most amazing facts in the history of letters. He was beyond comparison
the hardest worker of his day. John Stuart Mill, who knew too much and
did too much for any one man, also wrote an autobiography, which the
reading world has been content to ignore. But Mill’s failing health
compelled him sometimes to rest. Wesley never rested. It is estimated
that for over thirty years he rode, on an average, eight thousand miles
a year. He preached in his lifetime full thirty thousand sermons--an
overwhelming and relentless figure. He wrestled with lagging
Churchmen of the Establishment no less than with zealous Antinomians,
Swedenborgians, Necessitarians, Anabaptists and Quakers. Other records
of human endeavour read like the idling of a summer day alongside of
his supernatural activities. Yet so great is the compulsion of the born
diarist to confide to the world the history of his thoughts and deeds
that Wesley found time--or took time--to write, in a minute, cryptic
short-hand, a diary which fills seven large volumes. He not only wanted
to do this; he _had_ to do it. The narrative, now bald and itemized,
now stirring and spirited, now poignant and terrible, was part of
himself. He might have said of it more truly than Walt Whitman said of
“Leaves of Grass,” that whoever laid hold upon the book laid hold upon
a man.
To ask that the autobiographer should “know himself as a realist, and
deal with himself as an artist,” is one way of demanding perfection.
Realists are plentiful, and their ranks are freshly recruited every
year. Artists are rare, and grow always rarer in an age which lacks
the freedom, the serenity, the sense of proportion, essential to their
development. It has happened from time to time that a single powerful
and sustained emotion has forced from a reticent nature an unreserved
and illuminating disclosure. Newman’s “Apologia pro Vita sua” was
written with an avowed purpose--to make clear the sincerity of his
religious life, and to refute a charge of deceitfulness. The stern
coercion which gave it birth, and which carried it to a triumphant
close, was remote from any sense of enjoyment save such as might be
found in clarity of thought and distinction of workmanship. The thrust
of truth in this fragment of autobiography has carried it far; but it
is not by truth alone that a book lives. It is not by simple veracity
that minds “deeply moralized, discriminating and sad” have charmed, and
will always charm, the few austere thinkers and fastidious critics whom
a standardized world has spared.
The pleasure derived by ordinary readers from memoirs and reminiscences
is twofold. It is the pleasure of acquiring agreeable information in
an agreeable way, and it is, more rarely, the pleasure of a direct
and penetrating mental stimulus. “The Education of Henry Adams” has
so filtered through the intelligent public mind that echoes of it
are still to be heard in serious lectures and flippant after-dinner
speeches. We can, if we are adroit borrowers, set up intellectual
shop-keeping on Mr. Adams’s stock-in-trade. We can deal out over our
own counters his essentially marketable wares.
The simpler delight afforded us by such a charming book as Frederick
Locker’s “Confidences,” which is not confidential at all; or by John
Murray’s well-bred “Memoirs of a Publisher”; or by Lord Broughton’s
“Recollections of a Long Life,” is easy to estimate. We could ill spare
Lord Broughton’s volumes, both because he tells us things we do not
learn elsewhere, and because of his illuminating common sense. The
world of authorship has of late years so occupied itself with Lord
Byron that we wince at the sound of his name. But if we really want
to know him, we must still turn to Broughton for the knowledge. The
account of Byron’s wedding in the “Recollections” is as unforgettable
as the account of Byron’s funeral in Moore’s diffuse and rambling
“Memoirs.” It is in such narratives that the eye-witness eclipses, and
must forever eclipse, the most acute and penetrating investigator.
Biographers cannot stand as Broughton stood at the door of Seaham,
when the ill-mated couple drove away to certain misery: “I felt as if
I had buried a friend.” Historians cannot stand as John Evelyn stood
on the Strand, when the second Charles entered London: “I beheld him
and blessed God!” Or at Gravesend, seven years later, when the Dutch
fleet lay at the mouth of the Thames: “A dreadful spectacle as ever
Englishmen saw, and a dishonour never to be wiped off!”
Ever since that most readable book, “An Apology for the Life of Mr.
Colley Cibber, Comedian,” was given to the English world, actors and
playwrights have been indefatigable autobiographers. They may write
about themselves alone, as did Macready, or about themselves and the
world, after the fashion of Frances Kemble. They may be amusing, like
Ellen Terry, or discursive, like Augustus Thomas, or casual, like John
Drew. But they fall into line, and tell us what dramas they wrote, what
companies they managed, what parts they played, and when and where
they played them, together with any scraps of theatrical gossip they
may be fortunate enough to recollect. All, at least, except the once
celebrated Mrs. Inchbald. She recollected so much that the publisher,
Phillips, offered her a thousand pounds for her manuscript; and her
confessor, a wise and nameless Catholic priest, persuaded her to burn
it unread. Yet there are people so perversely minded as to disapprove
of auricular confession.
The golden age of the autobiographer has come, perhaps to stay.
Mr. Howells, observant and sympathetic, welcomed its dawning, and
the fullness of its promise. He was of the opinion that this form
of composition represented “the supreme Christian contribution to
literature”; and, while admitting that there were bad as well as
good specimens of the art, he stoutly maintained that one more
autobiography, however indifferent, was better than one less--a
disputable point.
The question which confronts the reading public is this: “How far
should the law of kindness, which we all profess to follow, influence
us in allowing to our fellow creatures the happiness of writing books
about themselves?” There is no use saying that it would be impossible
to stop them. Nothing in the way of inhibitions is impossible to the
United States. “There is no country,” says the observant Santayana, “in
which people live under more powerful compulsions.”
Americans have so far been inclined to tolerate the vanity of the
autobiography, because mankind is naturally vain, and to forgive
its dullness, because life is frequently dull. Moreover, they are
well disposed towards any form of art or letters that lays claim to
the quality of truth; and it is generally conceded that a man knows
himself better than others know him. He does not know, and he never
can know, how he appears to his acquaintances. The sound of his own
voice, the light in his own eye, his accent, his mannerisms, his
laugh, the sensations, pleasurable or otherwise, which he produces
by his presence--these things, apparent to every casual observer,
are unfamiliar to him. But his _naturel_ (a word too expressive for
translation) which others must estimate by the help of circumstantial
evidence, he can, if he be honest, know and judge.
This, at least, is the theory on which rest the lucidity of art
and the weight of conscience. Yet George Sand, who was given to
self-inspection, self-analysis and self-applause, admitted the dimness
of her inward vision. “The study of the human heart,” she wrote, “is of
such a nature, that the more we are absorbed by it, the less clearly do
we see.”
Strayed Sympathies
It is probably more instructive to entertain a sneaking kindness for
any unpopular person than to give way to perfect raptures of moral
indignation against his abstract vices.--ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON.
It is not only more instructive--it is more enlivening. The
conventionalities of criticism (moral, not literary, criticism) pass
from mouth to mouth, and from pen to pen, until the iterations of the
press are crystallized in encyclopædias and biographical dictionaries.
And from such verdicts there is no appeal. Their laboured impartiality,
their systematic adjustments, their careful avoidance of intuition,
produce in the public mind a level sameness of misunderstanding. Many
sensible people think this a good result. Even a man who did his own
thinking, and maintained his own intellectual free-hold, like Mr.
Bagehot, knew and upheld the value of ruts. He was well aware how
far a little intelligence can be made to go, unless it aspires to
originality. Therefore he grumbled at the paradoxes which were somewhat
of a novelty in his day, but which are out-worn in ours, at the making
over of virtue into vice, and of vice into something more inspiriting
than virtue. “We have palliations of Tiberius, eulogies on Henry the
Eighth, devotional exercises to Cromwell, and fulsome adulations of the
first Napoleon.”
That was a half-century ago. To-day, Tiberius is not so much out of
favour as out of mind; Mr. Froude was the last man really interested
in the moral status of Henry the Eighth; Mr. Wells has given us his
word for it that Napoleon was a very ordinary person; and the English
people have erected a statue of Cromwell close to the Houses of
Parliament, by way of reminding him (in his appointed place) of the
survival of representative government. The twentieth century does
not lean to extravagant partialities. Its trend is to disparagement,
to searchlights, to that lavish and ironic candour which no man’s
reputation can survive.
When Mr. Lytton Strachey reversed Mr. Stevenson’s suggestion, and
chose, as subject-matter of a book, four people of whom the world had
heard little but good, who had been praised and reverenced beyond their
deserts, but for whom he cherished a secret and cold hostility, he
experimented successfully with the latent uncharitableness of men’s
minds. The brilliancy with which the four essays were written, the
keenness of each assault, the charm and persuasiveness of the style,
delighted even the uncensorious. The business of a biographer, said the
author in a very engaging preface, is to maintain his own freedom of
spirit, and lay bare events as he understands them, “dispassionately,
impartially, and without ulterior intentions.”
It sounds fair and square; but the fact remains that Mr. Strachey
disliked Manning, despised Arnold, had little sympathy with Gordon, and
no great fancy for Florence Nightingale. It must be remembered also
that in three cases out of four he was dealing with persons of stubborn
character and compelling will, as far removed from irreproachable
excellence as from criminality. Of such, much criticism may be offered;
but the only way to keep an open outlook is to ask, “What was their
life’s job?” “How well did they do it?” Men and women who have a
pressing job on hand (Florence Nightingale was _all_ job) cannot
afford to cultivate the minor virtues. They move with an irresistible
impulse to their goal. It is a curious fact that Mr. Strachey is
never so illuminating as when he turns his back upon these forceful
and disconcerting personages, and dallies with their more amenable
contemporaries. What he writes about Gordon we should be glad to
forget; what he writes about Sir Evelyn Baring and Lord Hartington we
hope to remember while we live.
The popularity of “Eminent Victorians” inspired a host of followers.
Critics began to look about them for other vulnerable reputations. Mr.
J. A. Strahan, stepping back from Victoria to Anne, made the happy
discovery that Addison had been systematically overpraised, and that
every side of his character was open to assault. The result of this
perspicuity is a damning denunciation of a man whom his contemporaries
liked and esteemed, and concerning whom we have been content to take
the word of those who knew him. He may have been, as Mr. Strahan
asserts, a sot, a time-server, a toad-eater, a bad official and a worse
friend; but he managed to give a different impression. Addison’s
friends and neighbours found him a modest, honourable, sweet-tempered
gentleman; and Steele, whom he had affronted, wrote these generous
words: “You can seldom get him to the tavern; but when once he is
arrived to his pint, and begins to look about him, you admire a
thousand things in him which before lay buried.”
This seems to me a singularly pleasant thing to say about anybody. Were
I coveting praise, this is the form I’d like the praise to take.
The pressure of disparagement, which is one result of the cooling of
our blood after the fever-heat of war, is lowering our enthusiasms,
thinning our sympathies, and giving us nothing very dazzling in the
way of enlightenment. Americans are less critical than Englishmen, who
so value their birthright of free speech that censure of public men
has become a habit, a game of hazard (pulling planks out of the ship
of state), at which long practice has made them perfect. “The editor
of the ‘Morning Post,’” observed Mr. Maurice Hewlett wearily, “begins
his day by wondering whom he shall denounce”; and opposing editors, as
nimble at the fray, match outcry against outcry, and malice against
malignity.
I doubt if any other than an Englishman could have written “The
Mirrors of Downing Street,” and I am sure that, were an American able
to write such a book (which is problematic), it would never occur to
him to think of it, or to brag of it, as a duty. The public actions
of public men are open to discussion; but Mr. Balfour’s personal
selfishness, his parsimony, his indifference to his domestics, are not
matters of general moment. To gossip about these things is to gossip
with tradesmen and servants. To deny to Lord Kitchener “greatness
of mind, greatness of character, and greatness of heart,” is harsh
speaking of the dead; but to tell a gaping world that the woman “whom
he loved hungrily and doggedly, and to whom he proposed several times,
could never bring herself to marry him,” is a personality which “Town
Topics” would scorn. “The Mirrors of Downing Street” aspired to a moral
purpose; but taste is the guardian of morality. Its delicate and severe
dictates define the terms upon which we may improve the world at the
expense of our neighbour’s character.
The sneaking kindness recommended by Mr. Stevenson is much harder to
come by than the “raptures of moral indignation,” of which he heard
more than he wanted, and which are reverberating through the world
to-day. The pages of history are heavy with moral indignation. We teach
it in our schools, and there are historians like Macaulay who thunder
it rapturously, with never a moment of misgiving. But here and there,
as we step apprehensively into historic bypaths, we are cheered by
patches of sunshine, straight glimpses into truths which put a more
credible, because a more merciful, construction upon men’s actions, and
lighten our burden of dispraise.
I have often wondered why, with Philippe de Commines as an avenue of
approach, all writers except Scott should deal with Louis the Eleventh
as with a moral monstrosity. Commines is no apologist. He has a natural
desire to speak well of his master; but he reviews every side of
Louis’s character with dispassionate sincerity.
First, as a Catholic: “The king was very liberal to the Church, and, in
some respects, more so than was necessary, for he robbed the poor to
give to the rich. But in this world no one can arrive at perfection.”
Next, as a husband: “As for ladies, he never meddled with them in my
time; for when I came to his court he lost a son, at whose death he was
greatly afflicted; and he made a vow to God in my presence never to
have intercourse with any other woman than the queen. And though this
was no more than he was bound to do by the canons of the Church, yet it
was much that he should have such self-command as to persevere firmly
in his resolution, considering that the queen (though an excellent lady
in other respects) was not a princess in whom a man could take any
great delight.”
Finally, as a ruler: “The king was naturally kind and indulgent to
persons of mean estate, and hostile to all great men who had no need
of him.... But this I say boldly in his commendation, that in my whole
life I never knew any man so wise in his misfortunes.”
To be brave in misfortune is to be worthy of manhood; to be wise in
misfortune is to conquer fate. We cannot easily or advantageously
regard Louis with affection; but when Commines epitomizes history in an
ejaculation, “Our good master, Louis, whom God pardon!” it rests our
souls to say, “Amen!”
We cannot easily love Swift. The great “professional hater” frightens
us out of the timid regard which we should like--in honour of English
literature--to cherish for his memory. But there is a noble sentence
of Thackeray’s which, if it does not soften our hearts, cannot fail to
clarify our minds, to free us from the stupid, clogging misapprehension
which we confuse with moral distaste. “Through the storms and tempests
of his [Swift’s] furious mind the stars of religion and love break out
in the blue, shining serenely, though hidden by the driving clouds
and maddening hurricane of his life.” One clear and penetrating note
(“Childe Roland to the Dark Tower came”) is worth much careful auditing
of accounts.
The picture of John Wilkes drawn by Sir George Otto Trevelyan in his
“Early History of Charles James Fox,” and the picture of Aaron Burr
drawn by Mr. Albert J. Beveridge in his “Life of John Marshall,” are
happy illustrations of unpopular subjects treated with illuminating
kindness. Wilkes was a demagogue and Burr a trouble-maker (the terms
are not necessarily synonymous), and neither of them is a man whose
history is widely or accurately known. Both historians are swayed by
their political passions. An historian without political passions is as
rare as a wasp without a sting. To Trevelyan all Conservatives were in
fault, and all Liberals in the right. Opposition to George the Third
is the acid test he applies to separate gold from dross. Mr. Beveridge
regards the Federalists as the strength, and the Republicans as the
weakness, of the young nation. Thomas Jefferson is _his_ test, and a
man hated and hounded by Jefferson necessarily wins his support.
Nevertheless, Wilkes and Burr are presented to us by their sympathizers
in a cold north light which softens and conceals nothing. Men of
positive quality, they look best when clearly seen. “Research and fact
are ever in collision with fancy and legend,” observes Mr. Beveridge
soberly; and it is to research and fact that he trusts to rescue
his accomplished filibuster from those unproved charges which live
by virtue of their vagueness. Writers of American school histories,
remembering the duty of moral indignation, have played havoc with the
reputation of Aaron Burr; and American school-children, if they know
him at all, know him as a duellist and a traitor. They are sure about
the duel (it was one of the few facts firmly established in my own mind
after a severe struggle with American history); but concerning the
treason, they are at least as ill-informed as their elders.
British children do better, perhaps, with John Wilkes. Little Londoners
can gaze at the obelisk which commemorates his mayoralty, and think of
him as a catless Whittington. The slogan “Wilkes and Liberty” has an
attractive ring to all who are not of Madame Roland’s way of thinking.
No man ever gave his partisans more to defend, or his opponents better
chances to attack; and friends and foes rose repeatedly and fervently
to their opportunities. A century later, Sir George Trevelyan, a friend
well worth the having, reviews the case with wise sincerity, undaunted
confidence, a careful art in the arrangement of his high lights, and a
niceness of touch which wins halfway all readers who love the English
language. Wilkes was as naturally and inevitably in debt as was William
Godwin, and Wilkes’s debts were as naturally and inevitably paid by
some one else as were Godwin’s; but when Trevelyan alludes softly to
his “unambitious standard of solvency,” this sordid detail becomes
unexpectedly pleasurable. So easily are transgressions pardoned, if
they provoke the shadow of a smile.
Lord Rosebery’s “Napoleon: the Last Phase” is a work nobly conceived
and admirably executed; but its impelling motive is an austere resolve
to make what amends a single Englishman can make for an ungenerous
episode in English history. Its sympathy for a fallen foe bears no
likeness to the sympathy which impelled Théodore de Banville, broken in
health and hope by the siege of Paris, to write a lyric in memory of a
young Prussian officer, a mere boy, who was found dead on the field,
with a blood-stained volume of Pindar in his tunic. Lord Rosebery’s
book is written with a proud sadness, a stern indignation, eminently
fitted to its subject; but he is not so much kind as just. Napoleon is
too vast a figure to be approached with benevolence. It is true, as Mr.
Wells asserts, that, had he been unselfish and conscientious, he would
never have conquered Europe; but only Mr. Wells is prepared to say
that a lack of these qualities won him renown. He shares the lack with
Wilhelm the Second, who has had neither an Austerlitz nor a Waterloo.
There is a wide assortment of unpopular characters whose company it
would be very instructive to keep. They belong to all ages, countries
and creeds. Spain alone offers us three splendid examples--the Duke
of Alva, Cardinal Ximenez, and Philip the Second. Alva, like the
Corsair, possessed one virtue, which was a more valuable virtue than
the Corsair’s, but brings him in less credit, because the object of
his unswerving loyalty and devotion was not a guileless lady, but a
sovereign, less popular, if possible, than himself. Cardinal Ximenez,
soldier, statesman, scholar, priest, ascetic, author and educator,
was also Grand Inquisitor, and this fact alone seems to linger in the
minds of men. That, for his day, he was a moderate, avails him little.
That he made a point of protecting scholars and professors from the
pernicious interference of the Inquisition ought to avail him a great
deal. It might were it better known. There is a play of Sardou’s in
which he is represented as concentrating all the deadly powers of his
office against the knowledge which he most esteemed. This is the way
the drama educates.
And Philip? It would be a big piece of work to win for Philip even a
partial recognition of his moderate merits. The hand of history has
dealt heavily with him, and romance has preyed upon his vitals. In
fact, history and romance are undistinguishable when they give free
play to the moral indignation he inspires. It is not enough to accuse
him of the murder of the son whom he hated (though not more heartily
than George the Second hated the Prince of Wales): they would have
us understand that he probably poisoned the brother whom he loved.
“Don John’s ambitions had become troublesome, and he ceased to live
at an opportune moment for Philip’s peace of mind,” is the fashion in
which Gayarré insinuates his suspicions; and Gayarré’s narrative--very
popular in my youth--was recommended to the American public by
Bancroft, who, I am convinced, never read it. Had he penetrated to the
eleventh page, where Philip is alluded to as the Christian Tiberius, or
to the twentieth, where he is compared to an Indian idol, he would have
known that, whatever the book might be, it was not history, and that,
as an historian, it ill became him to tell innocent Americans to read
it.