1851-1852.
The love of reading a hindrance to classical studies.--Dr. Butler
becomes anxious about my success at Oxford.--An insuperable
obstacle.--My indifference to degrees.--Irksome hypocrisy.--I am nearly
sent to a tutor at Brighton.--I go to a tutor in Yorkshire.--His
disagreeable disposition.--Incident about riding.--Disastrous effect of
my tutor's intellectual influence upon me.--My private reading.--My
tutor's ignorance of modern authors.--His ignorance of the fine
arts.--His religious intolerance.--I declare my inability to sign the
Thirty-nine Articles.
The various mental activities hinted at in the preceding chapters had
naturally a retarding effect upon my classical studies, which I had
never greatly taken to. It seemed then, and it seems to me still, that
for one who does not intend to make a living by teaching them, the dead
languages, like all other pursuits, are only worth a limited amount of
labor. It may appear paradoxical at first, but it is true, that one
reason why I did not like Latin and Greek was because I was extremely
fond of reading. The case is this: If you are fond of reading and have
an evening at your disposal, you will wish to read, will you not? But
_construing_ is not reading; it is quite a different mental operation.
When you _read_ you think of the scenes and events the author narrates,
or you follow his reasoning; but when you _construe_ you think of cases
and tenses, and remember grammatical rules. I could read English and
French, but Latin and Greek were only to be construed _à coups de
dictionnaire_.
The case may be illustrated by reference to an amusement. A man who is
indifferent to rowing cares very little what sort of boat he is in, and
toils contentedly as peasants do in their heavy boots, but a lover of
rowing wants a craft that he can move. This desire is quite independent
of the merits of the craft itself, considered without reference to the
man. A sailing yacht may he a beautiful vessel, but an Oxford oarsman
would not desire to pull one of her cumbersome sweeps.
I was at that time a private pupil of Dr. Butler's, and was getting on
at such a very moderate pace that he began to be anxious about his
responsibility. My guardian and he had decided together that I was to be
sent to Oxford, and it was even settled to which college, Balliol; and
my dear guardian expected me to come out in honors, and be a Fellow of
my college and a clergyman. That was her plan; and a very good scheme of
life it was, but it had one defect, that of being entirely inapplicable
to the human being for whom it was intended. I looked forward to Oxford
with anything but pleasure, and, indeed, considered that there was an
insuperable obstacle to my going there. In those days most of the good
things in life were kept as much as possible for members of the Church
of England, and it was necessary to sign the Thirty-nine Articles on
entering the University. This I could not do conscientiously, and would
not do against the grain of my conviction. I looked upon this obstacle
as insuperable; but if I had been as indifferent on such questions as
young men generally are, there would still have remained a difficulty in
my own nature, which is a rooted dislike to everything which is done for
social advancement. I might possibly have desired to be a scholar, but
cannot imagine myself desiring a degree. However, I might have taken the
trouble to get a degree, simply to please my guardian, if there had not
been that obstacle about the Thirty-nine Articles.
From this time, during a year or two, there was a sort of game of
cross-purposes between me and my guardian, as I had not yet ventured to
declare openly my severance from the Church of England, and my
consequent inability to go to one of her universities. The enormous
weight of social and family pressure that is brought to bear on a youth
with reference to these matters must be my excuse for a year or two of
hypocrisy that was extremely irksome to me; but besides this I have a
still better excuse in a sincere unwillingness to give pain to my dear
guardian, and in the dread lest the declaration of heresy might even be
dangerous to one whom I knew to be suffering from heart disease. I
therefore lived on as a young member of the Church of England who was
studying for Oxford, when in fact I considered myself no longer a member
of that Church, and had inwardly renounced all intention of going to
either of the Universities, which she still kept closed against the
Dissenters.
The inward determination not to go to Oxford or Cambridge had a bad
effect on my classical studies, as I had no other object in view whilst
pursuing them than the intellectual benefit to be derived from the
studies themselves, and I had not any very great faith in that benefit.
The most intelligent men I knew did not happen to be classical scholars,
and some men of my acquaintance who _were_ classical scholars seemed to
me quite impervious to ideas concerning science and the fine arts. Even
now, after a much larger experience, I do not perceive that classical
scholarship opens men's minds to scientific and artistic ideas, or even
that scholarship gives much appreciation of literary art and excellence.
Still, it is better to have it than to be without it. There is such a
thing as a scholarly temper,--a patient, careful, exact, and studious
temper,--which is valuable in all the pursuits of life.
Mr. Butler had been for some time my private tutor--which means that I
prepared my work at Hollins in the morning, and went to read with Mr.
Butler in the afternoon. The plan was pleasant enough for me, but it was
not advantageous, because what I most wanted was guidance during my
hours of study,--such guidance as I had at Doncaster. However, I read
and wrote Latin and Greek every day, and learned French at the same
time, as Mr. Butler had a taste for modern languages. This went on until
he became rather alarmed about my success at Oxford (which for reasons
known to the reader troubled me very little), and told my guardian that
she ought to send me to some tutor who could bestow upon me more
continuous attention. I was as near as possible to being sent to a tutor
at Brighton,--a reverend gentleman with aristocratic connections,--but
he missed having me by the very bait which he held out to attract my
guardian. He boasted in a letter of the young lords he had educated, and
said he had one or two still in the house with him. We had a near
neighbor and old friend who was herself very nearly connected with two
of the greatest families in the peerage, and as she happened to call
upon us when my guardian received the letter, it was handed to her, and
she said: "That bit about the young lords is not a recommendation; the
chances are that P. G. would find them proud and disagreeable." As for
me, the whole project presented nothing that was pleasant. I disliked
the south of England, and had not the slightest desire to make the
acquaintance of the young noblemen. It was therefore rather a relief
that the Brighton project was abandoned.
It happened then that my dear guardian did the only one foolish and
wrong thing she ever did in her whole life. She sent me to a clergyman
in Yorkshire, who had been a tutor at Oxford, and was considered to be a
good "coach,"--so far he may seem to have been the right man,--but he
was unfortunately exactly the man to inspire me with a complete disgust
for my studies. He had no consideration whatever for the feelings of
other people, least of all for those of a pupil. He treated me with open
contempt, and was always trying to humiliate me, till at last I let him
understand that I would endure it no longer. One day he ordered me to
clean his harness, with a peremptoriness that he would scarcely have
used to a groom, so I answered, "No, sir, I shall not clean your
harness; that is not my work." He then asked whether I considered myself
a gentleman. I said "yes," and he retorted that it would be a good thing
to thrash the gentility out of me; on which I told him that if he
ventured to attempt any such thing I should certainly defend myself. I
was a well-grown youth, and could have beaten my tutor easily. One day
he attempted to scrape my face with a piece of shark's skin, so I seized
both his wrists and held them for some time, telling him that the jest,
if it was a jest, was not acceptable.
As my tutor was very handsomely paid for the small amount of trouble he
took with me, my guardian had inserted in the agreement a clause by
which he was either to keep my horse in his stable, or else let me have
the use of one of his own. He preferred, for economy's sake, to mount
me; so in accordance with our agreement I innocently rode out a little
in the early mornings, long before the hour fixed for our Greek reading
together. As my tutor rose late, he was not aware of this for some time;
but at length, by accident, he found it out, and then an incident
occurred which exactly paints the charming amenity of the man.
His stable-boy had brought the horse to the gate, and I was just
mounting when my tutor opened his bedroom window, and called out, "Take
that horse back to the stable immediately!" I said to the servant, who
hesitated, that it was his duty to obey his master's orders, and
dismounted; then I went to my lodgings in the village, and wrote a note
to the tutor, in which I said that I expected him to keep his agreement,
and in accordance with it I should ride out that day. I then left the
note at the house, saddled the animal myself, and rode a long distance.
From that time our relations were those of constrained formality, which
on the whole I much preferred. My tutor assumed an air of injured
innocence, and treated me with a clumsy imitation of politeness which
was intended to wound me, but which I found extremely convenient, as the
greater the distance between us the less intercourse there would be.
However, after that demonstration of my rights, I kept a horse of my
own--a much finer animal--at a farmer's.
The intellectual influence of my present tutor was disastrous, by the
reaction it produced. He was a fanatical admirer of the ancient authors
who wrote in Latin and Greek, and was constantly expressing his contempt
for modern literature, of which he was extremely ignorant. I was fond of
reading, and had English books in my lodgings which were my refuge and
solace after the pedantic lectures I had to undergo. My love for Scott
was still very lively (as indeed it is to this day), but I had now
extended my horizon and added Byron, Shelley, Tennyson, and other modern
authors to my list. My tutor had all the hatred for Byron which
distinguished the clergy in the poet's life-time, and he was constantly
saying the most unjust things against him; as, for example, that the
"Bride of Abydos" was not original, but was copied from the Greek of
Moschus. This clerical hatred for Byron quite prevented my tutor from
acquiring any knowledge of the poet; but he had seen a copy of his works
at my lodgings, and this served as a text for the most violent
diatribes. As for Shelley, he knew no more about him than that he had
been accused of atheism. He had heard of Moore, whom he called "Tommy."
I believe he had never heard of Keats or Tennyson; certainly he was
quite unacquainted with their poems. He had a feeble, incipient
knowledge of French, and occasionally read a page of Molière, with an
unimaginable pronunciation; but he knew nothing really of any modern
literature. On the other hand, his knowledge of the Greek and Latin
classics was more intimate than that possessed by any other teacher I
had ever known. He was a thorough, old-fashioned scholar, with all the
pride of exact erudition, and a corresponding contempt for everybody who
did not possess it. I do not at this moment remember that he ever
referred to a dictionary. I only remember that he examined my Liddell
and Scott to see whether those modern lexicographers had done their work
in a way to merit his approval, and that he thought their book might be
useful to me. He had some knowledge of astronomy, and was building a
reflecting telescope which he never completed; but I remember that he
was often occupied in polishing the reflectors whilst I was reading, and
that his hand went on rubbing with a bit of soft leather, and a red
powder, when he would deliver the clearest disquisitions on the
employment of words by Greek authors, most of which I was not
sufficiently advanced to profit by. His manner with me was impatient,
and often rude and contemptuous. What irritated him especially in me was
the strange inequality of my learning, for I was rather strong on some
points, and equally weak on others; whilst he himself had an
irresistible regularity of knowledge, at least in Latin and Greek.
We did absolutely nothing else but Latin and Greek during my stay with
this tutor, and I suppose I must have made some progress, but there was
no _feeling_ of progress. In comparison with the completeness of my
master's terrible erudition it seemed that my small acquirements were
nothing, and never could be more than nothing. On the other hand, the
extreme narrowness of his literary tastes led me to place a higher value
on my own increasing knowledge of modern literature, and conclusively
proved to me, once for all, that a classical education does not
necessarily give a just or accurate judgment. "If a man," I said to
myself, "can be a thorough classical scholar as my tutor is, and at the
same time so narrow and ignorant, it is clear that a classical training
does not possess the virtue of opening the mind which is ascribed to
it."
Besides his narrowness with regard to modern literature of all kinds, my
tutor had the usual characteristic of the classical scholars of his
generation, a complete ignorance and misunderstanding of the fine arts.
All that he knew on that subject was that a certain picture by Titian
was shameful because there was a naked woman in it; and I believe he had
heard that Claude was a famous landscape-painter, but he had no
conception whatever of the aims and purposes of art. One of his
accusations against me was that, from vanity, I had painted a portrait
of myself. As a matter of fact, the little picture was a portrait of
Lord Byron, done from an engraving; but any artist may, without vanity,
make use of his own face as a model.
In religion my tutor was most intolerant. He could not endure either
Roman Catholics or Dissenters of any kind, and considered no terms harsh
enough for infidels. He told with approbation the story of some bigot
like himself, who, when an unbeliever came into his house, had loudly
ordered the servant to lock up the silver spoons. He possessed and read
with approbation one of those intolerant books of the eighteenth century
entitled, "A Short Method with Deists," in which the poor Deists were
crushed beneath the pitiless heel of the dominant State Church. It
happened one day, by a strange chance, that an antiquary brought a
Unitarian minister, who also took an interest in archaeology, to visit
the church where my tutor officiated, in which, there were some old
things, and as they stayed in the church till our early dinner-time, my
tutor could hardly do otherwise than offer them a little hospitality.
When the guests had gone (I hope they enjoyed the conversation, which
seemed to me artificial and constrained) my tutor said to me: "That man,
that Unitarian, will go to hell! All who do not believe in the Atonement
will go to hell!" I said nothing, but thought that the mild antiquary
who sat with us at table might deserve a less terrible fate. My tutor
troubled me less, perhaps, about theology than might have been expected.
He intended to inflict much more theology upon me than I really had to
undergo, thanks to his indolence, and the craft and subtlety with which
I managed to substitute other work for it. Still, it was a trial to me
to have to look acquiescent, or at least submissive and respectful,
whilst he said the most unjust and intolerant things about those who
differed from him, and with whom I often secretly agreed. And of course
I had to listen to his sermons every Sunday, and to go through the
outward seemings of conformity that my master had power enough to exact
from me. Beyond the weekly services in the church he fulfilled scarcely
any of the duties of a parish clergyman. He rose about eleven in the
morning, and spent his time either in mechanical pursuits or in
desultory reading, often of the Greek and Latin classics. In fact, my
tutor's mind was so imbued with the dead languages that he was unable to
write his own, but had constant recourse to Greek and Latin to make his
meaning clear.
A year spent with this clergyman, with whom I had not two ideas in
common, produced an effect upon me exactly opposite to that which had
been intended. My feelings towards the ancient classics had grown into
positive repugnance when I saw the moderns so unjustly sacrificed to
them, and my love for the moderns had increased to the point of
partisanship. My tutor's injustice towards Dissenters and unbelievers
had also, by a natural reaction, aroused in me a profound sympathy for
these maligned and despised people, and I would willingly have joined
some dissenting body myself if I could have found one that had exactly
my own opinions; but it seemed useless to leave the Church of England
for another community if I were no more in accordance with the new than
with the old. The fact that my master had been a tutor at Oxford and was
always boasting about his university career--he openly expressed his
contempt for men who "had never seen the smoke of a university"--made me
sick of the very name of the place, and to this day I have never visited
it. In a word, my tutor made me dislike the very things that it was his
business to make me like, and if I had ever felt the least desire for a
degree he would have cured me of it, as it was impossible to desire
honors that were accessible to so narrow a mind as his, a mind fit for
nothing but pedagogy, and really unable to appreciate either literature
or art.
At the end of a year, therefore, I said plainly to my guardian that I
was doing no good, and that it was useless to prepare me any further for
Oxford, as I could not conscientiously put my name to the Thirty-nine
Articles.
If, in those days, any human being in our class of society in England
had been able to conceive of such a thing as education not in clerical
hands, I might have gone on with my classical studies under the
direction of a layman; but education and the clergy were looked upon as
inseparable; even by myself. My education, therefore, came momentarily
to a stand-still, though it happened a little later that a sense of its
imperfection made me take it up again with fresh energy on my own
account, and I am still working at it, in various directions, at the
mature age of fifty-two.