AT WORK.
From this sketch of the inner sources of action let me turn to the
actions themselves, and see how the outer life was led which fed
itself at these springs.
I have said that the friendship between Mr. Bradlaugh and myself dated
from our first meeting, and a few days after our talk in Turner Street
he came down to see me at Norwood. It was characteristic of the man
that he refused my first invitation, and bade me to think well ere I
asked him to my house. He told me that he was so hated by English
society that any friend of his would be certain to suffer, and that I
should pay heavily for any friendship extended to him. When, however,
I wrote to him, repeating my invitation, and telling him that I had
counted the cost, he came to see me. His words came true; my
friendship for him alienated from me even many professed Freethinkers,
but the strength and the happiness of it outweighed a thousand times
the loss it brought, and never has a shadow of regret touched me that
I clasped hands with him in 1874, and won the noblest friend that
woman ever had. He never spoke to me a harsh word; where we differed,
he never tried to override my judgment, nor force on me his views; we
discussed all points of difference as equal friends; he guarded me
from all suffering as far as friend might, and shared with me all the
pain he could not turn aside; all the brightness of my stormy life
came to me through him, from his tender thoughtfulness, his ever-ready
sympathy, his generous love. He was the most unselfish man I ever
knew, and as patient as he was strong. My quick, impulsive nature
found in him the restful strength it needed, and learned from him the
self-control it lacked.
He was the merriest of companions in our rare hours of relaxation; for
many years he was wont to come to my house in the morning, after the
hours always set aside by him for receiving poor men who wanted advice
on legal and other matters--for he was a veritable poor man's lawyer,
always ready to help and counsel--and, bringing his books and papers,
he would sit writing, hour after hour, I equally busy with my own
work, now and then, perhaps, exchanging a word, breaking off just for
lunch and dinner, and working on again in the evening till about ten
o'clock--he always went early to bed when at home--he would take
himself off again to his lodgings, about three-quarters of a mile
away. Sometimes he would play cards for an hour, euchre being our
favourite game. But while we were mostly busy and grave, we would make
holiday sometimes, and then he was like a boy, brimming over with
mirth, full of quaint turns of thought and speech; all the country
round London has for me bright memories of our wanderings--Richmond,
where we tramped across the park, and sat under its mighty trees;
Windsor, with its groves of bracken; Kew, where we had tea in a funny
little room, with watercress _ad libitum_; Hampton Court, with its
dishevelled beauties; Maidenhead and Taplow, where the river was the
attraction; and, above all, Broxbourne, where he delighted to spend
the day with his fishing-rod, wandering along the river, of which he
knew every eddy. For he was a great fisherman, and he taught me all
the mysteries of the craft, mirthfully disdainful of my dislike of the
fish when I had caught them. And in those days he would talk of all
his hopes of the future, of his work, of his duty to the thousands who
looked to him for guidance, of the time when he would sit in
Parliament as member for Northampton, and help to pass into laws the
projects of reform for which he was battling with pen and tongue. How
often he would voice his love of England, his admiration of her
Parliament, his pride in her history. Keenly alive to the blots upon
it in her sinful wars of conquest, in the cruel wrongs inflicted upon
subject peoples, he was yet an Englishman to the heart's core, but
feeling above all the Englishman's duty, as one of a race that had
gripped power and held it, to understand the needs of those he ruled,
and to do justice willingly, since compulsion to justice there was
none. His service to India in the latest years of his life was no
suddenly accepted task. He had spoken for her, pleaded for her, for
many a long year, through press and on platform, and his spurs as
member for India were won long ere he was member of Parliament.
A place on the staff of the _National Reformer_ was offered me by Mr.
Bradlaugh a few days after our first meeting, and the small weekly
salary thus earned--it was only a guinea, for national reformers are
always poor--was a very welcome addition to my resources. My first
contribution appeared in the number for August 30, 1874, over the
signature of "Ajax," and I wrote in it regularly until Mr. Bradlaugh
died; from 1877 until his death I sub-edited it, so as to free him
from all the technical trouble and the weary reading of copy, and for
part of this period was also co-editor. I wrote at first under a _nom
de guerre_, because the work I was doing for Mr. Scott would have been
prejudiced had my name appeared in the columns of the terrible
_National Reformer_, and until this work--commenced and paid for--was
concluded I did not feel at liberty to use my own name. Afterwards, I
signed my _National Reformer_ articles, and the tracts written for Mr.
Scott appeared anonymously.
The name was suggested by the famous statue of
"Ajax Crying for Light," a cast of which may be seen
in the centre walk by any visitor to the Crystal Palace,
Sydenham. The cry through the darkness for light,
even though light should bring destruction, was one
that awoke the keenest sympathy of response from my
heart:
"If our fate be death
Give light, and let us die!"
To see, to know, to understand, even though the seeing blind, though
the knowledge sadden, though the understanding shatter the dearest
hopes--such has ever been the craving of the upward-striving mind in
man. Some regard it as a weakness, as a folly, but I am sure that it
exists most strongly in some of the noblest of our race; that from the
lips of those who have done most in lifting the burden of ignorance
from the overstrained and bowed shoulders of a stumbling world has
gone out most often into the empty darkness the pleading, impassioned
cry:
"Give light!"
The light may come with a blinding flash, but it is light none the
less, and we can see.
And now the time had come when I was to use that gift of speech which
I had discovered in Sibsey Church that I possessed, and to use it to
move hearts and brains all over the English land. In 1874, tentatively, and in 1875 definitely, I took up this keen weapon, and have used it ever
since. My first attempt was at a garden party, in a brief informal
debate, and I found that words came readily and smoothly: the second
in a discussion at the Liberal Social Union on the opening of museums
and art galleries on Sunday. My first lecture was given at the
Co-operative Institute, 55, Castle Street, Oxford Street, on August
25, 1874. Mr. Greening--then, I think, the secretary--had invited me
to read a paper before the society, and had left me the choice of the
subject. I resolved that my first public lecture should be on behalf
of my own sex, so I selected for my theme, "The Political Status of
Women," and wrote thereon a paper. But it was a very nervous person
who presented herself at the Co-operative Institute on that August
evening. When a visit to the dentist is made, and one stands on the
steps outside, desiring to run away ere the neat little boy in buttons
opens the door and beams on one with a smile of compassionate
superiority and implike triumph, then the world seems dark and life is
as a huge blunder. But all such feelings are poor and weak as compared
with the sinking of the heart and the trembling of the knees which
seize upon the unhappy lecturer as he advances towards his first
audience, and as before his eyes rises a ghastly vision of a
tongue-tied would-be lecturer, facing rows of listening faces,
listening to--silence. But to my surprise all this miserable feeling
vanished the moment I was on my feet and was looking at the faces
before me. I felt no tremor of nervousness from the first word to the
last, and as I heard my own voice ring out over the attentive
listeners I was conscious of power and of pleasure, not of fear. And
from that day to this my experience has been the same; before a
lecture I am horribly nervous, wishing myself at the ends of the
earth, heart beating violently, and sometimes overcome by deadly
sickness. Once on my feet, I feel perfectly at my ease, ruler of the
crowd, master of myself. I often jeer at myself mentally as I feel
myself throbbing and fearful, knowing that when I stand up I shall be
all right, and yet I cannot conquer the physical terror and trembling,
illusory as I know them to be. People often say to me, "You look too
ill to go on the platform." And I smile feebly and say I am all right,
and I often fancy that the more miserably nervous I am in the
ante-room, the better I speak when once on the platform. My second
lecture was delivered on September 27th, at Mr. Moncure D. Conway's
Chapel, in St. Paul's Road, Camden Town, and redelivered a few weeks
later at a Unitarian Chapel, where the Rev. Peter Dean was minister.
This was on the "True Basis of Morality," and was later printed as a
pamphlet, which attained a wide circulation. This was all I did in the
way of speaking in 1874, but I took silent part in an electioneering
struggle at Northampton, where a seat for the House of Commons had
fallen vacant by the death of Mr. Charles Gilpin. Mr. Bradlaugh had
contested the borough as a Radical in 1868, obtaining 1,086 votes, and
again in February, 1874, when he received 1,653; of these no less than
1,060 were plumpers, while his four opponents had only 113, 64, 21 and
12 plumpers respectively; this band formed the compact and personally
loyal following which was to win the seat for its chief in 1880, after
twelve years of steady struggle, and to return him over and over again
to Parliament during the long contest which followed his election, and
which ended in his final triumph. They never wavered in their
allegiance to "our Charlie," but stood by him through evil report and
good report, when he was outcast as when he was triumphant, loving him
with a deep, passionate devotion, as honourable to them as it was
precious to him. I have seen him cry like a child at evidences of
their love for him, he whose courage no danger could daunt, and who
was never seen to blench before hatred nor change his stern immobility
in the face of his foes. Iron to enmity, he was soft as a woman to
kindness; unbending as steel to pressure, he was ductile as wax to
love. John Stuart Mill had the insight in 1868 to see his value, and
the courage to recognise it. He strongly supported his candidature,
and sent a donation to his election expenses. In his "Autobiography"
he wrote (pp. 311, 312):--
"He had the support of the working classes; having heard him speak I
knew him to be a man of ability, and he had proved that he was the
reverse of a demagogue by placing himself in strong opposition to the
prevailing opinion of the Democratic party on two such important
subjects as Malthusianism and Proportional Representation. Men of this
sort, who, while sharing the democratic feeling of the working
classes, judge political questions for themselves, and have the
courage to assert their individual convictions against popular
opposition, were needed, as it seemed to me, in Parliament; and I did
not think that Mr. Bradlaugh's anti-religious opinions (even though he
had been intemperate in the expression of them) ought to exclude him."
It has been said that Mr. Mill's support of Mr. Bradlaugh's
candidature at Northampton cost him his own seat at Westminster, and
so bitter was bigotry at that time that the statement is very likely
to be true. On this, Mr. Mill himself said: "It was the right thing to
do, and if the election were yet to take place, I would do it again."
At this election of September, 1874--the second in the year, for the
general election had taken place in the February, and Mr. Bradlaugh
had been put up and defeated during his absence in America--I went
down to Northampton to report electioneering incidents for the
_National Reformer_, and spent some days there in the whirl of the
struggle. The Whig party was more bitter against Mr. Bradlaugh than
was the Tory. Strenuous efforts were made to procure a Liberal
candidate, who would be able at least to prevent Mr. Bradlaugh's
return, and, by dividing the Liberal and Radical party, should let in
a Tory rather than the detested Radical. Messrs. Bell and James and
Dr. Pearce came on the scene only to disappear. Mr. Jacob Bright and
Mr. Arnold Morley were vainly suggested. Mr. Ayrton's name was
whispered. Major Lumley was recommended by Mr. Bernal Osborne. Dr.
Kenealy proclaimed himself ready to come to the rescue of the Whigs.
Mr. Tillett, of Norwich, Mr. Cox, of Belper, were invited, but neither
would consent to oppose a good Radical who had fought two elections at
Northampton and had been the chosen of the Radical workers for six
years. At last Mr. William Fowler, a banker, accepted the task of
handing over the representation of a Liberal and Radical borough to a
Tory, and duly succeeded in giving the seat to Mr. Mereweather, a very
reputable Tory lawyer. Mr. Bradlaugh polled 1,766, thus adding another
133 voters to those who had polled for him in the previous February.
That election gave me my first experience of anything in the nature of
rioting. The violent abuse levelled against Mr. Bradlaugh by the
Whigs, and the foul and wicked slanders circulated against him,
assailing his private life and family relations, had angered almost to
madness those who knew and loved him; and when it was found that the
unscrupulous Whig devices had triumphed, had turned the election
against him, and given over the borough to a Tory, the fury broke out
into open violence. One illustration may be given as a type of these
cruel slanders. It was known that Mr. Bradlaugh was separated from his
wife, and it was alleged that being an Atheist, and, (therefore!) an
opponent of marriage, he had deserted his wife and children, and left
them to the workhouse. The cause of the separation was known to very
few, for Mr. Bradlaugh was chivalrously honourable to women, and he
would not shield his own good name at the cost of that of the wife of
his youth and the mother of his children. But since his death his only
remaining child has, in devotion to her father's memory, stated the
melancholy truth: that Mrs. Bradlaugh gave way to drink; that for long
years he bore with her and did all that man could do to save her; that
finally, hopeless of cure, he broke up his home, and placed his wife
in the care of her parents in the country, leaving her daughters with
her, while he worked for their support. No man could have acted more
generously and wisely under these cruel circumstances than he did, but
it was, perhaps, going to an extreme of Quixotism, that he concealed
the real state of the case, and let the public blame him as it would.
His Northampton followers did not know the facts, but they knew him as
an upright, noble man, and these brutal attacks on his personal
character drove them wild. Stray fights had taken place during the
election over these slanders, and, defeated by such foul weapons, the
people lost control of their passions. As Mr. Bradlaugh was sitting
well-nigh exhausted in the hotel, after the declaration of the poll,
the landlord rushed in, crying to him to go out and try to stop the
people, or there would be murder done at the "Palmerston," Mr.
Fowler's headquarters; the crowd was charging the door, and the
windows were being broken with showers of stones. Weary as he was, Mr.
Bradlaugh sprang to his feet, and swiftly made his way to the rescue
of those who had maligned and defeated him. Flinging himself before
the doorway, from which the door had just been battered down, he
knocked down one or two of the most violent, drove the crowd back,
argued and scolded them into quietness, and finally dispersed them.
But at nine o'clock he had to leave Northampton to catch the mail
steamer for America at Queenstown, and after he had left, word went
round that he had gone, and the riot he had quelled broke out afresh.
The Riot Act was at last read, the soldiers were called out, stones
flew freely, heads and windows were broken, but no very serious harm
was done. The "Palmerston" and the printing-office of the _Mercury_,
the Whig organ, were the principal sufferers; doors and windows
disappearing somewhat completely. The day after the election I
returned home, and soon after fell ill with a severe attack of
congestion of the lungs. Soon after my recovery I left Norwood and
settled in a house in Westbourne Terrace, Bayswater, where I remained
till 1876.
In the following January (1875), after much thought and self-analysis,
I resolved to give myself wholly to propagandist work, as a
Freethinker and a Social Reformer, and to use my tongue as well as my
pen in the struggle. I counted the cost ere I determined on this step,
for I knew that it would not only outrage the feelings of such new
friends as I had already made, but would be likely to imperil my
custody of my little girl. I knew that an Atheist was outside the law,
obnoxious to its penalties, but deprived of its protection, and that
the step I contemplated might carry me into conflicts in which
everything might be lost and nothing could be gained. But the desire
to spread liberty and truer thought among men, to war against bigotry
and superstition, to make the world freer and better than I found
it--all this impelled me with a force that would not be denied. I
seemed to hear the voice of Truth ringing over the battlefield: "Who
will go? Who will speak for me?" And I sprang forward with passionate
enthusiasm, with resolute cry: "Here am I, send me!" Nor have I ever
regretted for one hour that resolution, come to in solitude, carried
out amid the surging life of men, to devote to that sacred cause every
power of brain and tongue that I possessed. Very solemn to me is the
responsibility of the public teacher, standing forth in Press and on
platform to partly mould the thought of his time, swaying thousands of
readers and hearers year after year. No weighter responsibility can
any take, no more sacred charge. The written and the spoken word start
forces none may measure, set working brain after brain, influence
numbers unknown to the forthgiver of the word, work for good or for
evil all down the stream of time. Feeling the greatness of the career,
the solemnity of the duty, I pledged my word then to the cause I loved
that no effort on my part should be wanted to render myself worthy of
the privilege of service that I took; that I would read and study, and
would train every faculty that I had; that I would polish my language,
discipline my thought, widen my knowledge; and this, at least, I may
say, that if I have written and spoken much, I have studied and
thought more, and that I have not given to my mistress Truth that
"which hath cost me nothing."
This same year (1875) that saw me launched on the world as a public
advocate of Freethought, saw also the founding of the Theosophical
Society to which my Freethought was to lead me. I have often since
thought with pleasure that at the very time I began lecturing in
England, H.P. Blavatsky was at work in the United States, preparing
the foundation on which in November, 1875, the Theosophical Society
was to be raised. And with deeper pleasure yet have I found her
writing of what she called the noble work against superstition done by
Charles Bradlaugh and myself, rendering the propaganda of Theosophy
far more practicable and safer than it would otherwise have been. The
fight soon began, and with some queer little skirmishes. I was a
member of the "Liberal Social Union," and one night a discussion arose
as to the admissibility of Atheists to the Society. Dr. Zerffi
declared that he would not remain a member if avowed Atheists were
admitted. I promptly declared that I was an Atheist, and that the
basis of the union was liberty of opinion. The result was that I found
myself cold-shouldered, and those that had been warmly cordial to me
merely as a non-Christian looked askance at me when I had avowed that
my scepticism had advanced beyond their "limits of religious thought."
The Liberal Social Union soon knew me no more, but in the wider field
of work open before me, the narrow-mindedness of this petty clique
troubled me not at all.
I started my definite lecturing work at South Place Chapel in January,
1875, Mr. Moncure D. Conway presiding for me, and I find in the
_National Reformer_ for January 17th, the announcement that "Mrs.
Annie Besant ('Ajax') will lecture at South Place Chapel, Finsbury, on
'Civil and Religious Liberty.'" Thus I threw off my pseudonym, and
rode into the field of battle with uplifted visor. The identification
led to an odd little exhibition of bigotry. I had been invited by the
Dialectical Society to read a paper, and had selected for subject,
"The Existence of God." (It may be noted, in passing, that young
students and speakers always select the most tremendous subjects for
their discourses. One advances in modesty as one advances in
knowledge, and after eighteen years of platform work, I am far more
dubious than I was at their beginning as to my power of dealing in any
sense adequately with the problems of life.) The Dialectical Society
had for some years held their meetings in a room in Adam Street,
rented from the Social Science Association. When the members gathered
as usual on February 17th, the door was found to be locked, and they
had to gather on the stairs; they found that "Ajax's" as yet
undelivered paper was too much for Social Science nerves, and that
entrance to their ordinary meeting-room was then and thenceforth
denied them. So they, with "Ajax," found refuge at the Charing Cross
Hotel, and speculated merrily on the eccentricities of religious
bigotry.
On February 12th I started on my first provincial lecturing tour, and
after speaking at Birkenhead that evening went on by the night mail to
Glasgow. Some races--dog races--I think, had been going on, and very
unpleasant were many of the passengers waiting on the platform. Some
Birkenhead friends had secured me a compartment, and watched over me
till the train began to move. Then, after we had fairly started, the
door was flung open by a porter, and a man was thrust in who half
tumbled on to the seat. As he slowly recovered he stood up, and as his
money rolled out of his hand on to the floor, and he gazed vaguely at
it, I saw to my horror that he was drunk. The position was not
pleasant, for the train was an express, and was not timed to stop for
a considerable time. My odious fellow-passenger spent some time on the
floor, hunting after his scattered coins; then he slowly gathered
himself up and presently became conscious of my presence. He studied
me for some time, and then proposed to shut the window. I assented
quietly, not wanting to discuss a trifle and feeling in deadly
terror--alone at night in an express with a man not drunk enough to be
helpless, but too drunk to be controlled. Never before nor since have
I felt so thoroughly frightened. I can see him still, swaying as he
stood, with eyes bleared and pendulous lips--but I sat there quiet and
outwardly unmoved, as is always my impulse in danger till I see some
way of escape, only grasping a penknife in my pocket, with a desperate
resolve to use my feeble weapon as soon as the need arose. The man
came towards me with a fatuous leer, when a jarring noise was heard
and the train began to slacken.
"What is that?" stammered my drunken companion.
"They are putting on the brakes to stop the train," I answered very
slowly and distinctly, though a very passion of relief made it hard to
say quietly the measured words.
The man sat down stupidly, staring at me, and in a minute or two the
train pulled up at a station--it had been stopped by signal. My
immobility was gone. In a moment I was at the window, called the
guard, and explained rapidly that I was a woman travelling alone, and
that a half-drunken man was in the carriage. With the usual kindness
of a railway official, he at once moved me and my baggage into another
compartment, into which he locked me, and he kept a friendly watch
over me at every station at which we stopped until he landed me safely
at Glasgow.
At Glasgow a room had been taken for me at a temperance hotel, and it
seemed to me so new and lonely a thing to be "all on my own account"
in a strange hotel in a strange city, that I wanted to sit down and
cry. This feeling, to which I was too proud to yield, was probably
partly due to the extreme greyness and grubbiness of my surroundings.
Things are better now, but in those days temperance hotels were for
the most part lacking in cleanliness. Abstinence from alcohol and a
superfluity of "matter in the wrong place" do not seem necessary
correlatives, yet I rarely went to a temperance hotel in which water
was liberally used for other purposes than that of drinking. From
Glasgow I went north to Aberdeen, where I found a very stern and
critical audience. Not a sound broke the stillness as I walked up the
hall; not a sound as I ascended the platform and faced the people; the
canny Scot was not going to applaud a stranger at sight; he was going
to see what she was like first. In grim silence they listened; I could
not move them; they were granite like their own granite city, and I
felt I would like to take off my head and throw it at them, if only to
break that hard wall. After about twenty minutes, a fortunate phrase
drew a hiss from some child of the Covenanters. I made a quick retort,
there was a burst of cheering, and the granite vanished. Never after
that did I have to complain of the coldness of an Aberdeen audience.
Back to London from Aberdeen, and a long, weary journey it was, in a
third-class carriage in the cold month of February; but the labour had
in it a joy that outpaid all physical discomfort, and the feeling that
I had found my work in the world gave a new happiness to life.
On February 28th I stood for the first time on the platform of the
Hall of Science, Old Street, St. Luke's, London, and was received with
that warmth of greeting which Secularists are always so ready to
extend to any who sacrifice aught to join their ranks. That hall is
identified in my mind with many a bitter struggle, with both victory
and defeat, but whether in victory or in defeat I found there always
welcome; and the love and the courage wherewith Secularists stood by
me have overpaid a thousandfold any poor services I was fortunate
enough to render, while in their ranks, to the cause of Liberty, and
wholly prevent any bitterness arising in my mind for any
unfriendliness shown me by some, who have perhaps overstepped kindness
and justice in their sorrowful wrath at my renunciation of Materialism
and Atheism. So far as health was concerned, the lecturing acted as a
tonic. My chest had always been a little delicate, and when I
consulted a doctor on the possibility of my standing platform work, he
answered, "It will either kill you or cure you." It entirely cured the
lung weakness, and I grew strong and vigorous instead of being frail
and delicate, as of old.
It would be wearisome to go step by step over eighteen years of
platform work, so I will only select here and there incidents
illustrative of the whole. And here let me say that the frequent
attacks made on myself and others, that we were attracted to
Free-thought propaganda by the gains it offered, formed a somewhat
grotesque contrast to the facts. On one occasion I spent eight days in
Northumberland and Durham, gave twelve lectures, and made a deficit of
eleven shillings on the whole. Of course such a thing could not happen
in later years, when I had made my name by sheer hard work, but I
fancy that every Secularist lecturer could tell of similar experiences
in the early days of "winning his way." The fact is that from Mr.
Bradlaugh downwards every one of us could have earned a competence
with comparative ease in any other line of work, and could have earned
it with public approval instead of amid popular reproach. Much of my
early lecturing was done in Northumberland and Durham; the miners
there are, as a rule, shrewd and hard-headed men, and very cordial is
the greeting given by them to those they have reason to trust. At
Seghill and at Bedlington I have slept in their cottages and have been
welcomed to their tables, and I have a vivid memory of one evening at
Seghill, after a lecture, when my host, himself a miner, invited about
a dozen of his comrades to supper to meet me; the talk ran on
politics, and I soon found that my companions knew more of English
politics, had a far shrewder notion of political methods, and were,
therefore, much better worth talking to, than most of the ordinary men
met at dinner parties "in society." They were of the "uneducated"
class despised by "gentlemen," and had not then the franchise, but
politically they were far better educated than their social superiors,
and were far better fitted to discharge the duties of citizenship. How
well, too, do I remember a ten-mile drive in a butcher's cart, to give
a lecture in an out-of-the-way spot, unapproached by railway. Such was
the jolting as we rattled over rough roads and stony places, that I
felt as though all my bones were broken, and as though I should
collapse on the platform like a bag half-filled with stones. How kind
they were to me, those genial, cordial miners, how careful for my
comfort, and how motherly were the women! Ah! if opponents of my views
who did not know me were often cruel and malignant, there was
compensation in the love and honour in which good men and women all
the country over held me, and their devotion outweighed the hatred,
and many a time and often soothed a weary and aching heart.
Lecturing in June, 1875, at Leicester, I came for the first time
across a falsehood that brought sore trouble and cost me more pain
than I care to tell. An irate Christian opponent, in the discussion
that followed the lecture, declared that I was responsible for a book
entitled, "The Elements of Social Science," which was, he averred,
"The Bible of Secularists." I had never heard of the book, but as he
stated that it was in favour of the abolition of marriage, and that
Mr. Bradlaugh agreed with it, I promptly contradicted him; for while I
knew nothing about the book, I knew a great deal about Mr. Bradlaugh,
and I knew that on the marriage question he was conservative rather
than revolutionary. He detested "Free Love" doctrines, and had thrown
himself strongly on the side of the agitation led so heroically for
many years by Mrs. Josephine Butler. On my return to London after the
lecture I naturally made inquiry as to the volume and its contents,
and I found that it had been written by a Doctor of Medicine some
years before, and sent to the _National Reformer_ for review, as to
other journals, in ordinary course of business. It consisted of three
parts--the first advocated, from the standpoint of medical science,
what is roughly known as "Free Love"; the second was entirely medical;
the third consisted of a clear and able exposition of the law of
population as laid down by the Rev. Mr. Malthus, and--following the
lines of John Stuart Mill--insisted that it was the duty of married
persons to voluntarily limit their families within their means of
subsistence. Mr. Bradlaugh, in reviewing the book, said that it was
written "with honest and pure intent and purpose," and recommended to
working men the exposition of the law of population. His enemies took
hold of this recommendation, declared that he shared the author's
views on the impermanence of the marriage tie, and, despite his
reiterated contradictions, they used extracts against marriage from
the book as containing his views. Anything more meanly vile it would
be difficult to conceive, but such were the weapons used against him
all his life, and used often by men whose own lives contrasted most
unfavourably with his own. Unable to find anything in his own writings
to serve their purpose, they used this book to damage him with those
who knew nothing at first-hand of his views. What his enemies feared
were not his views on marriage--which, as I have said, was
conservative--but his Radicalism and his Atheism. To discredit him as
politician they maligned him socially, and the idea that a man desires
"to abolish marriage and the home," is a most convenient poniard, and
the one most certain to wound. This was the origin of his worst
difficulties, to be intensified, ere long, by his defence of
Malthusianism. On me also fell the same lash, and I found myself held
up to hatred as upholder of views that I abhorred.
I may add that far warmer praise than that bestowed on this book by
Mr. Bradlaugh was given by other writers, who were never attacked in
the same way.
In the _Reasoner_, edited by Mr. George Jacob Holyoake, I find warmer
praise of it than in the _National Reformer_; in the review the
following passage appears:--
"In some respects all books of this class are evils: but it would be
weakness and criminal prudery--a prudery as criminal as vice
itself--not to say that such a book as the one in question is not only
a far lesser evil than the one that it combats, but in one sense a
book which it is a mercy to issue and courage to publish."
The _Examiner_, reviewing the same book, declared it to be--
"A very valuable, though rather heterogeneous book.... This is, we
believe, the only book that has fully, honestly, and in a scientific
spirit recognised all the elements in the problem--How are mankind to
triumph over poverty, with its train of attendant evils?--and
fearlessly endeavoured to find a practical solution."
The _British Journal of Homoeopathy_ wrote:--
"Though quite out of the province of our journal, we cannot refrain
from stating that this work is unquestionably the most remarkable one,
in many respects, we have ever met with. Though we differ _toto coelo_
from the author in his views of religion and morality, and hold some
of his remedies to tend rather to a dissolution than a reconstruction
of society, yet we are bound to admit the benevolence and philanthropy
of his motives. The scope of the work is nothing less than the whole
field of political economy."
Ernest Jones and others wrote yet more strongly, but out of all these
Charles Bradlaugh alone has been selected for reproach, and has had
the peculiar views of the anonymous author fathered on himself.
Some of the lecture work in those days was pretty rough. In Darwen,
Lancashire, in June, 1875, stone-throwing was regarded as a fair
argument addressed to the Atheist lecturer. At Swansea, in March,
1876, the fear of violence was so great that a guarantee against
damage to the hall was exacted by the proprietor, and no local friend
had the courage to take the chair for me. In September, 1876, at
Hoyland, thanks to the exertions of Mr. Hebblethwaite, a Primitive
Methodist, and two Protestant missionaries, I found the hall packed
with a crowd that yelled at me with great vigour, stood on forms,
shook fists at me, and otherwise showed feelings more warm than
friendly. Taking advantage of a lull in the noise, I began to speak,
and the tumult sank into quietness; but as I was leaving the hall it
broke out afresh, and I walked slowly through a crowd that yelled and
swore and struck at me, but somehow those nearest always shrank back
and let me pass. In the dark, outside the hall, they took to kicking,
but only one kick reached me, and the attempts to overturn the cab
were foiled by the driver, who put his horse at a gallop. Later in the
same month Mr. Bradlaugh and I visited Congleton together, having been
invited there by Mr. and Mrs. Wolstenholme Elmy. Mr. Bradlaugh
lectured on the first evening to an accompaniment of broken windows,
and I, sitting with Mrs. Elmy facing the platform, received a rather
heavy blow on the back of the head from a stone thrown by some one in
the room. We had a mile and a half to walk from the hall to the house,
and were accompanied all the way by a stone-throwing crowd, who sang
hymns at the tops of their voices, with interludes of curses and foul
words. On the following evening I lectured, and our stone-throwing
admirers escorted us to the hall; in the middle of the lecture a man
shouted, "Put her out!" and a well-known wrestler of the
neighbourhood, named Burbery, who had come to the hall with some
friends to break up the meeting, stood up as at a signal in front of
the platform and loudly interrupted. Mr. Bradlaugh, who was in the
chair, told him to sit down, and, as he persisted in interrupting,
informed him that he must either be quiet or go out. "Put me out!"
shouted Mr. Burbery, striking an attitude. Mr. Bradlaugh left the
platform and walked up to the noisy swashbuckler, who at once grappled
with him and tried to throw him. But Mr. Burbery had not reckoned on
the massive strength of his opponent, and when the "throw" was
complete Mr. Burbery was underneath. Amid much excitement Mr. Burbery
was propelled towards the door, being gently used on the way as a
battering-ram against his friends who rushed to the rescue, and at the
door was handed over to the police. The chairman then resumed his
normal duties, with a brief "Go on" to me, and I promptly went on,
finishing the lecture in peace. But outside the hall there was plenty
of stone-throwing, and Mrs. Elmy received a cut on the temple from a
flint. This stormy work gradually lessened, and my experience of it
was a mere trifle compared to that which my predecessors had faced.
Mr. Bradlaugh's early experiences involved much serious rioting, and
Mrs. Harriet Law, a woman of much courage and of strong natural
ability, had many a rough meeting in her lecturing days.
In September, 1875, Mr. Bradlaugh again sailed for America, still to
earn money there to pay his debts. Unhappily he was struck down by
typhoid fever, and all his hopes of freeing himself thus were
destroyed. His life was well-nigh despaired of, but the admirable
skill of physician and nurse pulled him through. Said the _Baltimore
Advertiser_:--
"This long and severe illness has disappointed the hopes and retarded
the object for which he came to this country; but he is gentleness and
patience itself in his sickness in this strange land, and has endeared
himself greatly to his physicians and attendants by his gratitude and
appreciation of the slightest attention."
His fortitude in face of death was also much commented on, lying there
as he did far from home and from all he loved best. Never a quiver of
fear touched him as he walked down into the valley of the shadow of
death; the Rev. Mr. Frothingham bore public and admiring testimony in
his own church to Mr. Bradlaugh's noble serenity, at once fearless and
unpretending, and, himself a Theist, gave willing witness to the
Atheist's calm strength. He came back to us at the end of September,
worn to a shadow, weak as a child, and for many a long month he bore
the traces of his wrestle with death.
One part of my autumn's work during his absence was the delivery and
subsequent publication of six lectures on the French Revolution. That
stormy time had for me an intense fascination. I brooded over it,
dreamed over it, and longed to tell the story from the people's point
of view. I consequently read a large amount of the current literature
of the time, as well as Louis Blanc's monumental work and the
histories of Michelet, Lamartine, and others. Fortunately for me, Mr.
Bradlaugh had a splendid collection of books on the subject, and ere
we left England he brought me two cabs-full of volumes, aristocratic,
ecclesiastical, democratic, and I studied all these diligently, and
lived in them, till the French Revolution became to me as a drama in
which I had myself taken part, and the actors were to me as personal
friends and foes. In this, again, as in so much of my public work, I
have to thank Mr. Bradlaugh for the influence which led me to read
fully all sides of a question, and to read most carefully those from
which I differed most, ere I considered myself competent to write or
to speak thereon. From 1875 onwards I held office as one of the
vice-presidents of the National Secular Society--a society founded on
a broad basis of liberty, with the inspiring motto, "We Search for
Truth." Mr. Bradlaugh was president, and I held office under him till
he resigned his post in February, 1890, nine months after I had joined
the Theosophical Society. The N.S.S., under his judicious and
far-sighted leadership, became a real force in the country,
theologically and politically, embracing large numbers of men and
women who were Freethinkers as well as Radicals, and forming a nucleus
of earnest workers, able to gather round them still larger numbers of
others, and thus to powerfully affect public opinion. Once a year the
society met in conference, and many a strong and lasting friendship
between men living far apart dated from these yearly gatherings, so
that all over the country spread a net-work of comradeship between the
staunch followers of "our Charlie." These were the men and women who
paid his election expenses over and over again, supported him in his
Parliamentary struggle, came up to London to swell the demonstrations
in his favour. And round them grew up a huge party--"the largest
personal following of any public man since Mr. Gladstone," it was once
said by an eminent man--who differed from him in theology, but
passionately supported him in politics; miners, cutlers, weavers,
spinners, shoemakers, operatives of every trade, strong, sturdy,
self-reliant men who loved him to the last.