Chapter 41

A writer in the _Literary World_, in some admirable remarks upon this story, is, as far as I know, the only critic who has dwelt upon the extraordinary character of 'Philip Aylwin.' He says:

'The melancholy, the spiritual isolation, and the passionate love of this master-mystic for his dead wife are so finely rendered that the reader's sympathies go out at once to this most pathetic and lonely figure....It would be difficult for any sensitive man or woman to follow Philip Aylwin's story as related by his son without the tribute of aching heart and scalding tears. To our thinking, the man's sanity is more moving, more supremely tragic, than even the madness of Winifred, which is the culminating tragedy of the book.'

I must say that I agree with this writer in thinking 'Philip Aylwin' to be the most impressive character in the story. The most remarkable feature of the novel, indeed, is that, although 'Philip Aylwin' disappears from the scene so early, his opinions, his character, and his dreams are cast so entirely over the book from beginning to end that the novel might have been called _Philip Aylwin_. I have a special interest in this character, because I knew the undoubted original of the character with a considerable amount of intimacy. Without the permission of the author of _Aylwin_, I can only touch on outward traits--the deep, spiritual life of this man is beyond me. Although a very near relation, he was not, as has been so often surmised, the author's father. [Footnote] He was a man of extraordinary learning in the academic sense of the word, and possessed still more extraordinary general knowledge. He lived for many years the strangest kind of hermit life, surrounded by his books and old manuscripts. His two great passions were philology and occultism. He knew more, I think, of those strange writers discussed in Vaughan's _Hours with the Mystics_ than any other person--including, perhaps, Vaughan himself; but he managed to combine with his love of Mysticism a deep passion for the physical sciences, especially astronomy. He seemed to be learning languages up to almost the last year of his life. His method of learning languages was the opposite of that of George Borrow, that is to say, he made great use of grammars; and when he died it is said that from four to five hundred treatises on grammar were found among his books. He used to express great contempt for Borrow's method of learning languages from dictionaries only.

[Footnote: He was Mr. Watts-Dunton's uncle--Mr. James Orlando Watts.]

I do not think that any one connected with literature--with the exception of Mr. Watts-Dunton, Mr. Swinburne, my father, and Dr. R. G. Latham--knew so much of him as I did. His personal appearance was exactly like that of 'Philip Aylwin,' as described in the novel. Although he never wrote poetry, he translated, I believe, a good deal from the Spanish and Portuguese poets. I remember that he was an extraordinary admirer of Shelley. His knowledge of Shakespeare and the Elizabethan dramatists was a link between him and Mr. Swinburne.

At a time when I was a busy reader at the British Museum Reading-Room, I used frequently to see him, and he never seemed to know any one among the readers except myself, and whenever he spoke to me it was always in a hushed whisper, lest he should disturb the other readers, which in his eyes would have been a heinous offence. For very many years he had been extremely well known to the second-hand booksellers, for he was a constant purchaser of their wares. He was a great pedestrian, and, being very much attached to the north of London, would take long, slow tramps ten miles out in the direction of Highgate, Wood Green, etc. I have a very distinct recollection of calling upon him in Myddelton Square at the time when I was living close to him in Percy Circus. Books were piled up from floor to ceiling, apparently in great confusion, but he seemed to remember where to find every book and what there was in it. It is a singular fact that the only person outside those I have mentioned who seems to have known him was that brilliant but eccentric journalist, Thomas Purnell, who had an immense opinion of him and used to call him 'the scholar.' How Purnell managed to break through the icy wall that surrounded the recluse always puzzled me; but I suppose they must have come across one another at one of those pleasant inns in the north of London where 'the scholar' was taking his chop and bottle of Beaune. He was a man that never made new friends, and as one after another of his old friends died he was left so entirely alone that, I think, he saw no one except Mr. Swinburne, the author of _Aylwin_, and myself. But at Christmas he always spent a week at 'The Pines,' when and where my father and I used to meet him. His memory was so powerful that he seemed to be able to recall not only all that he had read, but the very conversations in which he had taken a part. He died, I think, at a little over eighty, and his faculties up to the last were exactly like those of a man in the prime of life. He always reminded me of Charles Lamb's description of George Dyer.

Such is my outside picture of this extraordinary man; and it is only of externals that I am free to speak here, even if I were competent to touch upon his inner life. He was a still greater recluse than the 'Philip Aylwin' of the novel. I think I am right in saying that he took up one or two Oriental tongues when he was seventy years of age. Another of his passions was numismatics, and it was in these studies that he sympathized with the author of _Aylwin's_ friend, the late Lord de Tabley. I remember one story of his peculiarities which will give an idea of the kind of man he was. He had a brother who was the exact opposite of him in every way--strikingly good-looking, with great charm of mariner and _savoir faire_, but with an ordinary intellect and a very superficial knowledge of literature, or, indeed, anything else, except records of British military and naval exploits--where he was really learned. Being full of admiration of his student brother, and having a parrot-like instinct for mimicry, he used to talk with great volubility upon all kinds of subjects wherever he went, and repeat in the same words what he had been listening to from his brother, until at last he got to be called the 'walking encyclopedia.' The result was that he got the reputation of being a great reader and an original thinker, while the true student and book-lover was frequently complimented on the way in which he took after his learned brother. This did not in the least annoy the real student, it simply amused him, and he would give with a dry humour most amusing stories as to what people had said to him on this subject.

THOMAS ST. E. HAKE.

The editor of _Notes and Queries_ has the following footnote:

'We hail some acquaintance with the being Mr. Hake depicts (Mr. James Orlando Watts) and can testify to the truth of the portraiture.'