CHAPTER X

THE YOUNG ECONOMIST

Championing Darwin—Darwin at Downe—Salisbury Gossip—Meeting Mill—Fawcett for Lincoln and the Union—John Bright’s Dog—Chair of Political Economy.

[Sidenote: Championing Darwin.]

In consequence of that Oxford meeting Fawcett entered another arena. Bishop Wilberforce, representing the attitude of many not narrow-minded men, took that occasion to attack Darwin’s recently published _Origin of Species_. Fawcett, indignant at the theological onslaught on the new theories, published an article in _Macmillan’s Magazine_ in which he valiantly took up the gauntlet for Darwin.

Now, when evolution has become so much a part of our accepted and automatic thought, when we realise that science can in no way disprove religion, but if anything recommends it on a scientific basis, making the wonder of creation more real, it seems quaint to remember and difficult to appreciate that in Fawcett’s day the great evolutionist was hated as an iconoclast whose teachings would undermine religion, that Darwin was actually anathema to the orthodox and the pious minded.

Fawcett writes with his usual clearness, stating the true and logical position of Darwin’s theory; distinguishing carefully between a fruitful hypothesis and a scientific demonstration; exhibiting the general nature of the argument and the geological difficulty with great clearness, and taking some pains to prove that religion is in no danger from Darwinism. In any case, he says, ‘life must have been originally introduced by an act of creative will.’ He restated these arguments at the next year’s meeting of the British Association in Manchester. Although this controversy for his part went little further, it led to some correspondence with Darwin, from whose letters it is of interest to quote:

[Sidenote: A Letter from Darwin.]

MY DEAR MR. FAWCETT,—I wondered who had so kindly sent me the newspapers, which I was very glad to see; and now I have to thank you sincerely for allowing me to see your MS. It seems to me very good and sound; though I am certainly not an impartial judge. You will have done good service in calling the attention of scientific men to means and laws of philosophising. As far as I could judge by the papers your opponents were unworthy of you. How miserably A. talked of my reputation, as if that had anything to do with it.... How profoundly ignorant B. [who had said that Darwin should have published facts alone] must be of the very soul of observation! About thirty years ago there was much talk that geologists ought only to observe and not theorise; and I well remember some one saying that at this rate a man might as well go into a gravel-pit and count the pebbles and describe the colours. How odd it is that any one should not see that all observation must be for or against some view if it is to be of any service!

I have returned only lately from a two months’ visit to Torquay, which did my health at the time good; but I am one of those miserable creatures who are never comfortable for twenty-four hours; and it is clear to me that I ought to be exterminated. I have been rather idle of late, or, speaking more strictly, working at some miscellaneous papers, which, however, have some direct bearing on the subject of species; yet I feel guilty at having neglected my larger book. But, to me, observing is much better sport than writing. I fear that I shall have wearied you with this long note.

Pray believe that I feel sincerely grateful that you have taken up the cudgels in defence of the line of argument in the _Origin_; you will have benefited the subject.

Many are so fearful of speaking out. A German naturalist came here the other day, and he tells me that there are many in Germany on our side; but that all seem fearful of speaking out, and waiting for some one to speak, and then many will follow. The Naturalists seem as timid as young ladies should be, about their scientific reputation. There is much discussion on the subject on the Continent, even in quiet Holland, and I had a pamphlet from Moscow the other day by a man who sticks up famously for the imperfection of the ‘Geological Record’ but complains that I have sadly _understated_ the variability of the old fossilised animals! But I _must_ not run on. With sincere thanks and respect, pray believe me, yours very sincerely,

CHARLES DARWIN.

[Sidenote: Going to Darwin at Downe.]

Fawcett was a great admirer of Darwin, and the famous scientist had a whole-hearted admiration for him, and thought most highly of his work on political economy. While Fawcett was staying with Lord Avebury they started on the tree-shaded lane that leads uphill to Downe, where Darwin lived, but Fawcett sped much too fast for his host, who had taken his arm. The blind man said, ‘I don’t need you to lead me; if you just keep close enough to me to prevent my going into the hedges, I am all right!’ ‘But I don’t do it to guide you,’ replied Lord Avebury, ‘I do it to help myself, you walk so quickly.’ Fawcett was hugely amused, and the blind man continuing thus to lead the sighted, they arrived at Darwin’s, where they had a very merry time.

[Sidenote: At Salisbury.]

It was a great relaxation and joy for Fawcett when he was able to spend a few days with his beloved family at Salisbury. He often took his work with him, and was forced at times to deny himself to visitors. One morning when he was at work an old lady called who had been his sister’s schoolmistress. When, at luncheon, he heard that she had been there, and had asked for him, but that they had refused to interrupt him, he exclaimed, ‘Oh, why didn’t you call me for a friend?’ Although he knew the old lady but slightly, and she had no claims on him, he was not happy until he had called on her that same afternoon and told her how sorry he was not to have seen her.

[Sidenote: The Joy of Gossip.]

It is refreshing to find that he was devoted to gossip, and in the home circle at Salisbury he would often ask Mrs. Fawcett pleadingly, ‘Mother, can’t you go out to hook a little news for me?’ and the mother would sally forth in search of the latest village excitement. She had a talent, perhaps inherited by the son, of, to state it conservatively, making the very best of any anecdote; and when she returned to the picturesque stone cottage in the close, where she found her long son toasting himself before the fire in pleasant anticipation of a good dish of fresh gossip, great was their mutual satisfaction. Urged by him ‘to tell it all without interruptions,’ she would relate what she had absorbed with her neighbour’s tea. She knew well how to give the flowery rendering that delighted her son. As the story increased in picturesqueness and interest, Fawcett, who had been bending forward, his lips slightly parted in anticipation of coming smiles, would rock back and forth with sheer glee. As the narrator skilfully made each point he would shout joyously, ‘Bravo, mother! Bravo! go it, mother!’ He would never let any one else retail the village talk. She gave it so much more point.

He could also ‘hook news’ for himself, and had a favourite tale culled from a Salisbury gossip. An old dairyman who was a great friend of his announced one day that they had ‘a new, beautiful clergyman at Harnham.’ ‘What kind?’ asked Fawcett. ‘Oh, fine—he goes so terrible high and so terrible low!’

Though he retained his childlike curiosity, it is notable that he was absolutely free from ill-nature, and one of his intimates states that he never heard Fawcett say an ill-natured thing or intentionally spread a possibly mischievous rumour. Though he had a splendid contempt for certain weaknesses, he was always discreet, and tried his best to promote kindly feeling. His love of talk was so infective that it stimulated a flow in those who without him would have been reticent or silent.

[Sidenote: Meeting Mill.]

In Cambridge he used to be teased about his total lack of any embarrassment or shyness, but he would answer these sallies with, ‘If you could ever see me meeting Mill, you would see me awkward enough!’ The meeting took place, but not in the presence of these Cambridge cronies; and what happened was never known, as Fawcett kept this sacred mystery to himself.

In the letter, already mentioned, written to Mill in 1859, he says that he is ‘personally a stranger to you,’ and then alludes to ‘the very kind sympathy you have expressed to me,’ and continues:

[Sidenote: Correspon-dence with Mill.]

For the last three years your books have been the chief education of my mind; I consequently have entertained towards you such a sense of gratitude as I can only hope at all adequately to repay by doing what lies in my power to propagate the valuable truths contained in every page of your writing.

He certainly was a deeply attached pupil.

He writes later:

Pray accept my most sincere thanks for your letter; I cannot tell you how much I value your words of kind encouragement. Often when I reflect on my affliction, I feel that it is rash on my part to attempt anything like a career of public usefulness; and again and again, I am sure, my heart would fail me if it was not stimulated by your thoughts and teachings. I can therefore assure you that your kind words will remove many an obstacle to my course.

This allusion to his blindness and to the depressing effect that it had in making him doubt at times the practicability of his having a ‘career of public usefulness’ is as unusual for him as it is touching.

Even his iron will could not exclude the quiet moments when his disaster weighed on him with the force of its full burden, and he could not at all times banish a wistful expression which his friends grew to recognise when his face was not animated by talk or the stimulus of debate. It is even reproduced in some of the photographs, which show on his features the calm acceptance of a great tragedy.

Mill had not long lost the wife who had so radiantly coloured an otherwise grey existence, and doubtless the cordial admiration and the open-hearted friendship of the younger economist was very pleasant to him.

The pupil and master became great friends. Fawcett appreciated the gentle charm of the singular delicacy of feeling which he found under Mill’s austere and aloof nature. At the unveiling in 1878 of Mill’s statue, Fawcett said that Mill possessed qualities supposed to be the peculiar privileges of women, a gentleness and tenderness such as no woman could exceed. He revered his teacher so profoundly that it was sometimes thought that he was less generous in listening to the side of their common opponents.

In later years Professor Sidgwick, who ventured to find some flaws in the crystal, met with scant sympathy from Fawcett. Walking with a friend in Cambridge, Fawcett’s attention was called to the nearness of Professor Sidgwick, apparently deep in conversation. ‘Oh yes,’ said he, ‘there goes Sidgwick, carping on Mill.’

[Sidenote: American Civil War.]

While Fawcett was busying himself with the theory of economics in the quiet courts of Cambridge, its practice had given rise to a great conflagration in the Western Continent. The American Civil War raised many problems outside the country where it raged. England was considering where her sympathies lay. The Palmerstonian instinct to support a small state revolting against the possibly arbitrary insistence of a greater power gave one impulse in favour of the South; the grudging desire to see a large country split up gave another in the same direction. These were the feelings of the aristocracy and the press. But the Radicals and the common people had quite other thoughts. To them the great country in the West was the home and hope of freedom, and that [Sidenote: Lancashire Work People and Freedom.] it should strive to wipe itself free of the stain of slavery won the full sympathy of the freedom-loving people in the mother country. The working people of Lancashire stood by and starved that they might help America to be free.

In 1863 Leslie Stephen crossed the Atlantic. His letters to his mother were at his request all forwarded to Fawcett, who helped his friend by getting him letters of introduction.

Stephen writes, ‘The letter which Fawcett got me from Bright to Seward proved very useful. It brought Seward down completely. Bright’s name is (as Fawcett may tell him) a complete tower of strength in these parts. They all talked of him with extraordinary admiration.’ And again, ‘I also hear that old fox, Fawcett, with his customary low cunning, speaks complimentarily of my letters and suggests my writing a book on America.’

[Sidenote: Fawcett for Lincoln and the Union.]

Fawcett from the first was a strong Federalist, and both in public and in private spoke for the North. At Cambridge he was one of a small minority, and his rooms were the scene of many a battle for Lincoln and the Union.

We have already commented on the curious resemblance, both physical and mental, between the American and the Englishman. If we turn to the Trinity Hall picture of Fawcett, Leslie Stephen, and others, the blind man’s lofty top hat made in England suggests the similar hideous head-gear which was worn by the American President at his inauguration, and which was humbly held by his conquered adversary when the oath of office was taken by the victor. Fawcett is like Lincoln in his great wiry, lank length of six feet three inches or against the American six feet four inches; in their athletic force and power, as youths, they both threw their adversaries in wrestling bouts; their rusticity, simplicity, and felicity in ready speech; their unfailing love of fun and affection for small boys, animals, and all weak things in need of help. In their slight characteristics and in their great traits they had much in common; their sympathy, honesty, phenomenal patience and courage. They started on their careers with similar equipments—their great hearts and tremendous energies. They both, through vast suffering, found the road to a deep happiness, and with all their love and power they served their countries.

[Sidenote: Hooking John Bright’s property.]

Fawcett’s friendship for Bright has been referred to. It may not be out of place to repeat a favourite story Fawcett used to tell against himself of a fishing exploit in Bright’s company. They had had no luck, and Bright was walking ahead along the river bank when Fawcett called out exultantly, ‘Oh, Bright, I’ve got a big one!’ He pulled hard. Bright turned round and exclaimed, ‘Yes, indeed, you have caught your hook in the long hair of my dog,’ and went to the rescue of the mystified collie, who was trying to extricate himself from Fawcett’s vigorous fishing-line.

[Sidenote: Friendship with Macmillan.]

Largely at the instigation of his friend and future publisher, Macmillan, Fawcett began to write his first book on political economy in 1861. Alexander Macmillan was a great friend of Fawcett and of his circle. He often came to Fawcett’s rooms to ask him and to persuade him to contribute some articles to the early numbers of _Macmillan’s Magazine_.

It is possible that these two were drawn to each other by their great differences—Macmillan to Fawcett’s strong, dogged common sense, and Fawcett to that esoteric vein in his friend’s mentality. The following incident brings out strongly this contrast. Macmillan was popular with the graduates, who often spent interesting evenings at his house. One day he in turn was their guest in the Common Room. He held the floor in an extremely metaphysical conversation. Fawcett, who cared little for such talk and always said that philosophy ran off him like water off a duck’s back, showed scant interest in the proceedings. Macmillan became more and more introspective and transcendental, and finally exclaimed, ‘I often wonder, Fawcett, what I am here for,’ to which Fawcett cheerfully replied, ‘O Macmillan, we all know what you are here for—to bring out another edition of Hamblin Smith’s _Arithmetic_.’

[Sidenote: _Manual of Political Economy._]

[Sidenote: Candidate for the Chair of Political Economy.]

Fawcett’s _Manual of Political Economy_ appeared early in 1863, when he was in his thirtieth year. He regarded his book merely as an introduction to Mill’s larger work, which he said ‘will be remembered as one of the most enduring productions of the nineteenth century.’ The manual was very well received, and opened the way for Fawcett to succeed the then Professor of Political Economy, Professor Pryne, who was in failing health. On the death of this gentleman the choice for a successor lay among four candidates. The great ability of one of these, then Mr. Leonard H. Courtney, now Lord Courtney, was already recognised. As, however, residents were preferred to strangers, the real contest was reduced to the two local candidates, Fawcett and Mayor. Fawcett’s book was his chief asset in the struggle, and it, together with his discussion at the London Political Economy Club, of which he was a member, constituted the chief claims urged by his many influential friends throughout the country. They wrote the usual laudatory letters, but with perhaps more than the usual heartiness. Nevertheless, his blindness seemed a probable barrier to his ambition. Even one of his dearest friends refused to uphold his claims, feeling that a blind man could not properly fill the post, and there was much sincere doubt whether a man who could not see could keep order in his lecture-room. In addition to this, Fawcett’s frank Radicalism counted against him; he had already, as we shall see in a later chapter, twice been a candidate for Parliament in the Liberal interest, the last time in Cambridge itself.

Such was the reputation for extreme opinions Fawcett and Stephen had given by their connection with Trinity Hall, that a certain country squire of ancient lineage and Conservative principles hesitated whether he dared send his son to the college where his ancestors had gained their learning. He decided to visit Cambridge, and there interviewed Stephen and Fawcett. He told them with unfeigned horror of the serious charges of Radicalism against the college that made him afraid to entrust his son to its keeping. The grave fellows compared notes solemnly before answering the father, then Fawcett reassured him, saying that the rumours which he had heard had been much exaggerated, and though at one time ’some of us had been rather infected with extreme opinions, now we have greatly moderated our views, and shall be content simply with the Disestablishment of the Church and the abolition of the Throne.’ The immediate flight of the horrified squire can be imagined.

[Sidenote: Elected.]

Undismayed, however, Fawcett and his friends went to their electioneering with an astuteness and enthusiasm that vanquished all opposition, and on 28th November 1863 Fawcett was elected to the professorial chair. A jubilant letter was despatched by him to his mother the day after the election on 28th November 1863:

MY DEAR MOTHER,—I hope you duly received the telegram. The victory yesterday was a wonderful triumph. I don’t think an election has produced so much excitement in Cambridge for years. At last excitement was greatly increased by its being made quite a church and political question. All the Masters opposed me with two exceptions, but I was strongly supported by a great majority of the most distinguished resident Fellows. My victory was a great surprise to the University. I thought on the whole that I should win, but I expected a much smaller majority. Clarke however was very confident. He managed the election splendidly for me, and curiously predicted that I should poll exactly ninety votes, and made a bet with Stephen that I should beat Mayor by ten to twelve. We are going to publish a list of the votes, which I shall send to you. My great strength after all was in Trinity. This says much for the independence of the College, as the Master was one of my strongest opponents....

All my friends in town regard it as a great political triumph. The Forsters [who had supported him in the election at Cambridge] were in a wonderful state of delight, and I have been overwhelmed with congratulations. I must now conclude, as I have many more letters to write. Give my kindest love to Maria, and believe me to be, dear Mother, ever yours affectionately,

HENRY FAWCETT.

THE PROFESSOR

OF POLITICAL ECONOMY

'A man may see how this world goes with no eyes.'

SHAKESPEARE.

'He that hath light within his own dim breast May sit i' the centre, and enjoy bright day.'

MILTON.