PROSE REMAINS
OF
ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH
[Illustration]
PROSE REMAINS
OF
ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH
WITH A SELECTION FROM HIS LETTERS
AND A MEMOIR
_EDITED BY HIS WIFE_
London
MACMILLAN AND CO.
AND NEW YORK
1888
_The right of translation is reserved_
PRINTED BY
SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE
LONDON
CONTENTS.
PAGE
MEMOIR OF ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH 1
LETTERS FROM 1829 TO 1836. RUGBY 57
LETTERS FROM 1836 TO 1849. OXFORD 75
LETTERS FROM 1849 TO 1852. LONDON 141
LETTERS FROM 1852 TO 1853. AMERICA 187
LETTERS FROM 1853 TO 1861. LONDON 216
A CONSIDERATION OF OBJECTIONS AGAINST THE RETRENCHMENT
ASSOCIATION AT OXFORD DURING THE
IRISH FAMINE IN 1847 283
LECTURE ON THE POETRY OF WORDSWORTH 305
ON THE FORMATION OF CLASSICAL ENGLISH: AN EXTRACT
FROM A LECTURE ON DRYDEN 325
LECTURE ON THE DEVELOPMENT OF ENGLISH LITERATURE
FROM CHAUCER TO WORDSWORTH 333
REVIEW OF SOME POEMS BY ALEXANDER SMITH AND
MATTHEW ARNOLD 355
LETTERS OF PAREPIDEMUS 381
A PASSAGE UPON OXFORD STUDIES: EXTRACTED FROM A
REVIEW OF THE OXFORD UNIVERSITY COMMISSIONERS’
REPORT, 1852 399
EXTRACTS FROM A REVIEW OF A WORK ENTITLED ‘CONSIDERATIONS
ON SOME RECENT SOCIAL THEORIES’ 405
NOTES ON THE RELIGIOUS TRADITION 415
MEMOIR
OF
ARTHUR HUGH CLOUGH
Arthur Hugh Clough was born at Liverpool, January 1, 1819. He was
the second son of James Butler Clough. His father belonged to an old
Welsh family, who trace themselves back to Sir Richard Clough, known
as agent at Antwerp to Sir Thomas Gresham. His mother’s name was Anne
Perfect. She was the daughter of John Perfect, a banker at Pontefract
in Yorkshire, of a respectable family long established in that place.
Sir Richard Clough, we are told, was related on his mother’s side to
John Calvin. In his own county of Denbigh he was evidently a man of
considerable position. He built two houses, Plâs Clough and Bachegraig,
about the year 1527. He married first a Dutch lady, by whom he had a
son, Richard, who carried on the name, and to whom he bequeathed Plâs
Clough. He married, secondly, Katharine Tudor, heiress of Berain, and
descendant of Marchweithian, lord of the Welsh tribe of Is-aled. She
was a relation and ward of Queen Elizabeth, being great-granddaughter
of Henry VII.; and the Queen’s consent is mentioned as having been
required for her marriage. Sir Richard Clough was her second husband;
and the story is told that he, as well as Morris Wynn of Gwydir,
accompanied her to her first husband’s funeral, and that Morris Wynn
when leading her out of church requested the favour of her hand in
marriage, to which she answered that she had already promised it as
she went in to Sir Richard Clough; but added that should there be any
other occasion she would remember him. After the death of Sir Richard,
accordingly, she did marry him, and afterwards married, fourthly,
Edward Thelwall, of Plas-y-Ward. She is said however, to have preferred
Sir R. Clough to her other husbands; and a curious picture of her
exists, a companion to a somewhat remarkable one of Richard Clough,
holding a locket containing his ashes in one hand, and resting the
other on his scull.
By this lady, Sir R. Clough had only two daughters, one of whom married
a Wynn, and was the ancestress of the family of Lord Newborough, which
still possesses Maynau Abbey, given to her by Sir R. Clough. The second
daughter, Katherine, married Roger Salusbury, and received from Sir
Richard the house and property of Bachegraig, which afterwards came
into the possession of Mrs. Thrale, her lineal descendant.
His son Richard inherited Plâs Clough, where his descendants continued
to reside. In the beginning of the eighteenth century, the family was
represented by a Hugh Clough, who had thirteen children, one of whom,
called also Hugh, was Fellow of King’s College, Cambridge, and is
buried there: he was a friend of Cowper the poet, and is said to have
been something of a poet himself. Hugh died unmarried; but three sons
and one daughter of the first Hugh married, and left large families.
One son, Roger, thirteenth child of Hugh Clough, married Ann Jemima
Butler, a lady possessed of considerable estates in Sussex, to which
she was co-heiress with her sister, who married Roger Clough’s elder
brother Richard. He did not, however, leave much to his children,
for he was of a liberal and profuse turn, and he had ten children,
of whom James Butler Clough was the third. This son was the first of
his family to leave the neighbourhood of their old house in Wales. He
removed to Liverpool, where he settled and went into business as a
cotton merchant, and where his four children were born. When Arthur
was about four years old, his father migrated to Charleston, in the
United States, where he passed several years, and this was the home
of Arthur’s childhood till he went to school. We give here a few
recollections furnished by his sister, the next to him in age in the
family, which bring before us the scenes in which his childhood was
passed, and the influences which even then began to tell strongly upon
him.
‘The first distinct remembrance,’ she says, ‘that I have of my brother
is of his going with me in a carriage to the vessel which was to take
us to America. This must have been in the winter of 1822-23, when he
was not quite four years old. My next recollection is of our home at
Charleston, a large, ugly red brick house near the sea. The lower
storey was my father’s office, and it was close by a wharf where from
our windows we could see the vessels lying by and amuse ourselves with
watching their movements.
‘In the summer of this year (1823) we went to the North, and stayed
some time in a boarding-house at New York, and afterwards with some
friends who lived on the banks of the Hudson, and had a large and
pleasant garden. It was here, I have heard, that Arthur learned to
read. In the autumn we returned to Charleston, having made the passage
there and back by sea.
‘The two following summers (1824 and 1825) we again visited the North;
both times we went to New York, and the first year on to Albany and
Lebanon Springs, and the second time as far as Newport. After our
return to Charleston in the autumn my father was obliged to go to
England, and he took with him my eldest brother Charles, who was old
enough to go to school. Arthur and I and my youngest brother George
remained in the red brick house at Charleston with my mother and a
faithful old nurse. My father was absent eleven months. Then Arthur
became my mother’s constant companion. Though then only just seven, he
was already considered as the genius of our family. He was a beautiful
boy, with soft silky, almost black hair, and shining dark eyes, and a
small delicate mouth, which our old nurse was so afraid of spoiling,
when he was a baby, that she insisted on getting a tiny spoon for his
special use.
‘As I said, Arthur was constantly with my mother, and she poured out
the fulness of her heart on him. They read much together, histories,
ancient and modern, stories of the Greek heroes, parts of Pope’s
“Odyssey” and “Iliad,” and much out of Walter Scott’s novels. She
talked to him about England, and he learnt to be fond of his own
country, and delighted to flourish about a little English flag he had
possessed himself of. He also made good progress in French. He was
sometimes passionate as a child, though not easily roused; and he
was said to be very determined and obstinate. One trait I distinctly
remember, that he would always do things from his own choice, and not
merely copy what others were doing.
‘In the summer we went down to Sullivan’s Island, and lived in a sort
of cottage built upon piles. Here we could walk on the shore and gather
shells, and we also had a garden. We amused ourselves by watching the
steamers and sailing-vessels that came over from Charleston. Sometimes
we had visits from friends of my father, often bringing over letters
for my mother; but, on the whole, we lived very quietly, learning our
lessons, and looking forward joyfully to the time of our father’s
return from England. We went back to Charleston in the autumn. This was
a weary time for our dear mother, who was continually expecting and
longing for our father’s return. We, too, were always on the watch for
the first sight of the ship on the bay. One November morning, while we
were at our lessons with our mother, there came a hasty ring at the
bell. We wanted to look out and see if visitors were coming. We were
not fond of visitors, and generally used to run off to our nursery at
sight of them, but our mother would not let us peep this time; we must
attend to our lessons, she said; she was sure it was only a negro man
with a message. And then the door opened and our father was in the
room, catching up our mother in his arms, for she was nearly fainting,
while we skipped about for joy, and shouted to our mother that she had
called our father a negro man. Then came the unpacking of trunks, and
all the presents sent to us by our relations in England, and the news
of our brother Charles.
‘After my father’s return it was a very happy time for Arthur. He still
went on reading history and poetry with our mother. About this time,
I believe, he read with her some of Robertson’s “Charles V.,” and the
struggle in the Netherlands in Watson’s “Philip II.”; also the lives of
Columbus, Cortez, and Pizarro. He used also to say the Latin grammar
to my father in the early morning, and do sums in the office, lying
on the piled-up pieces of cotton bagging which were waiting there to
be made into sacks for cotton. Here, too, we used to play and tumble
about upon the cotton heaps. One of our games was playing at the Swiss
Family Robinson, in which I remember Arthur was always Ernest, because
Ernest liked reading and knew so much. In hot weather, Arthur used to
lie on his bed in the afternoon, reading the “Universal Traveller”
and “Captain Cook’s Travels,” in the purchase of which he had one day
expended all his savings. They were both full of pictures, and he used
to tell us that he dreamt of the places he had been reading about.
He also used to go out with my father when he had business to do on
the wharves and on board the ships, and sat with him and my mother in
the evenings and saw the occasional visitors who came in, such as the
captains of the merchantmen with whom he had dealings, and heard their
stories.
‘In the summer of 1827, we again went to Sullivan’s Island. It was a
pleasant time, especially as we now had our father with us. We lived
in a large rambling house, with a pleasant verandah in which we had
a swing, and a large garden fenced in with a hedge of yuccas, called
there Spanish bayonets. The house had once been an inn, and was built
in two parts. My father and mother slept in a room over a great
billiard-room, only reached by an open staircase or by a little open
path across a roof; and when great storms arose, as often happened, my
father used to carry us in his arms, back over the open space into the
more protected part of the house.
‘The walks on the sand were delightful to us children. It was the
finest white soft sand without a vestige of shingle on which we used
to play; and I remember that Arthur even then was too fastidious to
take off his shoes and stockings and paddle about as we did. The whole
island was like a great sandbank, with little growing naturally on it
but a few palmettos and low woods of myrtle. Our walks along the sea
often took us as far as Fort Moultrie, which in our time was a red
brick fort with a dry ditch round it, without the earthworks which
have since become famous. A high bank of sand lay between it and the
sea; and, after crossing this, we came to a few desolate houses half
buried in sand, which here lay in great heaps. Here and there grew a
few palmettos, which the high tides or autumn storms too often carried
away, and when we came to look for a favourite tree, to our great
grief, we found it gone. These sands were the haunt of innumerable
curlews whose wild screams seemed to make the shore more lonely still.
A beautiful grove of myrtles rose farther along the shore.
‘The other end of the island was the inhabited part. There was the pier
busy with its arrivals and departures of steamers, and sailing boats
going to and fro between the island and the city, and covered with
numerous carriages, old-fashioned gigs and waggons, mostly with hoods
or some sort of protection from the sun, and a seat for the negro boy
behind. The bay was gay, too, with many fishing-boats belonging to
the gentlemen who had a fishing club, which met at a house among the
myrtles; and many rowing-boats also, chiefly rowed by negroes. Arthur
often went out with my father on the water.
‘Six miles off lay Charleston, on a peninsula, between its two rivers,
the Cooper and the Ashley. The first sight of it showed a long line of
wharves made of palmetto logs fastened together into a sort of wall,
stretching perhaps half a mile along the bay, and lined with the ships
and smaller craft that frequented the port. As you approached from
the water you heard the songs of the negroes at work on the vessels.
Beyond the wharves was a battery or public walk, supported against the
sea by a substantial very white wall formed of oyster shells beaten
fine and hard. This species of pier extended nearly a mile along the
sea, and was a favourite resort both for walking and driving in the
summer. It was all roughly done, as most things were in the South, but
the sunshine and clear skies made it bright and cheerful. The city was
not regularly built like the Northern towns. In the lower part indeed
the houses were mostly built close together in rows; but in the upper
part, where the wealthier people lived, it was full of villas mostly
standing in gardens, all built with verandahs, and many with two, an
upper and a lower one. In the gardens grew many flowering trees, such
as the almond, occasionally the orange, the fringe tree, a gay shrub
with a very abundant white flower, and the fig; and these hung over
the garden walls into the streets. The streets, too, which were for the
most part unpaved, were often planted with trees for the sake of shade.
Here and there one came on a large old-fashioned mansion, that at once
showed it belonged to the times before the Revolution.
‘From Charleston, Sullivan’s Island was to be seen in the distance,
beyond the battery, and on the right James Island, marked by a long low
line of wood. Between these two islands, commanding the entrance, Fort
Sumter was afterwards built, not far from James Island. On the left was
Fort Pinckney, built on a small island or sandbank near the city.
‘In 1828 we all returned to England. We sailed from Charleston early
in June. We greatly enjoyed the voyage; being the only children on
board, we were exceedingly petted, and the unusual sights impressed our
imagination. I remember very well the sea-weed floating in quantities
on the Gulf Stream; also we saw a waterspout, and grander still--but
happily for us only in the distance--an iceberg. When at last we came
in sight of the South of Ireland, we were met by the Irish fishermen
coming out to sell us their fresh fish. Then came the slow creeping up
the Channel against a head wind, and then a calm, till one night the
wind sprang up, and in the morning we found ourselves in Liverpool.
‘We then went to stay with an uncle in the country, where we met my
eldest brother, and found ourselves among nine or ten cousins of
different ages. This was quite a new experience to us. Arthur could
not enter into the boys’ rough games and amusements, and missed the
constant companionship of his father. We travelled however for some
months from one relation’s house to another, and by degrees Arthur
became more sociable.
‘In October Arthur went to school at Chester, and my father, mother,
George and I sailed again to Charleston. This was practically the end
of Arthur’s childhood.
‘Our father was most affectionate, loving, and watchful over his
children. It was from him that we received many of the smaller cares
which usually come from a mother, especially on the long voyages,
during which my mother suffered greatly, when he took the care of
us almost entirely, and comforted us in rough storms. This watchful
and tender care for the feelings of others Arthur inherited in the
largest degree from his father. My father was very lively, and fond
of society and amusement. He liked life and change, and did not care
much for reading. He had a high sense of honour, but was venturesome
and over sanguine, and when once his mind was set on anything, he was
not to be turned from it, nor was he given to counting consequences.
My mother was very different. She cared little for general society,
but had a few fast friends to whom she was strongly attached. In her
tastes and habits she was rigidly simple; this harmonised with the
stern integrity which was the foundation of her character. She was
very fond of reading, especially works on religious subjects, poetry
and history; and she greatly enjoyed beautiful scenery, and visiting
places which had any historical associations. She loved what was grand,
noble, and enterprising, and was truly religious. She early taught us
about God and duty, and having such a loving earthly father, it was not
difficult to look up to a Heavenly one. She loved to dwell on all that
was stern and noble. Leonidas at Thermopylæ, and Epaminondas accepting
the lowliest offices and doing them as a duty to his country; the
sufferings of the martyrs, and the struggles of the Protestants, were
among her favourite subjects. There was an enthusiasm about her that
took hold of us, and made us see vividly the things that she taught
us. But with this love of the terrible and grand she was altogether a
woman clinging to and leaning on our father. When he left us Arthur
became her pet and her companion. I cannot but think that her love, her
influence, and her teaching had much to do with forming his character.’
From Charleston, as appears from what precedes, Arthur Clough went, in
November 1828, to school at Chester; and, in the summer of 1829, he was
removed to Rugby. His eldest brother, Charles, was with him at both
schools, but Charles left Rugby before him, as early as the year 1831.
During these first years he was a somewhat grave and studious boy,
not without tastes for walking, shooting, and sight-seeing, but with
little capacity for play and for mixing with others, and with more of
varied intellectual interest than usual with boys. He seems to have
had a fondness for drawing; and he was perpetually writing verses, not
remarkable except for a certain ease of expression and for a power of
running on, not common at that early age. The influence of Dr. Arnold
on his character was powerful, and continued to increase. We find him
mounting rapidly through the lower forms and beginning to get prizes.
It is also clear that, besides this application to his actual work,
he exerted himself with great energy in the endeavour to improve the
school and to influence his companions for good. This remarkable
interest in Rugby matters is partly to be explained by the fact that he
had no near home interests to distract his attention; partly it must
be referred to that strong sense of moral responsibility which Arnold,
first among schoolmasters, seems to have impressed upon his pupils.
Too early a strain seems to have been put upon him, especially as
he had not till 1836 any home to go to in his holidays. Of kind and
affectionate relations, who received him hospitably, there were
plenty. His uncles, the Rev. Charles Clough, then Vicar of Mold, and
the Rev. Alfred Clough, then Fellow of Jesus College, Oxford, always
showed him the greatest kindness; and he had a large connection of
friendly cousins, his visits among whom gave him many opportunities for
journeys into Yorkshire and in different parts of Wales. How lively
a recollection he retained of this period of his life, and of the
incidents of his holiday excursions, may be gathered from the picture
he has painted in ‘Primitiæ,’ the first tale of ‘Mari Magno.’ He did
thus enjoy much variety, but he lacked rest; and his family instincts
and affections were so strong, that he evidently suffered greatly
through his separation from those nearest and dearest to him. That a
great strain and sense of repression were upon him at this time is
clear from a letter written after the interval of twenty years. The
self-reliance and self-adaptation which most men acquire in mature life
were, by the circumstances of his family, forced upon him in his early
youth.
In July 1831, his father and mother, sister, and youngest brother,
came over for a visit from Charleston, and he spent his holidays with
them; after which he went back to school, this time without his eldest
brother. His sister remembers how their stay was unexpectedly prolonged
till the beginning of the following Christmas holidays, by a delay in
finding a ship, and how Arthur, hearing this, rushed off to Liverpool
to spend their last two or three days together, bringing his new prize,
Johnson’s ‘Lives of the Poets,’ in his bag, to show his mother, to whom
it was his greatest enjoyment to pour himself out. His mother suffered
greatly from the voyages, and from the uprooting consequent on such
great changes; and she resolved never again to come to England till it
should be her home. His father paid one more visit to England, alone,
in 1833, when he took his three sons to London and over to Paris.
At school Arthur continued to prosper. He gained a scholarship, open
to the whole school under fourteen, the only one which then existed.
He was at the head of the fifth form at fifteen; and as sixteen was
the earliest age at which boys were then admitted into the sixth,
he had to wait a whole year for this. It was probably a misfortune
to him that this rule prevented his advance through the school, and
his proceeding at once to Oxford, as he was much exhausted by the
intense interest and labour he expended on his moral work among the
boys, and also on the ‘Rugby Magazine.’ This was a periodical which
absorbed much of the writing powers of the cleverer boys, and to which
he contributed constantly, chiefly poetry. For a considerable time
he was also its editor. Besides this he took an active part in some
of the school games, and his name is handed down in William Arnold’s
‘Rules of Football’ as the best goal-keeper on record. He was also
one of the first swimmers in the school, and was a very good runner,
in spite of a weakness in his ankles, which prevented his attaining
proficiency in many games. He made at this time several close and
intimate friendships, and gained a very high character among his
schoolfellows in general; a sign of which is given by the story told by
some of them at the time, that, when he left school for college, almost
every boy at Rugby contrived to shake hands with him at parting. ‘The
grace of his character when he was a boy,’ says one of his friends,
‘can be estimated by nothing so well as by the force with which he
attracted the attachment of some, and the jealousy or encroachment of
others.’ Another says: ‘I always said that his face was quite another
thing from any of those of our own generation; the mixture of _width_
and sweetness was then quite as marked as it was later.’ Dr. Arnold
also regarded him with increasing interest and satisfaction; and, as
another friend describes, at the yearly speeches, in the last year of
Clough’s residence, he broke the rule of silence to which he almost
invariably adhered in the delivery of prizes, and congratulated him
on having gained every honour which Rugby could bestow, and done the
highest credit to his school at the University. This was in allusion
to his having just gained the Balliol scholarship, then and now the
highest honour which a schoolboy could obtain. Some months previous
to this (in July 1836), his father, mother, and sister came over from
America, to settle in Liverpool; and thenceforth Arthur was no longer
without a home in England. His sister describes him as she then saw
him, after an interval of five years, as a blooming youth of seventeen,
with an abundance of dark soft hair, a fresh complexion, much colour,
and shining eyes full of animation. Though kind and affectionate as
ever in his family, they now found him changed in mind; eager and
interested in many fresh subjects; full of growing force, and of the
fervour of youthful conviction. With boyish vehemence he stood forth
on all occasions as the devoted disciple of his beloved master, Dr.
Arnold, and the exponent of his various theories of church government
and politics.
In November 1836 he had gained the Balliol scholarship, and the October
following he went into residence at Oxford. There he soon made friends
with some of those with whom he became afterwards intimate--Mr. Ward,
Sir B. Brodie, and Professor Jowett;--a little later, with Dr. Temple
and Professor Shairp; and, later still, with Mr. T. Walrond and the
two eldest sons of Dr. Arnold, whose names frequently occur in his
correspondence.
Now came the time which we regard as essentially the turning-point of
his life. He began his residence at Oxford when the University was
stirred to its depths by the great Tractarian movement. Dr. Newman
was in the fulness of his popularity, preaching at St. Mary’s, and
in pamphlets, reviews, and verses continually pouring forth eloquent
appeals to every kind of motive that could influence men’s minds. Mr.
Ward one of Clough’s first friends at Oxford, was, as is well known,
among the foremost of the party; and thus, at the very entrance into
his new life, he was at once thrown into the very vortex of discussion.
Something of the same fate which, as a young boy, forced on him a too
early self-reliance and independence in matters of conduct, followed
him here; and the accident of his passing from the Rugby of Arnold to
the Oxford of Newman and Ward, drove him, while he ought to have been
devoting himself to the ordinary work of an undergraduate reading for
honours, and before he had attained his full intellectual development,
to examine and in some degree draw conclusions concerning the deepest
subjects that can occupy the human mind. This must be felt to have
been a serious disadvantage. As his friend Mr. Ward himself says with
much feeling, when looking back on that time after many years, ‘What
was before all things to have been desired for him, was that during
his undergraduate career he should have given himself up thoroughly
to his classical and mathematical studies, and kept himself from
plunging prematurely into the theological controversies then so rife at
Oxford. Thus he would have been saved from all injury to the gradual
and healthy growth of his mind and character. It is my own very strong
impression that, had this been permitted, his future course of thought
and speculation would have been essentially different from what it was
in fact. Drawn as it were peremptorily, when a young man just coming up
to college, into a decision upon questions the most important that can
occupy the mind, the result was not surprising. After this premature
forcing of Clough’s mind, there came a reaction. His intellectual
perplexity preyed heavily on his spirits, and grievously interfered
with his studies.’
Another cause, also, which rendered him less able to endure the
various demands made upon him in his new life was, that the strain of
his school-work and interests at Rugby had evidently considerably
exhausted him.
Any reader of that marvellously vivid book, the ‘Apologia’ of
Dr. Newman, will understand the trouble of spirit into which an
impressionable nature must have been thrown by the storm that was
raging round him, and by contact with such powerful leaders. The
appeals made at once to the imagination, to all the tenderer parts
of human nature, and to the reason, combined to render this struggle
peculiarly intense. For a time Clough was carried away, how far it is
impossible with any approach to certainty to say, in the direction of
the new opinions. He himself said afterwards, that for two years he
had been ‘like a straw drawn up the draught of a chimney.’ Yet in his
mind the disturbance was but temporary. His own nature before long
reasserted itself, proving, by the strength of its reaction, how wholly
impossible it was for such a character to accept any merely external
system of authority. Still, when the torrent had subsided, he found
that not only had it swept away the new views which had been presented
to him by the leaders of the Romanising movement, but also that it had
shaken the whole foundations of his early faith, and had forced him to
rely upon his own endeavours in the search after that truth which he
still firmly believed in.
This spirit of doubt and struggle, yet of unshaken assurance in the
final conquest of truth and good, comes out strongly in the poems
written about this time, and contrasts markedly with the boyish
effusions of the Rugby period. It is this which forms the very essence
of the scepticism of which he is accused, the truth of which charge,
in a certain sense, we do not attempt to deny--nay, we believe that in
this quality of mind lay his chief power of helping his generation. But
his scepticism was of no mere negative quality--not a mere rejection
of tradition and denial of authority, but was the expression of a pure
reverence for the inner light of the spirit, and of entire submission
to its guidance. It was the loyalty to truth as the supreme good of the
intellect, and as the only sure foundation of moral character.
He was absolutely truthful towards his own soul. The experiences he had
gone through forced him to look religious questions full in the face,
and he could no longer take any dogmatic teaching on trust. He ignored
no difficulties, he accepted nothing because it was pleasant--he could
retain faith in nothing but his own soul. But that he did retain this
faith--faith in the intuitions which he regarded as revelations of
God to him, in absolute faithfulness to duty, strict adherence to
intellectual and moral truthfulness, single-minded practice of all
social and domestic virtues--is not only true of his outward life, but
is shown, as far as concerns his moral and intellectual convictions,
even in the poems which most strongly testify to the struggle and the
darkness in which he often found himself. In illustration of this point
we may mention in particular the ‘Summum Pulchrum,’ ‘Qui laborat orat,’
and the ‘New Sinai.’ The often-quoted lines in ‘In Memoriam’ might
almost be supposed to have been written for him:--
Perplext in faith, but pure in deeds,
At last he beat his music out.
Such scepticism--scepticism which consists in reverent waiting for
light not yet given, in respect for the truth so absolute, that nothing
doubtful can be accepted as truth because it is pleasant to the
soul--was his from this time forth to the end of his life. Some truths
he doubtless conceived himself to have learnt to _know_, in the course
of his life, but his attitude was always chiefly that of a learner. The
best key for those who care to know his later thought is to be found
in the fragment on the ‘Religious Tradition’ contained in the present
volume. But the scepticism which assumes a negative position from
intellectual pleasure in destructive arguments, which does not feel the
want of spiritual support, or realise the existence of spiritual truth,
which mocks at the grief of others, and refuses to accept their honest
experiences as real, was never his. He never denied the reality of
much that he himself could not use as spiritual nutriment. He believed
that God spoke differently to different ages and different minds. Not
therefore could he lay aside his own duty of seeking and waiting.
Through good report and through evil report, this he felt to be his own
personal duty, and from it he never flinched.
To return to Clough’s early days. It would not, we think, be true
to say that he abandoned all his early belief; he still, no doubt,
preserved much of his old feeling, and was in no sense hostile to
existing institutions; but _certainty_ as to anything resting on
personal or traditional authority was gone for him.
The result of this disturbance of mind was naturally to distract his
attention from his immediate studies, and to make his labour less
productive. Yet he did read hard, even more so, perhaps, than most
men of his time; and one of his friends records that the only bet he
ever remembers making in his life was seven to one that Clough would
get a first. His habits are said to have been at this time of Spartan
simplicity: he had very cold rooms in Balliol on the ground floor,
in which he passed a whole winter without a fire; and he used to say
that, now that he was working in good earnest, this was an excellent
plan for keeping out visitors, as nobody else could stand it for
more than a few minutes. He disclosed but little to any one of the
mental struggle within him, but his family were aware that some great
change was going on in him, and were anxious about his health, which
evidently suffered; one sign of which was the falling off of his thick
brown hair. He is described by his friends at this time as ‘a most
noble-looking youth.’ One of them says, ‘I remember well the first
time I saw him, just after he got the Balliol. I had no acquaintance
with him for years afterwards, but I never lost the impression of the
beautiful eyes which I saw opposite to me at dinner in Balliol Hall.’
He had, as we are told, a very high reputation as an undergraduate; and
among his contemporaries and those immediately succeeding him, many
were found to say that they owed more to him than to any other man. We
quote, again, some passages from the affectionate remembrances of Mr.
Ward: ‘Certainly I hardly met any one during my whole Oxford life to
whom I was so strongly drawn. Among the many qualities which so greatly
attracted me were his unusual conscientiousness and high-mindedness
and public spirit. As regarded himself, his main desire (so far as I
could see) was to do what he felt to be right; and as regarded others,
to stand up for the cause of God and of right principle. This latter
view--the duty of making a stand in society for good principles--was
one especial characteristic of Dr. Arnold’s pupils. Many think that
he impressed it on them too prominently, so as to expose them to a
real danger of becoming priggish and self-sufficient; but certainly
I never saw in Clough the faintest trace of such qualities as these.
Closely connected with this were his unselfishness and unworldliness.
The notion of preparing himself for success in a worldly career was so
far from prominent in his mind, that he might with some plausibility
have been accused of not thinking about it enough. But his one idea
seemed always to be, that he should to-day do to-day’s duty, and
for the rest leave himself in God’s hands. And as to unselfishness,
his self-abnegating consideration for others may be called, in the
best sense, feminine. Then his singular sweetness of disposition: I
doubt if I have anywhere seen this exceeded. I have known him under
circumstances which must have given him great vexation and annoyance,
but I never saw in him the faintest approach to loss of temper.
‘Intellectually he struck me as possessing very unusual independence,
and (if I may so express myself) straight-forwardness of thought. He
was never taken in with shams, pretences, and traditions, but saw
at once below the surface. On the other hand, he was perhaps less
remarkable for logical consecutiveness. But at that time the Oriel
fellowship was universally accounted, I think, the best test in Oxford
of intellectual power; and he obtained that fellowship the first time
he stood for it. I took part myself in examining him for the Balliol
fellowship, and I do not remember to have seen so much power displayed
in any examination within my experience.
‘As regards his ordinary habits at the time, since I was a fellow and
he only an undergraduate, I cannot speak with perfect certainty; but my
impression is that from the first he very much abstained from general
society. This was undoubtedly the case at a later period, when his
intellectual perplexity had hold of him; but I think it began earlier.
I remember in particular that every day he used to return to his
solitary room immediately after dinner; and when I asked him the reason
for this, he told me that his pecuniary circumstances incapacitated
him from giving wine parties, and that therefore he did not like to
wine with others. I think also there was a certain fastidiousness of
taste and judgment about him which prevented him from enjoying general
society.
‘The opinion both of tutors and undergraduates undoubtedly was,
that there was an unusual degree of reserve in his demeanour which
prevented them from understanding him; but they all--certainly all the
tutors, and I believe all the undergraduates--greatly appreciated his
singularly high principle and his exemplary spotlessness of life.’
We give another sketch of him during his undergraduate period,
furnished by Principal Shairp. ‘It was towards the end of 1840 that I
first saw A. H. Clough. As a freshman I looked with respect approaching
to awe on the senior scholar of whom I had heard so much, stepping
out on Sunday mornings to read the first lesson in Balliol Chapel.
How clearly I remember his massive figure, in scholar’s surplice,
standing before the brass eagle, and his deep feeling tones as he read
some chapter from the Hebrew prophets. At that time he was the eldest
and every way the first of a remarkable band of scholars. The younger
undergraduates felt towards him a distant reverence, as a lofty and
profound nature quite above themselves whom they could not quite make
out, but who was sure to be some day great. Profaner spirits, nearer
his own standing, sometimes made a joke of his then exceeding silence
and reserve, and of his unworldly ways. But as he was out of college
rooms and reading hard for his degree, we freshmen only heard of his
reputation from a distance, and seldom came in contact with him.
‘It must have been early in 1841 that he first asked me to breakfast
with him. He was then living in a small cottage, or cottage-like house,
standing by itself, a little apart from Holywell. There he used to
bathe every morning all the winter through, in the cold Holywell baths,
and read hard all day. There were one or two other freshmen there at
breakfast. If I remember right, none of the party were very talkative.
‘I have heard that about that time he wrote one day in fun an oracle,
in the style of Herodotus, to his brother scholar, who was reading like
himself for the Schools. The Greek I forget; the translation he sent
with it ran something like this:--
‘Whereas ---- of Lancashire
Shall in the Schools preside,
And Wynter[1] to St. Mary’s go
With the pokers by his side;
Two scholars there of Balliol,
Who on double firsts had reckoned,
Between them two shall with much ado
Scarce get a double second.
‘This turned out only too true an oracle. Since the beginning of
class-lists, the succession of firsts among Balliol scholars was
unbroken. And few Balliol scholars had equalled, none ever surpassed,
Clough’s reputation. I well remember going, towards the end of May or
beginning of June, with one of the scholars of my own standing, to the
School quadrangle to hear the class list read out, the first time I had
heard it. What was our surprise when the list was read out, and neither
of our scholars appeared in the first class. We rushed to Balliol and
announced it to the younger Fellows who were standing at their open
window. Many causes were assigned at the time for this failure--some in
the examiners, some in Clough’s then state of spirits; but whatever the
cause, I think the result for some years shook faith in firsts among
Clough’s contemporaries. It made a great impression upon others; on
himself I fancy it made but little. I never heard him afterwards allude
to it as a thing of any consequence. He once told me he was sick of
contentions for prizes and honours before he left Rugby.’
Thus he missed his first class, of which perhaps the worst result
was that for the time it seriously distressed his parents and his
friends, especially Dr. Arnold, who had looked forward to his achieving
great distinction, and whose well-known dislike of the Tractarian
movement made him doubly grieve at what he regarded as indirectly
one of its consequences. Clough himself seems always to have felt a
solid confidence in his own powers, and perhaps to have too little
regarded the outward means of displaying them. Perhaps, too, he was
somewhat conscious of that inaptitude to put himself forward to the
best advantage, which many of his friends have noticed, and accepted it
with his usual stoic philosophy. At any rate his failure did not long
produce the effects he most feared, of want of pupils; for through Dr.
Arnold’s kindness he was soon provided with profitable employment in
teaching a number of Rugby boys who were kept at home at Liverpool by
the breaking out of fever in the school. During this time he stayed
at home with his family. In the autumn he returned to Oxford, and
tried for a fellowship at Balliol. In this he was unsuccessful. He
continued, however, to reside at Oxford, and supported himself on
the exhibition and scholarship which he still held. In the spring of
1842 he was elected fellow of Oriel, which was in every way a great
and cheering success to him. It healed the disappointment which his
former failure and the judgment of others on it had caused, and seemed
to give him a new life. It is clear by this determination of his to
abide by Oxford and to seek his career and his living there, that he
had as yet formed no definite views at variance with the principles of
the Church. He had come, we believe, to see the unimportance of many
things commonly insisted on; his intellect could no longer accept the
ordinary formulas of religious opinion; but he was not provided with
any other scheme to set up; his habits and his affections all clung
to the old ways; then and many years afterwards he continued to feel
that real liberality, width of view, and mental and moral cultivation
were more commonly found among those nursed in the Anglican Church than
in any exclusive sect, and probably the idea of any violent move, of
quitting the home in which he had been reared, had never yet crossed
his mind. His pleasure in his success in obtaining the fellowship was
much enhanced by the satisfaction which it gave to Dr. Arnold, and in
a practical way it was doubly valuable, because more troubles were now
thickening round him and his family. Money difficulties pressed hard on
his parents at this time; his help was much needed, and was unsparingly
given. For some sketches of this period and a little later we will
again quote Mr. Shairp’s words.
‘In the November of the same year he tried for a Balliol fellowship,
but was not successful. Tait,[2] however, was strong in his favour,
and, I believe, some other of the Fellows. I remember one of them
telling me at the time that a character of Saul which Clough wrote in
that examination was, I think he said, the best, most original thing
he had ever seen written in any examination. But Oriel had at that
time a way of finding out original genius better than either Balliol
or the Schools. In the spring of 1842, Arthur Hugh Clough was elected
fellow of Oriel, the last examination I believe in which Newman took
part. The announcement of that success I remember well. It was on
the Friday morning of the Easter week of that year. The examination
was finished on the Thursday evening. I had asked Clough and another
friend, who was a candidate at the same time, to breakfast with me on
the Friday morning, as their work was just over. Most of the scholars
of the College were staying up and came to breakfast too. The party
consisted of about a dozen. We had little notion that anything about
the examination would be known so soon, and were all sitting quietly,
having just finished breakfast, but not yet risen from the table. The
door opened wide; entered a fellow of another college, and, drawing
himself up to his full height, he addressed the other candidate: “I
am sorry to say you have _not_ got it.” Then, “Clough, you have;” and
stepping forward into the middle of the room, held out his hand, with
“Allow me to congratulate you.” We were all so little thinking of the
fellowship, and so taken aback by this formal announcement, that it was
some little time before we knew what it was all about. The first thing
that recalled my presence of mind was seeing the delight on the face of
Clough’s younger brother, who was present.
‘In the summer of 1842, while I was reading in a retired part of Wales
with two or three others, Clough, then wandering through the Welsh
mountains, one morning looked in on us. I took a walk with him, and
he at once led me up Moël Wyn, the highest mountain within reach. Two
things I remember that day: one, that he spoke a good deal (for him) of
Dr. Arnold, whose death had happened only a few weeks before: another,
that a storm came down upon the mountain when we were half-way up. In
the midst of it we lay for some time close above a small mountain tarn,
and watched the storm-wind working on the face of the lake, tearing
and torturing the water into most fantastic, almost ghostly shapes,
the like of which I never saw before or since. These mountain sights,
though he did not say much, he used to eye most observantly.
‘Early in the autumn of 1843, Clough came to Grasmere to read with a
Balliol reading party, of which I was one. He was with us about six
weeks, I think staying till towards the end of September. This was his
earliest long vacation party, all things on a smaller scale than his
later ones by Loch Ness, or on Dee-side, but still very pleasant. He
lived in a small lodging immediately to the west of Grasmere church;
we in a farm-house on the lake. During these weeks I read the Greek
tragedians with him, and did Latin prose. His manner of translating,
especially the Greek choruses, was quite peculiar; a quaint archaic
style of language, keeping rigidly to the Greek order of the words, and
so bringing out their expression better, more forcibly and poetically,
than any other translations I had heard. When work was done we used to
walk in the afternoon with him all over that delightful country. His
“eye to country” was wonderful. He knew the whole lie of the different
dales relatively to each other; every tarn, beck, and bend in them. He
used, if I remember right, to draw pen-and-ink maps, showing us the
whole lineaments of the district. Without any obtrusive enthusiasm,
but in his own quiet manly way, he seemed as if he never could get
too much of it--never walk too far or too often over it. Bathing too
formed one of his daily occupations up in a retired pool of the stream
that afterwards becomes the Rotha, as it comes out of Easedale. One
walk, our longest, was on a Saturday, up Easedale, over the Raise by
Greenup, Borrowdale, Honister Crag, under the starlight, to Buttermere.
In the small inn there we stayed all Sunday. Early on Monday morning we
walked, by two mountain passes, to a farm at the head of Wastwater to
breakfast. On the way we crossed Ennerdale, and up the pass close under
the nearly perpendicular precipices of the Pillar--a tall mountain,
which is the scene of Wordsworth’s pastoral of “The Brothers.” From
the head of Wastwater, up past the great gorge of the Mickledoor, to
the top of Scawfell, then down past the east side of Bowfell towards
Langdale Pikes, and so home to Grasmere. As we passed under Bowfell
a beautiful autumn afternoon, we lay a long time by the side of the
lovely Angle Tarn. The sun, just before he sunk beside Bowfell, was
showering down his light, which dimpled the smooth face of the tarn
like heavy drops of sun-rain. Every now and then a slight breeze would
come and scatter the rays broadcast over the little loch, as if some
unseen hand was sowing it with golden grain. It was as memorable an
appearance as that different one we had seen a year ago on Moël Wyn.
These things, though Clough observed closely, and took pleasure in, he
did not speak often about, much less indulge in raptures.