the precise moment when he did so. In the year 1847 he was powerfully
stirred by the distress in Ireland at the time of the potato famine,
as may be seen from the pamphlet on ‘Retrenchment’; and the general
ferment of his nature, as well as the ripening of opinions in his
own mind, probably tended to make him more open to change. Emerson
also visited England in this year. Clough became intimate with him,
and his influence must have tended to urge him on in the direction
in which he was already moving. With another friend, also, whose
general dissatisfaction with European life was strong, he was at
this time very familiar. We are, therefore, disposed to think that
it was some half accidental confirmation of his own doubts as to
the honesty and usefulness of his own course, which brought him at
last almost suddenly face to face with the question whether he ought
to resign his tutorship. After a correspondence with the head of
his college--in speaking of whom he always expressed a strong sense
of the uniform kindness which he had received from him under these
trying circumstances--he eventually gave up his tutorship in 1848;
and this done, though his fellowship had not yet expired, he began
to feel his whole position hollow; and six months later (in October
1848) he resigned this likewise, and thus left himself unprovided with
any present means of making a livelihood, and with the burden of the
annuity to which we have alluded still hanging on him. The sacrifice
was greater to him than to many men, because he had no natural
aptitude for making money. His power of literary production was always
uncertain, and very little within his own control. His conscientious
scruples interfered with his writing casually, as many would have done;
for instance, we are told that he would not contribute to any paper
or review with whose general principles he did not agree. He was,
therefore, constrained to look out for some definite post in the line
of education; and from the best chances in this department he had cut
himself adrift by resigning his fellowship. He did, nevertheless, take
this step, apparently with a certain lightness of heart and buoyancy,
in singular contrast with what might be expected to be the feeling of a
man taking a decision so important to his future life. It is clear that
he ‘broke away with delight’ from what he felt to be the thraldom of
his position in Oxford.
Immediately after laying down his tutorship, he made use of his leisure
to go to Paris, in company with Emerson, where he spent a month in
seeing the sights of the Revolution.
It was in September of this year (1848), when staying at home with his
mother and sister in Liverpool, that he wrote his first long poem, the
‘Bothie of Tober-na-Vuolich.’ This was his utterance to the world on
quitting Oxford, and not the theological pamphlet which was expected
from him. In later days he would often speak of the amusement it had
been to him to think of the disappointment which the appearance of
these lively verses would produce among those who looked for a serious
vindication of his conduct. Some further explanation of his feeling
will be furnished by an unpublished letter, which we subjoin:--
‘My objection _in limine_ to subscription would be, that it is
a painful restraint on speculation; but beyond this, to examine
myself in detail on the Thirty-nine Articles, and say how far
my thoughts upon them had passed the limit of speculation and
begun to assume the form of concretion, would be not only
difficult and distasteful to me, but absolutely impossible.
I could not do it with any approximation to accuracy; and
I have no wish to be hurried into precipitate declarations
which, after all, might misrepresent my mind. It is fair to say
that the points in question with me would not be subordinate
matters; but at the same time I feel no call to the study of
theology, and for the present certainly should leave these
controversies to themselves, were they not in some measure
forced upon my notice. Of joining any sect I have not the most
distant intention.’
This year he spent chiefly at home; and, in the winter of 1848, he
received an invitation to take the Headship of University Hall,
London, an institution professing entirely unsectarian principles,
founded for the purpose of receiving students attending the lectures
at University College. His tenure of office was to date from October
1849, and he determined before this to take his first long holiday of
travel, and to go to Rome. Thus his visit coincided accidentally with
the siege of Rome by the French; and this, though it deprived him of
many opportunities of travel and sight-seeing, was historically and
politically of very great interest to him. This was the scene and the
time during which he wrote his second long poem, the ‘Amours de Voyage.’
In October 1849 he returned to enter on his duties at University Hall.
His new circumstances were, of course, very different from those
of his Oxford life, and the change was in many respects painful to
him. The step he had taken in resigning his fellowship isolated him
greatly; many of his old friends looked coldly on him, and the new
acquaintances among whom he was thrown were often uncongenial to him.
The transition from the intimate and highly refined society of Oxford
to the bustling miscellaneous external life of London, to one not well
furnished with friends, and without a home of his own, could hardly
fail to be depressing. He had hoped for liberty of thought and action;
he had found solitude, but not perfect freedom. Though not bound by any
verbal obligations, he found himself expected to express agreement with
the opinions of the new set among whom he had fallen, and this was no
more possible to him here than it had been at Oxford. His old prestige
at Oxford availed him little in London; it has been remarked by his
friends that he often failed to show himself to the best advantage,
and this was doubly the case when he felt himself not understood. This
was without doubt the dreariest, loneliest period of his life, and he
became compressed and reserved to a degree quite unusual with him, both
before and afterwards. He shut himself up, and went through his life in
silence.
Yet here too he gradually formed some new and valuable friendships.
Among these, his acquaintance with Mr. Carlyle was one of the most
important; and to the end of his life he continued to entertain the
warmest feeling for that great man. It was part of the sensitiveness of
his character to shrink from going back on old impressions; and though
he always retained his affection for his early friends, yet intercourse
with fresh minds was often easier to him than with those to whom his
former phases of life and thought were more familiar. In the autumn
of 1850 he took advantage of his vacation to make a hasty journey
to Venice, and during this interval he began his third long poem of
‘Dipsychus,’ which bears the mark of Venice in all its framework and
its local colouring.
We have now mentioned, at the dates at which they were composed,
all his longest works--the ‘Bothie,’ the ‘Amours de Voyage,’ and
‘Dipsychus.’ No other long work of his remains except the ‘Mari Magno,’
which is properly a collection of short poems, more or less united by
one central idea, and bound together by their setting, as a series of
tales related to each other by a party of companions on a sea voyage.
The ‘Ambarvalia,’ poems written between 1840 and 1847, chiefly at
Oxford, though without any setting at all, have something of the same
inward coherence. They are all poems of the inner life, while the ‘Mari
Magno’ poems deal with social problems, and the questions of love and
marriage. His voyage to America, again, produced a cluster of little
sea poems, closely linked together by one or two main thoughts.
It has often been a subject of surprise, that with such evident powers
and even facility of production, Clough should have left so little
behind him, even considering the shortness of his life, and that for
such long periods he should have been entirely silent. We think the
best explanation is to be found in his peculiar temper of mind, and
we might say physical conformation of brain, which could not work
unless under a combination of favourable circumstances. His brain,
though powerful, was slow to concentrate itself, and could not carry
on several occupations at once. Solitude and repose were necessary for
production. This, combined with a certain inertia, a certain slowness
of movement, constantly made it hard for him to get over the initial
difficulties of self-expression, and would often, no doubt, cause him
to delay too long and lose the passing inspiration or opportunity.
But, once started, his very weight carried him on, as it did in the
‘Bothie,’ ‘Amours,’ and ‘Dipsychus,’ and ‘Mari Magno.’
Besides this, much in the very quality of his poetry will explain
this scantiness of production. His absolute sincerity of thought, his
intense feeling of reality, rendered it impossible for him to produce
anything superficial, and therefore actually curtailed the amount of
his creations. His excessive conscientiousness winnowed away so much
as to leave often a sense of baldness. His peculiar habits of thought
also, his sense of being constantly at variance with the ordinary
sentiments of those who surrounded him, his incapability of treating
the common themes of poetry in the usual manner, his want of interest
in any poetry which did not touch some deep question, some vital
feeling in human nature (always excepting his love for the simple
beauty of nature), all combined to diminish his range of subjects. He
had to enter on a new line, to create a new treatment of old subjects,
to turn them over and bring them out in the new light of his critical
but kindly philosophy. This, in ‘Mari Magno,’ he had begun to do, and
the rapid production of these last poems makes us believe that this
new vein would have continued had he lived, and that we should have
received a further expression of his views about the daily problems of
social life.
Looking now to the facts of his life, we see that there were in it very
few intervals during which he enjoyed the combination of favourable
circumstances necessary to enable him to write. He never was free,
except during those short intervals, from the pressure of constant
hard practical work. He was constantly under the necessity of using
his power of work for the purpose of immediately making a living. His
conscientious efforts, first to relieve his parents from the burden of
his education, and then to assist them, have been related before. As
fellow and tutor his earnings were freely contributed, and no doubt the
desire of doing this was one great reason for undertaking the tutor’s
work at Oriel. It is true that this was a time of comparative wealth,
but it was earned by hard labour of a practical kind, and it has been
already shown that during this period he made a pecuniary engagement
which burdened him for many years after. Thus his duty to others never
allowed him for any interval to cast himself on his fortune, and run
risks for a while for the sake of freedom and opportunities. To many
men this burden would have been lighter, but he was a heavy moving
vessel; he could not turn and set his sails to catch light favouring
winds. He could not use spare half-hours to write well-paid reviews
or popular articles, or even poetry. The demand for his wares seemed
to spoil the supply. That it should be profitable, seemed to make
it impossible to him to write. Thus he was driven to harder, less
congenial work, simply because it was positive and certain. Nothing,
for instance, would have been more grateful to him than after leaving
Oxford to be free for a few years to roam about the world before
settling to a new vocation, but this was never to be thought of. No
doubt there is another side to the picture; the real acquaintance
with life and men, which this entire acceptance of various positions
taught him, not only gave him valuable training, but furnished him with
materials which in a mind of his calibre would, we doubt not, have
come out in some literary form. But for the time they simply choked
his power of production, and no doubt prevented the utterance of many
thoughts on religious and other subjects.
After two years at University Hall, the founding of a new college at
Sydney induced him to seek a change, and he presented himself as a
candidate for its principalship, a post which Dr. Woolley eventually
obtained. This would have brought him a safe income, and one on which
he could afford to marry. He had great hopes of success, and this
tempted him to engage himself to be married. But very soon after he
had done this the appointment was decided against him, and he was at
the same time obliged to give up University Hall. His prospects were
thus less hopeful than ever. Yet the stimulus which he had received
supported him in the struggle to obtain some kind of position in
which he might gain a livelihood. His friends endeavoured to procure
an appointment for him in the Education Office; but the downfall of
the Liberal Ministry destroyed all his chances for the time. Then,
after much deliberation and inward hesitation, he resolved to go out
to America, and try what opening he might find there, as a teacher
or a literary man. But to leave England, to make a new beginning in
life, and to pull himself up again, as it were, by the roots, was not
an easy matter to one of his tenacious temperament. Some expression
of the feelings which possessed him comes out in the poems written
on shipboard. Eventually he sailed, in October 1852, and settled
at Cambridge, Massachusetts. There he was welcomed with remarkable
cordiality, and formed many friendships which lasted to the end of
his life. Still his position was too solitary to be cheerful, but he
appreciated very highly the hopefulness and the moral healthiness of
the new country, and he always retained warm feelings of admiration and
affection for its citizens.
At Cambridge he remained some time without much employment, but by
degrees he gathered a certain number of pupils. He also wrote several
articles at this time in the ‘North American Review,’ and in ‘Putnam’s
Magazine,’ and other magazines, and before long undertook a revision
of the translation, known as Dryden’s, of Plutarch’s ‘Lives,’ for
an American publisher. Thus he carried on a great deal of work,
and was gradually making himself an assured position; and he would
probably have felt no difficulty in settling down in America as his
home, had not the offer of an examinership in the Education Office,
which his friends obtained for him, come to draw him homewards again.
The certainty of a permanent, though small income, the prospects of
immediate marriage, and his natural affection for his own country,
decided him to accept the place, and give up his chances in America,
not without some regret, after he had gradually brought his mind to the
idea of adopting a new country. His genuine democratic feeling rejoiced
in the wider diffusion of prosperity and substantial comforts which he
found in America; at the same time he would doubtless have suffered
greatly from the expatriation, and would probably have always regretted
his exclusion from what he calls ‘the deeper waters of ancient
knowledge and experience’ to be found in the old country.
In July 1853 he returned to England, and at once entered on the duties
of his office. Henceforth his career was decided for him. He was freed
from perplexing questions as to choice of occupation. His business
life was simple, straightforward, and hardworking; but it was made
up of little beyond official drudgery, and the fact of his entering
the public service so late diminished his prospect of reaching higher
posts. His immediate objects, however, were answered; and in June
1854 he married. For the next seven years he lived quietly at home;
and during this time three children were born to him, who formed his
chief and unfailing delight. No events of any moment marked this
period; but it was one of real rest and contentment. It is hard to
speak of happiness which has vanished from the earth; yet what comfort
remains lies chiefly in the thought that now at last his life did
reach a sort of culmination, that a great-hearted man did for a short
time find his natural repose in the pleasures of a home, and that he
was able, for a short space at least, to devote his great faculties
freely to the service of others. Up to this date we may almost say
that he had been too free from active and absorbing employment for his
own happiness. Circumstances had forced him to try different schemes
and to engage in various undertakings with very moderate success, and
the want of definite and continuous occupation left his mind free to
deal restlessly with the great insoluble problems of the world, which
had for him so true a vitality that he could not dismiss them from
his thoughts. After his marriage there was none of this enforced and
painful communing with self alone. He had plenty to do; and the close
relations into which he was brought with various members of his wife’s
family kept him actively employed, and tasked his sympathies to the
full. All the new duties and interests of domestic life grew up and
occupied his daily thoughts. The humour which in solitude had been
inclined to take the hue of irony and sarcasm, now found its natural
and healthy outlet. The practical wisdom and insight into life, for
which he was distinguished, were constantly exercised in the service
of his friends; and the new experience which he was daily gathering at
home made many perplexed questions, both social and religious, clear
and simple to his mind. In this way, though he did not cease to think
about the problems which hitherto had occupied his leisure, he thought
about them in a different way, and was able, so to speak, to test them
by the facts of actual life, and by the intuitions and experience of
those whose character he valued, instead of submitting them only to the
crucible of his own reflection. The close and constant contact with
another mind gave him a fresh insight into his own, and developed a
new understanding of the wants of other people, so that the results of
many years of meditation grew distinct and solid. Having thus passed
from the speculative to the constructive phase of thought, it is quite
certain, from little things which he was in the habit of saying, that,
had he been permitted, he would have expressed his mature convictions
in works of a more positive and substantial kind. But, unfortunately,
he was too willing and too anxious to take work of every sort, and to
spend himself for others. Therefore he soon became involved in labours
too exciting for a constitution already somewhat overtasked, nor was
he ever able to yield himself wholly to the healthful indolence of
private life. To a period of wasting thought and solitude succeeded
one of over-strenuous exertion; bracing indeed, but, for a man of his
sympathetic temperament and laborious past life, too absorbing and
engrossing. What, however, must always be remembered is, that Clough
was happy in his work, and happy in his home life. It would be easy,
were it necessary, to show from his poems how strong in him was the
sense of family feeling, how tenderly and delicately he appreciated the
family relations, how fond he was of children and young people, how
naturally he enjoyed domestic life. Nor can any one doubt that in work
itself he found full satisfaction, especially in such work as made him
helpful to others, and brought him into vivid human contact with his
fellow-workers. Both of these sources of satisfaction, home life and
congenial work, had hitherto been denied him. Now they were largely
given to him, and, had his strength been equal to the demands which
were made upon it, a long life of happiness and usefulness was clearly
open to him.
Besides the work of the office, the translation of Plutarch, begun in
America, absorbed a great part of his scanty leisure during five years
after his return from America. In the spring of 1856 he was appointed
secretary to a commission for examining the scientific military schools
on the Continent. He visited, in consequence, the great schools for
artillery and engineers in France, Prussia, and Austria. The travelling
lasted about three months, and besides being very interesting and
agreeable, it afforded him much occupation during a considerable time
afterwards. Another employment, which frequently fell to him, was
the examining of candidates in his own special subject of English
literature, sometimes for Woolwich, sometimes in his own office. But
the work in which he took the deepest interest was that of his friend
and relation, Miss Nightingale. He watched over every step in her
various undertakings, affording her assistance not merely with advice,
and little in his life gave him greater satisfaction than to be her
active and trusted friend.
We see that his life, though uneventful, was full of work, and we
can also understand why this period of his life produced no poetical
result. The conditions under which he could create were at this time
wholly wanting. He had not time or strength or leisure of mind to
spend on his natural gift of writing; and to his friends it must ever
be a source of sorrow that his natural vocation, what he himself felt
as such, was unfulfilled. He himself always looked forward to some
time when greater opportunity might be granted him, when the various
experiences of later life, the results of his later thought, might
‘assort themselves upon the brain,’ and be given out in some definite
form. In the meantime he _waited_, not impatiently or unwillingly, for
he was slow to draw conclusions, as he was also patient in hearing
the views of others, and ready in his appreciation of them. Yet his
mind did not fail to exercise a powerful influence upon others. All
who knew him well will bear witness to the strong impression left by
his character, and by the force and originality of his intellect. He
was not prompt to give out distinct opinions or answers to theoretical
questions, but he seldom failed to find a practical solution to any
immediate difficulty, whether mental or practical. His mind turned more
and more to action as its natural relief; and in his family circle his
gentle wisdom and patience and great tenderness of feeling caused him
to be constantly appealed to in all difficulties. It was indeed only in
the intimacy of daily life that the full charm and grace of his nature
was felt, the intense lovableness of it, the tender unselfishness,
and the manly courage with which he met the difficulties of life,
and helped others through them. His was a character not easy to
describe, whose charm was so personal that it seems to evaporate when
translated into words. He was a singular combination of enthusiasm and
calmness, of thoughtfulness and imagination, of speech and silence, of
seriousness and humour. Ordinarily somewhat slow of utterance, he often
seemed, as a friend said of him, ‘to be choked by his own fulness.’ His
own words in the ‘Bothie’ not unaptly described him--
Author forgotten and silent of currentest phrases and fancies;
Mute and exuberant by turns, a fountain at intervals playing;
Mute and abstracted, or strong and abundant as rain in the tropics.
On special occasions he would pour out the accumulation of his mind,
but most often the stream remained hid, and only came to the surface
in his poetry, or in little incisive phrases, most apt to engrave
themselves sharply on the minds of his hearers. He had a strong sense
of humour, and was always ready to look on this side of the daily
incidents of life; and his friends will long remember his genial
smile, and his hearty, almost boyish, laugh. This brightness, and
the sunny sweetness of his temper, gave cheerfulness to what might
otherwise have been too serious a temperament, for though not specially
anxious in personal things, yet the habit of his mind, his high-wrought
conscientiousness and susceptibility of feeling, rendered him liable
to be deeply impressed by the sad things of the world, the great
difficulties especially of modern social life, which were in truth to
him ‘a heavy and a weary weight.’
It has been remarked that in his later poems there is no distinct
expression of the peace he had attained. It is true we find in them
rather a freedom from disturbance than a positive expression of belief.
But his peace was not the result of a crisis, of a sudden conversion,
which often pours itself out in words; it was the fruit of years of
patient thought and action, it was a temper of mind. He felt no impulse
to speak of it. He turned his mind to the practical questions of the
world, as appears in these later poems, which instantly began to flow
forth as soon as his brain was relieved from the constant pressure of
work.