Part 2

We will pass now from these critical estimates to our own mere likings and preferences among De Quincey's very voluminous 'Selections Grave and Gay.' I give the first place--the place of vantage and of honour--to the autobiography already alluded to above, for it burns and scintillates with the fire of genius, kindled by the action of unique experiences upon a unique temperament. Next must come, of course, the 'Confessions,' which made him famous in the first instance. This is a volume from which, in my limited space, I can make no typical extracts, meandering as the pages do among golden visions and uncanny dreams begotten by the hideous narcotic drug, and lingering lovingly among picturesque sketches of the men and maidens of the villages and country towns he strayed to during his flight from school and home, giving us glimpses now of 'elaborate and pompous sunsets hanging over the mountains of Wales,' and anon plunging us into the profoundest depths of German philosophy and theology. Sometimes he makes us smile at a curious and unexpected phrase, or some simile that is apt, and yet at first sight seems incongruous, with a spice of exaggeration, such as the statement that the shoulders of the porter who carried away his trunk were 'broad as Salisbury Plain.'

One of the most characteristic of his tales is that of 'The Spanish Military Nun,' a true narrative, unearthed by him from the authentic lore of Spain, of an episode in the conquest of South America, and relating to a certain Catarina (prettily called by him 'our dear Kate') who escaped from a convent in the mother country, donned armour, fought battles and duels, was beloved by marriageable girls, forced a passage across the Andes, and finally was drowned in the Western Atlantic. The story is told with humour and much feeling, and has no counterpart, except in the narrative similarly discovered and freely translated by Southey, called 'The Expedition of Orsua, and the Crimes of Aguirre.'

Perhaps the most celebrated of his essays, though, I fancy, better known by its title than actually read, is that 'On Murder considered as one of the Fine Arts.' It is an elaborate _jeu d'esprit_, of which the grave introduction, brimming over with fun, not a muscle of the author's face moving in the telling, commences thus: 'Most of us who read books have probably heard of a Society for the Promotion of Vice, of the Hell-fire Club, founded in the last century by Sir Francis Dashwood. At Brighton, I think it was, that a society was formed for the suppression of virtue. That society was itself suppressed; but I am sorry to say that another exists in London of a character still more atrocious. In tendency it may be denominated a Society for the Encouragement of Murder, but according to their own delicate euphemismos is styled "The Society of Connoisseurs in Murder." They profess to be curious in homicide; amateurs and dilettante in the various modes of carnage, and, in short, murder-fanciers.'

Probably to the majority of his readers his 'English Mail-Coach,' with its sub-chapters on 'The Glory of Motion,' 'The Vision of Sudden Death,' and 'Dream Fugue,' will be the most attractive of all his pieces. We who are old enough to remember 'The Arrow,' 'The Rival,' 'The Tally-Ho,' and other four-horse mail-coaches, on which we rode seventy miles to and from boarding-school, or to visit far-off country relatives, can enter into the spirit of these sketches _con amore_. The young folk, who have ridden only in hansom-cabs and excursion trains, have little idea of the perils and pains, and the pleasures, of old coaching days, on the old coaching roads, or at the old coaching inns, in weary winter rides, or glorious sunny jaunts in summer time. They should certainly read these essays, and learn how their parents and grandparents travelled in days antecedent to steam and electricity.

If sterner qualities are needed by more laborious readers, let me commend to their attention that marvel of historic picture-writing, 'The Revolt of the Tartars'; or 'The Essenes' may suit them, if they be biblical students, even though they may not agree with De Quincey's conclusions; or there is that painstaking, minutely-descriptive chapter on 'The Toilet of a Hebrew Lady.' If they inquire for political knowledge--and, indeed, this is sadly lacking, not only among working men, but even more by professional men, who live outside the contact and struggle with the hardships and necessities of business life--where will you find anything more convincing, anywhere any severer logic, than that in the dissertations on Political Economy? I say nothing of his other historical, philosophical, and theological writings--his theories, speculations, and researches--for I would advise none to begin the systematic study of De Quincey with these. I would recommend beginners to taste first his sketches of contemporary writers and his lighter papers, and then, if they find they acquire a liking for these, to pass on to the more recondite. I confess that, however fascinating his literary style may be, it requires some little culture to appreciate it at the outset. If a first attempt prove no success, let the 'Miscellanies' be laid aside for a while, till the man himself has become well known and companionable. Then a second attempt can hardly be a failure.

Let me finish this article by inviting my readers' perusal of that masterpiece of Jean Paul Richter's, so ably translated by our 'old man eloquent,' and forming the appendix to his essay on the system of the heavens. It begins, 'And God called up from dreams a man into the vestibule of heaven, saying, "Come thou hither, and see the glory of My house." And to His angels He said, "Take him and undress him from his robes of flesh, and put a new breath into his nostrils, and arm him with sail-broad wings for flight. Only touch not with any change his human heart--the heart that weeps and trembles." It was done, and with a mighty angel for his guide, the man stood ready for his infinite voyage, and from the terraces of heaven, without sound or farewell, at once they wheeled away into endless space.'

THE BRATHAY VALLEY, AMBLESIDE

'It is the place for the earliest flowers of the spring, and distinguished by the broom growing thickly on the bank of the river, and yellow globe-ranunculus flourishing on the rocks at the brink, or in the midst of the stream. In the autumn, the side of Loughrigg, which overhangs the valley, is splendid with flowering heather. The opposite character of this and the sister valley is striking, and led to the remark of a resident of Ambleside that if one wants a meditative walk in winter, one goes round the Brathay Valley--sure to meet nobody but the postman, whereas, if one needs recreation after a morning of study, the walk should be round the Rothay Valley, where one is sure to meet all one's acquaintances. The finest view in this valley, one of the finest in the whole district, is from Skelwith Fold.... The stranger will hardly aver that he ever saw a more perfect picture than this, with the fall (Skelwith Force) in the centre, closed in by rock and wood on either hand, and by Langdale Pikes behind.'--HARRIET MARTINEAU: _Guide to the Lakes_.

II

A PIONEER OF POLITICAL REFORM

HARRIET MARTINEAU

'She was born to be a destroyer of slavery, in whatever form, in whatever place, all over the world, wherever she saw or thought of it ... in the degraded offspring of former English poor-law ... in English serfdom forty years ago ... in the fruits of any abuse--social, legislative, or administrative--or in actual slavery.'--FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE.

Perhaps the most instructive and reliable book ever written about the actual condition of England, and about her people's struggles for light, liberty, and better conditions of life during the first half of the nineteenth century is Miss Martineau's 'History of the Thirty Years' Peace.' It is emphatically a citizen's history as distinguished from a partizan politician's, and it ought to be read, together with her 'Introduction' to it, by every young man who desires to possess an intelligent acquaintance with the social problems of his age and country. The ignorance of the present generation of youthful electors, when compared with the knowledge of their parents at a similar time of life, often astounds me. It is probably due to two causes--first, to the fact that their fathers were, forty or fifty years ago, only just emerging from the dust and smoke of hard-fought political battles, and so had the causes of them well engrained into their minds, while they of this generation have not yet so much as 'smelt powder' in the struggle against still-existing grievances; and, secondly, that the present-day education in elementary schools practically ignores the teaching of history, while ordinary secondary schools teach English history only in 'samples,' and those seldom of the most modern periods. No other of Harriet Martineau's works will take rank with her 'Thirty Years' Peace,' yet they all had a great reputation when she was reckoned the greatest living English woman, and they nearly all had a wide sale, though, having been written for passing purposes, they naturally died out of the popular memory when their purposes were accomplished, and fresh interests had come into view. They were mostly stories--novelettes--written to illustrate such questions as the then burning ones of free trade, colonization by emigration of the pauper and the criminal, the incidence and amendment of the Poor Laws, the repression and punishment of crime, actual and ideal systems of taxation, the relationships of capital and labour, and the like. In addition to these, she wrote a few volumes of pure fiction, some reminiscences of travel in the East--through Egypt, across the Sinaitic desert, and northwards past Jerusalem to Damascus--and some others respecting her stay in the United States of America in the troublous anti-slavery times preceding the Civil War. In her earlier days she also wrote some religious and theological essays and sketches for Unitarian magazines. Of her fictions, two may be mentioned--'Deerbrook,' which she considered her masterpiece, and 'Feats on the Fjord.' The latter was favourite reading of my own boyhood. I took it to Norway with me in later days, and found it in every way a most accurate description of Scandinavian farm life, as well as of coast and mountain scenery--in fact, quite as much so as the stories of Björnstjerne Björnson himself. The extraordinary thing about this is that the authoress had never been in Norway, and took all the settings of her hero's adventures from narratives of other people's travels.

Her autobiography--written when, in advancing age, heart-disease had marked her for its victim at no distant date--with the appendix thereto, compiled by her devoted friend, Mrs. Chapman--furnishes us with all the available materials for a sketch of her life; and, indeed, it is the most valuable of all her multitudinous productions, with the exception already noted. It is the story of a noble and unceasing struggle, successfully carried through, against internal difficulties, both mental and physical of no ordinary character, and against external ones that would have beaten any commonplace person. It is, however, also a revelation of spiritual processes and of gradual abandonment of once-cherished beliefs that does not fascinate us, and leaves us with grave doubts as to the acuteness of her philosophical insight, and of her grasp of real Christian teaching. Perhaps, too, it was natural that her independence of character, and her constant overwork and overstrain, should lead her into impatience of the frailties of others, and quicken her contempt for many of the celebrities she knew personally.

Born in 1802 of Unitarian parents, in Norwich, she grew to be a shy, sensitive, but quietly-observant and clever girl. Her upbringing was on the repressive lines of a conscientious but narrow-minded mother, who was without sympathy for, or knowledge of, her 'ugly duckling's' yearnings or capacity. The last thing the mother dreamed of was that the 'ugly duckling' was in truth a cygnet, whose swan-plumage the world would one day recognise. The daughter longed inexpressibly for words and deeds of parental love which never came to her, and so she grew silent, introspective, and morbid. In mature age she became morbidly ashamed of her childhood's, perhaps inevitable, morbidness. When her literary instincts were bound to find a vent, her first venture in magazine articles had to be made in secret, and, when they were discovered, efforts were made to repress any continuation of them, and she was sternly told to stick to her sewing-needle. She was fortunate in being sent to a good day-school, which counteracted by its learned and genial atmosphere the influences of home. It was, too, a blessing in disguise when, her never robust health failing, her parents sent her to relatives in Bristol, whose joyous spirits and cultured tastes were an inspiration to her. A tendency to deafness, which became chronic, and at last compelled the habitual use of an ear-trumpet, did not, till she conquered the disadvantage by her brave fortitude, make her desirous of company or help her to make much way in it.

The one trusted friend of her youth was her beloved younger brother James, afterwards the eminent Unitarian minister and theologian. To him she confided her secret aspirations, and he encouraged her finally to proceed to London and try and find a publisher for the series of political economy stories she projected writing. Her heroic efforts to find someone who would risk putting them on the market is one of the romances of literary biography.

Her father was dead. The manufacturing firm in which her mother's monies were invested had failed. She was alone in London, and without knowledge or influence. How she 'trudged many miles through the clay of the streets, and the fog of the gloomiest December,' only to be rejected, sometimes politely, and sometimes rudely, by everyone to whom she showed her MSS. and explained her scheme; and how at last she despairingly accepted what seemed almost impossible, and certainly were unreasonable, terms, offered by a young bookseller without business connections; how a wealthy relative unexpectedly stepped in to guarantee a portion of her personal risk; and how she suddenly sprang into fame--are not all these things faithfully set forth in her autobiographical chapter headed 'Aged Twenty-nine'? From depths of discouragement that would have effectually damped most aspiring authors she at once became a 'society lion,' or rather, to retain our former metaphor, she was hailed as one of the swans of literature, and, as was said of the royal bird in Andersen's parable, 'the most beautiful of them all.' She endured a long and terrible strain, while for several years producing a story a month, which broke down her health seriously, yet she attended nearly every evening some social function, which brought her into intimacy with the most celebrated men and women of her generation.

It is in her records of this period that the most unpleasant traits in her disposition become apparent. Almost every page betokens a spirit of captious criticism of her acquaintances, and almost every one is belittled by her.

About this time, too, Unitarianism lost altogether its slackening hold of her. She saw that its dogmas were entirely contrary to Scripture revelation and teaching, but instead of rectifying her faith to the Christian standard, she abandoned the standard itself, and became an avowed Positivist. She writes herself down as a convinced 'Necessitarian,' though if anyone's life and conduct effectually belied such a creed it was hers. No one ever gave stronger proofs of a self-determined will, free from all external or internal compulsion, than she.

Money as well as fame became now her well-earned portion, and she found herself able to purchase an annuity, spend some time abroad, and buy land and build a house thereon at Ambleside, by the shores of beautiful Winander. In this charming home she spent her declining years, following her favourite pursuits, advocating mesmerism, which she considered had raised her up from a long-endured nervous prostration, and playing with success the part of the Lady Bountiful to the neighbourhood. It was whilst at this place that she translated the works of Comte, and lost thereby, what she valued most in the world--the intimacy of her beloved brother James, who, like herself, a model of conscientiousness, publicly reviewed her introductions and comments with some severity. Both brother and sister had opinions, held them tenaciously, and expressed them fearlessly. On her side no sign of change from Positivism was ever given. The same dauntless spirit which bore her through the anti-slavery campaign, when in America she was threatened by the slave-owners with personal violence, upheld her now in her championship of the philosophy of altruism without a Divine Fatherhood. We believe her mistaken, but admire her unflinching adhesion to what she deemed the truth.

It was in her beautiful house, The Knoll, that she passed behind the veil, and entered into the clear seeing of eternity. She died, says her closest friend and biographer, 'in the summer sunset of her home amid the Westmorland mountains, on June 27, 1876, after twenty-one years of diligent, devoted, suffering, joyful years there, attended by the family friends she most loved, and in possession of all her mental powers up till the last expiring day, aged seventy-four years.' She lies among her kindred, descendants of French refugees, in the old cemetery at Birmingham.

In her maidenhood she had once loved, and been beloved by one of the other sex, but events occurred to prevent the consummation of her love by marriage, and it proved a happy escape. Thenceforward she lived only to endure

'Many a lofty struggle for the sake Of duties, sternly, faithfully fulfilled, For which the anxious mind must watch and wake, And the strong feelings of the heart be stilled.'

THE TRUE POET

'Who wears a singing-robe is richly dight; The Poet, he is richer than a King. He plucks the veil from hidden loveliness; His gusts of music stir the shadowing boughs, To let in glory on the darkened soul. Upon the hills of light he plants his feet To lure the people up with heart and voice; At humblest human hearths drops dews divine To feed the violet virtues nestling there. His hands adorn the poorest house of life With rare abiding shapes of loveliness. All things obey his soul's creative eye; For him earth ripens fruit-like in the light; Green April comes to him with smiling tears, Like some sweet maiden who transfigured stands In dewy light of first love's rosy dawn, And yields all secret preciousness, his Bride. He reaps the Autumn without scythe or sickle; And in the sweet low singing of the corn Hears Plenty hush the pining Poor.'

GERALD MASSEY.

III

A LOVER OF BEAUTY

GERALD MASSEY

'Like the Norseman of whom he sings, he is everywhere true, brave, generous, and free. He is before all things a patriot. He has an intense belief in the genius of England as the champion of liberty, and the pioneer of freedom.'--_The Poets and the Poetry of the Century._

He is still living, some seventy-five years of age, and it is difficult to write anything of the nature of a biography of one still amongst us. There are a few facts, however, patent to all the world, which may be fitly reproduced. Perhaps the most striking of these is that, like 'Festus Bailey,' he did his best poetical work in his young manhood, and the early promise of ripening in power and of richer fruit-bearing has not been fulfilled. Massey, writing some sweet and inspiring lyrics, and giving evidence of acute appreciation of the masters of literature in his once well-known lectures, seems to have lost himself in a maze of Egyptian and anti-Christian pseudo-philosophies even less edifying than the science evolved from the 'inner consciousness' of such holy men as Jacob Behmen, Peter Sterry, or Swedenborg, and as incomprehensible to the ordinary mind as the strange mysticism of William Blake. He has, as a poet, which was his true function in life, committed intellectual suicide, and his resurrection into mythical regions and pamphleteering on 'Luniolatry,' 'The Seven Souls of Man,' 'The Coming Religion,' and other such subjects, will not only fail to add to his fame, but in the future will be remembered merely by curiosity-hunters as the vagaries of a capable but erratic genius. Like his own Atle the Fur-Hunter in chasing the squirrel, he has lost his sledge-load of treasures. I know that he does not personally think so, and that some, at least, of his friends agree with him. He found verse-making insufficient for subsistence--as, indeed, might have been expected--and it has been written of him that in turning to his final career he began to

'Dredge the old sea-bottoms of the Past, Lover of Beauty who gave up all for Truth.'

Still, we shall ever regret the change.