THE DULWICH GALLERY.
Sandy Mackaye received me in a characteristic way--growled at me for
half an hour for quarrelling with my mother, and when I was at my wit's
end, suddenly offered me a bed in his house and the use of his little
sitting-room--and, bliss too great to hope! of his books also; and when I
talked of payment, told me to hold my tongue and mind my own business. So
I settled myself at once; and that very evening he installed himself as my
private tutor, took down a Latin book, and set me to work on it.
"An' mind ye, laddie," said he, half in jest and half in earnest, "gin I
find ye playing truant, and reading a' sorts o' nonsense instead of minding
the scholastic methods and proprieties, I'll just bring ye in a bill at the
year's end o' twa guineas a week for lodgings and tuition, and tak' the law
o' ye; so mind and read what I tell ye. Do you comprehend noo?"
I did comprehend, and obeyed him, determining to repay him some day--and
somehow--how I did not very clearly see. Thus I put myself more or less
into the old man's power; foolishly enough the wise world will say. But I
had no suspicion in my character; and I could not look at those keen grey
eyes, when, after staring into vacancy during some long preachment, they
suddenly flashed round at me, and through me, full of fun and quaint
thought, and kindly earnestness, and fancy that man less honest than his
face seemed to proclaim him.
By-the-by, I have as yet given no description of the old eccentric's
abode--an unpardonable omission, I suppose, in these days of Dutch painting
and Boz. But the omission was correct, both historically and artistically,
for I had as yet only gone to him for books, books, nothing but books; and
I had been blind to everything in his shop but that fairy-land of shelves,
filled, in my simple fancy, with inexhaustible treasures, wonder-working,
omnipotent, as the magic seal of Solomon.
It was not till I had been settled and at work for several nights in his
sanctum, behind the shop, that I began to become conscious what a strange
den that sanctum was.
It was so dark, that without a gaslight no one but he could see to read
there, except on very sunny days. Not only were the shelves which covered
every inch of wall crammed with books and pamphlets, but the little window
was blocked up with them, the floor was piled with bundles of them, in some
places three feet deep, apparently in the wildest confusion--though there
was some mysterious order in them which he understood, and symbolized,
I suppose, by the various strange and ludicrous nicknames on their
tickets--for he never was at fault a moment if a customer asked for a
book, though it were buried deep in the chaotic stratum. Out of this book
alluvium a hole seemed to have been dug near the fireplace, just big enough
to hold his arm-chair and a table, book-strewn like everything else, and
garnished with odds and ends of MSS., and a snuffer-tray containing scraps
of half-smoked tobacco, "pipe-dottles," as he called them, which were
carefully resmoked over and over again, till nothing but ash was left.
His whole culinary utensils--for he cooked as well as eat in this strange
hole--were an old rusty kettle, which stood on one hob, and a blue plate
which, when washed, stood on the other. A barrel of true Aberdeen meal
peered out of a corner, half buried in books, and a "keg o' whusky, the
gift o' freens," peeped in like case out of another.
This was his only food. "It was a' poison," he used to say, "in London.
Bread full o' alum and bones, and sic filth--meat over-driven till it was
a' braxy--water sopped wi' dead men's juice. Naething was safe but gude
Scots parrich and Athol brose." He carried his water-horror so far as to
walk some quarter of a mile every morning to fill his kettle at a favourite
pump. "Was he a cannibal, to drink out o' that pump hard-by, right under
the kirkyard?" But it was little he either ate or drank--he seemed to live
upon tobacco. From four in the morning till twelve at night, the pipe
never left his lips, except when he went into the outer shop. "It promoted
meditation, and drove awa' the lusts o' the flesh. Ech! it was worthy o'
that auld tyrant, Jamie, to write his counter-blast to the poor man's
freen! The hypocrite! to gang preaching the virtues o' evil-savoured smoke
'ad dæmones abigendos,--and then rail again tobacco, as if it was no as
gude for the purpose as auld rags and horn shavings!"
Sandy Mackaye had a great fancy for political caricatures, rows of which,
there being no room for them on the walls, hung on strings from the
ceiling--like clothes hung out to dry--and among them dangled various books
to which he had taken an antipathy, principally High Tory and Benthamite,
crucified, impaled through their covers, and suspended in all sorts of
torturing attitudes. Among them, right over the table, figured a copy of
Icon Basilike dressed up in a paper shirt, all drawn over with figures of
flames and devils, and surmounted by a peaked paper cap, like a victim
at an _auto-da-fé_. And in the midst of all this chaos grinned from the
chimney-piece, among pipes and pens, pinches of salt and scraps of butter,
a tall cast of Michael Angelo's well-known skinless model--his pristine
white defaced by a cap of soot upon the top of his scalpless skull, and
every muscle and tendon thrown into horrible relief by the dirt which had
lodged among the cracks. There it stood, pointing with its ghastly arm
towards the door, and holding on its wrist a label with the following
inscription:--
Here stand I, the working man,
Get more off me if you can.
I questioned Mackaye one evening about those hanged and crucified books,
and asked him if he ever sold any of them.
"Ou, ay," he said; "if folks are fools enough to ask for them, I'll just
answer a fool according to his folly."
"But," I said, "Mr. Mackaye, do you think it right to sell books of the
very opinions of which you disapprove so much?"
"Hoot, laddie, it's just a spoiling o' the Egyptians; so mind yer book, and
dinna tak in hand cases o' conscience for ither folk. Yell ha' wark eneugh
wi' yer ain before ye're dune."
And he folded round his knees his Joseph's coat, as he called it, an old
dressing-gown with one plaid sleeve, and one blue one, red shawl-skirts,
and a black broadcloth back, not to mention, innumerable patches of every
imaginable stuff and colour, filled his pipe, and buried his nose in
"Harrington's Oceana." He read at least twelve hours every day of his life,
and that exclusively old history and politics, though his favourite books
were Thomas Carlyle's works. Two or three evenings in the week, when he had
seen me safe settled at my studies, he used to disappear mysteriously
for several hours, and it was some time before I found out, by a chance
expression, that he was attending some meeting or committee of working-men.
I begged him to take me there with him. But I was stopped by a laconic
answer--
"When ye're ready."
"And when shall I be ready, Mr. Mackaye?"
"Read yer book till I tell ye."
And he twisted himself into his best coat, which had once been black,
squeezed on his little Scotch cap, and went out.
* * * * *
I now found myself, as the reader may suppose, in an element far more
congenial to my literary tastes, and which compelled far less privation of
sleep and food in order to find time and means for reading; and my health
began to mend from the very first day. But the thought of my mother haunted
me; and Mackaye seemed in no hurry to let me escape from it, for he
insisted on my writing to her in a penitent strain, informing her of my
whereabouts, and offering to return home if she should wish it. With
feelings strangely mingled between the desire of seeing her again and the
dread of returning to the old drudgery of surveillance, I sent the letter,
and waited the whole week without any answer. At last, one evening, when
I returned from work, Sandy seemed in a state of unusual exhilaration. He
looked at me again and again, winking and chuckling to himself in a way
which showed me that his good spirits had something to do with my concerns:
but he did not open on the subject till I had settled to my evening's
reading. Then, having brewed himself an unusually strong mug of
whisky-toddy, and brought out with great ceremony a clean pipe, he
commenced.
"Alton, laddie, I've been fiechting Philistines for ye the day."
"Ah! have you heard from my mother?"
"I wadna say that exactly; but there's been a gran bailie body wi' me that
calls himsel' your uncle, and a braw young callant, a bairn o' his, I'm
thinking."
"Ah! that's my cousin--George; and tell me--do tell me, what you said to
them."
"Ou--that'll be mair concern o' mine than o' yourn. But ye're no going back
to your mither."
My heart leapt up with--joy; there is no denying it--and then I burst into
tears.
"And she won't see me? Has she really cast me off?"
"Why, that'll be verra much as ye prosper, I'm thinking. Ye're an
unaccreedited hero, the noo, as Thomas Carlyle has it. 'But gin ye do weel
by yoursel', saith the Psalmist, 'ye'll find a' men speak well o' ye'--if
ye gang their gate. But ye're to gang to see your uncle at his shop o'
Monday next, at one o'clock. Now stint your greeting, and read awa'."
On the next Monday I took a holiday, the first in which I had ever indulged
myself; and having spent a good hour in scrubbing away at my best shoes
and Sunday suit, started, in fear and trembling, for my uncle's
"establishment."
I was agreeably surprised, on being shown into the little back office at
the back of the shop, to meet with a tolerably gracious reception from the
good-natured Mammonite. He did not shake hands with me, it is true;--was
I not a poor relation? But he told me to sit down, commended me for the
excellent character which he had of me both from my master and Mackaye,
and then entered on the subject of my literary tastes. He heard I was a
precious clever fellow. No wonder, I came of a clever stock; his poor dear
brother had plenty of brains for everything but business. "And you see, my
boy" (with a glance at the big ledgers and busy shop without), "I knew
a thing or two in my time, or I should not have been here. But without
capital, _I_ think brains a curse. Still we must make the best of a bad
matter; and if you are inclined to help to raise the family name--not
that I think much of book writers myself--poor starving devils, half of
them--but still people do talk about them--and a man might get a snug thing
as newspaper editor, with interest; or clerk to something or other--always
some new company in the wind now--and I should have no objection, if you
seemed likely to do us credit, to speak a word for you. I've none of your
mother's confounded puritanical notions, I can tell you; and, what's more,
I have, thank Heaven, as fine a city connexion as any man. But you must
mind and make yourself a good accountant--learn double entry on the Italian
method--that's a good practical study; and if that old Sawney is soft
enough to teach you other things gratis, he may as well teach you that
too. I'll bet he knows something about it--the old Scotch fox. There
now--that'll do--there's five shillings for you--mind you don't lose
them--and if I hear a good account of you, why, perhaps--but there's no use
making promises."
At this moment a tall handsome young man, whom I did not at first recognize
as my cousin George, swung into the office, and shook me cordially by the
hand.
"Hullo, Alton, how are you? Why, I hear you're coming out as a regular
genius--breaking out in a new place, upon my honour! Have you done with
him, governor?"
"Well, I think I have. I wish you'd have a talk with him, my boy. I'm sorry
I can't see more of him, but I have to meet a party on business at the
West-end at two, and Alderman Tumbril and family dine with us this evening,
don't they? I think our small table will be full."
"Of course it will. Come along with me, and we'll have a chat in some quiet
out-of-the-way place. This city is really so noisy that you can't hear your
own ears, as our dean says in lecture."
So he carried me off, down back streets and alleys, a little puzzled at the
extreme cordiality of his manner. Perhaps it sprung, as I learned afterward
to suspect, from his consistent and perpetual habit of ingratiating himself
with every one whom he approached. He never cut a chimney-sweep if he
knew him. And he found it pay. The children of this world are in their
generation wiser than the children of light.
Perhaps it sprung also, as I began to suspect in the first hundred yards of
our walk, from the desire of showing off before me the university clothes,
manners, and gossip, which he had just brought back with him from
Cambridge.
I had not seen him more than three or four times in my life before, and
then he appeared to me merely a tall, handsome, conceited, slangy boy. But
I now found him much improved--in all externals at least. He had made it
his business, I knew, to perfect himself in all athletic pursuits which
were open to a Londoner. As he told me that day--he found it pay, when one
got among gentlemen. Thus he had gone up to Cambridge a capital
skater, rower, pugilist--and billiard player. Whether or not that last
accomplishment ought to be classed in the list of athletic sports, he
contrived, by his own account, to keep it in that of paying ones. In
both these branches he seemed to have had plenty of opportunities of
distinguishing himself at college; and his tall, powerful figure showed
the fruit of these exercises in a stately and confident, almost martial,
carriage. Something jaunty, perhaps swaggering, remained still in his air
and dress, which yet sat not ungracefully on him; but I could see that he
had been mixing in society more polished and artificial than that to which
we had either of us been accustomed, and in his smart Rochester, well-cut
trousers, and delicate French boots, he excited, I will not deny it, my
boyish admiration and envy.
"Well," he said, as soon as we were out of the shop, "which way? Got a
holiday? And how did you intend to spend it?"
"I wanted very much," I said, meekly, "to see the pictures at the National
Gallery."
"Oh! ah! pictures don't pay; but, if you like--much better ones at
Dulwich--that's the place to go to--you can see the others any day--and
at Dulwich, you know, they've got--why let me see--" And he ran over
half-a-dozen outlandish names of painters, which, as I have never again
met with them, I am inclined on the whole to consider as somewhat
extemporaneous creations. However, I agreed to go.
"Ah! capital--very nice quiet walk, and convenient for me--very little out
of my way home. I'll walk there with you."
"One word for your neighbour and two for yourself," thought I; but on
we walked. To see good pictures had been a long cherished hope of mine.
Everything beautiful in form or colour was beginning of late to have an
intense fascination for me. I had, now that I was emancipated, gradually
dared to feed my greedy eyes by passing stares into the print-shop windows,
and had learnt from them a thousand new notions, new emotions, new longings
after beauties of Nature, which seemed destined never to be satisfied. But
pictures, above all, foreign ones, had been in my mother's eyes, Anathema
Maranatha, as vile Popish and Pagan vanities, the rags of the scarlet woman
no less than the surplice itself--and now, when it came to the point, I
hesitated at an act of such awful disobedience, even though unknown to
her. My cousin, however, laughed down my scruples, told me I was out of
leading-strings now, and, which was true enough, that it was "a * * * *
deal better to amuse oneself in picture galleries without leave, than live
a life of sneaking and lying under petticoat government, as all home-birds
were sure to do in the long-run." And so I went on, while my cousin kept up
a running fire of chat the whole way, intermixing shrewd, bold observations
upon every woman who passed, with sneers at the fellows of the college to
which we were going--their idleness and luxury--the large grammar-school
which they were bound by their charter to keep up, and did not--and hints
about private interest in high quarters, through which their wealthy
uselessness had been politely overlooked, when all similar institutions
in the kingdom were subject to the searching examination of a government
commission. Then there were stories of boat-races and gay noblemen,
breakfast parties, and lectures on Greek plays flavoured with a spice of
Cambridge slang, all equally new to me--glimpses into a world of wonders,
which made me feel, as I shambled along at his side, trying to keep step
with his strides, more weakly and awkward and ignorant than ever.
We entered the gallery. I was in a fever of expectation.
The rich sombre light of the rooms, the rich heavy warmth of the
stove-heated air, the brilliant and varied colouring and gilded frames
which embroidered the walls, the hushed earnestness of a few artists,
who were copying, and the few visitors who were lounging from picture to
picture, struck me at once with mysterious awe. But my attention was in a
moment concentrated on one figure opposite to me at the furthest end. I
hurried straight towards it. When I had got half-way up the gallery I
looked round for my cousin. He had turned aside to some picture of a Venus
which caught my eye also, but which, I remember now, only raised in me then
a shudder and a blush, and a fancy that the clergymen must be really as
bad as my mother had taught me to believe, if they could allow in their
galleries pictures of undressed women. I have learnt to view such things
differently now, thank God. I have learnt that to the pure all things are
pure. I have learnt the meaning of that great saying--the foundation of all
art, as well as all modesty, all love, which tells us how "the man and his
wife were both naked, and not ashamed." But this book is the history of my
mental growth; and my mistakes as well as my discoveries are steps in that
development, and may bear a lesson in them.
How I have rambled! But as that day was the turning-point of my whole short
life, I may be excused for lingering upon every feature of it.
Timidly, but eagerly, I went up to the picture, and stood entranced before
it. It was Guido's St. Sebastian. All the world knows the picture, and all
the world knows, too, the defects of the master, though in this instance he
seems to have risen above himself, by a sudden inspiration, into that true
naturalness, which is the highest expression of the Spiritual. But the
very defects of the picture, its exaggeration, its theatricality, were
especially calculated to catch the eye of a boy awaking out of the narrow
dulness of Puritanism. The breadth and vastness of light and shade upon
those manly limbs, so grand and yet so delicate, standing out against the
background of lurid night, the helplessness of the bound arms, the arrow
quivering in the shrinking side, the upturned brow, the eyes in whose dark
depths enthusiastic faith seemed conquering agony and shame, the parted
lips, which seemed to ask, like those martyrs in the Revelations,
reproachful, half-resigned, "O Lord, how long?"--Gazing at that picture
since, I have understood how the idolatry of painted saints could arise in
the minds even of the most educated, who were not disciplined by that stern
regard for fact which is--or ought to be--the strength of Englishmen. I
have understood the heart of that Italian girl, whom some such picture of
St. Sebastian, perhaps this very one, excited, as the Venus of Praxiteles
the Grecian boy, to hopeless love, madness, and death. Then I had never
heard of St. Sebastian. I did not dream of any connexion between that, or
indeed any picture, and Christianity; and yet, as I stood before it, I
seemed to be face to face with the ghosts of my old Puritan forefathers, to
see the spirit which supported them on pillories and scaffolds--the spirit
of that true St. Margaret, the Scottish maiden whom Claverhouse and his
soldiers chained to a post on the sea-sands to die by inches in the rising
tide, till the sound of her hymns was slowly drowned in the dash of the
hungry leaping waves. My heart swelled within me, my eyes seemed bursting
from my head with the intensity of my gaze, and great tears, I knew not
why, rolled slowly down my face.
A woman's voice close to me, gentle yet of deeper tone than most, woke me
from my trance.
"You seem to be deeply interested in that picture?"
I looked round, yet not at the speaker. My eyes before they could meet
hers, were caught by an apparition the most beautiful I had ever yet
beheld. And what--what--have I seen equal to her since? Strange, that I
should love to talk of her. Strange, that I fret at myself now because
I cannot set down on paper line by line, and hue by hue, that wonderful
loveliness of which--. But no matter. Had I but such an imagination as
Petrarch, or rather, perhaps, had I his deliberate cold self-consciousness,
what volumes of similes and conceits I might pour out, connecting that
peerless face and figure with all lovely things which heaven and earth
contain. As it is, because I cannot say all, I will say nothing, but repeat
to the end again and again, Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beyond all
statue, picture, or poet's dream. Seventeen--slight but rounded, a
masque and features delicate and regular, as if fresh from the chisel of
Praxiteles--I must try to describe after all, you see--a skin of alabaster
(privet-flowers, Horace and Ariosto would have said, more true to Nature),
stained with the faintest flush; auburn hair, with that peculiar crisped
wave seen in the old Italian pictures, and the warm, dark hazel eyes which
so often accompany it; lips like a thread of vermillion, somewhat too thin,
perhaps--but I thought little of that then; with such perfect finish and
grace in every line and hue of her features and her dress, down to the
little fingers and nails, which showed through her thin gloves, that she
seemed to my fancy fresh from the innermost chamber of some enchanted
palace, "where no air of heaven could visit her cheek too roughly." I
dropped my eyes quite dazzled. The question was repeated by a lady
who stood with her, whose face I remarked then--as I did to the last,
alas!--too little; dazzled at the first by outward beauty, perhaps because
so utterly unaccustomed to it.
"It is indeed a wonderful picture," I said, timidly. "May I ask what is the
subject of it?"
"Oh! don't you know?" said the young beauty, with a smile that thrilled
through me. "It is St. Sebastian."
"I--I am very much ashamed," I answered, colouring up, "but I do not know
who St. Sebastian was. Was he a Popish saint?"
A tall, stately old man, who stood with the two ladies, laughed kindly.
"No, not till they made him one against his will; and at the same time, by
putting him into the mill which grinds old folks young again, converted him
from a grizzled old Roman tribune into the young Apollo of Popery."
"You will puzzle your hearer, my dear uncle," said the same deep-toned
woman's voice which had first spoken to me. "As you volunteered the saint's
name, Lillian, you shall also tell his history."
Simply and shortly, with just feeling enough to send through me a fresh
thrill of delighted interest, without trenching the least on the most
stately reserve, she told me the well known history of the saint's
martyrdom.
If I seem minute in my description, let those who read my story remember
that such courteous dignity, however natural, I am bound to believe, it
is to them, was to me an utterly new excellence in human nature. All my
mother's Spartan nobleness of manner seemed unexpectedly combined with all
my little sister's careless ease.
"What a beautiful poem the story would make!" said I, as soon as I
recovered my thoughts.
"Well spoken, young man," answered the old gentleman. "Let us hope that
your seeing a subject for a good poem will be the first step towards your
writing one."
As he spoke, he bent on me two clear grey eyes, full of kindliness, mingled
with practised discernment. I saw that he was evidently a clergyman; but
what his tight silk stockings and peculiar hat denoted I did not know.
There was about him the air of a man accustomed equally to thought, to men,
and to power. And I remarked somewhat maliciously, that my cousin, who had
strutted up towards us on seeing me talking to two ladies, the instant
he caught sight of those black silk stockings and that strange hat,
fell suddenly in countenance, and sidling off somewhat meekly into the
background, became absorbed in the examination of a Holy Family.
I answered something humbly, I forget what, which led to a conversation.
They questioned me as to my name, my mother, my business, my studies; while
I revelled in the delight of stolen glances at my new-found Venus Victrix,
who was as forward as any of them in her questions and her interest.
Perhaps she enjoyed, at least she could not help seeing, the admiration
for herself which I took no pains to conceal. At last the old man cut the
conversation short by a quiet "Good morning, sir," which astonished me. I
had never heard words whose tone was so courteous and yet so chillingly
peremptory. As they turned away, he repeated to himself once or twice,
as if to fix them in his mind, my name and my master's, and awoke in me,
perhaps too thoughtlessly, a tumult of vain hopes. Once and again the
beauty and her companion looked back towards me, and seemed talking of
me, and my face was burning scarlet, when my cousin swung up in his hard,
off-hand way.
"By Jove, Alton, my boy! you're a knowing fellow. I congratulate you! At
your years, indeed! to rise a dean and two beauties at the first throw, and
hook them fast!"
"A dean!" I said, in some trepidation.
"Ay, a live dean--didn't you see the cloven foot sticking out from under
his shoe-buckle? What news for your mother! What will the ghosts of your
grandfathers to the seventh generation say to this, Alton? Colloquing in
Pagan picture galleries with shovel-hatted Philistines! And that's not the
worst, Alton," he ran on. "Those daughters of Moab--those daughters of
Moab--."
"Hold your tongue," I said, almost crying with vexation.
"Look there, if you want to save your good temper. There, she is looking
back again--not at poor me, though. What a lovely girl she is!--and a real
lady--_l'air noble_--the real genuine grit, as Sam Slick says, and no
mistake. By Jove, what a face! what hands! what feet! what a figure--in
spite of crinolines and all abominations! And didn't she know it? And
didn't she know that you knew it too?" And he ran on descanting coarsely on
beauties which I dared not even have profaned by naming, in a way that made
me, I knew not why, mad with jealousy and indignation. She seemed mine
alone in all the world. What right had any other human being, above all,
he, to dare to mention her? I turned again to my St. Sebastian. That
movement only brought on me a fresh volley of banter.
"Oh, that's the dodge, is it, to catch intellectual fine ladies?--to fall
into an ecstatic attitude before a picture--But then we must have Alton's
genius, you know, to find out which the fine pictures are. I must read up
that subject, by-the-by. It might be a paying one among the dons. For
the present, here goes in for an attitude. Will this do, Alton?" And he
arranged himself admiringly before the picture in an attitude so absurd and
yet so graceful, that I did not know whether to laugh at him or hate him.
"At all events," he added, dryly, "it will be as good as playing the
Evangelical at Carus's tea-parties, or taking the sacrament regularly for
fear one's testimonials should be refused." And then he looked at me, and
through me, in his intense, confident way, to see that his hasty words had
not injured him with me. He used to meet one's eye as boldly as any man I
ever saw; but it was not the simple gaze of honesty and innocence, but an
imperious, searching look, as if defying scrutiny. His was a true mesmeric
eye, if ever there was one. No wonder it worked the miracles it did.
"Come along," he said, suddenly seizing my arm. "Don't you see they're
leaving? Out of the gallery after them, and get a good look at the carriage
and the arms upon it. I saw one standing there as we came in. It may pay
us--you, that is--to know it again."
We went out, I holding him back, I knew not why, and arrived at the outer
gate just in time to see them enter the carriage and drive off. I gazed to
the last, but did not stir.
"Good boy," he said, "knowing still. If you had bowed, or showed the least
sign of recognition, you would have broken the spell."
But I hardly heard what he said, and stood gazing stupidly after the
carriage as it disappeared. I did not know then what had happened to me. I
know now, alas! too well.