,
after having sworn on the Sacrament that he would never again bear arms aga=
inst
England, and pledged himself body and soul to the unpatriotic faction in his
own country, set out from London with a light heart and a damaged integrity=
.
(1) Dom Plancher, iv. 178-9. (2) Works, i. 157=
-63.
In the magnificent copy of Charles's poems, gi=
ven
by our Henry VII. to Elizabeth of York on the occasion of their marriage, a
large illumination figures at the head of one of the pages, which, in
chronological perspective, is almost a history of his imprisonment. It gives a view of London with all=
its
spires, the river passing through the old bridge and busy with boats. One side of the White Tower has be=
en
taken out, and we can see, as under a sort of shrine, the paved room where =
the
duke sits writing. He occupie=
s a
high-backed bench in front of a great chimney; red and black ink are before
him; and the upper end of the apartment is guarded by many halberdiers, with
the red cross of England on their breast.&=
nbsp;
On the next side of the tower he appears again, leaning out of windo=
w and
gazing on the river; doubtless there blows just then "a pleasant wind =
from
out the land of France," and some ship comes up the river: "the s=
hip
of good news." At the do=
or we
find him yet again; this time embracing a messenger, while a groom stands b=
y holding
two saddled horses. And yet f=
urther
to the left, a cavalcade defiles out of the tower; the duke is on his way at
last towards "the sunshine of France."
=
III.
=
During
the five-and-twenty years of his captivity, Charles had not lost in the est=
eem of
his fellow-countrymen. For so=
young
a man, the head of so great a house, and so numerous a party, to be taken
prisoner as he rode in the vanguard of France, and stereotyped for all men =
in
this heroic attitude, was to taste untimeously the honours of the grave.
(1) Vallet's CHARLES VII., i. 251. (2) PROCES =
DE
JEANNE D'ARC, i. 133-55.
Alas! it was not at all as a deliverer that
Charles returned to France. H=
e was
nearly fifty years old. Many
changes had been accomplished since, at twenty-three, he was taken on the f=
ield
of Agincourt. But of all thes=
e he
was profoundly ignorant, or had only heard of them in the discoloured repor=
ts
of Philip of Burgundy. He had=
the
ideas of a former generation, and sought to correct them by the scandal of =
a factious
party. With such qualificatio=
ns he
came back eager for the domination, the pleasures, and the display that bef=
itted
his princely birth. A long di=
suse
of all political activity combined with the flatteries of his new friends t=
o fill
him with an overweening conceit of his own capacity and influence. If aught had gone wrong in his abs=
ence,
it seemed quite natural men should look to him for its redress. Was not King Arthur come again?
The Duke of Burgundy received him with politic
honours. He took his guest by=
his
foible for pageantry, all the easier as it was a foible of his own; and Cha=
rles
walked right out of prison into much the same atmosphere of trumpeting and
bell- ringing as he had left behind when he went in. Fifteen days after his deliverance=
he
was married to Mary of Cleves, at St. Omer. The marriage was celebrated with t=
he
usual pomp of the Burgundian court; there were joustings, and illuminations,
and animals that spouted wine; and many nobles dined together, COMME EN
BRIGADE, and were served abundantly with many rich and curious dishes. (1)<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> It must have reminded Charles not a
little of his first marriage at Compiegne; only then he was two years the
junior of his bride, and this time he was five-and-thirty years her
senior. It will be a fine que=
stion
which marriage promises more: for a boy of fifteen to lead off with a lass =
of
seventeen, or a man of fifty to make a match of it with a child of
fifteen. But there was someth=
ing bitter
in both. The lamentations of
Isabella will not have been forgotten.&nbs=
p;
As for Mary, she took up with one Jaquet de la Lain, a sort of muscu=
lar
Methody of the period, with a huge appetite for tournaments, and a habit of=
confessing
himself the last thing before he went to bed. (2) With such a hero, the you=
ng
duchess's amours were most likely innocent; and in all other ways she was a
suitable partner for the duke, and well fitted to enter into his pleasures.=
(1) Monstrelet. (2) Vallet's CHARLES VII., iii.
chap. i. But see the ch=
ronicle
that bears Jaquet's name: a lean and dreary book.
When the festivities at Saint Omer had come to=
an
end, Charles and his wife set forth by Ghent and Tourney. The towns gave him offerings of mo=
ney as
he passed through, to help in the payment of his ransom. From all sides, ladies and gentlem=
en
thronged to offer him their services; some gave him their sons for pages, s=
ome
archers for a bodyguard; and by the time he reached Tournay, he had a follo=
wing
of 300 horse. Everywhere he w=
as
received as though he had been the King of France. (1) If he did not come to imagine hims=
elf something
of the sort, he certainly forgot the existence of any one with a better cla=
im
to the title. He conducted hi=
mself
on the hypothesis that Charles VII. was another Charles VI. He signed with enthusiasm that tre=
aty of
Arras, which left France almost at the discretion of Burgundy. On December 18 he was still no far=
ther
than Bruges, where he entered into a private treaty with Philip; and it was=
not
until January 14, ten weeks after he disembarked in France, and attended by=
a
ruck of Burgundian gentlemen, that he arrived in Paris and offered to prese=
nt
himself before Charles VII. T=
he
king sent word that he might come, if he would, with a small retinue, but n=
ot
with his present following; and the duke, who was mightily on his high hors=
e after
all the ovations he had received, took the king's attitude amiss, and turned
aside into Touraine, to receive more welcome and more presents, and be conv=
oyed
by torchlight into faithful cities.
(1) Monstrelet.
And so you see, here was King Arthur home agai=
n,
and matters nowise mended in consequence.&=
nbsp;
The best we can say is, that this last stage of Charles's public life
was of no long duration. His
confidence was soon knocked out of him in the contact with others. He began to find he was an earthen=
vessel
among many vessels of brass; he began to be shrewdly aware that he was no K=
ing
Arthur. In 1442, at Limoges, =
he made
himself the spokesman of the malcontent nobility. The king showed himself humiliatin=
gly
indifferent to his counsels, and humiliatingly generous towards his
necessities. And there, with some blushes, he may be said to have taken far=
ewell
of the political stage. A fee=
ble
attempt on the county of Asti is scarce worth the name of exception. Thence=
forward
let Ambition wile whom she may into the turmoil of events, our duke will wa=
lk
cannily in his well-ordered garden, or sit by the fire to touch the slender
reed. (1)
(1) D'Hericault's MEMOIR, xl. xli. Vallet, CHARLES VI., ii. 435.
=
IV.
=
If it
were given each of us to transplant his life wherever he pleased in time or
space, with all the ages and all the countries of the world to choose from,
there would be quite an instructive diversity of taste. A certain sedentary majority would
prefer to remain where they were.
Many would choose the Renaissance; many some stately and simple peri=
od of
Grecian life; and still more elect to pass a few years wandering among the
villages of Palestine with an inspired conductor. For some of our quaintly vicious
contemporaries, we have the decline of the Roman Empire and the reign of He=
nry
III. of France. But there are
others not quite so vicious, who yet cannot look upon the world with perfec=
t gravity,
who have never taken the categorical imperative to wife, and have more taste
for what is comfortable than for what is magnanimous and high; and I can
imagine some of these casting their lot in the Court of Blois during the la=
st twenty
years of the life of Charles of Orleans.
The duke and duchess, their staff of officers =
and
ladies, and the high-born and learned persons who were attracted to Blois o=
n a
visit, formed a society for killing time and perfecting each other in vario=
us
elegant accomplishments, such as we might imagine for an ideal watering-pla=
ce
in the Delectable Mountains. =
The
company hunted and went on pleasure-parties; they played chess, tables, and
many other games. What we now=
call
the history of the period passed, I imagine, over the heads of these good
people much as it passes over our own. News reached them, indeed, of great =
and
joyful import. William Peel received eight livres and five sous from the du=
chess,
when he brought the first tidings that Rouen was recaptured from the Englis=
h.
(1) A little later and the du=
ke sang,
in a truly patriotic vein, the deliverance of Guyenne and Normandy. (2) They were liberal of rhymes and
largesse, and welcomed the prosperity of their country much as they welcomed
the coming of spring, and with no more thought of collaborating towards the
event. Religion was not forgo=
tten in
the Court of Blois. Pilgrimag=
es
were agreeable and picturesque excursions.=
In those days a well-served chapel was something like a good vinery =
in
our own, an opportunity for display and the source of mild enjoyments. There was probably something of his
rooted delight in pageantry, as well as a good deal of gentle piety, in the
feelings with which Charles gave dinner every Friday to thirteen poor peopl=
e,
served them himself, and washed their feet with his own hands. (3) Solemn affairs would interest Char=
les
and his courtiers from their trivial side.=
The duke perhaps cared less for the deliverance of Guyenne and Norma=
ndy
than for his own verses on the occasion; just as Dr. Russell's corresponden=
ce
in THE TIMES was among the most material parts of the Crimean War for that
talented correspondent. And I=
think
it scarcely cynical to suppose that religion as well as patriotism was
principally cultivated as a means of filling up the day.
(1) Champollion-Figeac, 368. (2) Works, i. 115=
. (3)
D'Hericault's MEMOIR, xlv.
It was not only messengers fiery red with haste
and charged with the destiny of nations, who were made welcome at the gates=
of
Blois. If any man of accompli=
shment
came that way, he was sure of an audience, and something for his pocket. The
courtiers would have received Ben Jonson like Drummond of Hawthornden, and a
good pugilist like Captain Barclay.
They were catholic, as none but the entirely idle can be catholic. It
might be Pierre, called Dieu d'amours, the juggler; or it might be three hi=
gh
English minstrels; or the two men, players of ghitterns, from the kingdom of
Scotland, who sang the destruction of the Turks; or again Jehan Rognelet,
player of instruments of music, who played and danced with his wife and two
children; they would each be called into the castle to give a taste of his
proficiency before my lord the duke. (1)&n=
bsp;
Sometimes the performance was of a more personal interest, and produ=
ced
much the same sensations as are felt on an English green on the arrival of a
professional cricketer, or round an English billiard table during a match b=
etween
Roberts and Cooke. This was w=
hen
Jehan Negre, the Lombard, came to Blois and played chess against all these =
chess-players,
and won much money from my lord and his intimates; or when Baudet Harenc of
Chalons made ballades before all these ballade-makers. (2)
(1) ChampoIlion-Figeac, 381, 361, 381. (2)
Champollion-Figeac, 359,361.
It will not surprise the reader to learn they =
were
all makers of ballades and rondels.
To write verses for May day, seems to have been as much a matter of
course, as to ride out with the cavalcade that went to gather hawthorn. The choice of Valentines was a sta=
nding
challenge, and the courtiers pelted each other with humorous and sentimental
verses as in a literary carnival.
If an indecorous adventure befell our friend Maistre Estienne le Gou=
t,
my lord the duke would turn it into the funniest of rondels, all the rhymes
being the names of the cases of nouns or the moods of verbs; and Maistre
Estienne would make reply in similar fashion, seeking to prune the story of=
its
more humiliating episodes. If=
Fredet
was too long away from Court, a rondel went to upbraid him; and it was in a
rondel that Fredet would excuse himself. Sometimes two or three, or as many=
as
a dozen, would set to work on the same refrain, the same idea, or in the sa=
me macaronic
jargon. Some of the poetaster=
s were
heavy enough; others were not wanting in address; and the duchess herself w=
as
among those who most excelled. On
one occasion eleven competitors made a ballade on the idea,
=
"I
die of thirst beside the fountain's edge" (Je meurs de soif empres de =
la
fontaine).
=
These
eleven ballades still exist; and one of them arrests the attention rather f=
rom
the name of the author than from any special merit in itself. It purports to be the work of Fran=
cois
Villon; and so far as a foreigner can judge (which is indeed a small way), =
it
may very well be his. Nay, an=
d if any
one thing is more probable than another, in the great TABULA RASA, or unkno=
wn
land, which we are fain to call the biography of Villon, it seems probable
enough that he may have gone upon a visit to Charles of Orleans. Where Master Baudet Harenc, of Cha=
lons,
found a sympathetic, or perhaps a derisive audience (for who can tell nowad=
ays
the degree of Baudet's excellence in his art?), favour would not be wanting=
for
the greatest ballade-maker of all time.&nb=
sp;
Great as would seem the incongruity, it may have pleased Charles to =
own
a sort of kinship with ragged singers, and whimsically regard himself as on=
e of
the confraternity of poets. A=
nd he
would have other grounds of intimacy with Villon. A room looking upon Windsor garden=
s is a
different matter from Villon's dungeon at Meun; yet each in his own degree =
had
been tried in prison. Each in=
his
own way also, loved the good things of this life and the service of the
Muses. But the same gulf that
separated Burns from his Edinburgh patrons would separate the singer of Boh=
emia
from the rhyming duke. And it=
is
hard to imagine that Villon's training amongst thieves, loose women, and
vagabond students, had fitted him to move in a society of any dignity and
courtliness. Ballades are ver=
y admirable
things; and a poet is doubtless a most interesting visitor. But among the courtiers of Charles,
there would be considerable regard for the proprieties of etiquette; and ev=
en a
duke will sometimes have an eye to his teaspoons. Moreover, as a poet, I can
conceive he may have disappointed expectation. It need surprise nobody if Villon's
ballade on the theme,
"I die of thirst beside the fountain's
edge,"
was but a poor performance. He would make better verses on the
lee-side of a flagon at the sign of the Pomme du Pin, than in a cushioned
settle in the halls of Blois.
Charles liked change of place. He was often not so much travellin=
g as
making a progress; now to join the king for some great tournament; now to v=
isit
King Rene, at Tarascon, where he had a study of his own and saw all manner =
of interesting
things - oriental curios, King Rene painting birds, and, what particularly
pleased him, Triboulet, the dwarf jester, whose skull-cap was no bigger tha=
n an
orange. (1) Sometimes the jou=
rneys
were set about on horseback in a large party, with the FOURRIERS sent forwa=
rd
to prepare a lodging at the next stage.&nb=
sp;
We find almost Gargantuan details of the provision made by these
officers against the duke's arrival, of eggs and butter and bread, cheese a=
nd
peas and chickens, pike and bream and barbel, and wine both white and red.
(2) Sometimes he went by wate=
r in a
barge, playing chess or tables with a friend in the pavilion, or watching o=
ther
vessels as they went before the wind. (3)&=
nbsp;
Children ran along the bank, as they do to this day on the Crinan Ca=
nal;
and when Charles threw in money, they would dive and bring it up. (4) As he looked on at their exploits,=
I
wonder whether that room of gold and silk and worsted came back into his me=
mory,
with the device of little children in a river, and the sky full of birds?
(1) Lecoy de la Marche, ROI RENE, II. 155, 177=
. (2)
Champollion-Figeac, chaps. v. and vi. (3) IBID. 364; Works, i. 172. (4)
Champollion-Figeac, 364: "Jeter de l'argent aux petis enfans qui estoi=
ent
au long de Bourbon, pour les faire nonner en l'eau et aller querre l'argent=
au
fond."
He was a bit of a book-fancier, and had vied w=
ith
his brother Angouleme in bringing back the library of their grandfather Cha=
rles
V., when Bedford put it up for sale in London. (1) The duchess had a librar=
y of
her own; and we hear of her borrowing romances from ladies in attendance on=
the
blue- stocking Margaret of Scotland. (2)&n=
bsp;
Not only were books collected, but new books were written at the cou=
rt
of Blois. The widow of one Jean Fougere, a bookbinder, seems to have done a
number of odd commissions for the bibliophilous count. She it was who recei=
ved
three vellum-skins to bind the duchess's Book of Hours, and who was employe=
d to
prepare parchment for the use of the duke's scribes. And she it was who bound in vermil=
ion
leather the great manuscript of Charles's own poems, which was presented to=
him
by his secretary, Anthony Astesan, with the text in one column, and Astesan=
's
Latin version in the other. (3)
(1) Champollion-Figeac, 387. (2) NOUVELLE
BIOGRAPHIE DIDOT, art. "Marie de Cleves." Vallet, CHARLES VII, ii=
i.
85, note 1. (3) Champollion-Figeac, 383, 384-386.
Such tastes, with the coming of years, would
doubtless take the place of many others.&n=
bsp;
We find in Charles's verse much semi-ironical regret for other days,=
and
resignation to growing infirmities.
He who had been "nourished in the schools of love," now se=
es
nothing either to please or displease him.=
Old age has imprisoned him within doors, where he means to take his
ease, and let younger fellows bestir themselves in life. He had written (in earlier days, w=
e may
presume) a bright and defiant little poem in praise of solitude. If they would but leave him alone =
with
his own thoughts and happy recollections, he declared it was beyond the pow=
er
of melancholy to affect him. =
But
now, when his animal strength has so much declined that he sings the discom=
forts
of winter instead of the inspirations of spring, and he has no longer any
appetite for life, he confesses he is wretched when alone, and, to keep his
mind from grievous thoughts, he must have many people around him, laughing,=
talking,
and singing. (1)
(1) Works, ii. 57, 258.
While Charles was thus falling into years, the
order of things, of which he was the outcome and ornament, was growing old
along with him. The semi-roya=
lty of
the princes of the blood was already a thing of the past; and when Charles =
VII.
was gathered to his fathers, a new king reigned in France, who seemed every=
way
the opposite of royal. Louis =
XI.
had aims that were incomprehensible, and virtues that were inconceivable to=
his
contemporaries. But his
contemporaries were able enough to appreciate his sordid exterior, and his =
cruel
and treacherous spirit. To the
whole nobility of France he was a fatal and unreasonable phenomenon. All such courts as that of Charles=
at
Blois, or his friend Rene's in Provence, would soon be made impossible;
interference was the order of the day; hunting was already abolished; and w=
ho should
say what was to go next? Loui=
s, in
fact, must have appeared to Charles primarily in the light of a kill-joy. I take it, when missionaries land =
in
South Sea Islands and lay strange embargo on the simplest things in life, t=
he
islanders will not be much more puzzled and irritated than Charles of Orlea=
ns
at the policy of the Eleventh Louis.
There was one thing, I seem to apprehend, that had always particular=
ly moved
him; and that was, any proposal to punish a person of his acquaintance. No matter what treason he may have=
made
or meddled with, an Alencon or an Armagnac was sure to find Charles reappear
from private life, and do his best to get him pardoned. He knew them quite well. He had made rondels with them. They were charming people in every
way. There must certainly be =
some
mistake. Had not he himself m=
ade anti-national
treaties almost before he was out of his nonage? And for the matter of that, had not
every one else done the like? Such
are some of the thoughts by which he might explain to himself his aversion =
to
such extremities; but it was on a deeper basis that the feeling probably re=
posed. A man of his temper could not fail=
to be
impressed at the thought of disastrous revolutions in the fortunes of those=
he
knew. He would feel painfully=
the
tragic contrast, when those who had everything to make life valuable were d=
eprived
of life itself. And it was sh=
ocking
to the clemency of his spirit, that sinners should be hurried before their =
judge
without a fitting interval for penitence and satisfaction. It was this feeling which brought =
him at
last, a poor, purblind blue-bottle of the later autumn, into collision with
"the universal spider," Louis XI. He took up the defence of the Duke=
of
Brittany at Tours. But Louis =
was then
in no humour to hear Charles's texts and Latin sentiments; he had his back =
to
the wall, the future of France was at stake; and if all the old men in the
world had crossed his path, they would have had the rough side of his tongu=
e like
Charles of Orleans. I have fo=
und
nowhere what he said, but it seems it was monstrously to the point, and so
rudely conceived that the old duke never recovered the indignity. He got ho=
me
as far as Amboise, sickened, and died two days after (Jan. 4, 1465), in the
seventy-fourth year of his age. And so a whiff of pungent prose stopped the
issue of melodious rondels to the end of time.
=
V.
=
The
futility of Charles's public life was of a piece throughout. He never succeeded in any single p=
urpose
he set before him; for his deliverance from England, after twenty- five yea=
rs
of failure and at the cost of dignity and consistency, it would be ridiculo=
usly
hyperbolical to treat as a success.
During the first part of his life he was the stalking horse of Berna=
rd
d'Armagnac; during the second, he was the passive instrument of English
diplomatists; and before he was well entered on the third, he hastened to b=
ecome
the dupe and catspaw of Burgundian treason. On each of these occasions, a stro=
ng and
not dishonourable personal motive determined his behaviour. In 1407 and the following years, h=
e had
his father's murder uppermost in his mind. During his English captivity, th=
at
thought was displaced by a more immediate desire for his own liberation.
This incapacity to see things with any greatne=
ss,
this obscure and narrow view was fundamentally characteristic of the man as
well as of the epoch. It is n=
ot
even so striking in his public life, where he failed, as in his poems, wher=
e he
notably succeeded. For wherev=
er we
might expect a poet to be unintelligent, it certainly would not be in his
poetry. And Charles is unintelligent even there. Of all authors whom a modern may s=
till
read and read over again with pleasure, he has perhaps the least to say.
Although they are not inspired by any deeper
motive than the common run of contemporaneous drawing-room verses, those of=
Charles
of Orleans are executed with inimitable lightness and delicacy of touch.
Theodore de Banville, the youngest poet of a
famous generation now nearly extinct, and himself a sure and finished artis=
t,
knocked off, in his happiest vein, a few experiments in imitation of Charle=
s of
Orleans. I would recommend th=
ese
modern rondels to all who care about the old duke, not only because they are
delightful in themselves, but because they serve as a contrast to throw into
relief the peculiarities of their model.&n=
bsp;
When de Banville revives a forgotten form of verse - and he has alre=
ady
had the honour of reviving the ballade - he does it in the spirit of a work=
man
choosing a good tool wherever he can find one, and not at all in that of the
dilettante, who seeks to renew bygone forms of thought and make historic
forgeries. With the ballade t=
his
seemed natural enough; for in connection with ballades the mind recurs to
Villon, and Villon was almost more of a modern than de Banville himself.
IN two books a fresh light has recently been
thrown on the character and position of Samuel Pepys. Mr. Mynors Bright has given us a n=
ew
transcription of the Diary, increasing it in bulk by near a third, correcti=
ng
many errors, and completing our knowledge of the man in some curious and im=
portant
points. We can only regret th=
at he
has taken liberties with the author and the public. It is no part of the duties of the
editor of an established classic to decide what may or may not be "ted=
ious
to the reader." The book=
is either
an historical document or not, and in condemning Lord Braybrooke Mr. Bright
condemns himself. As for the =
time- honoured
phrase, "unfit for publication," without being cynical, we may re=
gard
it as the sign of a precaution more or less commercial; and we may think,
without being sordid, that when we purchase six huge and distressingly
expensive volumes, we are entitled to be treated rather more like scholars =
and
rather less like children. Bu=
t Mr.
Bright may rest assured: while we complain, we are still grateful. Mr. Wheatley, to divide our obliga=
tion,
brings together, clearly and with no lost words, a body of illustrative
material. Sometimes we might ask a little more; never, I think, less. And a=
s a
matter of fact, a great part of Mr. Wheatley's volume might be transferred,=
by
a good editor of Pepys, to the margin of the text, for it is precisely what=
the
reader wants.
In the light of these two books, at least, we =
have
now to read our author. Betwe=
en
them they contain all we can expect to learn for, it may be, many years.
=
THE
DIARY.
=
That
there should be such a book as Pepys's Diary is incomparably strange. Pepys, in a corrupt and idle perio=
d, played
the man in public employments, toiling hard and keeping his honour bright.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> Much of the little good that is se=
t down
to James the Second comes by right to Pepys; and if it were little for a ki=
ng,
it is much for a subordinate. To his
clear, capable head was owing somewhat of the greatness of England on the
seas. In the exploits of Hawk=
e,
Rodney, or Nelson, this dead Mr. Pepys of the Navy Office had some consider=
able
share. He stood well by his
business in the appalling plague of 1666.&=
nbsp;
He was loved and respected by some of the best and wisest men in
England. He was President of =
the
Royal Society; and when he came to die, people said of his conduct in that
solemn hour - thinking it needless to say more - that it was answerable to =
the
greatness of his life. Thus he walked in dignity, guards of soldiers someti=
mes attending
him in his walks, subalterns bowing before his periwig; and when he uttered=
his
thoughts they were suitable to his state and services. On February 8, 1668, we find him w=
riting
to Evelyn, his mind bitterly occupied with the late Dutch war, and some tho=
ughts
of the different story of the repulse of the Great Armada: "Sir, you w=
ill
not wonder at the backwardness of my thanks for the present you made me, so=
many
days since, of the Prospect of the Medway, while the Hollander rode master =
in
it, when I have told you that the sight of it hath led me to such reflectio=
ns
on my particular interest, by my employment, in the reproach due to that mi=
scarriage,
as have given me little less disquiet than he is fancied to have who found =
his
face in Michael Angelo's hell. The same should serve me also in excuse for =
my
silence in celebrating your mastery shown in the design and draught, did not
indignation rather than courtship urge me so far to commend them, as to wish
the furniture of our House of Lords changed from the story of '88 to that of
'67 (of Evelyn's designing), till the pravity of this were reformed to the =
temper
of that age, wherein God Almighty found his blessings more operative than, I
fear, he doth in ours his judgments."
This is a letter honourable to the writer, whe=
re
the meaning rather than the words is eloquent. Such was the account he gave of hi=
mself
to his contemporaries; such thoughts he chose to utter, and in such languag=
e:
giving himself out for a grave and patriotic public servant. We turn to the same date in the Di=
ary by
which he is known, after two centuries, to his descendants. The entry begins in the same key w=
ith
the letter, blaming the "madness of the House of Commons" and &qu=
ot;the
base proceedings, just the epitome of all our public proceedings in this ag=
e,
of the House of Lords;" and then, without the least transition, this is
how our diarist proceeds: "To the Strand, to my bookseller's, and ther=
e bought
an idle, rogueish French book, L'ESCHOLLE DES FILLES, which I have bought in
plain binding, avoiding the buying of it better bound, because I resolve, as
soon as I have read it, to burn it, that it may not stand in the list of bo=
oks,
nor among them, to disgrace them, if it should be found." Even in our =
day,
when responsibility is so much more clearly apprehended, the man who wrote =
the
letter would be notable; but what about the man, I do not say who bought a
roguish book, but who was ashamed of doing so, yet did it, and recorded both
the doing and the shame in the pages of his daily journal?
We all, whether we write or speak, must somewh=
at
drape ourselves when we address our fellows; at a given moment we apprehend=
our
character and acts by some particular side; we are merry with one, grave wi=
th
another, as befits the nature and demands of the relation. Pepys's letter to Evelyn would have
little in common with that other one to Mrs. Knipp which he signed by the
pseudonym of DAPPER DICKY; yet each would be suitable to the character of h=
is
correspondent. There is no un=
truth
in this, for man, being a Protean animal, swiftly shares and changes with h=
is
company and surroundings; and these changes are the better part of his
education in the world. To st=
rike a
posture once for all, and to march through life like a drum-major, is to be
highly disagreeable to others and a fool for oneself into the bargain. To Evelyn and to Knipp we understa=
nd the
double facing; but to whom was he posing in the Diary, and what, in the nam=
e of
astonishment, was the nature of the pose?&=
nbsp;
Had he suppressed all mention of the book, or had he bought it, glor=
ied
in the act, and cheerfully recorded his glorification, in either case we sh=
ould
have made him out. But no; he=
is
full of precautions to conceal the "disgrace" of the purchase, an=
d yet
speeds to chronicle the whole affair in pen and ink. It is a sort of anomaly in human a=
ction,
which we can exactly parallel from another part of the Diary.
Mrs. Pepys had written a paper of her too just
complaints against her husband, and written it in plain and very pungent En=
glish. Pepys, in an agony lest the world =
should
come to see it, brutally seizes and destroys the tell-tale document; and th=
en -
you disbelieve your eyes - down goes the whole story with unsparing truth a=
nd
in the cruellest detail. It s=
eems
he has no design but to appear respectable, and here he keeps a private boo=
k to
prove he was not. You are at =
first faintly
reminded of some of the vagaries of the morbid religious diarist; but at a
moment's thought the resemblance disappears. The design of Pepys is not at all =
to edify;
it is not from repentance that he chronicles his peccadilloes, for he tells=
us
when he does repent, and, to be just to him, there often follows some
improvement. Again, the sins =
of the
religious diarist are of a very formal pattern, and are told with an elabor=
ate
whine. But in Pepys you come =
upon
good, substantive misdemeanours; beams in his eye of which he alone remains
unconscious; healthy outbreaks of the animal nature, and laughable subterfu=
ges
to himself that always command belief and often engage the sympathies.
Pepys was a young man for his age, came slowly=
to
himself in the world, sowed his wild oats late, took late to industry, and
preserved till nearly forty the headlong gusto of a boy. So, to come rightl=
y at
the spirit in which the Diary was written, we must recall a class of sentim=
ents
which with most of us are over and done before the age of twelve. In our tender years we still prese=
rve a
freshness of surprise at our prolonged existence; events make an impression=
out
of all proportion to their consequence; we are unspeakably touched by our o=
wn
past adventures, and look forward to our future personality with sentimental
interest. It was something of=
this,
I think, that clung to Pepys.
Although not sentimental in the abstract, he was sweetly sentimental
about himself. His own past clung about his heart, an evergreen. He was the slave of an association=
. He could not pass by Islington, wh=
ere
his father used to carry him to cakes and ale, but he must light at the
"King's Head" and eat and drink "for remembrance of the old
house sake." He counted =
it
good fortune to lie a night at Epsom to renew his old walks, "where Mr=
s.
Hely and I did use to walk and talk, with whom I had the first sentiments of
love and pleasure in a woman's company, discourse and taking her by the han=
d,
she being a pretty woman." He
goes about weighing up the ASSURANCE, which lay near Woolwich underwater, a=
nd
cries in a parenthesis, "Poor ship, that I have been twice merry in, i=
n Captain
Holland's time;" and after revisiting the NASEBY, now changed into the
CHARLES, he confesses "it was a great pleasure to myself to see the sh=
ip
that I began my good fortune in."&nbs=
p;
The stone that he was cut for he preserved in a case; and to the Tur=
ners
he kept alive such gratitude for their assistance that for years, and after=
he
had begun to mount himself into higher zones, he continued to have that fam=
ily
to dinner on the anniversary of the operation. Not Hazlitt nor Rousseau had a more
romantic passion for their past, although at times they might express it mo=
re romantically;
and if Pepys shared with them this childish fondness, did not Rousseau, who
left behind him the CONFESSIONS, or Hazlitt, who wrote the LIBER AMORIS, an=
d loaded
his essays with loving personal detail, share with Pepys in his unwearied
egotism? For the two things g=
o hand
in hand; or, to be more exact, it is the first that makes the second either
possible or pleasing.
But, to be quite in sympathy with Pepys, we mu=
st
return once more to the experience of children. I can remember to have written, in=
the
fly-leaf of more than one book, the date and the place where I then was - i=
f,
for instance, I was ill in bed or sitting in a certain garden; these were
jottings for my future self; if I should chance on such a note in after yea=
rs,
I thought it would cause me a particular thrill to recognise myself across =
the
intervening distance. Indeed,=
I might
come upon them now, and not be moved one tittle - which shows that I have
comparatively failed in life, and grown older than Samuel Pepys. For in the Diary we can find more =
than
one such note of perfect childish egotism; as when he explains that his can=
dle
is going out, "which makes me write thus slobberingly;" or as in =
this
incredible particularity, "To my study, where I only wrote thus much of
this day's passages to this *, and so out again;" or lastly, as here, =
with
more of circumstance: "I staid up till the bellman came by with his be=
ll
under my window, AS I WAS WRITING OF THIS VERY LINE, and cried, `Past one of
the clock, and a cold, frosty, windy morning.'" Such passages are not to be misund=
erstood. The appeal to Samuel Pepys years h=
ence
is unmistakable. He desires t=
hat
dear, though unknown, gentleman keenly to realise his predecessor; to remem=
ber
why a passage was uncleanly written; to recall (let us fancy, with a sigh) =
the
tones of the bellman, the chill of the early, windy morning, and the very l=
ine
his own romantic self was scribing at the moment. The man, you will perceive, was ma=
king
reminiscences - a sort of pleasure by ricochet, which comforts many in
distress, and turns some others into sentimental libertines: and the whole
book, if you will but look at it in that way, is seen to be a work of art t=
o Pepys's
own address.
Here, then, we have the key to that remarkable
attitude preserved by him throughout his Diary, to that unflinching - I had
almost said, that unintelligent - sincerity which makes it a miracle among
human books. He was not uncon=
scious
of his errors - far from it; he was often startled into shame, often reform=
ed,
often made and broke his vows of change.&n=
bsp;
But whether he did ill or well, he was still his own unequalled self;
still that entrancing EGO of whom alone he cared to write; and still sure of
his own affectionate indulgence, when the parts should be changed, and the
Writer come to read what he had written.&n=
bsp;
Whatever he did, or said, or thought, or suffered, it was still a tr=
ait
of Pepys, a character of his career; and as, to himself, he was more
interesting than Moses or than Alexander, so all should be faithfully set d=
own. I have called his Diary a work of
art. Now when the artist has =
found
something, word or deed, exactly proper to a favourite character in play or
novel, he will neither suppress nor diminish it, though the remark be silly=
or
the act mean. The hesitation =
of
Hamlet, the credulity of Othello, the baseness of Emma Bovary, or the
irregularities of Mr. Swiveller, caused neither disappointment nor disgust =
to
their creators. And so with P=
epys
and his adored protagonist: adored not blindly, but with trenchant insight =
and
enduring, human toleration. I=
have
gone over and over the greater part of the Diary; and the points where, to =
the most
suspicious scrutiny, he has seemed not perfectly sincere, are so few, so
doubtful, and so petty, that I am ashamed to name them. It may be said that we all of us w=
rite such
a diary in airy characters upon our brain; but I fear there is a distinctio=
n to
be made; I fear that as we render to our consciousness an account of our da=
ily
fortunes and behaviour, we too often weave a tissue of romantic compliments=
and
dull excuses; and even if Pepys were the ass and cowardly that men call him=
, we
must take rank as sillier and more cowardly than he. The bald truth about oneself, what=
we
are all too timid to admit when we are not too dull to see it, that was wha=
t he
saw clearly and set down unsparingly.
It is improbable that the Diary can have been
carried on in the same single spirit in which it was begun. Pepys was not such an ass, but he =
must
have perceived, as he went on, the extraordinary nature of the work he was
producing. He was a great rea=
der,
and he knew what other books were like.&nb=
sp;
It must, at least, have crossed his mind that some one might ultimat=
ely
decipher the manuscript, and he himself, with all his pains and pleasures, =
be
resuscitated in some later day; and the thought, although discouraged, must
have warmed his heart. He was=
not
such an ass, besides, but he must have been conscious of the deadly explosi=
ves,
the gun-cotton and the giant powder, he was hoarding in his drawer. Let some contemporary light upon t=
he
journal, and Pepys was plunged for ever in social and political disgrace. We can trace the growth of his ter=
rors
by two facts. In 1660, while =
the
Diary was still in its youth, he tells about it, as a matter of course, to a
lieutenant in the navy; but in 1669, when it was already near an end, he co=
uld
have bitten his tongue out, as the saying is, because he had let slip his
secret to one so grave and friendly as Sir William Coventry. And from two other facts I think w=
e may
infer that he had entertained, even if he had not acquiesced in, the though=
t of
a far- distant publicity. The=
first
is of capital importance: the Diary was not destroyed. The second - that he took unusual =
precautions
to confound the cipher in "rogueish" passages - proves, beyond
question, that he was thinking of some other reader besides himself. Perhaps while his friends were adm=
iring
the "greatness of his behaviour" at the approach of death, he may
have had a twinkling hope of immortality.&=
nbsp;
MENS CUJUSQUE IS EST QUISQUE, said his chosen motto; and, as he had
stamped his mind with every crook and foible in the pages of the Diary, he
might feel that what he left behind him was indeed himself. There is perhaps no other instance=
so remarkable
of the desire of man for publicity and an enduring name. The greatness of his life was open=
, yet
he longed to communicate its smallness also; and, while contemporaries bowed
before him, he must buttonhole posterity with the news that his periwig was
once alive with nits. But this
thought, although I cannot doubt he had it, was neither his first nor his
deepest; it did not colour one word that he wrote; and the Diary, for as lo=
ng
as he kept it, remained what it was when he began, a private pleasure for
himself. It was his bosom sec=
ret;
it added a zest to all his pleasures; he lived in and for it, and might well
write these solemn words, when he closed that confidant for ever: "And=
so
I betake myself to that course which is almost as much as to see myself go =
into
the grave; for which, and all the discomforts that will accompany my being
blind, the good God prepare me."
A
LIBERAL GENIUS.
=
Pepys
spent part of a certain winter Sunday, when he had taken physic, composing
"a song in praise of a liberal genius (such as I take my own to be) to=
all
studies and pleasures." The song was unsuccessful, but the Diary is, i=
n a
sense, the very song that he was seeking; and his portrait by Hales, so adm=
irably
reproduced in Mynors Bright's edition, is a confirmation of the Diary. Hales, it would appear, had known =
his
business; and though he put his sitter to a deal of trouble, almost breaking
his neck "to have the portrait full of shadows," and draping him =
in
an Indian gown hired expressly for the purpose, he was preoccupied about no
merely picturesque effects, but to portray the essence of the man. Whether =
we
read the picture by the Diary or the Diary by the picture, we shall at least
agree that Hales was among the number of those who can "surprise the
manners in the face." Here we have a mouth pouting, moist with desires;
eyes greedy, protuberant, and yet apt for weeping too; a nose great alike in
character and dimensions; and altogether a most fleshly, melting
countenance. The face is attr=
active
by its promise of reciprocity. I
have used the word GREEDY, but the reader must not suppose that he can chan=
ge
it for that closely kindred one of HUNGRY, for there is here no aspiration,=
no
waiting for better things, but an animal joy in all that comes. It could never be the face of an a=
rtist;
it is the face of a VIVEUR - kindly, pleased and pleasing, protected from
excess and upheld in contentment by the shifting versatility of his
desires. For a single desire =
is more
rightly to be called a lust; but there is health in a variety, where one may
balance and control another.
The whole world, town or country, was to Pepys=
a
garden of Armida. Wherever he=
went,
his steps were winged with the most eager expectation; whatever he did, it =
was
done with the most lively pleasure.
An insatiable curiosity in all the shows of the world and all the
secrets of knowledge, filled him brimful of the longing to travel, and
supported him in the toils of study.
Rome was the dream of his life; he was never happier than when he re=
ad
or talked of the Eternal City. When
he was in Holland, he was "with child" to see any strange thing.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> Meeting some friends and singing w=
ith
them in a palace near the Hague, his pen fails him to express his passion of
delight, "the more so because in a heaven of pleasure and in a strange
country." He must go to =
see
all famous executions. He must
needs visit the body of a murdered man, defaced "with a broad wound,&q=
uot;
he says, "that makes my hand now shake to write of it." He learned to dance, and was "=
;like
to make a dancer." He le=
arned
to sing, and walked about Gray's Inn Fields "humming to myself (which =
is
now my constant practice) the trillo." He learned to play the lute, the f=
lute,
the flageolet, and the theorbo, and it was not the fault of his intention i=
f he
did not learn the harpsichord or the spinet. He learned to compose songs, and b=
urned
to give forth "a scheme and theory of music not yet ever made in the
world." When he heard &q=
uot;a
fellow whistle like a bird exceeding well," he promised to return anot=
her day
and give an angel for a lesson in the art.=
Once, he writes, "I took the Bezan back with me, and with a bra=
ve
gale and tide reached up that night to the Hope, taking great pleasure in
learning the seamen's manner of singing when they sound the depths." If he found himself rusty in his L=
atin grammar,
he must fall to it like a schoolboy.
He was a member of Harrington's Club till its dissolution, and of th=
e Royal
Society before it had received the name.&n=
bsp;
Boyle's HYDROSTATICS was "of infinite delight" to him, wal=
king
in Barnes Elms. We find him
comparing Bible concordances, a captious judge of sermons, deep in Descartes
and Aristotle. We find him, in a single year, studying timber and the measu=
rement
of timber; tar and oil, hemp, and the process of preparing cordage; mathema=
tics
and accounting; the hull and the rigging of ships from a model; and
"looking and improving himself of the (naval) stores with" - hark=
to
the fellow! - "great delight."&n=
bsp;
His familiar spirit of delight was not the same with Shelley's; but =
how
true it was to him through life! He is only copying something, and behold, =
he
"takes great pleasure to rule the lines, and have the capital words wr=
ote with
red ink;" he has only had his coal-cellar emptied and cleaned, and beh=
old,
"it do please him exceedingly."&=
nbsp;
A hog's harslett is "a piece of meat he loves." He cannot ride home in my Lord
Sandwich's coach, but he must exclaim, with breathless gusto, "his nob=
le,
rich coach." When he is =
bound for
a supper party, he anticipates a "glut of pleasure." When he has a
new watch, "to see my childishness," says he, "I could not
forbear carrying it in my hand and seeing what o'clock it was an hundred
times." To go to Vauxhal=
l, he says,
and "to hear the nightingales and other birds, hear fiddles, and there=
a
harp and here a Jew's trump, and here laughing, and there fine people walki=
ng,
is mighty divertising." =
And
the nightingales, I take it, were particularly dear to him; and it was again
"with great pleasure that he paused to hear them as he walked to Woolw=
ich,
while the fog was rising and the April sun broke through.
He must always be doing something agreeable, a=
nd,
by preference, two agreeable things at once. In his house he had a box of carpe=
nter's
tools, two dogs, an eagle, a canary, and a blackbird that whistled tunes, l=
est,
even in that full life, he should chance upon an empty moment. If he had to wait for a dish of po=
ached
eggs, he must put in the time by playing on the flageolet; if a sermon were
dull, he must read in the book of Tobit or divert his mind with sly advance=
s on
the nearest women. When he wa=
lked,
it must be with a book in his pocket to beguile the way in case the
nightingales were silent; and even along the streets of London, with so man=
y pretty
faces to be spied for and dignitaries to be saluted, his trail was marked by
little debts "for wine, pictures, etc.," the true headmark of a l=
ife
intolerant of any joyless passage.
He had a kind of idealism in pleasure; like the princess in the fairy
story, he was conscious of a rose-leaf out of place. Dearly as he loved to talk, he cou=
ld not
enjoy nor shine in a conversation when he thought himself unsuitably
dressed. Dearly as he loved e=
ating,
he "knew not how to eat alone;" pleasure for him must heighten
pleasure; and the eye and ear must be flattered like the palate ere he avow
himself content. He had no ze=
st in
a good dinner when it fell to be eaten "in a bad street and in a
periwig-maker's house;" and a collation was spoiled for him by indiffe=
rent
music. His body was indefatig=
able,
doing him yeoman's service in this breathless chase of pleasures. On April 11, 1662, he mentions tha=
t he
went to bed "weary, WHICH I SELDOM AM;" and already over thirty, =
he
would sit up all night cheerfully to see a comet. But it is never pleasure that exha=
usts
the pleasure-seeker; for in that career, as in all others, it is failure th=
at
kills. The man who enjoys so =
wholly
and bears so impatiently the slightest widowhood from joy, is just the man =
to
lose a night's rest over some paltry question of his right to fiddle on the
leads, or to be "vexed to the blood" by a solecism in his wife's
attire; and we find in consequence that he was always peevish when he was
hungry, and that his head "aked mightily" after a dispute. But nothing could divert him from =
his
aim in life; his remedy in care was the same as his delight in prosperity; =
it
was with pleasure, and with pleasure only, that he sought to drive out sorr=
ow;
and, whether he was jealous of his wife or skulking from a bailiff, he would
equally take refuge in the theatre. There, if the house be full and the com=
pany
noble, if the songs be tunable, the actors perfect, and the play diverting,=
this
odd hero of the secret Diary, this private self-adorer, will speedily be he=
aled
of his distresses.
Equally pleased with a watch, a coach, a piece=
of
meat, a tune upon the fiddle, or a fact in hydrostatics, Pepys was pleased =
yet
more by the beauty, the worth, the mirth, or the mere scenic attitude in li=
fe
of his fellow-creatures. He s=
hows
himself throughout a sterling humanist.&nb=
sp;
Indeed, he who loves himself, not in idle vanity, but with a plenitu=
de
of knowledge, is the best equipped of all to love his neighbours. And perhaps it is in this sense th=
at
charity may be most properly said to begin at home. It does not matter what quality a =
person
has: Pepys can appreciate and love him for it. He "fills his eyes" with=
the
beauty of Lady Castlemaine; indeed, he may be said to dote upon the thought=
of
her for years; if a woman be good-looking and not painted, he will walk mil=
es
to have another sight of her; and even when a lady by a mischance spat upon=
his
clothes, he was immediately consoled when he had observed that she was pret=
ty. But, on the other hand, he is deli=
ghted
to see Mrs. Pett upon her knees, and speaks thus of his Aunt James: "a=
poor,
religious, well-meaning, good soul, talking of nothing but God Almighty, and
that with so much innocence that mightily pleased me." He is taken with Pen's merriment a=
nd loose
songs, but not less taken with the sterling worth of Coventry. He is jolly with a drunken sailor,=
but
listens with interest and patience, as he rides the Essex roads, to the sto=
ry
of a Quaker's spiritual trials and convictions. He lends a critical ear to the dis=
course
of kings and royal dukes. He =
spends
an evening at Vauxhall with "Killigrew and young Newport - loose
company," says he, "but worth a man's being in for once, to know =
the
nature of it, and their manner of talk and lives." And when a rag-boy lights him home=
, he examines
him about his business and other ways of livelihood for destitute
children. This is almost half=
-way
to the beginning of philanthropy; had it only been the fashion, as it is at
present, Pepys had perhaps been a man famous for good deeds. And it is through this quality tha=
t he
rises, at times, superior to his surprising egotism; his interest in the lo=
ve
affairs of others is, indeed, impersonal; he is filled with concern for my =
Lady
Castlemaine, whom he only knows by sight, shares in her very jealousies, jo=
ys
with her in her successes; and it is not untrue, however strange it seems in
his abrupt presentment, that he loved his maid Jane because she was in love
with his man Tom.
Let us hear him, for once, at length: "So=
the
women and W. Hewer and I walked upon the Downes, where a flock of sheep was;
and the most pleasant and innocent sight that ever I saw in my life. We found a shepherd and his little=
boy
reading, far from any houses or sight of people, the Bible to him; so I made
the boy read to me, which he did with the forced tone that children do usua=
lly
read, that was mighty pretty; and then I did give him something, and went to
the father, and talked with him. He
did content himself mightily in my liking his boy's reading, and did bless =
God
for him, the most like one of the old patriarchs that ever I saw in my life=
, and
it brought those thoughts of the old age of the world in my mind for two or
three days after. We took not=
ice of
his woolen knit stockings of two colours mixed, and of his shoes shod with
iron, both at the toe and heels, and with great nails in the soles of his f=
eet,
which was mighty pretty; and taking notice of them, 'Why,' says the poor ma=
n,
'the downes, you see, are full of stones, and we are faine to shoe ourselves
thus; and these,' says he, 'will make the stones fly till they ring before
me.' I did give the poor man =
something,
for which he was mighty thankful, and I tried to cast stones with his horne
crooke. He values his dog mig=
htily,
that would turn a sheep any way which he would have him, when he goes to fo=
ld
them; told me there was about eighteen score sheep in his flock, and that he
hath four shillings a week the year round for keeping of them; and Mrs. Tur=
ner,
in the common fields here, did gather one of the prettiest nosegays that ev=
er I
saw in my life."
And so the story rambles on to the end of that
day's pleasuring; with cups of milk, and glowworms, and people walking at
sundown with their wives and children, and all the way home Pepys still
dreaming "of the old age of the world" and the early innocence of
man. This was how he walked t=
hrough
life, his eyes and ears wide open, and his hand, you will observe, not shut;
and thus he observed the lives, the speech, and the manners of his fellow-m=
en,
with prose fidelity of detail and yet a lingering glamour of romance.
It was "two or three days after" tha=
t he
extended this passage in the pages of his journal, and the style has thus t=
he
benefit of some reflection. I=
t is
generally supposed that, as a writer, Pepys must rank at the bottom of the =
scale
of merit. But a style which is
indefatigably lively, telling, and picturesque through six large volumes of=
everyday
experience, which deals with the whole matter of a life, and yet is rarely
wearisome, which condescends to the most fastidious particulars, and yet sw=
eeps
all away in the forthright current of the narrative, - such a style may be =
ungrammatical,
it may be inelegant, it may be one tissue of mistakes, but it can never be
devoid of merit. The first an=
d the
true function of the writer has been thoroughly performed throughout; and
though the manner of his utterance may be childishly awkward, the matter has
been transformed and assimilated by his unfeigned interest and delight. The gusto of the man speaks out fi=
erily
after all these years. For th=
e difference
between Pepys and Shelley, to return to that half- whimsical approximation,=
is
one of quality but not one of degree; in his sphere, Pepys felt as keenly, =
and
his is the true prose of poetry - prose because the spirit of the man was
narrow and earthly, but poetry because he was delightedly alive. Hence, in such a passage as this a=
bout
the Epsom shepherd, the result upon the reader's mind is entire conviction =
and
unmingled pleasure. So, you f=
eel,
the thing fell out, not otherwise; and you would no more change it than you
would change a sublimity of Shakespeare's, a homely touch of Bunyan's, or a
favoured reminiscence of your own.
There never was a man nearer being an artist, =
who
yet was not one. The tang was=
in
the family; while he was writing the journal for our enjoyment in his comely
house in Navy Gardens, no fewer than two of his cousins were tramping the f=
ens,
kit under arm, to make music to the country girls. But he himself, though he could pl=
ay so
many instruments and pass judgment in so many fields of art, remained an
amateur. It is not given to a=
ny one
so keenly to enjoy, without some greater power to understand. That he did not like Shakespeare a=
s an
artist for the stage may be a fault, but it is not without either parallel =
or excuse. He certainly admired him as a poet=
; he
was the first beyond mere actors on the rolls of that innumerable army who =
have
got "To be or not to be" by heart. Nor was he content with that; it h=
aunted
his mind; he quoted it to himself in the pages of the Diary, and, rushing in
where angels fear to tread, he set it to music. Nothing, indeed, is more notable t=
han
the heroic quality of the verses that our little sensualist in a periwig ch=
ose
out to marry with his own mortal strains.&=
nbsp;
Some gust from brave Elizabethan times must have warmed his spirit, =
as he
sat tuning his sublime theorbo.
"To be or not to be. Whether 'tis nobler" - "Beauty
retire, thou dost my pity move" - "It is decreed, nor shall thy f=
ate,
O Rome;" - open and dignified in the sound, various and majestic in th=
e sentiment,
it was no inapt, as it was certainly no timid, spirit that selected such a
range of themes. Of "Gaz=
e not
on Swans," I know no more than these four words; yet that also seems to
promise well. It was, however=
, on a
probable suspicion, the work of his master, Mr. Berkenshaw - as the drawings
that figure at the breaking up of a young ladies' seminary are the work of =
the
professor attached to the establishment.&n=
bsp;
Mr. Berkenshaw was not altogether happy in his pupil. The amateur cannot usually rise in=
to the
artist, some leaven of the world still clogging him; and we find Pepys beha=
ving
like a pickthank to the man who taught him composition. In relation to the stage, which he=
so
warmly loved and understood, he was not only more hearty, but more generous=
to
others. Thus he encounters Co=
lonel
Reames, "a man," says he, "who understands and loves a play =
as
well as I, and I love him for it."&nb=
sp;
And again, when he and his wife had seen a most ridiculous insipid
piece, "Glad we were," he writes, "that Betterton had no par=
t in
it." It is by such a zea=
l and
loyalty to those who labour for his delight that the amateur grows worthy of
the artist. And it should be =
kept
in mind that, not only in art, but in morals, Pepys rejoiced to recognise h=
is
betters. There was not one sp=
eck of
envy in the whole human-hearted egotist.
=
RESPECTABILITY.
=
When
writers inveigh against respectability, in the present degraded meaning of =
the
word, they are usually suspected of a taste for clay pipes and beer cellars;
and their performances are thought to hail from the OWL'S NEST of the
comedy. They have something m=
ore,
however, in their eye than the dulness of a round million dinner parties th=
at
sit down yearly in old England. For
to do anything because others do it, and not because the thing is good, or
kind, or honest in its own right, is to resign all moral control and captai=
ncy
upon yourself, and go post-haste to the devil with the greater number. We smile over the ascendency of pr=
iests;
but I had rather follow a priest than what they call the leaders of society=
. No life can better than that of Pe=
pys
illustrate the dangers of this respectable theory of living. For what can be more untoward than=
the
occurrence, at a critical period and while the habits are still pliable, of
such a sweeping transformation as the return of Charles the Second? Round w=
ent
the whole fleet of England on the other tack; and while a few tall pintas,
Milton or Pen, still sailed a lonely course by the stars and their own priv=
ate
compass, the cock- boat, Pepys, must go about with the majority among "=
;the
stupid starers and the loud huzzas."
The respectable are not led so much by any des=
ire
of applause as by a positive need for countenance. The weaker and the tamer the man, =
the
more will he require this support; and any positive quality relieves him, by
just so much, of this dependence.
In a dozen ways, Pepys was quite strong enough to please himself wit=
hout
regard for others; but his positive qualities were not co-extensive with the
field of conduct; and in many parts of life he followed, with gleeful preci=
sion,
in the footprints of the contemporary Mrs. Grundy. In morals, particularly,=
he
lived by the countenance of others; felt a slight from another more keenly =
than
a meanness in himself; and then first repented when he was found out. You could talk of religion or mora=
lity
to such a man; and by the artist side of him, by his lively sympathy and
apprehension, he could rise, as it were dramatically, to the significance of
what you said. All that matte=
r in religion
which has been nicknamed other-worldliness was strictly in his gamut; but a
rule of life that should make a man rudely virtuous, following right in good
report and ill report, was foolishness and a stumbling-block to Pepys. He was much thrown across the Frie=
nds;
and nothing can be more instructive than his attitude towards these most
interesting people of that age. I
have mentioned how he conversed with one as he rode; when he saw some broug=
ht
from a meeting under arrest, "I would to God," said he, "they
would either conform, or be more wise and not be catched;" and to a Qu=
aker
in his own office he extended a timid though effectual protection. Meanwhile there was growing up nex=
t door
to him that beautiful nature William Pen.&=
nbsp;
It is odd that Pepys condemned him for a fop; odd, though natural en=
ough
when you see Pen's portrait, that Pepys was jealous of him with his wife. But the cream of the story is when=
Pen
publishes his SANDY FOUNDATION SHAKEN, and Pepys has it read aloud by his w=
ife. "I find it," he says, &q=
uot;so
well writ as, I think, it is too good for him ever to have writ it; and it =
is a
serious sort of book, and NOT FIT FOR EVERYBODY TO READ." Nothing is more galling to the mer=
ely
respectable than to be brought in contact with religious ardour. Pepys had his own foundation, sandy
enough, but dear to him from practical considerations, and he would read the
book with true uneasiness of spirit; for conceive the blow if, by some plag=
uy
accident, this Pen were to convert him!&nb=
sp;
It was a different kind of doctrine that he judged profitable for
himself and others. "A g=
ood sermon
of Mr. Gifford's at our church, upon 'Seek ye first the kingdom of
heaven.' A very excellent and
persuasive, good and moral sermon.
He showed, like a wise man, that righteousness is a surer moral way =
of
being rich than sin and villainy."&nb=
sp;
It is thus that respect. able people desire to have their Greathearts
address them, telling, in mild accents, how you may make the best of both
worlds, and be a moral hero without courage, kindness, or troublesome refle=
ction;
and thus the Gospel, cleared of Eastern metaphor, becomes a manual of world=
ly
prudence, and a handybook for Pepys and the successful merchant.
The respectability of Pepys was deeply grained. He has no idea of tr= uth except for the Diary. He has = no care that a thing shall be, if it but appear; gives out that he has inherit= ed a good estate, when he has seemingly got nothing but a lawsuit; and is please= d to be thought liberal when he knows he has been mean. He is conscientiously ostentatious= . I say conscientiously, with reason. He could never have been taken for a fop, like Pen, but arrayed hims= elf in a manner nicely suitable to his position. For long he hesitated to assume the famous periwig; for a public man should travel gravely with the fashions not foppishly before, nor dowdily behind, the central movement of his age. For long he durst not keep a carri= age; that, in his circumstances would have been improper; but a time comes, with= the growth of his fortune, when the impropriety has shifted to the other side, = and he is "ashamed to be seen in a hackney." Pepys talked about being "a Q= uaker or some very melancholy thing;" for my part, I can imagine nothing so melancholy, because nothing half so silly, as to be concerned about such problems. But so respectabili= ty and the duties of society haunt and burden their poor devotees; and what seems = at first the very primrose path of life, proves difficult and thorny like the = rest. And the time comes to Pepys, as to= all the merely respectable, when he must not only order his pleasures, but even clip his virtuous movements, to the public pattern of the age. There was some juggling among offi= cials to avoid direct taxation; and Pepys, with a noble impulse, growing ashamed = of this dishonesty, designed to charge himself with 1000 pounds; but finding n= one to set him an example, "nobody of our ablest merchants" with this moderate liking for clean hands, he judged it "not decent;" he fe= ared it would "be thought vain glory;" and, rather than appear singula= r, cheerfully remained a thief. One able merchant's countenance, and Pepys had dared to do an honest act! Had he found one brave spirit, pro= perly recognised by society, he might have gone far as a disciple. Mrs. Turner, it is true, can fill = him full of sordid scandal, and make him believe, against the testimony of his senses, that Pen's venison pasty stank like the devil; but, on the other ha= nd, Sir William Coventry can raise him by a word into another being. Pepys, when he is with Coventry, t= alks in the vein of an old Roman. What does he care for office or emolument? "Thank God, I have enough of = my own," says he, "to buy me a good book and a good fiddle, and I ha= ve a good wife." And again, w= e find this pair projecting an old age when an ungrateful country shall have dismi= ssed them from the field of public service; Coventry living retired in a fine ho= use, and Pepys dropping in, "it may be, to read a chapter of Seneca."<= o:p>
Under this influence, the only good one in his
life, Pepys continued zealous and, for the period, pure in his employment.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> He would not be "bribed to be
unjust," he says, though he was "not so squeamish as to refuse a
present after," suppose the king to have received no wrong. His new arrangement for the victua=
lling
of Tangier he tells us with honest complacency, will save the king a thousa=
nd
and gain Pepys three hundred pounds a year, - a statement which exactly fix=
es
the degree of the age's enlightenment.&nbs=
p;
But for his industry and capacity no praise can be too high. It was an unending struggle for th=
e man
to stick to his business in such a garden of Armida as he found this life; =
and
the story of his oaths, so often broken, so courageously renewed, is worthy
rather of admiration that the contempt it has received.
Elsewhere, and beyond the sphere of Coventry's
influence, we find him losing scruples and daily complying further with the=
age. When he began the journal, he was a
trifle prim and puritanic; merry enough, to be sure, over his private cups,=
and
still remembering Magdalene ale and his acquaintance with Mrs. Ainsworth of
Cambridge. But youth is a hot
season with all; when a man smells April and May he is apt at times to stum=
ble;
and in spite of a disordered practice, Pepys's theory, the better things th=
at
he approved and followed after, we may even say were strict. Where there was "tag, rag, and
bobtail, dancing, singing, and drinking," he felt "ashamed, and w=
ent
away;" and when he slept in church, he prayed God forgive him. In but a little while we find him =
with
some ladies keeping each other awake "from spite," as though not =
to
sleep in church were an obvious hardship; and yet later he calmly passes the
time of service, looking about him, with a perspective glass, on all the pr=
etty
women. His favourite ejaculat=
ion,
"Lord!" occurs but once that I have observed in 1660, never in `6=
1,
twice in '62, and at least five times in '63; after which the "Lords&q=
uot;
may be said to pullulate like herrings, with here and there a solitary &quo=
t;damned,"
as it were a whale among the shoal.
He and his wife, once filled with dudgeon by some innocent freedoms =
at a
marriage, are soon content to go pleasuring with my Lord Brouncker's mistre=
ss,
who was not even, by his own account, the most discreet of mistresses. Tag, rag, and bobtail, dancing, si=
nging,
and drinking, become his natural element; actors and actresses and drunken,
roaring courtiers are to be found in his society; until the man grew so
involved with Saturnalian manners and companions that he was shot almost un=
consciously
into the grand domestic crash of 1668.
That was the legitimate issue and punishment of
years of staggering walk and conversation.=
The man who has smoked his pipe for half a century in a powder magaz=
ine
finds himself at last the author and the victim of a hideous disaster. So with our pleasant-minded Pepys =
and
his peccadilloes. All of a su=
dden,
as he still trips dexterously enough among the dangers of a double-faced
career, thinking no great evil, humming to himself the trillo, Fate takes t=
he
further conduct of that matter from his hands, and brings him face to face =
with
the consequences of his acts. For a
man still, after so many years, the lover, although not the constant lover,=
of his
wife, - for a man, besides, who was so greatly careful of appearances, - the
revelation of his infidelities was a crushing blow. The tears that he shed, the indign=
ities
that he endured, are not to be measured.&n=
bsp;
A vulgar woman, and now justly incensed, Mrs. Pepys spared him no de=
tail
of suffering. She was violent,
threatening him with the tongs; she was careless of his honour, driving him=
to
insult the mistress whom she had driven him to betray and to discard; worst=
of
all, she was hopelessly inconsequent, in word and thought and deed, now lul=
ling
him with reconciliations, and anon flaming forth again with the original
anger. Pepys had not used his=
wife
well; he had wearied her with jealousies, even while himself unfaithful; he=
had
grudged her clothes and pleasures, while lavishing both upon himself; he had
abused her in words; he had bent his fist at her in anger; he had once blac=
ked
her eye; and it is one of the oddest particulars in that odd Diary of his,
that, while the injury is referred to once in passing, there is no hint as =
to
the occasion or the manner of the blow.&nb=
sp;
But now, when he is in the wrong, nothing can exceed the long-suffer=
ing
affection of this impatient husband.
While he was still sinning and still undiscovered, he seems not to h=
ave
known a touch of penitence stronger than what might lead him to take his wi=
fe
to the theatre, or for an airing, or to give her a new dress, by way of
compensation. Once found out,
however, and he seems to himself to have lost all claim to decent usage.
The death of his wife, following so shortly af=
ter,
must have stamped the impression of this episode upon his mind. For the remaining years of his lon=
g life
we have no Diary to help us, and we have seen already how little stress is =
to
be laid upon the tenor of his correspondence; but what with the recollectio=
n of
the catastrophe of his married life, what with the natural influence of his
advancing years and reputation, it seems not unlikely that the period of ga=
llantry
was at an end for Pepys; and it is beyond a doubt that he sat down at last =
to
an honoured and agreeable old age among his books and music, the correspond=
ent
of Sir Isaac Newton, and, in one instance at least the poetical counsellor =
of
Dryden. Through all this peri=
od,
that Diary which contained the secret memoirs of his life, with all its inc=
onsistencies
and escapades, had been religiously preserved; nor, when he came to die, do=
es
he appear to have provided for its destruction. So we may conceive him faithful to=
the
end to all his dear and early memories; still mindful of Mrs. Hely in the w=
oods
at Epsom; still lighting at Islington for a cup of kindness to the dead; st=
ill,
if he heard again that air that once so much disturbed him, thrilling at the
recollection of the love that bound him to his wife.
I. - THE CONTROVERSY ABOUT FEMALE RULE.
=
WHEN
first the idea became widely spread among men that the Word of God, instead=
of
being truly the foundation of all existing institutions, was rather a stone
which the builders had rejected, it was but natural that the consequent hav=
oc among
received opinions should be accompanied by the generation of many new and
lively hopes for the future. Somewhat as in the early days of the French
Revolution, men must have looked for an immediate and universal improvement=
in
their condition. Christianity=
, up
to that time, had been somewhat of a failure politically. The reason was now obvious, the ca=
pital
flaw was detected, the sickness of the body politic traced at last to its
efficient cause. It was only
necessary to put the Bible thoroughly into practice, to set themselves
strenuously to realise in life the Holy Commonwealth, and all abuses and
iniquities would surely pass away.
Thus, in a pageant played at Geneva in the year 1523, the world was
represented as a sick man at the end of his wits for help, to whom his doct=
or
recommends Lutheran specifics. (1)
The Reformers themselves had set their affections in a different wor=
ld,
and professed to look for the finished result of their endeavours on the ot=
her
side of death. They took no
interest in politics as such; they even condemned political action as
Antichristian: notably, Luther in the case of the Peasants' War. And yet, as the purely religious
question was inseparably complicated with political difficulties, and they =
had
to make opposition, from day to day, against principalities and powers, they
were led, one after another, and again and again, to leave the sphere which=
was
more strictly their own, and meddle, for good and evil, with the affairs of
State. Not much was to be exp=
ected
from interference in such a spirit.
Whenever a minister found himself galled or hindered, he would be
inclined to suppose some contravention of the Bible. Whenever Christian liberty was
restrained (and Christian liberty for each individual would be about coexte=
nsive
with what he wished to do), it was obvious that the State was
Antichristian. The great thin=
g, and
the one thing, was to push the Gospel and the Reformers' own interpretation=
of
it. Whatever helped was good;
whatever hindered was evil; and if this simple classification proved inappl=
icable
over the whole field, it was no business of his to stop and reconcile
incongruities. He had more pr=
essing
concerns on hand; he had to save souls; he had to be about his Father's
business. This short-sighted =
view
resulted in a doctrine that was actually Jesuitical in application. They had no serious ideas upon pol=
itics,
and they were ready, nay, they seemed almost bound, to adopt and support
whichever ensured for the moment the greatest benefit to the souls of their
fellow-men. They were dishone=
st in
all sincerity. Thus Labitte, in the introduction to a book (2) in which he =
exposes
the hypocritical democracy of the Catholics under the League, steps aside f=
or a
moment to stigmatise the hypocritical democracy of the Protestants. And nowhere was this expediency in
political questions more apparent than about the question of female
sovereignty. So much was this=
the
case that one James Thomasius, of Leipsic, wrote a little paper (3) about t=
he
religious partialities of those who took part in the controversy, in which =
some
of these learned disputants cut a very sorry figure.
(1) Gaberel's EGLIST DE GENEVE, i. 88. (2) LA
DEMOCRATIE CHEZ LES PREDICATEURS DE LA LIGUE. (3) HISTORIA AFFECTUUM SE
IMMISCENTIUM CONTROVERSIAE DE GYNAECOCRATIA. It is in his collected prefaces,
Leipsic, 1683.
Now Knox has been from the first a man well ha=
ted;
and it is somewhat characteristic of his luck that he figures here in the v=
ery
forefront of the list of partial scribes who trimmed their doctrine with the
wind in all good conscience, and were political weathercocks out of
conviction. Not only has Thom=
asius
mentioned him, but Bayle has taken the hint from Thomasius, and dedicated a
long note to the matter at the end of his article on the Scotch Reformer. This is a little less than fair. If any one among the evangelists o=
f that
period showed more serious political sense than another, it was assuredly K=
nox;
and even in this very matter of female rule, although I do not suppose any =
one
nowadays will feel inclined to endorse his sentiments, I confess I can make
great allowance for his conduct.
The controversy, besides, has an interest of its own, in view of lat=
er
controversies.
John Knox, from 1556 to 1559, was resident in
Geneva, as minister, jointly with Goodman, of a little church of English re=
fugees. He and his congregation were banis=
hed
from England by one woman, Mary Tudor, and proscribed in Scotland by anothe=
r,
the Regent Mary of Guise. The
coincidence was tempting: here were many abuses centring about one abuse; h=
ere
was Christ's Gospel persecuted in the two kingdoms by one anomalous power.<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> He had not far to go to find the i=
dea that
female government was anomalous. It
was an age, indeed, in which women, capable and incapable, played a conspic=
uous
part upon the stage of European history; and yet their rule, whatever may h=
ave
been the opinion of here and there a wise man or enthusiast, was regarded a=
s an
anomaly by the great bulk of their contemporaries. It was defended as an anomaly. It,=
and
all that accompanied and sanctioned it, was set aside as a single exception;
and no one thought of reasoning down from queens and extending their privil=
eges
to ordinary women. Great ladies, as we know, had the privilege of entering =
into
monasteries and cloisters, otherwise forbidden to their sex. As with one th=
ing,
so with another. Thus, Margar=
et of Navarre
wrote books with great acclamation, and no one, seemingly, saw fit to call =
her
conduct in question; but Mademoiselle de Gournay, Montaigne's adopted daugh=
ter,
was in a controversy with the world as to whether a woman might be an author
without incongruity. Thus, to=
o, we
have Theodore Agrippa d'Aubigne writing to his daughters about the learned =
women
of his century, and cautioning them, in conclusion, that the study of lette=
rs
was unsuited to ladies of a middling station, and should be reserved for
princesses. (1) And once more, if we desire to see the same principle carri=
ed to
ludicrous extreme, we shall find that Reverend Father in God the Abbot of
Brantome, claiming, on the authority of some lord of his acquaintance, a
privilege, or rather a duty, of free love for great princesses, and careful=
ly
excluding other ladies from the same gallant dispensation. (2) One sees the spirit in which these=
immunities
were granted; and how they were but the natural consequence of that awe for
courts and kings that made the last writer tell us, with simple wonder, how
Catherine de Medici would "laugh her fill just like another" over=
the
humours of pantaloons and zanies.
And such servility was, of all things, what would touch most nearly =
the
republican spirit of Knox. It=
was
not difficult for him to set aside this weak scruple of loyalty. The lantern of his analysis did not
always shine with a very serviceable light; but he had the virtue, at least=
, to
carry it into many places of fictitious holiness, and was not abashed by th=
e tinsel
divinity that hedged kings and queens from his contemporaries. And so he could put the propositio=
n in
the form already mentioned: there was Christ's Gospel persecuted in the two
kingdoms by one anomalous power plainly, then, the "regiment of
women" was Antichristian.
Early in 1558 he communicated this discovery to the world, by publis=
hing
at Geneva his notorious book - THE FIRST BLAST OF THE TRUMPET AGAINST THE
MONSTROUS REGIMENT OF WOMEN. (3)
(1) Oeuvres de d'Aubigne, i. 449. (2) Dames
Illustres, pp. 358-360. (3) Works of John Knox, iv. 349.
As a whole, it is a dull performance; but the
preface, as is usual with Knox, is both interesting and morally fine. Knox was not one of those who are =
humble
in the hour of triumph; he was aggressive even when things were at their
worst. He had a grim reliance=
in
himself, or rather in his mission; if he were not sure that he was a great =
man,
he was at least sure that he was one set apart to do great things. And he judged simply that whatever
passed in his mind, whatever moved him to flee from persecution instead of
constantly facing it out, or, as here, to publish and withhold his name from
the title-page of a critical work, would not fail to be of interest, perhap=
s of
benefit, to the world. There =
may be
something more finely sensitive in the modern humour, that tends more and m=
ore
to withdraw a man's personality from the lessons he inculcates or the cause
that he has espoused; but there is a loss herewith of wholesome responsibil=
ity;
and when we find in the works of Knox, as in the Epistles of Paul, the man
himself standing nakedly forward, courting and anticipating criticism, putt=
ing
his character, as it were, in pledge for the sincerity of his doctrine, we =
had
best waive the question of delicacy, and make our acknowledgments for a les=
son
of courage, not unnecessary in these days of anonymous criticism, and much
light, otherwise unattainable, on the spirit in which great movements were
initiated and carried forward.
Knox's personal revelations are always interesting; and, in the case=
of
the "First Blast," as I have said, there is no exception to the
rule. He begins by stating the
solemn responsibility of all who are watchmen over God's flock; and all are
watchmen (he goes on to explain, with that fine breadth of spirit that
characterises him even when, as here, he shows himself most narrow), all are
watchmen "whose eyes God doth open, and whose conscience he pricketh to
admonish the ungodly." A=
nd
with the full consciousness of this great duty before him, he sets himself =
to
answer the scruples of timorous or worldly-minded people. How can a man repent, he asks, unl=
ess
the nature of his transgression is made plain to him? "And therefore I say," he
continues, "that of necessity it is that this monstriferous empire of
women (which among all enormities that this day do abound upon the face of =
the whole
earth, is most detestable and damnable) be openly and plainly declared to t=
he
world, to the end that some may repent and be saved." To those who think the doctrine us=
eless,
because it cannot be expected to amend those princes whom it would disposse=
ss
if once accepted, he makes answer in a strain that shows him at his
greatest. After having instan=
ced
how the rumour of Christ's censures found its way to Herod in his own court,
"even so," he continues, "may the sound of our weak trumpet,=
by
the support of some wind (blow it from the south, or blow it from the north=
, it
is of no matter), come to the ears of the chief offenders. BUT WHETHER IT DO OR NOT, YET DARE=
WE
NOT CEASE TO BLOW AS GOD WILL GIVE STRENGTH. FOR WE ARE DEBTORS TO MORE THAN TO=
PRINCES,
TO WIT, TO THE GREAT MULTITUDE OF OUR BRETHREN, of whom, no doubt, a great
number have heretofore offended by error and ignorance."
It is for the multitude, then, he writes; he d=
oes
not greatly hope that his trumpet will be audible in palaces, or that crown=
ed
women will submissively discrown themselves at his appeal; what he does hop=
e,
in plain English, is to encourage and justify rebellion; and we shall see,
before we have done, that he can put his purpose into words as roundly as I=
can
put it for him. This he sees =
to be
a matter of much hazard; he is not "altogether so brutish and insensib=
le,
but that he has laid his account what the finishing of the work may cost.&q=
uot; He knows that he will find many
adversaries, since "to the most part of men, lawful and godly appearet=
h whatsoever
antiquity hath received." He
looks for opposition, "not only of the ignorant multitude, but of the =
wise,
politic, and quiet spirits of the earth." He will be called foolish, curious,
despiteful, and a sower of sedition; and one day, perhaps, for all he is now
nameless, he may be attainted of treason.&=
nbsp;
Yet he has "determined to obey God, notwithstanding that the wo=
rld
shall rage thereat." Fin=
ally, he
makes some excuse for the anonymous appearance of this first instalment: it=
is
his purpose thrice to blow the trumpet in this matter, if God so permit; tw=
ice
he intends to do it without name; but at the last blast to take the odium u=
pon
himself, that all others may be purged.
Thus he ends the preface, and enters upon his
argument with a secondary title: "The First Blast to awake Women
degenerate." We are in the land of assertion without delay. That a woman should bear rule,
superiority, dominion or empire over any realm, nation, or city, he tells u=
s,
is repugnant to nature, contumely to God, and a subversion of good order. Women are weak, frail, impatient,
feeble, and foolish. God has =
denied
to woman wisdom to consider, or providence to foresee, what is profitable t=
o a
commonwealth. Women have been=
ever lightly
esteemed; they have been denied the tutory of their own sons, and subjected=
to
the unquestionable sway of their husbands; and surely it is irrational to g=
ive
the greater where the less has been withheld, and suffer a woman to reign s=
upreme
over a great kingdom who would be allowed no authority by her own
fireside. He appeals to the B=
ible;
but though he makes much of the first transgression and certain strong text=
s in
Genesis and Paul's Epistles, he does not appeal with entire success. The cases of Deborah and Huldah ca=
n be
brought into no sort of harmony with his thesis. Indeed, I may say that,
logically, he left his bones there; and that it is but the phantom of an
argument that he parades thenceforward to the end. Well was it for Knox that he succe=
eded
no better; it is under this very ambiguity about Deborah that we shall find=
him
fain to creep for shelter before he is done with the regiment of women. After having thus exhausted Script=
ure,
and formulated its teaching in the somewhat blasphemous maxim that the man =
is
placed above the woman, even as God above the angels, he goes on triumphant=
ly to
adduce the testimonies of Tertullian, Augustine, Ambrose, Basil, Chrysostom,
and the Pandects; and having gathered this little cloud of witnesses about =
him,
like pursuivants about a herald, he solemnly proclaims all reigning women t=
o be
traitoresses and rebels against God; discharges all men thenceforward from
holding any office under such monstrous regiment, and calls upon all the li=
eges
with one consent to "STUDY TO REPRESS THE INORDINATE PRIDE AND
TYRANNY" OF QUEENS. If t=
his is
not treasonable teaching, one would be glad to know what is; and yet, as if=
he
feared he had not made the case plain enough against himself, he goes on to=
deduce
the startling corollary that all oaths of allegiance must be incontinently
broken. If it was sin thus to=
have sworn
even in ignorance, it were obstinate sin to continue to respect them after
fuller knowledge. Then comes =
the peroration,
in which he cries aloud against the cruelties of that cursed Jezebel of Eng=
land
- that horrible monster Jezebel of England; and after having predicted sudd=
en destruction
to her rule and to the rule of all crowned women, and warned all men that if
they presume to defend the same when any "noble heart" shall be
raised up to vindicate the liberty of his country, they shall not fail to
perish themselves in the ruin, he concludes with a last rhetorical flourish:
"And therefore let all men be advertised, for THE TRUMPET HATH ONCE
BLOWN."
The capitals are his own. In writing, he probably felt the w=
ant of
some such reverberation of the pulpit under strong hands as he was wont to
emphasise his spoken utterances withal; there would seem to him a want of
passion in the orderly lines of type; and I suppose we may take the capital=
s as
a mere substitute for the great voice with which he would have given it for=
th,
had we heard it from his own lips. Indeed, as it is, in this little strain =
of
rhetoric about the trumpet, this current allusion to the fall of Jericho, t=
hat alone
distinguishes his bitter and hasty production, he was probably right, accor=
ding
to all artistic canon, thus to support and accentuate in conclusion the
sustained metaphor of a hostile proclamation. It is curious, by the way, to note=
how
favourite an image the trumpet was with the Reformer. He returns to it again and again; =
it is
the Alpha and Omega of his rhetoric; it is to him what a ship is to the sta=
ge
sailor; and one would almost fancy he had begun the world as a trumpeter's
apprentice. The partiality is
surely characteristic. All hi=
s life
long he was blowing summonses before various Jerichos, some of which fell d=
uly,
but not all. Wherever he appe=
ars in
history his speech is loud, angry, and hostile; there is no peace in his li=
fe,
and little tenderness; he is always sounding hopefully to the front for some
rough enterprise.
And as his voice had something of the trumpet's
hardness, it had something also of the trumpet's warlike inspiration. So Randolph, possibly fresh from t=
he
sound of the Reformer's preaching, writes of him to Cecil:- "Where your
honour exhorteth us to stoutness, I assure you the voice of one man is able=
, in
an hour, to put more life in us than six hundred trumpets continually
blustering in our ears." (1)
(1) M'Crie's LIFE OF KNOX, ii. 41.
Thus was the proclamation made. Nor was it long in wakening all the
echoes of Europe. What success
might have attended it, had the question decided been a purely abstract
question, it is difficult to say.
As it was, it was to stand or fall, not by logic, but by political n=
eeds
and sympathies. Thus, in Fran=
ce,
his doctrine was to have some future, because Protestants suffered there un=
der
the feeble and treacherous regency of Catherine de Medici; and thus it was =
to
have no future anywhere else, because the Protestant interest was bound up =
with
the prosperity of Queen Elizabeth.
This stumbling-block lay at the very threshold of the matter; and Kn=
ox,
in the text of the "First Blast," had set everybody the wrong exa=
mple
and gone to the ground himself. He
finds occasion to regret "the blood of innocent Lady Jane Dudley."=
; But
Lady Jane Dudley, or Lady Jane Grey, as we call her, was a would-be traitor=
ess
and rebel against God, to use his own expressions. If, therefore, political and relig=
ious
sympathy led Knox himself into so grave a partiality, what was he to expect
from his disciples?
If the trumpet gave so ambiguous a sound, who
could heartily prepare himself for the battle? The question whether Lady Jane Dud=
ley
was an innocent martyr, or a traitoress against God, whose inordinate pride=
and
tyranny had been effectually repressed, was thus left altogether in the win=
d;
and it was not, perhaps, wonderful if many of Knox's readers concluded that=
all
right and wrong in the matter turned upon the degree of the sovereign's
orthodoxy and possible helpfulness to the Reformation. He should have been the more caref=
ul of
such an ambiguity of meaning, as he must have known well the lukewarm indif=
ference
and dishonesty of his fellow-reformers in political matters. He had already, in 1556 or 1557, t=
alked the
matter over with his great master, Calvin, in "a private conversation;=
"
and the interview (1) must have been truly distasteful to both parties. Calvin, indeed, went a far way wit=
h him
in theory, and owned that the "government of women was a deviation from
the original and proper order of nature, to be ranked, no less than slavery,
among the punishments consequent upon the fall of man." But, in practice, their two roads
separated. For the Man of Gen=
eva
saw difficulties in the way of the Scripture proof in the cases of Deborah =
and Huldah,
and in the prophecy of Isaiah that queens should be the nursing mothers of =
the
Church. And as the Bible was =
not decisive,
he thought the subject should be let alone, because, "by custom and pu=
blic
consent and long practice, it has been established that realms and
principalities may descend to females by hereditary right, and it would not=
be lawful
to unsettle governments which are ordained by the peculiar providence of
God." I imagine Knox's e=
ars
must have burned during this interview.&nb=
sp;
Think of him listening dutifully to all this - how it would not do to
meddle with anointed kings - how there was a peculiar providence in these g=
reat
affairs; and then think of his own peroration, and the "noble heart&qu=
ot;
whom he looks for "to vindicate the liberty of his country;" or h=
is
answer to Queen Mary, when she asked him who he was, to interfere in the
affairs of Scotland:- "Madam, a subject born within the same!"
(1) Described by Calvin in a letter to Cecil,
Knox's Works, vol. iv.
There is little doubt in my mind that this
interview was what caused Knox to print his book without a name. (1) It was a dangerous thing to contra=
dict
the Man of Geneva, and doubly so, surely, when one had had the advantage of
correction from him in a private conversation; and Knox had his little floc=
k of
English refugees to consider. If
they had fallen into bad odour at Geneva, where else was there left to flee
to? It was printed, as I said=
, in
1558; and, by a singular MAL-A- PROPOS, in that same year Mary died, and
Elizabeth succeeded to the throne of England. And just as the accession of Catho=
lic
Queen Mary had condemned female rule in the eyes of Knox, the accession of
Protestant Queen Elizabeth justified it in the eyes of his colleagues. Female rule ceases to be an anomal=
y, not
because Elizabeth can "reply to eight ambassadors in one day in their
different languages," but because she represents for the moment the
political future of the Reformation.
The exiles troop back to England with songs of praise in their
mouths. The bright accidental=
star,
of which we have all read in the Preface to the Bible, has risen over the
darkness of Europe. There is a
thrill of hope through the persecuted Churches of the Continent. Calvin writes to Cecil, washing his
hands of Knox and his political heresies.&=
nbsp;
The sale of the "First Blast" is prohibited in Geneva; and
along with it the bold book of Knox's colleague, Goodman - a book dear to
Milton - where female rule was briefly characterised as a "monster in
nature and disorder among men." (2)&n=
bsp;
Any who may ever have doubted, or been for a moment led away by Knox=
or
Goodman, or their own wicked imaginations, are now more than convinced. They have seen the accidental star=
. Aylmer, with his eye set greedily =
on a possible
bishopric, and "the better to obtain the favour of the new Queen,"
(3) sharpens his pen to confound Knox by logic. What need? He has been confounded by facts. "Thus what had been to the re=
fugees
of Geneva as the very word of God, no sooner were they back in England than,
behold! it was the word of the devil." (4)
(1) It was anonymously published, but no one s=
eems
to have been in doubt about its authorship; he might as well have set his n=
ame
to it, for all the good he got by holding it back. (2) Knox's Works, iv. 35=
8. (3)
Strype's AYLMER, p. 16. (4) It may interest the reader to know that these (=
so
says Thomasius) are the "ipsissima verba Schlusselburgii."
Now, what of the real sentiments of these loyal
subjects of Elizabeth? They
professed a holy horror for Knox's position: let us see if their own would
please a modern audience any better, or was, in substance, greatly differen=
t.
John Aylmer, afterwards Bishop of London,
published an answer to Knox, under the title of AN HARBOUR FOR FAITHFUL AND
TRUE SUBJECTS AGAINST THE LATE BLOWN BLAST, CONCERNING THE GOVERNMENT OF WO=
MEN.
(1) And certainly he was a th=
ought
more acute, a thought less precipitate and simple, than his adversary. He is not to be led away by such
captious terms as NATURAL AND UNNATURAL.&n=
bsp;
It is obvious to him that a woman's disability to rule is not natura=
l in
the same sense in which it is natural for a stone to fall or fire to burn. =
He
is doubtful, on the whole, whether this disability be natural at all; nay, =
when
he is laying it down that a woman should not be a priest, he shows some
elementary conception of what many of us now hold to be the truth of the
matter. "The bringing-up of women," he says, "is commonly
such" that they cannot have the necessary qualifications, "for th=
ey
are not brought upon learning in schools, nor trained in disputation."=
And even so, he can ask, "Are=
there
not in England women, think you, that for learning and wisdom could tell th=
eir
household and neighbours as good a tale as any Sir John there?" For all that, his advocacy is weak=
. If women's rule is not unnatural i=
n a
sense preclusive of its very existence, it is neither so convenient nor so
profitable as the government of men.
He holds England to be specially suitable for the government of wome=
n,
because there the governor is more limited and restrained by the other memb=
ers of
the constitution than in other places; and this argument has kept his book =
from
being altogether forgotten. I=
t is only
in hereditary monarchies that he will offer any defence of the anomaly. "If rulers were to be chosen =
by lot
or suffrage, he would not that any women should stand in the election, but =
men
only." The law of succes=
sion
of crowns was a law to him, in the same sense as the law of evolution is a =
law
to Mr. Herbert Spencer; and the one and the other counsels his readers, in a
spirit suggestively alike, not to kick against the pricks or seek to be more
wise than He who made them. (2) If
God has put a female child into the direct line of inheritance, it is God's
affair. His strength will be
perfected in her weakness. He=
makes
the Creator address the objectors in this not very flattering vein:- "=
I,
that could make Daniel, a sucking babe, to judge better than the wisest
lawyers; a brute beast to reprehend the folly of a prophet; and poor fisher=
s to
confound the great clerks of the world - cannot I make a woman to be a good
ruler over you?" This is the last word of his reasoning. Although he was not altogether wit=
hout
Puritanic leaven, shown particularly in what he says of the incomes of Bish=
ops,
yet it was rather loyalty to the old order of things than any generous beli=
ef in
the capacity of women, that raised up for them this clerical champion. His courtly spirit contrasts singu=
larly with
the rude, bracing republicanism of Knox.&n=
bsp;
"Thy knee shall bow," he says, "thy cap shall off, thy
tongue shall speak reverently of thy sovereign." For himself, his tongue is even mo=
re
than reverent. Nothing can st=
ay the
issue of his eloquent adulation.
Again and again, "the remembrance of Elizabeth's virtues"
carries him away; and he has to hark back again to find the scent of his
argument. He is repressing his
vehement adoration throughout, until, when the end comes, and he feels his
business at an end, he can indulge himself to his heart's content in
indiscriminate laudation of his royal mistress. It is humorous to think that this
illustrious lady, whom he here praises, among many other excellences, for t=
he
simplicity of her attire and the "marvellous meekness of her
stomach," threatened him, years after, in no very meek terms, for a se=
rmon
against female vanity in dress, which she held as a reflection on herself. =
(3)
(1) I am indebted for a sight of this book to =
the
kindness of Mr. David Laing, the editor of Knox's Works. (2) SOCIAL STATICS=
, p.
64, etc. (3) Hallam's CONST. =
HIST.
OF ENGLAND, i. 225, note m.
Whatever was wanting here in respect for women
generally, there was no want of respect for the Queen; and one cannot very
greatly wonder if these devoted servants looked askance, not upon Knox only,
but on his little flock, as they came back to England tainted with disloyal
doctrine. For them, as for hi=
m, the
accidental star rose somewhat red and angry. As for poor Knox, his position was=
the
saddest of all. For the junct=
ure
seemed to him of the highest importance; it was the nick of time, the
flood-water of opportunity. N=
ot
only was there an opening for him in Scotland, a smouldering brand of civil
liberty and religious enthusiasm which it should be for him to kindle into
flame with his powerful breath but he had his eye seemingly on an object of
even higher worth. For now, w=
hen
religious sympathy ran so high that it could be set against national aversi=
on,
he wished to begin the fusion together of England and Scotland, and to begi=
n it
at the sore place. If once th=
e open
wound were closed at the Border, the work would be half done. Ministers placed at Berwick and su=
ch
places might seek their converts equally on either side of the march; old
enemies would sit together to hear the gospel of peace, and forget the
inherited jealousies of many generations in the enthusiasm of a common fait=
h;
or - let us say better - a common heresy.&=
nbsp;
For people are not most conscious of brotherhood when they continue
languidly together in one creed, but when, with some doubt, with some danger
perhaps, and certainly not without some reluctance, they violently break wi=
th
the tradition of the past, and go forth from the sanctuary of their fathers=
to
worship under the bare heaven. A
new creed, like a new country, is an unhomely place of sojourn; but it makes
men lean on one another and join hands.&nb=
sp;
It was on this that Knox relied to begin the union of the English and
the Scotch. And he had, perha=
ps,
better means of judging than any even of his contemporaries. He knew the temper of both nations=
; and already
during his two years' chaplaincy at Berwick, he had seen his scheme put to =
the
proof. But whether practicabl=
e or not,
the proposal does him much honour.
That he should thus have sought to make a love-match of it between t=
he
two peoples, and tried to win their inclination towards a union instead of
simply transferring them, like so many sheep, by a marriage, or testament, =
or
private treaty, is thoroughly characteristic of what is best in the man.
(1) Knox to Mrs. Locke, 6th April 1559. Works, vi. 14. (2) Knox to Sir Wil=
liam
Cecil, 10th April 1559. Works=
, ii. 16,
or vi. 15.
His letter to Elizabeth, written some few mont=
hs
later, was a mere amplification of the sentences quoted above. She must base her title entirely u=
pon
the extraordinary providence of God; but if she does this, "if thus, in
God's presence, she humbles herself, so will he with tongue and pen justify=
her
authority, as the Holy Ghost hath justified the same in Deborah, that bless=
ed
mother in Israel." (1) A=
nd so,
you see, his consistency is preserved; he is merely applying the doctrine of
the "First Blast." =
The
argument goes thus: The regiment of women is, as before noted in our work,
repugnant to nature, contumely to God, and a subversion of good order. It h=
as
nevertheless pleased God to raise up, as exceptions to this law, first Debo=
rah,
and afterward Elizabeth Tudor - whose regiment we shall proceed to celebrat=
e.
(1) Knox to Queen Elizabeth, July. 20th,
1559. Works, vi. 47, or ii. 2=
6.
There is no evidence as to how the Reformer's
explanations were received, and indeed it is most probable that the letter =
was
never shown to Elizabeth at all.
For it was sent under cover of another to Cecil, and as it was not o=
f a
very courtly conception throughout, and was, of all things, what would most
excite the Queen's uneasy jealousy about her title, it is like enough that =
the
secretary exercised his discretion (he had Knox's leave in this case, and d=
id
not always wait for that, it is reputed) to put the letter harmlessly away
beside other valueless or unpresentable State Papers. I wonder very much if he did the s=
ame
with another, (1) written two years later, after Mary had come into Scotlan=
d,
in which Knox almost seeks to make Elizabeth an accomplice with him in the
matter of the "First Blast."&nbs=
p;
The Queen of Scotland is going to have that work refuted, he tells h=
er;
and "though it were but foolishness in him to prescribe unto her Majes=
ty
what is to be done," he would yet remind her that Mary is neither so m=
uch
alarmed about her own security, nor so generously interested in Elizabeth's,
"that she would take such pains, UNLESS HER CRAFTY COUNSEL IN SO DOING
SHOT AT A FURTHER MARK." There
is something really ingenious in this letter; it showed Knox in the double =
capacity
of the author of the "First Blast" and the faithful friend of
Elizabeth; and he combines them there so naturally, that one would scarcely
imagine the two to be incongruous.
(1) Knox to Queen Elizabeth, August 6th,
1561. Works, vi. 126.
Twenty days later he was defending his intempe=
rate
publication to another queen - his own queen, Mary Stuart. This was on the
first of those three interviews which he has preserved for us with so much
dramatic vigour in the picturesque pages of his history. After he had avowed the authorship=
in
his usual haughty style, Mary asked: "You think, then, that I have no =
just
authority?" The question=
was
evaded. "Please your
Majesty," he answered, "that learned men in all ages have had the=
ir
judgments free, and most commonly disagreeing from the common judgment of t=
he world;
such also have they published by pen and tongue; and yet notwithstanding th=
ey
themselves have lived in the common society with others, and have borne
patiently with the errors and imperfections which they could not
amend." Thus did "P=
lato
the philosopher:" thus will do John Knox. "I have communicated my judgm=
ent to
the world: if the realm finds no inconvenience from the regiment of a woman,
that which they approve, shall I not further disallow than within my own br=
east;
but shall be as well content to live under your Grace, as Paul was to live
under Nero. And my hope is, t=
hat so
long as ye defile not your hands with the blood of the saints of God, neith=
er I
nor my book shall hurt either you or your authority." All this is admirable in wisdom an=
d moderation,
and, except that he might have hit upon a comparison less offensive than th=
at
with Paul and Nero, hardly to be bettered.=
Having said thus much, he feels he needs say no more; and so, when h=
e is
further pressed, he closes that part of the discussion with an astonishing
sally. If he has been content to let this matter sleep, he would recommend =
her
Grace to follow his example with thankfulness of heart; it is grimly to be
understood which of them has most to fear if the question should be
reawakened. So the talk wande=
red to
other subjects. Only, when the
Queen was summoned at last to dinner ("for it was afternoon") Knox
made his salutation in this form of words: "I pray God, Madam, that you
may be as much blessed within the Commonwealth of Scotland, if it be the
pleasure of God, as ever Deborah was in the Commonwealth of Israel."
(1) Deborah again.
(1) Knox's Works, ii. 278-280.
But he was not yet done with the echoes of his=
own
"First Blast." In 1=
571,
when he was already near his end, the old controversy was taken up in one o=
f a
series of anonymous libels against the Reformer affixed, Sunday after Sunda=
y,
to the church door. The dilem=
ma was
fairly enough stated. Either his doctrine is false, in which case he is a
"false doctor" and seditious; or, if it be true, why does he
"avow and approve the contrare, I mean that regiment in the Queen of
England's person; which he avoweth and approveth, not only praying for the
maintenance of her estate, but also procuring her aid and support against h=
is
own native country?" Kno=
x answered
the libel, as his wont was, next Sunday, from the pulpit. He justified the "First Blast=
"
with all the old arrogance; there is no drawing back there. The regiment of women is repugnant=
to
nature, contumely to God, and a subversion of good order, as before. When he prays for the maintenance =
of
Elizabeth's estate, he is only following the example of those prophets of G=
od
who warned and comforted the wicked kings of Israel; or of Jeremiah, who ba=
de
the Jews pray for the prosperity of Nebuchadnezzar. As for the Queen's aid, there is n=
o harm
in that: QUIA (these are his own words) QUIA OMNIA MUNDA MUNDIS: because to=
the
pure all things are pure. One
thing, in conclusion, he "may not pretermit" to give the lie in t=
he
throat to his accuser, where he charges him with seeking support against his
native country. "What I =
have
been to my country," said the old Reformer, "What I have been to =
my
country, albeit this unthankful age will not know, yet the ages to come wil=
l be
compelled to bear witness to the truth.&nb=
sp;
And thus I cease, requiring of all men that have anything to oppone
against me, that he may (they may) do it so plainly, as that I may make mys=
elf
and all my doings manifest to the world.&n=
bsp;
For to me it seemeth a thing unreasonable, that, in this my decrepit
age, I shall be compelled to fight against shadows, and howlets that dare n=
ot
abide the light." (1)
(1) Calderwood's HISTORY OF THE KIRK OF Scotla=
nd,
edition of the Wodrow Society, iii. 51-54.
Now, in this, which may be called his LAST BLA=
ST,
there is as sharp speaking as any in the "First Blast" itself.
(1) BAYLE'S HISTORICAL DICTIONARY, art. Knox,
remark G.
Such is the history of John Knox's connection =
with
the controversy about female rule.
In itself, this is obviously an incomplete study; not fully to be
understood, without a knowledge of his private relations with the other sex,
and what he thought of their position in domestic life. This shall be dealt with in another
paper.
=
II. -
PRIVATE LIFE.
=
TO
those who know Knox by hearsay only, I believe the matter of this paper wil=
l be
somewhat astonishing. For the=
hard energy
of the man in all public mattress has possessed the imagination of the worl=
d;
he remains for posterity in certain traditional phrases, browbeating Queen
Mary, or breaking beautiful carved work in abbeys and cathedrals, that had =
long
smoked themselves out and were no more than sorry ruins, while he was still
quietly teaching children in a country gentleman's family. It does not consist with the commo=
n acceptation
of his character to fancy him much moved, except with anger. And yet the language of passion ca=
me to
his pen as readily, whether it was a passion of denunciation against some o=
f the
abuses that vexed his righteous spirit, or of yearning for the society of an
absent friend. He was vehemen=
t in
affection, as in doctrine. I =
will
not deny that there may have been, along with his vehemence, something shif=
ty,
and for the moment only; that, like many men, and many Scotchmen, he saw the
world and his own heart, not so much under any very steady, equable light, =
as
by extreme flashes of passion, true for the moment, but not true in the long
run. There does seem to me to=
be
something of this traceable in the Reformer's utterances: precipitation and=
repentance,
hardy speech and action somewhat circumspect, a strong tendency to see hims=
elf
in a heroic light and to place a ready belief in the disposition of the
moment. Withal he had conside=
rable
confidence in himself, and in the uprightness of his own disciplined emotio=
ns,
underlying much sincere aspiration after spiritual humility. And it is this confidence that mak=
es his
intercourse with women so interesting to a modern. It would be easy, of course, to ma=
ke fun
of the whole affair, to picture him strutting vaingloriously among these
inferior creatures, or compare a religious friendship in the sixteenth cent=
ury
with what was called, I think, a literary friendship in the eighteenth. But=
it
is more just and profitable to recognise what there is sterling and human
underneath all his theoretical affectations of superiority. Women, he has said in his "Fi=
rst
Blast," are, "weak, frail, impatient, feeble, and foolish;" =
and
yet it does not appear that he was himself any less dependent than other men
upon the sympathy and affection of these weak, frail, impatient, feeble, and
foolish creatures; it seems even as if he had been rather more dependent th=
an
most.
Of those who are to act influentially on their
fellows, we should expect always something large and public in their way of
life, something more or less urbane and comprehensive in their sentiment for
others. We should not expect =
to see
them spend their sympathy in idyls, however beautiful. We should not seek them among thos=
e who,
if they have but a wife to their bosom, ask no more of womankind, just as t=
hey
ask no more of their own sex, if they can find a friend or two for their
immediate need. They will be =
quick
to feel all the pleasures of our association - not the great ones alone, bu=
t all. They will know not love only, but =
all
those other ways in which man and woman mutually make each other happy - by=
sympathy,
by admiration, by the atmosphere they bear about them - down to the mere
impersonal pleasure of passing happy faces in the street. For, through all this gradation, t=
he difference
of sex makes itself pleasurably felt.
Down to the most lukewarm courtesies of life, there is a special
chivalry due and a special pleasure received, when the two sexes are brought
ever so lightly into contact. We
love our mothers otherwise than we love our fathers; a sister is not as a b=
rother
to us; and friendship between man and woman, be it never so unalloyed and
innocent, is not the same as friendship between man and man. Such friendship is not even possib=
le for
all. To conjoin tenderness fo=
r a
woman that is not far short of passionate with such disinterestedness and b=
eautiful
gratuity of affection as there is between friends of the same sex, requires=
no
ordinary disposition in the man. For either it would presuppose quite woman=
ly
delicacy of perception, and, as it were, a curiosity in shades of differing
sentiment; or it would mean that he had accepted the large, simple division=
s of
society: a strong and positive spirit robustly virtuous, who has chosen a
better part coarsely, and holds to it steadfastly, with all its consequence=
s of
pain to himself and others; as one who should go straight before him on a
journey, neither tempted by wayside flowers nor very scrupulous of small li=
ves
under foot. It was in virtue =
of
this latter disposition that Knox was capable of those intimacies with women
that embellished his life; and we find him preserved for us in old letters =
as a
man of many women friends; a man of some expansion toward the other sex; a =
man
ever ready to comfort weeping women, and to weep along with them.
Of such scraps and fragments of evidence as to=
his
private life and more intimate thoughts as have survived to us from all the
perils that environ written paper, an astonishingly large proportion is in =
the
shape of letters to women of his familiarity. He was twice married, but that is =
not
greatly to the purpose; for the Turk, who thinks even more meanly of women =
than
John Knox, is none the less given to marrying. What is really significant is
quite apart from marriage. Fo=
r the
man Knox was a true man, and woman, the EWIG-WEIBLICHE, was as necessary to
him, in spite of all low theories, as ever she was to Goethe. He came to her in a certain halo o=
f his
own, as the minister of truth, just as Goethe came to her in a glory of art=
; he
made himself necessary to troubled hearts and minds exercised in the painful
complications that naturally result from all changes in the world's way of =
thinking;
and those whom he had thus helped became dear to him, and were made the cho=
sen
companions of his leisure if they were at hand, or encouraged and comforted=
by
letter if they were afar.
It must not be forgotten that Knox had been a
presbyter of the old Church, and that the many women whom we shall see gath=
ering
around him, as he goes through life, had probably been accustomed, while st=
ill
in the communion of Rome, to rely much upon some chosen spiritual director,=
so
that the intimacies of which I propose to offer some account, while testify=
ing
to a good heart in the Reformer, testify also to a certain survival of the
spirit of the confessional in the Reformed Church, and are not properly to =
be
judged without this idea. The=
re is
no friendship so noble, but it is the product of the time; and a world of
little finical observances, and little frail proprieties and fashions of th=
e hour,
go to make or to mar, to stint or to perfect, the union of spirits the most
loving and the most intolerant of such interference. The trick of the country and the a=
ge
steps in even between the mother and her child, counts out their caresses u=
pon
niggardly fingers, and says, in the voice of authority, that this one thing
shall be a matter of confidence between them, and this other thing shall no=
t. And thus it is that we must take i=
nto
reckoning whatever tended to modify the social atmosphere in which Knox and=
his
women friends met, and loved and trusted each other. To the man who had been their prie=
st and
was now their minister, women would be able to speak with a confidence quite
impossible in these latter days; the women would be able to speak, and the =
man
to hear. It was a beaten road=
just
then; and I daresay we should be no less scandalised at their plain speech =
than
they, if they could come back to earth, would be offended at our waltzes and
worldly fashions. This, then,=
was
the footing on which Knox stood with his many women friends. The reader will see, as he goes on=
, how
much of warmth, of interest, and of that happy mutual dependence which is t=
he very
gist of friendship, he contrived to ingraft upon this somewhat dry relation=
ship
of penitent and confessor.
It must be understood that we know nothing of =
his
intercourse with women (as indeed we know little at all about his life) unt=
il he
came to Berwick in 1549, when he was already in the forty-fifth year of his
age. At the same time it is j=
ust possible
that some of a little group at Edinburgh, with whom he corresponded during =
his
last absence, may have been friends of an older standing. Certainly they were, of all his fe=
male
correspondents, the least personally favoured. He treats them throughout in a
comprehensive sort of spirit that must at times have been a little
wounding. Thus, he remits one=
of
them to his former letters, "which I trust be common betwixt you and t=
he
rest of our sisters, for to me ye are all equal in Christ." (1) Another letter is a gem in this wa=
y. "Albeit"
it begins, "albeit I have no particular matter to write unto you, belo=
ved
sister, yet I could not refrain to write these few lines to you in declarat=
ion
of my remembrance of you. Tru=
e it
is that I have many whom I bear in equal remembrance before God with you, to
whom at present I write nothing, either for that I esteem them stronger than
you, and therefore they need the less my rude labours, or else because they
have not provoked me by their writing to recompense their remembrance."
(2) His "sisters in
Edinburgh" had evidently to "provoke his attention pretty constan=
tly;
nearly all his letters are, on the face of them, answers to questions, and =
the
answers are given with a certain crudity that I do not find repeated when he
writes to those he really cares for.
So when they consult him about women's apparel (a subject on which h=
is
opinion may be pretty correctly imagined by the ingenious reader for himsel=
f)
he takes occasion to anticipate some of the most offensive matter of the
"First Blast" in a style of real brutality. (3) It is not merely that he tells them
"the garments of women do declare their weakness and inability to exec=
ute
the office of man," though that in itself is neither very wise nor very
opportune in such a correspondence one would think; but if the reader will =
take
the trouble to wade through the long, tedious sermon for himself, he will s=
ee proof
enough that Knox neither loved, nor very deeply respected, the women he was
then addressing. In very truth, I believe these Edinburgh sisters simply bo=
red him. He had a certain interest in them =
as his
children in the Lord; they were continually "provoking him by their wr=
iting;"
and, if they handed his letters about, writing to them was as good a form of
publication as was then open to him in Scotland. There is one letter, however, in t=
his budget,
addressed to the wife of Clerk-Register Mackgil, which is worthy of some
further mention. The Clerk-Re=
gister
had not opened his heart, it would appear, to the preaching of the Gospel, =
and
Mrs. Mackgil has written, seeking the Reformer's prayers in his behalf. "Your husband," he answe=
rs,
"is dear to me for that he is a man indued with some good gifts, but m=
ore
dear for that he is your husband. Charity moveth me to thirst his illuminat=
ion,
both for his comfort and for the trouble which you sustain by his coldness,
which justly may be called infidelity." He wishes her, however, not to hop=
e too
much; he can promise that his prayers will be earnest, but not that they wi=
ll
be effectual; it is possible that this is to be her "cross" in li=
fe;
that "her head, appointed by God for her comfort, should be her enemy.=
" And if this be so, well, there is
nothing for it; "with patience she must abide God's merciful
deliverance," taking heed only that she does not "obey manifest
iniquity for the pleasure of any mortal man." (4) I conceive this epistle would have=
given
a very modified sort of pleasure to the Clerk-Register, had it chanced to f=
all
into his hands. Compare its tenor - the dry resignation not without a hope =
of merciful
deliverance therein recommended - with these words from another letter, wri=
tten
but the year before to two married women of London: "Call first for gr=
ace
by Jesus, and thereafter communicate with your faithful husbands, and then =
shall
God, I doubt not, conduct your footsteps, and direct your counsels to His
glory." (5) Here the hus=
bands
are put in a very high place; we can recognise here the same hand that has
written for our instruction how the man is set above the woman, even as God
above the angels. But the poi=
nt of the
distinction is plain. For
Clerk-Register Mackgil was not a faithful husband; displayed, indeed, towar=
ds
religion a "coldness which justly might be called infidelity."
(1) Works, iv. 244. (2) Works, iv. 246. (3) IB.
iv. 225. (4) Works, iv. 245. (5) IB. iv. 221.
As I have said, he may possibly have made the
acquaintance of Mrs. Mackgil, Mrs. Guthrie, or some other, or all, of these=
Edinburgh
friends while he was still Douglas of Longniddry's private tutor. But our certain knowledge begins in
1549. He was then but newly e=
scaped
from his captivity in France, after pulling an oar for nineteen months on t=
he
benches of the galley NOSTRE DAME; now up the rivers, holding stealthy inte=
rcourse
with other Scottish prisoners in the castle of Rouen; now out in the North =
Sea,
raising his sick head to catch a glimpse of the far-off steeples of St.
Andrews. And now he was sent =
down
by the English Privy Council as a preacher to Berwick-upon-Tweed; somewhat
shaken in health by all his hardships, full of pains and agues, and torment=
ed
by gravel, that sorrow of great men; altogether, what with his romantic sto=
ry,
his weak health, and his great faculty of eloquence, a very natural object =
for
the sympathy of devout women. At
this happy juncture he fell into the company of a Mrs. Elizabeth Bowes, wif=
e of
Richard Bowes, of Aske, in Yorkshire, to whom she had borne twelve
children. She was a religious
hypochondriac, a very weariful woman, full of doubts and scruples, and givi=
ng
no rest on earth either to herself or to those whom she honoured with her
confidence. From the first time she heard Knox preach she formed a high opi=
nion
of him, and was solicitous ever after of his society. (1) Nor was Knox unresponsive. "I=
have
always delighted in your company," he writes, "and when labours w=
ould
permit, you know I have not spared hours to talk and commune with you."=
; Often
when they had met in depression he reminds her, "God hath sent great
comfort unto both." (2) =
We can
gather from such letters as are yet extant how close and continuous was the=
ir
intercourse. "I think it=
best
you remain till the morrow," he writes once, "and so shall we com=
mune
at large at afternoon. This d=
ay you
know to be the day of my study and prayer unto God; yet if your trouble be
intolerable, or, if you think my presence may release your pain, do as the
Spirit shall move you. . . . Your messenger found me in bed, after a sore
trouble and most dolorous night, and so dolour may complain to dolour when =
we
two meet. . . . And this is more plain than ever I spoke, to let you know y=
ou
have a companion in trouble." (3)&nbs=
p;
Once we have the curtain raised for a moment, and can look at the two
together for the length of a phrase.
"After the writing of this preceding," writes Knox, "=
your
brother and mine, Harrie Wycliffe, did advertise me by writing, that our
adversary (the devil) took occasion to trouble you because that I DID START
BACK FROM YOU REHEARSING YOUR INFIRMITIES.=
I REMEMBER MYSELF SO TO HAVE DONE, AND THAT IS MY COMMON ON CONSUETU=
DE
WHEN ANYTHING PIERCETH OR TOUCHETH MY HEART. CALL TO YOUR MIND WHAT I DID STAND=
ING AT
THE CUPBOARD AT ALNWICK. In v=
ery
deed I thought that no creature had been tempted as I was; and when I heard
proceed from your mouth the very same words that he troubles me with, I did
wonder and from my heart lament your sore trouble, knowing in myself the do=
lour
thereof." (4) Now intercourse of so very close a description, whether =
it
be religious intercourse or not, is apt to displease and disquiet a husband;
and we know incidentally from Knox himself that there was some little scand=
al
about his intimacy with Mrs. Bowes.
"The slander and fear of men," he writes, "has impede=
d me
to exercise my pen so oft as I would; YEA, VERY SHAME HATH HOLDEN ME FROM Y=
OUR
COMPANY, WHEN I WAS MOST SURELY PERSUADED THAT GOD HAD APPOINTED ME AT THAT
TIME TO COMFORT AND FEED YOUR HUNGRY AND AFFLICTED SOUL. GOD IN HIS INFINITE
MERCY," he goes on,
"REMOVE NOT ONLY FROM ME ALL FEAR THAT TENDETH NOT TO GODLINESS, BUT F=
ROM
OTHERS SUSPICION TO JUDGE OF ME OTHERWISE THAN IT BECOMETH ONE MEMBER TO JU=
DGE OF
ANOTHER," (5) And the sc=
andal,
such as it was, would not be allayed by the dissension in which Mrs. Bowes
seems to have lived with her family upon the matter of religion, and the
countenance shown by Knox to her resistance. Talking of these conflicts, and her
courage against "her own flesh and most inward affections, yea, against
some of her most natural friends," he writes it, "to the praise of
God, he has wondered at the bold constancy which he has found in her when h=
is
own heart was faint." (6)
(1) Works, vi. 514. (2) IB. iii. 338. (3) IB. =
iii.
352, 353. (4) Works, iii. 350. (5) IB. iii. 390, 391. (6) Works, iii. 142.
Now, perhaps in order to stop scandalous mouth=
s,
perhaps out of a desire to bind the much-loved evangelist nearer to her in =
the
only manner possible, Mrs. Bowes conceived the scheme of marrying him to her
fifth daughter, Marjorie; and the Reformer seems to have fallen in with it
readily enough. It seems to h=
ave
been believed in the family that the whole matter had been originally made =
up
between these two, with no very spontaneous inclination on the part of the
bride. (1) Knox's idea of marriage, as I have said, was not the same for all
men; but on the whole, it was not lofty.&n=
bsp;
We have a curious letter of his, written at the request of Queen Mar=
y, to
the Earl of Argyle, on very delicate household matters; which, as he tells =
us,
"was not well accepted of the said Earl." (2) We may suppose, however, that his =
own
home was regulated in a similar spirit.&nb=
sp;
I can fancy that for such a man, emotional, and with a need, now and
again, to exercise parsimony in emotions not strictly needful, something a =
little
mechanical, something hard and fast and clearly understood, would enter into
his ideal of a home. There we=
re storms
enough without, and equability was to be desired at the fireside even at a
sacrifice of deeper pleasures. So, from
a wife, of all women, he would not ask much. One letter to her which has come d=
own to
us is, I had almost said, conspicuous for coldness. (3) He calls her, as he called other f=
emale
correspondents, "dearly beloved sister;" the epistle is doctrinal,
and nearly the half of it bears, not upon her own case, but upon that of her
mother. However, we know what=
Heine
wrote in his wife's album; and there is, after all, one passage that may be
held to intimate some tenderness, although even that admits of an amusingly=
opposite
construction. "I think,&=
quot;
he says, "I THINK this be the first letter I ever wrote to you."<=
span
style=3D'mso-spacerun:yes'> This, if we are to take it literal=
ly,
may pair off with the "two OR THREE children" whom Montaigne ment=
ions
having lost at nurse; the one is as eccentric in a lover as the other in a
parent. Nevertheless, he displayed more energy in the course of his troubled
wooing than might have been expected.
The whole Bowes family, angry enough already at the influence he had=
obtained
over the mother, set their faces obdurately against the match. And I daresay the opposition quick=
ened
his inclination. I find him w=
riting
to Mrs. Bowes that she need no further trouble herself about the marriage; =
it
should now be his business altogether; it behoved him now to jeopard his li=
fe
"for the comfort of his own flesh, both fear and friendship of all ear=
thly
creature laid aside." (4) This
is a wonderfully chivalrous utterance for a Reformer forty-eight years old;=
and
it compares well with the leaden coquetries of Calvin, not much over thirty,
taking this and that into consideration, weighing together dowries and
religious qualifications and the instancy of friends, and exhibiting what M.
Bungener calls "an honourable and Christian difficulty" of choice=
, in
frigid indecisions and insincere proposals. But Knox's next letter is in a hum=
bler
tone; he has not found the negotiation so easy as he fancied; he despairs of
the marriage altogether, and talks of leaving England, - regards not "=
what
country consumes his wicked carcass."=
"You shall understand," he says, "that this sixth of
November, I spoke with Sir Robert Bowes" (the head of the family, his
bride's uncle) "in the matter you know, according to your request; who=
se
disdainful, yea, despiteful, words hath so pierced my heart that my life is
bitter to me. I bear a good
countenance with a sore troubled heart, because he that ought to consider
matters with a deep judgment is become not only a despiser, but also a taun=
ter
of God's messengers - God be merciful unto him! Amongst others his most unpleasing
words, while that I was about to have declared my heart in the whole matter=
, he
said, `Away with your rhetorical reasons! for I will not be persuaded with =
them.' God knows I did use no rhetoric nor
coloured speech; but would have spoken the truth, and that in most simple m=
anner. I am not a good orator in my own c=
ause;
but what he would not be content to hear of me, God shall declare to him one
day to his displeasure, unless he repent." (5) Poor Knox, you see, is quite
commoved. It has been a very =
unpleasant
interview. And as it is the o=
nly
sample that we have of how things went with him during his courtship, we ma=
y infer
that the period was not as agreeable for Knox as it has been for some other=
s.
(1) IB. iii. 378. (2) LB. ii. 379. (3) Works, =
iii.
394. (4) Works, iii. 376. (5) Works, iii. 378.
However, when once they were married, I imagin=
e he
and Marjorie Bowes hit it off together comfortably enough. The little we know of it may be br=
ought
together in a very short space. She
bore him two sons. He seems t=
o have
kept her pretty busy, and depended on her to some degree in his work; so th=
at
when she fell ill, his papers got at once into disorder. (1) Certainly she sometimes wrote to h=
is dictation;
and, in this capacity, he calls her "his left hand." (2) In June 1559, at the headiest mome=
nt of
the Reformation in Scotland, he writes regretting the absence of his helpful
colleague, Goodman, "whose presence" (this is the not very
grammatical form of his lament) "whose presence I more thirst, than she
that is my own flesh." (3) And
this, considering the source and the circumstances, may be held as evidence=
of
a very tender sentiment. He t=
ells
us himself in his history, on the occasion of a certain meeting at the Kirk=
of
Field, that "he was in no small heaviness by reason of the late death =
of
his dear bed-fellow, Marjorie Bowes." (4) Calvin, condoling with him,
speaks of her as "a wife whose like is not to be found everywhere"
(that is very like Calvin), and again, as "the most delightful of
wives." We know what Cal=
vin
thought desirable in a wife, "good humour, chastity, thrift, patience,=
and
solicitude for her husband's health," and so we may suppose that the f=
irst
Mrs. Knox fell not far short of this ideal.
(1) Works, vi. 104. (2) IB. v. 5. (3) IB. vi. =
27. (4)
IB. ii. 138.
The actual date of the marriage is uncertain b=
ut
by September 1566, at the latest, the Reformer was settled in Geneva with h=
is
wife. There is no fear either=
that
he will be dull; even if the chaste, thrifty, patient Marjorie should not a=
ltogether
occupy his mind, he need not go out of the house to seek more female sympat=
hy;
for behold! Mrs. Bowes is dul=
y domesticated
with the young couple. Dr. M'=
Crie
imagined that Richard Bowes was now dead, and his widow, consequently, free=
to
live where she would; and where could she go more naturally than to the hou=
se
of a married daughter? This, =
however,
is not the case. Richard Bowe=
s did
not die till at least two years later.&nbs=
p;
It is impossible to believe that he approved of his wife's desertion,
after so many years of marriage, after twelve children had been born to the=
m;
and accordingly we find in his will, dated 1558, no mention either of her o=
r of
Knox's wife. (1) This is plain
sailing. It is easy enough to understand the anger of Bowes against this
interloper, who had come into a quiet family, married the daughter in spite=
of
the father's opposition, alienated the wife from the husband and the husban=
d's
religion, supported her in a long course of resistance and rebellion, and,
after years of intimacy, already too close and tender for any jealous spiri=
t to
behold without resentment, carried her away with him at last into a foreign
land. But it is not quite eas=
y to
understand how, except out of sheer weariness and disgust, he was ever brou=
ght
to agree to the arrangement. Nor is it easy to square the Reformer's conduct
with his public teaching. We =
have,
for instance, a letter by him, Craig, and Spottiswood, to the Archbishops of
Canterbury and York, anent "a wicked and rebellious woman," one A=
nne
Good, spouse to "John Barron, a minister of Christ Jesus his evangel,&=
quot;
who, "after great rebellion shown unto him, and divers admonitions giv=
en,
as well by himself as by others in his name, that she should in no wise dep=
art
from this realm, nor from his house without his license, hath not the less =
stubbornly
and rebelliously departed, separated herself from his society, left his hou=
se,
and withdrawn herself from this realm." (2) Perhaps some sort of license was
extorted, as I have said, from Richard Bowes, weary with years of domestic =
dissension;
but setting that aside, the words employed with so much righteous indignati=
on
by Knox, Craig, and Spottiswood, to describe the conduct of that wicked and=
rebellious
woman, Mrs. Barron, would describe nearly as exactly the conduct of the
religious Mrs. Bowes. It is a=
little
bewildering, until we recollect the distinction between faithful and unfait=
hful
husbands; for Barron was "a minister of Christ Jesus his evangel,"
while Richard Bowes, besides being own brother to a despiser and taunter of
God's messengers, is shrewdly suspected to have been "a bigoted adhere=
nt
of the Roman Catholic faith," or, as Know himself would have expressed=
it,
"a rotten Papist."
(1) Mr. Laing's preface to the sixth volume of
Knox's Works, p. lxii. (2) Works. vi. 534.
You would have thought that Know was now pretty
well supplied with female society.
But we are not yet at the end of the roll. The last year of his sojourn in En=
gland
had been spent principally in London, where he was resident as one of the c=
haplains
of Edward the Sixth; and here he boasts, although a stranger, he had, by Go=
d's
grace, found favour before many. (1)
The godly women of the metropolis made much of him; once he writes to
Mrs. Bowes that her last letter had found him closeted with three, and he a=
nd
the three women were all in tears. (2)&nbs=
p;
Out of all, however, he had chosen two. "GOD," he writes to
them, "BROUGHT US IN SUCH FAMILIAR ACQUAINTANCE, THAT YOUR HEARTS WERE
INCENSED AND KINDLED WITH A SPECIAL CARE OVER ME, AS A MOTHER USETH TO BE O=
VER
HER NATURAL CHILD; and my heart was opened and compelled in your presence t=
o be
more plain than ever I was to any." (3) And out of the two even he had cho=
sen
one, Mrs. Anne Locke, wife to Mr. Harry Locke, merchant, nigh to Bow Kirk,
Cheapside, in London, as the address runs.=
If one may venture to judge upon such imperfect evidence, this was t=
he
woman he loved best. I have a
difficulty in quite forming to myself an idea of her character. She may have been one of the three
tearful visitors before alluded to; she may even have been that one of them=
who
was so profoundly moved by some passages of Mrs. Bowes's letter, which the
Reformer opened, and read aloud to them before they went. "O would to God," cried =
this impressionable
matron, "would to God that I might speak with that person, for I perce=
ive
there are more tempted than I." (4)&n=
bsp;
This may have been Mrs. Locke, as I say; but even if it were, we must
not conclude from this one fact that she was such another as Mrs. Bowes.
(1) Works, iv. 220. (2) IB. iii. 380. (3) IB. =
iv.
220. (4) Works, iii. 380. (5) Works, iv. 238. (6) Works, iv. 240.
We may say that such a man was not worthy of h=
is
fortune; and so, as he would not learn, he was taken away from that agreeab=
le
school, and his fellowship of women was broken up, not to be reunited. Called into Scotland to take at la=
st that
strange position in history which is his best claim to commemoration, he was
followed thither by his wife and his mother-in-law. The wife soon died. The death of her daughter did not
altogether separate Mrs. Bowes from Knox, but she seems to have come and go=
ne
between his house and England. In
1562, however, we find him characterised as "a sole man by reason of t=
he
absence of his mother-in-law, Mrs. Bowes," and a passport is got for h=
er,
her man, a maid, and "three horses, whereof two shall return," as
well as liberty to take all her own money with her into Scotland. This looks like a definite arrange=
ment;
but whether she died at Edinburgh, or went back to England yet again, I can=
not
find.
With that great family of hers, unless in leav=
ing
her husband she had quarrelled with them all, there must have been frequent
occasion for her presence, one would think. Knox at least survived her; and we
possess his epigraph to their long intimacy, given to the world by him in an
appendix to his latest publication.
I have said in a former paper that Knox was not shy of personal
revelations in his published works. And the trick seems to have grown on
him. To this last tract, a
controversial onslaught on a Scottish Jesuit, he prefixed a prayer, not very
pertinent to the matter in hand, and containing references to his family wh=
ich
were the occasion of some wit in his adversary's answer; and appended what
seems equally irrelevant, one of his devout letters to Mrs. Bowes, with an
explanatory preface. To say t=
ruth,
I believe he had always felt uneasily that the circumstances of this intima=
cy
were very capable of misconstruction; and now, when he was an old man, taki=
ng
"his good night of all the faithful in both realms," and only
desirous "that without any notable sclander to the evangel of Jesus
Christ, he might end his battle; for as the world was weary of him, so was =
he
of it;" - in such a spirit it was not, perhaps, unnatural that he shou=
ld
return to this old story, and seek to put it right in the eyes of all men, =
ere
he died. "Because that
God," he says, "because that God now in His mercy hath put an end=
to the
battle of my dear mother, Mistress Elizabeth Bowes, before that He put an e=
nd
to my wretched life, I could not cease but declare to the world what was the
cause of our great familiarity and long acquaintance; which was neither fle=
sh
nor blood, but a troubled conscience upon her part, which never suffered he=
r to
rest but when she was in the company of the faithful, of whom (from the fir=
st
hearing of the word at my mouth) she judged me to be one. . . . Her company=
to
me was comfortable (yea, honourable and profitable, for she was to me and m=
ine
a mother), but yet it was not without some cross; for besides trouble and
fashery of body sustained for her, my mind was seldom quiet, for doing some=
what
for the comfort of her troubled conscience." (1) He had written to her years before=
, from
his first exile in Dieppe, that "only God's hand" could withhold =
him
from once more speaking with her face to face; and now, when God's hand has
indeed interposed, when there lies between them, instead of the voyageable
straits, that great gulf over which no man can pass, this is the spirit in
which he can look back upon their long acquaintance. She was a religious hypochondriac,=
it
appears, whom, not without some cross and fashery of mind and body, he was =
good
enough to tend. He might have=
given
a truer character of their friendship, had he thought less of his own stand=
ing
in public estimation, and more of the dead woman. But he was in all things, as Burke=
said
of his son in that ever memorable passage, a public creature. He wished that even into this priv=
ate
place of his affections posterity should follow him with a complete approva=
l;
and he was willing, in order that this might be so, to exhibit the defects =
of
his lost friend, and tell the world what weariness he had sustained through=
her
unhappy disposition. There is
something here that reminds one of Rousseau.
(1) Works, vi. 513, 514.
I do not think he ever saw Mrs. Locke after he=
left
Geneva; but his correspondence with her continued for three years. It may h=
ave
continued longer, of course, but I think the last letters we possess read l=
ike
the last that would be written. Perhaps Mrs. Locke was then remarried, for
there is much obscurity over her subsequent history. For as long as their intimacy was =
kept
up, at least, the human element remains in the Reformer's life. Here is one passage, for example, =
the most
likable utterance of Knox's that I can quote:- Mrs Locke has been upbraiding
him as a bad correspondent.
"My remembrance of you," he answers, "is not so dead,=
but
I trust it shall be fresh enough, albeit it be renewed by no outward token =
for
one year. OF NATURE, I AM CHU=
RLISH;
YET ONE THING I ASHAME NOT TO AFFIRM, THAT FAMILIARITY ONCE THOROUGHLY CONT=
RACTED
WAS NEVER YET BROKEN ON MY DEFAULT.
THE CAUSE MAY BE THAT I HAVE RATHER NEED OF ALL, THAN THAT ANY HAVE =
NEED
OF ME. However it (THAT) be, =
it
cannot be, as I say, the corporal absence of one year or two that can quenc=
h in
my heart that familiar acquaintance in Christ Jesus, which half a year did
engender, and almost two years did nourish and confirm. And therefore, whether I write or =
no, be
assuredly persuaded that I have you in such memory as becometh the faithful=
to
have of the faithful." (1)
This is the truest touch of personal humility that I can remember to
have seen in all the five volumes of the Reformer's collected works: it is =
no
small honour to Mrs. Locke that his affection for her should have brought h=
ome
to him this unwonted feeling of dependence upon others. Everything else in the course of t=
he correspondence
testifies to a good, sound, down-right sort of friendship between the two, =
less
ecstatic than it was at first, perhaps, but serviceable and very equal. He gives her ample details is to t=
he
progress of the work of reformation; sends her the sheets of the CONFESSION=
OF
FAITH, "in quairs," as he calls it; asks her to assist him with h=
er
prayers, to collect money for the good cause in Scotland, and to send him b=
ooks
for himself - books by Calvin especially, one on Isaiah, and a new revised
edition of the "Institutes."&nbs=
p;
"I must be bold on your liberality," he writes, "not =
only
in that, but in greater things as I shall need." (2) On her part she applies to him for
spiritual advice, not after the manner of the drooping Mrs. Bowes, but in a
more positive spirit, - advice as to practical points, advice as to the Chu=
rch
of England, for instance, whose ritual he condemns as a
"mingle-mangle." (3) Just
at the end she ceases to write, sends him "a token, without
writing." "I unders=
tand
your impediment," he answers, "and therefore I cannot complain. Y=
et
if you understood the variety of my temptations, I doubt not but you would =
have
written somewhat." (4) O=
ne
letter more, and then silence.
(1) Works, vi. ii. (2) Works, vi. pp. 21. 101,
108, 130. (3) IB. vi. 83. (4) IB. vi. 129.
And I think the best of the Reformer died out =
with
that correspondence. It is af=
ter
this, of course, that he wrote that ungenerous description of his intercour=
se
with Mrs. Bowes. It is after =
this,
also, that we come to the unlovely episode of his second marriage. He had been left a widower at the =
age of
fifty-five. Three years after=
, it
occurred apparently to yet another pious parent to sacrifice a child upon t=
he
altar of his respect for the Reformer.&nbs=
p;
In January 1563, Randolph writes to Cecil: "Your Honour will ta=
ke
it for a great wonder when I shall write unto you that Mr. Knox shall marry=
a
very near kinswoman of the Duke's, a Lord's daughter, a young lass not above
sixteen years of age." (1) He adds that he fears he will be laughed at=
for
reporting so mad a story. And=
yet
it was true; and on Palm Sunday, 1564, Margaret Stewart, daughter of Andrew
Lord Stewart of Ochiltree, aged seventeen, was duly united to John Knox, Mi=
nister
of St. Giles's Kirk, Edinburgh, aged fifty-nine, - to the great disgust of
Queen Mary from family pride, and I would fain hope of many others for more
humane considerations. "=
In
this," as Randolph says, "I wish he had done otherwise." The Consistory of Geneva, "th=
at
most perfect school of Christ that ever was on earth since the days of the
Apostles," were wont to forbid marriages on the ground of too great a
disproportion in age. I canno=
t help
wondering whether the old Reformer's conscience did not uneasily remind him,
now and again, of this good custom of his religious metropolis, as he thoug=
ht
of the two-and-forty years that separated him from his poor bride. Fitly enough, we hear nothing of t=
he
second Mrs. Knox until she appears at her husband's deathbed, eight years
after. She bore him three dau=
ghters
in the interval; and I suppose the poor child's martyrdom was made as easy =
for
her as might be. She was extr=
emely
attentive to him "at the end, we read and he seems to have spoken to h=
er
with some confidence. Moreove=
r, and
this is very characteristic, he had copied out for her use a little volume =
of
his own devotional letters to other women.
(1) Works, vi. 532.
This is the end of the roll, unless we add to =
it
Mrs. Adamson, who had delighted much in his company "by reason that she
had a troubled conscience," and whose deathbed is commemorated at some
length in the pages of his history. (1)
(1) Works, i. 246.
And now, looking back, it cannot be said that
Knox's intercourse with women was quite of the highest sort. It is characteristic that we find =
him
more alarmed for his own reputation than for the reputation of the women wi=
th
whom he was familiar. There w=
as a
fatal preponderance of self in all his intimacies: many women came to learn
from him, but he never condescended to become a learner in his turn. And so there is not anything idyll=
ic in
these intimacies of his; and they were never so renovating to his spirit as
they might have been. But I b=
elieve
they were good enough for the women.
I fancy the women knew what they were about when so many of them
followed after Knox. It is not
simply because a man is always fully persuaded that he knows the right from=
the
wrong and sees his way plainly through the maze of life, great qualities as
these are, that people will love and follow him, and write him letters full=
of
their "earnest desire for him" when he is absent. It is not over a man, whose one
characteristic is grim fixity of purpose, that the hearts of women are
"incensed and kindled with a special care," as it were over their
natural children. In the stro=
ng quiet
patience of all his letters to the weariful Mrs. Bowes, we may perhaps see =
one
cause of the fascination he possessed for these religious women. Here was one whom you could besieg=
e all
the year round with inconsistent scruples and complaints; you might write to
him on Thursday that you were so elated it was plain the devil was deceiving
you, and again on Friday that you were so depressed it was plain God had ca=
st
you off for ever; and he would read all this patiently and sympathetically,=
and
give you an answer in the most reassuring polysyllables, and all divided in=
to
heads - who knows? - like a treatise on divinity. And then, those easy tears of his.=
There are some women who like to s=
ee men
crying; and here was this great-voiced, bearded man of God, who might be se=
en
beating the solid pulpit every Sunday, and casting abroad his clamorous
denunciations to the terror of all, and who on the Monday would sit in their
parlours by the hour, and weep with them over their manifold trials and tem=
ptations. Nowadays, he would have to drink a=
dish
of tea with all these penitents. . . . It sounds a little vulgar, as the pa=
st
will do, if we look into it too closely.&n=
bsp;
We could not let these great folk of old into our drawing-rooms. Que=
en
Elizabeth would positively not be eligible for a housemaid. The old manners and the old custom=
s go
sinking from grade to grade, until, if some mighty emperor revisited the
glimpses of the moon, he would not find any one of his way of thinking, any=
one
he could strike hands with and talk to freely and without offence, save per=
haps
the porter at the end of the street, or the fellow with his elbows out who =
loafs
all day before the public-house. So
that this little note of vulgarity is not a thing to be dwelt upon; it is t=
o be
put away from us, as we recall the fashion of these old intimacies; so that=
we
may only remember Knox as one who was very long-suffering with women, kind =
to
them in his own way, loving them in his own way - and that not the worst wa=
y,
if it was not the best - and once at least, if not twice, moved to his hear=
t of
hearts by a woman, and giving expression to the yearning he had for her soc=
iety
in words that none of us need be ashamed to borrow.
And let us bear in mind always that the period=
I
have gone over in this essay begins when the Reformer was already beyond the
middle age, and already broken in bodily health: it has been the story of an
old man's friendships. This i=
t is
that makes Knox enviable. Unk=
nown
until past forty, he had then before him five-and-thirty years of splendid =
and influential
life, passed through uncommon hardships to an uncommon degree of power, liv=
ed
in his own country as a sort of king, and did what he would with the sound =
of
his voice out of the pulpit. =
And
besides all this, such a following of faithful women! One would take the first forty yea=
rs
gladly, if one could be sure of the last thirty. Most of us, even if, by reason of =
great
strength and the dignity of gray hairs, we retain some degree of public res=
pect
in the latter days of our existence, will find a falling away of friends, a=
nd a
solitude making itself round about us day by day, until we are left alone w=
ith
the hired sick-nurse. For the=
attraction
of a man's character is apt to be outlived, like the attraction of his body;
and the power to love grows feeble in its turn, as well as the power to ins=
pire
love in others. It is only wi=
th a
few rare natures that friendship is added to friendship, love to love, and =
the
man keeps growing richer in affection - richer, I mean, as a bank may be sa=
id
to grow richer, both giving and receiving more - after his head is white and
his back weary, and he prepares to go down into the dust of death.