which will not accept what appears to be an intellectual destiny. They
struggle against the limitations of mortality, and will not condescend
to use the natural and needful aids of human thought. They will not
_make their image_. They struggle after an ‘actual abstract.’ They feel,
and they rightly feel, that every image, every translation, every mode
of conception by which the human mind tries to place before itself the
Divine mind, is imperfect, halting, changing. They feel, from their own
experience, that there is no one such mode of representation which will
suit their own minds at all times, and they smile with bitterness at the
notion that they could contrive an image which will suit all other minds.
They could not become fanatics or missionaries, or even common preachers
without forfeiting their natural dignity, and foregoing their very
essence. To cry in the streets, to uplift their voice in Israel, to be
‘pained with hot thoughts,’ to be ‘preachers of a dream,’ would reverse
their whole cast of mind. It would metamorphose them into something
which omits every striking trait for which they were remarked, and which
contains every trait for which they were not remarked. On the other hand,
it would be quite as opposite to their whole nature to become followers
of Voltaire. No one knows more certainly and feels more surely that there
is an invisible world, than those very persons who decline to make an
image or representation of it, who shrink with a nervous horror from
every such attempt when it is made by any others. All this inevitably
leads to what common, practical people term a ‘curious’ sort of mind. You
do not know how to describe these ‘universal negatives,’ as they seem to
be. They will not fall into place in the ordinary intellectual world any
how. If you offer them any known religion, they ‘won’t have that;’ if you
offer them no religion, they will not have that either; if you ask them
to accept a new and as yet unrecognised religion, they altogether refuse
to do so. They seem not only to believe in an ‘unknown God,’ but in a God
whom no man can ever know. Mr. Clough has expressed, in a sort of lyric,
what may be called their essential religion:
‘O Thou whose image in the shrine
Of human spirits dwells divine!
Which from that precinct once conveyed,
To be to outer day displayed,
Doth vanish, part, and leave behind
Mere blank and void of empty mind,
Which wilful fancy seeks in vain
With casual shapes to fill again!
O Thou, that in our bosom’s shrine
Dost dwell, unknown because divine!
I thought to speak, I thought to say,
“The light is here,” “Behold the way,”
“The voice was thus” and “Thus the word,”
And “Thus I saw,” and “That I heard,”—
But from the lips that half essayed
The imperfect utterance fell unmade.
O Thou, in that mysterious shrine
Enthroned, as I must say, divine!
I will not frame one thought of what
Thou mayest either be or not.
I will not prate of “thus” and “so,”
And be profane with “yes” and “no,”
Enough that in our soul and heart
Thou, whatso’er Thou mayst be, art.’
It was exceedingly natural that Mr. Clough should incline to some such
creed as this, with his character and in his circumstances. He had by
nature, probably, an exceedingly real mind, in the good sense of that
expression and the bad sense. The actual visible world as it was, and as
he saw it, exercised over him a compulsory influence. The hills among
which he had wandered, the cities he had visited, the friends whom he
knew,—these were his world. Many minds of the poetic sort easily melt
down these palpable facts into some impalpable ether of their own. To
such a mind as Shelley’s the ‘solid earth’ is an immaterial fact; it
is not even a cumbersome difficulty—it is a preposterous imposture.
Whatever may exist, all that _clay_ does not exist; it would be too
absurd to think so. Common persons can make nothing of this dreaminess;
and Mr. Clough, though superficial observers set him down as a dreamer,
could not make much either. To him, as to the mass of men, the vulgar,
outward world was a primitive fact. ‘Taxes _is_ true,’ as the miser
said. Reconcile what you have to say with green peas, for green peas are
certain; such was Mr. Clough’s idea. He could not dissolve the world into
credible ideas and then believe those ideas, as many poets have done.
He could not catch up a creed as ordinary men do. He had a _straining_,
inquisitive, critical mind; he scrutinised every idea before he took it
in; he did not allow the moral forces of life to act as they should; he
was not content to gain a belief ‘by going on living.’ He said,
‘_Action will furnish belief_; but will that belief be the true one?
This is the point, you know.’
He felt the coarse facts of the plain world so thoroughly that he could
not readily take in anything, which did not seem in accordance with them
and like them. And what common idea of the invisible world seems in the
least in accordance with them or like them?
A journal-writer in one of his poems has expressed this:
‘Comfort has come to me here in the dreary streets of the city,
Comfort—how do you think?—with a barrel-organ to bring it.
Moping along the streets, and cursing my day as I wandered,
All of a sudden my ear met the sound of an English psalm-tune.
Comfort me it did, till indeed I was very near crying.
Ah, there is some great truth, partial very likely, but needful,
Lodged, I am strangely sure, in the tones of the English psalm-tune:
Comfort it was at least; and I must take without question
Comfort, however it come, in the dreary streets of the city.
‘What with trusting myself, and seeking support from within me,
Almost I could believe I had gained a religious assurance,
Formed in my own poor soul a great moral basis to rest on.
Ah, but indeed I see, I feel it factitious entirely;
I refuse, reject, and put it utterly from me;
I will look straight out, see things, not try to evade them;
Fact shall be fact for me, and the Truth the Truth as ever,
Flexible, changeable, vague, and multiform, and doubtful.—
Off, and depart to the void, thou subtle, fanatical tempter!’
Mr. Clough’s fate in life had been such as to exaggerate this naturally
peculiar temper. He was a pupil of Arnold’s; one of his best, most
susceptible and favourite pupils. Some years since there was much doubt
and interest as to the effect of Arnold’s teaching. His sudden death, so
to say, cut his life in the middle, and opened a tempting discussion as
to the effect of his teaching when those taught by him should have become
men and not boys. The interest which his own character then awakened, and
must always awaken, stimulated the discussion, and there was much doubt
about it. But now we need doubt no longer. The Rugby ‘men’ are _real_
men, and the world can pronounce its judgment. Perhaps that part of the
world which cares for such things has pronounced it. Dr. Arnold was
almost indisputably an admirable master for a common English boy,—the
small, apple-eating animal whom we know. He worked, he pounded, if the
phrase may be used, into the boy a belief, or at any rate a floating,
confused conception, that there are great subjects, that there are
strange problems, that knowledge has an indefinite value, that life is
a serious and solemn thing. The influence of Arnold’s teaching upon the
majority of his pupils was probably very vague, but very good. To impress
on the ordinary Englishman a general notion of the importance of what is
intellectual and the reality of what is supernatural, is the greatest
benefit which can be conferred upon him. The common English mind is too
coarse, sluggish, and worldly to take such lessons too much to heart. It
is improved by them in many ways, and is not harmed by them at all. But
there are a few minds which are very likely to think too much of such
things. A susceptible, serious, intellectual boy may be injured by the
incessant inculcation of the awfulness of life and the magnitude of great
problems. It is not desirable to take this world too much _au sérieux_;
most persons will not; and the one in a thousand who will, should not.
Mr. Clough was one of those who will. He was one of Arnold’s favourite
pupils, because he gave heed so much to Arnold’s teaching; and exactly
because he gave heed to it, was it bad for him. He required quite another
sort of teaching: to be told to take things easily; not to try to be wise
overmuch; to be ‘something beside critical;’ to go on living quietly
and obviously, and see what truth would come to him. Mr. Clough had to
his latest years what may be noticed in others of Arnold’s disciples,—a
fatigued way of looking at great subjects. It seemed as if he had been
put into them before his time, had seen through them, heard all which
could be said about them, had been bored by them, and had come to want
something else.
A still worse consequence was, that the faith, the doctrinal teaching
which Arnold impressed on the youths about him, was one personal
to Arnold himself, which arose out of the peculiarities of his own
character, which can only be explained by them. As soon as an inquisitive
mind was thrown into a new intellectual atmosphere, and was obliged
to naturalise itself in it, to consider the creed it had learned with
reference to the facts which it encountered and met, much of that creed
must fade away. There were inevitable difficulties in it, which only
the personal peculiarities of Arnold prevented his perceiving, and
which everyone else must soon perceive. The new intellectual atmosphere
into which Mr. Clough was thrown was peculiarly likely to have this
disenchanting effect. It was the Oxford of Father Newman; an Oxford
utterly different from Oxford as it is, or from the same place as it had
been twenty years before. A complete estimate of that remarkable thinker
cannot be given here; it would be no easy task even now, many years after
his influence has declined, nor is it necessary for the present purpose.
Two points are quite certain of Father Newman, and they are the only two
which are at present material. He was undeniably a consummate master of
the difficulties of the creeds of other men. With a profoundly religious
organisation which was hard to satisfy, with an imagination which could
not help setting before itself simply and exactly what different creeds
would come to and mean in life, with an analysing and most subtle
intellect which was sure to detect the weak point in an argument if a
weak point there was, with a manner at once grave and fascinating,—he was
a nearly perfect religious disputant, whatever may be his deficiencies as
a religious teacher. The most accomplished theologian of another faith
would have looked anxiously to the joints of his harness before entering
the lists with an adversary so prompt and keen. To suppose that a youth
fresh from Arnold’s teaching, with a hasty faith in a scheme of thought
radically inconsistent, should be able to endure such an encounter, was
absurd. Arnold flattered himself that he was a principal opponent of Mr.
Newman; but he was rather a principal fellow-labourer. There was but one
quality in a common English boy which would have enabled him to resist
such a reasoner as Mr. Newman. We have a heavy apathy on exciting topics,
which enables us to leave dilemmas unsolved, to forget difficulties,
to go about our pleasure or our business, and to leave the reasoner to
pursue his logic: ‘any how he is very _long_’—_that_ we comprehend.
But it was exactly this happy apathy, this commonplace indifference,
that Arnold prided himself on removing. He objected strenuously to Mr.
Newman’s creed, but he prepared anxiously the very soil in which that
creed was sure to grow. A multitude of such minds as Mr. Clough’s, from
being Arnoldites, became Newmanites.
A second quality in Mr. Newman is at least equally clear. He was much
better skilled in finding out the difficulties of other men’s creeds
than in discovering and stating a distinct basis for his own. In most
of his characteristic works he does not even attempt it. His argument
is essentially an argument _ad hominem_; an argument addressed to the
present creed of the person with whom he is reasoning. He says: ‘Give
up what you hold already, or accept what I now say; for that which you
already hold involves it.’ Even in books where he is especially called on
to deal with matters of first principle, the result is unsatisfactory.
We have heard it said that he has in later life accounted for the
argumentative vehemence of his book _against_ the Church of Rome by
saying: ‘I did it as a duty; I _put_ myself into a state of mind to write
that book.’ And this is just the impression which his arguments give. His
elementary principles seem _made_, not born. Very likely he would admit
the fact, and yet defend his practice. He would say: ‘Such a being as
man is, in such a world as this is, _must_ do so; he must make a venture
for his religion; he may see a greater probability that the doctrine of
the Church is true than that it is false; he may see before he believes
in her that she has greater evidence than any other creed; but he must
do the rest for himself. _By means of his will_ he must put himself into
a new state of mind; he must cast in his lot with the Church here and
hereafter; _then_ his belief will gradually strengthen; he will in time
become sure of what she says.’ He undoubtedly, in the time of his power,
persuaded many young men to try some such process as this. The weaker,
the more credulous, and the more fervent, were able to persevere; those
who had not distinct perceptions of real truth, who were dreamy and
fanciful by nature, persevered without difficulty. But Mr. Clough could
not do so; he felt it was ‘something factitious.’ He began to speak of
the ‘ruinous force of the will,’ and ‘our terrible notions of duty.’ He
ceased to be a Newmanite.
Thus Mr. Clough’s career and life were exactly those most likely to
develop and foster a morbid peculiarity of his intellect. He had, as we
have explained, by nature an unusual difficulty in forming a creed as to
the unseen world; he could not get the visible world out of his head; his
strong grasp of plain facts and obvious matters was a difficulty to him.
Too easily one great teacher inculcated a remarkable creed; then another
great teacher took it away; then this second teacher made him believe
for a time some of his own artificial faith; then it would not do. He
fell back on that vague, impalpable, unembodied religion which we have
attempted to describe.
He has himself given in a poem, now first published, a very remarkable
description of this curious state of mind. He has prefixed to it the
characteristic motto, ‘_Il doutait de tout, même de l’amour_.’ It is the
delineation of a certain love-passage in the life of a hesitating young
gentleman, who was in Rome at the time of the revolution of 1848; who
could not make up his mind about the revolution, who could not make up
his mind whether he liked Rome, who could not make up his mind whether
he liked the young lady, who let her go away without him, who went in
pursuit of her, and could not make out which way to look for her,—who,
in fine, has some sort of religion, but cannot himself tell what it is.
The poem was not published in the author’s lifetime, and there are some
lines which we are persuaded he would have further polished, and some
parts which he would have improved, if he had seen them in print. It
is written in conversational hexameters, in a tone of semi-satire and
half-belief. Part of the commencement is a good example of them:
‘Rome disappoints me much; I hardly as yet understand, but
_Rubbishy_ seems the word that most exactly would suit it.
AU the foolish destructions, and all the sillier savings,
All the incongruous things of past incompatible ages,
Seem to be treasured up here to make fools of present and future.
Would to Heaven the old Goths had made a cleaner sweep of it!
Would to Heaven some new ones would come and destroy these churches!
However, one can live in Rome as also in London.
Rome is better than London, because it is other than London.
It is a blessing, no doubt, to be rid, at least for a time, of
All one’s friends and relations,—yourself (forgive me!) included,—
All the _assujettissement_ of having been what one has been,
What one thinks one is, or thinks that others suppose one;
Yet, in despite of all, we turn like fools to the English.
Vernon has been my fate; who is here the same that you knew him,—
Making the tour, it seems, with friends of the name of Trevellyn.
‘Rome disappoints me still; but I shrink and adapt myself to it.
Somehow a tyrannous sense of a superincumbent oppression
Still, wherever I go, accompanies ever, and makes me
Feel like a tree (shall I say?) buried under a ruin of brickwork.
Rome, believe me, my friend, is like its own Monte Testaceo,
Merely a marvellous mass of broken and castaway wine-pots.
Ye Gods! what do I want with this rubbish of ages departed,
Things that Nature abhors, the experiments that she has failed in?
What do I find in the Forum? An archway and two or three pillars.
Well, but St. Peter’s? Alas, Bernini has filled it with sculpture!
No one can cavil, I grant, at the size of the great Coliseum.
Doubtless the notion of grand and capacious and massive amusement,
This the old Romans had; but tell me, is this an idea?
Yet of solidity much, but of splendour little is extant:
“Brickwork I found thee, and marble I left thee!” their Emperor vaunted;
“Marble I thought thee, and brickwork I find thee!” the Tourist
may answer.’
As he goes on, he likes Rome rather better, but hazards the following
imprecation on the Jesuits:—
‘Luther, they say, was unwise; he didn’t see how things were going;
Luther was foolish,—but, O great God! what call you Ignatius?
O my tolerant soul, be still! but you talk of barbarians,
Alaric, Attila, Genseric;—why, they came, they killed, they
Ravaged, and went on their way; but these vile, tyrannous Spaniards,
These are here still,—how long, O ye heavens, in the country of Dante?
These, that fanaticised Europe, which now can forget them, release not
This, their choicest of prey, this Italy; here you see them,—
Here, with emasculate pupils and gimcrack churches of Gesù,
Pseudo-learning and lies, confessional-boxes and postures,—
Here, with metallic beliefs and regimental devotions,—
Here, overcrusting with slime, perverting, defacing, debasing
Michael Angelo’s dome, that had hung the Pantheon in heaven,
Raphael’s Joys and Graces, and thy clear stars, Galileo!’
The plot of the poem is very simple, and certainly is not very exciting.
The moving force, as in most novels of verse or prose, is the love of the
hero for the heroine; but this love assuredly is not of a very impetuous
and overpowering character. The interest of this story is precisely that
it is not overpowering. The over-intellectual hero, over-anxious to be
composed, will not submit himself to his love; over-fearful of what is
voluntary and factitious, he will not make an effort and cast in his lot
with it. He states his view of the subject better than we can state it:—
‘I am in love, meantime, you think; no doubt you would think so.
I am in love, you say, with those letters, of course, you would say so.
I am in love, you declare. I think not so; yet I grant you
It is a pleasure indeed to converse with this girl. Oh, rare gift,
Rare felicity, this! she can talk in a rational way, can
Speak upon subjects that really are matters of mind and of thinking,
Yet in perfection retain her simplicity; never, one moment,
Never, however you urge it, however you tempt her, consents to
Step from ideas and fancies and loving sensations to those vain
Conscious understandings that vex the minds of mankind.
No, though she talk, it is music; her fingers desert not the keys; ’tis
Song, though you hear in the song the articulate vocables sounded,
Syllables singly and sweetly the words of melodious meaning.
I am in love, you say; I do not think so, exactly.
There are two different kinds, I believe, of human attraction:
One which simply disturbs, unsettles, and makes you uneasy,
And another that poises, retains, and fixes and holds you.
I have no doubt, for myself, in giving my voice for the latter.
I do not wish to be moved, but growing where I was growing,
There more truly to grow, to live where as yet I had languished.
I do not like being moved: for the will is excited; and action
Is a most dangerous thing; I tremble for something factitious,
Some malpractice of heart and illegitimate process;
We are so prone to these things, with our terrible notions of duty.
Ah, let me look, let me watch, let me wait, unhurried, unprompted!
Bid me not venture on aught that could alter or end what is present!
Say not, Time flies, and Occasion, that never returns, is departing!
Drive me not out, ye ill angels with fiery swords, from my Eden,
Waiting, and watching, and looking! Let love be its own inspiration!
Shall not a voice, if a voice there must be, from the airs that environ,
Yea, from the conscious heavens, without our knowledge or effort,
Break into audible words? And love be its own inspiration?’
It appears, however, that even this hesitating hero would have come to
the point at last. In a book, at least, the hero has nothing else to do.
The inevitable restrictions of a pretty story hem him in; to wind up the
plot, he must either propose or die, and usually he prefers proposing.
Mr. Claude—for such is the name of Mr. Clough’s hero—is evidently on his
road towards the inevitable alternative, when his fate intercepts him by
the help of a person who meant nothing less. There is a sister of the
heroine, who is herself engaged to a rather quick person, and who cannot
make out anyone’s conducting himself differently from her George Vernon.
She writes:—
‘Mr. Claude, you must know, is behaving a little bit better;
He and Papa are great friends; but he really is too _shilly-shally_,—
So unlike George! Yet I hope that the matter is going on fairly.
I shall, however, get George, before he goes, to say something.
Dearest Louise, how delightful to bring young people together!’
As the heroine says, ‘dear Georgina’ wishes for nothing so much as to
show her adroitness. George Vernon does interfere, and Mr. Claude may
describe for himself the change it makes in his fate:
‘Tibur is beautiful too, and the orchard slopes, and the Anio
Falling, falling yet, to the ancient lyrical cadence;
Tibur and Anio’s tide; and cool from Lucretilis ever,
With the Digentian stream, and with the Bandusian fountain,
Folded in Sabine recesses, the valley and villa of Horace:—
So not seeing I sung; so seeing and listening say I,
Here as I sit by the stream, as I gaze at the cell of the Sibyl,
Here with Albunea’s home and the grove of Tiburnus beside me;[15]
Tivoli beautiful is, and musical, O Teverone,
Dashing from mountain to plain, thy parted impetuous waters!
Tivoli’s waters and rocks; and fair under Monte Gennaro,
(Haunt even yet, I must think, as I wander and gaze, of the shadows,
Faded and pale, yet immortal, of Faunus, the Nymphs, and the Graces,)
Fair in itself, and yet fairer with human completing creations,
Folded in Sabine recesses, the valley and villa of Horace:—
So not seeing I sung; so now—Nor seeing, nor hearing,
Neither by waterfall lulled, nor folded in sylvan embraces,
Neither by cell of the Sibyl, nor stepping the Monte Gennaro,
Seated on Anio’s bank, nor sipping Bandusian waters,
But on Montorio’s height, looking down on the tile-clad streets, the
Cupolas, crosses, and domes, the bushes and kitchen-gardens,
Which, by the grace of the Tibur, proclaim themselves Rome of the Roman,—
But on Montorio’s height, looking forth to the vapoury mountains,
Cheating the prisoner Hope with illusions of vision and fancy,—
But on Montorio’s height, with these weary soldiers by me,
Waiting till Oudinot enter, to reinstate Pope and Tourist.
...
Yes, on Montorio’s height for a last farewell of the city,—
So it appears; though then I was quite uncertain about it.
So, however, it was. And now to explain the proceeding.
I was to go, as I told you, I think, with the people to Florence.
Only the day before, the foolish family Vernon
Made some uneasy remarks, as we walked to our lodging together,
As to intentions, forsooth, and so forth. I was astounded,
Horrified quite; and obtaining just then, as it happened, an offer
(No common favour) of seeing the great Ludovisi collection,
Why, I made this a pretence, and wrote that they must excuse me.
How could I go? Great Heavens! to conduct a permitted flirtation.
Under those vulgar eyes, the observed of such observers!
Well, but I now, by a series of fine diplomatic inquiries,
Find from a sort of relation, a good and sensible woman,
Who is remaining at Rome with a brother too ill for removal,
That it was wholly unsanctioned, unknown,—not, I think, by Georgina:
She, however, ere this,—and that is the best of the story,—
She and the Vernon, thank Heaven, are wedded and gone—honeymooning.
So—on Montorio’s height for a last farewell of the city.
Tibur I have not seen, nor the lakes that of old I had dreamt of;
Tibur I shall not see, nor Anio’s waters, nor deep en-
Folded in Sabine recesses the valley and villa of Horace;
Tibur I shall not see;—but something better I shall see.
Twice I have tried before, and failed in getting the horses;
Twice I have tried and failed: this time it shall not be a failure.’
But, of course, he does not reach Florence till the heroine and her
family are gone; and he hunts after them through North Italy, not very
skilfully, and then he returns to Rome; and he reflects, certainly not in
a very dignified or heroic manner: