Part 7

My friend Charles Kingsley was a very different man. He was a strong man, while Froude had some feminine weaknesses, but also some of the best feminine excellencies. His life and his character are well known from that excellent biography published by his gifted widow, not much more than a year after his death. This Life of hers really gave a new life to him, and secured a new popularity and influence to his writings. In him, too, what I admired besides his delightful character was his poetical power, his brilliant yet minute and accurate descriptions of nature, and the characters he created in his novels. With all the biographies that are now published, how little do people know after all of the man they are asked to love or hate! In order to judge of a man, we ought to know in what quarry the marble of which he was made was carved, what sunshine there was to call forth the first germs of his mind, nay, even whether he was rich or poor, whether he had what we rightly call an independence, and whether from his youth he was and felt himself a free man. There is something in the character of a man like Stanley, for instance, which we have no right to expect in a man who had to struggle in life like Kingsley. The struggle for life may bring out many fine qualities, but it cannot but leave traces of the struggle, a certain amount of self-assertion, a love of warfare, and a more or less pronounced satisfaction at having carried the day against all rivals and opponents. These are the temptations of a poor man which do not exist for a man of independent means. It is no use shutting our eyes to this. Every fight entails blows, and wounds, and scars, and some of them remain for life. Kingsley seems to have had no anxieties as a young man at school or at the University, but when he had left the University and become a curate, and, more particularly, when he had married on his small curacy and there were children, his struggles began in good earnest. He had often to write against time; he had to get up subject after subject in order to be able to write an article, simply that he might be able to satisfy the most troublesome tradesmen. He always wrote at very high pressure; fortunately his physical frame was of iron, and his determination like that of a runaway horse. People may say that he had the usual income of a country clergyman, but why will they forget that a man in Kingsley’s position had not only to give his children an expensive education, but had to keep open house for his numerous friends and admirers? There was no display in his quiet rectory at Eversley, but even the simplest hospitality entails more expense than a small living can bear, and his friends and visitors ranged from the lowest to the highest—from poor workmen to English and foreign royalties. As long as he could wield his pen he could procure the necessary supplies, but it had to be done with a very great strain on the brain. “It must be done, and it shall be done,” he said; yes, but though most of his work was done, and well done, it was like the work of an athlete who breaks down at the end of the day when his victory is won. People did not see it and did not know it, for he never would yield, and never would show signs of yielding. When, towards the end of his life, a canonry was offered him, first at Chester, then at Westminster, he felt truly grateful. “After all,” he said to me, “these stalls are good for old horses.” His professorship at Cambridge was really too much for him. He was not prepared for it. Personally he did much good among the young men, and was certainly most popular. At Cambridge as a professor he did his best, but he had hardly calculated _Quid valeant humeri, quid ferre recusent_. Anyhow, the work soon became too much even for his iron constitution, and he was glad to be relieved. The fact is that Kingsley was all his life, in everything he thought and in everything he did, a poet, a man of high ideals, and likewise of unswerving honesty. No one knew Kingsley, such as he really was, who had not seen him at Eversley, and among his poor people. He visited every cottage, he knew every old man and old woman, and was perfectly at home among them. His “Village Sermons” gave them just the food they wanted, though it was curious to see every Sunday a large sprinkling of young officers from Sandhurst and Aldershot sitting quietly among the smock-frocked congregation, and anxious to have some serious conversation with the preacher afterwards. Kingsley was a great martyr to stammering, it often was torture to him in a lively conversation to keep us all waiting till his thoughts could break through again. In church, however, whether he was reading or speaking extempore, there was no sign of stammering; apparently there was no effort to overcome it. But when we walked home from church he would say: “Oh, let me stammer now, you won’t mind it.”

He was not a learned theologian, his one idea of Christianity was practical Christianity, honesty, purity, love. He was always most courteous, most willing to bow before higher authority or greater learning; but when he thought there was anything wrong, or mean, or cowardly, anything with which he, as an honest man, could not agree, he was as firm as a rock.

His favourite pursuits lay in natural science. He knew every flower, every bird, every fish, and every insect in his neighbourhood, and he had imbibed a belief in the laws of nature, which represented to him indirectly the thoughts of God. When, therefore, after a long continuance of drought, the bishop of his diocese ordered him to have a special prayer for rain, he respectfully and firmly declined. He would pray for the good gifts of heaven, offer thanks to God for all that He was pleased to send in His wisdom, but he would not enter into particulars with Him, he would not put his own small human wisdom against the Divine wisdom; he would not preach on what he thought was good for us, for God knew best. He had no difficulty in persuading his farmers and labourers that if they had any trust in God, and any reverence for the Divine wisdom that rules the world, they would place all their troubles and cares before Him in prayer, but they would not beg for anything which, in His wisdom, He withheld from them. “Thy will be done,” that was his prayer for rain. There was great commotion in ecclesiastical dovecotes, most of all in episcopal palaces. All sorts of punishments were threatened, but Kingsley remained throughout perfectly quiet, yet most determined. He would not degrade his sacred office to that of a rain-maker or medicine-man, and he carried his point. “In America we manage these things better!” said an American friend of Kingsley. “A clergyman in a village on the frontier between two of our States prayed for rain. The rain came, and it soaked the ground to such an extent that the young lambs in the neighbouring State caught cold and died. An action was brought against the clergyman for the mischief he had done, and he and his parishioners were condemned to pay damages to the sheep farmers. They never prayed for rain again after that.”

Kingsley incurred great displeasure by the support he gave to what was called Christian Socialism. His novel “Alton Locke,” contained some very outspoken sentiments as to the terrible sufferings of the poor and the duties of the rich. Kingsley, Frederick Maurice, and their friends, did not only plead, but they acted; they formed societies to assist poor tailors, and for a time the clothes they wore showed but too clearly that they had been cut in Whitechapel, not in Regent Street. Poor Kingsley suffered not only in his wardrobe, but in his purse also, owing to his having been too sanguine in his support of tailoring by co-operation.

However, his books, both in prose and poetry, became more and more popular, and this meant that his income became larger and larger.

Publishers say that novels and sermons have the largest market in England and the colonies, and Kingsley provided both. All went on well: even his being stopped once in the middle of a sermon by a clergyman who had invited him to preach in his church in London, but did not approve of his sermon, did not hurt him. He had many influential friends; both the Queen and the Prince of Wales had shown by special marks of favour how much they appreciated him, and he had a right to look forward to ecclesiastical preferment and to a greater amount of leisure and freedom. One unexpected cloud, however, came to darken his bright and happy life. Some people will say that he brought it upon himself, but there are certain clouds which no honest man can help bringing upon himself. He, no doubt, began the painful controversy with Newman. Having seen how much misery had been caused among some of his own dearest friends by the Romanising teaching under the auspices of Newman and Pusey, he made the mistake of fastening the charge of dishonesty, half-heartedness, and untruthfulness on Newman personally, instead of on the whole Roman Catholic propaganda in England from the time of Henry VIII.’s apostasy from the Roman Church to that of Newman’s apostasy from the Church of England. I shall not enter into this controversy again. I have done so once, and have been well punished for having ventured to declare my honest conviction that throughout this painful duel Kingsley was in the right. But Kingsley was clumsy and Newman most skilful. Besides, Newman was evidently a man of many friends, and of many able friends who knew how to wield their pens in many a newspaper.

In spite of having taken a most unpopular step in leaving the national church, Newman always retained the popularity which he had so well earned as a member of that Church. I have myself been one of his true admirers, partly from having known many of his intimate friends at Oxford, partly from having studied his earlier works when I first came to England. I read them more for their style than for their contents. If Newman had left behind him no more than his exquisite University sermons and his sweet hymns he would always have stood high among the glories of England. But Kingsley also was loved by the people and surrounded by numerous and powerful friends. It must be due to my ignorance of the national character, but I have certainly never been able to explain why public sympathy went so entirely with Newman and against Kingsley; why Kingsley was supposed to have acted unchivalrously and Newman was looked upon as a martyr to his convictions, and as the victim of an illiberal and narrow-minded Anglican clique. Certain it is that in the opinion of the majority Kingsley had failed, and failed ignominiously, while Newman’s popularity revived and became greater than ever.

Kingsley felt his defeat most deeply; he was like a man that stammered, and could not utter at the right time the right word that was in his mind. What is still more surprising was the sudden collapse of the sale of Kingsley’s most popular books. I saw him after he had been with his publishers to make arrangements for the sale of his copyrights. He wanted the money to start his sons, and he had a right to expect a substantial sum. The sum offered him seemed almost an insult, and yet he assured me that he had seen the books of his publishers, and that the sale of his books during the last years did not justify a larger offer. He was miserable about it, as well he might be. He felt not only the pecuniary loss, but, as he imagined, the loss of that influence which he had gained by years of hard labour.

However, he was mistaken in his idea that he had laboured in vain. Immediately after his death there came the most extraordinary reaction. His books sold again in hundreds of thousands, and his family received in one year a great deal more from his royalties than had been offered him for the whole copyright of all his books. People are more willing now to admit that though Newman may have been right in his “Apologia pro Vita Sua,” Kingsley was not wrong in pointing out the weak points in Newman’s character and in the moral and political doctrines of the Roman Catholic system, more particularly of the Jesuits, and the dangers that threatened his beloved England from those who seemed halting between the two Churches, the one national, the other foreign, the one reformed, the other unreformed.

There was another occasion when Newman’s and Kingsley’s friends had a sharp conflict at Oxford. When the Prince of Wales was invited to Oxford to receive his honorary degree of D.C.L., he had, as was the custom, sent to the Chancellor a list of names of his friends on whom he wished that the same degree should be conferred at the same time. One of them was Kingsley, then one of his chaplains. When his name was proposed a strong protest was made by Dr. Pusey and his friends, no one could understand why. Dr. Pusey declared distinctly that he did not mean to contest Kingsley’s orthodoxy, but when asked at last to give his reasons, he declared that Kingsley’s “Hypatia” was an immoral book. This was too much for Dr. Stanley, who challenged Pusey to produce one single passage in “Hypatia” which could be called immoral. On such conditions Shakespeare could never have received an honorary degree from the University of Oxford. I still possess the copy of “Hypatia” which Stanley examined, marking every passage that could possibly be called immoral. It need hardly be said that there was none. Still Dr. Pusey threatened to veto the degree in Convocation and to summon his friends from the country to support him. And what could have been done to prevent an unseemly scandal on such an occasion as a royal visit to Oxford? Dr. Stanley and his friends yielded, and Kingsley’s name was struck out from the Prince’s list, and, what was still worse, it was never placed again on the list of honorary doctors such as might really have reflected honour on the University. If ever the secret history of the degrees conferred _honoris causa_ by the University of Oxford on truly eminent persons, not members of the University, comes to be written, the rejection of Kingsley’s name will not be one of the least interesting chapters.

Kingsley’s death was a severe blow to his country, and his friends knew that his life might have been prolonged. It was a sad time I spent with him at Eversley, while his wife lay sick and the doctors gave no hope of her recovery. He himself also was very ill at the time, but a doctor whom the Queen had sent to Eversley told him that with proper care there was no danger for him, that he had the lungs of a horse, but that he required great care. In spite of that warning he would get up and go into the sick-room of his wife, which had to be kept at an icy temperature. He caught cold and died, being fully convinced that his wife had gone before him. And what a funeral it was! But with all the honour that was paid to him, all who walked back to the empty rectory felt that life henceforth was poorer, and that the sun of England would never be so bright or so cheerful again, now that he was gone. Though I admired—as who did not?—his poetical power, his brilliant yet most minute and accurate descriptions of nature, and the lifelike characters he had created in his novels, what we loved most in him was his presence, his delightful stammer, his downright honesty, and the perfect transparency of his moral nature. He was not a child, he was a man, but unspoiled by the struggles of his youth, unspoiled by the experiences of his later years. He was an English gentleman, a perfect specimen of noble English manhood.

Having been particularly attached to his young niece, my wife, he had at once allowed me a share in his affections, and when other members of her family shook their heads, he stood by me and bade me be of good cheer till the day was won, and she became my wife. That was in 1859. Here are some verses he had addressed to his two nieces, to my wife and to her sister, afterwards Mrs. Theodore Walrond (died 1872):—

TO G***.

A hasty jest I once let fall— As jests are wont to be, untrue— As if the sum of joy to you Were hunt and picnic, rout and ball.

Your eyes met mine: I did not blame; You saw it: but I touched too near Some noble nerve; a silent tear Spoke soft reproach and lofty shame.

I do not wish those words unsaid. Unspoilt by praise or pleasure, you In that one look to woman grew, While with a child, I thought, I played.

Next to mine own beloved so long! I have not spent my heart in vain. I watched the blade; I see the grain; A woman’s soul, most soft, yet strong.

A FAREWELL.

My fairest child, I have no song to give you; No lark could pipe to skies so dull and grey: Yet, ere we part, one lesson I can leave you For every day.

Be good, sweet maid, and let who will be clever. Do noble things, not dream them, all day long: And so make life, death, and that vast for ever One grand sweet song.

In the original, as written down in her album, there is a third verse between the two:—

I’ll tell you how to sing a clearer carol Than lark who hails the dawn on breezy down, To earn yourself a purer poet’s laurel Than Shakespeare’s crown.

LITERARY RECOLLECTIONS III

Knowing both Kingsley and Froude very intimately, I soon came to know many of their friends, though my residence at Oxford kept me clear from the vortex of literary society in London. In some respects I regretted it, but in others I found it a great blessing. It requires not only mental, but considerable physical strength to stand the wear and tear of London life, and I confess I never could understand how some of my friends, Browning, Tyndall, Huxley, M. Arnold, and others, could manage to do any serious work, and at the same time serve the Moloch of Society to whom so many men and women in London offer themselves and their children as willing sacrifices year after year. They had not only to dine out and lose their evenings, but wherever they went they had to shine, they had often to make speeches, long speeches, at public dinners, they came home tired and slept badly, and in the morning they were interrupted again by letters, by newspapers, by calls, then by meetings and committees, by the inevitable leaving of cards, and, lastly, there was with many of them their official work. Society is a voracious animal, and has deprived the world of much that can only be the outcome of quiet hours, of continuous thought, and of uninterrupted labour. These men must have had not only the brain, but the physical constitution also of giants, to survive this constant social worry.

A quiet dinner with a few friends is pleasant enough, and a certain amount of social friction may even be useful in keeping us from rusting; nay, a casual collision with a kindred spirit may sometimes call forth sparks which can be turned into light and heat. But to dress, to drive a few miles, then to be set down, possibly, between two strangers who have little to say and much to ask, and who, if ill-luck will have it, may not even be beautiful or charming, is a torture to which men like Browning and M. Arnold ought never to have submitted. An afternoon tea is a far more rational amusement, because people are not kept chained for two hours to one chair and two neighbours, but can move about and pick out some of their friends whom they really wish to talk to. Even a luncheon is more bearable, for it does not last so long, and one may find a chance of talking to one’s friends. But dinners are tortures, survivals of the dark ages for which there is no longer any excuse, and I believe that more people, and good people too, have fallen victims to dinners, public or private, than have broken their necks in the hunting field.

I had hoped at one time that the æsthetic phase through which English society was passing, would have put an end to, or would at least have modified, these social gobblings. Surely it is a most unbeautiful sight to see a number of people, young and old, with or without teeth, filling their mouths with mutton or beef, chewing, denticating, masticating their morsels, and then washing them down with wine or water. No doubt it can be done inoffensively, or even daintily, but is it? Eastern ladies know how to throw small morsels of food into their open mouths with their fingers, and Eastern poets describe this performance with rapture. Chinese poets become eloquent even over chop-sticks as handled by their fair ones. But for all that, the Hindus seem to me to show their good taste by retiring while they feed, and reappearing only after they have washed their hands and face. Why should we be so anxious to perform this no doubt necessary function before the eyes of our friends? How often have I seen a beautiful face distorted by the action of the jaw-bones, the temples forced out, and the cheeks distended by obstinate morsels. Could not at least the grosser part of feeding be performed in private, and the social gathering begin at the dessert, or, with men, at the wine, so as to have a real _Symposion_, not a _Symphagion_? But I am on dangerous ground, and shall broach no further heresies.

Life at Oxford has many advantages. Of course our London friends tell us that we are mere provincials, but that is a relative expression, and, anyhow, we enjoy life in peace. It is true we have not shaken off the regular society dinners altogether, but no one is offended if his friends tell him that they are too busy to dine out. And we still have our pleasant small dinners or luncheons of four, six, at the utmost eight people, when you can really see and enjoy your friends, and not only roast beef and port. In former years, when I first came to Oxford, it was different, but then the evil was chiefly confined to heads of colleges and halls, and there were even then exceptions, where you dined to meet a few friends, and not simply to lay in food.

One of my earliest dinners I remember at Oxford was to meet Thackeray. Thackeray was then writing “Esmond,” and a Mr. Stoddard—a fellow of St. John’s College—asked me to meet him at dinner. We were only four, and we were all very much awed by Thackeray’s presence, particularly I, not being able as yet to express myself freely in English. We sat silent for some time, no one ventured to make the first remark, the soup was over, and there was a fine John Doré on the table waiting to be splayed. We were hoping for some brilliant sally from Thackeray, but nothing came. At last Thackeray suddenly turned his large spectacled eyes on me and said: “Are you going to eat your own ancestor?” I stared, everybody else stared. At last we gave it up, and Thackeray, looking very grave and learned, said: “Surely you are the son of the Dorian Müller—the Müller who wrote that awfully learned book on the Dorians; and was not John Doré the ancestor of all the Dorians?” There was a general, “Oh, oh!” but the ice was broken, and no one after this horrible pun was afraid of saying anything. All I could tell Thackeray was that I was not the son of Otfried Müller, who wrote on the Dorians, but of Wilhelm Müller, the poet, who wrote “Die Homerische Vorschule,” and “Die Schöne Müllerin,” and as to John Doré being our ancestor, how could that be? The original John Doré, so I have been told, was _il Janitore_, that is, St. Peter, and had no wife, as some people will have it, or at least never acknowledged her in public, though he was kind to his mother-in-law. All this did not promise well, yet the rest of our little dinner party was very successful; it became noisy and even brilliant.