Love, as Goethe knows it, is very tender, and has a lyric note as fresh
as that of a song-bird; but it passes away like the songs of spring. In
his Autobiography, one love-passage succeeds another, each is
charmingly described, but each comes speedily to an end. How far in
each case he was to blame is matter of controversy. But he seems to
betray a way of thinking about women such as might be natural to an
Oriental Sultan. “I was in that agreeable phase,” he writes, “when a
new passion had begun to spring up in me before the old one had quite
disappeared.” About Friederika he blames himself without reserve,
and uses strong expressions of contrition; but he forgets the matter
strangely soon. In his distress of mind he says he found riding, and
especially skating, bring much relief. This reminds us of the famous
letter to the Frau von Stein about coffee. He is always ready in a
moment to shake off the deepest impressions and to receive new ones;
and he never looks back. A curious insensibility, which seems imitated
from the apparent insensibility of Nature herself, shows itself in his
works by the side of the deepest pathos. Faust never once mentions
Gretchen again, after that terrible prison scene; her remembrance does
not seem to trouble him; she seems entirely forgotten, until, just at
the end, among the penitents who surround the Mater Gloriosa, there
appears one who has borne the name of Gretchen. In like manner—this
shocked Schiller—when Mignon dies she seems instantly forgotten, and
the business of the novel scarcely pauses for a moment.
We are also to remember that Goethe was a man of the old _régime_. If
he who had such an instinctive comprehension of feminine character,
at the same time treats women in this Oriental fashion, we are to
remember that he lived in a country of despotic Courts, and also that
he was entirely outside the movement of reform. Had he entered into the
reforming movement of his age, he might have striven to elevate women,
as he might have heralded and welcomed some of the ideas of 1789, and
the nationality movements of 1808 and 1813. He certainly felt at times
that all was not right in the status of women (“Der Frauen Schicksal
ist beklagenswerth”), and how narrowly confined was their happiness
(“Wie enggebunden ist des Weibes Glück,”), as he certainly felt how
miserable was the political conditions of Germany. Nevertheless he did
not take the path either of social or of political reform. He worked in
another region, a deeper region. He was a reformer on the great scale
in literature, art, education, that is, in culture, but he was not a
reformer of institutions. And as he did not look forward to a change in
institutions, his views and his very morality rested on the assumption
of a state of society in many respects miserably bad.
But the effect of this aberration upon Goethe’s character as a teacher
and upon his influence has been most disastrous. And inevitably, for
as it has been the practice in the Christian world to lay all the
stress of morality upon that very virtue which Goethe almost entirely
repudiates, he appears not only to be no moralist but an enemy of
morality. And as he once brought a devil upon the stage, we identify
him with his own Mephistopheles, though, in fact, the tone of cold
irony is not by any means congenial to him. He has the reputation of
a being awfully wise, who has experienced all feelings good and bad,
but has survived them, and from whose writings there rises a cold
unwholesome exhalation, the odor of moral decay. It is thought that he
offers culture, art, manifold intellectual enjoyment, but at the price
of virtue, faith, patriotism.
If I have taken a just view, the good and bad characteristics of his
writings stand in a different relation. It is not morality itself that
he regards with indifference, but one important section of morality.
And he is an indifferentist here, partly because he is a man formed
in the last years of the old _régime_, partly because he is borne
too far on the tide of reaction against Catholic and monastic ideas.
Nevertheless, he remains a moralist; and in his positive teaching he is
one of the greatest moral teachers the world has ever seen. In his life
he displayed some of the greatest and most precious virtues, a nobly
conscientious use of great powers, a firm disregard of popularity, an
admirable capacity for the highest kind of friendship. His view of life
and literature is, in general, not ironical and not enervating, but
sincere, manly, and hopeful. And his view of morality and religion, if
we consider it calmly and not in that spirit of agonized timidity which
reigns in the religious world, will perhaps appear to be not now very
dangerous where it is wrong, and full of fresh instruction where it
is right. The drift of the nineteenth century, the progress of those
reforms in which Goethe took so little interest, have tended uniformly
to the elevation of woman, so that it seems now scarcely credible
that at the end of the last century great thinkers can seriously have
preferred to contemplate her in the half servile condition in which
classical poetry exhibits her. On this point at least the world is
not likely to become pagan again. On the other hand Carlyle himself
scarcely exaggerated the greatness of Goethe as a prophet of new
truth alike in morals and in religion. Just at the moment when the
supernaturalist theory, standing alone, seemed to have exhausted its
influence, and to be involving religion in its own decline, Goethe
stood forth as a rapt adorer of the God in Nature.[39] Naturalism in his
hands appeared to be no dull system of platitudes, no empty delusive
survival of an exploded belief, but a system as definite and important
as Science, as rich and glorious as Art. Morality in his hands appeared
no longer morbid, unnaturally solemn, unwholesomely pathetic, but
robust, cheerful, healthy, a twin-sister of happiness. In his hands
also morality and religion appeared inseparably united, different
aspects of that free energy, which in him was genius, and in every one
who is capable of it resembles genius. Lastly, his bearing towards
Christianity, when he had receded from the exaggerations of his second
period, was better, so long as it seemed hopeless to purge Christianity
of its _other-worldliness_, than that of the zealots on either side.
He entered into no clerical or anti-clerical controversies; but, while
he spoke his mind with great frankness, did not forget to distinguish
between clericalism and true Christianity, cherished no insane ambition
of destroying the Church or founding a new religion,[40] and counselled
us in founding our future society to make Christianity a principal
element in its religion, and not to neglect the “excellent collection
of sacred books” left us by the Hebrews.—_Contemporary Review_.
BYGONE CELEBRITIES AND LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS.
BY CHARLES MACKAY.
I. DANIEL O’CONNELL—SERJEANT TALFOURD—ROBERT CARRUTHERS.
The three gentlemen whose names appear at the head of this chapter
of my reminiscences, breakfasted together at the table of Mr.
Rogers, along with our host and myself, in the summer of 1845. They
were all remarkable and agreeable men, and played a part more or
less distinguished in the social life of the time. Mr. O’Connell
called himself, and was called by his friends, the Liberator, but
was virtually the Dictator, or uncrowned king, of the Irish people.
Serjeant, afterwards Judge, Talfourd, was an eminent lawyer—a
very eloquent speaker, and a poet of some renown. Mr. Robert
Carruthers was the editor of the _Inverness Courier_, a paper of
much literary influence; a man of varied acquirements and extensive
reading, particularly familiar with the literature and history of
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and more especially with
the writings of Pope, his contemporaries and predecessors. Whenever
Mr. Macaulay, while engaged on the “History of England,” which,
unfortunately, he did not live to complete, was in doubt about an
incident, personal or national, that occurred during the reigns of
James II., William and Mary, or Queen Anne, and was too busy to
investigate for himself, he had only to appeal for information to Mr.
Carruthers, and the information was at once supplied from the abundant
stores of that gentleman’s memory. I was well acquainted with all of
these notables, but had never before met the three together.
Mr. O’Connell had long passed his prime in 1845—being then in his 70th
year—but appeared to be in full bodily and mental vigor, and in the
height of his power, popularity, and influence. He had for years been
extravagantly praised by one half of the nation and as extravagantly
blamed and denounced by the other, and his support had been so
absolutely necessary to the existence of the Whig and Liberal
Ministry in England, that when this support seemed to be of doubtful
continuance, or any indications of his present lukewarmness or
future opposition were apparent, the baits of power, place, or high
professional promotion were constantly dangled before his eyes, to keep
him true to the cause to which he had never promised allegiance, but to
which he had always adhered with more or less of zeal and consistency.
For upwards of a quarter of a century his name figured more frequently
in the leading columns of all the most prominent journals of London and
the provinces than that of any statesman or public character of the
time. As he jocularly but truly said of himself, he was the best abused
man in the country; but though he did not choose to confess it, he was,
at the same time, the most belauded. He was a man of a fine personal
presence, of a burly and stalwart build, with quick glancing eyes full
of wit, humor and of what may be called “rollicking” fun; and of a
homely, persuasive, and telling eloquence, that no man of his day could
be truly said to have equalled. The speeches of his great contemporary
and countryman, Richard Lalor Shiel, were more elegant, scholarly, and
ambitious; but they were above the heads of the commonalty, and often
failed of their effect by being “caviare to the general,” and sometimes
tired or “bored” those who could understand and even appreciate them,
by their great length and too obvious straining after effect. No
exception of the kind could be taken to the speeches of Daniel—or, as
he was affectionately called, “Dan” O’Connell. They were all clear as
day, logical as a mathematical demonstration, and warm as midsummer.
If he had many of the faults he had all the virtues of his Celtic
countrymen, and even in his strongest denunciations of his political
opponents there was always a touch of humor that forced a laugh
or a smile from the persons he attacked. He once, in Parliament,
spoke of the great Duke of Wellington as “a stunted corporal with
two left legs,” and the Duke of Wellington, who was said to be
proud of his legs, remarking to Lucas, the artist who had painted
his portrait, pointing to his legs—without taking notice of the
facial likeness—“those are my legs,” had sense enough to laugh.
The description, however, was not quite original, inasmuch as Pope,
more than a hundred years previously, had applied the same epithet
to Lintot the bookseller. Daniel O’Connell could excite at will the
laughter or the indignation of the multitude, and was not in reality
an ill-tempered or an ill-conditioned man, though he often appeared
to be so when it suited his purpose. But though choleric he was never
malicious.
On this occasion the conversation was almost entirely literary.
O’Connell’s voice was peculiarly sweet and musical, and in the
recitation of poetry, of which he had a keen and critical appreciation,
it was impossible to excel, and difficult to equal him, in either comic
or pathetic passages. The manner in which he declaimed “The Minstrel
Boy to the War Has Gone,” “The Last Rose of Summer,” and other favorite
songs of Thomas Moore was perfect, and had almost as pleasant an effect
upon the hearer’s mind as if they had been sung by a well-trained
singer. He was, in short, a delightful companion, and fascinated every
society in which he felt himself sufficiently at ease to be induced
to give free play to his wit, his humor, his imagination, and his
wonderful power of mimicry.
Though seemingly at this time in the full high noon of his power and
popularity, his influence was in reality on the wane, and circumstances
over which he had no control, and which he had done nothing to produce,
were at work to divert from his person and his cause the attention and
the love of the Irish people. The first symptoms of the mysterious
disease in the potato, which was unfortunately the chief food of the
Irish millions, began to make themselves apparent, and to divert the
attention of the Irish from political to more urgent questions of life
and death. The too probable consequences of this great calamity tended
necessarily to diminish the rent or tribute collected from the needy as
well as the prosperous to recompense the “Liberator” for the sacrifices
he had made in relinquishing the practice of his profession to devote
his time, talent, and energies entirely to the parliamentary service
of the people. Added to this, a race of younger and more impulsive
men, fired by his example, had arisen to agitate the question of the
Repeal of the Union on which he had set his heart, and scorning, in
their impatience, the peaceful and legal methods which he employed, did
their best to goad the impulsive people into open rebellion. Foremost
among these were Mr. Smith O’Brien, whose futile treason came to an
inglorious collapse in a cabbage garden; and next, the members of the
party of Young Ireland, and the gifted poets of the “Nation,” among
whom were Mr. D’Arcy McGee, and Sir Charles Gavan Duffy, whose tuneful
violence was far more agreeable to the youthful agitators of the new
generation than the more prudent strategy of O’Connell. The potato
disease and the fearful famine that followed on its devastating track,
which sent at least a million of people to the United States and two
millions into untimely graves in Ireland, preyed upon the spirit of the
great agitator, impaired his health, and ultimately led to his death
of a broken heart, at Genoa, in 1847, in the 72nd year of his age. He
was, at the time, on a pilgrimage to Rome to crave the blessing of
the Pope, but was not destined to reach the, to him, “holy city,” the
capital of his faith. His heart, however, was embalmed and taken to
Rome, and his corpse conveyed to his native country for interment. I
little thought on that joyous morning of 1845, when we sat seriously
merry and intellectually sportive at the social board of Mr. Rogers in
St. James’s Place, that the end was so near, and that the light which
shone so brilliantly was so speedily to be extinguished, and the
sceptre of democratic authority to be so shattered that none could take
it up when it fell from the hands which had so long wielded it.
The second of the guests this morning was also an orator, not
celebrated for his power over crowds, but highly distinguished in
the Senate and the Forum. Serjeant Talfourd did not speak often in
Parliament or at public meetings, but when he did he was listened to
with pleasure and attention. The scenes of his triumphs were the law
courts, and especially the Court of Common Pleas, where he was the
leading practitioner. He was noted among the members of the Bar and
the attorneys for his power over the minds of jurymen, and his winning
ways of extorting a favorable verdict for the client who was fortunate
enough to have him for an advocate. He had room enough in his head
both for law and literature—the law for his profit and his worldly
advancement, and literature for the charm and consolation of his life.
He was well known too, and highly esteemed by the leading literary
men of his time, and took especial interest in the laws affecting
artistic, musical, and literary copyright. He was largely instrumental
in extending the previously allotted term of twenty-eight years to
forty-two years, and for seven years after the death of the artist,
composer, or author. This measure put considerable and well-deserved
profits into the pockets of the heirs of Sir Walter Scott, and was said
at the time to have been specially devised and enacted for that purpose
and for that only. This, however, was an error which Serjeant Talfourd
emphatically contradicted whenever it was hinted or asserted. It had,
incidentally, that effect, which no one was churlish and ungrateful
enough to grudge or lament, but was advocated in the interest of all
men of letters, and of literature itself in its widest extent, and if
it erred at all, only erred on the side of undue restriction to so
short a period as forty-two years. It ought to have been extended to
the third generation of the benefactors of their country, and probably
will be so extended at a future time, when the rights of authors will
be as strictly protected—and will be thought of at least as much
importance—as the right of landlords to their acres; of butchers,
bakers, and tailors to be paid for their commodities; or those of
doctors and lawyers to be paid for their time and talents.
Mr. Charles Dickens dedicated to Serjeant Talfourd the “Posthumous
Papers of the Pickwick Club”—the early work by which his great fame
was established—in grateful acknowledgment of the Serjeant’s services
to the cause of all men of genius, in the enactment of the new law
of copyright. “Many a fevered head,” he said, “and palsied hand will
gather new vigor in the hour of sickness and distress, from your
exalted exertions; many a widowed mother and orphaned child, who would
otherwise reap nothing from the fame of departed genius but its too
pregnant legacy of sorrow and suffering, will bear in their altered
condition higher testimony to the value of your labors than the most
lavish encomiums from lip or pen could ever afford.”
Serjeant Talfourd was raised to the Bench in 1848, being then in
his fifty-third year. This promotion had the natural consequence of
removing him from the House of Commons. He was a singularly amiable
man—of gentle, almost feminine character—of delicate health and
fragile form. He possessed little or none of the staid or stern gravity
popularly associated with the idea of a judge, and looked more like
the poet that he undoubtedly was, than the busy lawyer or magistrate.
He died suddenly in the year 1854, under circumstances peculiarly sad
and pathetic. After attending Divine Service on Sunday, the 11th March,
in the Assize town of Stafford, apparently in his usual health, he
took his seat on the bench on the following morning, and proceeded to
address the grand jury on the state of the calendar. It contained a
list of more than one hundred prisoners, an unusually large number of
whom were charged with atrocious offences, many of which were to be
directly traced to intemperance. He took occasion, in the course of his
remarks, to comment upon the growing estrangement in England between
the upper and lower classes of society, and the want of interest and
sympathy exhibited between the former and the latter, which he
regarded as of evil augury for the future peace and prosperity of the
country. While uttering these words he became flushed and excited—his
speech became thick and incoherent, and he suddenly fell forward with
his face on the desk at which he was sitting. He was removed at once
to his lodgings in the immediate vicinity of the court, but life was
found to be extinct on his arrival. Thus perished a singularly able and
estimable man, universally beloved by his contemporaries.
Mr. Carruthers, who resided in the little town of Inverness, sometimes
called by its inhabitants the “Capital of the Highlands,” was often
blamed by his intimate friends for hiding his great abilities in so
small a sphere, and not launching boldly forth upon the great sea of
London, which they considered a more suitable arena for the exercise
of his talents and the acquirement of fame and fortune by the pursuits
of literature. But he was not to be persuaded. He loved quiet; he
loved the grand and solemn scenery of his beautiful native country,
and perhaps if all the truth were told, he preferred to be a great
man in a provincial town, than a comparatively small one in a mighty
metropolis. In Inverness he shone as a star of the first magnitude. In
London, though his light might have been as great, it might have failed
to attract equal recognition. In addition to all these considerations,
the atmosphere of great cities did not agree with his health, and the
fine, free, fresh invigorating air of the sea and the mountains was
necessary to his physical well-being. This he enjoyed to the full
in Inverness. The editing of the weekly journal, which supplied him
with even greater pecuniary results than were necessary to supply the
moderate wants of himself and his household, left him abundant leisure
for other and congenial work. He soon made his mark in literature, and
became noted not only for the vigor and elegance of his style, but for
his remarkable accuracy of statement, even in the minutest details of
his literary and historical work. He edited, with copious and accurate
notes, an edition of Pope, and of Johnson and Boswell’s “Tour to the
Hebrides,” and greatly added to the value of those interesting books by
notes descriptive and anecdotical of all the places and persons
mentioned in them. He also contributed largely to the valuable
“Cyclopædia of English Literature” edited by Messrs. Chambers, of
Edinburgh; besides contributing essays and criticisms to many popular
serials and reviews, published in London and Edinburgh. He was one of
the most admirable story tellers of his time, or indeed of any time,
had a most retentive and abundantly furnished memory, and never missed
the point of a joke, or overlaid it with inappropriate or unnecessary
words or phrases. His fund of Scottish anecdotes—brimful of wit and
humor—was apparently inexhaustible, and his stories followed each
other with such rapidity as to suggest to the mind of the listener the
beautiful lines of Samuel Rogers:
Couched in the hidden chambers of the brain
Our thoughts are linked by many a hidden chain,
Awake but one, and lo! what myriads rise,
Each stamps its image as the other flies.
The good things for which Mr. Carruthers was famous were not derived
from books, but from actual intercourse with men, and if collected,
would have formed a finer and more diverting repertory of Scottish wit
and humor, than has ever been given to the world. He was often urged
to prepare them for publication, and as often promised to undertake
the work, but always postponed it until he had more leisure than he
possessed at the time of promising. But that day unfortunately never
came. If it had come, the now celebrated work of Dean Ramsay on the
same subject would have been eclipsed, or altogether superseded in the
literary market.
His local knowledge, and the fascination of his conversation were so
great, that every person of any note in the literary or political world
who visited Inverness, came armed with a letter of introduction to Mr.
Carruthers, or made themselves known to him during their stay in the
Highlands. The first time that I travelled so far North, through the
magnificent chain of freshwater lochs that are connected with each
other by the Caledonian Canal, a leading citizen of Inverness, who was
a fellow-passenger on the trip, seeing I was a stranger, took the pains
to point out to me all the objects of interest on the way, and to name
the mountains, the straths, the glens, and the waterfalls on either
side. On our arrival at Inverness, he directed my attention to several
mountains and eminences visible from the boat when nearing the pier.
“That,” said he, “is Ben Wyvis, the highest mountain in Ross-shire;
that is ‘Tom-na-hurich,’ or the hill of the fairies; that is Craig
Phadrig, once a vitrified fort of the original Celtic inhabitants; and
that,” pointing to a gentleman in the foremost rank of the spectators
on the landing-place, “is Mr. Carruthers, the editor of the _Courier_!”
Mr. Carruthers used to relate with much glee that he escorted the
great Sir Robert Peel to the battle-field of Culloden, and pointed out
to him the graves of the highland warriors who had been slain in that
fatal encounter. Seeing a shepherd watching his flocks feeding on the
scant herbage of the Moor, he stepped aside to inform the man of the
celebrity of his companion. The information fell upon inattentive ears.
“Did you never hear of Sir Robert Peel?” inquired Mr. Carruthers.
“Never _dud_!” (did), replied the shepherd. “Is it possible you never
heard of him. He was once Prime Minister of England.” “Well!” replied
the shepherd, “he seems to be a very respectable man!”