1852.
Choice of a profession.--Love of literature and art.--Decision to make
trial of both.--An equestrian tour.--Windermere.--Derwentwater.--I take
lessons from Mr. J. P. Pettitt.--Ulleswater.--My horse Turf.--Greenock,
a discovery.--My unsettled cousin.--Glasgow.--Loch Lomond.
--Inverary.--Loch Awe.--Inishail.--Innistrynich.--Oban.--A sailing
excursion.--Mull and Ulva.--Solitary reading.
The question of a profession now required an immediate decision. My
guardian's choice for me had formerly been the Church, but that was not
exactly suited to my ways of thinking. The most natural profession for a
young man in my position would have been the law, but my father had
expressly desired that I should not adopt it, as he was sick of it for
himself, and wished to spare me its anxieties. The cotton trade required
a larger disposable capital than I possessed, to start with any chance
of success.
My own desires were equally balanced between two pursuits for which I
had a great liking, and hoped that there might be some natural aptitude.
One of these was literature, and the other painting. A very moderate
success in either of these pursuits would, it seemed to me, be more
conducive to happiness than a greater success in some less congenial
occupation. My fortune was enough for a bachelor, and I did not intend
to marry, at least for a long time.
There was no thought of ambition in connection with the desire to follow
one of these two pursuits, beyond that of the workman who desires to do
well. I mean, I had no social ambition in connection with them. It
seemed to me that the liberty of thought which I valued above everything
was incompatible, in England, with any desire to rise in the world, as
unbelievers lay under a ban, and had no chance of social advancement
without renouncing their opinions. This was an additional reason why I
should seek happiness in my studies, as a worldly success was denied to
me.
The reader may perhaps think that I had not much, in the way of social
advancement, to renounce, but in fact I had a position remarkably full
of possibilities, that a man of the world could have used to great
advantage. I had independent means, enough to enable me, as a bachelor,
to live like a gentleman; I belonged to one of the oldest and
best-descended families in the English untitled aristocracy, had a
retentive memory, a strong voice, and could speak in public without
embarrassment. A man of the world, in my position, would have found his
upward course straight before him. He would simply have made use of the
Church as an instrument (it is one of the most valuable instruments for
the worldly), have given himself the advantages of Oxford, married for
money, offered his services to the Conservative party, and gone into
Parliament. [Footnote: The reader may wonder why the _Conservative_
party is specially mentioned. It is mentioned simply because all my
relations and nearly all my influential friends (who could have pushed
me) belonged to it. The Conservative party is also the one that gives
the best social promotion to those who serve it. There have been many
little Beaconsfields.]
It would have been much easier to do all that than to make a reputation
either in literature or painting,--easier, I mean, for a man starting in
life with so many good cards in his hand as I had.
I have been sometimes represented as an unsuccessful painter who took to
writing because he had failed as an artist. It is, of course, easy to
state the matter so, but the exact truth is that a very moderate success
in either literature or art would have been equally acceptable to me, so
that there has been no other failure in my life than the usual one of
not being able to catch two hares at the same time. Very few dogs have
ever been able to do that.
I decided to try to be a painter and to try to be an author, and see
what came of both attempts. My guardian always thought I should end by
being an author, and though she had no prejudice against painting, she
looked upon it as a pursuit likely to be very tedious, at times, to
those who practise it, in which she was quite right. It is generally a
hard struggle, requiring infinite patience, even in the clever and
successful.
One of the first things I did was to go on horseback to the English Lake
district in the summer of 1852, with the intention of continuing the
journey, still on horseback, into the mountainous regions of Scotland.
Unfortunately this project could not be executed with the horse I then
possessed, the most dangerous, sulky, resolute, and cunning brute I ever
mounted. I rode him as far as Keswick, where a horse-breaker tried him
and said his temper was incurable, recommending me to have him shot. The
advice was excellent, but I could not find it in my heart to destroy
such a fine-looking animal, so I left him in grass at Penrith, and went
on to Scotland by the usual means of travelling,--a change that I regret
to this day.
I had materials with me for painting studies in oil, and painted at
Windermere and Derwentwater. It was an inexpressible pleasure to see
these lakes, and a mental torment not to be able to paint them better.
My first sight of Windermere (or of any natural lake, for I had hitherto
seen nothing but fish-ponds and reservoirs) was enjoyed under peculiarly
impressive circumstances. I had been riding alone or walking by the side
of my horse during the night, and arrived at the lake shore by the
guidance of a star. I wrote down my first impression next day, and have
kept the words.
"I could not find the way to the little harbor of Bowness, and so went
on for a considerable distance till I came to a gate which, as I knew,
from the position of the north star, would lead directly to the lake
across the fields. There was a small and scarcely traceable footpath,
and a board to warn trespassers. However, I fastened the horse to the
gate and proceeded. I soon arrived at the shore, and was overawed by a
scene of overpowering magnificence. The day was just dawning. The water
mirrored the isles, except where the mist floated on its surface and
wreathed round their bases. The trees were massed by it into domes and
towers that seemed to float on the cloudy lake as if by enchantment. The
stars were growing pale in the yellowing east; the distant hills were
coldly blue, till far away lake and hill and sky melted into cloud.
"Opposite, I saw the dark form of an island rising between me and the
other shores, strongly relieved against the mist which crept along the
base of the opposite mountain and almost clambered to its dark summit.
The reflection of the dark upper part of the mountain (which rose clear
of the mist) fell on the lake in such a manner as to enclose that of the
island. In another direction an island was gradually throwing off its
white robe of mist, and the light showed through the interstices of the
foliage that I had taken for a crag.
"I had a pistol with me, and tried the echo, though it seemed wrong to
disturb a silence so sublime. I fired, and had time to regret that there
was no echo before a peal of musketry came from the nearer hills and
then a fainter peal from the distance, followed by an audible
rejoinder."
This is the kind of travel for the enjoyment of natural beauty. One
should be either quite alone, or have a single companion of the same
tastes, and one should be above all commonplace considerations about
hours. Samuel Palmer often walked the whole night alone, for the
pleasure of observing the beautiful changes between sunset and sunrise.
In the evening there was a fine red sunset followed by moonlight, so I
took a boat and rowed out in the moonlight alone. This first experience
of lake scenery was an enchantment, and it had a great influence on my
future life by giving me a passion for lakes, or by increasing the
passion that (in some inexplicable way) I had felt for them from
childhood. One of the earliest poems I had attempted to compose began
with the stanza,--
"A cold and chilly mist
Broodeth o'er Winandermere,
And the heaven-descended cloud hath kissed
The still lake drear."
I had already tried to paint lake scenery, in copying a picture, and my
favorite illustrations in the Abbotsford edition of Scott's works were
the lochs that I was now to see for the first time.
After a night at Ambleside I saw Rydal Water in sunshine and calm, with
faint breezes playing on its surface, and rode on to Keswick through the
Vale of St. John. The only way in which it was possible to ride the
brute I possessed was in putting him behind a carriage, which he
followed as if he had been tied to it. In this manner I reached Keswick,
after apologizing to a family party for dogging their carriage so
closely. As soon as the vehicle came to a stop opposite the hotel, my
horse, Turf, threw out his heels vigorously in the crowd. Luckily he
hurt nobody, but the bystanders told me that one of his shoes had been
within six inches of a young lady's face. A vicious horse is a perpetual
anxiety. Turf kicked in the stable as well as out of it, and hit a groom
on the forehead a few days later. The man would probably have been
killed without the leather of his cap.
Finding an artist at Keswick, Mr. J. P. Pettitt, I asked his advice and
became his pupil for a few days. I climbed Skiddaw during the night with
one of Mr. Pettitt's sons, who was a geologist and a landscape-painter
also. When we got to the top of the mountain we were enveloped in a
thick mist, which remained till we descended; but I lay down in my
waterproof on the lee side of the cairn, and slept in happy oblivion of
discomfort.
Mr. Pettitt's lessons were of some use to me, but as all my serious
education hitherto had been classical, I was not sufficiently advanced
in practical art to prepare me for color, and I ought to have been
making studies of light and shade in sepia.
There was nothing more difficult in those days than for a young
gentleman to become an artist, because no human being would believe that
he could be serious in such an intention. As I had a fine-looking horse
in the stable at the hotel, Pettitt of course took me for an amateur,
and only attempted to communicate the superficial dexterity that
amateurs usually desire. It was my misfortune to be constantly
attempting what was far too difficult for me in art, and not to find any
one ready and willing to put me on the right path. I was very well able,
already, to make studies in sepia that would have been valuable material
for future reference, whereas my oil studies were perfectly worthless,
and much more inconvenient and embarrassing.
I was enchanted with the Lake District, seeing Windermere, Derwentwater,
and Ulleswater, besides several minor lakes; but although I delighted in
all inland waters and the Lake District was so near to my own home, I
never revisited it. The reason was that, after seeing the grander
Highlands of Scotland, I became spoiled for the English Lakes. There was
another reason,--the absence of human interest on the English lakes
except of a quite modern kind, there being no old castles on shore or
island. Lyulph's Tower, on Ulleswater, though immortalized by
Wordsworth, is nothing but a modern hunting-box. Nevertheless, I have
often regretted that I did not become more familiar with Wordsworth's
country in my youth.
The mention of Lyulph's Tower reminds me that when I landed there after
a hard pull of seven miles against a strong wind, I was kindly invited
to take part in a merry picnic that was just being held there by some
farmers of the neighborhood. A very pretty girl asked me to dance, and I
afterwards played the fiddle. The scene with the dancers in the
foreground on the green sward, and the lake and mountains in the
distance, was one of the most poetical I ever beheld.
Turf had been ridden from Keswick to Penrith by the horse-breaker
already mentioned, and with infinite difficulty. I would have left him
in the breaker's hands, but he refused to mount again, saying that he
had done enough for his credit, and so had I for mine. By his advice I
took the same resolution, and as nobody in Penrith would ride the brute,
he was left to grow still wilder in a green field whilst I went on to
Scotland by the train.
I had a cousin at Greenock who was learning to be a marine constructing
engineer. He was a young man of remarkable ability, who afterwards
distinguished himself in his profession, and might no doubt have made a
large fortune if his habits had not been imprudent and unsettled. At
that time he was tied to Greenock by an engagement with one of the great
firms where he was articled. He had rooms in a quiet street, and offered
me hospitality. One day I came in unexpectedly and found a baby in my
bed, when the door opened suddenly, and a very pretty girl with dark
eyes came and took the baby away with an apology. I immediately said to
myself: "My cousin has been privately married, that pair of dark eyes
has cost him his liberty, and that child is an infantine relation of
mine!" This discovery remained a long time a secret in my own breast,
and I affected a complete absence of suspicion during the rest of my
stay at Greenock, but it was afterwards fully confirmed. My cousin had,
in fact, married at the early age of nineteen, when he was still an
articled pupil with Messrs. Caird, and living on an allowance from his
father, whom he dared not ask for an increase. He was therefore obliged
to eke out his means by teaching mechanical drawing in the evenings; but
though his marriage had been an imprudence, it was not a folly. He had,
in fact, shown excellent judgment in the choice of a wife. The dark eyes
were not all. Behind them there was a soul full of the most cheerful
courage, the sweetest affection, the most faithful devotion. For
thirty-seven years my cousin's wife followed him everywhere, and bore
his roving propensity with wonderful good humor. What that propensity
was, the reader may partly realize when I tell him that in those
_thirty_-seven years my cousin went through _eighty_-seven removals,
some of them across the greatest distances that are to be found upon the
planet. The only reason why he did not remove to all the different
planets one after another was the absence of a road to them. This
tendency of my cousin Orme had been predicted by a French phrenologist
at Manchester when he was a boy. The phrenologist had said, after
examining his "bumps," that Orme would settle in a place for a short
time and appear satisfied at first, as if it were for good, but that
very soon afterwards he would go elsewhere and repeat the process. I
never met with any other human being who had such an unsettled
disposition. The consequence was that he often quitted places where he
was extremely prosperous, and people who not only appreciated his
extraordinary talents, but were ready to reward them handsomely, in
order to go he knew not whither, and undertake he knew not what.
I left Greenock by an early steamer for Glasgow, and remember this one
detail of the voyage. The morning air was brisk and keen, so I was not
sorry to breakfast when the meal was announced, and did ample justice to
it with a young and vigorous appetite. Having eaten my third poached
egg, and feeling still ready for the more substantial dishes that
awaited me, I suddenly recollected that I had already disposed of an
ample Scotch breakfast at my cousin's. Can anything more conclusively
prove the wonderful virtue of early hours and the healthy northern air?
After visiting Glasgow and the Falls of Clyde in drenching rain, I saw
Loch Lomond, which was my first experience of a Highland lake, and
therefore memorable for me. The gradual approach, on the steamer,
towards the mountains at the upper end of the lake was a revelation of
Highland scenery. The day happened to be one of rapidly changing
effects. A rugged hill with its bosses and crags was one minute in
brilliant light, to be in shade the next, as the massive clouds flew
over it, and the colors varied from pale blue to dark purple and brown
and green, with that wonderful freshness of tint and vigor of opposition
that belong to the wilder landscapes of the north. From that day my
affections were conquered; as the steamer approached nearer and nearer
to the colossal gates of the mountains, and the deep waters of the lake
narrowed in the contracting glen, I felt in my heart a sort of
exultation like the delight of a young horse in the first sense of
freedom in the boundless pasture.
The next sunrise I saw from the top of Ben Lomond, but will spare the
reader the description. It was a delight beyond words for an
enthusiastic young reader of Scott to look upon Loch Katrine at last.
Thousands of tourists have been drawn to the same scenes by their
interest in the same poet, yet few of them, I fancy, had in the same
degree with myself the three passions for literature, for nature, and
for art. If little has come of these passions, it was certainly not from
any want of intensity in _them_, but in consequence of certain critical
influences that will be explained later. I will only say in this place,
that if the passion for art had been strongest of the three the
productive result would have been greater.
From Tarbet on Loch Lomond I went to Inverary, and the first thing I did
there was to hire a sailing-boat and go beating to windward on Loch
Fyne. I made a sketch of the ruined castle of Dundera, which stands
between the road and the loch on a pretty rocky promontory. For some
time I had a strong fancy for this castle, and wanted to rent it on
lease and restore three or four rooms in it for my own use. The choice
would have been in some respects wiser than that I afterwards made, as
Dundera has such easy access to Inverary by a perfectly level and good
road on the water's edge, and by the water itself; but the scenery of
Loch Fyne is not as attractive as that of Loch Awe, and there is always
a certain inevitable dreariness about a salt-water loch which, to my
feeling, would make it depressing for long residence.
I had travelled from Tarbet with a rather elderly couple who were very
kind to me, and afterwards invited me to their house in Yorkshire. The
lady was connected with Sir James Ross, the Arctic discoverer, and her
husband had been a friend of Theodore Hook, of whom he told me many
amusing anecdotes. They were both most amiable, cheerful people, and we
formed a merry party of three when first I saw Loch Awe, as the carriage
descended the road from Inverary to Cladich on the way to Dalmally. As I
kept a journal of this tour, I find easily the account of my first
boating on Loch Awe. It was in the month of August when we had come to a
halt at Cladich:--
"In the afternoon I made a sketch of the bridge taken from the ravine.
It occupied me four hours, as the scene was of the most elaborate
character. We dined at four o'clock, and then strolled to the lake,
which was at some distance. Two boats were lying in a small stream which
emptied itself into the lake, so I pressed one of them into my service,
and was soon out upon the water. The boat was old, badly built, and
rickety. The starboard oar was cracked, and the port oar had been broken
in two and mended with bands of iron. The bottom was several inches deep
in water, the thwarts were not securely fastened, nor were they at right
angles to the keel. Out in the loch the waves were high, and the crazy
craft rolled and pitched like a beer-barrel, the water in her washing
from side to side. However, I reached the island called 'Inishail.' It
was a striking scene. Around me were the tombs of many generations. In
the far distance the dark ruin of Kilchurn was reduced almost to
insignificance by its background of rugged hills towering into the
clouds.
"Night was coming on quickly as I rowed back to the mouth of the little
river. On reaching the inn I found that the people were getting anxious
about me."
This first row on Loch Awe has a pathetic interest for me to this day.
It was like one's first meeting with a friend who was destined to become
very dear and to exercise a powerful influence on the whole current of
one's life.
As my first impression of London had been, "This is a place an
Englishman ought to see once, but I will never come to it again," so my
first impression about Loch Awe was a profound sort of melancholy
happiness in the place and a longing to revisit it. I never afterwards
quitted Loch Awe without the same longing to return, and I have never
seen any place in the world that inspired in me that nostalgia in
anything like an equal degree.
There is an affinity between persons and places, but the Loch Awe that
won my affection exists no longer. What delighted me was the complete
unity of character that prevailed there, the lonely magnificent
mountains, the vast expanse of water only crossed occasionally by some
poor open boat, the melancholy ruins on island or peninsula, the
wilderness, the sadness, the pervading sense of solitude, a solitude
peopled only with traditions of a romantic past. It was almost as lonely
as some distant lake in the wilds of Canada that the Indian crosses in
his canoe, yet its ruined castles gave a poetry that no American waters
can ever possess. Such was Loch Awe that I loved with the melancholy
affection of youth before the experience of life had taught me a more
active and practical philosophy than the indulgence in the sweet sadness
of these reveries. But Loch Awe of to-day and of the future is as modern
and practical as the sea-lochs that open upon the Clyde. On my first
visit in 1852 there was neither steamer nor sailing-boat; now there are
fourteen steamers on the lake, four of them public, and the railway
trains pass round the skirts of Cruachan and rush through the Brandir
Pass. There is a big hotel, they tell me, just opposite Kilchurn, from
which place, by express train, you can get to Edinburgh in four hours.
The day after our arrival at Loch Awe turned out to be most beautiful (a
fine day in the Highlands seems, by contrast, far more beautiful than
elsewhere), and I shall never forget the enchantment of the head of Loch
Awe as our carriage slowly descended the hilly road from Cladich towards
Dalmally, stopping frequently for me to look and sketch. When we got
near the island, or peninsula, of Innistrynich, with its dark green oaks
and pasture-laud of a brighter green in the sunshine, and gray rocks
coming down into the calm, dark water, it seemed to my northern taste
the realization of an earthly paradise. I have lived upon it since, and
unwillingly left it, and to this day I have the most passionate
affection for it, and often dream about it painfully or pleasurably, the
most painful dream of all being that it has been spoiled by the present
owner, which happily is quite the contrary of the truth.
I went to Oban on the top of the coach in the most brilliant weather
that ever is or can be, alternate sunshine and rain, with white clouds
of a dazzling brightness. Under this enchantment, the barren land of
Lorne seemed beautiful, and one forgot its poverty. For the first time,
I saw the waters of Loch Etive, then a pale blue, stretching far inland,
and the distant hills of Morven were, or seemed to be, of the purest
azure.
When my new friends had left me at Oban, I hired a sailing-boat and two
men for a voyage amongst the Western Isles; but as she was an open boat,
the men did not like the idea of risking our lives in her on the exposed
waters of the Atlantic, so the voyage was confined to the Sound of Mull,
and I crossed the island to its western shore on foot. That voyage left
permanent recollections of grand effects and wild scenery of the kind
afterwards described by William Black in his "Macleod of Dare." As we
sailed across the Sound in the evening from Oban to Auchincraig, the sky
was full of torn rain-clouds flying swiftly and catching the lurid hues
from the sunset, whilst the distant mountains and cliffs of Mull were of
that dark purple which seems melancholy and funereal in landscape,
though it is one of the richest colors in the world. It was dangerous
weather for sailing, being very squally, and in the year 1852 I knew
nothing about the management of sailing-boats; but the men were not
imprudent, and after coasting under the cliffs of Mull we landed at
Auchincraig, where at that time there was a miserable inn. The next day
we had a glorious sail up the sound to the Bay of Aros, stopping only to
see Duart Castle. In walking across the island to Loch na Keal, we
passed through a most picturesque camp, that would have delighted
Landseer. There were hundreds of horses and innumerable dogs of the
picturesque northern breeds. It was the half-yearly market of Mull.
I shall never forget my first sight of Ulva, as we sat on the shore of
Mull waiting for the ferry-boat. Ulva lay, a great dark mass, under the
crimson west, reflected in a glassy sea. We had already seen Staffa and
Iona, pale in the distant Atlantic. Then the boat fetched us, and we
floated as in a poet's dream, till the worst of inns brought one back to
a sense of reality.
The boatman who accompanied me, whose name was Andrew, amused himself by
telling lies to the credulous inhabitants of Ulva, and one of his
inventions was that I was going to purchase the island. The other
boatman, Donald, slept in the boat at Salan, wrapped up in a sail. The
return voyage to Oban is thus described in my journal:--
"A fine young man asked me for a seat in the boat, which I granted on
condition that he would perform his share of the work. A favorable wind
carried us well over fifteen miles, half our distance, and the rest had
to be rowed. The sun set in crimson, and the crescent moon arose behind
the blue hills of Mull, over the dark tower of Duart. The scene was
shortly a festival of lights with stars in the sky and the water
brilliantly phosphorescent, so that the oar seemed to drip with fire.
Lastly, when we entered the smooth bright bay of Oban, a crescent of
lights shone around it, reflected in columns of flame upon the surface."
These were my chief experiences of the West Highlands during that first
tour, and they left what I believe to be an indelible impression, for to
this day I remember quite distinctly under what kind of effect each of
these scenes presented itself. The artistic results of the tour
consisted of sketches in oil and pencil, quite without value except to
remind me of the scenes passed through, and of the most decidedly
amateur character. I also wrote a journal, interesting to me now for the
minute details it contains, which bring the past back to me very
vividly, but utterly without literary merit. The wonder is how a youth
with so little manifest talent as may be found in these sketches and
journal could indulge in any artistic or literary ambition. My
impression is that the dull year of heavy work that I had gone through
with the Yorkshire tutor had done positive harm to me. Besides this, I
was living, intellectually, in great solitude. My guardian was very
kind, and she was a woman of sterling good sense, but she knew nothing
about the fine arts, nor could she afford me much guidance in my
reading, her own reading being limited to the Bible, and to some English
and French classics. My uncles were both extremely reserved men who did
not encourage my questions, so I was left for a while to get on without
other intellectual assistance than that afforded by books. My eldest
uncle, the owner of Hollins, said one day to my guardian, "Buy him the
'Encyclopaedia Britannica,' it will prevent him from asking so many
questions;" so she made the purchase, which gave me a large pasture, at
least for facts, and as for good literature, my little library was
beginning to be well stocked. I made no attempt at that time to keep up
my Latin and Greek, nor did I work seriously at painting, but read,
drew, and wrote very much as it happened, not subjecting myself to any
rigorous discipline, yet never remaining unoccupied.