Questions: Anecdotes
147. The Population Question.
In social questions Burton took a keen interest. Indeed he was in many
respects a man far in advance of his age. In denouncing various evils he
betrays the earnestness of a Carlyle, and when propounding plans for the
abolition of the Slave Trade in "that Devil's Walk and Purlieu," East
Africa, Saul becomes one of the prophets. That he was no saint we should
have known if he himself had not told us; but he had, as he believed,
his special work to do in the world and he did it with all his might.
Though a whirlwind of a man, he had, as we have seen, the tenderest of
hearts, he thought with sorrow of the sufferings of the poor, and he
often said to his wife: "When I get my pension we'll spend the rest of
our lives in helping the submerged tenth." Although sympathising warmly
with the efforts of General Booth and other men who were trying to
grapple with social evils, he could see, nevertheless, that they touched
only the fringe of the difficulty. He was, broadly speaking, what is
now known as a Neo-Mathusian, that is to say, he held that no man had a
right to bring into the world a larger number of children than he could
support with comfort, that the poor ought to be advised to limit their
families, and that persons suffering from certain terrible diseases
ought not to be allowed to marry, or at any rate to have children.
Himself a man of splendid physique, Burton wanted to see every man in
England physically healthy and strong. He considered it abominable that
infant monstrosities or children born blind should be allowed to live,
and held that showmen and others who exhibit monstrosities should be
promptly jailed. "Indeed," he says, "it is a question if civilisation
may not be compelled to revive the law of Lycurgus, which forbade a
child, male or female, to be brought up without the approbation of
public officers appointed ad hoc. One of the curses of the 19th century
is the increased skill of the midwife and the physician, who are now
able to preserve worthless lives and to bring up semi-abortions whose
only effect upon the breed is increased degeneracy." [534] He thought
with Edward FitzGerald and many another sympathiser with the poor, that
it is the height of folly for a labouring man living in a cottage with
only two small bedrooms and earning twelve shillings a week to burden
himself with a family of from ten to a dozen. Three or four children he
considered enough for anybody. At the same time he perceived that the
Neo-Malthusian system might be abused--that is to say, rich persons
who could well afford to bring up respectable-sized families might be
tempted to restrict the number to one or two. [535] Consequently, in the
Terminal Essay to the Arabian Nights, we find him recommending the study
of an Arabic work, Kitab al Bah not only to the anthropologist but also
to the million. He says, "The conscientious study would be useful to
humanity by teaching the use and unteaching the abuse of the Malthusian
system, [536] whereby the family is duly limited to the necessities of
society." At the present time--with the diminishing birth-rate and when
the subject is discussed freely in every upper and middle class home in
England--these ideas cause no wonderment; but in those days they were
novel.
148. New Projects.
We left the Burtons, it will be remembered, at Gibraltar. After a short
stay there, they crossed over to Morocco in a cattle tug. Neither of
them liked Tangiers, still, if the Consulate had been conferred upon Sir
Richard, it would have given them great happiness. They were, however,
doomed to disappointment. Lord Salisbury's short-lived administration
of 1886 had been succeeded by a Liberal Government with Lord Rosebery as
Premier; and Tangiers was given to Mr. (afterwards Sir) W. Kirby Green.
[537] The Burtons were back in Trieste at the end of March.
The success of The Arabian Nights, which was owing entirely to its
anthropological and pornographic notes, was for Sir Richard Burton both
good and bad. It was good because it removed for the remainder of his
life all pecuniary anxieties; it was bad because it led him to devote
himself exclusively to subjects which certainly should not occupy
exclusively the attention of any man. Henceforth every translation was
to be annotated from a certain point of view. [538] One can but
regret this perversity, for the old Roman and other authors have
unpleasantnesses enough without accentuating them. Thus in reading some
sweet poem of Catullus, spoilt by perhaps a single objectionable
line, we do not want our attention drawn particularly to the blemish.
Unfortunately, Sir Richard now made this kind of work his speciality,
and it would be idle--or rather it would be untrue--to deny that he now
chose certain books for translation, not on account of their beautiful
poetry and noble thoughts, but because they lent themselves to pungent
annotation. Indeed, his passion for this sort of literature had become
a monomania. [539] He insisted, however, and he certainly believed, that
he was advancing the interests of science; nor could any argument turn
him. We wish we could say that it was chiefly for their beauties that he
now set himself to translate Catullus, Ausonius, [540] and Apuleius. He
did appreciate their beauties; the poets and the classic prose writers
were to him as the milk of paradise; and some of his annotations would
have illuminated the best passages, but the majority of them were
avowedly to be consecrate to the worst. Having in The Arabian Nights
given the world the fruits of his enquiries in Eastern lands, and said
his say, he might with advantage have let the subject rest. He had
certainly nothing new to tell us about the manners and customs of the
Romans. Then again, for the translating of so delicate, so musical
and so gracious a poet as Catullus he was absolutely and entirely
unqualified. However, to Catullus he now turned. Sirmio and Rome
succeeded to Baghdad and Damascus; jinni and ghoul fled before hoofed
satyrs and old Silenus shaking his green stick of lilies. As we shall
see, however, he did not begin the translation in earnest till January
1890. [541]
149. Mr. A. G. Ellis and Professor Blumhardt. 5th June 1886-5th April
1887.
On June 5th the Burtons and their "Magpie Trunk" again left Trieste and
travelled via Innsbruck, Zurich, Bale and Boulogne to England. After a
short stay at Folkestone with Lady Stisted and her daughter, they went
on to London, whence Burton memorialized the vice-chancellor and the
curators of the Bodleian Library for the loan of the Wortley Montagu
manuscripts of the Arabian Nights. Not a private loan, but a temporary
transference to the India Office under the charge of Dr. R. Rost. On
November 1st came a refusal, and Burton, at great inconvenience to
himself, had to go to Oxford. "The Bodleian," he says, "is the model of
what a reading library should not be, and the contrast of its treasures
with their mean and miserable surroundings is a scandal." He did not
know in which he suffered most, the Bodleian, the Radcliffe or the
Rotunda. Finally, however, the difficulty was got over by having the
required pages photographed.
He now wrote to the Government and begged to be allowed, at the age of
sixty-six, to retire on full pension. His great services to the country
and to learning were set down, but though fifty persons of importance
in the political and literary world supported the application, it
was refused. It is, however, only just to the Government to say that
henceforward Burton was allowed "leave" whenever he wanted it. An easier
post than that at Trieste it would have been impossible to imagine,
still, he was in a measure tied, and the Government missed an
opportunity of doing a graceful act to one of its most distinguished
servants, and to one of the most brilliant of Englishmen.
Then followed a holiday in Scotland, where the Burtons were the guests
of Mr. (now Sir) Alexander Baird of Urie. Back in London, they lunched
at different times with F. F. Arbuthnot, G. A. Sala, A. C. Swinburne,
and "dear old Larkin"--now 85--in whose house at Alexandria, Burton
had stayed just before his Mecca journey. It was apparently during this
visit that Burton gave to his cousin St. George Burton a seal showing on
one side the Burton crest, on another the Burton Arms, and on the third
a man's face and a hand with thumb to the nose and fingers spread
out. "Use it," said Burton, "when you write to a d-----d snob." And he
conveyed the belief that it would be used pretty often.
On 16th September 1886, writing to Mr. Kirby [542] from "United Service
Club," Pall Mall, Burton says, "We here have been enjoying splendid
weather, and a really fine day in England (I have seen only two since
May) is worth a week anywhere else.... You will find your volumes [543]
sent to you regularly. No. 1 caused big sensation. A wonderful leader
about it in Standard (Mrs. Gamp, of all people!) followed by abuse in
Pall Mall. I have come upon a young woman friend greedily reading it in
open drawing-room, and when I warned another against it, she answered:
'Very well, Billy [her husband] has a copy, and I shall read it at
once.'"
Later Burton's curiosity was aroused by the news that Mr. A. G. Ellis,
of the British Museum, had shown Mr. Kirby an edition of Alaeddin in
Malay. [544] "Let me know," he says, "when you go to see Mr. Ellis. I
especially want to accompany you, and must get that Malay version of
Alaeddin. Lord Stanley of Alderley could translate it."
It was about this time that Burton decided to make a new and lavishly
annotated translation of The Scented Garden. To the Kama Shastra edition
of 1886 we have already referred, and we shall deal fully with the whole
subject in a later chapter.
On October 6th the Burtons heard Mr. Heron Allen lecture on palmistry at
Hampstead. For some weeks Burton was prostrated again by his old enemy,
the gout, but Lord Stanley of Alderley, F. F. Arbuthnot, and other
friends went and sat with him, so the illness had its compensations. A
visit to Mr. John Payne, made, as usual, at tea time, is next recorded,
and there was to have been another visit, but Burton, who was anxious to
get to Folkestone to see his sister, had to omit it.
On January 10th 1887, he writes to Mr. Payne as follows:
"That last cup of tea came to grief, I ran away from London abruptly,
feeling a hippishness gradually creep over my brain; longing to see a
sight of the sun and so forth. We shall cross over next Thursday (if the
weather prove decent) and rush up to Paris, where I shall have some few
days' work in the Bibliotheque Nationale. Thence to Cannes, the
Riviera, &c. At the end of my 5th Vol. (Supplemental) I shall walk in to
Edin[burgh] Review. [545] ... I hope you like Vol. x. and its notices of
your work. I always speak of it in the same terms, always with the same
appreciation and admiration."
On January 13th 1887, the Burtons reached Paris, where Sir Richard
had the pleasure of meeting Herr Zotenberg, discoverer of the Arabic
originals of Alaeddin and Zayn al Asnam; and thence they proceeded
to Cannes, where the state of Burton's health gave his wife great
uneasiness. She says, "I saw him dripping his pen anywhere except into
the ink. When he tried to say something he did not find his words." An
awful fit of "epileptiform convulsions," the result of suppressed
gout, followed, and the local doctors who were called in came to the
conclusion that Burton could not recover. They thought it better,
however, that their opinion should be conveyed to him by a perfect
stranger, so they deputed Dr. Grenfell Baker, a young man who was then
staying at Cannes, to perform the painful duty.
Dr. Baker entered the sick room and broke the news to Burton as best he
could.
"Then you suppose I am going to die?" said Burton.
"The medical men who have been holding a consultation are of that
opinion."
Shrugging his shoulders, Burton said, "Ah, well!--sit down," and then he
told Dr. Baker a story out of The Arabian Nights. Dr. Baker remained
a fortnight, and then Sir Richard, who decided to have a travelling
medical attendant, sent to England for Dr. Ralph Leslie, who a little
later joined him at Trieste.
To his circle of friends Burton now added Mr. A. G. Ellis, already
referred to, Professor James F. Blumhardt, of the British Museum, and
Professor Cecil Bendall, of University College, London. [546] His
first communication with Mr. Ellis seems to have been a post-card dated
Trieste, 8th May 1887. He says "The Perfumed Garden is not yet out
nor will it be for six months. My old version is to be had at ---'s,
Coventry Street, Haymarket. The Supplemental Nights you can procure from
the agent, -----, Farleigh Road, Stoke Newington."
As we have seen, Burton's first and second supplemental volumes of
the Nights correspond with Mr. Payne's three volumes of Tales from the
Arabic. He also wished to include the eight famous Galland Tales:--"Zayn
Al-Asnam," "Alaeddin," "Khudadad and his Brothers," "The Kaliph's Night
Adventure," "Ali Baba," "Ali Khwajah and the Merchant of Baghdad,"
"Prince Ahmad and the Fairy Peri-Banu," and "The Two Sisters who
Envied their Cadette;" but the only Oriental text he could find was
a Hindustani version of Galland's tales "Orientalised and divested of
their inordinate Gallicism." As Burton was at this time prostrated by
illness, Professor Blumhardt kindly undertook "to English the Hindustani
for him. While the volume was going forward, however, M. Zotenberg,
of Paris, discovered a MS. copy of The Nights containing the Arabic
originals of 'Zayn Al-Asnam' and 'Alaeddin,' and Burton, thanks to the
courtesy of Zotenberg, was able to make use of it."
150. Dr. Leslie and Dr. Baker: Anecdotes. April 1887.
From June 19th to 22nd there were rejoicings at Trieste on account of
Queen Victoria's Jubilee. At the banquet, which took place at the Jager,
Sir Richard occupied the chair, and he and the Rev. C. F. Thorndike,
the chaplain, made speeches. During the summer Sir Richard's health
continued to cause grave anxiety, but he was well enough by July 15th
to set out for the usual summer holiday. Accompanied by Lady Burton, Dr.
Leslie and Lisa, he first visited Adelsburg, and then Sauerbrunn, where
he got relief by drinking daily a cup of very hot water. In a letter to
Mr. Ellis written from Sauerbrunn, 14th September 1887, Burton refers
to Professor Blumhardt's contribution to his Supplementary Nights, and
finishes: "Salute for me Mr. Bendall and tell him how happy I shall be
to see him at Trieste if he pass through that very foul part."
After the Burtons' return to Trieste (at the end of September) Dr.
Leslie obtained another post, and Dr. Baker was invited to take his
place.
Dr. Baker consented to do so, only on the condition that Sir Richard
would not dispute his medical orders. This, Dr. Baker explained to me,
was a very necessary stipulation, for Sir Richard now looked upon the
time spent over his meals as so many half-hours wasted. He never ate his
food properly, but used to raven it up like an animal in order to get
back quickly to his books. So a treaty was made, and Dr. Baker remained
a member of the household the rest of Burton's life.
To this period belong the following unpublished anecdotes. Of Burton's
interest in Ancient Etruria and especially in the archaeological
discoveries at Bologna [547] we have already spoken. Once when he and
Dr. Baker were visiting Bologna they took a long walk outside the town
and quite lost their bearings. Noticing a working man seated on the
roadside, Burton asked him in French the way back. In reply the man
"only made a stupid noise in his throat." Burton next tried him with the
Bolognese [548] dialect, upon which the man blurted out, "Je don't know
savez." Sir Richard then spoke in English, and the man finding there was
no further necessity for Parisian, explained in his own tongue that he
was an English sailor who had somehow got stranded in that part.
To Burton's delight in shocking people we have already alluded. Nor
did age sober him. He would tell to open-mouthed hearers stories of
his hair-breadth escapes, and how some native plotted against his life.
"Another moment," he would say, "and I should have been a dead man,
but I was too quick for my gentleman. I turned round with my sword and
sliced him up like a lemon." Dr. Baker, who had heard many tales about
the Austrians and duelling, was exercised in his mind as to what ought
to be done if he were "called out." "Now," said Burton, "this is one of
the things in life worthy of remembrance. Never attack a man, but if he
attacks you, kill him." Sometimes the crusted tale about the Arab murder
would come up again. "Is it true, Sir Richard," a young curate once
innocently inquired, "that you shot a man near Mecca?" "Sir," replied
Burton, tossing his head haughtily, "I'm proud to say that I have
committed every sin in the Decalogue."
In after years Dr. Baker was often asked for reminiscences of Burton.
"Can you remember any of his sayings?" enquired one interlocutor. "Yes,"
replied Dr. Baker. "He once said, 'Priests, politicians and publishers
will find the gate of Heaven extremely narrow.'" "I'm sorry for that,"
followed the interlocutor, "for I've just been elected M.P. for the ----
Division of Yorkshire."
For Mrs. Lynn Linton, the novelist, whom he described as a "sweet,
womanly woman," Burton had a sincere regard, but he used to say
that though she was an angel in the drawing-room, she was a raging,
blood-thirsty tigress on the platform. One day, while Sir Richard, Mrs.
Linton and Dr. Baker were chatting together, a lady to whom Mrs. Linton
was a stranger joined the group and said "Sir Richard, why don't you
leave off writing those heavy books on Bologna and other archaeological
subjects, and do something lighter? Couldn't you write some
trash--novels, I mean?" Sir Richard look sideways at Mrs. Linton, and
kept his countenance as well as he could. On another occasion when Sir
Richard, Lady Burton, Dr. Baker and an aged Cambridge Professor were
chatting together, Burton unconsciously glided into Latin--in which he
asked the professor a question. The old man began a laboured reply in
the same language--and then, stopping suddenly, said, "If you don't
mind, Sir Richard, we'll continue the conversation in English."
Believing that Burton was overworking himself, Dr. Baker recommended him
to order "a little rubbish in the shape of novels," from London, and so
rest his brain for an hour just before bedtime. Burton demurred, but
the novels were ultimately sent for, they duly arrived, and Burton
went through a course of "chou-chou," as he called it. After a while,
however, he gave up what he had never taken to kindly, and henceforward
he nightly "rested his brain," by reading books in the modern Greek
dialects.
151. Three Months at Abbazia. 1st Dec. 1887-5th March 1888.
On the 1st of December 1887, in order to avoid the fearful boras of
Trieste, and to shelter in the supposed mild climate of "the Austrian
Riviera," Burton, accompanied, as always, by his wife, Dr. Baker, and
Lisa, went to stay at Abbazia. The subscriptions for his Supplemental
Nights were now pouring in, and they put him in great jollity. Jingling
his money in his pockets, he said to Dr. Baker, "I've always been poor,
and now we'll enjoy ourselves." Henceforth he spent his money like a
dissipated school-boy at a statute fair. Special trains, the best rooms
in the best hotels, anything, everything he fancied--and yet all
the while he worked at his books "like a navvy." Abbazia was a
disappointment. Snow fell for two months on end, and all that time
they were mewed up in their hotel. Burton found the society agreeable,
however, and he read German with the Catholic priest. Most of his time
was spent in finishing the Supplemental Nights, and Lady Burton was busy
preparing for the press and expurgated edition of her husband's work
which, it was hoped, would take its place on the drawing-room table.
Mr. Justin Huntly McCarthy, son of the novelist, gave her considerably
assistance, and the work appeared in 1888. Mr. Kirby's notes were to
have been appended to Lady Burton's edition of the Nights as well as
to Sir Richard's, but ultimately the idea was abandoned. "My wife and I
agreed," writes Burton, "that the whole of your notes would be far too
learned for her public," [549] so only a portion was used. Lady Burton's
work consisted of six volumes corresponding with Burton's first ten,
from which 215 pages were omitted.
Owing to the stagnation of Abbazia, and the martyrdom which he endured
from the gout, Burton was very glad to get back to Trieste, which was
reached on March 5th. When his pain was acute he could not refrain from
groaning, and at such times, Lady Burton, kneeling by his bedside, use
to say "Offer it up, offer it up"--meaning that prayer alone would bring
relief.
To Mr. Payne, 14th March 1888, Burton writes, "I have been moving since
yours of March 5th reached me, and unable to answer you.... Delighted to
hear that in spite of cramp, [550] Vo. V. [551] is finished, and shall
look forward to the secret [552] being revealed. You are quite right
never to say a word about it. There is nothing I abhor so much as a man
intrusting me with a secret."
On March 19th, Sir Richard finished his last volume of the Supplemental
Nights, and in May he was visited at Trieste by his old friend, F. F.
Arbuthnot.
On the 15th of April (1888) occurred the death of Matthew Arnold, who
had for some years enjoyed a Civil List pension of L250 a year; and the
event had scarcely been announced before Lady Burton, without consulting
her husband, [553] telegraphed to the Government to "give Burton
Arnold's pension." This step, characteristic as it was indiscreet,
naturally did not effect its purpose.