Chapter 23
Meanwhile he found occasion to cultivate friendships with Russians and foreign diplomats of all kinds. Of the more important he sends home interesting sketches to his superiors in Whitehall, Vischnegradsky, the 'wizard of finance', who raised the value of the rouble 30 per cent., became one of his intimate friends. When that ambiguous figure, Witte, his rival and successor, tried to discredit him, Morier vindicated with warmth the honesty and patriotism of his friend. Baron Jomini of the Foreign Office was of a different kind, witty, volatile, audaciously outspoken, more like a character in Thackeray's novels. Pobedonóstsev, the Procurator of the Holy Synod, remained 'somewhat of an enigma'--as we can easily believe when we hear that this bigoted Churchman, the terror of the Jews, had been a friend of Dean Stanley, and was still fond of English literature and English theology.
Still more amusing are the stories which he tells of foreign visitors of high station--of the Duke of Orleans playing truant without the knowledge of his parents and being snubbed by his Grand Ducal relatives; of Dal[=i]p Singh touring the provinces with a disreputable entourage and trying to make trouble for the British at Moscow; of the Prince of Montenegro and his beautiful daughters, whom Morier heartily admires--'tall and massive, strong-limbed and comely, the true type of the mothers of heroes in the Homeric sense'.
With the Court his relations were excellent. His intimacy with members of our own royal family helped him, and his geniality and unconventional, natural manner won favour with the Romanoffs, who retained in their high station a great deal of simplicity. More than once Morier seized an opportunity for an act of special courtesy to the Tsar; and Alexander appreciated this from a man whose character was too well known for him to be suspected of obsequiousness.
But the life in St. Petersburg was not all pleasure, even when diplomatic waters were quiet. The work was hard, the climate was very exacting with its extremes of temperature, and epidemics were rife. In November 1889 he reports the appearance of 'Siberian Catarrh, more usually described under the general name of Influenza', which was working havoc in girls' schools and guardsmen's barracks, and had laid low simultaneously Emperor, Empress, and half the imperial family. Morier himself became increasingly liable to attacks of ill-health, and found difficulty in discharging his duties regularly. It required a keen sense of duty for him to stay at his post; and when in December 1891 he was appointed to the Embassy at Rome, he was very willing to go. But public interest stood in the way. He had made for himself an exceptional place at St. Petersburg. No one could be found to replace him adequately, and the Tsar expressed a desire that his departure should be postponed. He consented to stay on, and the next two years of work in that climate, together with the death in 1891 of his only son, broke his spirit and his strength. Too late he went in search of health, first to the Crimea and then to Switzerland. Death came to him as the winter of 1893 was approaching, when he was at Montreux on the Lake of Geneva, close to the home of his ancestors.
The impression which he made on his friends and colleagues is clear and consistent, and the ignorance of the general public about men of his profession justifies a few quotations. Sir Louis Mallet brackets him with Sir James Hudson[45] and Lord Cromer as 'the most admirable trio of public servants he had known'. Sir William White speaks of him and Odo Russell as 'two giants of the diplomatic service'. Lord Acton, who knew Europe as well as any Foreign Minister, and weighed his words, refers to him in 1884 as 'our only strong diplomatist', and again 'as a strong man, resolute, ready, well-informed and with some amount of real resource'. More than one Foreign Secretary has borne testimony to the value of Morier's dispatches; and Sir Charles Dilke, who, without holding the portfolio himself, often shaped our foreign policy and was an expert in European questions, is still more emphatic about his intellectual powers, though he thinks that Morier's imperious temper made him 'impossible in a small place'. Sir Horace Rumbold,[46] in his _Recollections_, has many references to him, especially as he was in earlier years. He speaks of Morier's 'prodigious fund of spirits that made him the most entertaining, but not always the safest, of companions'; 'of his imperious, not over-tolerant disposition'; 'of the curious compound that he was of the thoughtless, thriftless Bohemian and the cool, calculating man of the world'; of his 'exceptionally powerful brain and unflagging industry'. Elsewhere he recalls Morier's journeys among the Southern Slavs, in which he opened up a new field of knowledge, and adds, 'since then he has made himself a thorough master of German politics, and is, I believe, one of the few men whom Prince Bismarck fears and correspondingly detests'.
[Note 45: Sir James Hudson, G.C.B., British minister at Turin during the years of Cavour's great ministry; died 1885.]
[Note 46: Sir Horace Rumbold, G.C.B., Ambassador at Vienna 1896-1900; died 1913.]
Jowett's testimony may perhaps be discounted as that of an intimate friend; yet he was no flatterer, and as he often criticized Morier severely, it is of interest to read his deliberate verdict, given in 1873, that 'if he devoted his whole mind to it, he could prevent a war in Europe'. Four years earlier Jowett had been told by a diplomatist whom he respected, 'Morier is the first man in our profession'.
By those who still remember him, Morier is described as a diplomatist of 'the old school'. His noble presence, his courtly manner, and the dignity which he observed on all ceremonial occasions, would have qualified him to adorn the court of Maria Theresa or Louis Quatorze. This dignity he could put off when the need for it was past. Among his friends his manner was vivacious, his talk racy, his criticism free. He was of the old school, too, in being self-confident and independent, and in believing that he would do his best work if there were no telegraph to bring frequent instructions from Whitehall. But he had not the natural urbanity of Odo Russell, nor the invariable discretion of Lord Lyons. He had hard work to discipline his imperious temper, and by no means always succeeded in masking his own feelings. Perhaps too high a value has been set on impenetrable reserve by those who have modelled themselves on Talleyrand. By their very candour and openness some British diplomatists have gained an advantage over rivals who confound timidity with reserve, and have won a peculiar position of trust at foreign courts. In dealing with de Giers, Morier at any rate found no need to mumble or swallow his words. He was sure of himself and of his honourable intentions. On one occasion, after reading to that minister the exact words of the dispatch which he was sending to London, he stated his policy to him categorically. 'I always went', he said, 'upon the principle, whenever it could be done, of clearing the ground of all possible misunderstandings at the earliest date.' Probably we shall never see the end of 'secret diplomacy', whether under Tory, Liberal, or Labour governments; but this is not the tone of one who loves secrecy for its own sake.
In many ways Morier combined the qualities of the old and the new schools. Though personally a favourite with kings and queens, he was fully alive to the changes in the Europe of the nineteenth century, where, along with courts and cabinets, other more unruly forces were at work. His visit to Paris in 1848 showed his early interest in popular movements, and he maintained a catholic width of view in later life. He knew men of all sorts and kept himself acquainted with unofficial currents of opinion. He could talk freely to journalists or to merchants, could put them at their ease and get the information which he wanted. His comprehensiveness was remarkable. The strife of politicians in the foreground did not blur the distant landscape. In Russia, behind Balkan intrigues and Black Sea troubles he could see the cloud of danger overhanging the Pamirs. In Spain or Portugal he was watching and forecasting the possibilities of the white races in Africa. So his dispatches, varied and vivacious as they were, proved of the greatest value to Foreign Secretaries at home, and furnish excellent reading to-day.
In these dispatches a few Gallicisms occur; and in writing to an old friend like Sir William White he uses a free mixture of French and English with other ingredients for seasoning. But in general the literary style is admirable. He has a rare command of language, a most inventive use of metaphor, a felicitous touch in sketching a character or an incident. Towards those working under him he was exacting, setting up a high standard of industry, but he was generous in his praise and very ready to take up the cudgels for them when they needed support. In commending one of them, he selects for special praise 'his old-fashioned conscientiousness about public work and his subordination of private comfort'. He inherited this tradition from his own family and his faithfulness to it cost him his life.
Above all, we feel in reading these letters and memoranda that here is a man whose aim is truth rather than effect--not thinking of commending a programme to thousands of half-informed readers or hearers, in order to win their votes, but giving counsel to his peers, Odo Russell or Sir William White, Lord Granville or Lord Salisbury, on events and tendencies which affect the grave issues of peace and war and the lives of thousands of his fellow-countrymen. This generation has learnt how unsafe it is to treat these in a parliamentary atmosphere where men force themselves to believe what they wish and close their eyes to what is uncomfortable. While human nature remains the same, democracy cannot afford to deprive itself of such counsel or to belittle such a profession.
JOSEPH LISTER
1827-1912
1827. Born at West Ham, April 5. 1844-52. University College, London. 1851. Acting House Surgeon under Erichsen. 1852. First research work published. 1853. Goes to Edinburgh. House Surgeon under Syme. 1855. Assistant Surgeon and Lecturer at Edinburgh Infirmary. 1856. Marries Agnes Syme. 1860. Appointed Professor of Clinical Surgery at Glasgow. 1865. Makes acquaintance with Pasteur's work. 1866-7. Antiseptic treatment of compound fractures and abscesses. 1867. Papers on antiseptic method in the _Lancet_. 1869. Appointed Professor of Surgery at Edinburgh. 1872-5. Conversion of leading scientists in Germany to Antisepticism. 1875. Lister's triumphal reception in Germany. 1877. Accepts professorship at King's College, London. 1879. Medical congress at Amsterdam. Acceptance of Lister's methods by Paget and others in London. 1882. von Bergmann develops Asepticism in Berlin. 1883. Lister created a Baronet. 1891. British Institute of Preventive Medicine incorporated. 1892. Lister attends Pasteur celebration in Paris. 1893. Death of Lady Lister. 1895-1900. President of Royal Society. 1897. Created a Peer. 1902. Order of Merit. 1907. Freedom of City of London: last public appearance. 1912. Dies at Walmer, February 10.
JOSEPH LISTER
SURGEON
In a corner of the north transept of Westminster Abbey, almost lost among the colossal statues of our prime ministers, our judges, and our soldiers, will be found a small group of memorials preserving the illustrious names of Darwin, Lister, Stokes, Adams, and Watt, and reminding us of the great place which Science has taken in the progress of the last century. Watt, thanks partly to his successors, may be said to have changed the face of this earth more than any other inhabitant of our isles; but he is of the eighteenth century, and between those who developed his inventions it is not easy to choose a single representative of the age. Stokes and Adams command the admiration of all students of mathematics who can appreciate their genius, but their work makes little appeal to the average man. In Darwin's case no one would dispute his claim to represent worthily the scientists of the age, and his life is a noble object for study, single-hearted as he was in his devotion to truth, persistent as were his efforts in the face of prolonged ill-health. No better instance could be found to show that the highest intellectual genius may be found united with the most endearing qualities of character. Kindly and genial in his home, warmly attached to his friends, devoid of all jealousy of his fellow scientists, he lived to see his name honoured throughout the civilized world; and many who are incapable of appreciating his originality of mind can find an inspiring example in the record of his life. There is no need to make comparisons either of fame, of mental power, or of character; but the choice of Lister may be justified by the fact that his science, the science of Health and Disease, is one of absorbing interest to all men, and that with his career is bound up the history of a movement fraught with grave issues of life and death from which few families have been exempt.
About these issues bitter controversies have raged; but it is to the lesser men that the bitterness is due. By his family traditions, as well as by his natural disposition, Lister was a man of peace; and though he left the Society of Friends at the time of his marriage, he retained a respect for their views which accorded well with his own nature. When he had to speak or write on behalf of what he believed to be the truth, it was from no motive of self-assertion or combativeness. He had the calm contemplative mind of the student, whereas Bright, the Quaker tribune, the champion of Repeal, had all the fervour of the man of action. Lister's family had been Quakers since the beginning of the eighteenth century; and at this time too they moved from Yorkshire to London, where his grandfather and father were engaged in business as wine merchants. But Joseph Jackson Lister, who married in 1818, and became in 1827 the father of the famous surgeon, was much more than a merchant. He had taught himself the science of optics, had made improvements in the microscope, and had won his way within the sacred portals of the Royal Society. Letters have been preserved which show us how keen his interest in science always remained, and with what full appreciation he entered into the researches which his son was making as professor at Glasgow in the middle of the century. A father like this was not likely to grudge money on the boy's education; but for the Friends many avenues to knowledge were still closed, including the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. He had to be content to go successively to Quaker schools at Hitchin and Tottenham, and from the latter to proceed, at the age of seventeen, to University College, London, which was non-sectarian. There the teaching was good, the atmosphere favourable to industry, and Lister was not conscious of hardship in missing the delights of youth that fell to his more fortunate contemporaries.
His father lived in a comfortable house at Upton, some six miles east of London Bridge, in a district now completely swamped by the growth of the vast borough of West Ham. He kept up close relations with other Quaker families living in the neighbourhood, especially the Gurneys of Plashets. In their circle the most striking figure was Elizabeth Fry, who from 1813 to her death in 1843 devoted herself unsparingly to the cause of prison reform. From his home the father continued to exercise a strong influence over his son, who was industrious and serious beyond his years.
From his father Lister learned as a boy to delight in the use of the microscope. He learned also to use his own power of observation, and to make hand and eye work together to minister to his studies. The power of drawing, which the future surgeon thus early developed, stood him in good stead later in life; and it is interesting to contrast his enjoyment of it with the laments made by his great contemporary Darwin, who felt keenly what he lost through his inability to use a pencil and to preserve the record of what he saw in nature or in the laboratory. Lister's school-days were over when he was seventeen years old and there is nothing remarkable to tell of them; but his period at University College was unusually prolonged. He was a student there for seven years and continued an eighth year, after he had taken his degree, as Acting House Surgeon. In 1848, half-way through his time, a physical breakdown was brought on by overwork, just as he was finishing his general studies; but a long holiday enabled him to recover his strength, and before the end of the year he had begun the course of medical studies which was to be his life-work.
At school his record had been good but not brilliant, nor did he come quickly to the front in London. His mind was not of the sort which can be forced to produce untimely fruit in the hot-house of examinations. But his education was both extensive and thorough; it formed an excellent general training for the mind and a good basis for the special studies in which he was later to distinguish himself. He had been at University College for two years before he gained his first medal; but by 1850 he had made his name as the best man of his year, capable of upholding the credit of his College against any rival in the metropolis. Among his fellow students the best known in later years was Sir Henry Thompson, whose portrait by Millais hangs in our National Gallery. Among his professors one stands out pre-eminent, alike for his character and for his influence on Lister's life. This was William Sharpey, Professor of Physiology, an original man with a keen eye for originality in others. In days when most English professors were content with a narrow empirical training, he had trudged with his knapsack over half Europe in quest of knowledge, had studied in France, Switzerland, Italy, and Austria, and had made himself acquainted at first hand with the best that was taught in their schools. He was a first-rate lecturer, clear and simple, and took much pains to get to know his pupils. When Lister had held for a short time the post of Acting House Surgeon at University College Hospital, and needed to make definite plans for his career, it was Sharpey who advised him to go north for a while and attend some classes in Edinburgh before deciding on his course. Thus it was Sharpey who introduced him to Scotland and to Syme.
Before we speak of the latter, a few words must be given to the year 1851, when Lister completed his studentship and became for a time an active member of the hospital staff. This year was important as introducing him to the practice of his art under the direction of Erichsen, an Anglo-Dane and one of the foremost surgeons in London. It also led to a change in his way of living, to his being thrown into closer relations with men of his own age, and to his taking a more lively part in social gatherings. What we hear of the essays that he wrote at school, what we can read of his early letters, all harmonizes with our conception of a Quaker upbringing. There is a staid primness about him, which contrasts strangely with the pictures of medical students presented to us in the pages of Dickens. Capable though he was of enjoying a holiday, or of expanding among congenial associates, Lister was not quick to make friends. He was apt to keep too much to himself; and he seems to have inspired respect and even a certain awe among men of his own age. In his youth men noticed the same grave mien, steadfast eyes, and lofty intellectual forehead which are conspicuous in his later portraits. He was steady in conduct, serious in manner, precise in his way of expressing himself; and while these qualities helped him in the mental application which was so necessary if he was to profit by his student days, he needed a little shaking up in order to adapt himself to the ways of other men in the sphere of active life. This was given him by the constant activities of the hospital, and by the demands which the various societies made upon him; but he did not allow them to interfere with his own researches, for which he could find time when others were overwhelmed by the routine of their daily tasks.
His first bit of original research is of special interest because it connects him with his father's work. He made special observations with the microscope of the muscular tissue of the iris of the eye, illustrated his paper by delicate drawings of his own, and published it in the leading microscopical journal. This and a subsequent paper on the phenomena of 'Goose-skin' attracted some attention among physiologists at home and abroad, and brought him into friendly relations with a German professor of world-wide reputation. They also gave great satisfaction to his father and to his favourite teacher Sharpey.
But Lister's development henceforth was to take place on Scottish ground, and his visit to Edinburgh in 1853 shaped the whole course of his career. James Syme, under whose influence he thus came, was the most original and brilliant surgeon then living in the British Isles, perhaps in all Europe. His merits as a lecturer were somewhat overshadowed by his extraordinary skill as an operator; but he was a remarkable man in all ways, and the fact that Lister was admitted, first to his lecture-room and operating theatre, and then to his home, was without doubt the happiest accident in his life.
The atmosphere of Edinburgh with its large enthusiastic classes in the hospitals, its cultivated and intellectual society outside, supplied just what was wanted to foster the genius of a young man on the threshold of his career. In London, centres of culture were too widely diffused, indifference and apathy too prevalent, conservatism in principles and methods too strongly entrenched. In his new home in the north Lister could watch the boldest operator in his own profession, and could daily meet men scarcely less distinguished in other sciences, and as a visitor to Syme's house he was from time to time thrown among able men following widely different lines in life. Above all, here he met one who was peculiarly qualified to be his helper; and three years later, at the age of twenty-nine, he was married to Agnes Syme, the daughter of his chief, to whom he had been attracted, as can be seen from the letters which passed between Edinburgh and Upton, soon after his arrival in the north. Before this event, he had already made his mark as Resident House Surgeon, as assistant operator to Syme, and also as an independent lecturer under the liberal system which gave an opening to all who could establish by merit a claim to be heard. He had also begun those researches into the early stages of inflammation which, ten years later, were to bear such wonderful fruit. It was a full and busy life, and the distraction of courtship must have made it impossible for him at times to meet all demands; but after 1856 his mind was set at rest and his strength doubled by the sympathy which his wife showed in his work, and by the help which she was able to render him in writing to his dictation.