Chapter 2

Having retired from the India House in 1858, Mr. Mill went to spend the winter in Avignon, in the hope of improving the broken health of the wife to whom he was devotedly attached. He had not been married many years, but Mrs. Mill, who was the widow of Mr. John Taylor, a London merchant, had been his friend since 1835, or even earlier. During more than twenty years he had been aided by her talents, and encouraged by her sympathy, in all the work he had undertaken, and to her rare merits he afterwards paid more than one tribute in terms that have no equal for the intensity of their language, and the depth of affection contained in them. Mrs. Mill's weak state of health seems to have hardly repressed her powers of intellect. By her was written the celebrated essay on "The Enfranchisement of Women" contributed to "The Westminster Review," and afterwards reprinted in the "Dissertations and Discussions," with a preface avowing, that by her Mr. Mill had been greatly assisted in all that he had written for some time previous. But the assistance was to end now. Mrs. Mill died at Avignon on the 3d of November, 1858, and over her grave was placed one of the most pathetic and eloquent epitaphs that have been ever penned. "Her great and loving heart, her noble soul, her clear, powerful, original, and comprehensive intellect," it was there written, "made her the guide and support, the instructor in wisdom, and the example in goodness, as she was the sole earthly delight, of those who had the happiness to belong to her. As earnest for all public good as she was generous and devoted to all who surrounded her, her influence has been felt in many of the greatest improvements of the age, and will be in those still to come. Were there even a few hearts and intellects like hers, this earth would already become the hoped-for heaven." Henceforth, during the fourteen years and a half that were to elapse before he should be laid in the same grave, Avignon was the chosen haunt of Mr. Mill.

Passing much of his time in the modest house that he had bought, that he might be within sight of his wife's tomb, Mr. Mill was also frequently in London, whither he came especially to facilitate the new course of philosophical and political writing on which he entered. He found relief also in excursions, one of which was taken nearly every year, in company with his step-daughter, Miss Helen Taylor, into various parts of Europe. Italy, Switzerland, and many other districts, were explored, partly on foot, with a keen eye both to the natural features of the localities, especially in furtherance of those botanical studies to which Mr. Mill now returned with the ardor of his youth, and also to their social and political institutions. Perhaps the longest and most eventful of these excursions was taken in 1862 to Greece. On this occasion it had been proposed that his old friend, Mr. Grote, should accompany him. "To go through those scenes, and especially to go through them in your company," wrote Mr. Grote in January, "would be to me pre-eminently delightful; but, alas! my physical condition altogether forbids it. I could not possibly stay away from London, without the greatest discomfort, for so long a period as two months. Still less could I endure the fatigue of horse and foot exercise which an excursion in Greece must inevitably entail." The journey occupied more than two months; but in the autumn Mr. Mill was at Avignon; and, returning to London in December, he spent Christmas week with Mr. Grote at his residence, Barrow Green,--Bentham's old house, and the one in which Mr. Mill had played himself when he was a child. "He is in good health and spirits," wrote Mr. Grote to Sir G.C. Lewis after that visit; "violent against the South in this American struggle; embracing heartily the extreme Abolitionist views, and thinking about little else in regard to the general question."

It was only to be expected that Mr. Mill would take much interest in the American civil war, and sympathize strongly with the Abolitionist party. His interest in politics had been keen, and his judgment on them had been remarkably sound all through life, as his early articles in "The Morning Chronicle" and "The London and Westminster Review," and his later contributions to various periodicals, helped to testify; but towards the close of his life the interest was perhaps keener, as the judgment was certainly more mellowed. It was not strange, therefore, that his admirers among the working classes, and the advanced radicals of all grades, should have urged him, and that, after some hesitation, he should have consented, to become a candidate for Westminster at the general election of 1865. That candidature will be long remembered as a notable example of the dignified way in which an honest man, and one who was as much a philosopher in practice as in theory, can do all that is needful, and avoid all that is unworthy, in an excited electioneering contest, and submit without injury to the insults of political opponents and of political time-servers professing to be of his own way of thinking. The result of the election was a far greater honor to the electors who chose him than to the representative whom they chose; though that honor was greatly tarnished by Mr. Mill's rejection when he offered himself for re-election three years later.

This is hardly the place in which to review at much length Mr. Mill's parliamentary career, though it may be briefly referred to in evidence of the great and almost unlooked-for ability with which he adapted himself to the requirements of a philosophical politician as distinct from a political philosopher. His first speech in the House of Commons, delivered very soon after its assembling, was on the occasion of the second reading of the Cattle Diseases Bill, on the 14th of February, 1866, when he supported Mr. Bright in his opposition to the proposals of Mr. Lowe for compensation to their owners for the slaughter of such animals as were diseased or likely to spread infection. His complaint against the bill was succinctly stated in two sentences, which fairly illustrated the method and basis of all his arguments upon current politics. "It compensates," he said, "a class for the results of a calamity which is borne by the whole community. In justice, the farmers who have not suffered ought to compensate those who have; but the bill does what it ought not to have done, and leaves undone what it ought to have done, by not equalizing the incidence of the burden upon that class, inasmuch as, from the operation of the local principle adopted, that portion of an agricultural community who have not suffered at all will not have to pay at all, and those who have suffered little will have to pay little; while those who have suffered most will have to pay a great deal." "An aristocracy," he added, in words that as truly indicate the way in which he subjected all matters of detail to the test of general principles of truth and expediency,--"an aristocracy should have the feelings of an aristocracy; and, inasmuch as they enjoy the highest honors and advantages, they ought to be willing to bear the first brunt of the inconveniences and evils which fall on the country generally. This is the ideal character of an aristocracy: it is the character with which all privileged classes are accustomed to credit themselves; though I am not aware of any aristocracy in history that has fulfilled those requirements."

That, and the later speeches that Mr. Mill delivered on the Cattle Diseases Bill, at once announced to the House of Commons and the public, if they needed any such announcement, the temper and spirit in which he was resolved to execute his legislative functions. The same spirit and temper appeared in the speech on the Habeas Corpus Suspension (Ireland) Bill, which he delivered on the 17th of February; but his full strength as a debater was first manifested during the discussion on Mr. Gladstone's Reform Bill of 1866, which was brought on for second reading on the 12th of April. His famous speech on that occasion, containing the most powerful arguments offered by any speaker in favor of the measure, and his shorter speech during its discussion on the 31st of May, need not here be recapitulated. They were only admirable developments in practical debate of those principles of political science which he had already enforced in his published works. The other leading topics handled by Mr. Mill during the session of 1866 were the expediency of reducing the National Debt, which he urged on the occasion of Mr. Neate's proposal on the 17th of April; the Tenure and Improvement of Land (Ireland) Bill, on which he spoke at length and with force on the 17th of May, then practically initiating the movement in favor of land-reform, which he partly helped to enforce in part with regard to Ireland, and for the more complete adoption of which in England he labored to the last; the Jamaica outbreak, and the conduct of Governor Eyre, on which he spoke on the 31st of July; and the electoral disabilities of women, which he first brought within the range of practical politics by moving, on the 20th of July, for a return of the numbers of householders, and others who, "fulfilling the conditions of property or rental prescribed by law as the qualification for the electoral franchise, are excluded from the franchise by reason of their sex."

In the session of 1867 Mr. Mill took a prominent part in the discussions on the Metropolitan Poor Bill; and he spoke on various other topics,--his introduction of the Women's Electoral Disabilities Removal Bill being in some respects the most notable: but his chief action was with reference to Mr. Disraeli's Reform Bill, several clauses of which he criticised and helped to alter in committee. Though he was as zealous as ever, however, in his attendance to public business, he made fewer great speeches, being content to set a wise example to other and less able men in only speaking when he felt it absolutely necessary to do so, and in generally performing merely the functions of a "silent member."

In 1868 he was, if not more active, somewhat more prominent. On March the 6th, on the occasion of Mr. Shaw-Lefevre's motion respecting the "Alabama Claims," he forcibly expressed his opinions as to the wrong done by England to the United States during the civil war, and the need of making adequate reparation; and on the 12th of the same month he spoke with equal boldness on Mr. Maguire's motion for a committee to inquire into the state of Ireland, repeating anew and enforcing the views he had lately put forward in his pamphlet on Ireland, and considerably aiding by anticipation the passage of Mr. Gladstone's two great measures of Irish Reform. He took an important part in the discussion of the Election Petitions and Corrupt Practices Bill; and among a great number of other measures on which he spoke was the Married Women's Property Bill of Mr. Shaw-Lefevre.

Soon after that the House of Commons was dissolved, and Mr. Mill's too brief parliamentary career came to an end. The episode, however, had to some extent helped to quicken his always keen interest in political affairs. This was proved, among other ways, by the publication of his pamphlet on "England and Ireland" in 1868, and of his treatise "On the Subjection of Women" in 1869, as well as by the especial interest which he continued to exhibit in two of the most important political movements of the day,--all the more important because they are yet almost in their infancy,--the one for the political enfranchisement of women, the other for a thorough reform of our system of land tenure. The latest proof of his zeal on the second of these important points appeared in the address which he delivered at Exeter Hall on the 18th of last March, and in two articles which he contributed to "The Examiner" at the commencement of the present year. We may be permitted to add that it was his intention to use some of the greater quiet that he expected to enjoy during his stay at Avignon in writing frequent articles on political affairs for publication in these columns. He died while his intellectual powers were as fresh as they had ever been, and when his political wisdom was only ripened by experience.

In this paper we purposely limit ourselves to a concise narrative of the leading events of Mr. Mill's life, and abstain as far as possible from any estimate of either the value or the extent of his work in philosophy, in economics, in politics, or in any other of the departments of thought and study to which, with such depth and breadth of mind, he applied himself; but it is impossible for us to lay down the pen without some slight reference, however inadequate it may be, to the nobility of his character, and the peculiar grace with which he exhibited it in all his dealings with his friends and with the whole community among whom he lived, and for whom he worked with the self-sacrificing zeal of an apostle. If to labor fearlessly and ceaselessly for the good of society, and with the completest self-abnegation that is consistent with healthy individuality, be the true form of religion, Mr. Mill exhibited such genuine and profound religion--so permeating his whole life, and so engrossing his every action--as can hardly be looked for in any other man of this generation. Great as were his intellectual qualities, they were dwarfed by his moral excellences. He did not, it is true, aim at any fanciful ideal, or adopt any fantastic shibboleths. He was only a utilitarian. He believed in no inspiration but that of experience. He had no other creed or dogma or gospel than Bentham's axiom,--"The greatest happiness of the greatest number." But many will think that herein was the chief of all his claims to the honor of all men, and the best evidence of his worth. At any rate, he set a notable example of the way in which a man, making the best use in his power of merely his own reason and the accumulated reason of those who have gone before him, wisely exercising the faculties of which he finds himself possessed, and seeking no guidance or support from invisible beacons and intangible props, may lead a blameless life, and be one of the greatest benefactors of his race. No one who had any personal knowledge of him could fail to discern the singular purity of his character; and to those who knew him best that purity was most apparent. He may have blundered and stumbled in his pursuit of truth; but it was part of his belief that stumbling and blundering are necessary means towards the finding of truth, and that honesty of purpose is the only indispensable requisite for the nearest approach towards truth of which each individual is capable. That belief rendered him as charitable towards others as he was modest concerning his own attainments. He never boasted; and he despised no one. The only things really hateful to him were arrogance and injustice, and for these he was, to say the least, as willing and eager to find excuse as could be the most devout utterer of the prayer, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." We had noted many instances, coming within our own very limited observation, of his remarkable, almost unparalleled magnanimity and generosity; but such details would here be almost out of place, and they who need such will doubtless before long receive much more convincing proof of his moral excellence.

We shall not here dilate on those minor qualities of mind and heart that made Mr. Mill's society so charming to all who were fortunate enough to have any share in it; and these, especially in recent years, were many. When the first burden of his grief at the loss of his wife had passed,--perhaps partly as a relief from the solitude, save for one devoted companion, that would otherwise have been now forced upon him,--he mixed more freely than he had done before in the society of all whose company could yield him any satisfaction or by whom his friendship was really valued. His genial and graceful bearing towards every one who came near him must be within the knowledge of very many who will read this column; and they will remember, besides his transparent nobility of character, and the genial ways in which it exhibited itself, certain intellectual qualities for which he was remarkable. We here refer, not to his higher abilities as a thinker, but to such powers of mind as displayed themselves in conversation. Without any pedantry,--without any sort of intentional notification to those with whom he conversed that he was the greatest logician, metaphysician, moralist, and economist of the day,--his speech was always, even on the most trivial subjects, so clear and incisive, that it at once betrayed the intellectual vigor of the speaker. Not less remarkable also than his uniform refinement of thought, and the deftness with which he at all times expressed it, were the grasp and keenness of his observation, and the strength of memory with which he stored up every thing he had ever seen, heard, or read. Nothing escaped his notice at the time of its occurrence: nothing was forgotten by him afterwards. His friends often found, to their astonishment, that he knew far more about any passages in their lives that he had been made aware of than they could themselves remember; and, whenever that disclosure was made to them, they must have been rejoiced to think, that this memory of his, instead of being, as it might well have been, a dangerous garner of severe judgments and fairly-grounded prejudices, was a magic mirror, in which their follies and foibles were hardly at all reflected, and only kindly reminiscences and generous sympathies found full expression.

But he is dead now. Although the great fruits of his life--a life in which mind and heart, in which senses and emotions, were singularly well balanced--are fruits that cannot die, all the tender ties of friendship, all the strictly personal qualities that so much aided his work as a teacher of the world, as the foremost leader of his generation in the search after truth and righteousness, are now snapped forever. Only four weeks ago he left London for a three-months' stay in Avignon. Two weeks ago he was in his customary health. On the 5th of May he was attacked by a virulent form of erysipelas. On the 8th he died. On the 10th he was buried in the grave to which he had, through fourteen years, looked forward as a pleasant resting-place, because during fourteen years there had been in it a vacant place beside the remains of the wife whom he so fondly loved.

H. R. FOX BOURNE.

II.

HIS CAREER IN THE INDIA HOUSE

I have undertaken to prepare a sketch of Mr. Mill's official career, but find, on inquiry, scarcely any thing to add to the few particulars on the subject which have already found their way into print. Of his early official associates, all have, with scarcely an exception, already passed away; and there is no one within reach to whom I can apply for assistance in verifying or correcting my own impressions. These are in substance the following.

In the few last decades of its existence, the East-India Company's establishment, in Leadenhall Street, consisted of three divisions,--the secretary's, military secretary's, and examiners' offices,--in the last of which most of the despatches and letters were composed which were afterwards signed by the directors or the secretary. Into this division, in the year 1821, the directors, perceiving an infusion of new blood to be very urgently required, introduced, as assistant examiners, four outsiders,--Mr. Strachey (father of the present Sir John and Major-Gen. Richard Strachey), Thomas Love Peacock (author of "Headlong Hall"), Mr. Harcourt, and Mr. James Mill; the selection of the last-named being all the more creditable to them, because, in his "History of British India," he had animadverted with much severity on some parts of the Company's administration. Two years afterwards, in 1823, the historian's son, the illustrious subject of these brief memoirs, then a lad of seventeen, obtained a clerkship under his father. According to the ordinary course of things in those days, the newly-appointed junior would have had nothing to do, except a little abstracting, indexing, and searching, or pretending to search, into records; but young Mill was almost immediately set to indite despatches to the governments of the three Indian Presidencies, on what, in India-House phraseology, were distinguished as "political" subjects,--subjects, that is, for the most part growing out of the relations of the said governments with "native" states or foreign potentates. This continued to be his business almost to the last. In 1828 he was promoted to be assistant examiner, and in 1856 he succeeded to the post of chief examiner; after which his duty consisted rather in supervising what his assistants had written than in writing himself: but for the three and twenty years preceding he had had immediate charge of the political department, and had written almost every "political" despatch of any importance that conveyed the instructions of the merchant princes of Leadenhall Street to their pro-consuls in Asia. Of the quality of these documents, it is sufficient to say, that they were John Mill's; but, in respect to their quantity, it may be worth mentioning that a descriptive catalogue of them completely fills a small quarto volume of between three hundred and four hundred pages, in their author's handwriting, which now lies before me; also that the share of the Court of Directors in the correspondence between themselves and the Indian governments used to average annually about ten huge vellum-bound volumes, foolscap size, and five or six inches thick, and that of these volumes two a year, for more than twenty years running, were exclusively of Mill's composition; this, too, at times, when he was engaged upon such voluntary work in addition as his "Logic" and "Political Economy."

In 1857 broke out the Sepoy war, and in the following year the East-India Company was extinguished in all but the name, its governmental functions being transferred to the Crown. That most illustrious of corporations died hard; and with what affectionate loyalty Mill struggled to avert its fate is evidenced by the famous Petition to Parliament which he drew up for his old masters, and which opens with the following effective antithesis: "Your petitioners, at their own expense, and by the agency of their own civil and military servants, originally acquired for this country its magnificent empire in the East. The foundations of this empire were laid by your petitioners, at that time neither aided nor controlled by Parliament, at the same period at which a succession of administrations under the control of Parliament were losing, by their incapacity and rashness, another great empire on the opposite side of the Atlantic."