_START IN LIFE._
My brother, after taking his degree, remained up at Oxford in lodgings,
attending lectures; and, when I went out of College in the term before my
own examination, I joined him, and once again we found ourselves living
in a common sitting room. I think it was a very great pleasure to both of
us; and as soon as my troubles in the Schools were over, and the short
leisure time which generally follows that event had set in, we began to
talk over subjects which had hitherto been scarcely mentioned between us,
but which, on the threshold of active life, were becoming of absorbing
interest. In the previous autumn I had made a tour with a pupil in the
North of England and Scotland. I had gone, by choice, to commercial
hotels in several of the large northern towns, as I had discovered that
commercial rooms were the most likely places for political discussion,
and was anxious to talk over the great question of that day with the
very vigorous and able gentlemen who frequented them. The Anti-Corn-Law
agitation was then at its height, and, to cut a long story short, I had
come back from the North an ardent Freetrader. In other directions also
I was rapidly falling away from the political faith in which we had been
brought up. I am not conscious, indeed I do not believe, that Arnold’s
influence was ever brought to bear directly on English politics, in the
case even of those boys who (like my brother and myself) came specially
under it, in his own house, and in the sixth form. What he did for us
was, to make us think on the politics of Israel, and Rome, and Greece,
leaving us free to apply the lessons he taught us in these, as best we
could, to our own country. But now his life had been published, and
had come like a revelation to many of us; explaining so much that had
appeared inexplicable, and throwing a white light upon great sections,
both of the world which we had realized more or less through the
classics, and the world which was lying under our eyes, and all around
us, and which we now began, for the first time, to recognize as one and
the same.
The noble side of democracy was carrying me away. I was haunted by
Arnold’s famous sentence, “If there is one truth short of the highest for
which I would gladly die, it is democracy without Jacobinism;” and “the
People’s Charter” was beginning to have strange attractions for me.
It was just one of those crises in one’s life in which nothing is so
useful, or healthy, for one, as coming into direct and constant contact
with an intellect stronger than one’s own, which looks at the same
subjects from a widely different standpoint.
Now, in the Anti-Corn-Law agitation the leaders of the League were in
the habit of using very violent language. Their speeches were full of
vehement attacks on the landlords and farmers of England, and of pictures
of country life as an inert mass of selfishness, tyranny, and stupidity.
My brother’s hatred of exaggeration and unfairness revolted against
all this wild talk; and his steady appeal to facts known to us both
often staggered my new convictions. On the general economical question,
imperfectly as I understood it, I think I often staggered him. But, on
the other hand, when he appealed to the example of a dozen landlords
whom I knew (including your grandfather), and made me look at the actual
relations between them and their tenants and their labourers, and ask
myself whether these statements were not utterly untrue in their case and
in the county we knew; whether they were not probably just as untrue of
other counties; and, if that were so, whether a cause which needed such
libels to support it could be a just one, I was often in my turn sadly
troubled for a reply.
Again, though Arnold’s life influenced him quite as powerfully as it did
me, it was in quite a different direction, strengthening specially in
him the reverence for national life, and for the laws, traditions, and
customs with which it is interwoven, and of which it is the expression.
Somehow, his natural dislike to change, and preference for the old ways,
seemed to gain as much strength and nourishment from the teaching and
example of our old master, as the desire and hope for radical reforms
did in me. As for democracy, not even Arnold’s dictum could move him.
“The Demos” was for him always, the fatuous old man, with two oboli
in his cheek, and a wide ear for the grossest flatteries which Cleon
or the Sausage-seller could pour into it. Those of you who have begun
Aristophanes will know to what I allude. Now, if he had been a man who
had any great reverence for rank or privilege, or who had no sympathies
with or care for the poor, or who was not roused to indignation by any
act of oppression or tyranny, in the frame of mind I was in I should
have cared very little for anything he might have urged. But, knowing
as I did that the fact was precisely the reverse—that no man I had ever
met was more indifferent to rank and title, more full of sympathy and
kindliness to all below him, or more indignant at anything which savoured
of injustice—I was obliged to admit that the truth could not be all on my
side, and to question my own new faith far more carefully than I should
have done otherwise.
And so this was the last good deed which he did for me when our ways in
life parted for the first time, and I went up to London to read for the
Bar, while he remained at Oxford. His plans were not fixed beyond the
summer. He had promised to take two or three Oriel men to Scotland on a
reading party, and accordingly went with them to Oban in July; and, while
there, accepted an offer, which came to him I scarcely know how, to take
charge of the sons of the late Mr. Beaumont at Harrow, as their private
tutor.
I must own I was much annoyed at the time when I heard of this
resolution. I could see no reason for it, and many against it. Here was
he, probably the most popular man of his day at Oxford, almost sure of
a fellowship if he chose to stay up and read for it, one of the best
oars and cricketers in England, a fine sportsman, and enjoying all these
things thoroughly, and with the command of as much as he chose to take
of them, deliberately shelving himself as the tutor of three young boys.
I am afraid there was also a grain of snobbishness at the bottom of my
dislike to the arrangement. Private tutors were looked upon then by young
men—I hope it is so no longer—as a sort of upper servants; and I was weak
enough, notwithstanding my newly acquired liberalism, to regard this move
of George’s as a sort of loss of caste. He was my eldest brother, and I
was very fond and proud of him. I was sure he would distinguish himself
in any profession he chose to follow, while there was no absolute need
of his following any; and it provoked me to think of his making what I
thought a false move, and throwing away some of the best years of his
life.
However, I knew it was useless to remonstrate, as he had made up his
mind, and so held my tongue, and came to see that he was quite right.
It was not till nearly three years later, when his engagement was over
and he had entered at Doctors’ Commons, that I came to understand and
appreciate his motives. The first of these you may gather from the
following extract from a letter of your grandfather’s, dated February
23rd, 1849:—“George, it seems, is unusually lively at the idea of going
tooth and nail to work with men instead of boys; and, now that he has for
three years gratified his whim of keeping himself wholly off my hands,
consents to be assisted like his brothers.” This “whim” of proving to
his own satisfaction that he was worth his keep, and could make his own
living, is not a very usual one nowadays, when most young Englishmen seem
to assume that they have a natural right to maintenance at the expense
of some one. He had then six other brothers, on whom the example was not
altogether thrown away, though none of us were ever able quite to come
up to it. It had the effect, however, of making us thoughtful in the
matter of expenditure; and, consequently, of the four who went to the
universities, and two who entered the army, not one got into any money
difficulties.
But George had other motives for this step besides the “whim” of
independence. He wished for leisure to make up his mind whether he
should take holy orders, as he had at one time intended to do. And,
since leaving Rugby, he had had no time either for the study of modern
languages or for general reading, and he was anxious to make up his
arrears in both of these directions. This engagement would give him
the leisure he wanted, while keeping him at regular routine work.
His resolve, though taken at the risk of throwing himself back some
years in his future profession, whatever that might be, was thoroughly
characteristic of him, and owing, I think, in great measure to your
grandfather’s own precepts. He was fond of telling us family stories,
and there was none of these of which he was more proud than that of
his maternal great-grandmother. This good lady was the widow of George
Watts, Vicar of Uffington, a younger son himself, who died at the age
of forty-two, leaving her in very poor circumstances. She sold off
everything, and invested the proceeds in stocking a large dairy farm
in the village where she had lived as the great lady, there being
no resident squire in the parish. If any of you ever care to make a
pilgrimage to the place, you will find the farmhouse, which she occupied
nearly 200 years ago, close to the fish-pond in Uffington. She was well
connected, and her friends tried to persuade her not to give up her old
habits; but she steadily refused all visiting, though she was glad to
give them a cup of chocolate, or the like, when they chose to call on
her. By attending to her business, rising early and working late, she
managed to portion her daughter, and give her son a Cambridge education,
by which he profited, and died Master of the Temple, where you may see
his monument. He was true to his mother’s training, and sacrificed good
chances of further preferment, by preaching a sermon at Whitehall before
George II. and his mistress, on Court vices, on the text, “And Nathan
said unto David, Thou art the man.” Such stories, drunk in by a boy of a
quiet, self-contained, thorough nature, were sure to have their effect;
and this “whim” of George’s was one of their first-fruits in his case.
I must add, that there is no family tradition which I would sooner see
grow into an article of faith with all of you than this of thriftiness,
and independence, as points of honour. So long as you are _in statu
pupillari_, of course you must live at the expense of your friends; but
you may do so either honestly, or dishonestly. A boy, or young man,
born and bred a gentleman, ought to feel that there is an honourable
contract between him and his friends; their part being to pay his bills,
and make him such an allowance as they can afford, and think right, and
sufficient; his, to work steadily, and not to get in debt, or cultivate
habits and indulge tastes which he cannot afford. You will see through
life all sorts of contemptible ostentation and shiftlessness on every
side of you. Nurses, if they are allowed, begin with fiddle-faddling
about children, till they make them utterly helpless, unable to do
anything for themselves, and thinking such helplessness a fine thing.
Ladies’ maids, grooms, valets, flunkeys, keepers, carry on the training
as they get older. Even at public schools I can see this extravagance
and shiftlessness growing in every direction. There are all sorts of
ridiculous expenses, in the shape of costumes and upholstery of one kind
or another, which are always increasing. The machinery of games gets
every year more elaborate. When I was in the eleven at Rugby, we “kept
big-side” ourselves; that is to say, we did all the rolling, watering,
and attending to the ground. We chose and prepared our own wickets, and
marked out our own creases, for every match. We had no “professional” and
no “pavilion,” but taught ourselves to play; and when a strange eleven
was coming to play in the school close, asked the Doctor for one of the
schools, in which we sat them down to a plain cold dinner. I don’t say
that you have not better grounds, and are not more regularly trained
cricketers now; but it has cost a great deal in many ways, and the game
has been turned into a profession. Now, one set of boys plays just like
another; then, each, of the great schools had its own peculiar style,
by which you could distinguish it from the rest. And, after you leave
school, you will find the same thing in more contemptible forms, at the
Universities and in the world. You can’t alter society, or hinder people
in general from being helpless, and vulgar—from letting themselves fall
into slavery to the things about them if they are rich, or from aping the
habits and vices of the rich if they are poor. But you may live simple
manly lives yourselves, speaking your own thought, paying your own way,
and doing your own work, whatever that may be. You will remain gentlemen
so long as you follow these rules, if you have to sweep a crossing for
your livelihood. You will not remain gentlemen in anything but the name,
if you depart from them, though you may be set to govern a kingdom. And
whenever the temptation comes to you to swerve from them, think of the
subject of this memoir, of the old lady in the farmhouse by Uffington
fish-pond, and the tablet in the Temple Church.
Such a resolution as that which, as I have just shown you, was taken
by my brother at the end of his residence at Oxford, is always a
turning-point in character. If faithfully and thoroughly carried out, it
will strengthen the whole man; lifting him on to a new plane, as it were,
and enabling him, without abruptly breaking away from his old life, to
look at its surroundings from a higher standpoint, and so to get a new
and a truer perspective. If repented of, or acted out half-heartedly,
it is apt to impair a man’s usefulness sadly, to confuse his judgment,
and soften the fibre of his will. He gets to look back upon his former
pursuits with an exaggerated fondness, and to let them gradually creep
back, till they get a stronger hold on him than ever, so that he never
learns to put them in their right place at all. The moral of which to you
boys is—think well over your important steps in life, and, having made
up your minds, never look behind. George never did. From Oban he writes
home: “My forthcoming engagement occupies all my thoughts, and indeed a
good deal of my time; for if I intend to succeed, I must be well up in
everything. I shall not, therefore, be able to make many excursions from
Oban.” Your grandfather had been a friend of Sir Walter Scott, and had
brought us up on his works; and had suggested to George that this would
be a good opportunity for visiting a number of the spots immortalized by
the Wizard of the North. This was his answer.
In the same spirit I find him writing about the same time as to a new
cricket club, which was starting under very favourable auspices in
Berkshire, and in which he had been asked to take a leading part: “I
shall certainly not join the A. C. Club; and as for Tom, I should think
his joining more improbable still. Cricket is over for both of us, except
accidentally.”
In this spirit he took to his new work; and, going into it heartily and
thoroughly, found it very pleasant. He occupied Byron House at Harrow,
with his pupils, in which his old friend Mr. M. Arnold afterwards lived.
There were several of his old schoolfellows, and college friends, among
the Masters; and I, and others of his old friends, used to run down
occasionally, on half-holidays, from London, and play football or cricket
with the boys, amongst whom the prestige of his athletic career of course
made him a great favourite and hero. Thus he got as much society as he
cared for, and found time, in the intervals of his regular work, for a
good deal of general reading. In fact, I never knew him more cheerful
than during these years of what most of us regarded as lost time, and in
which we certainly expected he would have been bored, and disappointed.
This would not have been so perhaps had he proved unsuccessful; but his
pupils got on well in the school and their father soon found him out, and
appreciated him. At the beginning of the first long vacation he writes
home:—
“Mr. Beaumont, finding I am fond of a gun, has most kindly
offered me a week’s shooting on his moors. I could easily
manage it, and meet you in London in time to visit Lady
Salusbury. You will not think, I know well, that I like
shooting better than home; and if you would like to see me
before you go to London, pray say so, and the moors will not
occupy another thought in my head. It is not everyone who would
have taken the trouble to find out that I liked shooting and I
feel Mr. Beaumont’s kindness; in fact, he seems as generous as
a prince to everyone with whom he has anything to do.”
But it was in his own family, where he would have wished for it most,
that the reward came most amply. He became in these years the trusted
adviser of your grandfather on all family matters, and especially with
respect to his three youngest brothers. The direction of their education
was indeed almost handed over to him, and nothing could exceed the
admiration and devotion with which they soon learnt to regard him. The
eldest of them was sent to Harrow in 1848 to be under his eye, and you
may judge of the sort of supervision he exercised by this specimen of his
reports:—
“I think he has been suffering the usual reaction which takes
place when a boy goes to a new school. He worked hard at first,
and then, finding he had a good deal of liberty and opportunity
of amusement, grew slack. He is too fond of exercise to be
naturally fond of work, as some boys are who are blessed with
small animal spirits; and he is not yet old enough to see
clearly the object of education, and the obligation of work. I
have no doubt he will very soon find this out; but, if not, it
will very soon be forced on his notice by the unpleasantness of
being beaten by his contemporaries.”
Speaking of his letters of advice to the boys, your grandfather writes:—
“They have given me at least as much pleasure as them. You are
doing a very kind thing in the most judicious way, and have
assisted the stimulus which they required. Good leaders make a
steady-going team, and allow the coachman to turn round on his
box. Arthur [the youngest] will in his turn benefit by these
fellows, I doubt not. You would, I think, be pleased to see how
naturally he takes to cricket. In fact, take him altogether, he
is a very good specimen of a six-year-old.”
But perhaps nothing will show you in a short space what he was to his
younger brothers so well as one of their own letters to him, and one
of his to your grandmother. The first is from your uncle Harry, written
almost at the end of his first half at Rugby:—
“MY DEAR GEORGE,
“I am very much obliged to you for writing such a capital
letter to me the other day, and for all your kind advice, which
you may be sure is not entirely thrown away. I remember all the
kind advice you gave me last winter, as we were coming from
skating at Benham. You warned me from getting into ‘tick,’ and
you said you were sure I should be able to act upon your good
advice, and from that moment I determined not to go on tick,
without I could _possibly help_. I haven’t owed a penny to
anyone this half-year, and I don’t mean to owe anybody anything
in the money way; and I have not spent all my money yet, and if
I have not got enough to last me till the end of the half-year,
I am _determined_ not to tick; and I _heartily thank God_ that
I have elder brothers to guide me and advise me; I am afraid
I should have done badly without them. You advised me also in
your kind letter to work steadily. I fancy I am placed pretty
decently; the form I am in is the upper remove. I keep low down
in my form, principally from not knowing my Kennedy’s grammar.
I find it very hard to say by heart. I should have been placed
higher, I think, if I had known it; and I should advise Arthur
to begin it now, if he is coming to Rugby, which I hope he is.
He will find it disagreeable now, but he would find it worse
if he did not know it when he came here. I think if you would
be kind enough to write to him, and show him how necessary it
is for him to learn it, he would be only too glad to do it. I
think the great fault in me is, not so much forgetfulness, but
a not having a determination to do a thing at the moment. I
put it off. But I have, I am sorry to say, innumerable other
faults. Mamma sent me a book of prayers, which I read whenever
I have got time, and I say my prayers every night and morning,
and I pray for all of you. I have now mentioned, I think,
everything that you seemed anxious about in your letter.”
The next letter is dated two years later, when the question what
profession the writer of the last was to follow, had become important:—
“DEAREST MOTHER,
“I will answer your questions as well as I am able. Harry
will not lower himself by farming. It might have been so ten
years ago, but the world is getting less absurd, and, besides,
I think more gentlemen are now taking it up as a profession
(Mr. Huxtable, for instance, and many others), and are most
highly respected. But to succeed in farming in England now, one
must be a remarkable man; one must thoroughly understand all
practical details, and be able to work oneself better than a
labourer; besides this, the farmer must be a tolerable chemist
and geologist, must understand bookkeeping and accounts, and
must be enterprising and yet cautious; as patient as Job, and
as active minded (and bodied) as anyone you can think of. Now
Harry, although amiable, is rather indolent, and unless he
can entirely get rid of this, he will ruin himself in a year
by farming in England. In Ireland or the colonies it might
be different. For the same reasons I would not recommend the
Bar for Harry. It is very laborious, the confinement great,
and it requires a hard head: moreover, the education is quite
as expensive as an Oxford one, if that is any consideration.
However, if you think that Harry can acquire (not an ordinary,
but) an extraordinary amount of diligence, let him come to
the Bar or farm. I confess I should discourage both ideas. If
you can get a cadetship for him, I would certainly accept it.
The two dangers of Indian military life are extravagance and
dissipation, and I don’t think Harry inclined to either. He
has not been extravagant at Rugby, and the temptations of a
public school are as great as they are anywhere; and I think
he is well-principled and kind-hearted, which will save him
from the other danger. The army is getting much better, and
officers begin to find out that they may do immense good in
their profession by looking after the condition of their men.
If you should obtain a cadetship, it will not be difficult to
make Harry understand that he will have other duties besides
drill, and I believe he would perform them. I am sure he would
be exceedingly popular with officers and men. If he had been
bad-tempered, or disobedient, or ill-conditioned, I should
have recommended the navy, as by far the best school for such
a character; but as he does not want such discipline, as we
have no interest, as it is a poor profession in a worldly point
of view, and as he is (I fancy) rather too old, I think it is
out of the question. I confess I should hesitate much between
orders and the army. If I saw any likelihood of Harry’s doing
anything at Oxford, I should like to see him a clergyman. I
am sure he would be a conscientious one, and therefore happy.
But I _don’t_ think he would do anything (though of course he
would pass), and there are the same temptations there as in
the army. On the whole, I would try immediately to procure
a cadetship; if you cannot get one, I would try to induce
Harry to take orders. I said something about Ireland and the
colonies in connection with farming. On second thoughts, I
don’t think Harry would be a suitable person. Amiable tempers
always require (at first) some one to look up to and lean upon;
they are longer in learning to stand alone. Now, no one is so
much isolated as a colonist. He is thrown entirely on his own
resources, and has no one to give him advice and sympathy. In
the army, and indeed in orders, one is generally trained to
bear responsibility. So I am for the cadetship. He will be at
once provided for, and will return to England in the prime of
life with a competence. This is always supposing that he will
escape the dangers of the profession (as I think), and that
you and he do not think the advantages counterbalanced by the
separation. I have no doubt that when communication with India
is easier (and it will soon be incredibly easier), officers
will come home at shorter intervals.”
Meantime he was studying the same question carefully in his own case,
with a view to determining whether he should take orders when his work
at Harrow was over. His father and mother, though on the whole wishing
that he should do so, were perfectly content to let him think the matter
out, and settle it his own way. They seem, however, to have supplied
him with specimens of contemporary pulpit literature, upon some of
which he comments in his correspondence, not, on the whole, with any
enthusiasm. “Surely,” he sums up some criticism on a popular preacher of
that day, “there is a pulpit eloquence equally remote from fine writing
and familiarity, such as was Dr. Arnold’s. I am doubtful as to reading
these books, for I know that I ought not to think of the style, and yet I
cannot help it. It takes me down against my will.”
Your grandfather replied: “The Church ought certainly to be a labour of
love, and followed with zeal. If on a final review of your sentiments,
aided perhaps by the advice of some clergyman you look up to (why
not Vaughan?) you do not think you could engraft this zeal on sound
convictions, and an upright character, you are quite right in deciding
for the Bar. In after life you will not be wholly dependent on a
profession, and many of our best men have started as late.”
In the end he made up his mind against taking orders, but not on any
of the grounds which deter so many young men of ability now. “My only
objection,” he writes to his mother, “to taking orders is, that it might
not suit me. Once ordained, it is impossible to change your profession;
and unless a man has his whole soul in this profession, he is useless, or
worse.”
And so, at the end of his three years at Harrow, he resolved to go to the
Bar, and choosing that branch of it for which his previous reading had
best qualified him, took his degree of Doctor of Civil Law, and entered
at Doctors’ Commons.
You will have recognized by this time how carefully your grandfather
watched the development of character in his sons, and that he was by no
means inclined to overlook their faults, or to over-estimate their good
qualities. The longer I live myself, the more highly I am inclined to
rate his judgment of men and things, and this is the conclusion he had
formed at this time of his eldest son’s character. It occurs in a letter
to a relative then living, and dated 25th January, 1849:—
“I am glad you have had an opportunity (difficult to get from
his reserved character) of seeing what is in George when put
to the proof. There are many men of his age with more active
benevolence and habits of more general utility, as well as
perhaps warmer spiritual feeling, also more useful acquired
knowledge. His great _forte_, rather lies in those qualities
which give men the ascendency in more troubled times—perfect
consistency of word and purpose, great moral and physical
courage, and a scrupulous sense of what is due to oneself and
others in the relations of social life, combined with the
caution a man should possess, who never intends to retract an
opinion or a profession. Much perhaps of the _chevalier sans
tache_ who used to be the fashion in the rough times before
steam and ’ologies came in. In my time these sort of people
were always more popular among Oxford youngsters (who are
very acute in reading character) than mere wits, scholars, or
dashing men. I suppose it is so still, and thereby account for
the estimation which it seems he had in Oriel. And I apprehend
this sort of established character must help a man in a
profession where he means to work, and I will answer for his
doing so.”
But there is one feature in George’s character which this estimate of it
does not bring out. I mean his great unselfishness. As an illustration
of this, I will show you how he treated a proposal made on account of
your grandfather while he was at Harrow. We had had the first loss in our
circle. Your uncle Walter, whom none of you remember, a young officer
in the Artillery, had died of an attack of yellow fever in British
Guiana. This had shaken your grandfather a good deal, and his health was
no longer strong enough to allow him to follow, and enjoy, his country
pursuits. Besides, the house at Donnington was too big for the shrunken
family which now gathered there, and those of us who had flitted were
settled, or likely to settle, in London. So it was thought that it would
be well for your grandfather, and all of us, if he were to follow, and
move up to the neighbourhood of town. In any case George’s opinion would
have been the first taken on such a step, but in this it was necessary
that he should consent, as Donnington was settled on him. He was very
much attached to the place in which we had all grown up; and local, and
county, and family associations had a peculiarly strong hold on him. But
all these were set aside without a second thought. All he was anxious
about was, that so serious a change should be well considered. “I think,”
he writes to his mother, “you should be cautious about changing. In the
first place, it will cause you personally an immense amount of annoyance,
which you ought never to incur, especially now. Then you will miss your
garden, and your village occupations, and your neighbours. My last
letter might have led you to suppose that I myself preferred Hampstead
to Donnington, but that is not the case. I should consider it desirable
under certain circumstances. If you and my father, and Jeanie and the
rest, think these circumstances exist, I sincerely hope you will change,
and lose no time about it. But do not do a thing which will cause you a
great deal of trouble and annoyance without the clearest grounds. Above
all, believe, and this I say with the most perfect truth, that I shall be
equally happy whichever you do.”