Chapter 11

of those who, having determined to rise from the ranks--_rose_. He educated himself during the time while he was working as farm-labourer. Those who have read Father Benson's _Sentimentalists_, and also Robert Louis Stevenson's book on the same subject, will not fail to understand how complete and full is the education which comes to a man through both doors--that of physical labour, and that of mental as well. Joseph Arch started in 1872 the National Agricultural Labourers' Union. Soon he had freed the peasantry from many of their former disabilities. Later he went to Canada to find out as much as he could about emigration and labour questions. In 1885-6 he stood for the N.W. Division of Norfolk.

"_26th Dec_., 1872.

"My dear Nicholson,

* * * * *

"Did I, or did I not, tell you of my wife's mishap from a terrible fall downstairs? Her right hand will be for a long while stiff from having been tied for nine weeks with a splint on the inside, no finger being allowed to move. This, I am assured, is hospital practice; but it is vehemently condemned by others, and in her case, at least, I believe it was wrong. Whether she will ever recover her _thumb_, I am not sure; for I fear it is still dislocated at the base. She necessarily gives us a great deal to do; I have to act as her amanuensis, besides oiling, shampooing, etc.

"Knowing as I do how you sympathize with rustics and disapprove our existing Land Laws, I make sure that with me you are delighted by the movement of the peasants under the initiative of Joseph Arch to claim access to freehold land by purchase or equivalent payments. I never dared to hope such an initiative from the peasants themselves, but I always foresaw that a destruction of slavery in the U.S. would give to the States such a desire to people their territories and the South, with English immigrants, that our peasants, as soon as they became more wideawake, would have the game in their own hands, and neither farmers nor landlords could resist.... I now should not wonder to live to see ... household suffrage extended to the peasantry-and as results, coming some earlier, all soon, overthrow of the existing Drink Traffic, of Contagious Diseases Act, Army Reform on a vast scale, Female Equality with Men in the Eye of the Law, overthrow of Landlords' predominance.... I wonder whether abolition of Foreign Embassies must precede a serious grapple with the National Debt. I doubt whether any nominally free State ever had such an Augean Stable left to it by forty years' eminently active legislation. "In corruptissima Republica plurimae leges," sounds like it. Without carving England and Ireland into States, I do not think the work can be got through: if indeed we are to avoid new wars with Ireland and India, which may God avert!...

"Your constant friend,

"F. W. Newman."

I quote next from a note written three years later, which ascribes his health to the Triple alliance of his three "Anti's"--anti-alcohol, anti- tobacco, and anti-flesh food.

* * * * *

"How many a pleasant year has run its course since I first visited you at Penrith! It was the summer of 1842, I think, that we ascended High Street together, a company of seventeen.

"It is my fancy that I could walk as well now: yet I believe it would make me lazy for a week after. Moderate exertions are surely best when one is past seventy, yet my spirits are inexhaustible, and my sense of health perfect. Seriously I attribute this to the TRIPLE ABSTINENCE [from alcohol, from narcotic (tobacco), and from flesh meat]....

"Your affectionate friend,

"F. W. Newman."

The same year he states in a letter to Dr. Nicholson that the Vegetarian Society is that in which he feels most active interest, "though I am a Good Templar and am earnest in nearly all the _Women's_ Questions." And in another, written in August, "I here, as usual" (at Ventnor), "get the luxury of fine fruit at this season (and the unusual luxury of mushrooms), but I do protest that their demand of 4s. a pound for grapes is enough to frighten Cato the elder. [Footnote: Marcus Portius Cato, born at Tusculum 234 B.C., passed his childhood on his father's farm. In later years he wrote several works on husbandry, its rules, etc. When he was elected Censor in 184 he made great efforts to check national luxury and to urge a return to the simpler life of his Roman ancestors. He was very strict and despotic as regards contract prices paid by the State, and constantly altered those for food, carriages, slaves, dress, etc.] The price of lodgings at Shanklin and here is much higher than two years back. It seems to me that everything is going up, here, in America, on the Continent, and in India; yet I do not see how to impute it to the increased supply of gold. I think that the working classes are everywhere demanding and getting a larger share of the total which is produced....

"Believe me your true friend,

"F. W. Newman."

Four years elapse between this letter and the next from which I shall quote. During this interval Newman's wife died (16th July, 1876), and was mourned long and sincerely. He was now seventy-one years of age, and had, as his letters show, begun already to feel lack of power and health. It was evident to himself towards the end of the eighteen months which followed her death that he should not be able to live alone, and yet there was no relation he could ask to come and be with him.

In December, 1879, the following letters were written by Newman to Dr. Nicholson concerning his second marriage to Miss Williams, who had for many years lived with his first wife, and been very devoted in her care and attention to her.

"_29th Dec_., 1879.

"My dear Nicholson,

"I felt very warmly the kindness of your letter which congratulated me on my remarriage, and I have often desired to write to you that you might feel how unchanged is my regard for you, though circumstances do not at all carry me so far north as your dwelling. I may briefly add, that a year's experience quite justifies my expectation. The marriage was not in my estimate an experiment, which might succeed or fail.... That my wife's health is not robust, I certainly grieve, but she is nineteen years my junior. Our love and trust has only increased month by month.... This black edge" (of the note paper) "is for my only surviving sister, whose death is just announced to me. She was my fondest object of boyish love, and it is impossible not to grieve. On the other hand, I had long expected it, and did not at all think she would survive _last_ winter.... I believe she was loved and respected by _everyone_ who knew her, as truly she deserved to be. I feel good consolation in this.... For three years our public doings have been to me so mournful and dreadful--with no power anywhere to stay the madness of the Court and Ministry,--that I have been made unwilling to write about them. Retribution for such deeds seemed to me certain, inevitable: it seems to be coming more speedily than I had expected. Stormy controversies must in any case be here encountered. But ever since 1856 (I might date from the day when Lord Dalhousie went to India--1848?) we seem to have been storing up wrath and vengeance against ourselves,--worse and worse at home as well as abroad, since the death of Peel. I never admired Peel: he had to trim to the Tories: but I now see how moderate Peel kept them, and in comparison how wise Peel was.

"So many are the eminently good men and women in England that I am certain we must have a nobler future: but that may be separated from the present time by a terrible struggle....

"I am your affectionate friend,

"F. W. Newman."

In briefly reviewing the year 1881 in its effects on nation and Government, it is necessary to cast one's thoughts back to the time when Lord Beaconsfield took office in 1874, in order to grasp the drift of Newman's next letter. In 1874 the former became Prime Minister for the second time. He had not been long in office before he made an end of Church patronage in Scotland. The next year he was carrying forward his design of procuring part ownership for England of the Suez Canal. He did not attach sufficient importance to the Bulgarian atrocities to set going any British interference. This in itself is an act which can find no defence. He declared Turkey must be upheld as a stronghold against the aggression of Russia. In the year 1878, Beaconsfield and Lord Salisbury attended the Berlin Congress. This at once raised the former to the highest political importance, but it undid all the splendid work done by the English army, which had, at the order of a blundering, mistaken Government, been sent to obtain for England, through means of the Crimean War, a victory rendered completely null and void a short time later by the doings of this Congress at Berlin.

Then followed the Afghan and Zulu Wars and subsequent troubles and upheavals: trade depression in Ireland; and finally, in 1880, came the General Election, which restored the Liberal party to power.

"_1st Oct_., 1881.

"My dear Nicholson,

"I was glad to get your letter, but frightened when I found it open (the gum wholly fresh) and no photograph in it. [Footnote: I believe the photo given in this volume, of Dr. Nicholson, to be the one referred to here.] I feared it was taken out. But next day came the real thing. It is excellent. The slight excess of black in the left eye is perhaps quite natural. In a three-quarter face the light does not fall alike on both eyes, and we do not in real life compare a friend's two eyes (they move too quick); we see only one at a time. [Footnote: Francis Newman expressed once his theory that in the case of a photograph being taken of a man, unconsciously to himself, the expression of the portrait will in some curious manner change as his character changes.] The photo pleasantly renews my old memories....

"_Immediate_ politics sicken _me_ as well as you. I do not (with a zealous friend) groan over 1881 as unrelieved gloom, completed by the murder of an amiable and innocent President: but I deliberately conclude we are launched in a season of TRANSITION that _must_ have its sadness just as has a war: and it is wise to look on beyond the troubled years.... The course of change may largely depend on events in India which not one Englishman in a thousand dreams of. In 1881, thus far, I rejoice in the incipient elevation of Greece, and the probable deliverance of Armenia. I think the great Powers _will not_ quarrel over the carcase of Turkey: and though Frenchmen may justly make outcry against French ambition in North Africa, yet as an Englishman and a European I do not regret it. As _I_ see no power but Russia who can impart improved rule to Armenia and Persia, so no one but France can give it in North Africa. My _immediate_ interest in the politics of the High Powers is to see them combine against the Slave Trade, in Turkey, and _in the Pacific_. In domestic Politics I care _most_ for the social and moral questions, which are painful, pressing, and disgracefully delayed. But all will come; and the great question of Landed Tenure will aid the best influences....

"I am your affectionate old friend,

"F. W. Newman."

On 26th Nov., 1881, Newman caused some copies of the following letter to be printed and sent round to his friends, etc.:--

"My dear ----,

"Friends are always greedy of details concerning sudden illness. This is my excuse for sending a printed circular.

"In short, my general health continues as excellent as usual; but I have received a sharp warning, which I would gladly be able to call a mere fright. After many days of close and continuous writing, I found myself suddenly disabled in my right hand. I could not interpret it as merely muscular. There was no inability of motion or grasping, but want of delicacy in feeling, which made my pen slip round in my fingers. I was forced to conclude the _brain_ involved.

"Therefore it seemed possible that I was only at the beginning of real paralysis. Prudence absolutely required me to back out of two engagements. This illness, such as it is, has not come on in a day, and demands time for cure. Some ten days of cessation have somewhat (but very imperfectly) restored my power of writing; but I must not undertake any tasks at present. My sole remedy has been to keep the arm warm. It is still somewhat weak. I wished, if this affection were temporary, to say nothing about it; but that has proved impossible.

"I am, yours as ever,

"Francis W. Newman."

* * * * *

There are many allusions to this trouble of the arm in later letters. Indeed, it is impossible not to see how very much it has crippled his handwriting; he mentions once or twice that he finds it very difficult to keep his hand steady.

In May, 1882, he writes to Dr. Nicholson concerning the news of the moment--the murder of Lord Henry Cavendish and Mr. Burke, at Phoenix Park. It will be remembered that it happened at the end of all the obstructive tactics used by Parnell and his Home Rule Party, which was organized to prevent coercion being used, and also to force on England the compulsion of legislating promptly for Ireland the measures demanded by the Nationalists. It was not until 1886 Gladstone brought before Parliament a measure which would give a Statutory Parliament to Ireland. Later, after the rejection of the bill on its second reading, Gladstone appealed to the country, and when the General Election brought back a Conservative majority, he was defeated.

Lord Frederick Cavendish became in 1882 Chief Secretary for Ireland, in succession to Mr. Forster. On 6th May he and Mr. Burke (his unpopular subordinate) were stabbed in Phoenix Park.

The allusion to Newman's study of the Libyan language occurs in the letter following, as it has done in more than one of the others about this time. The Numidians were descended from the race from which the modern Berbers are drawn. Their name was drawn from the Greek word Nomades--Land of Nomads; and was given to tribes in Northern Africa by the Romans.

"_8th May_, 1882.

* * * * *

"To-day we have heard with horror of the murder of Lord Frederick Cavendish, and with grief, if with once or twice that he finds it very difficult to keep his hand steady.

In May, 1882, he writes to Dr. Nicholson concerning the news of the moment--the murder of Lord Henry Cavendish and Mr. Burke, at Phoenix Park. It will be remembered that it happened at the end of all the obstructive tactics used by Parnell and his Home Rule Party, which was organized to prevent coercion being used, and also to force on England the compulsion of legislating promptly for Ireland the measures demanded by the Nationalists. It was not until 1886 Gladstone brought before Parliament a measure which would give a Statutory Parliament to Ireland. Later, after the rejection of the bill on its second reading, Gladstone appealed to the country, and when the General Election brought back a Conservative majority, he was defeated.

Lord Frederick Cavendish became in 1882 Chief Secretary for Ireland, in succession to Mr. Forster. On 6th May he and Mr. Burke (his unpopular subordinate) were stabbed in Phoenix Park.

The allusion to Newman's study of the Libyan language occurs in the letter following, as it has done in more than one of the others about this time. The Numidians were descended from the race from which the modern Berbers are drawn. Their name was drawn from the Greek word _Nomades_--Land of Nomads; and was given to tribes in Northern Africa by the Romans.

"_8th May_, 1882.

* * * * *

"To-day we have heard with horror of the murder of Lord Frederick Cavendish, and with grief, if with less horror, of Mr. Burke's. I felt persuaded from the first that the assassins would aim only at Mr. Burke, who has long been regarded as the perverter of every Viceroy and Secretary; but in mere self-defence they also killed his companion, perhaps not even knowing who he was. Lord Frederick Cavendish was almost unknown to the Irish, and cannot have been hated by them as Mr. Forster was.

"My second thought on this grievous affair is, that it is likely to call out so sincere a disavowal from collective Ireland, and from the most extreme of Irish politicians, that it may help to reconcile Irish patriots and the Liberal Ministry. To have a common grief is a moral cement. Also it seems to compel Mr. Gladstone to send as Irish Secretary an _Irishman_, and one publicly esteemed as Irish patriot, as well as a sincere friend to the English connection; and from what I have heard before this event, Mr. Shaw seems to be a very likely man.

"Meanwhile, sad to say, Mr. Gladstone entrenches himself, and _blocks up_ business by the Rules of Procedure.

"Well, Ireland is taking a leaf out of Nihilism. It is bad enough, yet not so bad as with the poor Czar....

"Yours cordially in old esteem,

"F. W. Newman."

"On Saturday I corrected the last proofs of my essay towards a Numidian dictionary. Yesterday a friend sent me a scrap from Paris, in which Rénan avows that until a Numidian dictionary is compiled they cannot begin to decipher inscriptions in the _Canaries!_ I fancy the Canary language is a wide step off."

Each succeeding year after 1882 Newman complains from time to time, in his letters to his friends, of increasing infirmities and physical disabilities, which made travelling often exceedingly trying for his head, and rendered him more and more dependent on his wife. He had for a long time suffered a great deal from his eyes, and consequently during the last few years of his life writing letters became a physical weariness. He was also subject to a sudden loss of brain power, when he found himself completely unable at times to speak consecutively.