LAMBKIN’S REMAINS
BY H. B.
_Author of “The Bad Child’s Book of Beasts,” etc_
PUBLISHED BY
THE PROPRIETORS OF THE _J.C.R._ AT
J. VINCENT’S
96, HIGH STREET OXFORD
1900
_Lambkin on “Sleep” appeared in “The Isis.” It is reprinted here by
kind permission of the Proprietors. The majority of the remaining
pieces were first published in “The J. C. R.”_
[_All rights reserved._]
DEDICATION
TO
THE REPUBLICAN CLUB
I AM DETERMINED
TO
DEDICATE
THIS BOOK
AND NOTHING SHALL TURN ME FROM
MY PURPOSE.
DEDICATORY ODE.
I mean to write with all my strength
(It lately has been sadly waning),
A ballad of enormous length--
Some parts of which will need explaining.[1]
Because (unlike the bulk of men,
Who write for fame and public ends),
I turn a lax and fluent pen
To talking of my private friends.[2]
For no one, in our long decline,
So dusty, spiteful and divided,
Had quite such pleasant friends as mine,
Or loved them half as much as I did.
* * * * *
The Freshman ambles down the High,
In love with everything he sees,
He notes the clear October sky,
He sniffs a vigorous western breeze.
“Can this be Oxford? This the place”
(He cries), “of which my father said
The tutoring was a damned disgrace,
The creed a mummery, stuffed and dead?
“Can it be here that Uncle Paul
Was driven by excessive gloom,
To drink and debt, and, last of all,
To smoking opium in his room?
“Is it from here the people come,
Who talk so loud, and roll their eyes,
And stammer? How extremely rum!
How curious! What a great surprise.
“Some influence of a nobler day
Than theirs (I mean than Uncle Paul’s),
Has roused the sleep of their decay,
And decked with light their ancient walls.
“O! dear undaunted boys of old,
Would that your names were carven here,
For all the world in stamps of gold,
That I might read them and revere.
“Who wrought and handed down for me
This Oxford of the larger air,
Laughing, and full of faith, and free,
With youth resplendent everywhere.”
Then learn: thou ill-instructed, blind,
Young, callow, and untutored man,
Their private names were----[3]
Their club was called REPUBLICAN.
* * * * *
Where on their banks of light they lie,
The happy hills of Heaven between,
The Gods that rule the morning sky
Are not more young, nor more serene
Than were the intrepid Four that stand,
The first who dared to live their dream,
And on this uncongenial land
To found the Abbey of Theleme.
We kept the Rabelaisian plan:[4]
We dignified the dainty cloisters
With Natural Law, the Rights of Man,
Song, Stoicism, Wine and Oysters.
The library was most inviting:
The books upon the crowded shelves
Were mainly of our private writing:
We kept a school and taught ourselves.
We taught the art of writing things
On men we still should like to throttle:
And where to get the blood of kings
At only half-a-crown a bottle.
* * * * *
Eheu Fugaces! Postume!
(An old quotation out of mode);
My coat of dreams is stolen away,
My youth is passing down the road.
* * * * *
The wealth of youth, we spent it well
And decently, as very few can.
And is it lost? I cannot tell;
And what is more, I doubt if you can.
The question’s very much too wide,
And much too deep, and much too hollow,
And learned men on either side
Use arguments I cannot follow.
They say that in the unchanging place,
Where all we loved is always dear,
We meet our morning face to face,
And find at last our twentieth year....
They say, (and I am glad they say),
It is so; and it may be so:
It may be just the other way,
I cannot tell. But this I know:
From quiet homes and first beginning,
Out to the undiscovered ends,
There’s nothing worth the wear of winning,
But laughter and the love of friends.
* * * * *
But something dwindles, oh! my peers,
And something cheats the heart and passes,
And Tom that meant to shake the years
Has come to merely rattling glasses.
And He, the Father of the Flock,
Is keeping Burmesans in order,
An exile on a lonely rock
That overlooks the Chinese border.
And One (myself I mean--no less),
Ah!--will Posterity believe it--
Not only don’t deserve success,
But hasn’t managed to achieve it.
Not even this peculiar town
Has ever fixed a friendship firmer,
But--one is married, one’s gone down,
And one’s a Don, and one’s in Burmah.
* * * * *
And oh! the days, the days, the days,
When all the four were off together:
The infinite deep of summer haze,
The roaring boast of autumn weather!
* * * * *
I will not try the reach again,
I will not set my sail alone,
To moor a boat bereft of men
At Yarnton’s tiny docks of stone.
But I will sit beside the fire,
And put my hand before my eyes,
And trace, to fill my heart’s desire,
The last of all our Odysseys.
The quiet evening kept her tryst:
Beneath an open sky we rode,
And mingled with a wandering mist
Along the perfect Evenlode.
The tender Evenlode that makes
Her meadows hush to hear the sound
Of waters mingling in the brakes,
And binds my heart to English ground.
A lovely river, all alone,
She lingers in the hills and holds
A hundred little towns of stone,
Forgotten in the western wolds.
* * * * *
I dare to think (though meaner powers
Possess our thrones, and lesser wits
Are drinking worser wine than ours,
In what’s no longer Austerlitz)
That surely a tremendous ghost,
The brazen-lunged, the bumper-filler,
Still sings to an immortal toast,
The Misadventures of the Miller.
The vasty seas are hardly bar
To men with such a prepossession;
We were? Why then, by God, we _are_--
Order! I call the club to session!
You do retain the song we set,
And how it rises, trips and scans?
You keep the sacred memory yet,
Republicans? Republicans?
You know the way the words were hurled,
To break the worst of fortune’s rub?
I give the toast across the world,
And drink it, “Gentlemen: the Club.”
CONTENTS.
PAGE
DEDICATORY ODE v
PREFACE xv
I. INTRODUCTORY 1
II. LAMBKIN’S NEWDIGATE 14
III. SOME REMARKS ON LAMBKIN’S PROSE STYLE 22
IV. LAMBKIN’S ESSAY ON “SUCCESS” 28
V. LAMBKIN ON “SLEEP” 37
VI. LAMBKIN’S ADVICE TO FRESHMEN 42
VII. LAMBKIN’S LECTURE ON “RIGHT” 51
VIII. LAMBKIN’S SPECIAL CORRESPONDENCE 58
IX. LAMBKIN’S ADDRESS TO THE LEAGUE OF PROGRESS 72
X. LAMBKIN’S LEADER 83
XI. LAMBKIN’S REMARKS ON THE END OF TERM 88
XII. LAMBKIN’S ARTICLE ON THE NORTH-WEST CORNER
OF THE MOSAIC PAVEMENT OF THE ROMAN VILLA
AT BIGNOR 95
XIII. LAMBKIN’S SERMON 104
XIV. LAMBKIN’S OPEN LETTER TO CHURCHMEN 114
XV. LAMBKIN’S LETTER TO A FRENCH FRIEND 123
XVI. INTERVIEW WITH MR. LAMBKIN 132
PREFACE
The preparation of the ensuing pages has been a labour of love, and
has cost me many an anxious hour. “Of the writing of books,” says the
learned Psalmist (or more probably a Syro-Chaldæic scribe of the third
century) “there is no end”; and truly it is a very solemn thought
that so many writers, furnishing the livelihood of so many publishers,
these in their turn supporting so many journals, reviews and magazines,
and these last giving bread to such a vast army of editors, reviewers,
and what not--I say it is a very solemn thought that this great mass
of people should be engaged upon labour of this nature; labour which,
rightly applied, might be of immeasurable service to humanity, but
which is, alas! so often diverted into useless or even positively
harmful channels: channels upon which I could write at some length,
were it not necessary for me, however, to bring this reflection to a
close.
A fine old Arabic poem--probably the oldest complete literary work in
the world--(I mean the Comedy which we are accustomed to call the Book
of Job)[5] contains hidden away among its many treasures the phrase,
“Oh! that mine enemy had written a book!” This craving for literature,
which is so explicable in a primitive people, and the half-savage
desire that the labour of writing should fall upon a foeman captured in
battle, have given place in the long process of historical development
to a very different spirit. There is now, if anything, a superabundance
of literature, and an apology is needed for the appearance of such a
work as this, nor, indeed, would it have been brought out had it not
been imagined that Lambkin’s many friends would give it a ready sale.
Animaxander, King of the Milesians, upon being asked by the Emissary
of Atarxessus what was, in his opinion, the most wearying thing in the
world, replied by cutting off the head of the messenger, thus outraging
the religious sense of a time to which guests and heralds were sacred,
as being under the special protection of Ζεύς (pronounced “Tsephs”).
Warned by the awful fate of the sacrilegious monarch, I will put a term
to these opening remarks. My book must be its own preface, I would that
the work could be also its own publisher, its own bookseller, and its
own reviewer.
It remains to me only to thank the many gentlemen who have aided me
in my task with the loan of letters, scraps of MSS., portraits, and
pieces of clothing--in fine, with all that could be of interest in
illustrating Lambkin’s career. My gratitude is especially due to Mr.
Binder, who helped in part of the writing; to Mr. Cook, who was kind
enough to look over the proofs; and to Mr. Wallingford, Q.C., who very
kindly consented to receive an advance copy. I must also thank the
Bishop of Bury for his courteous sympathy and ever-ready suggestion; I
must not omit from this list M. Hertz, who has helped me with French,
and whose industry and gentlemanly manners are particularly pleasing.
I cannot close without tendering my thanks in general to the printers
who have set up this book, to the agencies which have distributed it,
and to the booksellers, who have put it upon their shelves; I feel a
deep debt of gratitude to a very large number of people, and that is a
pleasant sensation for a man who, in the course of a fairly successful
career, has had to give (and receive) more than one shrewd knock.
THE CHAPLAINCY,
BURFORD COLLEGE,
OXFORD.
P.S.--I have consulted, in the course of this work, Liddell and
Scott’s _Larger Greek Lexicon_, Smith’s _Dictionary of Antiquities_,
Skeats’ _Etymological Dictionary_, _Le Dictionnaire Franco-Anglais,
et Anglo-Français_, of Boileau, Curtis’ _English Synonyms_, Buffle on
_Punctuation_, and many other authorities which will be acknowledged in
the text.
Lambkin’s Remains
_Being the unpublished works of J. A. Lambkin, M.A. sometime Fellow of
Burford College_
I.
INTRODUCTORY
It is without a trace of compunction or regret that I prepare to edit
the few unpublished essays, sermons and speeches of my late dear
friend, Mr. Lambkin. On the contrary, I am filled with a sense that
my labour is one to which the clearest interests of the whole English
people call me, and I have found myself, as the work grew under my
hands, fulfilling, if I may say so with due modesty, a high and noble
duty. I remember Lambkin himself, in one of the last conversations I
had with him, saying with the acuteness that characterised him, “The
world knows nothing of its greatest men.” This pregnant commentary upon
human affairs was, I admit, produced by an accident in the _Oxford
Herald_ which concerned myself. In a description of a Public Function
my name had been mis-spelt, and though I was deeply wounded and
offended, I was careful (from a feeling which I hope is common to all
of us) to make no more than the slightest reference to this insult.
The acute eye of friendship and sympathy, coupled with the instincts of
a scholar and a gentleman, perceived my irritation, and in the evening
Lambkin uttered the memorable words that I have quoted. I thanked him
warmly, but, if long acquaintance had taught him my character, so had
it taught me his. I knew the reticence and modesty of my colleague,
the almost morbid fear that vanity (a vice which he detested) might be
imputed to him on account of the exceptional gifts which he could not
entirely ignore or hide; and I was certain that the phrase which he
constructed to heal my wound was not without some reference to his own
unmerited obscurity.
The world knows nothing of its greatest men! Josiah Lambkin! from
whatever Cypress groves of the underworld which environs us when on
dark winter evenings in the silence of our own souls which nothing can
dissolve though all attunes to that which nature herself perpetually
calls us, always, if we choose but to remember, your name shall be
known wherever the English language and its various dialects are
spoken. The great All-mother has made me the humble instrument, and I
shall perform my task as you would have desired it in a style which
loses half its evil by losing all its rhetoric; I shall pursue my way
and turn neither to the right nor to the left, but go straight on in
the fearless old English fashion till it is completed.
Josiah Abraham Lambkin was born of well-to-do and gentlemanly parents
in Bayswater[6] on January 19th, 1843. His father, at the time of his
birth, entertained objections to the great Public Schools, largely
founded upon his religious leanings, which were at that time opposed
to the ritual of those institutions. In spite therefore of the
vehement protestations of his mother (who was distantly connected on
the maternal side with the Cromptons of Cheshire) the boy passed his
earlier years under the able tutorship of a Nonconformist divine, and
later passed into the academy of Dr. Whortlebury at Highgate.[7]
Of his school-days he always spoke with some bitterness. He appears
to have suffered considerably from bullying, and the Headmaster,
though a humane, was a blunt man, little fitted to comprehend the
delicate nature with which he had to deal. On one occasion the nervous
susceptible lad found it necessary to lay before him a description of
the treatment to which he had been subjected by a younger and smaller,
but much stronger boy; the pedagogue’s only reply was to flog Lambkin
heartily with a light cane, “inflicting,” as he himself once told me,
“such exquisite agony as would ever linger in his memory.” Doubtless
this teacher of the old school thought he was (to use a phrase then
common) “making a man of him,” but the object was not easily to be
attained by brutal means. Let us be thankful that these punishments
have nearly disappeared from our modern seminaries.
When Josiah was fifteen years of age, his father, having prospered
in business, removed to Eaton Square and bought an estate in Surrey.
The merchant’s mind, which, though rough, was strong and acute,
had meanwhile passed through a considerable change in the matter
of religion; and as the result of long but silent self-examination
he became the ardent supporter of a system which he had formerly
abhorred. It was therefore determined to send the lad to one of the
two great Universities, and though Mrs. Lambkin’s second cousins, the
Crumptons, had all been to Cambridge, Oxford was finally decided upon
as presenting the greater social opportunities at the time.[8]
Here, then, is young Lambkin, in his nineteenth year, richly but
soberly dressed, and eager for the new life that opens before him. He
was entered at Burford College on October the 15th, 1861; a date which
is, by a curious coincidence, exactly thirty-six years, four months,
and two days from the time in which I pen these lines.
Of his undergraduate career there is little to be told. Called by his
enemies “The Burford Bounder,” or “dirty Lambkin,” he yet acquired the
respect of a small but choice circle who called him by his own name. He
was third _proxime accessit_ for the Johnson prize in Biblical studies,
and would undoubtedly have obtained (or been mentioned for) the
Newdigate, had he not been pitted against two men of quite exceptional
poetic gifts--the present editor of “The Investor’s Sure Prophet,” and
Mr. Hound, the well-known writer on “Food Statistics.”
He took a good Second-class in Greats in the summer of 1864, and was
immediately elected to a fellowship at Burford. It was not known at the
time that his father had become a bankrupt through lending large sums
at a high rate of interest to a young heir without security, trusting
to the necessity under which his name and honour would put him to pay.
In the shipwreck of the family fortunes, the small endowment was a
veritable godsend to Josiah, who but for this recognition of his merits
would have been compelled to work for his living.
As it was, his peculiar powers were set free to plan his great
monograph on “Being,” a work which, to the day of his death, he
designed not only to write but to publish.
There was not, of course, any incident of note in the thirty years
during which he held his fellowship. He did his duty plainly as it lay
before him, occasionally taking pupils, and after the Royal Commission,
even giving lectures in the College hall. He was made Junior Dean in
October, 1872, Junior Bursar in 1876, and Bursar in 1880, an office
which he held during the rest of his life.
In this capacity no breath of calumny ever touched him. His character
was spotless. He never offered or took compensations of any kind, and
no one has hinted that his accounts were not accurately and strictly
kept.
He never allowed himself to be openly a candidate for the Wardenship of
the College, but it is remarkable that he received one vote at each of
the three elections held in the twenty years of his residence.
He passed peacefully away just after Hall on the Gaudy Night of last
year. When his death was reported, an old scout, ninety-two years of
age, who had grown deaf in the service of the College, burst into tears
and begged that the name might be more clearly repeated to him, as he
had failed to catch it. On hearing it he dried his eyes, and said he
had never known a better master.
His character will, I think, be sufficiently evident in the writings
which I shall publish. He was one of nature’s gentlemen; reticent,
just, and full of self-respect. He hated a scene, and was careful to
avoid giving rise even to an argument. On the other hand, he was most
tenacious of his just rights, though charitable to the deserving poor,
and left a fortune of thirty-five thousand pounds.
In the difficult questions which arise from the superior rank of
inferiors he displayed a constant tact and judgment. It is not always
easy for a tutor to control and guide the younger members of the
aristocracy without being accused of pitiless severity on the one
hand or of gross obsequiousness on the other. Lambkin, to his honour,
contrived to direct with energy and guide without offence the men upon
whom England’s greatness depends.
He was by no means a snob--snobbishness was not in him. On the
other hand, he was equally removed from what is almost worse than
snobbishness--the morbid terror of subservience which possesses some
ill-balanced minds.
His attitude was this: that we are compelled to admit the aristocratic
quality of the English polity and should, while decently veiling
its cruder aspects, enjoy to the full the benefits which such a
constitution confers upon society and upon our individual selves.
By a genial observance of such canons he became one of the most
respected among those whom the chances of an academic career presented
to him as pupils or parents. He was the guest and honoured friend of
the Duke of Cumberland, the Duke of Pembroke, the Duke of Limerick
(“Mad Harry”), and the Duke of Lincoln; he had also the honour of
holding a long conversation with the Duke of Berkshire, whom he met
upon the top of an omnibus in Piccadilly and instantly recognised. He
possessed letters, receipts or communications from no less than four
Marquises, one Marquess, ten Barons, sixteen Baronets and one hundred
and twenty County Gentlemen. I must not omit Lord Grumbletooth, who had
had commercial dealings with his father, and who remained to the end of
his life a cordial and devoted friend.[9]
His tact in casual conversation was no less remarkable than his general
_savoir faire_ in the continuous business of life. Thus upon one
occasion a royal personage happened to be dining in Hall. It was some
days after the death of Mr. Hooligan, the well-known Home Rule leader.
The distinguished guest, with perhaps a trifle of licence, turned to
Lambkin and said “Well, Mr. Bursar, what do you think of Hooligan?” We
observed a respectful silence and wondered what reply Lambkin would
give in these difficult circumstances. The answer was like a bolt from
the blue, “De mortuis nil nisi bonum,” said the Classical Scholar, and
a murmur of applause went round the table.
Indeed his political views were perhaps the most remarkable feature
in a remarkable character. He died a convinced and staunch Liberal
Unionist, and this was the more striking as he was believed by all his
friends to be a Conservative until the introduction of Mr. Gladstone’s
famous Bill in 1885.
In the delicate matter of religious controversy his own writings must
describe him, nor will I touch here upon a question which did not rise
to any considerable public importance until after his death. Perhaps
I may be permitted to say this much; he was a sincere Christian in
the true sense of the word, attached to no narrow formularies, but
following as closely as he could the system of Seneca, stiffened (as it
were) with the meditations of Marcus Aurelius, though he was never so
violent as to attempt a practice of what that extreme stoic laid down
in theory.
Neither a ritualist nor a low-churchman, he expressed his attitude
by a profound and suggestive silence. These words only escaped him
upon one single occasion. Let us meditate upon them well in the stormy
discussions of to-day: “Medio tutissimus ibis.”
His learning and scholarship, so profound in the dead languages, was
exercised with singular skill and taste in the choice he made of modern
authors.
He was ignorant of Italian, but thoroughly conversant with the
French classics, which he read in the admirable translations of the
‘Half-crown Series.’ His principal reading here was in the works of
Voltaire, wherein, however, he confessed, “He could find no style,
and little more than blasphemous ribaldry.” Indeed, of the European
languages he would read German with the greatest pleasure, confining
himself chiefly to the writings of Lessing, Kant, and Schiller. His
mind acquired by this habit a singular breadth and fecundity, his style
a kind of rich confusion, and his speech (for he was able to converse
a little in that idiom) was strengthened by expressions of the deepest
philosophic import; a habit which gave him a peculiar and individual
power over his pupils, who mistook the Teutonic gutturals for violent
objurgations.
Such was the man, such the gentleman, the true ‘Hglaford,’ the modern
‘Godgebidden Eorldemanthingancanning,’ whose inner thoughts shall unroll
themselves in the pages that follow.
II.
Lambkin’s Newdigate
POEM WRITTEN FOR “NEWDIGATE PRIZE” IN ENGLISH VERSE
BY J. A. LAMBKIN, ESQ., OF BURFORD COLLEGE
_N.B._--[_The competitors are confined to the use of Rhymed Heroic
Iambic Pentameters, but the introduction of_ LYRICS _is permitted_]
Subject: “THE BENEFITS CONFERRED BY SCIENCE, ESPECIALLY IN CONNECTION
WITH THE ELECTRIC LIGHT”
_For the benefit of those who do not care to read through the Poem but
desire to know its contents, I append the following headings_:
INVOCATION TO THE MUSE
Hail! Happy Muse, and touch the tuneful string!
The benefits conferred by Science[10] I sing.
HIS THEME: THE ELECTRIC LIGHT AND ITS BENEFITS
Under the kind Examiners’[11] direction
I only write about them in connection
With benefits which the Electric Light
Confers on us; especially at night.
These are my theme, of these my song shall rise.
My lofty head shall swell to strike the skies,[12]
And tears of hopeless love bedew the maiden’s eyes.
SECOND INVOCATION TO THE MUSE
Descend, O Muse, from thy divine abode,
OSNEY
To Osney, on the Seven Bridges Road;
For under Osney’s solitary shade
The bulk of the Electric Light is made.
Here are the works, from hence the current flows
Which (so the Company’s prospectus goes)
POWER OF WORKS THERE
Can furnish to Subscribers hour by hour
No less than sixteen thousand candle power,[13]
All at a thousand volts. (It is essential
To keep the current at this high potential
In spite of the considerable expense.)
STATISTICS CONCERNING THEM
The Energy developed represents,
Expressed in foot-tons, the united forces
Of fifteen elephants and forty horses.
But shall my scientific detail thus
Clip the dear wings of Buoyant Pegasus?
POETICAL OR RHETORICAL QUESTIONS
Shall pure statistics jar upon the ear
That pants for Lyric accents loud and clear?
Shall I describe the complex Dynamo
Or write about its commutator? No!
THE THEME CHANGES
To happier fields I lead my wanton pen,
The proper study of mankind is men.
THIRD INVOCATION TO THE MUSE
Awake, my Muse! Portray the pleasing sight
That meets us where they make Electric Light.
A PICTURE OF THE ELECTRICIAN
Behold the Electrician where he stands:
Soot, oil, and verdigris are on his hands;
Large spots of grease defile his dirty clothes,
The while his conversation drips with oaths.
Shall such a being perish in its youth?
Alas! it is indeed the fatal truth.
In that dull brain, beneath that hair unkempt,
Familiarity has bred contempt.
We warn him of the gesture all too late;
Oh, Heartless Jove! Oh, Adamantine Fate!
HIS AWFUL FATE
Some random Touch--a hand’s imprudent slip--
The Terminals--a flash--a sound like “Zip!”
A smell of Burning fills the startled Air--
The Electrician is no longer there!
* * * * *
HE CHANGES HIS THEME
But let us turn with true Artistic scorn
From facts funereal and from views forlorn
Of Erebus and Blackest midnight born.[14]
FOURTH INVOCATION TO THE MUSE
Arouse thee, Muse! and chaunt in accents rich
The interesting processes by which
The Electricity is passed along:
These are my theme, to these I bend my song.
DESCRIPTION OF METHOD BY WHICH THE CURRENT IS USED
It runs encased in wood or porous brick
Through copper wires two millimetres thick,
And insulated on their dangerous mission
By indiarubber, silk, or composition,
Here you may put with critical felicity
The following question: “What is Electricity?”
DIFFICULTY OF DETERMINING NATURE OF ELECTRICITY
“Molecular Activity,” say some,
Others when asked say nothing, and are dumb.
Whatever be its nature: this is clear,
The rapid current checked in its career,
Baulked in its race and halted in its course[15]
Transforms to heat and light its latent force:
CONSERVATION OF ENERGY. PROOFS OF THIS: NO EXPERIMENT NEEDED
It needs no pedant in the lecturer’s chair
To prove that light and heat are present there.
The pear-shaped vacuum globe, I understand,
Is far too hot to fondle with the hand.
While, as is patent to the meanest sight,
The carbon filament is very bright.
DOUBTS ON THE MUNICIPAL SYSTEM, BUT--
As for the lights they hang about the town,
Some praise them highly, others run them down.
This system (technically called the arc)
Makes some passages too light, others too dark.
NONE ON THE DOMESTIC
But in the house the soft and constant rays
Have always met with universal praise.
ITS ADVANTAGES
For instance: if you want to read in bed
No candle burns beside your curtains’ head,
Far from some distant corner of the room
The incandescent lamp dispels the gloom,
ADVANTAGES OF LARGE PRINT
And with the largest print need hardly try
The powers of any young and vigorous eye.
FIFTH INVOCATION TO THE MUSE
Aroint thee, Muse! inspired the poet sings!
I cannot help observing future things!
THE ONLY HOPE OF HUMANITY IS IN SCIENCE
Life is a vale, its paths are dark and rough
Only because we do not know enough.
When Science has discovered something more
We shall be happier than we were before.
PERORATION IN THE SPIRIT OF THE REST OF THE POEM
Hail! Britain, mistress of the Azure Main,
Ten Thousand Fleets sweep over thee in vain!
Hail! mighty mother of the brave and free,
That beat Napoleon, and gave birth to me!
Thou that canst wrap in thine emblazoned robe
One quarter of the habitable globe.
Thy mountains, wafted by a favouring breeze,
Like mighty hills withstand the stormy seas.
WARNING TO BRITAIN
Thou art a Christian Commonwealth. And yet
Be thou not all unthankful--nor forget
As thou exultest in Imperial might
The benefits of the Electric Light.
III.
Some Remarks on Lambkin’s Prose Style
No achievement of my dear friend’s produced a greater effect than the
English Essay which he presented at his examination. That so young
a man, and a man trained in such an environment as his, should have
written an essay at all was sufficiently remarkable, but that his
work should have shown such mastery in the handling, such delicate
balance of idea, and so much know-ledge (in the truest sense of the
word), coupled with such an astounding insight into human character
and contemporary psychology, was enough to warrant the remark of the
then Warden of Burford: “If these things” (said the aged but eminent
divine), “if these things” (it was said in all reverence and with a
full sense of the responsibility of his position), “If these things are
done in the green wood, what will be done in the dry?”
Truly it may be said that the Green Wood of Lambkin’s early years as an
Undergraduate was worthily followed by the Dry Wood of his later life
as a fellow and even tutor, nay, as a Bursar of his college.
It is not my purpose to add much to the reader’s own impressions of
this _tour de force_, or to insist too strongly upon the skill and
breadth of treatment which will at once make their mark upon any
intelligent man, and even upon the great mass of the public. But I may
be forgiven if I give some slight personal memories in interpretation
of a work which is necessarily presented in the cold medium of type.
Lambkin’s hand-writing was flowing and determined, but was often
difficult to read, a quality which led in the later years of his life
to the famous retort made by the Rural Dean of Henchthorp to the
Chaplain of Bower’s Hall.[16] His manuscript was, like Lord Byron’s
(and unlike the famous Codex V in the Vatican), remarkable for its
erasures, of which as many as three may be seen in some places
super-imposed, ladderwise, _en échelle_, the one above the other,
perpendicularly to the line of writing.
This excessive fastidiousness in the use of words was the cause of his
comparatively small production of written work; and thus the essay
printed below was the labour of nearly three hours. His ideas in this
matter were best represented by his little epigram on the appearance
of Liddell and Scott’s larger Greek Lexicon. “Quality not quantity”
was the witty phrase which he was heard to mutter when he received his
first copy of that work.
The nervous strain of so much anxiety about his literary work wearied
both mind and body, but he had his reward. The scholarly aptitude of
every particle in the phrase, and the curious symmetry apparent in
the great whole of the essay are due to a quality which he pushed
indeed to excess, but never beyond the boundary that separates Right
and Wrong; we admire in the product what we might criticise in the
method, and when we judge as critics we are compelled as Englishmen and
connoisseurs to congratulate and to applaud.
He agreed with Aristotle in regarding lucidity as the main virtue
of style. And if he sometimes failed to attain his ideal in this
matter, the obscurity was due to none of those mannerisms which are so
deplorable in a Meredith or a Browning, but rather to the fact that he
found great difficulty in ending a sentence as he had begun it. His
mind outran his pen; and the sentence from his University sermon,
“England must do her duty, or what will the harvest be?” stirring and
patriotic as it is, certainly suffers from some such fault, though I
cannot quite see where.
The Oxymoron, the Aposiopesis, the Nominativus Pendens, the Anacoluthon
and the Zeugma he looked upon with abhorrence and even with dread.
He was a friend to all virile enthusiasm in writing but a foe to
rhetoric, which (he would say) “Is cloying even in a demagogue, and
actually nauseating in the literary man.” He drew a distinction between
_eloquence_ and rhetoric, often praising the one and denouncing the
other with the most abandoned fervour: indeed, it was his favourite
diversion in critical conversation accurately to determine the meaning
of words. In early youth he would often split an infinitive or end
a sentence with a preposition. But, ever humble and ready to learn,
he determined, after reading Mrs. Griffin’s well-known essays in the
_Daily American_, to eschew such conduct for the future; and it was a
most touching sight to watch him, even in extreme old age, his reverend
white locks sweeping the paper before him and his weak eyes peering
close at the MSS. as he carefully went over his phrases with a pen,
scratching out and amending, at the end of his day’s work, the errors
of this nature.
He commonly used a gilt “J” nib, mounted upon a holder of imitation
ivory, but he was not cramped by any petty limitations in such details
and would, if necessity arose, make use of a quill, or even of a
fountain pen, insisting, however, if he was to use the latter, that it
should be of the best.
The paper upon which he wrote the work that remains to us was the
ordinary ruled foolscap of commerce; but this again he regarded as
quite unimportant. It was the matter of what he wrote that concerned
him, not (as is so often the case with lesser men) the mere accidents
of pen or paper.
I remember little else of moment with regard to his way of writing, but
I make no doubt that these details will not be without their interest;
for the personal habits of a great man have a charm of their own. I
read once that the sum of fifty pounds was paid for the pen of Charles
Dickens. I wonder what would be offered for a similar sacred relic, of
a man more obscure, but indirectly of far greater influence; a relic
which I keep by me with the greatest reverence, which I do not use
myself, however much at a loss I may be for pen or pencil, and with
which I never, upon any account, allow the children to play.
But I must draw to a close, or I should merit the reproach of lapsing
into a sentimental peroration, and be told that I am myself indulging
in that rhetoric which Lambkin so severely condemned.
IV.
Lambkin’s Essay on “Success”
ON “SUCCESS:” ITS CAUSES AND RESULTS
[Sidenote: Difficulty of Subject]
In approaching a problem of this nature, with all its anomalies and
analogues, we are at once struck by the difficulty of conditioning any
accurate estimate of the factors of the solution of the difficulty
which is latent in the very terms of the above question. We shall do
well perhaps, however, to clearly differentiate from its fellows the
proposition we have to deal with, and similarly as an inception of
our analysis to permanently fix the definitions and terms we shall be
talking of, with, and by.
[Sidenote: Definition of Success]
Success may be defined as the _Successful Consummation of an Attempt_
or more shortly as the _Realisation of an imagined Good_, and as it
implies Desire or the Wish for a thing, and at the same time action
or the attempt to get at a thing,[17] we might look at Success from
yet another point of view and say that _Success is the realisation
of Desire through action_. Indeed this last definition seems on the
whole to be the best; but it is evident that in this, as in all
other matters, it is impossible to arrive at perfection, and our
safest definition will be that which is found to be on the whole most
approximately the average mean[18] of many hundreds that might be
virtually constructed to more or less accurately express the idea we
have undertaken to do.
So far then it is evident that while we may have a fairly definite
subjective visual concept of what Success is, we shall never be able to
convey to others in so many words exactly what our idea may be.
“What am I?
, . . . .
An infant crying for the light
That has no language but a cry”
[Sidenote: Method of dealing with Problem]
It is, however, of more practical importance nevertheless, to arrive
at some method or other by which we can in the long run attack the
very serious problem presented to us. Our best chance of arriving at
any solution will lie in attempting to give objective form to what it
is we have to do with. For this purpose we will first of all divide
all actions into (א) Successful and (ב) Non-successful[19] actions.
These two categories are at once mutually exclusive and collectively
universal. Nothing of which Success can be truly predicated, can at
the same time be called with any approach to accuracy Unsuccessful;
and similarly if an action finally result in Non-success, it is quite
evident that to speak of its “Success” would be to trifle with words
and to throw dust into our own eyes, which is a fatal error in any
case. We have then these two primary catēgories what is true of one
will, with certain reservations, be untrue of the other, in most cases
(we will come to that later) and _vice-versâ_.
(1) Success.
(2) Non-success.
[Sidenote: First great Difficulty]
But here we are met at the outset of our examination by a difficulty of
enormous dimensions. There is not one success; there are many. There
is the success of the Philosopher, of the Scientist, of the Politician,
of the Argument, of the Commanding Officer, of the Divine, of the
mere unthinking Animal appetite, and of others more numerous still.
It is evident that with such a vast number of different subsidiary
catēgories within our main catēgory it would be impossible to arrive at
any absolute conclusions, or to lay down any firm general principle.
For the moment we had erected some such fundamental foundation the
fair structure would be blown to a thousand atoms by the consideration
of some fresh form, aspect or realisation, of Success which might
have escaped our vision, so that where should we be then? It is
therefore most eminently a problem in which we should beware of undue
generalisations and hasty dogmatism. We must abandon here as everywhere
the immoral and exploded cant of mediæval deductive methods invented by
priests and mummers to enslave the human mind, and confine ourselves to
what we absolutely _know_. Shall we towards the end of this essay truly
_know_ anything with regard to Success? Who can tell! But at least let
us not cheat ourselves with the axioms, affirmations and dogmas which
are, in a certain sense, the ruin of so many; let us, if I may use a
metaphor, “abandon the _à priori_ for the _chiaro-oscuro_.”
[Sidenote: Second much greater Difficulty]
But if the problem is complex from the great variety of the various
kinds of Success, what shall we say of the disturbance introduced
by a new aspect of the matter, which we are now about to allude to!
Aye! What indeed! An aspect so widespread in its consequences, so
momentous and so fraught with menace to all philosophy, so big with
portent, and of such threatening aspect to humanity itself, that we
hesitate even to bring it forward![20] _Success is not always Success:
Non-success (or Failure) is an aspect of Success, and vice-versâ._ This
apparent paradox will be seen to be true on a little consideration.
For “Success” in any one case involves the “Failure” or “Non-success”
of its opposite or correlative. Thus, if we bet ten pounds with one of
our friends our “Success” would be his “Non-success,” and _vice-versâ_,
collaterally. Again, if we desire to fail in a matter (_e.g._, any man
would hope to fail in being hanged[21]), then to succeed is to fail,
and to fail is to succeed, and our successful failure would fail were
we to happen upon a disastrous success! And note that the _very same
act_, not this, that, or another, but THE VERY SAME, is (according
to the way we look at it) a “successful” or an “unsuccessful” act.
Success therefore not only _may_ be, but _must_ be Failure, and the two
catēgories upon which we had built such high hopes have disappeared for
ever!
[Sidenote: Solemn considerations consequent upon this]
Terrible thought! A thing can be at once itself and not itself--nay
its own opposite! The mind reels, and the frail human vision peering
over the immense gulf of metaphysical infinity is lost in a cry for
mercy and trembles on the threshold of the unseen! What visions of
horror and madness may not be reserved for the too daring soul which
has presumed to knock at the Doors of Silence! Let us learn from the
incomprehensible how small and weak a thing is man!
[Sidenote: A more cheerful view]
But it would ill-befit the philosopher to abandon his effort because
of a kind of a check or two at the start. The great hand of Time
shouts ever “onward”; and even if we cannot discover the Absolute in
the limits of this essay, we may rise from the ashes of our tears to
better and happier things.
[Sidenote: The beginning of a Solution]
A light seems to dawn on us. We shall not arrive at the full day
but we shall see “in a glass darkly” what, in the final end of our
development, may perhaps be more clearly revealed to us. It is evident
that we have been dealing with a relative. _How_ things so apparently
absolute as hanging or betting can be in any true sense relative we
cannot tell, because we cannot conceive the majestic whole of which
Success and Failure, plus and minus, up and down, yes and no, truth
and lies, are but as the glittering facets of a diamond borne upon the
finger of some titled and wealthy person.
Our error came from foolish self-sufficiency and pride. We thought
(forsooth) that our mere human conceptions of contradiction were real.
It has been granted to us (though we are but human still), to discover
our error--there is no hot or cold, no light or dark, and no good or
evil, all are, in a certain sense, and with certain limitations (if I
may so express myself) the Aspects----
_At this point the bell rang and the papers had to be delivered up.
Lambkin could not let his work go, however, without adding a few words
to show what he might have done had time allowed. He wrote:--_
“No Time. Had intended examples--Success, Academic, Acrobatic,
Agricultural, Aristocratic, Bacillic ... Yaroslavic, Zenobidic,
etc. Historical cases examined, Biggar’s view, H. Unity, Univ.
Consciousness, Amphodunissa,[22] Setxm [Illustration].”
V.
Lambkin on Sleep
[_This little gem was written for the great Monograph on “Being,” which
Lambkin never lived to complete. It was included, however, in his
little volume of essays entitled “Rictus Almae Matris.” The careful
footnotes, the fund of information, and the scholarly accuracy of
the whole sketch are an example--(alas! the only one)--of what his
full work would have been had he brought it to a conclusion. It is an
admirable example of his manner in maturer years._]
In sleep our faculties lie dormant.[23] We perceive nothing or almost
nothing of our surroundings; and the deeper our slumber the more
absolute is the barrier between ourselves and the outer world. The
causes of this “Cessation of Consciousness” (as it has been admirably
called by Professor M‘Obvy)[24] lie hidden from our most profound
physiologists. It was once my privilege to meet the master of physical
science who has rendered famous the University of Kreigenswald,[25] and
I asked him what in his opinion was the cause of sleep. He answered,
with that reverence which is the glory of the Teutonic mind, “It is in
the dear secret of the All-wise Nature-mother preserved.” I have never
forgotten those wise and weighty words.[26]
Perhaps the nearest guess as to the nature of Sleep is to be
discovered in the lectures of a brilliant but sometimes over-daring
young scholar whom we all applaud in the chair of Psychology. “Sleep”
(he says) “is the direct product of Brain Somnolence, which in its
turn is the result of the need for Repose that every organism must
experience after any specialised exertion.” I was present when this
sentence was delivered, and I am not ashamed to add that I was one of
those who heartily cheered the young speaker.[27]
We may assert, then, that Science has nearly conquered this last
stronghold of ignorance and superstition.[28]
As to the Muses, we know well that Sleep has been their favourite
theme for ages. With the exception of Catullus (whose verses have been
greatly over-rated, and who is always talking of people lying awake
at night), all the ancients have mentioned and praised this innocent
pastime. Everyone who has done Greats will remember the beautiful
passage in Lucretius,[29] but perhaps that in Sidonius Apollinaris, the
highly polished Bishop of Gaul, is less well known.[30] To turn to our
own literature, the sonnet beginning “To die, to sleep,” etc.,[31] must
be noted, and above all, the glorious lines in which Wordsworth reaches
his noblest level, beginning--
“It is a pleasant thing to go to sleep!”
lines which, for my part, I can never read without catching some of
their magical drowsy influence.[32]
All great men have slept. George III. frequently slept,[33] and that
great and good man Wycliffe was in the habit of reading his Scriptural
translations and his own sermons nightly to produce the desired
effect.[34] The Duke of Wellington (whom my father used to call “The
Iron Duke”) slept on a little bedstead no larger than a common man’s.
As for the various positions in which one may sleep, I treat of them
in my little book of Latin Prose for Schools, which is coming out next
year.[35]
VI.
Lambkin’s Advice to Freshmen
Mr. Lambkin possessed among other great and gracious qualities the
habit of writing to his nephew, Thomas Ezekiel Lambkin,[36] who
entered the college as an undergraduate when his uncle was some four
years a Fellow. Of many such communications he valued especially
this which I print below, on account of the curious and pathetic
circumstances which surrounded it. Some months after Thomas had been
given his two groups and had left the University, Mr. Lambkin was
looking over some books in a second-hand book shop--not with the
intention of purchasing so much as to improve the mind. It was a
favourite habit of his, and as he was deeply engaged in a powerful
romance written under the pseudonym of “Marie Corelli”[37] there
dropped from its pages the letter which he had sent so many years
before. It lay in its original envelope unopened, and on turning to
the flyleaf he saw the name of his nephew written. It had once been
his! The boy had so treasured the little missive as to place it in his
favourite book!
Lambkin was so justly touched by the incident as to purchase the
volume, asking that the price might be entered to his account, which
was not then of any long standing. The letter he docketed “to be
published after my death.” And I obey the wishes of my revered friend:
“MY DEAR THOMAS,
“Here you are at last in Oxford, and at Burford, ‘a Burford Man.’ How
proud your mother must be and even your father, whom I well remember
saying that ‘if he were not an accountant, he would rather be a Fellow
of Burford than anything else on earth.’ But it was not to be.
“The life you are entering is very different from that which you
have left behind. When you were at school you were under a strict
discipline, you were compelled to study the classics and to play
at various games. Cleanliness and truthfulness were enforced by
punishment, while the most instinctive habits of decency and good
manners could only be acquired at the expense of continual application.
In a word, ‘you were a child and thought as a child.’
“Now all that is changed, you are free (within limits) to follow your
own devices, to make or mar yourself. But if you use Oxford aright she
will make you as she has made so many of your kind--a perfect gentleman.