Arthur Hamilton as an author
I must give a chapter to this subject, because it entered very
largely into Arthur's life, although he was singularly unsuccessful
as an author, considering the high level of his mental powers.
He lacked somehow, not exactly the gift of expression—his letters
testify to that—but the gift of proportion and combination.
His essays are disjointed—discursive and eloquent in parts, and bare
and meagre in others. Connections are omitted, passages of real and
rare beauty jostling with long passages of the most common-place
rhetoric. His platitudes, however, to myself who knew him, have a
genuine ring about them; he never admitted a truism into his writing
till it had become his own by vivid realization. As he himself says:
"I always find a peculiar interest in the solemn enunciation of a
platitude by a dull person who does not naturally aim at effect.
You feel sure it is the condensation of life and experience. Such
an utterance often brings a platitude home to me as no amount of
rhetorical writing can."
Still, the reading public will not stand this, and Arthur never found
a market.
He wrote voluminously.
I have in my bureau several pigeon-holes crammed with manuscripts in
his curious sprawling hand. He wrote, when he was in the mood, very
quickly, with hardly an erasure. Among them is:
1. A collection of poems (128 in all).
2. A complete novel, called "The Unencumbered Man."
3. Three incomplete novels, called "Physiognomy," "Helena,"
"From Hall to Hall."
4. Essays on historical and literary subjects, such as "Coleridge,"
"Bunyan," "The Earl of Surrey," "Lucian," etc. These, as far as I can
make out, are very poor.
5. A collection of semi-mystical writings and short stories. There is
a great fertility of imagination about these, and they are composed
in a very finished style. It is not improbable that I shall re-edit
these, as they seem to me to be distinctly first-rate work. I give a
short specimen of his mystical writing—a style of which he was very
fond. It is called:
"The Great Assize.
"Now, it came to pass that on a certain day the Gods were weary. Odin
sat upon his throne, and rested his chin upon his hand. And Thor came
in, and threw his hammer upon the earth, and said, 'I am weary of
walking up and down in the earth, of smiting and slaying; and I know
not how to bind or heal up, and I am too old to learn.' And Freya
said, 'I am weary of Valhalla and the birds and trees, the perpetual
sunshine and the feasts and laughter.' So also said all the Gods.
"And Odin, when the clamour was stilled, rose from his throne, and
spoke. He told them of an ancient law of the Gods, so ancient that it
seemed dim even to himself, that when the Gods should be heavy and be
sad at heart, they should appoint a judgment for men, should open
the everlasting records, and call the world to the assize; and Loki
should be the accuser, and Night and Day the witnesses, and Odin
should deliver sentence, with the Gods for assessors.
"So Thor stepped out upon the bar of heaven, and blew the steel
trumpet that is chained to the door-post of the hall.
"Shrill and angry came the sound of the great horn over earth, her
woods and valleys; and terrible was the sound of wailing and
lamentation. They prayed to the mountains to fall upon them, and the
sea to swallow them up; for they said, 'The secrets of the heart must
now be spoken. The Lord and our brethren will hear them. And who can
bear the shame? Oh, that we had not turned away!'
"But the winds of the earth, and the voices of the morning, and the
waves of the moaning sea drove them shrieking into the judgment hall,
and Loki began his accusation.
"And so foul a tale it was, that the men and women folk prayed and
cried no longer, but sank down in dull silence for fear. And the
stars that listened overhead shrank out of the sky, and the sea
stilled his waves to hear, and the very Gods turned pale and red
where they sat, to think that vileness and oppression had thriven so
upon the earth, and that deeds of shame had fallen so thick, and that
they had in no wise hindered it, but rather increased the sum of sin.
"At last the words of Loki were over, and left a burning silence in
the hall; and the sun and moon bowed their heads in witness, and
Night and Day said 'Yea,' and 'Truth, he has told truth.'
"Then there was a silence, and all looked at Odin as he sat, sunk
down and silent, in his chair, staring at the shrinking crowd with
eyes of shame, and majesty, and anger.
"And at the last he rose, and he was clad in grey mists from head to
foot, with a cloud of gleaming gold upon his head, like the sunlight
on white cliffs seen over the sea through the haze of a summer
morning.
"But ere he opened his lips to speak, one who sat among the folk
arose and came up the hall, walking strongly and briskly like a king,
and looking about him with a resolute and cheerful face to left and
right.
"And all held their breath to see him pass, wondering what this thing
might be.
"But the man, when he had reached the middle of the hall, cried with
a loud voice, 'Hold.'
"And Odin's face gleamed white with rage through the fringes of the
mist, and he said between his teeth, 'Who art thou?'
"And at his voice Freya started and blanched, and wrapped herself in
her robe.
"And the man said, in a clear loud voice, not defiant, but with a
certain royalty about it—
"'Lord Odin, I am he of whom thou spokest but now; he of whom the
ancient oracles have spoken, whom thou knowest, and yet knowest not.'
"And Odin said, 'I know thee not; stand aside therefore, that I may
judge thee and thy fellows.'
"And there was a hideous silence for a moment while you might count a
score, and the twain stared upon each other.
"Then the man said, in the same voice that shook not nor quivered,
'When the Gods shall sit in order to judge the earth, then shall one
come out of the midst of created things, through the earth, and
walking upon it; and at his coming the pillars of Valhalla shall be
snapped, and the everlasting halls shall fall.' And he added other
words, which the Gods knew, but not the men or women folk. And when
he ceased speaking there blew as it were a whirlwind out of Valhalla,
and the high Gods passed away, as it were in skeins and fringes of
hanging mist. Then there were lightnings and thunders, and the earth
shook; and terrible voices were heard in heaven, passing to and fro.
And one said, 'Hence, ye that corrupt justice;' and another said,
'The brood of the eagle is come home to roost;' and another, 'The
roof is down.' And then there were yells and groans; and among
mankind there was weeping and laughter, many smiles and tears, and
they cried to the stranger, 'Judge us, thou king of Gods and men.'
But he, turning, said, 'Nay, but ye are judged already.' Then was
there peace on earth."
There are, besides these, several unfinished studies, and two or
three note-books full of jotted conversations and thoughts of all
kinds—a curious mixture.
He carefully left all the publishers' letters which he received in
answer to his application. They are twenty-two in number, and are all
refusals. They are tied carefully up, and are labeled, "My Literary
Career."
All these compositions are the work of about seven years, except some
of the poems which were written at Cambridge. The novel was begun and
finished in about six weeks, in 1878. It is a poor plot, and mawkish
in character, though not without merits of style.
During all this time his interest in writing never flagged. He felt
that he had one or two ideas, on which he had a firm grasp, to
communicate to the world, and he worked at them incessantly in new
and ever-varying forms.
The issue would seem to show that he was not destined to communicate
them directly to others—at least, in his own lifetime; and, indeed,
no one was quicker at interpreting events than himself. He gave the
enterprise a long and severe trial, but the resolute front with which
he was met, showed him clearly that it was not to be. It may be that
the record of his life, little as he ever imagined it would come
before the world, may effect a part of what he himself prepared to
do.
Occasionally, for he was of quick sensibilities, throughout this
period he felt the bitterness of constant rebuff. The following
letter he wrote me shows it:
"I am beginning to feel as if publishers had a code of signals or
private marks like freemasonry, which they scribble sometimes, like
the concealed marks on bank-notes, on the first page of a manuscript,
so as to spare their brother publishers the trouble of looking
through a manuscript which is below market value. I have never had a
manuscript accepted which has been once refused; and I now eagerly
scan the first page, to see if I can discover a wriggling mark in the
margin or among the lines which is to tell Smith and Co. that Brown
and Son has a very poor opinion of the book now under his
consideration."
And again, quite as forcible is a little anecdote with which he
begins an unfinished paper on "Genius." The story is, I now believe,
his own; though, at the time, I fancied it was adopted:
"There was once a king who sat to listen to the sermon of a great
preacher. From minute to minute the great words flowed on, consoling,
wounding, helping, condemning, dividing the marrow from the bones;
and the king wept and smiled.
"And at the end he sent for the preacher, and said, 'Sir, Christ is
the only king; yet let me look at the book from which you made your
discourse. The written words, though half despoiled of their grace,
may perhaps strike an echo in my soul, which rings yet.'
"And for some time the preacher was unwilling, and parleyed with the
king; but at the last he drew out a little pale book with faded
characters traced in ink; and he opened it at a well-worn page, and
held it out before the king.
"And the king looked, and saw nothing except the crabbed printed
lines.
"So he said, 'Not your text-book, sir, but the book from which your
arguments are rehearsed.'
"'Sire,' said the preacher, 'look but once more upon the book.' And
he showed him that four of the words upon the page had a thin line
drawn in ink below them. 'That was the writing of my discourse,' he
said."
Neither, it must be remembered, was Arthur a first-rate
conversationalist. He did not steer a conversation; he could keep
the ball going creditably when it was once started; but he never
communicated to the circle in which he was that indefinable interest
which is so intangible and yet so unmistakable.
The two points that I spoke of that he is always trying to work out
in his books are:
(1) the strength of temperament, and the difficulty, almost
impossibility, of altering it. "The most we can do is to register
change," are the first words of his novel. In this book, the
situation of which is not a very unusual one, the hero falls in love
with one of two sisters, of rare personal beauty and attractiveness,
but no particular intellect. He soon wearies of her, being of
that fantastic, weak, discontented spirit which Arthur invariably
portrayed in his heroes—drawing it I can not conceive whence—and
then falls in love with the other, as he ought to have done all
along, being, as she is, fully his match in intellect, and far above
him in heart and strength of character. The wife at the crisis of
this other love, is killed in a street accident, and remorse ensues.
But the book is a weary one; it bears upon its face the burden of
sorrow. "How could this have been otherwise?" is the keynote of the
story.
Along with this, and indeed as a development of this central
principle, is the tendency to treat and write of "sin" so called,
wrong-doing, failure of ideal, as variations of spiritual health, as
diseases, the ravages of which it is possible for the skilful hand
to palliate, but not to cure; to think of and treat sin as a hideous
contagion, which has power for a season, perhaps inherently, to drag
souls within its grasp, involve and overwhelm them; and consequently
to regard the sinner with the deepest sympathy and pity, but with
hardly any anger: in fact, I have known him very seriously offend the
company he has been in, I have even heard him stigmatized as of loose
principles, from his readiness, even anxiety, to condone a sensual
offence in a man of high intellect and brilliant gifts.
"He went wrong," he said very sternly, "through having too much
passion; and that we can judge him, proves that we have not enough.
Well, we shall both of us have to become different: he to be brought
down to the harmonious mean, we to be screwed up to it. It is easy to
see which will be the most painful process: as soon as _he_ gets an
idea of whither he is being led, how thankful he will be for every
pang that teaches him restraint, and purifies; while we—we shall
suffer blind wrench after wrench, _stung_ into feeling at any cost, and
not till we painfully overtop the barrier shall we guess whither we
are going."
I do not mean from this that he thought lightly of sin—far from
it. I have seen him give all the physical signs of shrinking and
repulsion, at the mention or sight of it. He loathed it with all the
agonized disgust of a high, pure, fastidious nature. Its phenomena
were without the lurid interest for him which it often possesses even
for the sternest moralist.
This loathing had its physical antitype in his horror of the sight or
description of bodily disease. I have seen him several times go off
into a dead faint at even the bare description of bodily suffering. I
went with him once, at his own request, to a seaman's hospital, where
there was a poor fellow who had fallen from a mast and been terribly
smashed. His legs had both been amputated, and he lay looking
terribly white and emaciated with a cradle over the stumps.
He gave us, with great eagerness, an account of the accident, as
people in the lower classes always will. In the middle, Arthur
stepped suddenly to the door and went out. I was not aware at the
time of this failing of his, and the move was executed with such
deliberate directness that I thought he must have forgotten
something. When I went out to the open air I found Arthur, deadly
pale, sitting on the grassy paving-stones of the little yard. He
insisted, as soon as he was restored, in going in to wish good-bye
to the man, which he accomplished with great difficulty.
But I have already digressed too far, and must return to the main
issue.
I am not aware that he ever attempted any theoretical explanation of
the intrusion of sin and disorder into the world. He certainly
regarded them as emanating practically, in some way that he did not
comprehend, from God.
"I can not for a moment believe that these apparent disorders,
physical suffering, and the deeper diseases of the will are the
manifestation of some inimical power, and not under God's direct
control. I have had so much experience of even the immediate blessing
of suffering, that I am content to take the rest on trust. If I
thought there was some ghastly enemy at work all the time, I should
go mad. The power displayed is so calm, so far-reaching, and so
divine, that I should feel that even if some of us were finally
emancipated from it by the working of some superior power, the
contest would be so long and terrible and the issues so dire, that
the limited human mind could not possibly contemplate it, that hope
would be practically eliminated by despair."
In the same connection, he wrote a letter to a friend whose wild and
wayward life had injured his health, and wrote in the greatest agony
of mind:
"Words are such wretched things, my dear friend, in crises like this.
I can only beg of you, with all my heart, to resolutely set your face
against thinking what might have been. Try to feel, I will not say
happy, but stronger in the thought that your punishment is atoning
for your past every hour. Throw remorse and fear down, if you can;
they are only keeping you from God. Many, too many souls are in a far
worse case. Some have more to reproach themselves with. On some it
has come with what appears to be fearful injustice. Accept your
present condition; brace yourself to bear it. I know how much can be
borne. Give your sufferings to God nobly. Your patience is none the
less noble because you have brought this on yourself; nay, it makes
it even nobler....
"Don't say that many worse sinners go unpunished. How can you tell?
How do you know they are not suffering? There are only, I suppose,
two men in the world, besides yourself, who know that you are
suffering now, and why. God visited me with suffering once; He has
brought me through, and I have never ceased to thank Him for it; and
He will bring you through, too, dear friend, I know. 'Pro jucundis
aptissima quæque dabunt di; carior est illis homo quam sibi.'
That thought has left me patient, if not glad, in many a bitter
hour.... You are never out of my thoughts."
And this letter leads me naturally to the second great principle that
pervaded all his writings—"the education of individuals."
"One is inclined to believe that there is a great deal of hopeless
irremediable suffering in the world—suffering of a kind that seems
wantonly inflicted, purposeless anguish.... That 'regret must hurt
and may not heal' is a terrible thought, which, when we get our first
glimpse of human anguish, seems almost sickeningly true. But I have
seen a great deal lately of such suffering, and it amazes me to
discover how _extraordinarily_ rare it is to find the victim taking
this view of his case. Either it seems to be a due reward for past
action—that 'invita religio' which wells up in the blackest heart,
or the sufferer gains a kind of onlook into sweet plains beyond, into
which the troubled passage is taking him, and which can only thus be
reached....
"Of animal suffering, unconscious tortures, it is harder to speak—of
the innocent, for so they are, victims of lust and brutality in
Babylon here, whose sense of suffering is almost gone, and is
succeeded by nothing but the desire for rest; all this seems so
meaningless, so futile....
"It is one of the problems I take up and let drop—take up and let
drop a thousand times; but all sacrifice seems essentially good, and
I do not throw the enigma aside in anger; I will wait for it to be
explained to me.
"Ah, death, death, if we are enlightened enough by that time, what a
storehouse of secrets, dear secrets you will have to tell us! I
thrill all through, in moments like these, to think of it."
"Of course," he said to me once, "there are times when we can only
wait and hope; changing our posture, like a sick man, from time to
time, to win a little ease; but when we reach a fresh standpoint, a
fresh basis—which, thank God, one does from month to month—we are
inclined to say with Albert Dürer, 'It could not be better
done.'"
He was very fond of the doctrine of Special Providences.
"Every now and then I have—I suppose it is common—what may be
called a run of luck in ordinary things; I get out of scrapes in a
way I don't deserve; I find letters I have mislaid; annoyances are
mysteriously shunted aside; money flows in; days of extraordinary
happiness succeed one another; little events save vast complications
of trouble, so that I long to turn round and grasp by the hand
or kiss the cheek of the sweet friend who stands at my elbow,
suggesting, ordering, providing day and night, smiling on me as
I sleep, hovering around me as I work, without a word of praise.
Guardian angels! no fable. God gives you a sudden and particular
thought, and while you are independent of circumstances you master
them as well."
But such portraiture as the above is apt to get very vague and
insipid unless one is able to convey a vivid picture of the man as he
walked, and spoke, and lived. The _sic sedebat_ in Trinity College
(Cambridge) chapel has given more people a thrill at the thought of
Bacon than ever gained one from his books. Personality, personal
characteristics, how one craves for them! To take a late instance,
how far more impressive General Gordon's little cane is, which he
twirled in his hand as he stormed redoubts and directed an action,
than a thousand pages of rhetoric about his philosophy or his views
of life.
He was now, as ever, for strangers meeting him for the first time, an
impressive but rather disappointing man. He had shaved his beard,
keeping only his usual moustache; his face was very spare, with a
pallor that was not unhealthy. His hair, which was dark and lay in
masses, he wore generally rather long. He had got into the way, when
without his glasses, of half closing his eyes, because, as he said,
it did him so little good to keep them open, as it only served to
remind him of people's presence without giving him any more definite
idea of them. He could not, for instance, unassisted, see the play of
features on a face, and, for this reason, in all important interviews
he wore his glasses, giving three reasons.
1. Utilitarian—that he could see by his opponent's face what he was
driving at, and what effect his own remarks had on him.
2. Impressional—it gave a man an "adventitious consequence."
3. Precautional—"I show emotion quickest by the eye, and so,
generally speaking, do most people; some change colour very quick;
some reveal it in the mouth; but the sudden dilatation and
contraction of the eye, the expression it is capable of, make it on
the whole the safest guide.
"I trust the eye on the whole," he said; "guilelessness and an
unstained conscience are not really manifested either in feature or
deportment, but the eye will almost always tell you true."
His conversation, when he was in form, was, without exactly being
very brilliant, very inspiring. He had great freshness of expression,
and told very few stories, and those only in illustration, never on
their own merits. He was very μνημονικός, or retentive—the
first requisite, says Plato, of a philosopher—and was consequently
well supplied with quotations and allusions, not slavishly repeated,
but worked naturally in. I do not mean that he passed for a good
talker by skilful plagiarizing, but I found that the wider my range
of reading became the more I appreciated his talk—drawn, as it was,
from all kinds of sources, and bringing with it that aroma of a
far-reaching mind, the _fascination_ that culture can bestow, the
feeling that, after all, everything is interesting, and that no
knowledge is unworthy of the attention of the philosopher.
He hardly ever discussed current politics, though he would argue on
political principles with the greatest keenness: neither had he
accurate historical knowledge, or antiquarian; but he enjoyed
listening to such talk. For the principles, the poetic aspect, of
science he had a devoted interest. In literary matters I seldom heard
his equal. Many and many is the book which I have been induced to
read solely by hearing him sketch the purport in little sentences of
extraordinary felicity. "The birth and fatal effects of Impulse in a
prosaic soul," was a sketch he gave of a celebrated novel. On one
subject he was always dumb—Economics. "It is the one subject on
which I have never hazarded a remark successfully," he said to me
once. "I can never appreciate the value of an economic statement;
I hardly know whether it is interesting."
As he never talked for talking's sake, he was always ready to give
his whole attention to the person he was talking to, or none at all;
and consequently he never had a middle reputation—some praising
his courtesy, as an old lady with whose querulous complaints about
ingratitude and rheumatism he had borne and sympathized; others, his
abrupt atrocious manner—"Turned his back on me with a scowl, and
didn't say another word," as a sporting fast married lady said to me,
who had attempted to tell him an improper story. "I didn't mean to
offend him; young men generally like it. I hate a young man to be a
prude and a Puritan. Why, he isn't even going into the church, I
understand!"
One of his colleagues in the school where he was a master, told me
that Arthur had once given him a most delicate and pointed rebuke on
the practice into which he had fallen, of appealing to a boy's home
feelings before the class.
"Some things ought to be said to people when they are alone; besides,
we must not _seethe the kid in his mother's milk_."
The same man told me that he heard him give a little address to the
boys in his class, on the two main virtues of a schoolboy—purity and
honesty—on the words, "And they said, Lord, behold, here are two
swords; and he said unto them, It is enough."
Those are the only two anecdotes I have heard of his professional
life, both illustrating that extraordinary gift of apt quotation and
seeing unexpected connections, which, to my mind, is as adequate an
external symbol of genius as can be found, though sometimes illusory.
He took the greatest delight in the society of children. He writes—
"What wonderful lines those are of Tennyson's"—they had just come
out,—"'Who pleased her with a babbling heedlessness Which often
lured her from herself!' There is nothing more absolutely refreshing
when one is overdone or anxious, or oppressed by the vague anxieties
of the world, than the conversation and the society of children,
the unconscious ignoring of all grave possibilities, yet often
accompanied by that curious tact which divines that all is not
well with their older friend, and prompts them to employ all their
resources to beguile it. I have been thanked by worldly mothers, in
country houses, with something like a touch of nature, for being so
good to their boys—'I am so afraid they must have been troublesome
to you,'—when they have not only saved me from vapid hard gabble and
slanderous gossip, but let in a little breath of paradise as well.
I often accept an invitation with reference to the children I shall
see. 'To meet Lord and Lady D——, and Mrs. G——, such an amusing
woman—tells _such_ stories, they make you _scream!_' the invitation
runs; and I accept it, to see Johnny and Charlie, to play at Red
Indians in the wilderness, and to dig up the tin box of date-stones
and cartridge-cases that we buried in the bed of the stream."
If I seem to have given rather a priggish picture of Arthur, it is a
totally erroneous one. He was far too casual and too retiring to be
that; he had no appearance of self-importance, though an invincible
reserve of self-respect. The prig wears chain armor outside, and
runs at you with his lance when he catches a glimpse of you. Arthur
wore his chain armor under his shirt, and it was not till you closed
with him that you felt how sharp his dagger was.
I give a perfectly disinterested sketch of him, which a lady, who met
him several times, wrote out at my request. It is hard for me to help
speaking from inside knowledge.
"Dear Mr. Carr,
"You ask me to give you my impression of Mr. Hamilton, in writing.
What your motive is I can't conceive, as he was not a person I took
much interest in, though I know that some people do. Unless, perhaps,
you mean to put him into a book.
"I met him at a country house in Shropshire. He came down rather late
for breakfast, and when he was asked how he was, he quoted something
about 'being apt to be rather fatigued with his night's rest.' I
remember it very clearly, because it struck me as being so pointless
at the time. He went out shooting most of the day, and I think,
as far as I can remember, he was a good shot. He smoked a fearful
amount, 'all the time,' in fact; they were always attacking him for
that. When he came in he used to have some tea in the nursery. We
found that out the last day—the children were sent for, and Mr.
Hamilton came down with them, looking rather sheepish, and saying
that he had tried sitting on at one side of the table, with the
nursery maid at the other, after the children had gone, but that
it didn't do. I remember we were very much amused at the idea;
the picture was such a ridiculous one.
"The children certainly seemed to like him extraordinarily—they
would talk to no one else: and I can't think why, because children
are so impressionable, and he had quite the gravest face I ever
saw—almost forbidding. However, so it was.
"He used to disappear to his room, to read and write, before dinner.
At dinner he was often very good fun. I have heard him tell some very
funny stories, not very racy perhaps, but amusing; and these, coming
from that grave face, were very ridiculous. He always made friends
with the younger ladies. He never seemed to flirt, and yet he used to
say things to them in public that even I felt inclined to pull him up
for. And then he used to ask them to go out walks with him, and,
what's more, he went out with certainly two, alone; and you know that
is rather a marked thing.
"He looked about forty, but he always gravitated toward the young
people; made great friends with boys, and in a curious way, too.
Generally, if men make friends with schoolboys in a country house
it is at the loss of their dignity—they run the risk of having to
swallow all sorts of practical jokes, such as getting water thrown
on their head and salt put into their tea; but he never compromised
himself, and they always behaved to him with respect, but were quite
impatient if he wouldn't come with them everywhere. I overheard him
talking to a boy once, and I didn't so much wonder; he spoke in such
an affectionate way, and boys like to feel that grown-up people take
the trouble to like them.
"He was very friendly with the governess, and would try to include
her in the conversation. I can't say he succeeded, for we were down
on that. I don't myself consider it good form to encourage your
governess to have opinions.
"Everybody was always very deferential to him. He always made a
sensation if he came into the room. No one could help looking at him.
He wasn't one of those tame sneaking creatures that are to be met
in country houses, of whom no one takes the least notice; he was
much more inclined to take no notice of any one else; but it was
impossible to forget he was in the room. And the servants were
invariably respectful to him, quite as if he was a real swell; and
yet he didn't dress well and hadn't a servant of his own. He was just
the sort of man you would have thought flunkeys would have despised.
"But I have let my pen run on to an unconscionable length. It reminds
me of the remark with which he dismissed the subject of poor old Sir
Charles W—— who was staying there. We had been discussing him, and
asked Mr. Hamilton what he thought of him. 'A talking jackass,' was
his only reply, in his most chilling tones.
"I fear I am open to the same imputation.
"Very truly yours,
"Laura F——.
"I should like to know what you want this for; however, happily, I
have put it in a form you can't make much use of."
I was much amused at the way in which he treated gossip about himself.
I told him some stories about him that I had picked up. They related
to a certain absent-mindedness which he was supposed to possess.
"I am afraid they are not true," he said first. "I should welcome any
hint of absence of mind in myself as a sign that the abstract could
exclude the concrete, which is unfortunately not the case with me."
Then, in a moment, he said, "People have no business to tell such
stories. I should not mind their not being true, if they were only
characteristic."
"By which you mean," said a gentleman who was sitting next him, "that
you don't care about veracity, only you can't stand dullness."
"Not at all," said Arthur, quickly. "Veracity is not the question in
gossip at all. It is all hearsay. You have not to judge of the actual
truth of a scandalous story, but you have to judge of the probable
truth of it, and if it is obviously uncharacteristic it is wrong to
repeat it. It becomes scandal then, and not till then."
When he was living in London, which was, for the time being, his
home, he lived a regular life, combining more reading with a sociable
life than many people would have thought possible. He had two rooms
in a house in Russell Square. He breakfasted at half-past nine and
read till four, when he went down to his club and talked, or strolled
in the park. He made hardly any engagements, except for the evening;
and admitted hardly anyone, except two or three friends, to see him
at his rooms, and then only after one o'clock, before which hour
he was absolutely invisible. He was so dreadfully angry with his
landlady for showing a gentleman in once in the middle of the
morning, that she literally refused ever to do it again. "He's a good
regular lodger, sir, and doesn't think of money, but he said to me,
'Mrs. Laing, I _don't choose to be disturbed_ before one. If I find
my orders disregarded again, I shall leave the house _that day_.'
I daren't do it, sir. You wouldn't like to deprive me of my lodger,
I know, sir." The last pathetic plea could not be gainsaid, so Arthur
had his way.
Four evenings he devoted to going out, and the other three dining
quietly at home and reading. By the time he left London his reading,
always wide, had become prodigious. His own library was good, and he
had a ticket for the British Museum Reading-room and belonged to two
circulating libraries. He made a point of reading new books (1) if he
was strongly recommended them by specialists; (2) if they reached a
second edition within a month; (3) if they were republished after a
period of neglect—this he held to be the best test of a book.
It was characteristic of his natural indolence that he chose the very
easiest method of reading—that is to say, he always read, if he
could, _in_ a translation, or if the style of the original was the
object, _with_ one. This, like his posture, nearly recumbent, was
deliberately adopted. "I find," he said, "that the _reflective_ part
of my brain works best when I have as little either bodily or _purely_
intellectual to distract me as possible. And it is the reflective
part," he says, "that I always preferred to cultivate, and that
latterly I have devoted my whole attention to. It is through the
reflective part that one gets the highest influence over people.
Training the reflective function is the training of character, while
the training of the purely physical side often, and the training of
the intellectual side not uncommonly, have a distinctly deteriorative
effect.
"By the reflective part, I mean all that deals with the _connection_ of
things, the discovery of principles, the laws that regulate emotion
and influence, the motives of human nature, the basis of existence,
the solution of the problem of life and being—that vast class of
subjects which lie just below, and animate concrete facts, and which
are the only things worthy of the devotion of a philosopher, though
no knowledge is unworthy of his _attention_.
"I am not quite clear what position I intend to take up in the world
at large. This only is certain, that if I am going to teach, and I
have a vague sense that I am destined for that, it is necessary first
to know something, to be _sure_ of something."
All his days were alike, except that on Sunday he used to frequent
city churches in the afternoon, or go to Westminster Abbey and St.
Paul's. His father was a friend of a canon at the former place, and
Arthur was generally certain of a stall; and I used often to see his
tall form there, with his eyes "indwelling wistfully," "reputans
secum," as Virgil says, lost in speculations and wonders, and a whole
host of melancholy broodings over life and death to which he rarely
gave voice, but which formed a perpetual background to his thoughts.
He varied this by visits to his father in Hampshire, and occasional
trips to the country, not unfrequently alone, the object and
occupation of which he never told me, except to say once that he had
explored, he thought, every considerable "solitude" in England.
There is one thing that I must not forget to mention—his dreams. He
never slept, he told me, without innumerable dreams, and he not
unfrequently told me of them. They always struck me as curiously
vivid. I subjoin the following from one of his diaries. They are
often given at full length. This is one of the most interesting I
can find.
"_January_ 8.—Slept badly; toward morning dreamed that I was walking
with two or three friends, and accompanied by a tall man whom I did
not know, wrapped in a cloak, through a very dark wood. I seemed to
be in a very heavy mood. We came upon a building brightly lighted,
and, entering, found a hall with many people dining. There was
much wine and talk, and a great deal of laughing and merriment.
We appeared to be invisible.
"I began to moralize aloud. I said, 'Yes, and this is the way in
which lives pass: a little laughter and a few jests and a song or
two; forgetful, all the time, that the lights must be extinguished
and the wine spilled, and that night laps them round,'—catching,
as I said this, a glimpse of the dark trees swaying outside.
"But the man in the cloak took me up. 'This shows,' he said, 'how
superficial your view is—how little you look below the surface
of things. This laughter and light talk are but the signs and
symbols of qualities of which your bitter character knows
nothing—goodfellowship, kindliness, brave hopefulness, and many
things beside.'
"Then he turned to me impressively, and said, 'What you want is
_deepening_.'
"I woke with the word ringing in my ears."
Besides this, there was a curious little peculiarity in him that I
have never heard of in anyone else: a capacity for seeing little
waking visions with strange distinctness.
His description of this is as follows:
"I have the power, or rather something in me is able (for I can not
resist it), of suddenly producing a picture on the retina, of such
vividness as to blot out everything around me. I have it generally
when I am a little tired with exercise or brain-work or people: it is
prefaced by seeing a bright blue spot, which moves, or rather rushes,
across my field of vision, and is immediately succeeded by the
picture.
"A crumbling sandstone temple, among fields of blue flowers—an
obelisk carved with figures, in a wood—a gray indistinct marsh, with
mist rising from it, and by the edge a white bird, egret or something
similar, of dazzling whiteness—a green lane, with cows in it. I
could go on for ever enumerating them. They pass in a fraction of a
second, three or four succeeding one another. My eyes are not shut,
nor do I look different. I have always seen them. I was alarmed about
them once, and went to a doctor; but he said he could not explain
it—it was probably a nervous idiosyncrasy: and I felt all the better
for my habit having a name."
One more thing I must mention about him, which I have discovered
since his death. I must add _that I never had the least suspicion of
it in his life_.
He was the victim during this time of a depression of mind; not
constant, but from which he never felt secure. I subjoin a few
entries from his diaries.
"Very troubled and gloomy: a strange heart-sinking—a blank misgiving
without any adequate cause upon me all day. One can not help feeling
during such times—and, alas! they are becoming very familiar to
me—that some mysterious warfare may be being fought out somewhere
over one's only half-conscious soul: that some strange decision may
be pending." And again: "For the last week, my mind—though I have
reiterated again and again to myself that it is purely physical—has
steadily refused to take any view of life, to have any outlook,
except the most dismal. I am a little better to-day—well enough to
see the humour of it, though God knows it is black enough while it
lasts."
In one letter he wrote to me, I find the following words: it never
occurred to me at the time that they were the gradual fruits of his
own experience on the subject:
"Physical and mental depression is a most fearful enemy. Other things
give you trouble at intervals—toothache, headache, etc., are all
spasmodic afflictions, and, moreover, can be much mitigated by
circumstances. But with depression it is not so: it poisons any
cup—it turns all the cheerful little daily duties of life into
miseries, unutterable burdens; death is the only future event which
you can contemplate with satisfaction. It admits of no comfort: the
whispered suggestion of the mind, 'You will be better soon,' falls on
deaf ears. No physical suffering that I have ever felt, and I have
not been without my share, is in the least comparable to it; the
agony of foreboding remorse and gloom with which it involves past,
present, and future—there is nothing like it. It is the valley of
the Shadow of Death.
"But when one first realizes how purely physical it is, it is an era.
I endured it for two years first: now I am prepared. I may even say
that though all sense of enjoyment dies under it, my friends, the
company I am in, generally suspect nothing."
This was literally the case. I knew his spirits were never very high;
but he seemed to me to maintain, what is far more valuable, a genial
equable flow of cheerfulness, such as one would give much to possess.
Among his occasional diversions at this time, I must place visiting
some of the worst houses in one of the worst quarters in London.
It was not then a fashionable habit, and he never spoke of it or made
capital out of his experience; but he went to have an acquaintance
that should be _teres et rotundus_ with all phases of life. He never
attempted to relieve misery by indiscriminate charity; his principles
were strongly against it.
"I don't profess to understand the economical condemnation of
indiscriminate charity. I don't see why one set of people should not
spend in necessaries what another set would only spend in luxuries.
"But I do understand this: that it does infinite harm, by accustoming
the poor to think that all the help they will get from the upper
classes till they rise up themselves and lay hands upon it, will be
indiscriminate half-sovereigns. The clergy are beginning to disabuse
them of this idea. It is a fact which does appeal to them when they
see a man that they recognize belongs by right to the 'high life' and
could drive in his carriage, or at any rate in somebody else's, and
have meat four times a day—when they see such a man coming and
staying among them, certainly not for pleasure or money, or even,
for a long time, at least, love, it impresses them far more than the
Non-conformists or Revivalists who attempt the same kind of thing.
"And that's the sort of help I want them to look for—intelligent
sympathy and interest in them. To most of them no amount of relief or
education could do any good now; it would only produce a rank foliage
of vice, which is slightly restrained by hard labour and hard food.
Sensualism is a taint in their blood now.
"They want elevating and refining in some way, and you can only do it
with brutes through their affections."
His manner with poor people was very good—direct, asking
straightforward questions and not making his opinions palatable, and
yet behaving to them with perfect courtesy, as to equals.
We were staying in a house together in the country once, and heard
that a certain farmer was in trouble of some kind—we were not
exactly told what.
Arthur had struck up a friendship with this man on a previous visit,
and so he determined to go over and see him. He asked me to ride with
him, and I agreed. I will describe the episode precisely as I can
remember it:
We rode along, talking of various things, over the fresh Sussex
downs, and at last turned into a lane, overhung on both sides with
twisted tree-roots of fantastic shape, writhing and sprawling out of
the crumbling bank of yellow sand. Presently we came to a gap in the
bank, and found we were close to the farm. It lay down to the right,
in a little hollow, and was approached by a short drive inclosed by
stone walls overgrown by stonecrop and pennywort, and fringed with
daffodils and snap-dragons: to the left, the wall was overtopped by
the elders of a copse; to the right, it formed one side of a fruit
garden.
The drive ended in a flagged yard, upon which our horse's hoofs made
a sudden clatter, scaring a dozen ducks into pools and other coigns
of vantage, and rousing the house-dog, who, with ringing chain and
surly grumbles, came out blinking, to indulge in several painful
barks, waiting, as dogs will, with eyes shut and nose strained in
the air, for the effect of each bark, and consciously enjoying the
tuneful echo. A stern-featured, middle-aged woman came out quickly,
almost as if annoyed at the interruption, but on seeing who it was
she dropped a quick courtsey, and spoke sharply to the dog.
Arthur went forward, holding out his hand.
"We were so sorry to hear at the house," he said, "that there was
trouble here. I did not learn quite clearly what it was, but I
thought I would ride over to see if there was anything I could do."
Arthur knew quite enough of the poor to be sure that it was always
best to plunge straight into the subject in hand, be it never so
grim or painful. Life has no veneering for them; they look hard
realities in the face and meet them as they can. They are the true
philosophers, and their straightforwardness about grief and disease
is not callousness; it is directness, and generally means as much,
if not more, feeling than the hysterical wailings of more cultivated
emotion, more organized nerves.
"Yes, sir," she said to me, with that strange dignity of language
that trouble gives to the poor, just raising her apron to her eyes,
"it's my master, sir—Mr. Keighley, sir. The doctor has given him
up, and he's only waiting to die. It don't give him much pain, his
complaint; and it leaves his head terrible clear. But he's fearful
afraid to die, sir; and that's where it is.
"Not that he's not lived a good life; been to church and paid his
rent and tithe reg'lar, been sober and industrious and good to his
people; but I think, sir," she said, "that there's one kind of
trembling and fearfulness that we can't get over: he keeps saying
that he's afraid to meet his God. He won't say as he's got anything
on his mind; and, truthfully, I don't think he has. But he can't go
easy, sir; and I think a sight of your face, if I may make so bold,
would do him, maybe, a deal of good."
"I shall be very glad to see him, if he cares to see me," said
Arthur. "Has Mr. Spencer" (the clergyman) "been here?"
"Yes, sir," said the woman; "but he don't seem to do George no good.
He's prayed with him—the Church prayers out of his blue prayer-book;
but, after that, all he could say was, 'you must prepare to meet your
God; are you at peace with Him? Remember the judgment;' when I can't
help thinking that God would be much more pleased if George could
forget it. He can't like to see us crawling to meet Him, and cryin'
for fear, like as Watch does if his master has beat him for stealin'.
But I dare not say so to him, sir—we never know, and I have no
right to set myself up over the parson's head."
I confess that I felt frightfully helpless as we followed her into
the house. There was a bright fire burning; a table spread in a
troubled untidy manner, with some unfinished food, hardly tasted,
upon it.
She said apologetically, "You see, sir, it's hard work to keep things
in order, with George lying ill like this. I have to be always with
him."
"Of course," said Arthur, gently. "I know how hard it is to keep up
heart at all; still it is worth trying: we often do better than we
expect."
His sweet voice and sympathetic face made the poor woman almost break
down; she pushed hastily on, and, saying something incoherently about
leading the way, ushered us through a kitchen and up a short flight
of stairs. I would have given a great deal to have been allowed to
stay behind. But Arthur walked simply on behind the woman.
"I won't tell him you're here," she said; "he'd say he wasn't fit to
see you. But it won't harm him; maybe it'll even cheer him up a bit."
She pushed the door open just above; I could distinguish the sound of
hard breathing, with every now and then a kind of catch in the
breath, and a moan; then we found ourselves inside the room.
The sick man was lying propped up on pillows, with a curious wistful
and troubled look on his face, which altered very quickly as we came
in. Much of his suffering was nervous, so-called; and a distraction,
any new impression which diverted his mind, was very helpful to him.
"George," said the woman, "here is Mr. Hamilton and his friend come
over from the Squire's to see you."
He gave a grateful murmur, and pointed to a chair.
"I am so sorry," said Arthur, simply, "to see you in such suffering,
Mr. Keighley. We heard you were in trouble, so we thought we would
ride over and see if we could do anything for you."
"Thank you, sir, kindly," said the sick man, feebly. "But I'm past
doin' anything for now. Doctor's giv'n me up; he gives me a week. But
thank you all the same."
He closed his eyes for a moment; and then, looking round quickly,
fingering the counterpane, he said, "Ah, sir, this isn't a place for
you to be in; but I take it very kindly of you. Ah! Ah! It seems as
if it might have been made a bit easier, might dyin'. It's hard
work—it's terrible hard. It's bad enough by itself, having to go out
into the dark—and all alone; but it's full of worse terrors than
even that. The air's full of them. When I am lyin' here still, with
my eyes shut, prayin' for it all to be over, I seem to hear them
buzzin' and whisperin' in the air. Then it comes, all on a sudden,
on me—here"—putting his hand to his heart. "It makes me sick and
trembling—with fear and horror—I can't bear it. It's comin' now.
Ah! Ah! Ah!"
I remember feeling inexpressibly shocked and horrified. I was not
used to such scenes. The room seemed to swim; I could hardly stand
or see. To settle myself, I spoke to the woman about wines and
medicines; but I seemed to hear my own voice hollow and from a
distance, and started at the sound of it.
But Arthur knelt simply down by the bedside and said, "I think it
will make it easier if you can only fix your thoughts on one thing. I
know the effort is hard; but think that there's a loving hand waiting
to take yours; there's One that loves you, better than you have
ever loved anyone yourself, waiting the other side of the darkness.
Oh, only think of that, and it will not be hard! Dear friend," he
said—"for I may call you that—we have all of us the same passage
before us, but we have all the same hope: and He hears the words you
speak to Him. He has been here, He is here now, to listen to your
very thoughts. He has seen your trouble, and wished He could help
you—why He can not I am not able to tell you; but it will all be
well.
"Let me say one prayer with you." And he began in his low quiet
voice. The woman knelt down beside him, shaken with sobbing. Till, at
the words "Suffer us not, for any pains of death, to fall from thee,"
poor George put out his old withered hand and took Arthur's, and
smiled through his pain—"the first time he ever smiled since his
illness began," his wife told us after his death, "and he smiled
many times after that."
He did not speak to us again; the effort had been too great. The
woman accompanied us down-stairs, showing, in her troubled officious
hurry to anticipate Arthur's wishes, and the way in which she hung
about the gate as we rode out, what it had been to her.
We rode home almost in silence. Arthur, as we got near to the lodge,
turned to me, and said, half apologetically, "We must speak to simple
people in the language that they can understand. Fortunately, there
is one language we can all understand."