I found the first hint that occurs to indicate the lines of his later
life, in a letter to his father, written in his last week at
Cambridge. In the Classical Tripos Arthur contrived to secure a
second; in the translations, notably Greek, we heard he did as well
as anybody; but history and other detailed subjects dragged him down:
it was an extraordinarily unequal performance.
His father, being ambitious for his sons, and knowing to a certain
extent Arthur's ability, was altogether a good deal disappointed. He
had accepted Arthur's failure to get a scholarship or exhibition, not
with equanimity, but with a resolute silence, knowing that strict
scholarship was not his son's strong point, but still hoping that he
would at least do well enough in his Tripos to give him a possibility
of a Fellowship.
Arthur would himself have been happier with a Fellowship than with
any other position, but the possibility did not stimulate him to work
with that aim in view. He wrote: "Existence generally is so extremely
problematical, that I can not consent to throw away three birds in
the hand for one which I do not believe to be in the bush—my present
life for a doubtful future provision. I think I am ambitious after
the event. Every normal human being ought to be capable either
of strong expectation or strong disappointment, according as the
character lives most in the future or in the past. Those capable of
both generally succeed and are unhappy men; but an entire want of
ambition argues a low vitality. If a man tells me loftily he has no
ambition, I tell him I am very sorry for him, and say that it is
almost as common an experience as having no principles, and often
accompanying it, only that people are generally ashamed to confess
the latter."
On his appearing in the second class, his father wrote him rather an
indignant letter, saying that he had suspected all along that he was
misusing his time and wasting his opportunities, but that he had
refrained from saying so because he had trusted him; that his one
prayer for his children was that they might not turn out useless,
dilettante, or frivolous, selfish men. "I had hoped that whatever
they engaged in my sons would say, 'If this is worth doing, it is
worth doing well.' I did not want them to say, 'I mean to work in
order to be first in this or that, to beat other people, to court
success'—I do not suspect you of that—but to say, 'I mean to do my
best, and if I am rewarded with honours to accept them gratefully, as
a sign that my endeavours have been blest.' I fear that in your case
you have done what pleased yourself—sucked the honey of the work, or
tried to; that always ends in bitterness. You were capable of taking
the higher ground; it seems to me that you have taken neither—and
indecision in such matters is the one thing that does not succeed
either in this world or the next; the one thing which the children of
this world unanimously agree with the children of light in despising
and censuring.
"P.S.—You used to speak of possibly taking orders; set to work
seriously on that if you haven't changed your mind; for that is what
I have always hoped and prayed for you. Let me see that you are
capable of executing as well as planning a high resolve finely."
Arthur's behaviour on receiving this letter was very characteristic.
He did not answer it.
It was a habit he had which got him into considerable odium with
people. Whenever a letter entailed making up his mind—an invitation
which had two sides to it—a decision—a request for advice or
immediate action—these rarely extorted an answer from him. "It did
not seem to me to be very important," he used to say. Neither would
he be dictated to. A friend who had asked him to form one of a
football eleven, receiving no reply, inclosed two post-cards
addressed to himself, on one of which was written "Yes," and on
the other "No." Arthur posted them both.
But a casual letter, implying friendliness, a statement of mental
or moral difficulties, criticisms on an interesting book, requests
involving principles, drew out immediate, full, and interesting
replies, of apparently almost unnecessary urgency and affection. A
boy who wrote to him from school about a long and difficult moral
case, infinitely complicated by side issues and unsatisfactory
action, got back the following day an exhaustive, imperative, and yet
pleading reply, indicating the proper action to take. It is far too
private to quote; but for pathos and lucidity and persuasiveness it
is a wonderful document.
But this letter of his father's he did not answer for ten days, till
the last day but one before his leaving Cambridge, neither did he
mention the subject. I do not think he gave it a thought, except as
one might consider an unpleasant matter of detail which required to
be finished sometime.
On that day there arrived another note from his father,
recapitulating what he had said, and saying that he supposed from his
silence that he had not received the former letter.
To this Arthur returned the following letter:
"Trinity College, Cambridge,
Thursday evening (early in 1874).
"My Dear Father:
"I don't wish you to be under any misapprehension about your
former letter. I did receive it and have been carefully considering
the subject; it seemed to me that I could better say what I wished in
a personal interview, and I therefore refrained from writing till I
came home; but you seem to wish me to make an immediate statement,
which I will briefly do.
"You must not think that what I am going to say is in the least
disrespectful. I assure you that I gave your letter, as coming from
you, a consideration that I should not have thought of extending for
a moment to any other man except one or two friends for whose opinion
I have the highest respect; but it is a subject upon which, though I
can not exactly say that my mind is made up, yet I see so distinctly
which way my disposition lies and in what direction my opinions are
capable of undergoing change, that I may say I have very little
doubt—it is, in short, almost a fixed conviction.
"The moment when any one finds himself in radical opposition to the
traditions in which he was brought up is very painful—I can assure
you of that—to himself, as I fear it is painful to those from whom
he dissents; and nothing but a desire for absolute sincerity would
induce me to enter upon it. But knowing and trusting you as I do,
with a firm and filial confidence in your loving thoughts and candid
open-mindedness, I venture to say exactly what I think, believing
that it would be a far more essential disrespect to endeavour to
blink those opinions.
"Shortly, I do _not_ believe that practical usefulness of a direct
kind is the end of life. I do _not_ believe that success is either a
test of greatness nor, as you suggest, an adequate aim for it, though
you will perhaps excuse me if I say that the reasons you give seem to
me to be only the material view skillfully veiled.
"I do not feel in my own mind assured that the highest call in my case
is to engage in a practical life. In fact, I feel fairly well assured
that it is not. I do not know that I intend deliberately to shirk
the responsibilities of moral action which fall in every feeling
man's way. I rather mean that I shall face them from the ordinary
standpoint, and not thrust myself into any position where helping my
fellow-creatures is merely an official act. I think shortly that by
the plan I have vague thoughts of pursuing I may gain an influence
among minds which will certainly be, if I win it, of a very high kind.
I dare not risk the possibilities by flying at lower game.
"Besides, I do not feel nearly enough assured of my ground to say
that active work, as you describe it, is either advisable or
necessary. I want to examine and consider, to turn life and thought
inside out, to see if I can piece together in the least the enormous
problem of which God has flung us the fragments. I do not despair of
arriving at some inkling of that truth. I shall try, if I gain it, to
communicate that glimmering to others, if that is God's will for me;
if not, perhaps I shall be a little wiser or a little happier, at
least a little more capable of receiving my illumination, when the
time for that comes.
"I don't feel as if I understood at all clearly what is God's purpose
for individuals. I can't take public opinion for granted. I will not
let it overwhelm me. I want to stand aside and think; and my own
prayer for my own children, if I had them, would rather be that they
might be saved from being effective, when I see all the evils which
success and mere effectiveness bring.
"What I had thought of doing was of going abroad for a year or two;
but in that matter I am entirely in your hands, because I am
dependent on you. I consider travel not a luxury, but a necessity. If
you will make me an allowance for that purpose I shall very gladly
accept it. If not, I shall endeavour to get some post where I may
make enough money to take me where I wish to go. I shall throw myself
upon the power 'who providently caters for the sparrows' after that.
"I propose to come home on Friday for a week or two. This letter
contains only a draft of what I should have preferred to say there in
words.
"I am your affectionate son,
"Arthur Hamilton."
His father curtly acknowledged this letter, but nothing more; and
left the discussion of the subject to be a personal one. They came to
the following compromise.
Arthur was to engage for one year in some active profession,
business, the law, medicine, schoolmastering, taking pupils; at the
end of that time he was to make his choice; if he decided not to take
up any profession, his father promised to allow him £350 a year
as long as he lived, and to secure him the same sum after his own
death. This occupation was to extend from August till the August
following. He was allowed three days for his decision.
He at once decided on schoolmastering, and without much difficulty
secured a post at an upper-class private school, being a substantial
suburban house, in fine timbered grounds, the boys being all destined
for public schools.
He wrote me several letters from that place, but during that time our
correspondence waned, as we were both very busy. He was interested in
his work, and very popular with the boys.
"My experience of life generally gives me a strong impulse in favour
of Determinism; that is to say, the system which considers the
histories of nations, the lives of individuals, their very deeds and
words, to be all part of a vast unalterable design: and whose dealing
with the past, with each event, indeed, as it occurs, is thus nothing
but interpretation, an earnest endeavour to exclude regret or
disappointment, and to see how best to link each fact in our past on
with what we know of ourselves, to see its bearing on our individual
case. Of course this will operate with our view of the future too,
but only in a general way, to minimize ambition and anxiety. It
produces, in fact, exactly the same effect as a perfect 'faith;'
indeed, it is hard to distinguish the two, except that faith is the
instinctive practice of the theory of Determinism.
"Now, the more I work at education, the more I am driven into
Determinism; it seems that we can hardly regulate tendency, in fact
as if the schoolmaster's only duty was to register change. A boy
comes to a place like this, μνημονὶκος and φιλομάθης,
and εὐφύης, as Ascham calls it, in other respects; he is not
exposed, let us say, to any of the temptations which extraordinary
charms of face or manner seem always to entail upon their possessors,
and he leaves it just the same, except that the natural propensities
are naturally developed; whereas a boy with precisely the same
educational and social advantages but without a predisposition to
profit by them leaves school hardly altered in person or mind. It is
true that circumstances alter character—that can not be disputed;
but circumstances are precisely what we can not touch. A boy,
εὐφύης as I have described, brought up as a street-arab, would only
so far profit by it as to be slightly less vicious and disgusting than
his companions. But education, which we speak of as a panacea for all
ills, only deals with what it finds, and does not, as we ought to
claim, rub down bad points and accentuate good, and it is this, that
perhaps more than anything else has made me a Determinist, that
the very capacity for change and improvement is so native to some
characters, and so utterly lacking to others. A man can in real truth
do nothing of himself, though there are all possible varieties—from
the man who can see his deficiencies and make them up, through the
man who sees his weak points and can not strengthen them, to the
spiritually blind who can not even see them. I may of course belong to
the latter class myself—it is the one thing about which no one can
decide for himself—but an inherent contempt for certain parts of my
character seems to hint to me that it is not so."
It will be seen from the last two letters that his ethical position
was settling itself.
I therefore think, before I go any further, it will be as well to
give a short account of his religious opinions at this time, as they
were very much bound up with his life. He told me not unfrequently
that religion had been nothing whatever to him at school, and he came
up to the University impressionable, ardent, like a clean paper ready
for any writing.
It is well known that at the Universities there is a good deal of
proselytizing; that it is customary for men of marked religious views
and high position to have a large _clientèle_ of younger men
whom they influence and mould; schools of the prophets.
Arthur was not drawn into any one of these completely, though I fancy
that he was to a certain extent influenced by the teaching of one of
these men. The living original of these words will pardon me if I
here insert the words of my friend relating to him; many Cambridge
men have been and are everlastingly grateful for his simple noble
influence and example.
"Why are there certain people in this world, who whenever they enter
a room have a strange power of galvanizing everybody there into
connection with themselves? what mysterious currents do they set in
motion to and from them, so that those who do not talk to them or at
them, begin to talk with reference to them, hedged about as they are
with an atmosphere of desire and command?
"There is one of these at Cambridge now, a man for whom I not only
have the profoundest respect, but whose personal presence exercises
on me just the fascination I describe; and influential as he is, it
is influence more utterly unconscious of its own power than any I
have seen—a rare quality. He finds all societies into which he
enters, stung by his words and looks, serious, sweet, interested in,
if not torn by moral and social problems of the deepest import; yet
he always fancies that it is they, not he, that are thus potent. He
is not aware that it is he who is saintly; he thinks it is they that
are good; and all this, not for want of telling him, for he must be
weary of genuine praise and thanks."
To write thus of any one must imply a deep attraction. I do not
think, however, that the admiration ever extended itself to imitation
in matters theoretical or religious. Arthur was not one of those
indiscriminate admirers, blinded by a single radiant quality to
accept the whole body as full of light.
Very slowly his convictions crystallized; he had a period of very
earnest thought—during the time of which I have just been
speaking—in which he shunned the subject in conversation; but I have
reason to believe from the books he read, and from two or three
letters to his friend, the curate of whom I have been speaking, that
he was thinking deeply upon revealed religion.
It must, however, be remembered that he never went through that
period of agonized uprooting of venerated and cherished sentiment
that many whose faith has been very keen and integral in their lives
pass through, the dark valley of doubt. His religion had not intwined
itself into his life; it was not shrined among his sacred memories or
laid away in secret storehouses of thought.
"I have never felt the agony of a dying faith," he wrote to a friend
who was sorely troubled, "so you will forgive me if I do not seem to
sympathize very delicately with you, or if I seem not to understand
the darkness you are in. But I have been in deep waters myself,
though of another kind. I have seen an old ideal foully shattered in
a moment, and a hope that I had held and that had consecrated my life
for many years, not only crushed in an instant—that would have been
bad enough—but its place filled by an image of despair ... so you
will see that I _can_ feel for you, as I _do_.
"Leading to the light is a sad, terribly sad, and wearying process; I
have not won it yet, but I have seen glimpses which have dispelled a
gloom which I thought was hopeless. My dear friend, I _know_ that God
will bring you out into a place of liberty, as He has brought me; in
the day when you come and tell me that He has done so, the smile that
will be on your face will be no sort of symbol, I know, of the
unutterable content within. _Expertus novi_, you have my thoughts and
hopes."
The letters I shall now quote are taken out of a considerable period,
and give a fair picture of what he believed. Tolerance was his great
characteristic.
Below all principles of his own was a deep resolve not to interfere
in any way with the principles of others, however erroneous he deemed
them.
With his definition of sincerity that comes out in the following
extracts I have myself often found fault in conversation and by
letter, but I never produced any change. I thought, and still think,
that it is sophistical in tone, and tampers with one of the most
sacred of our instincts. It never in his case, I think, made any
difference to his presentment of the truth, but it is a principle
that I should not dare to advocate; however, it was so integral a
part of his faith that in this delineation, which shall be as
accurate as I can make it, I dare not omit it.
His convictions were then a steady accumulation, not the shreds of
one system worked into the fabric by the overmastering new impulse
communicated by another, as is so often the case. He writes:
"The strong man's house entered by the stronger, and his goods
despoiled, is a parable more frequently true of the conversion of
a 'believer' into a sceptic than _vice versa_. The habit of firm
adherence to principle, the capacity for trust, the adaptation of
intellectual resources to uphold a theory—all these go to swell the
new emotion; no man is so effective a sceptic as the man who has been
a fervent believer.
"But in the rare cases of the conversion of an intellectual man from
scepticism into belief (like Augustine and a very few others) the
spirit suffers by the change. A great deal of cultivation, of logical
readiness, of eloquence, seem to be essentially secular, to belong
essentially to the old life, and to need imperatively putting away
together with the garment spotted by the flesh. Augustine suffered
less perhaps than others; but some diminution of force seems an
inevitable result.
"I never had a great change of that kind to make. I had a moral
awakening, which was rude but effective, never a conversion; I had
not to strike my old colours."
Thus, though he was a strong Determinist, his capacity for idealism,
and a natural enthusiasm, saved him from the paralysis which in some
cases results from such speculations.
"I look upon all philosophical theories as explanations of an
ontological problem, not as a basis of action. The appearance of
free-will in adopting or discontinuing a course of action is a
deception, but it is a complete deception—so complete as not to
affect in the slightest my interest in what is going to happen, nor
my unconscious posing as a factor in that result. Though I am only a
cogwheel in a vast machine, yet I am conscious of my cogs, interested
in my motions and the motions of the whole machine, though ignorant
of who is turning, why he began, and whether he will stop, and why.
"If I saw the slightest loophole at which free-will might creep in, I
would rush to it, but I do not; if man was created with a free will,
he was also created with predispositions which made the acting of
that will a matter of mathematical certainty.
"But the idea that it diminishes my interest in life or its issues is
preposterous; I am inclined to credit God with larger ideas than
my own, and His why and wherefore, and the part I bear in it, is
extraordinarily fascinating to me because it is so hidden; and the
least indication of law that I can seize upon—such as this law of
necessity—is an entrancing glimpse into reality. It may not be quite
so delightful as some other theories, but it is true, and real, and
therefore has an actual working in you and me and every one else,
which can not fail to attach a certain interest to it which other
systems lack."
He gives a very graphic illustration of the phenomena of free-will.
He says—
"It seems to me closely to resemble a very ordinary phenomenon: the
principle that things as they are farther off appear to us to be
smaller. Logical reflection assures us that they are not so, but the
effect upon our senses is completely illusive; and, what is more, we
act as though they were smaller; we act as if what they gained in
distance they lost in size; we aim at a target which is many feet
high and broad as if it was but a few inches; we say the sun is about
as big as a soup-plate, and having once made these allowances the
knowledge does not affect our conduct of life at all.
"Just so with free-will; we know by our reason that the thing is
impossible; we act as though it were a prevailing possibility."
His position with regard to Christianity was shortly as follows;
it is settled by an extract from his diary:
"I have often puzzled over this: Why in the Gospels did Christ say
nothing about the whole fabric of nature which in His capacity as
Creator ('through whom He made all things') He must have had the
moulding of? All His teaching was personal and individual, dealing
with man alone, an infinitesimal part of His creation ... for compare
the shred, the span of being which man's existence represents with
the countless æons of animal and vegetable life which have
preceded, and surround, and will in all probability succeed it—and
not a word of all this from the Being who gave and supported their
life, calling it out of the abyss for inscrutable and useless
ends—to minister, as the theologians tell us, to the wants and
animal cravings of pitiful mankind.
"Why is it that He there takes no cognizance of the whole frame of
things of which I am a part, but only deals with human feelings and
emotions as if they were the end of all these gigantic works—the
Milky Way, the blazing sun, the teeming earth—only to raise thoughts
of reverence in the heart of this pitiful being, and failing too, so
hopelessly, so constantly to do so?...
"'I will accept Christ,' said Herbert, 'as my superior, yes! as my
master, yes! but not as my God.'" One sees, I think, where the
difficulty lies; it must be felt by any man whose idea of God is
very high, whose belief in humanity very low.
And again—
"I believe in a revelation which is coming, which may be among us
now, though we do not suspect it, in the words and deeds of some
simple-minded heroic man.
"No one who preceded the Christian revelation could possibly, from
the fabric of the world as it then was, have anticipated the form it
was about to take. This revelation, too, will be as unexpected as it
will be new—it will come in the night as a thief; the '_quo modo_'
I can not even attempt to guess, except that it will take the form
of some vast simplification of the myriad and complicated issues of
human life."
But such entries as these were left to his diaries and most private
correspondence; he never attempted a crusade against ordinary forms
of belief, mistaken though he deemed them, often putting a strong
constraint upon himself in conversation. If he was pressed to give an
account of his religious principles he used smilingly to say that he
belonged to the great Johnsonian sect, who practised the religion of
all sensible men, and who kept what it was to themselves.
There were two views of life with which he had no patience only—the
men who preached the open confession of agnosticism, "if you have
anything to tell us for goodness sake let us have it, but if you have
not, hold your tongue; you are like a clock that has gone wrong, but
insists on chiming to show everybody that it hasn't the least idea
of the time;" and secondly, the men who "took no interest" in the
problems of religion and morals; for a deliberate avoidance of them
he had some respect, but for a professional moralist who took
everything for granted, and for feeble materialists who did not
"trouble their head" about such things, he had a profound contempt.
The following remarks that he gave vent to on the subject of orthodox
Christianity and an Established Church are very striking, and after
what has preceded might appear paradoxical and ridiculous. But they
are in reality absolutely consistent.
"When people tell me," he said, "as you have been doing, that the old
methods are _passés_, and compare the crude new ideas with
them for effectiveness, as working theories, I snap my fingers
mentally in their face.
"These new ideas may, and doubtless do, contain all the good of the
world's future, all the seed of progress in them—but as working
ideas! A system that has been mellowed and coloured, that has
insinuated itself year by year into all the irregularities and
whimsical, capricious, unexpected chinks and crannies of human
nature, accommodating itself gradually to all, to be torn out and
have the bleeding sensitive gap filled with a hard angular heavy
object thrust straight in from an intellectual workshop—the idea
is absolutely preposterous!"
A friend wrote to him once in great perplexity about the following
problem: as to whether, taking as he did, a purely agnostic view of
life, he should continue to receive the Communion with his parents
when at home; as to whether it was not a base concession to his own
weakness; as to whether he should not stand by his principles.
"If you have any principles to stand by," he wrote, "by all means
stand by them; but if all you mean is throwing cold water on other
people's principles, my advice is to make no move. Dissembling your
own uneasiness in the matter and quieting their anxious scruples is
one of those matters which seem so simple that heroism appears to
have no part in it. It would be so much nobler (we are tempted to
think) to stand up and protest and denunciate; to throw gloom and
dissension into a happy home and wreck (if you are the affectionate
son I believe you to be) your own happiness, not to speak of
usefulness. It would be more arduous, I admit; not therefore nobler.
Your duty is most plain; you have no right to cause acute distress to
several people, because you can not take exactly such an exalted view
as they do, of an institution which, from the lowest point of view,
is the dying request of a great and loving soul, to all who can feel
his beauty or listen to his call, a beautiful pledge of family and
national unity, and a touching symbol of all good things."
To another friend, who wrote to him to say that his principles,
though still religious, and faithful in general idea to the Christian
creed, were in so many points different from the principles taught
and demanded by the Church of England, that he felt he ought to take
some definite step to show his state of mind, he wrote as follows:
"The being born into an institution is a thing which must not be
lightly considered: it imposes certain duties upon you—the quiet
examination of its tenets, for example—and unless you are convinced
of its utter inutility, not to say immorality, it is your duty to
bear such a part in relation to it as shall not mar its usefulness;
and you may no more throw it away through caprice or indifferentism
than you may throw away your own life, simply because you did not
agree to be in the world, and it is through no will of your own that
you are there. Similarly, you can not justify murder because you
were not present to give an assent to the framing of the laws which
condemn it and provide for its restraint.
"In fact, by taking such a step you are incurring a very heavy
responsibility, and it is at any rate worth while to give it the
closest consideration.
"And therefore I should suggest that the philosopher who wishes in
any way to affect humanity for the better, should not begin his
crusade by storming one of its chief defences because its title to
that position is not quite so secure as the governor alleges; but
rather accept his religion together with his life, his circumstances,
his disposition, as a condition under which he is born: tacitly
συνειδὼς ἑαύτῳ that it may not be absolute truth, from which
no appeal is possible, but yet fight his best under its colours,
though they may not be quite red enough to suit his own fancy.
"For what is there ignoble in this concealment? Is it not rather
ignoble to demolish a hope on which others build because it does not
appear to us to be quite satisfactory, though we have nothing to
offer in its stead? It is like plucking down a savage's wattled
cabin. 'First-rate stone houses, if you please, or none at
all,'—and, on being questioned as to where the materials are to come
from, point for answer to the eternal hills.
"These are general considerations; but you, in particular, my dear
C——, ought to be very cautious, considering who you are." His
father was a high dignitary of the church. "A secession like yours
will carry far more weight than it ought to from your own and your
father's position. People will say, Mr. C—— ought to know; he has
had opportunities of judging from the inside which other people have
not—whereas you have really less opportunity because your horizon
is far more limited because you have only seen it from the inside.
You are rather in the position of the valet. No gossip and gabble
of yours about braces and sock-suspenders will make your hero less
a hero: you will only establish your title to be considered an
unperceptive and low-minded creature among the only people whose
opinion is worth having."
He was always very decided on what he called "mock sincerity," the
people whom he described as "professional crystals," who always
"speak their mind about a thing." "The art of life," he said,
"consists in knowing exactly what to keep out of sight at any given
moment, and what to produce; when to play hearts and diamonds, ugly
clubs or flat spades; and you must remember that every suit is trumps
in turn."
The following passage from a letter about a leading politician will
illustrate this:
"I have always admired him intensely," he writes, as an instance of a
public man who has succeeded by sheer adherence to principles.
"You can't ensure success; three parts is luck, the genius of time
and place. The only thing you can do seems to me to work hard, and
always take the highest line about things. The highest line, that is
to say, not the line you may _feel_ to be highest, but the line that
you _recognize_ to be so. Not what your fluctuating emotions may
commend, but that which the best moral tact seems to pronounce best.
You can't always expect to feel enthusiasm for the best, so be true
not to your sensations, but your deliberate ideals—that is the
highest sincerity; all the higher because it is so often called
hypocrisy."
But his Determinist, almost Calvinistic, views were mellowed and
tempered by a serene and deep belief in a providence moving to good,
and ordering life down to the smallest details with special reference
to each man's case; in fact, as he said, the two were so closely
connected that they were like the convex and concave sides of a lens.
He wrote to me, "I often feel, when straining after happiness, just
like the child who, anxious to get home, pushes against the side of
the railway carriage which is carrying him so smoothly and serenely
to the haven where he would be, while all he effects is a temporary
disarrangement of particles.
"Life shows me more and more every day that there is something
watching us and working with us, so that now and then in unexpected
moments when I have felt particularly independent for some time back,
I come upon a little fact or incident that reveals to me that I am
like a mouse in the grasp of a cat, allowed sometimes to run a few
inches alone—or more truly like a baby walking along, very proud
of its performance, with a couple of anxious, loving arms poised to
catch it. The extraordinary apportionment not only in balance but in
_kind_ of punishment to sin—long-continued, secret, base desires,
punished by long-hidden suffering—the sharp stress of temptation
yielded to, requited by the sharp pang—the glorious feeling which I
have once or twice felt—the sin once sinned and the punishment
once over, as one is assured supremely sometimes that it is without
doubt—of trustful freedom, and fresh fitness for battling one's self
and helping others to battle—a mood that is soon broken, but is an
earnest while it lasts of infinite satisfaction. The extraordinary
delicacy with which the screw of pain and mental suffering is
adjusted, just lifted when we can bear no more (not when _we_ think
we can bear no more, but when God knows it) and resolutely applied
again when we have gained strength which we propose to devote to
enjoyment, but which God intends us to devote to suffering. The very
beauty, too, of pain itself—the strange flushes of joy that it gives
us, which can only thus be won—the certainty that this is reality,
this is what we are meant to do and be—happiness of different kinds,
art, friends, books, are delusive; they play over the surface; in
suffering we dip below it." This latter thought expanded is the
subject of a passage of a letter to myself that gave me wonderful
comfort.
We know how sickness or sorrow comes down heavily on us, crushing in
what we are pleased to call our "plans," and "interrupting," as we
say, "our opportunities for usefulness," spoiling our life.
"My dear friend, _this is_ life itself. It is this very 'interruption'
that we live for. What does God care about the wretched books you
intend to write, the petty occupations you think you discharge so
gracefully? He means to teach you a great high truth, worth knowing;
and, thank Heaven, He will, however much you shrink and writhe. Do
not pick and choose among events: try and interpret each as it
comes."
At the expiration of the year of work—Easter, 1875—he was unchanged
in his plan of travel; in fact, it had become a resolve by that time.
He confessed that he did not personally at all like giving up the
school work; he had got very much interested in some of the boys, and
in the whole process of the education of character. But there was
also another reason, which the following letter will explain:
"You know, perhaps, that I have been acting as usher here for a year;
it is to be a kind of probation. That is to say, I have promised to
try what it is like for a year, and see if I feel inclined to adopt
it as my profession.
"Now, I am in a very curious position. I do feel inclined, very much
inclined indeed, to stick permanently to the work; it interests,
amuses, occupies me. I hate the want of occupation. I hate making
occupations for myself, and this provides me with regular work at
stated hours, leaving other stated hours free, and free in the best
way; that is to say, it works the vapours off. My brain feels clear
and steady; I can talk, think, write, read better, in those intervals
than I ever can when all my time is my own, and yet—I must, I
believe, give it up.
"You know I pretend to a kind of familiar; like Socrates, I am
forbidden to do certain things by a kind of distant inward voice—not
conscience, for it is not limited to moral choice. I don't mean to
say I do not or have not disobeyed it, but it is always the worse for
me in the end; it is like taking a short cut in the mountains; you
get to your end in time, but far more tired and shaky than if you had
followed the right road, which started so much to the left among the
pines, and moreover, you get there very much behind your party.
"This time it tells me that I am not equal to the direct
responsibility; that I can not, with my habits of mind and temper,
impress a permanent enough mark upon the lads. It is like beginning a
system of education that is to take, say, thirty years, giving them a
year of it, and then taking to another; you not only lose your year,
but you unfit them for other systems. That is what I should do; my
methods do not prepare them for other normal education; it is only
the beginning of a preparation for what I believe to be a higher and
more complete education, but that wouldn't justify my keeping on.
"I do not believe that I have done any harm; in fact, my theory would
forbid me to think so; but it also informs me that my _rôle_ is
not to be that of a schoolmaster.
"I shall be a poor man, of course; poor, that is, for an independent
gentleman. I wish I were a Fellow of a College at Cambridge; I would
try and be as ideal as Gray in that position."