MATHEW ARNOLD AND OTHERS
The most charming man, John Morley and I agree, that we ever knew was
Matthew Arnold. He had, indeed, "a charm"--that is the only word which
expresses the effect of his presence and his conversation. Even his
look and grave silences charmed.
[Illustration: _Photograph from Underwood & Underwood, N.Y._
MATTHEW ARNOLD]
He coached with us in 1880, I think, through Southern England--William
Black and Edwin A. Abbey being of the party. Approaching a pretty
village he asked me if the coach might stop there a few minutes. He
explained that this was the resting-place of his godfather, Bishop
Keble, and he should like to visit his grave. He continued:
"Ah, dear, dear Keble! I caused him much sorrow by my views upon
theological subjects, which caused me sorrow also, but notwithstanding
he was deeply grieved, dear friend as he was, he traveled to Oxford
and voted for me for Professor of English Poetry."
We walked to the quiet churchyard together. Matthew Arnold in silent
thought at the grave of Keble made upon me a lasting impression. Later
the subject of his theological views was referred to. He said they had
caused sorrow to his best friends.
"Mr. Gladstone once gave expression to his deep disappointment, or to
something like displeasure, saying I ought to have been a bishop. No
doubt my writings prevented my promotion, as well as grieved my
friends, but I could not help it. I had to express my views."
I remember well the sadness of tone with which these last words
were spoken, and how very slowly. They came as from the deep. He had
his message to deliver. Steadily has the age advanced to receive it.
His teachings pass almost uncensured to-day. If ever there was a
seriously religious man it was Matthew Arnold. No irreverent word ever
escaped his lips. In this he and Gladstone were equally above
reproach, and yet he had in one short sentence slain the supernatural.
"The case against miracles is closed. They do not happen."
He and his daughter, now Mrs. Whitridge, were our guests when in New
York in 1883, and also at our mountain home in the Alleghanies, so
that I saw a great deal, but not enough, of him. My mother and myself
drove him to the hall upon his first public appearance in New York.
Never was there a finer audience gathered. The lecture was not a
success, owing solely to his inability to speak well in public. He was
not heard. When we returned home his first words were:
"Well, what have you all to say? Tell me! Will I do as a lecturer?"
I was so keenly interested in his success that I did not hesitate to
tell him it would never do for him to go on unless he fitted himself
for public speaking. He must get an elocutionist to give him lessons
upon two or three points. I urged this so strongly that he consented
to do so. After we all had our say, he turned to my mother, saying:
"Now, dear Mrs. Carnegie, they have all given me their opinions, but I
wish to know what you have to say about my first night as a lecturer
in America."
"Too ministerial, Mr. Arnold, too ministerial," was the reply slowly
and softly delivered. And to the last Mr. Arnold would occasionally
refer to that, saying he felt it hit the nail on the head. When he
returned to New York from his Western tour, he had so much improved
that his voice completely filled the Brooklyn Academy of Music. He had
taken a few lessons from a professor of elocution in Boston, as
advised, and all went well thereafter.
He expressed a desire to hear the noted preacher, Mr. Beecher; and we
started for Brooklyn one Sunday morning. Mr. Beecher had been apprized
of our coming so that after the services he might remain to meet Mr.
Arnold. When I presented Mr. Arnold he was greeted warmly. Mr. Beecher
expressed his delight at meeting one in the flesh whom he had long
known so well in the spirit, and, grasping his hand, he said:
"There is nothing you have written, Mr. Arnold, which I have not
carefully read at least once and a great deal many times, and always
with profit, always with profit!"
"Ah, then, I fear, Mr. Beecher," replied Arnold, "you may have found
some references to yourself which would better have been omitted."
"Oh, no, no, those did me the most good of all," said the smiling
Beecher, and they both laughed.
Mr. Beecher was never at a loss. After presenting Matthew Arnold to
him, I had the pleasure of presenting the daughter of Colonel
Ingersoll, saying, as I did so:
"Mr. Beecher, this is the first time Miss Ingersoll has ever been in a
Christian church."
He held out both hands and grasped hers, and looking straight at her
and speaking slowly, said:
"Well, well, you are the most beautiful heathen I ever saw." Those who
remember Miss Ingersoll in her youth will not differ greatly with Mr.
Beecher. Then: "How's your father, Miss Ingersoll? I hope he's well.
Many a time he and I have stood together on the platform, and wasn't
it lucky for me we were on the same side!"
Beecher was, indeed, a great, broad, generous man, who absorbed what
was good wherever found. Spencer's philosophy, Arnold's insight
tempered with sound sense, Ingersoll's staunch support of high
political ends were powers for good in the Republic. Mr. Beecher was
great enough to appreciate and hail as helpful friends all of these
men.
Arnold visited us in Scotland in 1887, and talking one day of sport he
said he did not shoot, he could not kill anything that had wings and
could soar in the clear blue sky; but, he added, he could not give up
fishing--"the accessories are so delightful." He told of his happiness
when a certain duke gave him a day's fishing twice or three times a
year. I forget who the kind duke was, but there was something unsavory
about him and mention was made of this. He was asked how he came to be
upon intimate terms with such a man.
"Ah!" he said, "a duke is always a personage with us, always a
personage, independent of brains or conduct. We are all snobs.
Hundreds of years have made us so, all snobs. We can't help it. It is
in the blood."
This was smilingly said, and I take it he made some mental
reservations. He was no snob himself, but one who naturally "smiled at
the claims of long descent," for generally the "descent" cannot be
questioned.
He was interested, however, in men of rank and wealth, and I remember
when in New York he wished particularly to meet Mr. Vanderbilt. I
ventured to say he would not find him different from other men.
"No, but it is something to know the richest man in the world," he
replied. "Certainly the man who makes his own wealth eclipses those
who inherit rank from others."
I asked him one day why he had never written critically upon
Shakespeare and assigned him his place upon the throne among the
poets. He said that thoughts of doing so had arisen, but reflection
always satisfied him that he was incompetent to write upon, much less
to criticize, Shakespeare. He believed it could not be successfully
done. Shakespeare was above all, could be measured by no rules of
criticism; and much as he should have liked to dwell upon his
transcendent genius, he had always recoiled from touching the subject.
I said that I was prepared for this, after his tribute which stands
to-day unequaled, and I recalled his own lines from his sonnet:
SHAKESPEARE
Others abide our question. Thou art free.
We ask and ask--Thou smilest and art still,
Out-topping knowledge. For the loftiest hill
Who to the stars uncrowns his majesty,
Planting his steadfast footsteps in the sea,
Making the heaven of heavens his dwelling-place,
Spares but the cloudy border of his base
To the foil'd searching of mortality;
And thou, who didst the stars and sunbeams know,
Self-school'd, self-scann'd, self-honour'd, self-secure,
Didst stand on earth unguess'd at--Better so!
All pains the immortal spirit must endure,
All weakness which impairs, all griefs which bow,
Find their sole voice in that victorious brow.
I knew Mr. Shaw (Josh Billings) and wished Mr. Arnold, the apostle of
sweetness and light, to meet that rough diamond--rough, but still a
diamond. Fortunately one morning Josh came to see me in the Windsor
Hotel, where we were then living, and referred to our guest,
expressing his admiration for him. I replied:
"You are going to dine with him to-night. The ladies are going out and
Arnold and myself are to dine alone; you complete the trinity."
To this he demurred, being a modest man, but I was inexorable. No
excuse would be taken; he must come to oblige me. He did. I sat
between them at dinner and enjoyed this meeting of extremes. Mr.
Arnold became deeply interested in Mr. Shaw's way of putting things
and liked his Western anecdotes, laughing more heartily than I had
ever seen him do before. One incident after another was told from the
experience of the lecturer, for Mr. Shaw had lectured for fifteen
years in every place of ten thousand inhabitants or more in the United
States.
Mr. Arnold was desirous of hearing how the lecturer held his
audiences.
"Well," he said, "you mustn't keep them laughing too long, or they
will think you are laughing at them. After giving the audience
amusement you must become earnest and play the serious rôle. For
instance, 'There are two things in this life for which no man is ever
prepared. Who will tell me what these are?' Finally some one cries out
'Death.' 'Well, who gives me the other?' Many respond--wealth,
happiness, strength, marriage, taxes. At last Josh begins, solemnly:
'None of you has given the second. There are two things on earth for
which no man is ever prepared, and them's twins,' and the house
shakes." Mr. Arnold did also.
"Do you keep on inventing new stories?" was asked.
"Yes, always. You can't lecture year after year unless you find new
stories, and sometimes these fail to crack. I had one nut which I felt
sure would crack and bring down the house, but try as I would it never
did itself justice, all because I could not find the indispensable
word, just one word. I was sitting before a roaring wood fire one
night up in Michigan when the word came to me which I knew would crack
like a whip. I tried it on the boys and it did. It lasted longer than
any one word I used. I began: 'This is a highly critical age. People
won't believe until they fully understand. Now there's Jonah and the
whale. They want to know all about it, and it's my opinion that
neither Jonah nor the whale fully understood it. And then they ask
what Jonah was doing in the whale's--the whale's society.'"
Mr. Shaw was walking down Broadway one day when accosted by a real
Westerner, who said:
"I think you are Josh Billings."
"Well, sometimes I am called that."
"I have five thousand dollars for you right here in my pocket-book."
"Here's Delmonico's, come in and tell me all about it."
After seating themselves, the stranger said he was part owner in a
gold mine in California, and explained that there had been a dispute
about its ownership and that the conference of partners broke up in
quarreling. The stranger said he had left, threatening he would take
the bull by the horns and begin legal proceedings. "The next morning I
went to the meeting and told them I had turned over Josh Billings's
almanac that morning and the lesson for the day was: 'When you take
the bull by the horns, take him by the tail; you can get a better hold
and let go when you're a mind to.' We laughed and laughed and felt
that was good sense. We took your advice, settled, and parted good
friends. Some one moved that five thousand dollars be given Josh, and
as I was coming East they appointed me treasurer and I promised to
hand it over. There it is."
The evening ended by Mr. Arnold saying:
"Well, Mr. Shaw, if ever you come to lecture in England, I shall be
glad to welcome and introduce you to your first audience. Any foolish
man called a lord could do you more good than I by introducing you,
but I should so much like to do it."
Imagine Matthew Arnold, the apostle of sweetness and light,
introducing Josh Billings, the foremost of jesters, to a select London
audience.
In after years he never failed to ask after "our leonine friend, Mr.
Shaw."
Meeting Josh at the Windsor one morning after the notable dinner I sat
down with him in the rotunda and he pulled out a small memorandum
book, saying as he did so:
"Where's Arnold? I wonder what he would say to this. The 'Century'
gives me $100 a week, I agreeing to send them any trifle that occurs
to me. I try to give it something. Here's this from Uncle Zekiel, my
weekly budget: 'Of course the critic is a greater man than the author.
Any fellow who can point out the mistakes another fellow has made is a
darned sight smarter fellow than the fellow who made them.'"
I told Mr. Arnold a Chicago story, or rather a story about Chicago. A
society lady of Boston visiting her schoolmate friend in Chicago, who
was about to be married, was overwhelmed with attention. Asked by a
noted citizen one evening what had charmed her most in Chicago, she
graciously replied:
"What surprises me most isn't the bustle of business, or your
remarkable development materially, or your grand residences; it is the
degree of culture and refinement I find here." The response promptly
came:
"Oh, we are just dizzy on cult out here, you bet."
Mr. Arnold was not prepared to enjoy Chicago, which had impressed him
as the headquarters of Philistinism. He was, however, surprised and
gratified at meeting with so much "culture and refinement." Before he
started he was curious to know what he should find most interesting. I
laughingly said that he would probably first be taken to see the most
wonderful sight there, which was said to be the slaughter houses, with
new machines so perfected that the hog driven in at one end came out
hams at the other before its squeal was out of one's ears. Then after
a pause he asked reflectively:
"But why should one go to slaughter houses, why should one hear hogs
squeal?" I could give no reason, so the matter rested.
Mr. Arnold's Old Testament favorite was certainly Isaiah: at least his
frequent quotations from that great poet, as he called him, led one to
this conclusion. I found in my tour around the world that the sacred
books of other religions had been stripped of the dross that had
necessarily accumulated around their legends. I remembered Mr. Arnold
saying that the Scriptures should be so dealt with. The gems from
Confucius and others which delight the world have been selected with
much care and appear as "collects." The disciple has not the
objectionable accretions of the ignorant past presented to him.
The more one thinks over the matter, the stronger one's opinion
becomes that the Christian will have to follow the Eastern example and
winnow the wheat from the chaff--worse than chaff, sometimes the
positively pernicious and even poisonous refuse. Burns, in the
"Cotter's Saturday Night," pictures the good man taking down the big
Bible for the evening service:
"He wales a portion with judicious care."
We should have those portions selected and use the selections only. In
this, and much besides, the man whom I am so thankful for having known
and am so favored as to call friend, has proved the true teacher in
advance of his age, the greatest poetic teacher in the domain of "the
future and its viewless things."
I took Arnold down from our summer home at Cresson in the Alleghanies
to see black, smoky Pittsburgh. In the path from the Edgar Thomson
Steel Works to the railway station there are two flights of steps to
the bridge across the railway, the second rather steep. When we had
ascended about three quarters of it he suddenly stopped to gain
breath. Leaning upon the rail and putting his hand upon his heart, he
said to me:
"Ah, this will some day do for me, as it did for my father."
I did not know then of the weakness of his heart, but I never forgot
this incident, and when not long after the sad news came of his sudden
death, after exertion in England endeavoring to evade an obstacle, it
came back to me with a great pang that our friend had foretold his
fate. Our loss was great. To no man I have known could Burns's epitaph
upon Tam Samson be more appropriately applied:
"Tam Samson's weel-worn clay here lies:
Ye canting zealots, spare him!
If honest worth in heaven rise,
Ye'll mend or ye win near him."
The name of a dear man comes to me just here, Dr. Oliver Wendell
Holmes, of Boston, everybody's doctor, whose only ailment toward the
end was being eighty years of age. He was a boy to the last. When
Matthew Arnold died a few friends could not resist taking steps toward
a suitable memorial to his memory. These friends quietly provided the
necessary sum, as no public appeal could be thought of. No one could
be permitted to contribute to such a fund except such as had a right
to the privilege, for privilege it was felt to be. Double, triple the
sum could readily have been obtained. I had the great satisfaction of
being permitted to join the select few and to give the matter a little
attention upon our side of the Atlantic. Of course I never thought of
mentioning the matter to dear Dr. Holmes--not that he was not one of
the elect, but that no author or professional man should be asked to
contribute money to funds which, with rare exceptions, are best
employed when used for themselves. One morning, however, I received a
note from the doctor, saying that it had been whispered to him that
there was such a movement on foot, and that I had been mentioned in
connection with it, and if he were judged worthy to have his name upon
the roll of honor, he would be gratified. Since he had heard of it he
could not rest without writing to me, and he should like to hear in
reply. That he was thought worthy goes without saying.
This is the kind of memorial any man might wish. I venture to say that
there was not one who contributed to it who was not grateful to the
kind fates for giving him the opportunity.