BEING a household of moderate attainments, and not being at all superior
people, we were gravely concerned on learning that it was our duty to
entertain the distinguished scholar, for our pride was chastened by
anxiety and we had once received moderators. His name was carried far
and wide on the wings of fame, and even learned people referred to him
with a reverence in the tone, because it was supposed there was almost
nothing within the range of languages and philosophy and theology which
he did not know, and that if there happened to be any obscure department
he had not yet overtaken, he would likely be on the way to its conquest.
We speculated what like he would be--having only heard rumours--and
whether he would be strangely clothed, we discussed what kind of company
we could gather to meet such a man, and whether we ought, that is the
two trembling heads of the household, to read up some subject beforehand
that we might be able at least to know where he was if we could not
follow him. And we were haunted with the remembrance of a literary
woman who once condescended to live with us for two days, and whose
conversation was so exhausting that we took it in turns like the
watch on board ship, one standing on the bridge with the spin-drift of
quotations flying over his head, and the other snatching a few minutes'
sleep to strengthen her for the storm. That overwhelming lady was only
the oracle of a circle after all, but our coming visitor was known to
the ends of the earth.
It was my place to receive him at the station, and pacing up and
down the platform, I turned over in my mind appropriate subjects for
conversation in the cab, and determined to lure the great man into a
discussion of the work of an eminent Oxford philosopher which had just
been published, and which I knew something about. I had just arranged
a question which I intended to submit for his consideration, when
the express came in, and I hastened down the first-class carriages to
identify the great man. High and mighty people, clothed in purple and
fine linen, or what corresponds to such garments in our country, were
descending in troops with servants and porters waiting upon them, but
there was no person that suggested a scholar. Had he, in the multitude
of his thoughts, forgotten his engagement altogether, or had he left the
train at some stopping-place and allowed it to go without him--anything
is possible with such a learned man.
Then I saw a tall and venerable figure descend from a third-class
compartment and a whole company of genuine “third classers” handing
out his luggage while he took the most affectionate farewell of them.
A working man got out to deposit the scholar's Gladstone bag upon the
platform while his wife passed out his umbrella, and another working man
handled delicately a parcel of books. The scholar shook hands with every
one of his fellow-passengers including children, and then I presented
myself, and looked him in the face. He was rather over six feet in
height, and erect as a sapling, dressed in old-fashioned and well
brushed black clothes, and his face placed me immediately at ease, for
though it was massive and grave, with deep lines and crowned with
thick white hair, his eyes were so friendly and sincere, had such an
expression of modesty and affection, that even then, and on the first
experience, I forgot the gulf between us. Next instant, and almost
before I had mentioned my name he seized me by the hand, and thanked me
for my coming.
“This, my good sir,” he said with his old-fashioned courtesy, “is a
kindness which I never for an instant anticipated, and when I remember
your many important engagements (important!) and the sacrifice which
this gracious act (gracious!) must have entailed upon you, I feel this
to be an honour, sir, for which you will accept this expression of
gratitude.” It seemed as if there must have been something wrong in our
imagination of a great man's manner, and when he insisted, beyond my
preventing, in carrying his bag himself, and would only allow me with
many remonstrances to relieve him of the books; when I had difficulty
in persuading him to enter a cab because he was anxious to walk to our
house, our fancy portrait had almost disappeared. Before leaving the
platform he had interviewed the guard and thanked him by both word and
deed for certain “gracious and mindful attentions in the course of the
journey.”
My wife acknowledged that she had been waiting to give the great man
afternoon tea in fear and trembling, but there was something about him
so winsome that she did not need even to study my face, but felt at once
that however trying writing-women and dilletante critics might be, one
could be at home with a chief scholar. When I described the guests who
were coming--to meet him at dinner--such eminent persons as I could
gather--he was overcome by the trouble we had taken, but also alarmed
lest he should be hardly fit for their company, being, as he explained
himself, a man much restricted in knowledge through the just burden of
professional studies. And before he went to his room to dress he had
struck up an acquaintance with the youngest member of the family, who
seemed to have forgotten that our guest was a very great man, and had
visited a family of Japanese mice with evident satisfaction. During
dinner he was so conscious of his poverty of attainment in the presence
of so many distinguished people that he would say very little, but
listened greedily to everything that fell from the lips of a young
Oxford man who had taken a fair degree and was omniscient. After dinner
we wiled him into a field where very few men have gone, and where he
was supposed to know everything that could be known, and then being once
started he spoke for forty minutes to our huge delight with such
fulness and accuracy of knowledge, with such lucidity and purity of
speech--allowing for the old-fashioned style--that even the Oxford man
was silent and admired.
Once and again he stopped to qualify his statement of some other
scholar's position lest he should have done him injustice, and in the
end he became suddenly conscious of the time he had spoken and implored
every one's pardon, seeing, as he explained “that the gentlemen present
will likely have far more intimate knowledge of this subject than I can
ever hope to attain.” He then asked whether any person present had ever
seen a family of Japanese mice, and especially whether they had ever
seen them waltzing, or as he described it “performing their circular
motions of the most graceful and intricate nature, with almost
incredible continuance.” And when no one had, he insisted on the
company going to visit the menagerie, which was conduct not unbecoming a
gentleman, but very unbecoming a scholar.
Next morning, as he was a clergyman, I asked him to take family worship,
and in the course of the prayer he made most tender supplication for the
sick relative of “one who serves in this household,” and we learned
that he had been conversing with the housemaid who attended to his room,
having traced some expression of sorrow on her face, and found out that
her mother was ill; while we, the heads of the household, had known
nothing about the matter, and while we imagined that a scholar would be
only distantly aware that a housemaid had a mother. It was plainer than
ever that we knew nothing whatever about great scholars. The public
function for which he came was an overwhelming success, and after
the lapse of now many years people still remember that man of amazing
erudition and grandeur of speech. But we, being simple people, and
especially a certain lad, who is rapidly coming now to manhood, remember
with keen delight how this absurd scholar had hardly finished afternoon
tea before he demanded to see the mice, who were good enough to turn
out of their nest, a mother and four children, and having rotated, the
mother by herself, and the children by themselves, and each one having
rotated by itself, all whirled round together in one delirium of
delight, partly the delight of the mice and partly of the scholar.
Having moved us all to the tears of the heart by his prayer next
morning, for it was as the supplication of a little child, so simple,
so confiding, so reverent and affectionate, he bade the whole household
farewell, from the oldest to the youngest with a suitable word for each,
and he shook hands with the servants, making special inquiry for the
housemaid's mother, and--there is no use concealing a scholar's disgrace
any more than another man's--he made his last call upon the Japanese
mice, and departed bowing at the door, and bowing at the gate of the
garden, and bowing before he entered the cab, and bowing his last
farewell from the window, while he loaded us all with expressions
of gratitude for our “gracious and unbounded hospitality, which had
refreshed him alike both in body and mind.” And he declared that
he would have both that hospitality and ourselves in “continual
remembrance.”
Before we retired to rest I had approached the question of his expenses,
although I had an instinct that our scholar would be difficult to
handle, and he had waived the whole matter as unworthy of attention. On
the way to the station I insisted upon a settlement with the result that
he refused to charge any fee, being thankful if his “remarks,” for he
refused to give them the name of lecture, had been of any use for the
furtherance of knowledge, and as regards expenses they were limited to
a third-class return fare. He also explained that there were no other
charges, as he travelled in cars and not in cabs, and any gifts he
bestowed (by which I understood the most generous tips to every human
being that served him in any fashion) were simply a private pleasure
of his own. When I established him in the corner seat of a third-class
compartment, with his humble luggage above his head, and an Arabic book
in his hand, and some slight luncheon for the way in his pocket, he
declared that he was going to travel as a prince. Before the train left
an old lady opposite him in the carriage--I should say a tradesman's
widow--was already explaining the reason of her journey, and he was
listening with benignant interest. Three days later he returned the
fee which was sent him, having deducted the third-class return fare,
thanking us for our undeserved generosity, but explaining that he would
count it a shame to grow rich through his services to knowledge. Some
years afterwards I saw him in the distance, at a great public meeting,
and when he mounted the platform the huge audience burst into prolonged
applause, and were all the more delighted when he, who never had
the remotest idea that people were honouring him, looked round,
and discovering a pompous nonentity who followed him, clapped
enthusiastically. And the only other time and the last that I saw him
was on the street of a famous city, when he caught sight of a country
woman dazed amid the people and the traffic, and afraid to cross to the
other side. Whereupon our scholar gave the old woman his arm and led her
carefully over, then he bowed to her, and shook hands with her, and I
watched his tall form and white hair till he was lost in the distance.
I never saw him again, for shortly after he had also passed over to the
other side.