a naturalist, and a sportsman. His mother, a Miss Lucas, came from
Barbados; and while she wrote poetry with feeling and skill, she had
also a practical gift of management. His father's calling involved
several changes of residence. Those which had most influence on his son
were his removal in 1824 to Barnack, on the edge of the fens, still
untamed and full of wild life, and in 1830 to Clovelly in North Devon.
More than thirty years later, when asked to fill up the usual questions
in a lady's album, he wrote that his favourite scenery was 'wide flats
and open sea'. He was precocious as a child and perpetrated poems and
sermons at the age of four; but very early he developed a habit of
observation and a healthy interest in things outside himself. Such a
nature could not be indifferent to the beauty of Clovelly, to the coming
and going of its fishermen, and to the romance and danger of their
lives. The steep village-street nestling among the woods, the little
harbour sheltered by the sandstone cliffs, the wide view over the blue
water, won his lifelong affection.
His parents talked of sending him to Eton or Rugby, but in the end they
decided to put him with Derwent Coleridge, the poet's son, at the
Grammar School of Helston. Here he had the scenery which he loved, and
masters who developed his strong bent towards natural science; and here
he laid the foundations of his knowledge of botany, which remained all
his life his favourite recreation. He was an eager reader, but not a
close student of books; fond of outdoor life, but not skilled in
athletic games; capable of much effort and much endurance, but rather
irregular in his spurts of energy. A more methodical training might have
saved him some mistakes, but it might also have taken the edge off that
fresh enthusiasm which made intercourse with him at all times seem like
a breath of moorland air. Here he developed an independence of mind and
a fearlessness of opinion which is rarely to be found in the atmosphere
of a big public school.
At the age of seventeen, when his father was appointed to St. Luke's,
Chelsea, he left Helston and spent two years attending lectures at
King's College, London, and preparing for Cambridge. These were by no
means among his happier years. He disliked London and he rebelled
against the dullness of life in a vicarage overrun with district
visitors and mothers' meetings. His father, a strong evangelical,
objected to various forms of public amusement, and Charles, though loyal
and affectionate to his parents, fretted to find no outlet for his
energies. He made a few friends and devoured many books, but his chief
delight was to get away from town to old west-country haunts. Nor was
his life at Cambridge entirely happy. His excitability was great: his
self-control was not yet developed. Rowing did not exhaust his physical
energy, which broke out from time to time in midnight fishing raids and
walks from Cambridge to London. He wasted so much of his time that he
nearly imperilled his chance of taking a good degree, and might perhaps
count himself lucky when, thanks to a heroic effort at the eleventh
hour, his excellent abilities won him a first class in classics. At
this time he was terribly shaken by religious doubts. But in one of his
vacations in 1839 he met Fanny Grenfell, his future wife, and soon he
was on such a footing that he could open to her his inmost thoughts. It
was she who helped him in his wavering decision to take Holy Orders;
and, when he went down in 1842, he set himself to read seriously and
thoroughly for Ordination. Early in 1844 he was admitted to deacon's
orders at Farnham.
His first office marked out his path through life. With a short interval
between his holding the curacy and the rectory of Eversley,[31] he had
his home for thirty-three years at this Hampshire village so intimately
connected with his name. Eversley lies on the borders of Berkshire and
Hampshire, in the diocese of Winchester, near the famous house of
Bramshill, on the edge of the sandy fir-covered waste which stretches
across Surrey. To understand the charm of its rough commons and
self-sown woods one must read Kingsley's _Prose Idylls_, especially the
sketch called 'My Winter Garden'. There he served for a year as curate,
living in bachelor quarters on the green, learning to love the place and
its people: there, when Sir John Cope offered him the living in 1844, he
returned a married man to live in the Rectory House beside the church,
which may still be seen little altered to-day. A breakdown from
overwork, an illness of his wife's, a higher appointment in the Church,
might be the cause of his passing a few weeks or even months away; but
year in, year out, he gave of his very best to Eversley for thirty-three
years, and to it he returned from his journeys with all the more ardour
to resume his work among his own people. The church was dilapidated, the
Rectory was badly drained, the parish had been neglected by an absentee
rector. For long periods together Kingsley was too poor to afford a
curate: when he had one, the luxury was paid for by extra labour in
taking private pupils. He had disappointments and anxieties, but his
courage never faltered. He concentrated his energies on steady progress
in things material and moral, and whatever his hand found to do, he did
it with his might.
[Note 31: For a few weeks in 1844 he was curate of Pimperne in
Dorset.]
The church and its services called for instant attention. The Holy
Communion had been celebrated only three times a year; the other
services were few and irregular; on Sundays the church was empty and the
alehouse was full. The building was badly kept, the churchyard let out
for grazing, the whole place destitute of reverence. What the service
came to be under the new Rector we can read on the testimony of many
visitors. The intensity of his devotion at all times, the inspiration
which the great festivals of the Church particularly roused in him,
changed all this rapidly. He did all he could to draw his parishioners
to church; but he had no rigid Puritanical views about the Sabbath. A
Staff-College officer, who frequently visited him on Sundays, tells us
of 'the genial, happy, unreserved intercourse of those Sunday afternoons
spent at the Rectory, and how the villagers were free to play their
cricket--"Paason he do'ant objec'--not 'e--as loik as not, 'e'll come
and look on".' All his life he supported the movement for opening
museums to the public on Sundays, and this at a time when few of the
clergy were bold enough to speak on his side. The Church was not his
only organ for teaching. He started schools and informal classes. In
winter he would sometimes give up his leisure to such work every evening
of the week. The Rectory, for all its books and bottles, its
fishing-rods and curious specimens, was not a mere refuge for his own
work and his own hobbies, but a centre of light and warmth where all his
parishioners might come and find a welcome. He was one of the first to
start 'Penny Readings' in his parish, to lighten the monotony of winter
evenings with music, poetry, stories, and lectures; and though his
parish was so wide and scattered, he tried to rally support for a
village reading-room, and kept it alive for some years.
His afternoons were regularly given to parish visiting, except when
there were other definite calls upon his time. He soon came to know
every man, woman, and child in his parish. His sympathies were so wide
that he could make himself at home with every one, with none more so
than the gipsies and poachers, who shared his intimate knowledge of the
neighbouring heaths and of the practices, lawful and unlawful, by which
they could be made to supply food. He would listen to their stories,
sympathize with their troubles and speak frankly in return. There was no
condescension. One of his pupils speaks of 'the simple, delicate, deep
respect for the poor', which could be seen in his manner and his talk
among the cottagers. He could be severe enough when severity was needed,
as when he compelled a cruel farmer to kill 'a miserable horse which was
rotting alive in front of his house'; and he could deal no less
drastically with hypocrisy. When a professional beggar fell on his knees
at the Rectory gate and pretended to pray, he was at once ejected by the
Rector with every mark of indignation and contumely. But the weak and
suffering always made a special appeal to him. Though it was easy to vex
and exasperate him, he could always put away his own troubles in
presence of his own children or of any who needed his help. He had that
intense power of sympathy which enabled him to understand and reach the
heart.
From a letter to his greatest friend, Tom Hughes, written in 1851, we
get a glimpse of a day in his life--'a sorter kinder sample day'. He was
up at five to see a dying man and stayed with him till eight. He then
went out for air and exercise, fished all the morning and killed eight
fish. He went back to his invalid at three. Later he spent three hours
attending a meeting convoked by his Archdeacon about Sunday schools, and
at 10.30 he was back in his study writing to his friends.
But though he himself calls this a 'sample day', it does no justice to
one form of his activities. Most days in the year he would put away all
thought of fishing, shut himself up in his study morning and evening,
and devote himself to reading and writing. Great care was taken over his
weekly sermons. Monday was, if possible, given to rest; but from Tuesday
till Friday evening they took up the chief share of his thoughts. And
then there were the books that he wrote, novels, pamphlets, history
lectures, scientific essays, on which he largely depended to support his
wife and family. Besides this he kept up an extensive correspondence
with friends and acquaintances. Many wrote to consult him about
political and religious questions; from many he was himself trying to
draw information on the phenomena of the science which he was trying to
study at the time. Among the latter were Geikie, Lyell, Wallace, and
Darwin himself, giants among scientific men, to whom he wrote with
genuine humility, even when his name was a household word throughout
England. His books can sometimes be associated with visits to definite
places which supplied him with material. It is not difficult to connect
_Westward Ho!_ with his winter at Bideford in 1854, and _Two Years Ago_
with his Pen-y-gwryd fishing in 1856. Memories of _Hereward the Wake_ go
back to his early childhood in the Fens, of _Alton Locke_ to his
undergraduate days at Cambridge. But he had not the time for the
laborious search after 'local colour' with which we are familiar to-day.
The bulk of the work was done in his study at Eversley, executed
rapidly, some of it too rapidly; but the subjects were those of which
his mind was full, and the thoughts must have been pursued in many a
quiet hour on the heathery commons or beside the streams of his own
neighbourhood.
About his books, his own judgement agreed with that of his friends.
'What you say about my "Ergon" being poetry is quite true. I could not
write _Uncle Tom's Cabin_ and I can write poetry:... there is no denying
it: I do feel a different being when I get into metre: I feel like an
otter in the water instead of an otter ashore.' The value of his novels
is in their spirit rather than in their artistic form or truth; but it
is foolish to disparage their worth, since they have exercised so marked
an influence on the characters and lives of so many Englishmen,
especially our soldiers and sailors, inspiring them to higher courage
and more unselfish virtue. Perhaps the best example of his prose is the
_Prose Idylls_, sketches of fen-land, trout streams, and moors, which
combine his gifts so happily, his observation of natural objects, and
the poetic imagination with which he transfuses these objects and brings
them near to the heart of man. There were very few men who could draw
such joy from familiar English landscapes, and could communicate it to
others. The cult of sport, of science, and of beauty has here become one
and has found its true high priest. In poetry his more ambitious efforts
were _The Saint's Tragedy_, a drama in blank verse on the story of St.
Elizabeth of Hungary, and _Andromeda_, a revival of the old Greek legend
in the old hexameter measure. But what are most sure to live are his
lyrics, 'Airlie Beacon', 'The Three Fishers', 'The Sands of Dee', with
their simplicity and true note of song.
The combination of this poetic gift with a strong interest in science
and a wide knowledge of it is most unusual; but there can be no
mistaking the genuine feeling which Charles Kingsley had for the latter.
It took one very practical form in his zeal for sanitation. In 1854 when
the public, so irrational in its moments of excitement, was calling for
a national fast-day on account of the spread of cholera, he heartily
supported Lord Palmerston, who refused to grant it. He held it impious
and wrong to attribute to a special visitation from God what was due to
the blindness, laziness, and selfishness of our governing classes. His
article in _Fraser's Magazine_ entitled 'Who causes pestilence?' roused
much criticism: it said things that comfortable people did not like to
hear, and said them frankly; it was far in advance of the public opinion
of that time, but its truth no one would dispute to-day. And what his
pen did for the nation, his example did for the parish. He drained
unwholesome pools in his own garden, and he persuaded his neighbours to
do the same. He taught them daily lessons about the value of fresh air
and clean water: no details were too dull and wearisome in the cause. To
many people his novels, like those of Dickens and Charles Reade, are
spoilt by the advocacy of social reforms. The novel with a purpose was
characteristic of the early Victorian Age, and both in _Alton Locke_ and
in _Two Years Ago_ he makes little disguise of the zeal with which he
preaches sanitary reform. Of the more attractive sciences, which he
pursued with equal intensity, there is little room to speak. Botany was
his first love and it remained first to the end. Zoology at times ran it
close, and his letters from seaside places are full of the names of
marine creatures which he stored in tanks and examined with his
microscope. A dull day on the coast was inconceivable to him. Geology,
too, thrilled him with its wonders, and was the subject of many letters.
Side by side with his hobby of natural history went his love of sport:
it was impossible for him to separate the one from the other. Fishing
was his chief delight; he pursued it with equal keenness in the chalk
streams of Hampshire, in the salmon rivers of Ireland, in the desolate
tarns on the Welsh mountains. In the visitors' book of the inn at
Pen-y-gwryd, Tom Hughes, Tom Taylor, and he left alternate quatrains of
doggerel to celebrate their stay, written _currente calamo_, as the
spirit prompted them. This is Charles Kingsley's first quatrain:
I came to Pen-y-gwryd in frantic hopes of slaying
Grilse, salmon, three-pound red-fleshed trout
and what else there's no saying:
But bitter cold and lashing rain and black nor'-eastern skies, sir,
Drove me from fish to botany, a sadder man and wiser.
Each had his disappointment through the weather, which each expressed in
verse; but it took more than bad weather to damp the spirits of three
such ardent open-air enthusiasts. Hunting was another favourite sport,
though he rarely indulged himself in this luxury, and only when he could
do so without much expense. But whenever a friend gave him a mount,
Kingsley was ready to follow the Berkshire hounds, and with his
knowledge of the country he was able to hold his own with the best.
Let us try to imagine him then as he walked about the lanes and commons
of Eversley in middle life, a spare upright figure, above the middle
height, with alert step, informal but not slovenly in dress, with no
white tie or special mark of his profession. His head was one to attract
notice anywhere with the grand hawk-like nose, firm mouth, and flashing
eye. The deep lines furrowed between the brows gave his face an almost
stern expression which his cheery conversation soon belied. He might be
carrying a fishing-rod or a bottle of medicine for a sick parishioner,
or sometimes both: his faithful Dandie Dinmont would be in attendance
and perhaps one of his children walking at his side. His walk would be
swift and eager, with his eye wandering restlessly around to observe all
that he passed: 'it seemed as if no bird or beast or insect, scarcely a
cloud in the sky, passed by him unnoticed, unwelcomed.' So too with
humanity--in breadth of sympathy he resembled 'the Shirra', who became
known to every wayfarer between Teviot and Tweed. Gipsy boy, farm-hand,
old grandmother, each would be sure of a greeting and a few words of
talk when they met the Rector on his rounds. In society he might at
times be too impetuous or insistent, when questions were stirred in
which he was deeply interested. Tennyson tells us how he 'walked hard up
and down the study for hours, smoking furiously and affirming that
tobacco was the only thing that kept his nerves quiet'. Green compares
him to a restless animal, and Stopford Brooke speaks of his
quick-rushing walk, his keen face like a sword, and his body thinned out
to a lath, and complains that he 'often screams when he ought to speak'.
But this excitability was soothed by the country, and in his own parish
he was at his best. He would never have been so beloved by his
parishioners, if they had not found him willing to listen as well as to
advise and to instruct.
His first venture into public life met with less general favour. The
year 1848 saw many upheavals in Europe. On the Continent thrones
tottered and fell, republics started up for a moment and faded away. In
England it was the year of the Chartist riots, and political and social
problems gave plenty of matter for thought. Monster meetings were held
in London, which were not free from disorder. The wealthier classes and
the Government were alarmed, troops were brought up to London and the
Duke of Wellington put in command. Events seemed to point to outbreaks
of violence and the starting of a class-war. Frederick Denison Maurice,
whom above all men living Kingsley revered, was the leader of a group of
men who were greatly stirred by the movement. They saw that more than
political reform and political charters were needed; and, while full of
sympathy for the working classes, they were not minded to say smooth
things and prophesy Utopias in which they had no belief. Filled with the
desire to help his fellow-men, indignant at abuses which he had seen
with his own eyes, Kingsley came at once to their side. He went to
London to see for himself, attended meetings, wrote pamphlets, and
seemed to be promoting agitation. The tone in which he wrote can best be
seen by a few words from the pamphlet addressed to the 'Workmen of
England', which was posted up in London. 'The Charter is not bad, if the
men who use it are not bad. But will the Charter make you free? Will it
free you from slavery to ten-pound bribes? Slavery to gin and beer?
Slavery to every spouter who flatters your self-conceit and stirs up
bitterness and headlong rage in you? That I guess is real slavery, to be
a slave to one's own stomach, one's pocket, one's own temper.' This is
hardly the tone of the agitator as known to us to-day. With his friends
Kingsley brought out a periodical, _Politics for the People_, in which
he wrote in the same tone. 'My only quarrel with the Charter is that it
does not go far enough in reform.... I think you have fallen into the
same mistake as the rich of whom you complain, I mean the mistake of
fancying that legislative reform is social reform, or that men's hearts
can be changed by Act of Parliament.' He did not limit himself to
denouncing such errors. He encouraged the working man to educate himself
and to find rational pleasures in life, contributing papers on the
National Gallery and bringing out the human interest of the pictures.
'Parson Lot', the _nom de guerre_ which Kingsley adopted, became widely
known for warm-hearted exhortations, for practical and sagacious
counsels.
Two years later he published _Alton Locke_, describing the life of a
young tailor whose mind and whose fortunes are profoundly influenced by
the Chartist movement. From a literary point of view it is far from
being his best work; and the critics agreed to belittle it at the time
and to pass it over with apology at his death. But it received a warm
welcome from others. While it roused the imagination of many young men
and set them thinking, the veteran Carlyle could speak of 'the snatches
of excellent poetical description, occasional sunbursts of noble
insight, everywhere a certain wild intensity which holds the reader fast
as by a spell'.
Should any one ask why a rector of a country parish mixed himself up in
London agitation, many answers could be given. His help was sought by
Maurice, who worked among the London poor. Many of the questions at
issue affected also the agricultural labourer. Only one who was giving
his life to serve the poor could effectively expose the mistakes of
their champions. The upper classes, squires and merchants and
politicians, had shut their eyes and missed their chances. So when the
ship is on fire, no one blames the chaplain or the ship's doctor for
lending a hand with the buckets.[32]
[Note 32: See Preface by T. Hughes prefixed to later editions of
_Alton Locke_.]
That his efforts in London met with success can be seen from many
sources besides the popularity of _Alton Locke_. He wrote a pamphlet
entitled 'Cheap Clothes and Nasty', denouncing the sweaters' shops and
supporting the co-operative movement, which was beginning to arise out
of the ashes of Chartism. Of this pamphlet a friend told him that he saw
three copies on the table in the Guards' Club, and that he heard that
captains in the Guards were going to the co-operative shop in Castle
Street and buying coats there. A success of a different kind and one
more valued by Kingsley himself was the conversion of Thomas Cooper, the
popular writer in Socialist magazines, who preached atheistical
doctrines weekly to many thousand working men. Kingsley found him to be
sincerely honest, spent infinite time in writing him friendly letters,
discussing their differences of opinion, and some years later had the
joy of inducing him to become an active preacher of the Gospel. But most
of the well-to-do people, including the clergy, were prejudiced against
Kingsley by his Radical views. On one occasion he had to face a painful
scene in a London church, when the vicar who had invited him to preach
rose after the sermon and formally protested against the views to which
his congregation had been listening. Bishop Blomfield at first sided
with the vicar; but in the end he did full justice to the sincerity and
charity of Kingsley's views and sanctioned his continuing to preach in
the Diocese.
It was his literary successes which helped most to break down the
prejudice existing against him in society. _Hypatia_, published in 1853,
had a mixed reception; but _Westward Ho!_ appearing two years later, was
universally popular. His eloquence in the pulpit was becoming known to a
wider circle, largely owing to officers who came over from Aldershot and
Sandhurst to hear him; and early in 1859 he was asked to preach before
the Queen and Prince Consort. His appointment as chaplain to the Queen
followed before the year was out; and this made a great difference in
his position and prospects. What he valued equally was the hearty
friendship which he formed with the Prince Consort. They had the same
tastes, the same interests, the same serious outlook on life. A year
later came a still higher distinction when Kingsley was appointed
Professor of Modern History at Cambridge. His history lectures, it is
generally agreed, are not of permanent value as a contribution to the
knowledge of the subject. With his parish work and other interests he
had no time for profound study. But his eloquence and descriptive powers
were such as to attract a large class of students, and many can still
read with pleasure his lectures on _The Roman and the Teuton_, in which
he was fired by the moral lessons involved in the decay of the Roman
empire and the coming of the vigorous young northern races. Apart from
his lectures he had made his mark in Cambridge by the friendly relations
which he established with many of the undergraduates and the personal
influence which he exercised. But he knew better than any one else his
shortcomings as an historian, the preparation of his lectures gave him
great anxiety and labour, and in 1869 he resigned the office.