LIFE AT ST. ANDREWS
In an old-world town like St. Andrews the stately, old-world Moral
Philosophy Professor must have seemed wonderfully in his place. There
are men who, good-looking in youth, become 'ordinary-looking' in later
years, but Ferrier's looks were not of such a kind. To the last--of
course he was not an old man when he died--he preserved the same
distinguished appearance that we are told marked him out from amongst
his fellows while still a youth. The tall figure, clad in
old-fashioned, well-cut coat and white duck trousers, the close-shaven
face, and merry twinkle about the eye signifying a sense of humour
which removed him far from anything which we associate with the name of
pedant; the dignity, when dignity was required, and yet the sympathy
always ready to be extended to the student, however far he was from
taking up the point, if he were only trying his best to comprehend--all
this made up to those who knew him, the man, the scholar, and the
high-bred gentleman, which, in no ordinary or conventional sense,
Professor Ferrier was. It is the personality which, when years have
passed and individual traits have been forgotten, it is so difficult to
reproduce. The personal attraction, the atmosphere of culture and
chivalry, which was always felt to hang about the Professor, has not
been forgotten by those who can recall him in the old St. Andrews days;
but who can reproduce this charm, or do more than state its existence
as a fact? Perhaps this sort only comes to those whose life is mainly
intellectual--who have not much, comparatively speaking, to suffer from
the rough and tumble to which the 'practical' man is subjected in the
course of his career. Sometimes it is said that those who preach high
maxims of philosophy and conduct belie their doctrines in their outward
lives; but on the whole, when we review their careers, this would
wonderfully seldom seem to be the case. From Socrates' time onwards we
have had philosophers who have taught virtue and practised it
simultaneously, and in no case has this combination been better
exemplified in recent days than in that of James Frederick Ferrier, and
one who unsuccessfully contested his chair upon his death, Thomas Hill
Green, Professor of Moral Philosophy at Oxford. It seems as though it
may after all be good to speculate on the deep things of the earth as
well as to do the deeds of righteousness.
If the saying is true, that the happiest man is he who is without a
history, then Ferrier has every claim to be enrolled in the ranks of
those who have attained their end. For happiness _was_ an end to
Ferrier: he had no idea of practising virtue in the abstract, and
finding a sufficiency in this. He believed, however, that the happiness
to be sought for was the happiness of realising our highest aims, and
the aim he put before him he very largely succeeded in attaining. His
life was what most people would consider monotonous enough: few events
outside the ordinary occurrences of family and University life broke in
upon its tranquil course. Unlike the custom of some of his colleagues,
summer and winter alike were passed by Ferrier in the quaint old
sea-bound town. He lived there largely for his work and books. Not that
he disliked society; he took the deepest interest even in his
dinner-parties, and whether as a host or as a guest, was equally
delightful as a companion or as a talker. But in his books he found his
real life; he would take them down to table, and bed he seldom reached
till midnight was passed by two hours at least. One who knew and cared
for him, the attractive wife of one of his colleagues, who spent ten
sessions at St. Andrews before distinguishing the Humanity Chair in
Edinburgh, tells how the West Park house had something about its
atmosphere that marked it out as unique--something which was due in
great measure to the cultured father, but also to the bright and witty
mother and the three beautiful young daughters, who together formed a
household by itself, and one which made the grey old town a different
place to those who lived in it.
Ferrier, as we have seen, had many distinguished colleagues in the
University. Besides Professor Sellar, who held the Chair of Greek,
there was the Principal of St. Mary's (Principal Tulloch), Professor
Shairp, then Professor of Latin, and later on the Principal; the Logic
Professor, Veitch, Sir David Brewster, Principal of the United
Colleges, and others. But the society was unconventional in the
extreme. The salaries were not large: including fees, the ordinance of
the Scottish Universities Commission appointing the salaries of
Professors in 1861, estimates the salary of the professorship of Moral
Philosophy at St. Andrews at £444, 18s., and the Principal only
received about £100 more. But there were not those social customs and
conventions to maintain that succeed in making life on a small income
irksome in a larger city. All were practically on the same level in the
University circle, and St. Andrews was not invaded by so large an army
of golfing visitors then as now, though the game of course was played
with equal keenness and enthusiasm. Professor Ferrier took no part in
this or other physical amusement: possibly it had been better for him
had he left his books and study at times to do so. The friend spoken of
above tells, however, of the merry parties who walked home after dining
out, the laughing protests which she made against the Professor's rash
statement (in allusion to his theory of _perception-mecum_) that _she_
was 'unredeemed nonsense' without _him_; the way in which, when an idea
struck him, he would walk to her house with his daughter, regardless of
the lateness of the hour, and throw pebbles at the lighted bedroom
windows to gain admittance--and of course a hospitable supper; how she,
knowing that a tablemaid was wanted in the Ferrier establishment,
dressed up as such and interviewed the mistress, who found her highly
satisfactory but curiously resembling her friend Mrs. Sellar; and how
when this was told her husband, he exclaimed, 'Why, of course it's she
dressed up; let us pursue her,' which was done with good effect! All
these tales, and many others like them, show what the homely, sociable,
and yet cultured life was like--a life such as we in this country
seldom have experience of: perhaps that of a German University town may
most resemble it. In spite of being in many ways a recluse, Ferrier was
ever a favourite with his students, just because he treated them, not
with familiarity indeed, but as gentlemen like himself. Other
Professors were cheered when they appeared in public, but the loudest
cheers were always given to Ferrier.
Mrs. Ferrier's brilliant personality many can remember who knew her
during her widowhood in Edinburgh. She had inherited many of her
father, 'Christopher North's' physical and mental gifts, shown in looks
and wit. A friend of old days writes: 'She was a queen in St. Andrews,
at once admired for her wit, her eloquence, her personal charms, and
dreaded for her free speech, her powers of ridicule, and her withering
mimicry. Faithful, however, to her friends, she was beloved by them,
and they will lament her now as one of the warmest-hearted and most
highly-gifted of her sex.' Mrs. Ferrier never wrote for
publication,--she is said to have scorned the idea,--but those who knew
her never can forget the flow of eloquence, the wit and satire mingled,
the humorous touches and the keen sense of fun that characterised her
talk; for she was one of an era of brilliant talkers that would seem to
have passed away. Mrs. Ferrier's capacity for giving appropriate
nicknames was well known: Jowett, afterwards Master of Balliol, she
christened the 'little downy owl.' Her husband's philosophy she
graphically described by saying that 'it made you feel as if you were
sitting up on a cloud with nothing on, a lucifer match in your hand,
but nothing to strike it on,'--a description appealing vividly to many
who have tried to master it!
In many ways she seemed a link with the past of bright memories in
Scotland, when these links were very nearly severed. Five children in
all were born to her; of her sons one, now dead, inherited many of his
father's gifts. Her elder daughter, Lady Grant, the wife of Sir
Alexander Grant, Principal of the Edinburgh University and a
distinguished classical scholar, likewise succeeded to much of her
mother's grace and charm as well as of her father's accomplishments.
Under the initials 'O. J.' she was in the habit of contributing
delightful humorous sketches to _Blackwood's Magazine_--the magazine
which her father and her grandfather had so often contributed to in
their day; but her life was not a long one: she died in 1895, eleven
years after her husband, and while many possibilities seemed still
before her.
Perhaps we might try to picture to ourselves the life in which Ferrier
played so prominent a part in the only real University town of which
Scotland can boast. For it is in St. Andrews that the traditional
distinctions between the College and the University are maintained,
that there is the solemn stillness which befits an ancient seat of
learning, that every step brings one in view of some monument of ages
that are past and gone, and that we are reminded not only of the
learning of our ancestors, of their piety and devotion to the College
they built and endowed, but of the secular history of our country as
well. In this, at least, the little University of the North has an
advantage over her rich and powerful rivals, inasmuch as there is
hardly any important event which has taken place in Scottish history
but has left its mark upon the place. No wonder the love of her
students to the _Alma Mater_ is proverbial. In Scotland we have little
left to tell us of the mediæval church and life, so completely has the
Reformation done its work, and so thoroughly was the land cleared of
its 'popish images'; and hence we value what little there remains to us
all the more. And the University of St. Andrews, the oldest of our
seats of learning, has come down to us from mediæval days. It was
founded by a Catholic bishop in 1411, about a century after the
dedication of the Cathedral, now, of course, a ruin. But it is to the
good Bishop Kennedy who established the College of St. Salvator, one of
the two United Colleges of later times, that we ascribe most honour in
reference to the old foundation. Not only did he build the College on
the site which was afterwards occupied by the classrooms in which
Ferrier and his colleagues taught, but he likewise endowed them with
vestments and rich jewels, including amongst their numbers a
beautifully chased silver mace which may still be seen. Of the old
College buildings there is but the chapel and janitor's house now
existing; within the chapel, which is modernised and used for
Presbyterian service, is the ancient founder's tomb. The quadrangle,
after the Reformation, fell into disrepair, and the present buildings
are comparatively of recent date. The next College founded--that of St.
Leonard--which became early imbued with Reformation principles, was, in
the eighteenth century, when its finances had become low, incorporated
with St. Salvator's, and when conjoined they were in Ferrier's time, as
now, known as the 'United College.' Besides the United College there
was a third and last College, called St. Mary's. Though founded by the
last of the Catholic bishops before the Reformation, it was
subsequently presided over by the anti-prelatists Andrew Melville and
Samuel Rutherford. St. Mary's has always been devoted to the study of
theology.
But the history of her colleges is not all that has to be told of the
ancient city. Association it has with nearly all who have had to do
with the making of our history--the good Queen Margaret, Beaton, and,
above all, Queen Mary and her great opponent Knox. The ruined Castle
has many tales to tell could stones and trees have tongues--stories of
bloodshed, of battle, of the long siege when Knox was forced to yield
to France and be carried to the galleys. After the murder of Archbishop
Sharp, and the revolution of 1688, the town once so prosperous dwindled
away, and decayed into an unimportant seaport. There is curiously
little attractive about its situation in many regards. It is out of the
way, difficult of access once upon a time, and even now not on a main
line of rail, too near the great cities, and yet at the same time too
far off. The coast is dangerous for fishermen, and there is no harbour
that can be called such. No wonder, it seems, that the town became
neglected and insanitary, that Dr. Johnson speaks of 'the silence and
solitude of inactive indigence and gloomy depopulation,' and left it
with 'mournful images.' But if St. Andrews had its drawbacks, it had
still more its compensations. It had its links--the long stretch of
sandhills spread far along the coast, and bringing crowds of visitors
to the town every summer as it comes round; and for the pursuit of
learning the remoteness of position has some advantages. Even at its
worst the University showed signs of its recuperative powers. Early in
the century Chalmers was assistant to the Professor of Mathematics, and
then occupied the Chair of Moral Philosophy (that chair to which
Ferrier was afterwards appointed), and drew crowds of students round
him. Then came a time of innovation. If in 1821 St. Andrews was badly
paved, ill-lighted, and ruinous, an era of reform set in. New
classrooms were built, the once neglected library was added to and
rearranged, and the town was put to rights through an energetic
provost, Major, afterwards Sir Hugh, Lyon Playfair. He made 'crooked
places straight' in more senses than one, swept away the 'middens' that
polluted the air, saw to the lighting and paving of the streets, and
generally brought about the improvements which we expect to find in a
modern town. 'On being placed in the civic chair, he had found the
streets unpaved, uneven, overgrown with weeds, and dirty; the ruins of
the time-honoured Cathedral and Castle used as a quarry for greedy and
sacrilegious builders, and the University buildings falling into
disrepair; and he had resolved to change all this. With persistency
almost unexampled, he had employed all the arts of persuasion and
compulsion upon those who had the power to remedy these abuses. He had
dunned, he had coaxed, he had bantered, he had bargained, he had
borrowed, he had begged; and he had been successful. In 1851 the
streets were paved and clean, the fine old ruins were declared sacred,
and the dilapidated parts of the University buildings had been replaced
by a new edifice. And he--the Major, as he was called--a little man,
white-haired, shaggy-eyebrowed, blue-eyed, red-faced, with his hat
cocked on the side of his head, and a stout cane in his hand, walked
about in triumph, the uncrowned king of the place.'[15]
[15] _Pleasant Memories_, by David Pryde, LL.D.
Of this same renovating provost, it is told that one day he dropped in
to see the Moral Philosophy Professor, who, however deeply engaged with
his books, was always ready to receive his visitors. 'Well, Major, I
have just completed the great work of my life. In this book I claim to
make philosophy intelligible to the meanest understanding.' Playfair at
once requested to hear some of it read aloud. Ferrier reluctantly
started to read in his slow, emphatic way, till the Major became
fidgety; still he went on, till Playfair started to his feet. 'I say,
Ferrier, do you mean to say this is intelligible to the meanest
understanding?' 'Do you understand it, Major?' 'Yes, I think I do.'
'Then, Major, I'm satisfied.'
Of the social life, Mrs. Oliphant says in her _Life of Principal
Tulloch_: 'The society, I believe, was more stationary than it has been
since, and more entirely disposed to make of St. Andrews the
pleasantest and brightest of abiding-places. Sir David Brewster was
still throned in St. Leonard's. Professor Ferrier, with his witty and
brilliant wife--he full of quiet humour, she of wildest wit, a mimic of
alarming and delightful power, with something of the countenance and
much of the genius of her father, the great "Christopher North" of
_Blackwood's Magazine_--made the brightest centre of social mirth and
meetings. West Park, their pleasant home, at the period which I record
it, was ever open, ever sounding with gay voices and merry laughter,
with a boundless freedom of talk and comment, and an endless stream of
good company. Professor Ferrier himself was one of the greatest
metaphysicians of his time--the first certainly in Scotland; but this
was perhaps less upon the surface than a number of humorous ways which
were the delight of his friends, many quaint abstractions proper to his
philosophic character, and a happy friendliness and gentleness along
with his wit, which gave his society a continual charm.' Professor
Knight, who now occupies Ferrier's place in the professoriate of St.
Andrews, in his _Life of Professor Shairp_, quotes from a paper of
reminiscences by Professor Sellar: 'The centre of all the intellectual
and social life of the University and of the town was Professor
Ferrier. He inspired in the students a feeling of affectionate devotion
as well as admiration, such as I have hardly ever known inspired by any
teacher; and to many of them his mere presence and bearing in the
classroom was a large element in a liberal education. By all his
colleagues he was esteemed as a man of most sterling honour, a staunch
friend, and a most humorous and delightful companion.... There
certainly never was a household known to either of us in which the
spirit of racy and original humour and fun was so exuberant and
spontaneous in every member of it, as that of which the Professor and
his wife--the most gifted and brilliant, and most like her father of
the three gifted daughters of "Christopher North"--were the heads. Our
evenings there generally ended in the Professor's study, where he was
always ready to discuss, either from a serious or humorous point of
view (not without congenial accompaniment), the various points of his
system till the morning was well advanced.'
Ferrier's daughter writes of the house at West Park: 'It was an
old-fashioned, rough cast or "harled" house standing on the road in
Market Street, but approached through a small green gate and a short
avenue of trees--trees that were engraven on the heart and memory from
childhood. The garden at the back still remains. In our time it was a
real old-fashioned Scotch garden, well stocked with "berries," pears,
and apples; quaint grass walks ran through it, and a summer-house with
stained-glass windows stood in a corner. West Park was built on a site
once occupied by the Grey Friars, and I am not romancing when I say
that bones and coins were known to have been discovered in the garden
even in our time. Our home was socially a very amusing and happy one,
though my father lived a good deal apart from us, coming down from his
dear old library occasionally in the evenings to join the family
circle.' This family circle was occasionally supplemented by a French
teacher or a German, and for one year by a certain Mrs. Huggins, an old
ex-actress who originally came to give a Shakespeare reading in St.
Andrews, and who fell into financial difficulties, and was invited by
the hospitable Mrs. Ferrier to make her home for a time at West Park.
The visit was not in all respects a success, Mrs. Huggins being
somewhat exacting in her requirements and difficult to satisfy. So
little part did its master take in household matters that it was only
by accident, after reading prayers one Sunday evening, that he noticed
her presence. On inquiring who the stranger was, Mrs. Ferrier replied,
'Oh, that is Mrs. Huggins.' 'Then what is her avocation?' 'To read
Shakespeare and draw your window-curtains,' said the ever-ready Mrs.
Ferrier! The children of the house were brought up to love the stage
and everyone pertaining to it, and whenever a strolling company came to
St. Andrews the Ferriers were the first to attend their play. The same
daughter writes that when children their father used to thrill them
with tales of Burke and Hare, the murderers and resurrectionists whose
doings brought about a reign of terror in Edinburgh early in the
century. As a boy, Ferrier used to walk out to his grandfather's in
Morningside--then a country suburb--in fear and trembling, expecting
every moment to meet Burke, the object of his terror. On one occasion
he believed that he had done so, and skulked behind a hedge and lay
down till the scourge of Edinburgh passed by. In 1828 he witnessed his
hanging in the Edinburgh prison. Professor Wilson, his father-in-law,
it may be recollected, spoke out his mind about the famous Dr. Knox in
the _Noctes_ as well as in his classroom, and it was a well-known fact
that his favourite Newfoundland dog Brontë was poisoned by the students
as an act of retaliation.
Murder trials had always a fascination for Ferrier. On one occasion he
read aloud to his children De Quincey's essay, 'Murder as a Fine Art,'
which so terrified his youngest daughter that she could hardly bring
herself to leave her father's library for bed. Somewhat severe to his
sons, to his daughters Ferrier was specially kind and indulgent,
helping them with their German studies, reading Schiller's plays to
them, and when little children telling them old-world fairy tales. A
present of Grimm's Tales, brought by her father after a visit to
London, was, she tells us, a never-to-be-forgotten joy to the
recipient.
The charm of the West Park house was spoken of by all the numerous
young men permitted to frequent its hospitable board. There was a
wonderful concoction known by the name of 'Bishop,' against whose
attraction one who suffered by its potency says that novices were
warned, more especially in view of a certain sunk fence in the
immediate vicinity which had afterwards to be avoided. The jokes that
passed at these entertainments, which were never dull, are past and
gone,--their piquancy would be gone even could they be reproduced,--but
the impression left on the minds of those who shared in them is
ineffaceable, and is as vivid now as forty years ago.
There was a custom, now almost extinct, of keeping books of so-called
'Confessions,' in which the contributors had the rather formidable task
of filling up their likes or dislikes for the entertainment of their
owners. In Mrs. Sellar's album Ferrier made several interesting
'confessions'--whether we take them _au grand sérieux_ or only as
playful jests with a grain of truth behind. Here are some of the
questions and their answers.
Question. Answer.
Your favourite character in Socrates.
history.
The character you most dislike. Calvin.
Your favourite kind of literature. _The Arabian Nights._
Your favourite author. Hegel.
Your favourite occupation and Driving with a handsome
amusement. woman.
Those you dislike most. Fishing, walking, and
dancing.
Your favourite topics of Humorous and tender.
conversation.
Those you dislike most. Statistical and personal.
Your ambition. To reach the Truth.
Your ideal. Always to pay ready money.
Your hobby. Peacemaking.
The virtue you most admire. Reasonableness.
The vices to which you are The world, the flesh, and
most lenient. the devil.
These last two answers are very characteristic of Ferrier's point of
view in later days. He was above all reasonable--no ascetic who could
not understand the temptations of the world, but one who enjoyed its
pleasures, saw the humorous side of life, appreciated the æsthetic, and
yet kept the dictates of reason ever before his mind. And his ambition
to reach the Truth
'Differed from a host
Of aims alike in character and kind,
Mostly in this--that in itself alone
Shall its reward be, not an alien end
Blending therewith.'
Thus, like Paracelsus, he aspired.