Now again he and I were but correspondents, and I do not think that
in those days when I had so much to do, and had also very bad health,
I was a very good correspondent. Maitland, although he sometimes
apologised humorously, or even nervously, for writing at great
length, was an admirable letter writer. He practised a lost art.
Sometimes he put into his letters very valuable sketches of people.
He did so both to me and to Rivers, and to others, and frequently
made sharply etched portraits of people whom he knew at St Pée. He
had a curious habit of nicknaming everybody. These nicknames were
perhaps not the highest form of art, nor were they even always
humorous, still it was a practice of his. He had a peculiarly verbal
humor in these matters. Never by any chance, unless he was
exceedingly serious, did he call any man by his actual name. Rawson,
my most particular friend, whom he knew well, and whose books he
admired very much for their style, was always known as "The
Rawsonian," and I myself was referred to by a similarly formed name.
These are matters of no particular importance, but still they show
the man in his familiar moods and therefore have a kind of value--as
if one were to show a score of photographs or sketches that were
serious and then insert one where the wise man plays the child, or
even the fool. There was not a person of any importance in St. Pée
d'Ascain, although nobody knew it, who did not rejoice in some absurd
nickname.
However he went further than mere nicknames, and there is in one
letter of his to Rivers a very admirable sketch of a certain
personage: "one of the most cantankerous men I ever came across;
fierce against the modern tendencies of science, especially in
England; an anti-Darwinite &c. He rages against Huxley, accusing him
of having used his position for personal vanity and gain, and of
ruining the scientific and industrial prospects of England; charges
of the paltriest dishonesty against H. and other such men abound in
his conversation. X., it seems, was one of the original students of
the Jermyn Street School of Mines, and his root grievance is the
transformation of that establishment--brought about, he declares, for
the personal profit of Huxley and of--the clerks of the War Office!
_You_, he regards as a most valuable demonstration of the evils
resulting from the last half-century of 'progress,' protesting loudly
that every one of your books is a bitter satire on Huxley, his
congeners, and his disciples. The man tells me that no scientific
papers in England will print his writing, merely from personal
enmity. He has also quarrelled with the scientific societies of
France, and now, being a polyglot, he writes for Spain and
Germany--the only two countries in Europe where scientific
impartiality is to be found."
In another letter of his he says: "By the bye, an English paper
states that Henley died worth something more than eight hundred
pounds." One might imagine that he would then proceed to condole
with him on having had so little to leave, but that was not our
Maitland. He went on: "Amazing! How on earth did he amass that
wealth? I am rejoiced to know that his latter years have been passed
without struggle for bread."
The long letter about the Roman Empire and Roman law from which I
quoted in the last chapter, was dated August 6, 1903, and I did not
hear again from Maitland until November 1. I had written to him
proposing to pay another visit to the south-west of France in order
to see him in his Pyrenean home, but he replied very gloomily, saying
that he was in evil case, that Thérèse had laryngitis, and that
everything was made worse by incredibly bad weather. The
workhouse--still the workhouse--was staring him in the face. He had
to labour a certain number of hours each day in direly unfavourable
conditions. If he did not finish his book at the end of the year
sheer pauperdom would come upon him. In these circumstances I was to
see that he dreaded a visit from any friend, indeed he was afraid
that they would not be able to stay in St. Christophe on account of
its excessive dampness. According to this pathetically exaggerated
account they lived in a thick mist day and night. How on earth it
came to be thought that such a dreadful country was good for
consumptive people he could not imagine; though he owned, somewhat
grudgingly, that he himself had got a good deal of strength there.
He told me that as soon as the eternal rain ceased they were going
down to Bayonne to see a doctor, and if he did no good Thérèse would
go to the south of France. Finally, he was hanged if he knew how it
would be managed. He ended up with: "In short I have not often in my
life been nearer to an appalling crisis." At the end of this dismal
letter, which did not affect me so much as might be thought, he spoke
to me of my book, "Rachel," and said: "I have been turning the pages
with great pleasure to keep my thoughts from the workhouse."
As I have hinted, those will have gathered very little of Maitland
who imagine that I took this _au pied de lettre_. Maitland had cried
"Wolf!" so often, that I had almost ceased to believe that there were
wolves, even in the Pyrenees. All things had gradually become
appalling crises and dreadful disasters. A mere disturbance and an
actual catastrophe were alike dire and irremediable calamities. And
yet, alas, there was more truth underlying his words than even he
knew. If a man lives for ever in shadow the hour comes at last when
there is no more light; and even for those who look forward, one
would think with a certain relief, to the workhouse, there comes a
day that they shall work no more. I smiled when I read this letter,
but, of course, telegraphed to him deferring my visit until the rain
had ceased, or laryngitis had departed from his house, or until his
spirits recovered their tone on the completion of his great romance.
One could do no other, much as I desired to see him and have one of
our prodigious and preposterously long talks in his new home. I do
not think that I wrote to him after this lamentable reply of his, but
on November 16 I received my last communication from him. It was
three lines on a post-card, still dated from St. Christophe. He
referred in it once more to my book, and said: "Delighted to see the
advertisement in ------ to-day, especially after their very base
notice last week. Hurrah! Illness and struggle still going on
here." The struggle I believed in, but, as ever with one's friends,
one doubted if the illness were serious. And yet the catastrophe was
coming.
At this time I was myself seriously ill. A chronic disease which had
not been diagnosed resulted in a more or less serious infection of my
own lungs, and, if I recollect truly, I had been in bed for nearly a
fortnight. During the early days of my convalescence I went down to
my club, and there one afternoon got this telegram from Rivers: "Have
received following telegram from Maitland, 'Henry dying. Entreat you
to come. In greatest haste.' I cannot go, can you?" This message
to me was dated Folkestone, where Rivers was then living. Now at
this time I was feeling very ill and utterly unfit to travel. I
hardly knew what to do, but thought it best to go home and consult
with my wife before I replied to Rivers. Anxious as she was to do
everything possible for Maitland, she implored me not to venture on
so long a journey, especially as it was mid-winter, just at
Christmas-time. If I had not felt really ill she would not have
placed any obstacles in my path, of that I am sure. She would,
indeed, have urged me to go. After a little reflection I therefore
replied to Rivers that I was myself very ill, but added that if he
could not possibly go I would. At the same time I telegraphed to
Maitland, or rather to Thérèse, saying that I was ill, but that I
would come if she found it absolutely necessary. I do not think I
received any answer to this message, a fact one easily understands
when one learns how desperate things really were; but on December 26
I got another telegram from Rivers. I found that he had gone to St.
Christophe in spite of not being well. He wired to me: "No nurse.
Nursing help may save Maitland. Come if possibly can. Am here but
ill." Such an appeal could not be resisted. I went straight home,
and showing this telegram to my wife she agreed with me that I ought
to go. If Rivers was ill at St. Christophe it now seemed my absolute
duty to go, whatever my own state of health.
I left London that night by the late train, crossing to Paris by way
of Newhaven and Dieppe in order that I might get at least three hours
of rest in a recumbent position in the steamer, as I did not at that
time feel justified in going all the way first class and taking a
sleeper. I did manage to obtain some rest during the sea-passage,
but on reaching Paris early in the morning I felt exceedingly unwell,
and at the Gare St.-Lazare found at that hour no means of obtaining
even a cup of coffee. I drove over to the Quai d'Orsay, and spent an
hour or two in the coffee-room waiting for the departure of the
express to Bordeaux. Ill as I was, and full of anxiety about
Maitland, and now about Rivers, that journey was one long nightmare
to me. I had not been able to take the Sud Express, and when at
last, late in the evening, I reached Bayonne, I found that the last
train to St. Christophe in its high Pyrenean valley had already gone
hours before my arrival. While I was on my journey I had again
telegraphed from Morcenx to Rivers or to Thérèse asking them to
telegraph to me at the Hotel du Commerce, Bayonne, in case I was
unable to get on that night, as I had indeed feared, although I was
unable to get accurate information. On reaching this hotel I found
waiting for me a telegram, which I have now lost, that was somehow
exceedingly obscure but yet portended disaster. That I expected the
worst I know, for I telegraphed to my wife the news in code that
Maitland was dying and that the doctor gave no hope.
If I had been a rich man, or even moderately furnished with money on
that journey, I should have taken a motor-car if it could have been
obtained, and have gone on at once without waiting for the morning.
But now I was obliged to spend the night in that little old-fashioned
hotel in the old English city of Bayonne, the city whose fortress
bears the proud emblem "Nunquam polluta." I wondered much if I
should yet see my old friend alive. It was possible, and I hoped.
At any rate, he must know that I was coming and was near at hand if
only he were yet conscious. How much I was needed I did not know
till afterwards, for even as I was going south Rivers was once more
returning to Paris on his homeward journey. As I learnt afterwards,
he was far too unwell to stay. In the morning I took the first train
to St. Christophe, passing Cambo, where Rostand, the poet, makes his
home. On reaching the town where Maitland lived I found no one
waiting for me as I had expected; for, naturally enough, I thought it
possible that unless Rivers were very ill he would be able to meet
me. It was a cold and gloomy morning when I left the station.
Taking my bag in my hand, I hired a small boy to show me the house in
which Maitland lived on the outskirts of the little Pyrenean town.
This house, it seems, was let in flats, and the Maitlands occupied
the first floor. On entering the hall I found a servant washing down
the stone flooring. I said to her, "Comment Monsieur se porte-t-il?"
and she replied, "Monsieur est mort." I then asked her where I
should find the other Englishman. She answered that he had gone back
to England the day before, and then took me upstairs and went in to
tell Thérèse that I had come.
I found her with her mother. She was the only woman who had given
him any happiness. Now she was completely broken down by the anxiety
and distress which had come upon her so suddenly. For indeed it
seems that it had been sudden. Only four or five days ago Maitland
had been working hard upon "Basil," the book from which he hoped so
much, and in which he believed so fervently. Then it seems that he
developed what he called a cold, some slight affection of the lungs
which raised his temperature a little. Strangely enough he did not
take the care of himself that he should have taken, or that care
which I should have expected him to use, considering his curiously
expressed nervousness about himself. By some odd fatality he became
suddenly courageous at the wrong time, and went out for a walk in
desperately bad weather. On the following day he was obviously very
seriously ill, and sent for the doctor, who suspended judgment but
feared that he had pneumonia. On the day succeeding this yet another
doctor was called into consultation, and the diagnosis of pneumonia
was confirmed without any doubt. But that was not, perhaps, what
actually killed him. There was a very serious complication,
according to Maitland's first physician, with whom I afterwards had a
long conversation, partly through the intermediary of the nurse, an
Englishwoman from Bayonne, who talked French more fluently than
myself. He considered that Maitland also had myocarditis. I
certainly did not think, and do not think, that he was right in this.
Myocarditis is rarely accompanied with much or severe pain, while the
anguish of violent pericarditis is often very great, and Maitland had
suffered most atrociously. He was not now a strong man, not one with
big reserves and powers of passive endurance, and in his agony he
cried aloud for death.
In these agonies there were periods of comparative ease when he
rested and was quiet, and even spoke a little. In one of these
intermissions Thérèse came to him and told him that I was now
actually on my way. There is no reason, I think, why I should not
write what he said. It was simply, "Good old H----." By this time
Rivers had gone; but before his departure he had, I understand,
procured the nurse. The last struggle came early that morning,
December 28, while I was at the Bayonne hotel preparing to catch the
early train. He died quietly just before dawn, I think at six
o'clock.
I was taken in to see Thérèse, who was still in bed, and found her
mother with her. They were two desolate and lonely women, and I had
some fears that Thérèse would hardly recover from the blow, so deeply
did his death affect her. She was always a delicate woman, and came
from a delicate, neurotic stock, as one could see so plainly in the
elder woman. I did my best to say what one could say, though all
that can possibly be said in such cases is nothing after all. There
is no physic for grief but the slow, inevitable years. I stayed not
long, but went into the other chamber and saw my dead friend. The
bed on which he lay stood in a little alcove at the end of the room
farthest from the window. I remember that the nurse, who behaved
most considerately to me, stood by the window while I said farewell
to him. He looked strangely and peculiarly intellectual, as so often
happens after death. The final relaxation of the muscles about his
chin and mouth accentuated most markedly the strong form of the
actual skull. Curiously enough, as he had grown a little beard in
his last illness, it seemed to me that he resembled very strongly
another English writer not yet dead, one whom nature had, indeed,
marked out as a story-teller, but who lacked all those qualities
which made Maitland what he was. As I stood by this dead-bed
knowing, as I did know, that he had died at last in the strange
anguish which I was aware he had feared, it seemed to me that here
was a man who had been born to inherit grief. He had never known
pure peace or utter joy as even some of the very humblest know it. I
looked back across the toilsome path by which he had come hither to
the end, and it seemed to me that from the very first he had been
doomed. In other times or some other age he might have had a better
fate, but he was born out of his time and died in exile doubly. I
put my hand upon his forehead and said farewell to him and left the
room, for I knew that there was much to do and that in some way I had
to do it.
Thérèse was most anxious that he should not be buried in St.
Christophe, of which she had conceived a natural horror. There was
at this time an English clergyman in the village, the chaplain of the
English church at St. Pée, about whom I shall have something to say
later. With him I concerted what was to be done, and he obtained the
necessary papers from the _mairie_. And all this time, across the
road from the stone house in which Henry Maitland lay dead, I heard
the sound of his coffin being made in the little carpenter's shop
which stood there. When all was done that could be done, and
everything was in order, I went to the little hotel and had my lunch
all alone, and afterwards dined alone and slept that night in the
same hotel. The next day, late in the afternoon, I went down to St.
Pée d'Ascain in charge of his body. During this journey the young
doctor who had attended Maitland accompanied me part of the way, and
for the rest of it his nurse was my companion. At St. Pée d'Ascain,
where it was then quite dark, we were received by the clergyman, who
had preceded us, and by a hearse, into which we carried Maitland's
body. I accompanied it to the English chapel, where it remained all
night before the altar. I slept at my old hotel, where I was known,
as I had stayed there at the time I last saw Maitland alive.
In the morning a service was held for him according to the rites of
the English Church. This was the desire of Thérèse and Madame
Espinel, who, if it had been possible, I think would have desired to
bury him according to the rites of the Catholic Church. Maitland, of
course, had no orthodox belief. He refused to think of these things,
for they were disturbing and led no-whither. Attending this service
there were many English people, some who knew him, and some again who
did not know him but went there out of respect for his name and
reputation, and perhaps because they felt that they and he were alike
in exile. We buried him in the common cemetery of St. Pée, a place
not unbeautiful, nor unbeautifully situated. And while the service
went on over his grave I was somehow reminded of the lovely cemetery
at Lisbon where another English man of letters lies in a tomb far
from his own country. I speak of Fielding.
I left Thérèse and Madame Espinel still at St. Christophe, and did
not see them again before I started for England. They, I knew, would
probably return to Paris, or perhaps would go to relatives of theirs
in Spain. I could help them no more, and by now I discovered that my
winter journey, or perhaps even my short visit to the death-chamber
of Henry Maitland, had given me some kind of pulmonary catarrh which
in my overwrought and nervous state seemed likely, perhaps, to result
in something more serious. Therefore, having done all that I could,
and having seen him put in the earth, I returned home hurriedly. On
reaching England I was very ill for many days, but recovered without
any serious results. Soon afterwards some one, I know not who it
was, sent me a paragraph published in a religious paper which claimed
Maitland as a disciple of the Church, for it said that he had died
"in the fear of God's holy name, and with the comfort and strength of
the Catholic faith." When some men die there are for ever crows and
vultures about. Although I was very loath to say anything which
would raise an angry discussion, I felt that this could not be passed
by and that he would not have wished it to be passed by. Had he not
written of a certain character in one of his books "that he should be
buried as a son of the Church, to whom he had never belonged, was a
matter of indignation"? That others felt as I did is proved by a
letter I got from his friend Edmund Roden, who wrote to me: "You have
seen the report that the ecclesiastical buzzards have got hold of
Henry Maitland in articulo mortis and dragged him into the fold."
My own views upon religion did not matter. They were stronger and
more pronounced, and, it may be, more atheistical than his own.
Nevertheless I knew what he felt about these things, and in
consequence wrote the following letter to the editor of the paper
which had claimed him for the Church: "My attention has been drawn to
a statement in your columns that Henry Maitland died in communion
with the Church of England, and I shall be much obliged if you will
give to this contradiction the same publicity you granted, without
investigation, to the calumny. I was intimate with Maitland for
thirty years, and had every opportunity of noting his attitude
towards all theological speculation. He not only accepted none of
the dogmas formulated in the creeds and articles of the Church of
England, but he considered it impossible that any Church's definition
of the undefinable could have any significance for any intelligent
man. During the whole of our long intimacy I never knew him to waver
from that point of view.
"What communication may have reached you from any one who visited
Maitland during his illness I do not know. But I presume you do not
maintain that a change in his theological standpoint can reasonably
be inferred from any words which he may have been induced to speak in
a condition in which, according to the law of every civilised
country, he would have been incompetent to sign a codicil to his will.
"The attempt to draw such a deduction will seem dishonest to every
fair-minded man; and I rely upon your courtesy to publish this
vindication of the memory of an honest and consistent thinker which
you have, however unintentionally, aspersed."
Of course this letter was refused publication. The editor answered
it in a note in which he maintained the position that the paper had
taken up, stating that he was thoroughly satisfied with the sources
of his information. Naturally enough I knew what those sources were,
and I wrote a letter in anger to the chaplain of St. Pée, which, I
fear, was full of very gross insults.
Seeing that the paper refused my letter admission to its columns, on
the advice of certain other people I wrote to a London daily saying:
"As the intimate friend of Henry Maitland for thirty years, I beg to
state definitely that he had not the slightest intellectual sympathy
with any creed whatsoever. From his early youth he had none, save
for a short period when, for reasons other than intellectual, he
inclined to a vague and nebulous Positivism. His mental attitude
towards all theological explanations was more than critical, it was
absolutely indifferent; he could hardly understand how any one in the
full possession of his faculties could subscribe to any formulated
doctrines. No more than John Stuart Mill or Herbert Spencer could he
have entered into communion with any Church."
Of course I knew, as any man must know who is acquainted with
humanity and its frailties, that it was possible for Maitland, during
the last few poisoned hours of his life, to have gone back in his
delirium upon the whole of his previous convictions. He knew that he
was dying. When he asked to know the truth he had been told it. In
such circumstances some men break down. There are what people call
death-bed repentances. Therefore I did my best to satisfy myself as
to whether anything whatever had occurred which would give any colour
to these theologic lies. I could not trouble Thérèse upon this
particular point, but it occurred to me that the nurse, who was a
very intelligent woman, must be in a position to know something of
the matter, and I therefore wrote to her asking her to tell me all
she knew. She replied to me about the middle of January, telling me
that she had just then had a long talk with Mrs. Maitland, and giving
me the following facts.
It appears that on Monday, December 21, Maitland was so ill that a
consultation was thought necessary, and that both the doctors agreed
that it was impossible for the patient to live through the night,
though in fact he did not die till nearly a week afterwards. On
Thursday, December 24, the chaplain was sent for, not for any
religious reasons, or because Maitland had called for him, but simply
because Thérèse thought that he might find some pleasure in seeing an
English face. When the clergyman came it did indeed have this
effect, for Maitland's face lit up and he shook him heartily by the
hand. At this moment the young doctor came in and told the clergyman
privately that Maitland had no chance whatever, and that it was a
wonder that he was still alive. It is quite certain that there was
no religious conversation between the clergyman and the patient at
this time. The nurse arrived at eleven o'clock on Sunday morning,
and insisted on absolute quietness in the room. The clergyman simply
peeped in at the door to say good-bye, for at that time Mr. Rivers
was in charge in the bedroom.
The chaplain did not see Maitland again until the day I myself came
to St. Christophe, when all was over. While Maitland was delirious
it appears that he chanted some kind of _Te Deum_ repeatedly. To
what this was attributable no man can say with certainty, but it is a
curious thing to reflect upon that "Basil" was about the time of
Gregory, and that Maitland had been studying most minutely the
history of the early Church in many ecclesiastical works. According
to those who heard his delirious talk, it seems that all he did say
had reference to "Basil," the book about which he had been so
anxious, and was never to finish. At any rate it is absolutely
certain that Maitland never accepted the offices of the Church before
his death, even in delirium. Before I leave this matter I may
mention that the chaplain complicated matters in no small degree
before he retired from the scene, by declaring most disingenuously
that he had not written the notice which appeared in print. Now this
was perfectly true. He did not write it. He had asked a friend of
his to do so. When he learnt the truth this friend very much
regretted having undertaken the task. I understand that though the
editor refused to withdraw this statement the authorities of the
paper wrote to the chaplain in no pleased spirit after they had
received my somewhat severely phrased communication. It is a sad and
disagreeable subject, and I am glad to leave it.