1856.
My first encampment in Lancashire.--Value of encamping as a part of
educational discipline.--Happy days in camp.--The natural and the
artificial in landscape.--Sir James Kay Shuttleworth's Exhibition
project.--I decline to take an active part in it.--His energetic and
laborious disposition.--Charlotte Brontë.--General Scarlett.
The Loire expedition having been abandoned for the year 1856, and the
Nile voyage put off indefinitely, I remained working in the north of
England, discouraged, as to literature, by the failure of the book of
verse, and without much encouragement for painting either; so the summer
of 1856 was not very fruitful in work of any kind.
Towards autumn, however, I took courage again, and determined to paint
from nature on the moors. This led to the first attempt at encamping.
It is wonderful what an influence the things we do in early life may
have on our future occupations. In 1886, exactly thirty years later, I
made the Saône expedition, for which two _absolutely essential_
qualifications were an intimate knowledge of the French language and a
practical acquaintance with encamping. The Roman who said that fifteen
years made a long space in human life would have appreciated the
importance of thirty, yet across all that space of time what I did in
1856 told just as effectually as if it had been done the year before.
_Moral_ (for any young man who may read this book): it is impossible to
say how important the deeds of twenty-one may turn out to have been when
we look back upon them in complete maturity. All we know about them is
that they are likely to be recognized in the future as far more
important than they seemed when they were in the present.
Encamping is now quite familiar to young Englishmen in connection with
boating excursions, and it has even been adopted in American pine
forests for the sake of health; but in 1856 only military men and a few
travellers knew anything about encampments. I was led into this art, or
amusement (for it is both), by a very natural transition. Here are the
three stages of it.
1. You want to paint from nature in uncertain weather, and you build a
hut for shelter.
2. The hut is at some distance from a house, and you do not like to
leave it, so you sleep in it.
3. The accommodation is found to be narrow, and it is unpleasant to have
one little room for everything, so you add a tent or two outside and
keep a man. Hence a complete little encampment.
Everybody considered me extremely eccentric in 1856 because I was led
into encamping; but it was an excellent thing for me in various ways. A
young man given up to such pursuits as literature and art needs a closer
contact with common realities than aesthetic studies can give. The
physical work attendant upon encamping, and the constant attention that
_must_ be given to such pressing necessities as shelter and food, give
exactly that contact with reality that educates us in readiness of
resource, and they have the incalculable advantage of making one learn
the difference between the necessary and the superfluous. I look back
upon early camping experiments with satisfaction as an experience of the
greatest educational value. Even now, in my sixth decade, I can sleep
under canvas and arrange all the details of a camp with indescribable
enjoyment, and (what is perhaps better still) I can put up cheerfully
with the very humblest accommodation in country inns, provided only that
they are tolerably clean.
The arrangements of my hut on the moor near Burnley have been described
in detail in "The Painter's Camp," so it is unnecessary to give a
minute account of them in this place. I was entirely alone, except
the company of a dog, and had no defence but a revolver. That month
of solitude on the wild hills was a singularly happy time, so happy
that it is not easy, without some reflection, to account for such
a degree of felicity. I was young, and the brisk mountain air
exhilarated me. I walked out every day on the heather, which I
loved as if my father and mother had been a brace of grouse.
Then there was the steady occupation of painting a big foreground study
from nature, and the necessary camp work that would have kept morbid
ideas at a distance if any such had been likely to trouble me. As for
the solitude, and the silence broken only by wind and rain, their effect
was not depressing in the least. Towns are depressing to me--even Paris
has that effect--but how is it possible to feel otherwise than cheerful
when you have leagues of fragrant heather all around you, and blue
Yorkshire hills on the high and far horizon?
A noteworthy effect of this month on the moors was that on returning to
Hollins, which was situated amongst trim green pastures and plantations,
everything seemed so astonishingly artificial. It came with the force of
a discovery. From that day to this the natural and the artificial in
landscape have been, for me, as clearly distinguished as a wild boar
from a domestic pig. My strong preference was, and still is, for wild
nature. The unfortunate effects of this preference, as regards success
in landscape-painting, will claim our attention later.
The grand scheme for an Exhibition of Art Treasures at Manchester, in
1857, suggested to Sir James Kay Shuttleworth the idea of having an
Exhibition at Burnley in the same year to illustrate the history of
Lancashire. He thought that a certain proportion of the visitors to the
Manchester Art Treasures would probably be induced to visit our
little-known but prosperous and rising town. His scheme was of a very
comprehensive character, and included a pictorial illustration of
Lancashire. There would have been pictures of Lancashire scenery as well
as portraits of men who have distinguished themselves in the history of
the county, and whose fame has, in many instances, gone far beyond its
borders. All the mechanical inventions that have enriched Lancashire
would also have been represented.
Having thought this over in his own mind, Sir James wanted an active
lieutenant to aid him in carrying his idea into execution, and as he
knew me he asked me to be the practical manager of the Exhibition. I was
to travel all over the county, see all the people of importance, and
borrow, whenever possible, such of their pictures and other relics as
might be considered illustrative of Lancashire history. Sir James had
many influential friends, I myself had a few, and it seemed to him that
by devoting my time to the scheme heartily I might make it a success. My
reward was to be simply a very interesting experience, as I should see
almost all the interesting things and people in my native county.
Sir James did his best to entice me, and as he was a very able man with
much knowledge of the world, he might possibly have succeeded had I not
been more than usually wary. Luckily, I felt the whole weight of my
inexperience, and said to myself: "Whatever we do it is _certain_ that
mistakes will be committed, and very probable that some things will be
damaged. All mistakes will be laid to my door. Then the Exhibition
itself may be a failure, and it is disagreeable to be conspicuously
connected with a failure." I next consulted one or two experienced
friends, who said, "Sir James will have the credit of any success there
may be, and you, as a young useful person, comparatively unknown, will
get very little, whilst at the same time you will be burdened with heavy
anxieties and responsibilities." I therefore firmly declined, and as Sir
James could not find any other suitable assistant, his project was never
reaped.
It seems odd that the existence of this Lancashire Exhibition should
have depended on the "yes" or "no" of a lad of twenty-three; yet so it
did, for if I had consented the scheme would certainly have been carried
into execution, whether successfully or not it is impossible to say. The
enterprise would have greatly interested and occupied me, for I have a
natural turn for organizing things, being fond of order and details, and
I should have learned a great deal and seen many people and many houses;
still, the negative decision was the wiser.
Sir James Kay Shuttleworth was certainly one of the remarkable people I
have known. At that time he was unpopular in Burnley on account of his
separation from his wife, who had been the richest heiress in the
neighborhood, the owner of a fine estate and a grand old hall at
Gawthorpe. People thought she had been ill-used. Of this I really know
(of my own knowledge) absolutely nothing, and shall print no hearsays.
Sir James himself was an ambitious and very hard-working man, who passed
through life with no desire for repose. Public education, in the days
before Board Schools, was his especial subject, and he owed his
baronetcy to his efforts in that cause. The Tory aristocracy of the
neighborhood disliked him for his liberal principles in politics, and
for his brilliant marriage, which came about because the heiress of
Gawthorpe took an interest in his own subjects. Perhaps, too, they were
not quite pleased with his too active and restless intellect. He made
one or two attempts to win a position as a novelist, but in connection
with literature future generations will know him chiefly as the kind
host of Charlotte Brontë, who visited him at Gawthorpe.
I regret now that I never met Charlotte Brontë, as she was quite a near
neighbor of ours; in fact, I could have ridden or walked over to Haworth
at any time. That village is just on the northeast border of the great
Boulsworth moors, where my hut was pitched. At the time of my encampment
there Charlotte Brontë had been dead about eighteen months. She was
hardly a contemporary of mine, as she was born seventeen years before
me, and died so prematurely; still, when I think that "Jane Eyre" was
written within a very few miles of Hollins, [Footnote: I have not access
to an ordnance map, but believe that the distance was hardly more than
eight miles across the moors. Haworth is only twelve miles from Burnley
by road.] and that for several years, during which I rode or walked
every day, Charlotte Brontë was living just on the other side of the
moors visible from my home, I am vexed with myself for not having had
assurance enough to go to see her. Since those days a hundred ephemeral
reputations have risen only to be quenched forever in the great ocean of
the world's oblivion, but the fame of "Jane Eyre" is as brilliant as it
was when the book astonished all reading England forty years ago.
[Footnote: I am writing in 1888.]
Amongst the distinguished people belonging to the neighborhood of
Burnley was General Scarlett, who led the charge of the Heavy Cavalry at
Balaclava,--brilliant feat of arms much more satisfactory to military
men than the fruitless sacrifice of the Light Brigade, which, however,
is incomparably better known. I recollect General Scarlett chiefly
because he set me thinking about a very important question in political
economy. I happened to be sitting next him at dinner when the talk
turned upon wine, and the General said, "The Radicals find fault with
the economy of the Queen's household because they say that the wine
drunk there costs sixteen thousand a year. I don't know what it costs,
but that is of no consequence." I then timidly inquired if he did not
think it was a waste of money, on which, in a kind way, he explained to
me that "if the money were paid and put into circulation it did not
signify what it had been spent upon." I knew there was something
fallacious in this, but my own ideas were not clear upon the subject,
and it did not become me to set up an argument with a distinguished old
officer like the General. Of course the right answer is that there is
always a responsibility for spending money so as to be of use not only
to the tradesman who pockets it, _but to the consumers also_. If the
wine gave health and wisdom it would hardly be possible to spend too
much upon it.