Ward learned to love in her childhood with the Oxford of her girlhood
and early married life, and the Surrey where so many pleasant summers
were spent. Not wishing, for fear of recognition, to describe the
country near Ambleside, with which she was most familiar, Mrs. Ward
placed the scenes of the opening chapters in the neighboring valley of
Long Sleddale, giving it the name of Long Whindale. Whinborough is the
city of Kendal, and the village of Shanmoor is Kentmere. Burwood Farm,
where the Leyburns lived, is a house far up the valley, which still
"peeps through the trees" at the passer-by just as it did in the days
when Robert Elsmere first met the saintly Catherine there. A few
hundred yards down the stream is a little stone church across the road
from a small stone schoolhouse, and next to the school a gray stone
vicarage, standing high above the little river, all three bearing the
date 1863. At sight of this group of buildings one almost expects to
catch a glimpse of the well-meaning but not over-wise Mrs. Thornburgh,
sitting in the shade of the vicarage, awaiting the coming of old John
Backhouse, the carrier, with the anxiously expected consignment of "airy
and appetizing trifles" from the confectioner's.
[Illustration: COTTAGE OF "MARY BACKHOUSE"]
At the extreme end of the valley the road abruptly comes to an end. A
stone bridge leads off to the left to a group of three small farms. In
front no sign of human habitation meets the eye. The hills seem to come
together, forming a kind of bowl, and there is no sound to break the
stillness save the ripple of the river. It was to this lonely spot that
Catherine was in the habit of walking, quite alone, to visit the dying
Mary Backhouse. The house of John and Jim Backhouse where Mary died may
still be seen. It is the oldest of the three farms above mentioned. A
very small cottage, it is wedged between a stable on one side and a sort
of barn or storehouse on the other, so that from the road before
crossing the bridge it seems to be quite pretentious. The house dates
back to 1670. Mary Backhouse never existed except in imagination, but
Mrs. Ward, upon seeing the photograph of the house, exclaimed with much
satisfaction, "Yes, that is the very house where Mary Backhouse died."
So real to her are the events described in her novels that Mrs. Ward
frequently refers to the scenes in this way. Behind the house is a very
steep hill, covered with trees and rough stones. It was over this hill
that Robert and Catherine walked on the night of Mary Backhouse's death.
Readers of "Robert Elsmere" will remember that poor Mary was the victim
of a strange hallucination. On the night of Midsummer Day, one year
before, she had seen the ghost or "bogle" of "Bleacliff Tarn." To see
the ghost was terror enough, but to be spoken to by it was the sign of
death within a year. And Mary had both seen and been spoken to by the
ghost. Her mind, so far as she had one, for she was really half-insane,
was concentrated on the one horrible thought--that on Midsummer Night
she must die. The night had at last arrived, and Catherine, true to her
charitable impulses, was there to comfort the dying girl.
The weather was growing darker and stormier; the wind shook the house in
gusts, and the farther shoulder of High Fell was almost hidden by the
trailing rain-clouds. But Catherine feared nothing when a human soul was
in need, and, hoping to pacify the poor woman, volunteered to go out to
the top of the Fell and over the very track of the ghost at the precise
hour when she was supposed to walk, to prove that there was nothing near
"but the dear old hills and the power of God." As she opened the door of
the kitchen, Catherine was surprised to find Robert Elsmere there, and
together they set out, over the rough, stony path, facing the wind and
rain as they climbed the distant fell-side. There Robert pleaded his
love against Catherine's stern sense of duty, and won.
When Robert and Catherine were married, they went to live at the Rectory
of Murewell, in Surrey. This old house is at Peper Harow, three miles
west of Godalming and a mile or so from Borough Farm. It was leased for
one summer by Mrs. Ward. A plain, square house of stone, much discolored
by the weather, it could hardly be called attractive in itself. But
stepping back to the road, with its picturesque stone wall surmounted by
foliage, and viewing the house as it appears from there, flanked on the
left by a fine spreading elm and on the right by a tall, pointed fir and
a cluster of oaks, with a little flower garden under the windows and the
gracefully curving walk leading past the door in a semicircle stretching
from gate to gate, the ugly house is transformed into a home of beauty,
where Robert and Catherine, one can well imagine, might have been quite
happy and contented with their surroundings.
In the rear of the house is the garden, famous for its phloxes, the
scene of many walks and family confidences. At the farther end is the
gate where Langham poured out the story of his life in passionate
speech, impelled by the equally passionate sympathy of Rose, only to
recall himself a moment later, "the critic in him making the most
bitter, remorseless mock of all these heroics and despairs the other
self had been indulging in."
Only a short walk from the Rectory is the little church of Peper Harow,
the scene of Robert's early clerical labors, and further on is the large
and beautiful Peper Harow Park, the present home of Lord Middleton. This
attractive park is the original of Squire Wendover's, but the house
itself is not described. The fine library owned by the Squire, which so
delighted Robert Elsmere with its many rare books, was in reality the
famous Bodleian Library of Oxford, with which the author became familiar
very early in life.
Three characters from real life, each a man of marked individuality,
stand out prominently in the pages of "Robert Elsmere." These are
Professor Mark Pattison, whose strong personality and scholarly
attainments suggested Squire Wendover; Professor Thomas H. Green, the
original of Mr. Grey; and the melancholy Swiss philosopher, poet, and
dreamer Amiel, who was the prototype of Langham.
The theme of the novel is the development of Robert Elsmere's character
and the gradual change of his religious views, brought about through
many a bitter struggle. In this the principal influence was that of
Roger Wendover, a typical English squire of large possessions, but, in
addition, a scholar of the first rank, the possessor of a large library
filled with rare and important volumes of history, philosophy, science,
and religion, with the contents of which he was thoroughly familiar, and
an author of two great books, one of which had stirred up a tremendous
excitement in the circles of English religious thought.
The Pentateuch, the Prophets, the Gospels, St. Paul, Tradition, the
Fathers, Protestantism and Justification by Faith, the Eighteenth
Century, the Broad Church Movement, Anglican Theology--the Squire had
his say about them all. And while the coolness and frankness of the
method sent a shock of indignation and horror through the religious
public, the subtle and caustic style, and the epigrams with which the
book was strewn, forced both the religious and the irreligious public
to read, whether they would or no. A storm of controversy rose round
the volumes, and some of the keenest observers of English life had
said at the time, and maintained since, that the publication of the
book had made or marked an epoch.
[Illustration: THE RECTORY OF PEPER HAROW]
Against the influence of such a book, and more particularly against a
growing intimacy with its author, Robert Elsmere felt himself as
helpless as a child. The squire's talk "was simply the outpouring of one
of the richest, most skeptical, and most highly trained of minds on the
subject of Christian origins." His two books were, he said, merely an
interlude in his life-work, which had been devoted to an "exhaustive
examination of human records" in the preparation of a great History of
Testimony which had required learning the Oriental languages and sifting
and comparing the entire mass of existing records of classical
antiquity--India, Persia, Egypt, and Judea--down to the Renaissance.
Reference has already been made to the influence of Professor Mark
Pattison upon the early life of Mrs. Ward. To create the Squire she had
only to imagine the house in the great park of Peper Harow, equipped
with a library like the Bodleian, and inhabited by a person who might be
otherwise like any English squire, but in mental equipment a duplicate
to some extent of the Rector of Lincoln. Professor Pattison's father was
a strict evangelical. He gave his son a good education, and the boy
early manifested a delight in literature and learning. He soon developed
an independence of character, and, refusing to confine his reading to
the prescribed books of orthodoxy, delved into the classics extensively
as well as the English literature of Pope, Addison, and Swift. He was
graduated at Oxford in 1836, and took his M.A. degree in 1840. By this
time he had abandoned the evangelical teachings of his youth, and with
other young men came under the influence of Newman, in whose house he
went to live. When Newman went into the Roman Catholic Church in 1845,
Pattison was not so much shocked as others. Indeed, he confessed that he
"might have dropped off to Rome himself in some moment of mental and
physical depression or under pressure of some arguing convert." But
Pattison, who was now a Fellow at Lincoln College, was thoroughly
devoted to his work and was fast gaining a great reputation, not only
for his magnetic influence upon young men, but as one of the ablest of
college tutors and lecturers. In 1861 he became Rector of Lincoln. He
was an indefatigable writer, contributing to many magazines and to the
"Encyclopaedia Britannica." An article on "Tendencies of Religious
Thought in England, 1688-1750" aroused widespread comment. His literary
work was marked by evidences of most painstaking research coupled with a
profound scholarship and excellent judgment in the arrangement of his
material. He devoted a lifetime to the preparation of a history of
learning--a stupendous undertaking of which only a portion was ever
completed. He possessed a library said to be the largest private
collection of his time in Oxford. It numbered fourteen thousand volumes,
and was extraordinarily complete in books on the history of learning and
philosophy in the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. Of
Professor Pattison's personality his biographer says:--
Under a singularly stiff and freezing manner to strangers and to those
whom he disliked he concealed a most kindly nature, full of geniality
and sympathy and a great love of congenial and especially of female
society. But it was in his intercourse with his pupils and generally
with those younger than himself that he was seen to most advantage.
His conversation was marked by a delicate irony. His words were few
and deliberate but pregnant with meaning and above all stimulating,
and their effect was heightened by perhaps too frequent and,
especially to undergraduates, somewhat embarrassing flashes of
silence.
All these qualities are continually appearing in the Squire. But
Professor Pattison's own definition of a man of learning is the best
description of Roger Wendover:--
Learning is a peculiar compound of memory, imagination, scientific
habit, accurate observation, all concentrated through a prolonged
period on the analysis of the remains of literature. The result of
this sustained mental endeavor is not a book, but a man. It cannot be
embodied in print; it consists of the living word.
The second in importance of the potent influences upon Robert Elsmere's
character was that of Henry Grey, a tutor of St. Anselm's (Balliol
College), Oxford. Very early in his Oxford career Elsmere was taken to
hear a sermon by Mr. Grey, which made a deep impression on his mind. The
substance of this sermon, which is briefly summarized in the novel, was
taken from a volume of lay sermons by Professor Thomas Hill Green,
entitled "The Witness of God."
The whole basis of Grey's thought was ardently idealist and Hegelian.
He had broken with the popular Christianity, but for him God,
consciousness, duty, were the only realities. None of the various
forms of materialist thought escaped his challenge; no genuine
utterance of the spiritual life of man but was sure of his sympathy.
It was known that, after having prepared himself for the Christian
ministry, he had remained a layman because it had become impossible to
him to accept miracle; and it was evident that the commoner type of
Churchmen regarded him as an antagonist all the more dangerous because
he was so sympathetic.
All of this, like all the other references to Grey throughout the book,
applies perfectly to Professor Green. He was the leading exponent at
Oxford of the principles of Kant and Hegel, and attracted many
followers. His simplicity, power, and earnestness commanded respect. He
associated with his pupils on terms of friendly intimacy, frequently
taking some of them with him on his vacations. He was a man of
singularly lofty character, and those who knew him were reminded of
Wordsworth, whom he resembled in some ways.
When Elsmere is advised by his friend Newcome to solve all the problems
of his doubt by trampling upon himself, flinging away his freedom, and
stifling his intellect, these words of Henry Grey flash upon his mind:--
God is not wisely trusted when declared unintelligible. Such honor
rooted in dishonor stands; such faith unfaithful makes us falsely
true.
God is forever reason; and his communication, his revelation, is
reason.
The words are taken from the same volume of Professor Green's sermons.
The death of this dear friend of Robert Elsmere occurred in 1882, and is
most touchingly described. An old Quaker aunt was sitting by his
bedside:--
She was a beautiful old figure in her white cap and kerchief, and it
seemed to please him to lie and look at her. "It'll not be for long,
Henry," she said to him once. "I'm seventy-seven this spring. I shall
come to thee soon." He made no reply, and his silence seemed to
disturb her.... "Thou'rt not doubting the Lord's goodness, Henry?" she
said to him, with the tears in her eyes. "No," he said, "no, never.
Only it seems to be his will; we should be certain of nothing--_but
Himself_! I ask no more." I shall never forget the accent of these
words; they were the breath of his inmost life.
To understand the third of the three characters from real life in
"Robert Elsmere," it is necessary to glance at the story of Henri
Frederic Amiel, a Swiss essayist, philosopher, and dreamer, who was born
in 1821 and died in 1881, leaving as a legacy to his friends a "Journal
Intime" covering the psychological observations, meditations, and inmost
thoughts of thirty years. They represented a prodigious amount of labor,
covering some seventeen thousand folio pages of manuscript. This
extensive journal was translated into English by Mrs. Ward and published
in 1883, five years before the date of "Robert Elsmere." Her long and
exhaustive study of the life of this extraordinary man as revealed by
himself made a deep impression upon the mind of the novelist--so much so
that she could not refrain from introducing him in the person of the
morbid Langham. A brief glance at some of the peculiarities of Amiel
will prove the best interpretation of Langham, without which the latter
must always remain a mystery.
Amiel's estimate of the value of his life-work was not a high one. "This
Journal of mine," he said, "represents the material of a good many
volumes; what prodigious waste of thought, of strength. It will be
useful to nobody, and even for myself it has rather helped me to shirk
life than to practice it." And again, "Is everything I have produced
taken together, my correspondence, these thousands of journal pages, my
lectures, my articles, my poems, my notes of different kinds--anything
better than withered leaves? To whom and to what have I been useful?
Will my name survive me a single day? And will it ever mean anything to
anybody? A life of no account! When it is all added up, nothing!"
"Amiel," says Mrs. Ward, "might have been saved from despair by love and
marriage, by paternity, by strenuous and successful literary
production."
Family life attracted him perpetually. "I cannot escape from the ideal
of it," he said. "A companion of my life, of my work, of my thoughts, of
my hopes; within, a common worship--towards the world outside, kindness
and beneficence; education to undertake; the thousand and one moral
relations which develop around the first--all these ideas intoxicate me
sometimes."
But in vain. "Reality, the present, the irreparable, the necessary,
repel and even terrify me. I have too much imagination, conscience, and
penetration, and not enough character. The life of thought alone seems
to me to have enough elasticity and immensity to be free enough from the
irreparable; practical life makes me afraid. I am distrustful of myself
and of happiness because I know myself. The ideal poisons for me all
imperfect possession, and I abhor all useless regrets and repentances."
Mrs. Ward dramatized this strange individuality in the character of
Langham. The love-scene in which Langham wins the hand of the beautiful
Rose, followed by the all-night mental struggle in which he finally
feels compelled to renounce all that he has gained, is almost tragic in
its intensity.
Poor Langham, with the prize fairly within his grasp, found that he
lacked the courage to retain it. And so the morning after the proposal,
instead of the pleasantly anticipated call from her accepted lover, the
unfortunate Rose was shocked to receive a pessimistic letter announcing
that the engagement had not survived the night. To the casual reader it
would seem that such a man as Langham would be impossible. But that
Amiel was just such a person his elaborate journal fully reveals. And
Professor Mark Pattison has given his testimony that Amiel was not alone
in his experiences, for six months after the journal was published he
wrote, "I can vouch that there is in existence at least one other soul
which has lived through the same struggles mental and moral as Amiel."
Among the very large number of persons who come upon the stage in the
action of this remarkable book, several besides the Squire, Grey, and
Langham may have been suggested by persons whom the author knew. But the
prototypes of these three are the only ones who really enter, in a vital
way, into the actual construction of the novel. "But who was the real
Elsmere?" one naturally asks. Many attempts have been made to identify
this good preacher or that worthy reformer with the famous character,
much to the annoyance of the author, who really created Elsmere out of
the influences already described. The real Elsmere would be obviously
one whose religious views were moulded by Mark Pattison and Thomas H.
Green, and one who was profoundly interested in, if not influenced by,
the strange self-distrust of Amiel. The real Elsmere would be also one
whose religious convictions led inevitably to the desire to perform some
practical service to mankind. Such an Elsmere exists in the person of
Mrs. Ward herself, who is to-day regarded by the workers and associates
of the Passmore Edwards Settlement, in Tavistock Place, London, with
very much the same love and gratitude as Elsmere won from the people of
Elgood Street. For this beneficent institution was a direct result of
the novel, and owes its existence very largely to Mrs. Ward's energetic
and influential efforts.
III
OTHER PEOPLE AND SCENERY
"The History of David Grieve," Mrs. Ward's third novel, is by many
considered, next to "Robert Elsmere," her greatest achievement. David
and his sister Louie are the orphan children of a sturdy and high-minded
Englishman whose wife was a French woman of somewhat doubtful character.
Their development from early childhood to full maturity is traced with a
power of psychological analysis seldom equaled. Both are intensely human
and fall easy prey to the temptations of their environment, but in the
end David overcomes the evil influences, while poor Louie, inheriting
more of her mother's temperament, goes to her death in poverty and
disgrace.
The most attractive part of the book is the opening, where the two
children are seen roaming the hills of the wild moorland country of
their birth. This is the Kinderscout region, in Derbyshire, something
over twenty miles southeast of Manchester.
The visitor must take the train to Hayfield, called Clough End in the
novel, and then, if he is fortunate enough to have permission from the
owner, may drive a distance of four or five miles to what is now called
Upper House, the country home of a wealthy merchant of Manchester. This
was originally known as Marriott's Farm, and for several hundred years
was owned by a family of that name. Here Mrs. Ward spent two days, when
the entire house consisted of what is now the right wing. She walked
over the moors and along the top of the Kinderscout with Mr. Marriott as
her guide, and thus obtained the knowledge for the most perfect
description of pastoral life to be found in any of her novels.
Needham's Farm, the home of David and Louie, is the only other farm in
the neighborhood. It is now known as the Lower House, and is owned by
the same Manchester gentleman, but is leased to a family named Needham,
who have occupied it for many years. It looks now just as it did when
Mrs. Ward described it.
The "Owd Smithy," where the prayer-meeting was held and Louie wickedly
played the ghost of Jenny Crum, is now only remotely suggested by a heap
of rocks bearing little resemblance to a building of any kind. Huge
mill-stones, partly embedded in the earth, are scattered about here and
there. The Downfall, which, when the water is coming over, is visible
for miles around, is ordinarily a bare, bleak pile of rocks, for it is
usually nearly if not quite dry. But after a heavy rain the water comes
over in large volume, and, if the wind is strong, is blown back,
presenting a most curious spectacle of a cascade seeming to disappear
in the air when halfway to the bottom. Not far away is the Mermaid's
Pool, haunted by the ghost of Jenny Crum. There is a real ghost story
connected with this pool, which doubtless formed the basis of Mrs.
Ward's legend. An old farmer named Tom Heys was much troubled by a
ghost, of which he could not rid himself. He once shot at it, but
without effect except that the bullet-mark is in the old house even now.
An old woman once saw the ghost while shearing sheep. She threw the
tongs at it. Instantly the room was filled with flying fleece, while the
woman's clothes were cut to pieces and fell off her body. These were
some of the troublesome pranks played by the ghost. At length the farmer
discovered, somewhere on his place, an old skull, which doubtless
belonged to His Ghostship, and carried it to the Mermaid's Pool, where
he deposited it
"To stay as long as holly's green,
And rocks on Kinderscout are seen."
This effectually disposed of the ghost so far as he was concerned, but
the spirit still hovers over the Mermaid's Pool.
[Illustration: THE ROTHAY AND NAB SCAR]
Market Place, Manchester, where we find David after his flight from the
old farm, looks to-day very much the same. Half Street, however, on the
east of the cathedral, has disappeared. Purcell's shop in this street
was described from a quaint little book-shop which actually existed at
the time.