(1865.)
Readers can scarcely have forgotten the amusing “turn-up” between the
Rev. Mr. Kingsley and the Rev. Dr. Newman, in which the latter got the
former “into Chancery,” and punished him so pitilessly. While reading
the “Apologia pro Vitâ Sua,” one naturally reflected now and then upon
the opinions, as stated in the books, of Dr. Newman’s antagonist; and
the fight grew more and more comically exquisite as one gradually learnt
the thorough agreement at bottom of the two who were struggling so
fiercely at top. When I speak of Mr. Kingsley’s books, I mean his novels
and romances, all of which (except the one not yet completely published)
I have duly read and enjoyed. As for certain collections of sermons, a
dialogue for loose thinkers, a _jeu d’esprit_ on the Pentateuch,
together with various trifles by way of lectures on history and
philosophy, I confess that none of these have I ever even attempted to
peruse. To palliate this sin of omission I can only urge the high
probability that a man of Mr. Kingsley’s character must find much more
vigorous and ample expression in a free and easy novel than in any
didactic or argumentative treatise, with its wearisome requirements of
consecutiveness and cramping limitations of logic. I now ask the leaders
of the _National Reformer_ to accompany me in a general review of his
romances, because I think that such a review will develop two or three
facts seldom noticed in the critiques—whether friendly or adverse—that
abound upon his writings. Especially, I think that it will be found that
the popular phrases, “Muscular Christianity” and “Broad Church,” by no
means sufficiently characterise his religious tendency; and that, with
all the superficial unlikeness, almost amounting to perfect contrast
between him and Dr. Newman, the opponents as religious men are
fundamentally alike in this—that their respective creeds satisfy, or
appear to satisfy, in the same manner the same peculiarly intense want
in their several natures.
In every one of Mr. Kingsley’s romances there is a chief personage, more
or less naturally good but decidedly godless at the beginning,
god-fearing and saintly at the end. Some of the romances have each two
or three of these convertites, the throes of whose regeneration are the
principal “motives” of the most striking scenes, and may be thus fairly
said to furnish the plot and passion of the book. My present object is
not aesthetic, and I therefore need not argue the question whether
narratives thus constructed can have any claim to rank as genuine works
of art. With the melancholy Jaques in “As You Like It,” I believe:
Out of these Convertites
There is much matter to be heard and learned—
so will stay “to see no pastime, I,” but run through the stories of
these conversions, touching only the most salient points.
Alton Locke, when adolescent, is a very poor tailor, a poet whose verses
are far more vigorous than his character, a chartist, a sceptic. He
madly falls in love with a Dean’s daughter, and through the patronage of
the Dean himself, gets a volume of poems published. As the fiercest of
the rhymes have been soothed out of this volume by the decorous Dean,
Radical friends forward to young Locke a pair of plush-breeches—fitting
testimonial to the flunkeyism conspicuous in the omissions. He is
imprisoned for inciting a rustic mob to a Chartist outbreak, confounds
the prison chaplain by sporting the latest novelties in heresy direct
from Germany, shares when released in the delirium of the memorable
tenth of April, finds that the lady of his love is to be married to his
cousin, and consummates the long orgy of excitement with a desperate
fever. The Dean had directed his attention to the study of natural
history; hence the frenzy of the fever takes a zoological turn, and he
undergoes therein marvellous transmigrations through a series of
antediluvian monsters; awaking at last to sane consciousness (_sane
comparatively, he is never quite in his right senses, poor fellow_) to
find himself nursed by a young widow, the dean’s elder daughter, who
soothes him with ladings from Tennyson. She has very recently lost her
husband, who was merely a brilliant nobleman, and she herself a
Convertite; in a few days the modest Alton is hinting at a declaration
to her. She will not marry him, nor indeed any other man, but she sends
him out to South America on a special poetical mission. On the voyage
thither he dies, a believer, regenerate, leaving as legacy to his
friends and the world at large a war-song of the Church (ferociously)
Militant. What has converted him?—the plush breeches? the crash of the
tenth of April? the loss of his first lady love? the reading of the
“Lotus-eaters?” the delirious Fugue of Fossils? Some or all of these it
must be supposed; for weak though he was, he surely could not have been
seriously influenced by the comical caricatures of Socratic dialectics,
which the Dean sometimes played with him in lieu of chess or backgammon.
Next comes Yeast, whose great Convertite is Lancelot Smith. He is
introduced to us as fresh from Cambridge, a stalwart gallant fellow of
great abilities, rather debauched, but discontented with his debauchery,
and utterly without fixed creed. An accident confines him long to the
house of the Squire whom he is visiting. During his convalescence he
becomes a lover of one of the Squire’s daughters—a young lady whose
vernacular name is Argemone, and who is herself rapidly growing a
perfect saint. He also becomes the friend of a gamekeeper who reads
Carlyle, writes poetry, and has experienced special religious
illumination. Lancelot then loses all his fortune by the failure of his
uncle’s bank, and loses his sweetheart by the sulphuretted-hydrogen
fever; turns street-porter for the nonce to earn a bit of bread, and
finally goes off one knows not whither; an excellent fervid Christian,
after playing through several bewildering pages a wild burlesque of the
Platonic dialogue with a personage so mysterious that I prefer not to
attempt a description of him. What has converted Lancelot? The loss of
his money and the death of his sweetheart seem to have been the main
influences. For although he was stunned with calamity, I will not deem
him so stupefied as to think that he was made a believer by the
unintelligible dialogue.
Then follows Hypatia. And here I may remark that I am unable to concur
in what seems the general opinion—namely, that Mr. Kingsley intended his
heroine to represent the character of the Hypatia of history. Although
living in the same city at the same period, both lecturing on
philosophy, and both ultimately murdered by Christian mobs; it appears
to me that, as women, the two Hypatias differed so much from each other
that no one having heard them talk for five minutes could have the
slightest doubt as to which was which. History and Mr. Kingsley have
each composed an acrostic on this lovely name, and with the same _bouts
rimes_; but the body (and the spirit) of the one poem is extremely
unlike the body (and the spirit) of the other. Mr. Kingsley proffers us
an ancient cup and a flask, Greek-lettered “Wine of Cyprus”; we commence
to drink solemnly and devoutly, but—O most miserable mockery! it is
indubitable brandy and water. Well may he call this an old foe with a
new face! The Kingsley Hypatia is not altogether, but is very nearly a
Convertite; so nearly that he would certainly have made her altogether
one, had not the _bouts rime’s_ been too well known for alteration. Her
best pupil (of whom more anon) abandons her, she begins to love a
beautiful young Greek monk, and yet (that philosophy may have the help
of worldly power in its mortal duel with Christianity) consents to marry
the Prefect of Alexandria, whom she very justly despises. While
miserable with the consciousness of how low she is stooping to conquer,
she is fascinated or mesmerised by an old Jewish hag, and crouches in a
sort of fetish worship to what she thinks a statue of Apollo, said
statue being represented by the handsome monk. In the agony of shame
which follows her discovery of this cheat she performs a short parody of
the Socratic dialogue in concert with the pupil who had left her and who
has returned a Christian, and at last, when going to the lecture hall
(where murder shall prevent her from ever lecturing more) she confesses
to a certain longing for Christianity. Why? She was wretched,
humiliated, defeated, weary; she had staked all on the red, and had
lost—what more natural than a yearning to try the black? And this
character is published and generally received for the Hypatia of
history!
But the great Convertite of this romance is the pupil already mentioned,
the renegade Jew, Raphael Ben Ezra. In the prime of life, wealthy, the
favorite comrade of the Prefect, superlatively gifted with that subtle
Hebrew clearness, which, swayed by a strong will and intense self-love,
can scarcely be distinguished from genius, we find him in the opening
chapters already as used up as the old King Solomon of Ecclesiastes,
having exhausted all excitements of wine, women, and philosophy, all
voluptuousness, physical and intellectual. Desperate with _ennui_, he
abandons Hypatia, casts away his wealth (how many Jews do the same!),
barters clothes with a beggar, and sets out to wander the world with an
amiable British bull-bitch (afterwards the happy mother of nine sweet
infants) for his sole guide, philosopher and friend. The chapter wherein
his Pyrrhonism disported itself “on the floor of the bottomless” seems
to have been, in great measure, borrowed from the talk of one Babbalanja
in Herman Melville’s “Mardi;” perhaps, however, both were borrowed
direct from Jean Paul’s gigantic grotesque, “Titan.” Becoming involved
in the meshes of the great war in Africa—that revolt of Heraclian
against Honorius which Gibbon treats with such contemptuous brevity in
his thirty-first chapter—he is nearly killed himself, saves an old
officer from death and soon falls in love with this officer’s daughter.
He reads about this time certain epistles, and infers therefrom that
Saul of Tarsus was one of the finest gentlemen that ever lived. Also,
while the guest of good Bishop Synesius, he hears Saint Augustine
preach, and engages with him in long discussions, fortunately
unreported. Returning to Alexandria, he almost converts Hypatia, sees
her murdered, sharpens his tongue on Cyril the primate, and leaves again
to marry his saintly sweetheart, and end his lire as quite a model
Christian. What has converted him? His love for the young Christian? the
gentlemanly character of Paul’s Epistles? the bull-bitch with her
ninefold litter, like Shakespere’s nightmare? the murder of Hypatia by
the Christians, who rent, and tore and shred her living body to
fragments? Or was it mere satiety and weariness of thinking—the
weariness which leads so many who thought freely when young to find a
resting-place in the bosom of the Church as they get old?
In “Westward, Ho!” the great conversion is of Ayacanorah. But as this is
a conversion not merely religious but also moral, social and
intellectual, a conversion from barbarism to civilisation, it does not
come fairly into the class I am describing. Two incidents in the
romance, however, must not be passed over. The first occurs in the
Lotus-eating chapter. Will Para-combe tired, as well he may be, of
wandering about savage America in search of El Dorado, blindly refuses
to see that it is his chief end as man to continue wandering until El
Dorado is found and the captain has glutted his heart with vengeance on
the Spaniards; and Will gives such excellent reasons for staying in the
beautiful spot where he is, with the beautiful and affectionate native
woman whom he is willing and anxious to marry in the most legal mode
attainable, that Captain Amyas Leigh, who has been urging him onward
with true Kingsleyan diffidence and mildness, finds himself dumbfounded.
But valuable logical assistance is at hand. A jaguar like a bar of iron
plunges on poor Will, and he and his arguments are settled on the spot.
Amyas thanks God for this special interposition of providence in his
favor. And the man who wrote the adventure of Amyas can sneer at the
faith of a Catholic like Dr. Newman! The other incident is the
conversion of Amyas from his diabolical hatred of the Spaniards in
general, and of the Don with whom Rose had eloped in particular. A
lightning-flash strikes him blind, and he thereupon repents him of his
hatred and desire of revenge, and, moreover, has a vision of the Don
drowned with his sunken galleon, who assures him that his hatred was
without just cause. These are the true Kingsleyan dialectics; these, and
not those burlesques of what Plato wrote and Socrates spoke, and Mr.
Kingsley is no more able to conduct than I am to lead on the violin like
Herr Joachim, a great concerted composition of Beethoven. Let a jaguar
loose into your opponent’s syllogistic premises, blind him with a
lightning-flash that he may see the truth and have clear vision of the
right way. Yet Mr. Kingsley has undoubtedly read about a tower in Siloam
that fell, and what Joshua Bar-Joseph said of the people killed by this
accident.
Lastly, we have “Two Years Ago,” whose great Convertite is Tom Thumal.
Tom is one of the jolliest of characters, true as steel, tough as oak,
quick and deft for all emergencies, a compact mass of common sense, and
courage, and energy, living in the most godless state, He is not a
heathen—he is more godless yet; for a heathen has something of wood or
stone which serves him for a deity. In the Saga of Saint Olaf (in that
great and glorious work “The Heims-kringla”) we read how this pious and
terrible king going to his last battle was asked by two brothers, who
were freebooters, for permission to fight in his ranks. But although
these and their followers were “tall” men, and the king was in sore need
of recruits, he would not accept their services unless they believed in
Christ. Whereupon they answered that they saw no special need of the
help of the “White Christ”; that they had been hitherto wont to believe
in themselves and their own luck, and with this belief had managed to
pull through very well, and thought they could do the same for the
future. Ultimately, these excellent fellows did consent to be baptised
and called Christians—not from any religious motive, alas! but only
because of a “shtrong wakeness” they had for taking part in a set
battle. Tom Thurnal has just as much, and as little, religion as these
had. After wandering all over the world in all sorts of capacities, he
comes back to be shipwrecked on the Cornish coast, and is the only one
on board saved. While he is being dragged up the beach senseless, his
belt of money—the fruit of a season at the Australian
diggings—disappears; and he resolves to settle in the village, in order
to discover it or the thief. Here he falls in love with the village
schoolmistress, a sweet mystical devotee, whom he rather suspects of
stealing his gold, and whom he defends from one ruffian in order to
grossly insult her himself. In the village Tom is doctor, and, when the
cholera comes, he is assisted in bringing the village through it by this
saintly schoolmistress, and a pious Major, and a fervid High Church
parson. At the breaking out of the Crimean War, Tom gets charged with a
secret mission to the East. Somewhere in Turkey, in Asia, an imbecile
Sheikh or Pasha whom he is endeavoring to serve, mistakes his manœuvres,
and keeps him in captivity for a year or two. From this imprisonment he
comes home crushed and abject, “afraid in passing a house that it would
fall and smother him,” etc., marries his sweetheart and ends a model
Christian. What has converted him? Simply, it appears, the year or two
of solitary confinement—which took all the pith and manhood out of him.
This last case, the work of Mr. Kingsley in the full maturity of his
powers, is the most flagrant of all.
If I have not summed up these cases fairly, the novels and romances in
question are in everybody’s hands to convict me of the unfairness. I
have simply sketched the leading points as they remain in my memory, not
referring to the books again to pick out what would best serve my
purpose. It is not my fault if the personages, who looked so great and
grandiose in the flowing and ample draperies of romance, do not strip
well for anatomy.
Now, what is common to all these cases of conversion? This: that the
characters become religious, not when healthy, but when diseased; the
religion in every case is exhibited as a drug for the sick, not as
wholesome food for the healthy. While you are sane, well and hearty,
doing your work in the world deftly, sound in mind, and wind, and limb,
and fairly prosperous, you have no need of this religion—you can get
through the world very well without it. But when your fortune is lost,
your sweetheart dead or married to another, your courage cowed, your
heart broken, your mind diseased, your self-respect humiliated, then you
long for and embrace Christianity (or whatever religion is dominant
around you): it is a soft pillow for the aching head, a tender couch for
the bruised body, a flattering nurse for the desolate invalid. I can
scarcely add that it is a medicine for the sickness, for its medicinal
virtues are hardly shown; but it is, at any rate, as we read of its
effects in these books, a narcotic and an anodyne for restlessness and
pain. It is a religion to die with, not to live with. All these things,
so soothing and beneficial to the invalid, are nauseous and noxious to
the healthy.
A man could no more live vigorous life on such religion than he could
live vigorous life couched tenderly, pillowed softly, nursed
assiduously, and drugged with narcotics and anodyne all the days of his
life.
Is the religious world willing to accept this view of religion? It would
seem so by the remarkable popularity of these books. This view may be
correct or incorrect, wise or foolish; at any rate, it is strangely at
variance with the view commonly ascribed to “Muscular Christians,” and
strangely identical with that which Dr. Newman explicitly avows in the
most eloquent pages of his “Apologia.” People generally consider
“Muscular Christianity” as a clever and cheerful improvement on the old
solemn ascetic Christianity, as a doctrine which fully recognises the
goodness of the common world and common worldly life, as a liberal
cultus which does not sacrifice body to soul any more than soul to body,
but is at once gymnastic and spiritualistic in its “exercises”; a vague
notion is abroad that, whereas the early religion of Christ and his
apostles was of sorrow and suffering, this, its latest development, is a
religion of happiness and health; in short, it is believed that
“Muscular Christianity” has added the Gospel(1) of the body and this
life to the primitive Gospel of the soul and the next life: and yet the
most popular and vigorous writer of this new school, after exhausting a
very fertile imagination in the suggestion of methods and modes by which
godless sinners may be converted to godliness, has absolutely found no
other process effectual than this of showering upon them misfortunes,
humiliations, afflictions, calamities (such as do not in real life fall
upon one human being in a thousand, and working results such as they
would not work in one real human being out of ten thousand); until
health and hope, self-respect and the capacity for sane joy are
altogether destroyed in them, the manhood and womanhood overwhelmed and
crushed out of them; after which he brings in these miserable wrecks and
relics of what were once men and women as all that he can contribute to
the extension of the Church, which ought to be the cheerful congregation
of wholesome men and women throughout the world, the richest flower and
ripest fruit of humanity. If the Church of the future is to be composed
of creatures like Mr. Kingsley’s Convertites, Westminster Abbey must be
turned into a Grand Chartreuse, and St. Paul’s into an Hospital for
Incurables, and the metropolitan Cathedral of England must be Bedlam.
1. The Gospel of the body and this life has been powerfully
preached in the most explicit terms on the Continent. In England
we have been too prudish to advocate it so clearly, although it
is, of course, essential to the most enlightened Positivism and
Secularism. That much-abused book the “Elements of Social
Science” preaches it with more thoroughness, knowledge and
ability than any other English work I have met with. I do not
pretend to be wise enough to judge this book, and so far as I
can judge it, I differ from it in many respects; but on the
broad question of the spirit in which it is written, I do not
fear to assert that no honest and intelligent man can find
pruriency and impurity in it, without he brings the pruriency
and impurity in his own heart and mind to the study of it. I can
understand ascetic Christians abhorring it, I can understand
timid Freethinkers being frightened by it because they are
timid; but I cannot understand men who claim to be bold and
honest Freethinkers avoiding it as an unholy thing merely
because of the subjects it treats, without reference to the mode
of treatment, and without sympathy for the admirable motives
which manifestly incited the author. He may well say with the
most brilliant and daring of all who have preached this Gospel
of the body in our age (this Gospel which is so sorely needed to
complement and modify the exclusive Gospel of the soul—this
Gospel which Plato preached along with the other, while Jesus
preached the other only), he may well say with Heine
Doch die Castraten Klagten,
Aïs ich meine Stimm’ erhob;
Sie Klagten und sie sagten;
Ich sange veil zu grob.