In the train for Southampton--Morning papers--The new 'Locksley
Hall'--Past and present--The 'Moselle'--Heavy weather--The
petrel--The Azores.
The last week in December, when the year 1886 was waning to its close, I
left Waterloo station to join a West Indian mail steamer at Southampton.
The air was frosty; the fog lay thick over city and river; the Houses of
Parliament themselves were scarcely visible as I drove across
Westminster Bridge in the heavy London vapour--a symbol of the cloud
which was hanging over the immediate political future. The morning
papers were occupied with Lord Tennyson's new 'Locksley Hall' and Mr.
Gladstone's remarks upon it. I had read neither; but from the criticisms
it appeared that Lord Tennyson fancied himself to have seen a change
pass over England since his boyhood, and a change which was not to his
mind. The fruit of the new ideas which were then rising from the ground
had ripened, and the taste was disagreeable to him. The day which had
followed that 'august sunrise' had not been 'august' at all; and 'the
beautiful bold brow of Freedom' had proved to have something of brass
upon it. The 'use and wont' England, the England out of which had risen
the men who had won her great position for her, was losing its old
characteristics. Things which in his eager youth Lord Tennyson had
despised he saw now that he had been mistaken in despising; and the new
notions which were to remake the world were not remaking it in a shape
that pleased him. Like Goethe, perhaps he felt that he was stumbling
over the roots of the tree which he had helped to plant.
The contrast in Mr. Gladstone's article was certainly remarkable. Lord
Tennyson saw in institutions which were passing away the decay of what
in its time had been great and noble, and he saw little rising in the
place of them which humanly could be called improvement. To Mr.
Gladstone these revolutionary years had been years of the sweeping off
of long intolerable abuses, and of awaking to higher and truer
perceptions of duty. Never, according to him, in any period of her
history had England made more glorious progress, never had stood higher
than at the present moment in material power and moral excellence. How
could it be otherwise when they were the years of his own ascendency?
Metaphysicians tell us that we do not know anything as it really is.
What we call outward objects are but impressions generated upon our
sense by forces of the actual nature of which we are totally ignorant.
We imagine that we hear a sound, and that the sound is something real
which is outside us; but the sound is in the ear and is made by the ear,
and the thing outside is but a vibration of air. If no animal existed
with organs of hearing, the vibrations might be as before, but there
would be no such thing as sound; and all our opinions on all subjects
whatsoever are equally subjective. Lord Tennyson's opinions and Mr.
Gladstone's opinions reveal to us only the nature and texture of their
own minds, which have been affected in this way or that way. The scale
has not been made in which we can weigh the periods in a nation's life,
or measure them one against the other. The past is gone, and nothing but
the bones of it can be recalled. We but half understand the present, for
each age is a chrysalis, and we are ignorant into what it may develop.
We do not even try to understand it honestly, for we shut our eyes
against what we do not wish to see. I will not despond with Lord
Tennyson. To take a gloomy view of things will not mend them, and modern
enlightenment may have excellent gifts in store for us which will come
by-and-by. But I will not say that they have come as yet. I will not say
that public life is improved when party spirit has degenerated into an
organised civil war, and a civil war which can never end, for it renews
its life like the giant of fable at every fresh election. I will not say
that men are more honest and more law-abiding when debts are repudiated
and law is defied in half the country, and Mr. Gladstone himself
applauds or refuses to condemn acts of open dishonesty. We are to
congratulate ourselves that duelling has ceased, but I do not know that
men act more honourably because they can be called less sharply to
account. 'Smuggling,' we are told, has disappeared also, but the wrecker
scuttles his ship or runs it ashore to cheat the insurance office. The
Church may perhaps be improved in the arrangement of the services and in
the professional demonstrativeness of the clergy, but I am not sure that
the clergy have more influence over the minds of men than they had fifty
years ago, or that the doctrines which the Church teaches are more
powerful over public opinion. One would not gather that our morality was
so superior from the reports which we see in the newspapers, and girls
now talk over novels which the ladies' maids of their grandmothers might
have read in secret but would have blushed while reading. Each age would
do better if it studied its own faults and endeavoured to mend them,
instead of comparing itself with others to its own advantage.
This only was clear to me in thinking over what Mr. Gladstone was
reported to have said, and in thinking of his own achievements and
career, that there are two classes of men who have played and still play
a prominent part in the world--those who accomplish great things, and
those who talk and make speeches about them. The doers of things are for
the most part silent. Those who build up empires or discover secrets of
science, those who paint great pictures or write great poems, are not
often to be found spouting upon platforms. The silent men do the work.
The talking men cry out at what is done because it is not done as they
would have had it, and afterwards take possession of it as if it was
their own property. Warren Hastings wins India for us; the eloquent
Burke desires and passionately tries to hang him for it. At the supreme
crisis in our history when America had revolted and Ireland was defiant,
when the great powers of Europe had coalesced to crush us, and we were
staggering under the disaster at York Town, Rodney struck a blow in the
West Indies which sounded over the world and saved for Britain her ocean
sceptre. Just in time, for the popular leaders had persuaded the House
of Commons that Rodney ought to be recalled and peace made on any terms.
Even in politics the names of oratorical statesmen are rarely associated
with the organic growth of enduring institutions. The most distinguished
of them have been conspicuous only as instruments of destruction.
Institutions are the slow growths of centuries. The orator cuts them
down in a day. The tree falls, and the hand that wields the axe is
admired and applauded. The speeches of Demosthenes and Cicero pass into
literature, and are studied as models of language. But Demosthenes and
Cicero did not understand the facts of their time; their language might
be beautiful, and their sentiments noble, but with their fine words and
sentiments they only misled their countrymen. The periods where the
orator is supreme are marked always by confusion and disintegration.
Goethe could say of Luther that he had thrown back for centuries the
spiritual cultivation of mankind, by calling the passions of the
multitude to judge of matters which should have been left to the
thinkers. We ourselves are just now in one of those uneasy periods, and
we have decided that orators are the fittest people to rule over us. The
constituencies choose their members according to the fluency of their
tongues. Can he make a speech? is the one test of competency for a
legislator, and the most persuasive of the whole we make prime minister.
We admire the man for his gifts, and we accept what he says for the
manner in which it is uttered. He may contradict to-day what he asserted
yesterday. No matter. He can persuade others wherever he is persuaded
himself. And such is the nature of him that he can convince himself of
anything which it is his interest to believe. These are the persons who
are now regarded as our wisest. It was not always so. It is not so now
with nations who are in a sound state of health. The Americans, when
they choose a President or a Secretary of State or any functionary from
whom they require wise action, do not select these famous speech-makers.
Such periods do not last, for the condition which they bring about
becomes always intolerable. I do not believe in the degeneracy of our
race. I believe the present generation of Englishmen to be capable of
all that their fathers were and possibly of more; but we are just now in
a moulting state, and are sick while the process is going on. Or to take
another metaphor. The bow of Ulysses is unstrung. The worms have not
eaten into the horn or the moths injured the string, but the owner of
the house is away and the suitors of Penelope Britannia consume her
substance, rivals one of another, each caring only for himself, but with
a common heart in evil. They cannot string the bow. Only the true lord
and master can string it, and in due time he comes, and the cord is
stretched once more upon the notch, singing to the touch of the finger
with the sharp note of the swallow; and the arrows fly to their mark in
the breasts of the pretenders, while Pallas Athene looks on approving
from her coign of vantage.
Random meditations of this kind were sent flying through me by the
newspaper articles on Tennyson and Mr. Gladstone. The air cleared, and
my mind also, as we ran beyond the smoke. The fields were covered deep
with snow; a white vapour clung along the ground, the winter sky shining
through it soft and blue. The ponds and canals were hard frozen, and men
were skating and boys were sliding, and all was brilliant and beautiful.
The ladies of the forest, the birch trees beside the line about
Farnborough, were hung with jewels of ice, and glittered like a fretwork
of purple and silver. It was like escaping out of a nightmare into happy
healthy England once more. In the carriage with me were several
gentlemen; officers going out to join their regiments; planters who had
been at home on business; young sportsmen with rifles and cartridge
cases who were hoping to shoot alligators, &c., all bound like myself
for the West Indian mail steamer. The elders talked of sugar and of
bounties, and of the financial ruin of the islands. I had heard of this
before I started, and I learnt little from them which I had not known
already; but I had misgivings whether I was not wandering off after all
on a fool's errand. I did not want to shoot alligators, I did not
understand cane growing or want to understand it, nor was I likely to
find a remedy for encumbered and bankrupt landowners. I was at an age
too when men grow unfit for roaming, and are expected to stay quietly at
home. Plato says that to travel to any profit one should go between
fifty and sixty; not sooner because one has one's duties to attend to as
a citizen; not after because the mind becomes hebetated. The chief
object of going abroad, in Plato's opinion, is to converse with [Greek:
theioi andres] inspired men, whom Providence scatters about the globe,
and from whom alone wisdom can be learnt. And I, alas! was long past the
limit, and [Greek: theioi andres] are not to be met with in these times.
But if not with inspired men, I might fall in at any rate with sensible
men who would talk on things which I wanted to know. Winter and spring
in a warm climate were pleasanter than a winter and spring at home; and
as there is compensation in all things, old people can see some objects
more clearly than young people can see them. They have no interest of
their own to mislead their perception. They have lived too long to
believe in any formulas or theories. 'Old age,' the Greek poet says, 'is
not wholly a misfortune. Experience teaches things which the young know
not.'[1] Old men at any rate like to think so.
The 'Moselle,' in which I had taken my passage, was a large steamer of
4,000 tons, one of the best where all are good--on the West Indian mail
line. Her long straight sides and rounded bottom promised that she would
roll, and I may say that the promise was faithfully kept; but except to
the stomachs of the inexperienced rolling is no disadvantage. A vessel
takes less water on board in a beam sea when she yields to the wave than
when she stands up stiff and straight against it. The deck when I went
on board was slippery with ice. There was the usual crowd and confusion
before departure, those who were going out being undistinguishable, till
the bell rang to clear the ship, from the friends who had accompanied
them to take leave. I discovered, however, to my satisfaction that our
party in the cabin would not be a large one. The West Indians who had
come over for the Colonial Exhibition were most of them already gone.
They, along with the rest, had taken back with them a consciousness that
their visit had not been wholly in vain, and that the interest of the
old country in her distant possessions seemed quickening into life once
more. The commissioners from all our dependencies had been feted in the
great towns, and the people had come to Kensington in millions to admire
the productions which bore witness to the boundless resources of British
territory. Had it been only a passing emotion of wonder and pride, or
was it a prelude to a more energetic policy and active resolution?
Anyway it was something to be glad of. Receptions and public dinners and
loyal speeches will not solve political problems, but they create the
feeling of good will which underlies the useful consideration of them.
The Exhibition had served the purpose which it was intended for. The
conference of delegates grew out of it which has discussed in the
happiest temper the elements of our future relations.
But the Exhibition doors were now closed, and the multitude of admirers
or contributors were dispersed or dispersing to their homes. In the
'Moselle' we had only the latest lingerers or the ordinary passengers
who went to and fro on business or pleasure. I observed them with the
curiosity with which one studies persons with whom one is to be shut up
for weeks in involuntary intimacy. One young Demerara planter attracted
my notice, as he had with him a newly married and beautiful wife whose
fresh complexion would so soon fade, as it always does in those lands
where nature is brilliant with colour and English cheeks grow pale. I
found also to my surprise and pleasure a daughter of one of my oldest
and dearest friends, who was going out to join her husband in Trinidad.
This was a happy accident to start with. An announcement printed in
Spanish in large letters in a conspicuous position intimated that I must
be prepared for habits in some of our companions of a less agreeable
kind.
'Se suplica a los senores pasajeros de no escupir sobre la cubierta de
popa.'
I may as well leave the words untranslated, but the 'supplication' is
not unnecessary. The Spanish colonists, like their countrymen at home,
smoke everywhere with the usual consequences. The captain of one of our
mail boats found it necessary to read one of them who disregarded it a
lesson which he would remember. He sent for the quartermaster with a
bucket and a mop, and ordered him to stay by this gentleman and clean up
till he had done.
The wind when we started was light and keen from the north. The
afternoon sky was clear and frosty. Southampton Water was still as oil,
and the sun went down crimson behind the brown woods of the New Forest.
Of the 'Moselle's' speed we had instant evidence, for a fast Government
launch raced us for a mile or two, and off Netley gave up the chase. We
went leisurely along, doing thirteen knots without effort, swept by
Calshot into the Solent, and had cleared the Needles before the last
daylight had left us. In a few days the ice would be gone, and we should
lie in the soft air of perennial summer.
Singula de nobis anni praedantur euntes:
Eripuere jocos, Venerem, convivia, ludum--
But the flying years had not stolen from me the delight of finding
myself once more upon the sea; the sea which is eternally young, and
gives one back one's own youth and buoyancy.
Down the Channel the north wind still blew, and the water was still
smooth. We set our canvas at the Needles, and flew on for three days
straight upon our course with a steady breeze. We crossed 'the Bay'
without the fiddles on the dinner table; we were congratulating
ourselves that, mid-winter as it was, we should reach the tropics and
never need them. I meanwhile made acquaintances among my West Indian
fellow-passengers, and listened to their tale of grievances. The
Exhibition had been well enough in its way, but Exhibitions would not
fill an empty exchequer or restore ruined plantations. The mother
country I found was still regarded as a stepmother, and from more than
one quarter I heard a more than muttered wish that they could be 'taken
into partnership' by the Americans. They were wasting away under Free
Trade and the sugar bounties. The mother country gave them fine words,
but words were all. If they belonged to the United States they would
have the benefit of a close market in a country where there were
60,000,000 sugar drinkers. Energetic Americans would come among them and
establish new industries, and would control the unmanageable negroes.
From the most loyal I heard the despairing cry of the Britons, 'the
barbarians drive us into the sea and the sea drives us back upon the
barbarians.' They could bear Free Trade which was fair all round, but
not Free Trade which was made into a mockery by bounties. And it seemed
that their masters in Downing Street answered them as the Romans
answered our forefathers. 'We have many colonies, and we shall not miss
Britain. Britain is far off, and must take care of herself. She brings
us responsibility, and she brings us no revenue; we cannot tax Italy for
the sake of Britons. We have given them our arms and our civilisation.
We have done enough. Let them do now what they can or please.' Virtually
this is what England says to the West Indians, or would say if despair
made them actively troublesome, notwithstanding Exhibitions and
expansive sentiments. The answer from Rome we can now see was the voice
of dying greatness, which was no longer worthy of the place in the world
which it had made for itself in the days of its strength; but it
doubtless seemed reasonable enough at the time, and indeed was the only
answer which the Rome of Honorius could give.
A change in the weather cut short our conversations, and drove half the
company to their berths. On the fourth morning the wind chopped back to
the north-west. A beam sea set in, and the 'Moselle' justified my
conjectures about her. She rolled gunwale under, rolled at least forty
degrees each way, and unshipped a boat out of her davits to windward.
The waves were not as high as I have known the Atlantic produce when in
the humour for it, but they were short, steep, and curling. Tons of
water poured over the deck. The few of us who ventured below to dinner
were hit by the dumb waiters which swung over our heads; and the living
waiters staggered about with the dishes and upset the soup into our
laps. Everybody was grumbling and miserable. Driven to my cabin I was
dozing on a sofa when I was jerked off and dropped upon the floor. The
noise down below on these occasions is considerable. The steering chains
clank, unfastened doors slam to and fro, plates and dishes and glass
fall crashing at some lurch which is heavier than usual, with the roar
of the sea underneath as a constant accompaniment.
When a wave strikes the ship full on the quarter and she staggers from
stem to stern, one wonders how any construction of wood and iron can
endure such blows without being shattered to fragments. And it would be
shattered, as I heard an engineer once say, if the sea was not such a
gentle creature after all. I crept up to the deck house to watch through
the lee door the wild magnificence of the storm. Down came a great green
wave, rushed in a flood over everything, and swept me drenched to the
skin down the stairs into the cabin. I crawled to bed to escape cold,
and slid up and down my berth like a shuttle at every roll of the ship
till I fell into the unconsciousness which is a substitute for sleep,
slept at last really, and woke at seven in the morning to find the sun
shining, and the surface of the ocean still undulating but glassy calm.
The only signs left of the tempest were the swallow-like petrels
skimming to and fro in our wake, picking up the scraps of food and the
plate washings which the cook's mate had thrown overboard; smallest and
beautifullest of all the gull tribe, called petrel by our ancestors, who
went to their Bibles more often than we do for their images, in memory
of St. Peter, because they seem for a moment to stand upon the water
when they stoop upon any floating object.[2] In the afternoon we passed
the Azores, rising blue and fairy-like out of the ocean; unconscious
they of the bloody battles which once went on under their shadows. There
it was that Grenville, in the 'Revenge,' fought through a long summer
day alone against a host of enemies, and died there and won immortal
honour. The Azores themselves are Grenville's monument, and in the
memory of Englishmen are associated for ever with his glorious story.
Behind these islands, too, lay Grenville's comrades, the English
privateers, year after year waiting for Philip's plate fleet. Behind
these islands lay French squadrons waiting for the English sugar ships.
They are calm and silent now, and are never likely to echo any more to
battle thunder. Men come and go and play out their little dramas, epic
or tragic, and it matters nothing to nature. Their wild pranks leave no
scars, and the decks are swept clean for the next comers.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] [Greek: ho teknon ouch hapanta tho gera kaka
he empeiria
echei ti lexai thon neon sophoteron.]