years of age, and turn me out of house and home, and set me to break
stones on the roads—nice “saviours of society” you are!’
“‘Well,’ he replied, ‘of course there would be exceptions—I daresay we
should allow you a pension, say £100 a year, on account of your age and
infirmity!’
“Think of that, Mr. Carpenter, think of your own son offering you £100 a
year, and in the name of these rascally Socialists!”
Needless to say I deeply sympathized—(I don’t think in fact he suspected
me of being a Socialist)—but I saw that nothing useful could be done,
and at an early opportunity I retired.
Bryan drifted out to Topolobampo, a socialist colony on the Gulf of
California; and when that broke up he floated about the borders of
Mexico and California, living on chance luck and occasional remittances
until family changes brought him finally home.
Another case of a somewhat similar kind was that of a young R.E.
captain, Captain Peterson, let us call him, who had read Tolstoy and
convinced himself that a military life was wrong, and that he must leave
the Army. Being at the time Adjutant of Volunteers in a neighboring
town, he used to come up to Millthorpe to discuss these questions and as
to how he should ordain his life when once free. I admired his
enthusiasm, but felt obliged to warn him not to be in too great a hurry;
for it was easy to see that in practical matters he was a mere babe.
Certainly the Army was not the place for him. Anything but ‘correct’ in
dress, with generally a large gap between his waistcoat and his
trousers, and again another between his trousers and his boots, with
projecting schoolboy ears and red nose, he was just the man who would be
unmercifully chaffed or even ‘ragged’ by his fellow-officers. But on the
other hand his capacity for battling his way in the world, or for
earning his own living, was evidently of the smallest; and his schemes
for the future were of the most wild-cat kind. He was going to build a
house—but as he would have no money to pay for it, he should get
together a little group of workmen (who desired to improve their minds)
on the condition that he should teach them elementary mathematics,
surveying, etc., during one half of the day, while they should set
bricks and mortar for him during the other half! (A charming scheme! but
I think I see the British workman agreeing to it!) His house, according
to the plan which he drew out of his pocket, was more like a greenhouse
than anything else—with walls and roof largely glass; and when I
suggested that it might prove rather hot in summer (!) he seemed to have
no difficulty in imagining plentiful vines trailing overhead, with
foliage and hanging bunches of grapes, to ward off the sun’s rays. For
the floor of his room he had a device of which he was quite proud. “It
is often convenient,” he said, “to have _two_ carpets—a rough one for
ordinary use, and a better one for special occasions.”
I assented to this rather dubious premise, for the sake of seeing what
would follow!
“Well” he continued “my idea is to sew these two carpets together like a
roller towel, and have them passing over rollers at the two opposite
ends of the room, so that one carpet should be _on_ the floor, and the
other _underneath_. Then, you know, when you saw visitors coming, all
you would have to do would be to turn the crank (suiting the action to
the word), and you would have your best carpet on in a jiffey!”
Too amazed and speechless to make any objection, I could only see with
my mind’s eye, a cottage piano and a table and an armchair or two gaily
sailing across the room, as the crank was being turned.
“Meanwhile” he went on “as carpets are always wanting brushing I intend
to have brushes _fixed_ underneath the floor, so that every time the
carpet is changed it will be automatically brushed. Nothing could be
simpler.”
It would have been cruel to make further objections to schemes so indeed
transparently simple. But they will give the reader an idea of the
difficulties and dangers attending the metamorphosis from the condition
of an army officer to that of a private in the peaceful regiments of
humanity. What has become now of our friend Peterson I cannot certainly
say. That he nobly and consistently abandoned his life in the army I
know; but whether he succeeded in getting a house built on the
Principles of Euclid is doubtful.
Peterson was also connected with an occurrence which at the time was
rather mysterious, and caused us some puzzlement. My friend George
Merrill had come to live with me, and we two were occupying the house
alone. One evening, late in the summer, we had just returned from
Sheffield, and tired had thrown ourselves for a moment into chairs, when
almost at once a knock came at the door—so soon indeed that we wondered
how the visitor could have been so close behind. George went to the door
and then turning to me said “A lady wants to see you.” At once a voice
from outside said very distinctly, “A _woman_, if you please.” Roused to
a sense of serious events impending, I went forward, and saw, as well as
the falling dusk would allow, what appeared to be a fairly
pleasant-looking woman of about thirty-five, but somewhat dishevelled
and untidy in dress; and said—
“Can I do anything for you?”
“You can,” she replied, “I’m lost, I’m an outcast from the world, will
you befriend me?”
“I will if I can,” I said, “but tell me first about yourself—what is
your name? do you come from Sheffield?”
“You,” she exclaimed, “Mr. Carpenter, the author of _Towards
Democracy_—and you won’t help me, till you know my name and all about
me!”
I looked at George with a wild surmise. “Certainly,” I said, “I can’t
very well help you till I know what is the matter.”
“I tell you,” she rejoined with increasing emphasis, “I’m lost, I’m an
outcast, I can never go back to the world again. Ah!” (pointing to the
garden and the rising moon) “if I could only live here in this beautiful
scene, with you, far away from the town and all its belongings. Mr.
Carpenter, will you befriend me?”
What an appeal to a lone bachelor! Luckily I resisted the temptation to
a too ready sympathy, and leaning forward said again, “But still you
have not told me anything about yourself and your troubles.”
As I did so I caught a distinct and strong waft of liquor.
“Is it not enough that I am lost?” she replied.
The situation was really embarrassing. At last I said:—
“Well, you know, I and my friend have only just come back from
Sheffield, and are very tired; will you come again to-morrow, or any day
you like to name, when we shall have more time, and tell me your whole
story.”
At this she threw up her head with a kind of snort, and said: “And you
are Mr. Carpenter! and you say come to-morrow—and to-morrow perhaps I
shall be _dead_!” And thus saying she strode off to the gate with the
air of a tragedy queen.
Nevertheless for some days we could not help feeling a little
uncomfortable. The people at the neighboring inn told us that she had
come from the Sheffield direction during the afternoon, and had been
hanging about waiting for our return for some hours, doubtless had been
in the garden on our arrival—which accounted for her sudden
appearance—but no one knew who she was; nor did tidings of her, or of
any mischance to her, reach us for some weeks—till at last the memory of
the incident died out.
Then one afternoon, the said Captain Peterson having turned up and being
engaged in expounding his theories over a cup of tea—my attention (which
had quite wandered from his conversation) was suddenly caught by the
words “and there’s that woman, she gets drunk, and then comes to my
house, and won’t go away—it’s very awkward!—and she has read your
_Towards Democracy_ too.”
“That’s the woman,” I exclaimed, “tell me about her!” and a few
explanations soon disclosed the fact that my mysterious visitor was the
wife of Peterson’s colour-sergeant—a decent sort of body apparently, and
all right except for occasional drinking-bouts, when she became liable
to these vespertinal excursions!
During the first year or so after Merrill’s arrival, and for a year or
two before that, we had a young Russian, or Russian Jew, staying in the
house. Invalided with consumption he had somehow taken refuge with us.
He went by the name of Max Flint. He was of that fine and delicate type
of Jew (somewhat perhaps like Mordecai in George Eliot’s _Daniel
Deronda_) which one associates with Polish origin—a sensitive face with
slender nose (not the Jewish proboscis), arched fine eyebrows and brown
pensive eyes, well-formed features on the whole, and hands the
same—something refined and almost womanly about him. He was handy in a
house, and skilful with a needle; for indeed he was a tailor by trade.
His history is worth relating if only because typical of hundreds and
thousands of similar cases.
[Illustration:
G. M. FEEDING THE FOWLS.
]
His father, who was a Jewish butcher by trade, “very religious”
according to Max “and always lending money and always losing it,” lived
at Slobodka across the river from Kovno, and not far from the German
frontier. Slobodka was the Jewish quarter and consisted of small wooden
houses, two stories at most, but even so not unfrequently each occupied
by more than one family. Noah Flynck however and his wife and the eight
children were proud to have a house all to themselves. The mother died
early but Max remembered her telling stories in which she recalled the
subjugation of Poland. How Polish ‘gentlemen,’ landowners, took refuge
in Slobodka, were hunted down by the Russian soldiers and _hanged_, and
their lands appropriated—especially one well-known old story of a Polish
noble who concealed himself in the interior of a haystack. The troops
surrounded and searched his house and farmyard, but could not find him,
till at last his little dog (who had smelt him out) was seen scratching
and routing on the top of the stack, and he was betrayed!
When Max was about sixteen or seventeen the terror of the Russian
conscription came upon him. Few people realize what this nightmare is to
the Russian peasantry. Even in the late Japanese war, villages were
surrounded at midnight by Cossacks and police, houses if not opened
immediately were broken into, men roused from sleep, and all between the
ages of twenty-one and forty-three taken away, in most cases never to be
heard of again! In Max’s time it was as bad, if not worse. The same
thing went on. At any moment, at dead of night, the home might be broken
into and plundered—the young men snatched away for ever. Bribes might
defer your fate for a time—but only for a time. As to passports, you
could not move without a passport—even to go from one village to
another.
Max determined—even against old Noah’s wish—to get away to England; and
he managed to effect the escape. There are of course professional
smugglers who undertake this business for you; and Max often told the
story of how he paid three roubles to one of these for the job. He was
instructed to be at a certain village close to the river Memel on a
certain evening. He gave his family the slip, and arrived there to time;
met the agent all right, and with twenty others bound on the same errand
was packed in a stable for the night. Half of the company went off in
the small hours of the morning, but Max and the remaining half had to
remain there all the next day and night till 2 a.m., when the man came
and gave them the signal to follow. They crept through the deserted
street and along the road till they came to the bridge which alone
divided them from Germany. But how to cross this in face of the Russian
sentinel keeping watch at the near end? Needless to say it was a
question of bribes. Of the three roubles the soldier was to have one.
And Max with a kind of glee used to describe how he saw the man sitting
there in his box as they crept by, and pretending to be asleep, yet
visibly peeping with one eye through his fingers to see that _only the
bargained number got through_. Once on the German side they were all
right, and could breathe again freely. They met at an inn, counted up
their remaining monies, and went on in parties together.
Max came to Leeds. Of the hundreds of Russian Jews there he knew a
little about some. He changed his name from Flynck to Flint, to suit the
English ear, and soon settled down into sweated work in a Jewish
tailors’ den.
One must hope and suppose that the move was for the better; but what a
long crucifixion is the life of the people! You escape from the horrors
of the Russian army—from being preyed upon by human and insect vermin,
as well as becoming food for powder—only to sit cross-legged for the
rest of your life in a dirty, evil-smelling workshop, with gas flaring,
stoves superheated (for making the irons hot), and windows all tightly
shut—and that, in the heart of a sad-eyed smoke-ridden manufacturing
town in the North of England. The wages I believe, in Max’s case, were
not so bad as in some such dens, but the ‘drive’ and the pressure were
incessant, the machine-work was exhausting, and the hours amounted to
ten and a half per day. Little wonder that in a few years he developed
the seeds of phthisis, and was practically marked down as its victim.
Turning into a rebel and a hater of the present order (or disorder) of
things, he joined the Socialist club in Leeds and became a worker in the
cause. That led to his abandoning his own religion, lodging with
Christians, and doing such outrageous things as poking the fire or
preparing his own meals on the Sabbath Day—which in turn led to the
Jewish community slandering and persecuting _him_! They threw mud and
stones at him in the streets; and he became an outcast among his own
people. The Jewish girl he was courting refused to consort with him any
more and went off with another man, driving him so mad that (as Max told
me himself) he on one occasion nearly killed her.
It was somewhere about this time that, in connection with the said
Socialist club, I happened to meet him. It was at the deathbed of
another Socialist; and perceiving his distress and evident need of a
change I asked him for a short holiday to Millthorpe. After that he came
again, and again. There was something so gentle and helpful about him
that he was always gratefully received by my friends; and the stories of
his life and times were always interesting. Once or twice I wrote—in my
best German—to his father[18]; and the innocent joy of the old man (in
his replies) was touching. But naturally Max did not get stronger—and a
time came when after being here a week or two he obviously could not go
to work again and had to stay on rather indefinitely. The Adams’ and he
became great friends, and he even helped a little in the sandalwork.
Then later, when this was too laborious for him, he took up
basket-making, and turned out quite a number of useful baskets; and as
many of these were “waste-paper baskets,” one must feel that in this
alone—in the providing receptacles for the printed rubbish of the day—he
performed a useful service! Gradually however he got weaker, and had to
give up all work. Then it became necessary for him to go to a
convalescent Home at Bournemouth; and there after some months he died.
It is often the case that invalids and old people feel themselves a
burden on the household in which they live, think they are no good in
the world, and wish themselves out of the way; and yet all the time the
opposite may be the fact. Often they form a point of real interest in
the house, they call out people’s sympathy and helpfulness, and their
own pluck and sociability under failing health gives courage to others
who are stronger. Something of this was true of Max. Though depressed at
times his quaint and delicate humour was a joy to his friends and
acquaintances. One event, which might have proved prematurely fatal to
him, he would frequently recount with pleasure. It was one Christmas; a
time when the Village Band is in the habit of coming round to each house
in turn and playing its rather fearsome tunes! As it happened Max’s
bedroom, being at one end of the house, was over a more or less open
shed. It was evening and he was composing himself to sleep; when the
band arrived. But, snow being on the ground, their footsteps were not
heard; and the bandmen very naturally disposed themselves, for more
shelter, inside the shed, quite unconscious of course that they were
exactly underneath the bed on which an invalid was sleeping. All of a
sudden they struck up with a tremendous blare “Christians, Awake!” or
some such tune. It was like St. Jerome hearing the last Trump. Poor Max
was nearly lifted out of bed by the shock. For a moment he did not know
whether he was in this world or the next. When he concluded in favour of
this one he found himself lying there in the old bedroom, but his heart
palpitating so violently that, combined with the fit of laughter which
also seized him, he was quite a wreck for some days after.
There was something ironical in the idea of a Christian hymn proving so
nearly fatal to a Jew; but a similar irony, curiously enough, pursued
him to his end at Bournemouth. At the Home there—in order to avoid
unpleasant questionings, and also because to him the matter was of no
importance—he had said nothing about his Jewish connection but had
declared himself a Christian, and had received in a friendly way the
visits of the chaplain. When he died the Home made the usual
arrangements for his interment in the Protestant Cemetery. But—and the
story shows how the Jewish community hangs together—the Jews at Leeds
and Manchester got to know somehow about it all, and telegraphed to the
synagogue at Southampton to stop the infamy of Christian burial. A
deputation came over from Southampton and arrived at the Bournemouth
home only an hour or two before the funeral—to claim the body for
removal to Southampton and burial with Jewish rites. I of course was on
the spot; and a nice position I was in! The matron of the Home and the
Chaplain on the one hand had “always understood” that he was a
Christian; the Chief Rabbi and his friends insisted absolutely that he
was a Jew; the funeral car was already waiting in the yard; and Max
himself lay there in the mortuary chapel with his features in death
finer and paler than ever, and wearing such an expression of high calm
and indifference as might well represent his own actual feeling in the
matter. I, of course, to all the parties concerned was obviously the
“guilty” person—guilty of having got them into such a coil—and they
looked at me with eyes of blame. But—though really just as indifferent
as Max himself—I thought it best to ‘play the game’; and insisted that
as he had openly declared himself a Christian he _was_ a Christian and
should be buried as such. The Jewish party on its side brought arguments
to show that a mere declaration on such a matter counted for nothing;
and soon we plunged into a long discussion which I kept up for some time
in order (partly) to hear what they would say. When I perceived however
how tremendously seriously the Jews took the whole matter, and reflected
also that Max’s father would be broken-hearted if he heard that his son
had been put in a Christian grave, I thought it best to give way. The
Chaplain and the matron agreed, and were indeed quite sensible about it
all—and finally poor Max’s mortal remains were carried off in triumph by
his own people.
In conclusion of this chapter I may relate a curious story which perhaps
helps to show how the elements of real inspiration and of mental
aberration may sometimes get mixed up in the same person.
I had received a letter from London from a man who described himself as
a gold-miner from the Sierra Nevada, saying that he had just arrived in
England, and was wishful to see me, as he had a message to deliver, and
proposing to come on immediately to Millthorpe. As it happened I was
just starting for Glasgow and Edinburgh on a lecturing tour. So I wrote
at once telling him to wait a week for my return, and to employ his time
meanwhile in sight-seeing. But on my return I found to my surprise that
he had already been in the village some days, that he had taken a
lodging, and was awaiting my arrival. The next day, November 21, 1910,
he walked into my yard—obviously an American of a manual worker type,
thin, sandy-haired and tall, with dark clothes and black slouch hat,
somewhat horny-handed, but with a certain refinement of figure and
physiognomy. Also there was a slightly “fallen in” and tired look about
him which puzzled me at the moment, but was soon explained. He began
almost immediately—as soon as we were sat down—telling me a long
story—of which I can only give the outlines.
It seemed that he had been working for a good many years in a gold-mine
(probably as part-owner of it)—a mine up 10,000 feet in the Sierra
Nevada. One day—six years before the events which he was about to
narrate—a strange vision came to him. He had lost his way on the Nevada
sandhills, and was searching about in some anxiety, when a sudden
transformation of the landscape occurred, and he was transported into a
new world, which he could only describe as ‘heaven.’ On several
succeeding occasions the same vision came to him. Meanwhile, he said, he
had been fighting hard against the three great temptations of a miner’s
life—drink, tobacco, and an irascible temper. Each of these troubles in
turn disappeared finally with a sudden deliverance and certain assurance
of success. Then, only a couple of months before coming to England, more
frequent visions came to him, accompanied by voices; and the affair
culminated in his getting hold of Dr. Bucke’s book on _Cosmic
Consciousness_ when he read the chapters about Buddha and Jesus. Then
followed what he described as “seven days of ecstasy, agonizing
ecstasy—tears of peace and joy streaming down my face—in which I saw
_everything, everything_.” After that he read one day in the same book
the chapter on E. C.
Then one morning—as he was going up the mountain to his work from the
camp below (Victor, Colorado), he heard the voices again shouting: “They
came surging up close to my ears, and then faded away into the far
distance, and then came close again—and two of the voices were God’s,
and one was my own [!], and they were shouting _Edward Carpenter, Edward
Carpenter, go and see E. C., go and see_, etc., etc. And I at the same
time was shouting _Brother E. C.—God’s beloved Son, I am coming to
you_.”
[George and I looked at each other again with a wild surmise! Another
case for the Asylum!]
“And all this,” he continued, “kept being repeated as I walked up the
hill, over and over again, till at last it faded away in the distance.
And all the morning over my work I was in tears—tears of joy and
pain—and had to conceal my face from my mates. But as I turned the
crusher I felt enormous strength, and was quite unconscious of effort.”
Then followed all sorts of stories about God telling him to do this and
that, and the Devil telling him to do this and that, and of temptations
and _tests_ to which he had been subjected. But in the end, he said, he
had been impelled to come and see me, and he had come. One day he just
threw down his tools and left them lying there, went and said good-bye
to his mother (and she evidently did not want him to go) and set sail
for England. And now we two (he and I) were to lead a mission round the
world—he had some idea about a new Messiah—and to preach and convert the
nations together.
Things were evidently getting serious! Yet I hardly knew what to do. He
was such a very decent fellow, quiet and kindly and essentially
reasonable, and by no means a fanatic; and most obviously genuine and
spontaneous. I hardly knew how to attack him.
Then George Merrill saved the situation. He asked Grogan (C. E. Grogan
was his name) to have some tea; and the answer gave the needed clue.
“Tea? No, thank you, I haven’t taken tea or any food for three weeks.”
[Afterwards on inquiry at his village-lodgings I found his landlady had
been dreadfully disturbed at his not touching a crumb of anything all
the time he was there.]
“But if you won’t eat, you’ll have a cup of tea, or something to drink?”
“No, nothing—except a glass of water—I haven’t eaten anything for three
weeks, and I don’t think I shall ever eat again.”
The cat was out; and the line of action was clear.