Price has been writing a letter or two in the ‘Balance,’ a newspaper
set up on principles which may be described as Arnoldite out of
Evangelical, a somewhat mongrel progeny, perhaps, with more of
profession than fervour; and the paper is certainly weak, though
certainly at the same time well meaning. It wishes to become a sort of
Sunday newspaper for all sorts of people, gentle and simple, nobleman,
and serving man, and working man. Gurney, I believe, is editor; Lord
Robert Grosvenor and some others have promised to pay the piper for
a while. Gurney puts poems into it. I wrote a letter myself which is
to appear in its columns next week. Another newspaper, ‘The Daily
News,’ is placarding itself for issue on the 21st, the literary
department under the direction of Charles Dickens. Is ‘Boz’ proposing
to reform the press? to combat, a printer’s ink St. Michael, the Dragon
immorality of the ‘Times’? It is open to conjecture. But perhaps it
is only a quiet little job in the money-making way. Half a dozen new
newspapers are commencing their career; it is almost like a railway
mania.
An evening or two after I wrote I met Martineau accidentally. I liked
him greatly. He talked simply, courteously, and ably, and has a
forehead with a good deal of that rough-hewn mountainous strength which
one used to look at when at lesson in the library at Rugby not without
trembling.
_To his Sister._
Oxford: February 1846.
I have only just time to sign my name. My lectures go on from ten
till two these days. Just at this time, too, there are numerous
parties--breakfasts, namely, and dinners--which cut me out of the
usual odds and ends that do for letter-writing. I have been very gay
this week; there is always a sort of carnival at Oxford, and this year
it happens to coincide with the end of the Rugby holidays. We had
several Rugby masters up--Tait, Arnold, Congreve, and Bradley, &c.;
and on Tuesday there was a Rugby dinner, which was very successful and
pleasant.
Concerning marriage, what you say is true enough, but to fall in love
without knowledge is foolery; to obtain knowledge without time and
opportunity and something like intimate acquaintance is, for the most
part, impossible; and to obtain time and opportunity is just the thing.
Then, again, there comes the question of reconciling marriage with
one’s work, which for me is a problem of considerable difficulty. It
is not every one who would like to be a helpmate in the business I am
likely to have.
_To the same._
Castleton Braemar:[6] August 9, 1846.
Our house is very comfortable, and affords us two sitting-rooms, one of
which is conceded to my special use. The other has a nice look out up
the Glen of Clunie, a little stream which dashes through the granite
just beside us, and gives us a pool to bathe in. But the country in
general is not what I require for full delight. The hills are round,
and somewhat tame, though beautifully clad with heather. The Dee,
which is the great river of the district, into which the Clunie runs,
is very pretty, and indeed beautiful, three miles higher up. And the
mountain excursions still farther off, in the region of Benmacdhui and
Cairngorm, will I dare say prove satisfactory. The kirk to which we
went this morning is fairly administered, but not very much attended.
I fancy more go to the Free Kirk; and there is also a Roman Catholic
Chapel in the village, and a good many of the poorer folks are Papists.
I have given up the idea of the school at Birmingham, having settled to
stay out my time at Oxford.
You must remember what a great advantage for intercourse with the poor
is given by _any_ sort of cultivation, music, drawing, dancing, German,
French, &c. &c. They feel this distinction very sensibly, and carry
their liking of a lady almost to the vice of liking a _fine_ lady.
_To the same._
Castleton Braemar: September 10, 1846.
Our neighbours continue to send us grouse and venison, which reduces
our butcher’s bills. To-morrow three weeks I expect to have done. I
mean, however, to get a little rambling to make up for the somewhat
poor scenery of this Valley of Dee, and I fear shall only pay you but
a brief visit before I go up to Oxford, about the 15th of October. We
are enjoying fine weather, sunshine and moonshine both, but perhaps a
little cold, though bathing continues as usual. To-night we all go to a
party at General Duff’s to see Highland dancing.
September 26.
On Wednesday we had a regular flood, and it has been raining more
or less ever since, with intervals, however, yesterday, of very
respectable sunshine. Our two sportsmen (did I tell you two pupils were
gone up the hills?) have returned, bringing a few grouse and a haunch
of venison (not their own killing this last) from our neighbour the
Duke of Leeds.
The spring of 1847, as will be remembered, was the time of the Irish
famine. The distress caused by it, not only in Ireland, moved Clough
greatly, and stirred him to write an appeal to the undergraduates at
Oxford, of which the substance is given in the next chapter.
_To ----_
March 28, 1847.
Perhaps what you say is true about the Unitarians in general, but in
this particular case I think they were not very far wrong in declining
to have any service. I think it presumptuous to set down the famine
to Divine displeasure, and not particularly wise to have a holiday
(for such it was in general) at the very time when people ought to
be working hardest to produce all they can to make up for the loss.
Let people save and curtail their enjoyments as much as they please;
that’s a very different thing, and a thing which I hope the good
self-humiliating fast-observers will not forget, now the fast is over.
The object of the new education measures is merely to assist schools,
by pensioning masters and mistresses in their old age, and assisting
clever boys in getting instructed for the business of teaching, and
all that the Government require in return is the right of inspection;
and any school which declines to receive assistance may refuse to be
inspected. The Dissenters are bigoted fools, in my judgment. It is the
very least which Government could do.
My Scotch plans are still somewhat uncertain, as the accommodation at
Drumnadrochet is dearer and also less comfortable than we had expected.
_To J. C. Shairp, Esq._
March 1847.
Thanks for your letter. I can only say that I have made up my mind
against leaving this till my sixth year ends and turns me out.
_To his Sister._
Oriel: May 1847.
You will see that the adorable Swede, Jenny Lind, has enchanted all
the world. I greatly rejoice at it, and think I _must_ go and see her.
I have promised to go and see Tom at Whitsuntide, and so I dare say I
shall do the thing then. Have you seen the lady’s picture? Look and see
if you can find a not very beautiful but very pleasant and true-looking
face, lithographed.
I have not read ‘Emilia Wyndham,’ but I did read a long time ago ‘Two
Old Men’s Tales,’ by the same author, and they certainly were, as I am
told ‘Emilia Wyndham’ is, too pathetic a great deal. I don’t want to
cry except for some good reason; it is ‘pleasant, but wrong,’ in my
mind. A novel ought to make you think, and if it does that, the more
vivid it is the better, and of course it follows that now and then it
will make you cry; but I am not aware that Mrs. Marsh does make you
think.
Schiller made the same impression on me, when I used to read him in
St. James’s Terrace, which he does now on you. Coleridge has been to
me the antidotive power; he was a philosopher and a firm believer (so
far as one can make out) in Christianity, not only as a doctrine, but
as a narrative of events. My own feeling certainly does not go along
with Coleridge in attributing any special virtue to the facts of the
Gospel History. They have happened, and have produced what we know,
have transformed the civilisation of Greece and Rome and the barbarism
of Gaul and Germany into Christendom. But I cannot feel sure that a
man may not have all that is important in Christianity even if he does
not so much as know that Jesus of Nazareth existed. And I do not think
that doubts respecting the facts related in the Gospels need give us
much trouble. Believing that in one way or other the thing is of God,
we shall in the end know, perhaps, in what way and how far it was so.
Trust in God’s justice and love, and belief in His commands as written
in our conscience, stand unshaken, though Matthew, Mark, Luke, and
John, or even St. Paul, were to fall.
The thing which men must work at will not be critical questions about
the Scriptures, but philosophical problems of Grace, and Free Will,
and of Redemption as an idea, not as a historical event. What is the
meaning of ‘Atonement by a crucified Saviour’? _How_ many of the
Evangelicals can answer that?
That there may be a meaning in it, which shall not only be consistent
with God’s justice, that is, with the voice of our conscience, but
shall be the very perfection of that justice, the one true expression
of our relations to God, I don’t deny; but I do deny that Mr. M’Neile,
or Mr. Close, or Dr. Hook, or Pusey, or Newman himself, quite know what
to make of it. The Evangelicals gabble at it, as the Papists do their
Ave Marys, and yet say they know; while Newman falls down and worships
_because_ he does not know, and knows he does not know.
I think others are more right who say boldly, we don’t understand it,
and therefore we won’t fall down and worship it. Though there is no
occasion for adding, ‘there is nothing in it,’ I should say, until I
know, I will wait, and if I am not born with the power to discover, I
will do what I can with what knowledge I have--trust to God’s justice,
and neither pretend to know, nor, without knowing, pretend to embrace;
nor yet oppose those who, by whatever means, are increasing or trying
to increase knowledge. This is not very clear, perhaps, but one can’t
correct in letter-writing.
_To the same._
[On hearing of a case of stealing among school-children.]
Oriel: May 31, 1847.
Sad indeed it is to hear of the evil doings of the children; and
what you are to do with them, I really can’t say. However I wouldn’t
exaggerate either the sin or the evil. With the education (so to call
it) that these children get at home, what is to be expected from them?
And really in some children pilfering is a matter of mere fancy or
habit--a sort of trick, like biting their nails or shaking their legs.
Of course, it is necessary they should know that the thing _is_ wrong,
and also _why_ it is wrong; the former is not much use without the
latter. I am convinced it is very bad for children to be frightened
into believing themselves to have done wrong and to be very wicked. But
you might easily show them that people can never live with each other
in the world without respecting the rules of property; that it would
come otherwise to the strongest or the cunningest taking away what
other people had earned by their own hard work, and _that_ they would
see to be really wicked, whereas they can’t exactly see at present that
what they do is so _very_ wrong; you can easily spare the things, and
don’t much mind the loss; you are very rich (compared to them) and very
kind and liberal; what can it matter?
You must know that a friend of mine (not naturally scrupulous) stole a
book from a shop when he was at school, was never found out, has never
paid for it in any way, has it on his bookshelf still, and makes no
difficulty about his friends knowing how he came by it (not that he did
it by way of bravado at all, which is another kind of thing). Well, I
don’t think worse of him on the whole for this; I respect him for his
present frankness; and though I think he ought to have gone afterwards
and told the bookseller, and paid him, yet I don’t think it’s very much
matter.
Well, you know better about the way the children and their parents
would take it; but, for my own part, I should speak out to them all,
tell them what has happened, say that the thing must not go on, you
must give up the class if it continues, but that you don’t mean to
disgrace any of them for it at present. Explain why stealing cannot be
allowed, and why people are wrong in stealing. If you choose, tell them
that Elizabeth ---- has confessed, and let her say that she is sorry
for it, and sees that it is wrong; and ask those who have done the same
to confess, and promise to take care in like manner. Or, if you think
this would be too public a disgrace, can’t it be done privately without
publishing the names? or you may give the general exhortation without
noticing either E---- or the other thefts.
You needn’t, I think, insist on restitution. Say that you don’t want
the things back (you’ve got the locket, I suppose); that you will put
up with the loss. I hope you will excuse all this lengthy advice, which
I dare say, or rather I am sure, mother, and I dare say you, will not
think quite high-principled; but it is quite my conviction. Frighten
a child, and it cries, and is perhaps in an agony; but afterwards it
says to itself, ‘Well, indeed I can’t see that it’s wrong,’ and does
it again. You frighten it again, and again it is in an agony. And so
it gets into a way of living by the fear of man (at best), instead of
by its own sense of right and wrong, and that is not likely to keep it
safe under temptation; indeed, one can hardly wish that it should.
I advise you to go on the 8th to Westmoreland. Wednesday fortnight
will see me at home. Thursday will bring me with mother on my arm to
Lake-land, where we will lie upon the grass and forget.
_To ----_
June 1847.
As for your making the marriage, I trust it was made elsewhere, where
they say all true marriages are made. All you did was to hinder an
unnatural divorce; _i.e._ you made the wedding, perhaps, in some
degree. And if she loves him, why all the better, whatever comes of
it--pain and grief, suicide and murder, all the tragics you can think
of. After all, pain and grief (for suicide and murder we will dismiss
as unnecessary) would be far better than that life-in-death with papa
and mamma in ---- Street, or elsewhere.
Meantime, I would not, I think, trouble them with any advice.
Laissez-faire, laissez-aller.
_To his Sister._
Drumnadrochet:[7] July 26, 1847.
I think I shall wait upon Providence till the end of my time at Oriel;
though undoubtedly there are temptations in the Liverpool Mechanics.
My pupils are getting attached to this Glen Urquhart. I continue to
think it anything but beautiful. But Loch Ness offers a good deal.
Yesterday I went to Foyers. It is by far the highest of the Scotch
waterfalls, and there is a pleasant, quiet, sabbatic country-inn,[8]
overlooking the whole lake, with our highest hill, Mealfourvonie, just
over the water, and with the Foyers river less than a mile off.
_To J. C. Shairp, Esq._
Glenfinnan Inn, Fort William: September 1, 1847.
Excuse a blotted sheet. I am out of the realm of civility, being in
your own well-beloved West, at Glenfinnan on Loch Shiel. The mountains
are extremely fine, but not the weather; the waters glorious, specially
the rain, which comes in upon my paper as I write, the window above me
being exposed to a raving, raging south-wester.
I have been as far as Arisaig, a poor place, curious perhaps, but
nothing more. On the way, I saw Loch Aylort and Loch na-Nuagh (salt),
and Loch Aylt (fresh), all of them fine. At Glenaladale’s house of
Borradale, Charles Edward landed. It stands off Loch na-Nuagh.
Glenaladale is the great man here: he marches with Lochiel close by,
and the lake separates him from Sir James Riddell of Ardnamurchan,
and Colonel Maclean of Ardgower. He is to have a deer-stalking party
to-morrow, Lord Adolphus Fitzclarence, and other majestarian officers.
This place is certainly very beautiful; scarcely however sufficiently
exalted out of the lake-country style to meet my expectations of the
genuine West. But whether I shall explore, as you suggest, all the
lochs up to Loch Broom, viz. Aylort, na-Nuagh, na-Gaul, Morrer, Nevish,
Hourn, Alsh, Carron, Torridon, Gairloch, Ewe, and Maree (on referring
to the map I find that I have missed two--the rest I may say I know by
heart), whether I shall do more than learn the names by heart is more
than doubtful.
Did you ever see a waterfall turned inside out, downside up? The
south-wester is doing this to one opposite the window.
_To the same._
Liverpool: October 3, 1847.
I wrote to you last from Glenfinnan. I enjoyed myself greatly in that
Hesperian seclusion, though I did not go and see Skye, nor yet Loch
Hourn, nor yet Loch Nevish, nor yet Loch Morrer, but only Loch Aylort
and Loch na-Nuagh, and a strange solitary place called Loch Beoraik,
where, verily, I think Saxon foot had never been before. Also, I have
seen and rowed up Loch Ericht. Dallungart, where you and T. slept,
I also have slept at. With mine host on Tynaline, in Saxon called
Georgetown, I held discourse concerning Saxon swindlers, &c.
I came back here yesterday. If I could have forced myself sooner out of
the Highlands, I would have quitted Liverpool, and come to Rugby sooner
also; but I could not. Woe’s me, but one doesn’t like going back to
Oxford, nor coming to Liverpool either; no, nor seeing the face of hat
and coat-wearing man, nor even of elegantly attired woman.
_To R. W. Emerson, Esq._
Oriel College, Oxford: November 26, 1847.
Dear Sir,--My sister, who has had the pleasure of meeting you in my
friend Mr. Bolley’s house, emboldens me to take what otherwise I should
consider an unwarrantable liberty.
But Oxford perhaps may have some interest for you. Our University
has not perhaps a very large influence in the world of letters and
learning, but it has even now, I think, a good deal to do with the
thinkings and doings of our upper classes; and at any rate has a good
deal of character of its own.
If you should think it worth while to visit the place it would give me
very great pleasure to show it you. I have resided here ten years, and
am a Fellow and tutor at Oriel College, so that I may account myself
qualified as a cicerone.
Your name is not a thing unknown to us. I do not say it would be a
passport in a society fenced about by Church-Articles. But amongst the
juniors there are many that have read and studied your books, and not a
few that have largely learnt from them and would gladly welcome their
author. At any time before or after our vacation any notice, however
brief, would find me prepared to show you all the hospitality in my
power.
_To J. C. Shairp, Esq._
51 Vine Street, Liverpool: January 1848.
Last night I saw you in my dreams, sternly interrogating, ‘What hast
thou done with all those many commissions? and wherefore tarries in thy
purse the postal penny?’
The scribbling _puerities_ is not very strong on me at present. I’m
not going to write history, nor poetry neither--not a blessed verse,
I believe, have I manufactured since October. But it’s history, is it,
that you and Walrond recommend?--εἶεν--but I don’t think it will do.
Meantime, did Macpherson really say ‘The Bothie’ had paid? I have been
in distress about the worthy bibliopole, and hardly know whether I can
trust your report.
I am reading the ‘Inferno’ with John Carlyle’s translation, which seems
good, and is certainly useful to me. I recommend the ‘Inferno’ to you;
it will burn out your rose water, old boy, for a time, but the spring
is with you indestructible.
I think you people are making great donkeys of yourselves about ----’s
freedom of speech. Go to the Bible, thou prude; consider its language,
and be wise. Consult also Shakespeare, Milton, Dante, also ... and in
fact ‘all great poets.’
_To T. Arnold, Esq._
Oriel: January 31, 1848.
In England we go on in our usual humdrum way; the ecclesiastical world
agitated by all manner of foolish Hampden-rows: of the confused babble
about which all quiet people are infinitely tired. I have given our
Provost notice of my intention to leave his service (as tutor) at
Easter. I feel greatly rejoiced to think that this is my last term of
bondage in Egypt, though I shall, I suppose, quit the fleshpots for a
wilderness, with small hope of manna, quails, or water from the rock.
The Fellowship, however, lasts for a year after next June.
I had not, I think, seen the Rajah Brooke when you departed. I liked
him extremely; met him once at breakfast with Stanley, and once in
the evening with our Provost; quite a kingly man, clear-sighted and
simple-minded, full of will and purpose, but without a grain of
self-will or ambition. Stanley says that he deprecated English, or
indeed European, colonisation in Borneo as bad for the natives. He had
had two thousand offers, but declined generally, saying the time was
not yet come.
_To a Friend._
[In answer to a remonstrance against his intention of resigning his
Fellowship.]
February 20, 1848.
Be not afraid: I love my mother earth, and ‘in the air will never
float’ ‘Until I get a little boat,’ and of a better build than the
famous ‘Crescent Moon.’
No, but remember withal, that no man moves without having one leg
always _off_, as well as one leg always _on_ the ground. Your
stationary gentleman undoubtedly has both for a basis, and much good
may his double pedestal do him. ---- and ---- go shuffling along,
lifting their feet as little as possible from the earth. There are also
horses, are there not, called ‘daisy-cutters’? not, as I am told, the
best breed.
The mere carnal understanding, I grant you, goes on its belly in the
shape of the serpent. While this and other reptile faculties grovel on
the ground, imagination and fancy, with the eagle and the butterfly,
move in liquid air. But the vivipara, my friend, ‘in whom should meet
the properties of all,’ must do neither, or both. Expect therefore from
me, if not the stately march of the sublimest mammalian type, at any
rate nothing worse than the per-saltum locomotion of the kangaroo.
However powerful my centrifugal force, I shall be certain to be
recalled by the at least equally powerful gravitation of hunger and
thirst, not to mention nakedness.
The spirit truly is centrifugal, but the flesh centripetal; wherefore
man, being a compound, revolveth in a sphere. Under cover of which
theory I retreat to my bed.
_To T. Arnold, Esq._
Oriel: February 25, 1848.
_Diis aliter visum_--so my packet had to lie by a month. Meanwhile,
Willie has gone to India, and the French have begun a new revolution.
Possibly my letter may bring the news.
Switzerland has had its revolution, and Naples also; Tuscany and the
Sardinian States have in consequence got new constitutions, and the
Pope has turned off his cardinals and replaced them by lay ministers,
and it is said is preparing a constitution. Surely the Frenchman
mustn’t be behindhand! One can hardly talk of other things when one
once gets on this topic.
Well, and when shall I see you again? ὁο Θεὸς οἶδεν. Will you hire
yourself out as a common labourer? I hope not; but one may do worse,
undoubtedly; ’tis at any rate honester than being a teacher of XXXIX
Articles. I rejoice to see before me the end of my servitude, yea,
even as the weary foot-traveller rejoices at the sight of his evening
hostelry, though there still lies a length of dusty road between. But
what will follow I can’t say. The chances of going abroad will very
likely be cut off, for we may shortly see _Europam flagrare bello_:
the Austrians driven out of Lombardy by French bayonets. _Alter erit
tum Lodi_, and another Arcola shall crown _delectos heroas_ with, we
will hope, a better-used victory. But the French armies are not quite
apostolic, nor do I put much faith in Michelet’s holy bayonets as
preachers of any kind of Gospel.
_To J. C. Shairp, Esq._
March 16, 1848.
Another three weeks will see me at the end of these tutorial--what
shall I call them?--wearinesses, now at any rate. But whither the
emancipated spirit will wing its flight can’t be guessed. Paradise, or
purgatory, or ----? the limbo of meditation, the penal worms of ennui,
or the paradise of ----? Vanitas vanitatum--omnia vanitas.
There is a story-book called ‘Loss and Gain,’ ascribed to Newman, truly
or falsely as the case may be. You may read and see, if you please.
Edward has been here to breakfast--a phantom of the ancient glories.
If it were not for all these blessed revolutions, I should sink into
hopeless lethargy.
_To his Sister._
Oriel: April 18, 1848.