CHAPTER IX

THE GOOD SAMARITAN

‘Ask Fawcett’—The Ancient Mariners and the Diplomat—Christmas Exceedings—Fawcett as Host—A Bore foiled—The British Association.

But if no respecter of persons, Fawcett unfailingly took every opportunity to play the good Samaritan. Were a friend in trouble, this great rough comforter was the first at hand to help. If ill, he had probably from the beginning been sitting daily at the patient’s bedside, bringing good cheer, or aiding in the thousand and one ways which his understanding of suffering, through his own great suffering, had taught him. Nothing gave him greater joy than to help in this way.

He was sent for on one occasion by an old gentleman on his deathbed.

[Sidenote: ‘Ask Fawcett.’]

The invalid had shared some of his guest’s tastes, and before the interview ended the old man, instead of dedicating his last hours to spiritual things, became so cheered and animated by his blind friend that he called from his bed for his fishing-tackle and a bottle of his best port. This sudden convalescence so scandalised the family that the vitalising guest was not urged to call again. He was sure to give the heartiest, least morbid cheer, and revelled in his great privilege of service wherever it was needed, wherever he could enter. Moreover, his helpfulness was not spasmodic, it was continuous and unforgetting, and he was counted on as the most faithful and, in a homespun way, the most delicate of friends. It necessarily follows that he became a connecting link to a large circle of Cambridge friends. To the inquiry where any Cambridge man was, and how the fates were treating him, it was the usual thing to say, ‘Ask Fawcett.’ Whether the man had drifted away or had been wrecked financially, socially, or by bad health, the blind man always knew all about it, and had usually tried to set things right. He believed firmly in the need of ‘keeping his friendships in constant repair.’ He did not age prematurely and had the happy talent throughout life of seeing things from a youthful point of view. It was one of his principles to make friendships with younger men. Some of the most brilliant juniors found in him a warm and loyal comrade.

[Sidenote: The Ancient Mariners and the Diplomat.]

He joined a famous boat crew known as the Ancient Mariners, an entirely safe body of athletes not liable to over-exert itself. Fawcett’s rowing was as vigorous as it was erratic. He could not keep time with the others, so they wisely made him stroke.

The Ancient Mariners shockingly beguiled a trusting diplomat sent by Napoleon III. to study Cambridge sport. The young envoy had just arrived at Cambridge and was taking in with close scientific observation all its characteristics. He paused while passing through the Backs as the Ancient Mariners stroked by Fawcett, skying horribly as was his wont, hove into sight. Full of interest, the Frenchman studied their movements, and was surprised when the learned body of professors passed at their aged and intellectual appearance. He spoke to two undergraduates standing by. ‘_Pardon, messieurs_, is that the famous Cambridge crew?’ ‘Yes,’ solemnly responded one shameless youth. ‘But, monsieur, they are very old.’ ‘Oh yes,’ came the answer, ‘the strain in training makes them so.’ Pondering on this shocking fact, the Frenchman industriously made notes which were later digested by his compatriots. Unfortunately history has not given us his report to the Emperor on the Cambridge crew.

[Sidenote: Trinity Hall.]

[Sidenote: Christmas Festivities.]

Trinity Hall was founded in 1350 by the far-sighted Bishop Bateman. He had been greatly alarmed by the terrible black death, and wished to provide against a scarcity of lawyers. A more genial benefactor sought to leave a merrier bequest, and provided for an annual Christmas festivity, properly ushered in by chapel service and followed by a Latin oration—a eulogy on Civil Law. These Yule-Tide ‘exceedings,’ as they were gaily termed by the fellows, had a picturesque historic reputation, and are well described by Leslie Stephen, who enjoyed them to the full. He writes: ‘It was almost a religious ceremony. If we could not rival the luxury of a civic banquet, there was an impressive solemnity about the series of festivities which lasted some ten days at Christmas time. The college butler swelled with patriotic pride as he arranged the pyramid of plate—the quaint little enamelled cup bequeathed by our founder, which had, I think, a shadowy reputation for detecting poison; the statelier goblet given by Archbishop Parker, which made its rounds with due ceremony that we might drink “in piam memoriam fundatoris”; and the huge silver punchbowl, which represented Lord Chesterfield’s view of the kind of conviviality likely to be appreciated by the Fellows of his own period. The Master ... beamed hospitality from every feature as he presided at the table, prolonging the after-dinner sitting till the port and madeira had made the orthodox number of rounds.’

Fawcett loved these festivities, and rejoiced greatly when he could succeed in bringing his old friends back to Cambridge, where ‘midst the clatter of forty pair of knives and forks and the talk of forty guests his ringing volleys of laughter would assert their supremacy.’

A friend adds: ‘We used to argue whether Fawcett or one of his friends, whose lungs could emit a crow of superlative vigour, was capable of the most effective laughter; but if the single explosion of his rival was most startling no one could deny that Fawcett was superior in point of continuous and infectious hilarity.’

These Christmas functions would be accompanied by long expeditions, walking, riding, or when weather permitted, skating. Fawcett would never lose a chance of this last. A Cambridge companion has told that ‘as soon as it was even frosty, Fawcett wanted to go skating. Even if no one else risked it he was glad to open the season. Once early in the winter he insisted on skating on the river Cam at Cambridge. We took a boy with us. It was very rough. We skated below the lock, where there is a long space of river with a strong current. It wasn’t at all safe, and I was relieved when I was able to persuade Fawcett to come ashore. Scarcely had I succeeded when two undergraduates appeared on the river. “I don’t see why I can’t skate if they can!” said Fawcett. “They will be in the river in a minute,” I replied, and so one of them was, and the boy whom we had taken with us and I were forced to become life-savers.’

He always remembered to carry pennies in his pocket for the man to put on his skates, or oranges for the children.

[Sidenote: Fawcett as Host.]

In 1859 Fawcett, who had recently opened a correspondence with Mill, hospitably asked him to the college Christmasing, but the great economist did not come. At different times Fawcett had many guests, notably Cobden, who came to see Fawcett in the summer of 1864 and charmed the Dons by his delightful urbanity. The great agitator was himself glad to make the discovery that Dons abate their political prejudice to be hospitable. Professor Huxley was also gladly welcomed by Fawcett, besides other scientists, politicians, economists, and lawyers, famous in their time, and who if not immortals now at all events did their share to create that great epoch of betterment in the English world, the Victorian era.

Fawcett had now become a well-known figure, and suffered the usual consequences. His strategy in self-preservation is described by one friend thus:

[Sidenote: A Bore foiled.]

‘I was walking with him one day when he was stopped by the long conversation of a very uninteresting Professor. A few days later, when we were again walking, I told Fawcett of the approach of the same old bore. “How far off is he?” asked Fawcett. “About three hundred feet ... now about a hundred and fifty.” Fawcett’s pace kept quickening and quickening so that I could hardly keep up; when about twenty yards off his legs shot out like the huge pistons of an engine. I had to run to keep up with him. Like a flash of lightning we passed the Professor, Fawcett shouting as he sped furiously by, “How do you do, Professor? Very fine day. Good-bye”; and when the Professor in a few seconds was left a marvelling dot on the horizon, Fawcett turned to me and said, “He’s even slower than he looks!”’

Fawcett revelled in Cambridge society, and constantly compared it with London, to its great disadvantage. He felt that no continuity was possible in the talk of London drawing-rooms, and that an enormous amount of time was lost in unnecessary pioneering before one could discover a ground of common interest. At last when you were established comfortably on this ground, you were briskly whirled away to repeat the tragedy in some other circle. He had no patience with the early break-up of London dinner-parties, owing to the custom of moving on to other functions, and he staunchly refused to go to ‘At Homes.’

[Sidenote: Cambridge Society.]

In Cambridge life was so much simpler, men knew each other, so that no time was lost by preliminaries, and one could still have ‘talk such as Johnson enjoyed at the Turk’s Head.’ One had only to walk across a court to meet old friends, to strike at once into the vital things one cared about. Here serious subjects were considered seriously, and by men who were young enough to feel what they had to say and hope that their opinions would jog the old world a little from its hackneyed course.

Stephen tells us how at Christmas time he would rejoice with Fawcett in an early and conversational breakfast; then discuss the newspaper until luncheon; the long afternoon tramp and talk would end just in time to prepare for dinner, and after dinner more smoking and argument until the wee hours of the next day. What a triumphant test of friendship and fluency!

Much of the ability of Fawcett to entertain—and be entertained—from morning until past midnight was the result of his talent for accepting the small and trivial things of life as legitimate pabulum for talk. He would begin a morning’s conversation with, ‘What did you have for breakfast to-day?’

[Sidenote: Anecdotage.]

He had a surprising avidity for anecdotes, and loved to hear certain lengthy ones repeated numberless times. He would listen, his attention glued to these worn tales, and would beg with an infantile eagerness to have some hoary story retold which he had heard over and over for a quarter of a century. His friend, the late Master of Jesus College, had a rare genius for mimicry of voice and gesture. Fawcett revelled in his performances; he would be on the _qui vive_ with the delight of anticipation, and ‘as the well-known anecdote proceeded every muscle of his body would quiver with enjoyment and he would end with laughter-choked petitions for more.’

Though Fawcett possessed a remarkably strong and rugged mind, his training reflected the limitations of the Cambridge curriculum of his day, in which the development of brain fibre by mental gymnastics and keen competition was the chief object.

The undeniable charm which accompanies the type of mind which is attracted by mystery or the more subtle forms of the æsthetic was denied to Fawcett. Though his biographers may feel that he would have been more interesting if he had possessed these qualities, the frank acceptance of his limitations and the record of his achievement make a story of such heroism that it requires nothing more than what legitimately belongs to it.

The short-sighted put him down as a Philistine, an epithet well described as that name which a prig bestows on the rest of the species; but between Fawcett and a prig there was a natural lack of harmony. He appreciated good work wherever he found it. The novels of George Eliot, the Brontës, or Jane Austen were a great delight to him. _Esmond_ and _Vanity Fair_ were read to him several times over, and he would ask for certain sonorous passages from Milton or Burke.

[Sidenote: The British Association Meeting.]

In 1860 he visited Oxford, where the British Association was holding its meeting. He read a paper in which he had the hardihood to attack the caustic Whewell, assailing his preface to the works of Richard Jones. A large meeting gathered to witness the encounter. ‘Fawcett had learned by heart a sentence from Whewell’s preface. Whewell replied and repudiated the phrases quoted. Fawcett slowly and accurately repeated the words, which Whewell again disavowed. Then Fawcett called to his secretary to produce the volume in which the unlucky sentence had been marked. The Chairman read it out, when Fawcett’s quotation appeared to be perfectly correct. He thus gained an apparently conclusive triumph.’ ‘There were not a half-dozen people in the room,’ Fawcett observed afterwards, ‘who would have understood if I had got the best of the argument as to the inductive method; but they all heard the passage repeated distinctly three times.’ Though the younger man had unquestionably routed this senior, Whewell took his defeat magnanimously, and was from that time on excellent terms with his conqueror.