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There is little doubt Burton had gipsy blood in his veins; there was something Oriental in his temperament, and even in his skin.

One summer’s day I found him reading the paper in the Athenaeum. He was dressed in a complete suit of white – white trousers, a white linen coat, and a very shabby old white hat. People would have stared at him anywhere.

‘Hullo, Burton!’ I exclaimed, touching his linen coat, ‘Do you find it so hot – DEJA?’

Said he: ‘I don’t want to be mistaken for other people.’

‘There’s not much fear of that, even without your clothes,’ I replied.

Such an impromptu answer as his would, from any other, have implied vanity. Yet no man could have been less vain, or more free from affectation. It probably concealed regret at finding himself conspicuous.

After dinner at the Birds’ one evening we fell to talking of garrotters. About this time the police reports were full of cases of garrotting. The victim was seized from behind, one man gagged or burked him, while another picked his pocket.

‘What should you do, Burton?’ the Doctor asked, ‘if they tried to garrotte you?’

‘I’m quite ready for ’em,’ was the answer; and turning up his sleeve he partially pulled out a dagger, and shoved it back again.

We tried to make him tell us what became of the Arab boy who accompanied him to Mecca, and whose suspicions threatened Burton’s betrayal, and, of consequence, his life. I don’t think anyone was present except us two, both of whom he well knew to be quite shock-proof, but he held his tongue.

‘You would have been perfectly justified in saving your own life at any cost. You would hardly have broken the sixth commandment by doing so in this case,’ I suggested.

‘No,’ said he gravely, ‘and as I had broken all the ten before, it wouldn’t have so much mattered.’

The Doctor roared. It should, however, be stated that Burton took no less delight in his host’s boyish simplicity, than the other in what he deemed his guest’s superb candour.

‘Come, tell us,’ said Bird, ‘how many men have you killed?’

‘How many have you, Doctor?’ was the answer.

Richard Burton was probably the most extraordinary linguist of his day. Lady Burton mentions, I think, in his Life, the number of languages and dialects her husband knew. That Mahometans should seek instruction from him in the Koran, speaks of itself for his astonishing mastery of the greatest linguistic difficulties. With Indian languages and their variations, he was as completely at home as Miss Youghal’s Sais; and, one may suppose, could have played the ROLE of a fakir as perfectly as he did that of a Mecca pilgrim. I asked him what his method was in learning a fresh language. He said he wrote down as many new words as he could learn and remember each day; and learnt the construction of the language colloquially, before he looked at a grammar.

Lady Burton was hardly less abnormal in her way than Sir Richard. She had shared his wanderings, and was intimate, as no one else was, with the eccentricities of his thoughts and deeds. Whatever these might happen to be, she worshipped her husband notwithstanding. For her he was the standard of excellence; all other men were departures from it. And the singularity is, her religious faith was never for an instant shaken – she remained as strict a Roman Catholic as when he married her from a convent. Her enthusiasm and cosmopolitanism, her NAIVETE and the sweetness of her disposition made her the best of company. She had lived so much the life of a Bedouin, that her dress and her habits had an Eastern glow. When staying with the Birds, she was attended by an Arab girl, one of whose duties it was to prepare her mistress’ chibouk, which was regularly brought in with the coffee. On one occasion, when several other ladies were dining there, some of them yielded to Lady Burton’s persuasion to satisfy their curiosity. The Arab girl soon provided the means; and it was not long before there were four or five faces as white as Mrs. Alfred Wigan’s, under similar circumstances, in the ‘Nabob.’

Alfred Wigan’s father was an unforgettable man. To describe him in a word, he was Falstag REDIVIVUS. In bulk and stature, in age, in wit and humour, and morality, he was Falstaff. He knew it and gloried in it. He would complain with zest of ‘larding the lean earth’ as he walked along. He was as partial to whisky as his prototype to sack. He would exhaust a Johnsonian vocabulary in describing his ailments; and would appeal pathetically to Miss Bird, as though at his last gasp, for ‘just a tea-spoonful’ of the grateful stimulant. She served him with a liberal hand, till he cried ‘Stop!’ But if she then stayed, he would softly insinuate ‘I didn’t mean it, my dear.’ Yet he was no Costigan. His brain was stronger than casks of whisky. And his powers of digestion were in keeping. Indeed, to borrow the well-known words applied to a great man whom we all love, ‘He tore his dinner like a famished wolf, with the veins swelling in his forehead, and the perspiration running down his cheeks.’ The trend of his thoughts, though he was eminently a man of intellect, followed the dictates of his senses. Walk with him in the fields and, from the full stores of a prodigious memory, he would pour forth pages of the choicest poetry. But if you paused to watch the lambs play, or disturbed a young calf in your path, he would almost involuntarily exclaim: ‘How deliciously you smell of mint, my pet!’ or ‘Bless your innocent face! What sweetbreads you will provide!’

James Wigan had kept a school once. The late Serjeant Ballantine, who was one of his pupils, mentions him in his autobiography. He was a good scholar, and when I first knew him, used to teach elocution. Many actors went to him, and not a few members of both Houses of Parliament. He could recite nearly the whole of several of Shakespeare’s plays; and, with a dramatic art I have never known equalled by any public reader.

His later years were passed at Sevenoaks, where he kept an establishment for imbeciles, or weak-minded youths. I often stayed with him (not as a patient), and a very comfortable and pretty place it was. Now and then he would call on me in London; and, with a face full of theatrical woe, tell me, with elaborate circumlocution, how the Earl of This, or the Marquis of That, had implored him to take charge of young Lord So-and-So, his son; who, as all the world knew, had – well, had ‘no guts in his brains.’ Was there ever such a chance? Just consider what it must lead to! Everybody knew – no, nobody knew – the enormous number of idiots there were in noble families. And, such a case as that of young Lord Dash – though of course his residence at Sevenoaks would be a profound secret, would be patent to the whole peerage; and, my dear sir, a fortune to your humble servant, if – ah! if he could only secure it!’

‘But I thought you said you had been implored to take him?’

‘I did say so. I repeat it. His Lordship’s father came to me with tears in his eyes. “My dear Wigan,” were that nobleman’s words, “do me this one favour and trust me, you will never regret it!” But – ‘ he paused to remove the dramatic tear, ‘but, I hardly dare go on. Yes – yes, I know your kindness’ (seizing my hand) ‘I know how ready you are to help me’ – (I hadn’t said a word) – ‘but – ‘

‘How much is it this time? and what is it for?’

‘For? I have told you what it is for. The merest trifle will suffice. I have the room – a beautiful room, the best aspect in the house. It is now occupied by young Rumagee Bumagee the great Bombay millionaire’s son. Of course he can be moved. But a bed – there positively is not a spare bed in the house. This is all I want – a bed, and perhaps a tuppenny ha’penny strip of carpet, a couple of chairs, a – let me see; if you give me a slip of paper I can make out in a minute what it will come to.’

‘Never mind that. Will a ten-pound note serve your purposes?’

‘Dear boy! Dear boy! But on one condition, on one condition only, can I accept it – this is a loan, a loan mind! and not a gift. No, no – it is useless to protest; my pride, my sense of honour, forbids my acceptance upon any other terms.’

A day or two afterwards I would learn from George Bird that he and Miss Alice had accepted an invitation to meet me at Sevenoaks. Mr. Donovan, the famous phrenologist, was to be of the party; the Rector of Sevenoaks, and one or two local magnates, had also been invited to dine. We Londoners were to occupy the spare rooms, for this was in the coaching days.

We all knew what we had to expect – a most enjoyable banquet of conviviality. Young Mrs. Wigan, his second wife, was an admirable housekeeper, and nothing could have been better done. The turbot and the haunch of venison were the pick of Grove’s shop, the champagne was iced to perfection, and there was enough of it, as Mr. Donovan whispered to me, casting his eyes to the ceiling, ‘to wash an omnibus, bedad.’ Mr. Donovan, though he never refused Mr. Wigan’s hospitality, balanced the account by vilipending his friend’s extravagant habits. While Mr. Wigan, probably giving him full credit for his gratitude, always spoke of him as ‘Poor old Paddy Donovan.’

With Alfred Wigan, the eldest son, I was on very friendly terms. Nothing could be more unlike his father. His manner in his own house was exactly what it was on the stage. Albany Fonblanque, whose experiences began nearly forty years before mine, and who was not given to waste his praise, told me he considered Alfred Wigan the best ‘gentleman’ he had ever seen on the stage. I think this impression was due in a great measure to Wigan’s entire absence of affectation, and to his persistent appeal to the ‘judicious’ but never to the ‘groundlings.’ Mrs. Alfred Wigan was also a consummate artiste.

CHAPTER XLII

THROUGH George Bird I made the acquaintance of the leading surgeons and physicians of the North London Hospital, where I frequently attended the operations of Erichsen, John Marshall, and Sir Henry Thompson, following them afterwards in their clinical rounds. Amongst the physicians, Professor Sydney Ringer remains one of my oldest friends. Both surgery and therapeutics interested me deeply. With regard to the first, curiosity was supplemented by the incidental desire to overcome the natural repugnance we all feel to the mere sight of blood.

Chemistry I studied in the laboratory of a professional friend of Dr. Bird’s. After a while my teacher would leave me to carry out small commissions of a simple character which had been put into his hands, such as the analysis of water, bread, or other food-stuffs. He himself often had engagements elsewhere, and would leave me in possession of the laboratory, with a small urchin whom he had taught to be useful. This boy was of the meekest and mildest disposition. Whether his master had frightened him or not I do not know. He always spoke in a whisper, and with downcast eyes. He handled everything as if it was about to annihilate him, or he it, and looked as if he wouldn’t bite – even a tartlet.

One day when I had finished my task, and we were alone, I bethought me of making some laughing gas, and trying the effect of it on the gentle youth. I offered him a shilling for the experiment, which, however, proved more expensive than I had bargained for. I filled a bladder with the gas, and putting a bit of broken pipe-stem in its neck for a mouthpiece, gave it to the boy to suck – and suck he did. In a few seconds his eyes dilated, his face became lividly white, and I had some trouble to tear the intoxicating bladder from his clutches. The moment I had done so, the true nature of the gutter-snipe exhibited itself. He began by cutting flip-flaps and turning windmills all round the room; then, before I could stop him, swept an armful of valuable apparatus from the tables, till the whole floor was strewn with wreck and poisonous solutions. The dismay of the chemist when he returned may be more easily imagined than described.

Some years ago, there was a well-known band of amateur musicians called the ‘Wandering Minstrels.’ This band originated in my rooms in Dean’s Yard. Its nucleus was composed of the following members: Seymour Egerton, afterwards Lord Wilton, Sir Archibald Macdonald my brother- in-law, Fred Clay, Bertie Mitford (the present Lord Redesdale – perhaps the finest amateur cornet and trumpet player of the day), and Lord Gerald Fitzgerald. Our concerts were given in the Hanover Square Rooms, and we played for charities all over the country.

To turn from the musical art to the art – or science is it called? – of self-defence, once so patronised by the highest fashion, there was at this time a famous pugilistic battle – the last of the old kind – fought between the English champion, Tom Sayers, and the American champion, Heenan. Bertie Mitford and I agreed to go and see it.

The Wandering Minstrels had given a concert in the Hanover Square Rooms. The fight was to take place on the following morning. When the concert was over, Mitford and I went to some public-house where the ‘Ring’ had assembled, and where tickets were to be bought, and instructions received. Fights when gloves were not used, and which, especially in this case, might end fatally, were of course illegal; and every precaution had been taken by the police to prevent it. A special train was to leave London Bridge Station about 6 A.M. We sat up all night in my room, and had to wait an hour in the train before the men with their backers arrived. As soon as it was daylight, we saw mounted police galloping on the roads adjacent to the line. No one knew where the train would pull up. Ten minutes after it did so, a ring was formed in a meadow close at hand. The men stripped, and tossed for places. Heenan won the toss, and with it a considerable advantage. He was nearly a head taller than Sayers, and the ground not being quite level, he chose the higher side of the ring. But this was by no means his only ‘pull.’ Just as the men took their places the sun began to rise. It was in Heenan’s back, and right in the other’s face.

Heenan began the attack at once with scornful confidence; and in a few minutes Sayers received a blow on the forehead above his guard which sent him slithering under the ropes; his head and neck, in fact, were outside the ring. He lay perfectly still, and in my ignorance, I thought he was done for. Not a bit of it. He was merely reposing quietly till his seconds put him on his legs. He came up smiling, but not a jot the worse. But in the course of another round or two, down he went again. The fight was going all one way. The Englishman seemed to be completely at the mercy of the giant. I was so disgusted that I said to my companion: ‘Come along, Bertie, the game’s up. Sayers is good for nothing.’

But now the luck changed. The bull-dog tenacity and splendid condition of Sayers were proof against these violent shocks. The sun was out of his eyes, and there was not a mark of a blow either on his face or his body. His temper, his presence of mind, his defence, and the rapidity of his movements, were perfect. The opening he had watched for came at last. He sprang off his legs, and with his whole weight at close quarters, struck Heenan’s cheek just under the eye. It was like the kick of a cart-horse. The shouts might have been heard half-a-mile off. Up till now, the betting called after each round had come to ‘ten to one on Heenan’; it fell at once to evens.

Heenan was completely staggered. He stood for a minute as if he did not know where he was or what had happened. And then, an unprecedented thing occurred. While he thus stood, Sayers put both hands behind his back, and coolly walked up to his foe to inspect the damage he had inflicted. I had hold of the ropes in Heenan’s corner, consequently could not see his face without leaning over them. When I did so, and before time was called, one eye was completely closed. What kind of generosity prevented Sayers from closing the other during the pause, is difficult to conjecture. But his forbearance did not make much difference. Heenan became more fierce, Sayers more daring. The same tactics were repeated; and now, no longer to the astonishment of the crowd, the same success rewarded them. Another sledge-hammer blow from the Englishman closed the remaining eye. The difference in the condition of the two men must have been enormous, for in five minutes Heenan was completely sightless.

Sayers, however, had not escaped scot-free. In countering the last attack, Heenan had broken one of the bones of Sayers’ right arm. Still the fight went on. It was now a brutal scene. The blind man could not defend himself from the other’s terrible punishment. His whole face was so swollen and distorted, that not a feature was recognisable. But he evidently had his design. Each time Sayers struck him and ducked, Heenan made a swoop with his long arms, and at last he caught his enemy. With gigantic force he got Sayers’ head down, and heedless of his captive’s pounding, backed step by step to the ring. When there, he forced Sayers’ neck on to the rope, and, with all his weight, leant upon the Englishman’s shoulders. In a few moments the face of the strangled man was black, his tongue was forced out of his mouth, and his eyes from their sockets. His arms fell powerless, and in a second or two more he would have been a corpse. With a wild yell the crowd rushed to the rescue. Warning cries of ‘The police! The police!’ mingled with the shouts. The ropes were cut, and a general scamper for the waiting train ended this last of the greatest prize-fights.

We two took it easily, and as the mob were scuttling away from the police, we saw Sayers with his backers, who were helping him to dress. His arm seemed to hurt him a little, but otherwise, for all the damage he had received, he might have been playing at football or lawn tennis.

We were quietly getting into a first-class carriage, when I was seized by the shoulder and roughly spun out of the way. Turning to resent the rudeness, I found myself face to face with Heenan. One of his seconds had pushed me on one side to let the gladiator get in. So completely blind was he, that the friend had to place his foot upon the step. And yet neither man had won the fight.

We still think – profess to think – the barbarism of the ‘Iliad’ the highest flight of epic poetry; if Homer had sung this great battle, how glorious we should have thought it! Beyond a doubt, man ‘yet partially retains the characteristics that adapted him to an antecedent state.’

CHAPTER XLIII

THROUGH the Cayley family, I became very intimate with their near relatives the Worsleys of Hovingham, near York. Hovingham has now become known to the musical world through its festivals, annually held at the Hall under the patronage of its late owner, Sir William Worsley. It was in his father’s time that this fine place, with its delightful family, was for many years a home to me. Here I met the Alisons, and at the kind invitation of Sir Archibald, paid the great historian a visit at Possil, his seat in Scotland. As men who had achieved scientific or literary distinction inspired me with far greater awe than those of the highest rank – of whom from my childhood I had seen abundance – Alison’s celebrity, his courteous manner, his oracular speech, his voluminous works, and his voluminous dimensions, filled me with too much diffidence and respect to admit of any freedom of approach. One listened to him, as he held forth of an evening when surrounded by his family, with reverential silence. He had a strong Scotch accent; and, if a wee bit prosy at times, it was sententious and polished prose that he talked; he talked invariably like a book. His family were devoted to him; and I felt that no one who knew him could help liking him.

When Thackeray was giving readings from ‘The Four Georges,’ I dined with Lady Grey and Landseer, and we three went to hear him. I had heard Dickens read ‘The Trial of Bardell against Pickwick,’ and it was curious to compare the style of the two great novelists. With Thackeray, there was an entire absence of either tone or colour. Of course the historical nature of his subject precluded the dramatic suggestion to be looked for in the Pickwick trial, thus rendering comparison inapposite. Nevertheless one was bound to contrast them. Thackeray’s features were impassive, and his voice knew no inflection. But his elocution in other respects was perfect, admirably distinct and impressive from its complete obliteration of the reader.

The selection was from the reign of George the Third; and no part of it was more attentively listened to than his passing allusion to himself. ‘I came,’ he says, ‘from India as a child, and our ship touched at an island on the way home, where my black servant took me a long walk over rocks and hills until we reached a garden, where we saw a man walking. “That is he,” said the black man, “that is Bonaparte! He eats three sheep every day, and all the little children he can lay hands on!”‘ One went to hear Thackeray, to see Thackeray; and the child and the black man and the ogre were there on the stage before one. But so well did the lecturer perform his part, that ten minutes later one had forgotten him, and saw only George Selwyn and his friend Horace Walpole, and Horace’s friend, Miss Berry – whom by the way I too knew and remember. One saw the ‘poor society ghastly in its pleasures, its loves, its revelries,’ and the redeeming vision of ‘her father’s darling, the Princess Amelia, pathetic for her beauty, her sweetness, her early death, and for the extreme passionate tenderness with which her father loved her.’ The story told, as Thackeray told it, was as delightful to listen to as to read.

Not so with Dickens. He disappointed me. He made no attempt to represent the different characters by varied utterance; but whenever something unusually comic was said, or about to be said, he had a habit of turning his eyes up to the ceiling; so that, knowing what was coming, one nervously anticipated the upcast look, and for the moment lost the illusion. In both entertainments, the reader was naturally the central point of interest. But in the case of Dickens, when curiosity was satisfied, he alone possessed one; Pickwick and Mrs. Bardell were put out of court.

Was it not Charles Lamb, or was it Hazlitt, that could not bear to see Shakespeare upon the stage? I agree with him. I have never seen a Falstaff that did not make me miserable. He is even more impossible to impersonate than Hamlet. A player will spoil you the character of Hamlet, but he cannot spoil his thoughts. Depend upon it, we are fortunate not to have seen Shakespeare in his ghost of Royal Denmark.

In 1861 I married Lady Katharine Egerton, second daughter of Lord Wilton, and we took up our abode in Warwick Square, which, by the way, I had seen a few years before as a turnip field. My wife was an accomplished pianiste, so we had a great deal of music, and saw much of the artist world. I may mention one artistic dinner amongst our early efforts at housekeeping, which nearly ended with a catastrophe.

Millais and Dicky Doyle were of the party; music was represented by Joachim, Piatti, and Halle. The late Lord and Lady de Ros were also of the number. Lady de Ros, who was a daughter of the Duke of Richmond, had danced at the ball given by her father at Brussels the night before Waterloo. As Lord de Ros was then Governor of the Tower, it will be understood that he was a veteran of some standing. The great musical trio were enchanting all ears with their faultless performance, when the sweet and soul-stirring notes of the Adagio were suddenly interrupted by a loud crash and a shriek. Old Lord de Ros was listening to the music on a sofa at the further end of the room. Over his head was a large picture in a heavy frame. What vibrations, what careless hanging, what mischievous Ate or Discord was at the bottom of it, who knows? Down came the picture on the top of the poor old General’s head, and knocked him senseless on the floor. He had to be carried upstairs and laid upon a bed. Happily he recovered without serious injury. There were many exclamations of regret, but the only one I remember was Millais’. All he said was: ‘And it is a good picture too.’

Sir Arthur Sullivan was one of our musical favourites. My wife had known him as a chorister boy in the Chapel Royal; and to the end of his days we were on terms of the closest intimacy and friendship. Through him we made the acquaintance of the Scott Russells. Mr. Scott Russell was the builder of the Crystal Palace. He had a delightful residence at Sydenham, the grounds of which adjoined those of the Crystal Palace, and were beautifully laid out by his friend Sir Joseph Paxton. One of the daughters, Miss Rachel Russell, was a pupil of Arthur Sullivan’s. She had great musical talent, she was remarkably handsome, exceedingly clever and well-informed, and altogether exceptionally fascinating. Quite apart from Sullivan’s genius, he was in every way a charming fellow. The teacher fell in love with the pupil; and, as naturally, his love was returned. Sullivan was but a youth, a poor and struggling music-master. And, very naturally again, Mrs. Scott Russell, who could not be expected to know what magic baton the young maestro carried in his knapsack, thought her brilliant daughter might do better. The music lessons were put a stop to, and correspondence between the lovers was prohibited.

Once a week or so, either the young lady or the young gentleman would, quite unexpectedly, pay us a visit about tea or luncheon time. And, by the strangest coincidence, the other would be sure to drop in while the one was there. This went on for a year or two. But destiny forbade the banns. In spite of the large fortune acquired by Mr. Scott Russell – he was the builder of the ‘Great Eastern’ as well as the Crystal Palace – ill-advised or unsuccessful ventures robbed him of his well-earned wealth. His beautiful place at Sydenham had to be sold; and the marriage of Miss Rachel with young Arthur Sullivan was abandoned. She ultimately married an Indian official.

Her story may here be told to the end. Some years later she returned to England to bring her two children home for their education, going back to India without them, as Indian mothers have to do. The day before she sailed, she called to take leave of us in London. She was terribly depressed, but fought bravely with her trial. She never broke down, but shunted the subject, talking and laughing with flashes of her old vivacity, about music, books, friends, and ‘dear old dirty London,’ as she called it. When she left, I opened the street-door for her, and with both her hands in mine, bade her ‘Farewell.’ Then the tears fell, and her parting words were: ‘I am leaving England never to see it again.’ She was seized with cholera the night she reached Bombay, and died the following day.

To return to her father, the eminent engineer. He was distinctly a man of genius, and what is called ‘a character.’ He was always in the clouds – not in the vapour of his engine-rooms, nor busy inventing machines for extracting sunbeams from cucumbers, but musing on metaphysical problems and abstract speculations about the universe generally. In other respects a perfectly simple-minded man.

It was in his palmy days that he invited me to run down to Sheerness with him, and go over the ‘Great Eastern’ before she left with the Atlantic cable. This was in 1865. The largest ship in the world, and the first Atlantic cable, were both objects of the greatest interest. The builder did not know the captain – Anderson – nor did the captain know the builder. But clearly, each would be glad to meet the other.

As the leviathan was to leave in a couple of days, everything on board her was in the wildest confusion. Russell could not find anyone who could find the Captain; so he began poking about with me, till we accidentally stumbled on the Commander. He merely said that he was come to take a parting glance at his ‘child,’ which did not seem of much concern to the over-busy captain. He never mentioned his own name, but introduced me as ‘my friend Captain Cole.’ Now, in those days, Captain Cole was well known as a distinguished naval officer. To Russell’s absent and engineering mind, ‘Coke’ had suggested ‘Cole,’ and ‘Captain’ was inseparable from the latter. It was a name to conjure with. Captain Anderson took off his cap, shook me warmly by the hand, expressed his pleasure at making my acquaintance, and hoped I, and my friend Mr. – ahem – would come into his cabin and have luncheon, and then allow him to show me over his ship. Scott Russell was far too deeply absorbed in his surroundings to note any peculiarity in this neglect of himself and marked respect for ‘Captain Cole.’ We made the round of the decks, then explored the engine room. Here the designer found himself in an earthly paradise. He button-holed the engineer and inquired into every crank, and piston, and valve, and every bolt, as it seemed to me, till the officer in charge unconsciously began to ask opinions instead of offering explanations. By degrees the captain was equally astonished at the visitor’s knowledge, and when at last my friend asked what had become of some fixture or other which he missed, Captain Anderson turned to him and exclaimed, ‘Why, you seem to know more about the ship than I do.’

‘Well, so I ought,’ says my friend, never for a moment supposing that Anderson was in ignorance of his identity.

‘Indeed! Who then are you, pray?’

‘Who? Why, Scott Russell of course, the builder!’

There was a hearty laugh over it all. I managed to spare the captain’s feelings by preserving my incognito, and so ended a pleasant day.

CHAPTER XLIV

IN November, 1862, my wife and I received an invitation to spend a week at Compiegne with their Majesties the Emperor and Empress of the French. This was due to the circumstance that my wife’s father, Lord Wilton, as Commodore of the Royal Yacht Squadron, had entertained the Emperor during his visit to Cowes.

We found an express train with the imperial carriages awaiting the arrival of the English guests at the station du Nord. The only other English besides ourselves were Lord and Lady Winchilsea with Lady Florence Paget, and Lord and Lady Castlerosse, now Lord and Lady Kenmare. These, however, had preceded us, so that with the exception of M. Drouyn de Lhuys, we had the saloon carriage to ourselves.

The party was a very large one, including the Walewskis, the Persignys, the Metternichs – he, the Austrian Ambassador – Prince Henri VII. of Reuss, Prussian Ambassador, the Prince de la Moskowa, son of Marshal Ney, and the Labedoyeres, amongst the historical names. Amongst those of art and literature, of whom there were many, the only one whom I made the acquaintance of was Octave Feuillet. I happened to have brought his ‘Comedies et Proverbes’ and another of his books with me, never expecting to meet him; this so pleased him that we became allies. I was surprised to find that he could not even read English, which I begged him to learn for the sake of Shakespeare alone.

We did not see their Majesties till dinner-time. When the guests were assembled, the women and the men were arranged separately on opposite sides of the room. The Emperor and Empress then entered, each respectively welcoming those of their own sex, shaking hands and saying some conventional word in passing. Me, he asked whether I had brought my guns, and hoped we should have a good week’s sport. To each one a word. Every night during the week we sat down over a hundred to dinner. The Army was largely represented. For the first time I tasted here the national frog, which is neither fish nor flesh. The wine was, of course, supreme; but after every dish a different wine was handed round. The evening entertainments were varied. There was the theatre in the Palace, and some of the best of the Paris artistes were requisitioned for the occasion. With them came Dejazet, then nearly seventy, who had played before Buonaparte.

Almost every night there was dancing. Sometimes the Emperor would walk through a quadrille, but as a rule he would retire with one of his ministers, though only to a smaller boudoir at the end of the suite, where a couple of whist-tables were ready for the more sedate of the party. Here one evening I found Prince Metternich showing his Majesty a chess problem, of which he was the proud inventor. The Emperor asked whether I was fond of chess. I was very fond of chess, was one of the regular HABITUES of St. George’s Chess Club, and had made a study of the game for years. The Prince challenged me to solve his problem in four moves. It was not a very profound one. I had the hardihood to discover that three, rather obvious moves, were sufficient. But as I was not Gil Blas, and the Prince was not the Archbishop of Grenada, it did not much matter. Like the famous prelate, his Excellency proffered his felicitations, and doubtless also wished me ‘un peu plus de gout’ with the addition of ‘un peu moins de perspicacite.’

One of the evening performances was an exhibition of POSES- PLASTIQUES, the subjects being chosen from celebrated pictures in the Louvre. Theatrical costumiers, under the command of a noted painter, were brought from Paris. The ladies of the court were carefully rehearsed, and the whole thing was very perfectly and very beautifully done. All the English ladies were assigned parts. But, as nearly all these depended less upon the beauties of drapery than upon those of nature, the English ladies were more than a little staggered by the demands of the painter and of the – UNdressers. To the young and handsome Lady Castlerosse, then just married, was allotted the figure of Diana. But when informed that, in accordance with the original, the drapery of one leg would have to be looped up above the knee, her ladyship used very firm language; and, though of course perfectly ladylike, would, rendered into masculine terms, have signified that she would ‘see the painter d-d first.’ The celebrated ‘Cruche cassee’ of Greuze, was represented by the reigning beauty, the Marquise de Gallifet, with complete fidelity and success.

There was one stage of the performance which neither I nor Lord Castlerosse, both of us newly married, at all appreciated. This was the privileges of the Green-room, or rather of the dressing-rooms. The exhibition was given in the ball-room. On one side of this, until the night of the performances, an enclosure was boarded off. Within it, were compartments in which the ladies dressed and – undressed. At this operation, as we young husbands discovered, certain young gentlemen of the court were permitted to assist – I think I am not mistaken in saying that his Majesty was of the number. What kind of assistance was offered or accepted, Castlerosse and I, being on the wrong side of the boarding, were not in a position to know.

There was a door in the boarding, over which one expected to see, ‘No admittance except on business,’ or perhaps, ‘on pleasure.’ At this door I rapped, and rapped again impatiently. It was opened, only as wide as her face, by the empress.

‘What do you want, sir?’ was the angry demand.

‘To see my wife, madame,’ was the submissive reply.

‘You can’t see her; she is rehearsing.’

‘But, madame, other gentlemen – ‘

‘Ah! Mais, c’est un enfantillage! Allez-vous-en.’

And the door was slammed in my face.

‘Well,’ thought I, ‘the right woman is in the right place there, at all events.’

Another little incident at the performance itself also recalled the days and manners of the court of Louis XV. Between each tableau, which was lighted solely from the raised stage, the lights were put out, and the whole room left in complete darkness. Whenever this happened, the sounds of immoderate kissing broke out in all directions, accompanied by little cries of resistance and protestation. Until then, I had always been under the impression that humour of this kind was confined to the servants’ hall. One could not help thinking of another court, where things were managed differently.

But the truth is, these trivial episodes were symptomatic of a pervading tone. A no inconsiderable portion of the ladies seemed to an outsider to have been invited for the sake of their personal charms. After what has just been related, one could not help fancying that there were some amongst them who had availed themselves of the privilege which, according to Tacitus, was claimed by Vistilia before the AEdiles. So far, however, from any of these noble ladies being banished to the Isle of Seriphos, they seemed as much attached to the court as the court to them; and whatever the Roman Emperor might have done, the Emperor of the French was all that was most indulgent.

There were two days’ shooting, one day’s stag hunting, an expedition to Pierrefonds, and a couple of days spent in riding and skating. The shooting was very much after the fashion of that already described at Prince Esterhazy’s, though of a much more Imperial character. As in Hungary, the game had been driven into coverts cut down to the height of the waist, with paths thirty to forty yards apart, for the guns.

The weather was cold, with snow on the ground, but it was a beautifully sunny day. This was the party: the two ambassadors, the Prince de la Moskowa, Persigny, Walewski – Bonaparte’s natural son, and the image of his father – the Marquis de Toulongeon, Master of the Horse, and we three Englishmen. We met punctually at eleven in the grand saloon. Here the Emperor joined us, with his cigarette in his mouth, shook hands with each, and bade us take our places in the char-a-bancs. Four splendid Normandy greys, with postilions in the picturesque old costume, glazed hats and huge jack- boots, took us through the forest at full gallop, and in half an hour we were at the covert side. The Emperor was very cheery all the way. He cautioned me not to shoot back for the beaters’ sakes, and asked me how many guns I had brought.

‘Two only? that’s not enough, I will lend you some of mine.’

Arrived at our beat – ‘Tire de Royallieu,’ we found a squadron of dismounted cavalry drawn up in line, ready to commence operations. They were in stable dress, with canvas trousers and spurs to their boots. Several officers were galloping about giving orders, the whole being under the command of a mounted chief in green uniform and cocked hat! The place of each shooter had been settled by M. de Toulongeon. I, being the only Nobody of the lot, was put on the extreme outside. The Emperor was in the middle; and although, as I noticed, he made some beautiful shots at rocketers, he was engaged much of the time in talking to ministers who walked behind, or beside, him.

Our servants were already in the places allotted to their masters, and each of us had two keepers to carry spare guns (the Emperor had not forgotten to send me two of his, which I could not shoot with, and never used), and a sergeant with a large card to prick off each head of game, not as it fell to the gun, but only after it was picked up. This conscientious scoring amused me greatly; for, as it chanced, my bag was a heavy one, and the Emperor’s marker sent constant messages to mine to compare notes, and so arrange, as it transpired, to keep His Majesty at the top of the score.

About half-past one we reached a clearing where DEJEUNER was awaiting us. The scene presented was striking. Around a tent in which every delicacy was spread out were numbers of little charcoal fires, where a still greater number of cooks in white caps and jackets were preparing dainty dishes; while the Imperial footmen bustling about brightened the picture with colour. After coffee all the cards were brought to his Majesty. When he had scanned them, he said to me across the table:

‘I congratulate you, Mr. Coke, upon having killed the most.’

My answer was, ‘After you, Sir.’

‘Yes,’ said he, giving his moustache an upward twist, but with perfect gravity, ‘I always kill the most.’

Just then the Empress and the whole court drove up. Presently she came into the tent and, addressing her husband, exclaimed:

‘Avez-vous bientot fini, vous autres? Ah! que vous etes des gourmands!’

Till the finish, she and the rest walked with the shooters. By four it was over. The total score was 1,387 head. Mine was 182, which included thirty-six partridges, two woodcocks, and four roedeer. This, in three and a half hours’ shooting, with two muzzle-loaders (breech-loaders were not then in use), was an unusually good bag.

Fashion is capricious. When lunch was over I went to one of the charcoal fires, quite in the background, to light a cigarette. An aide-de-camp immediately pounced upon me, with the information that this was not permitted in company with the Empress. It reminded one at once of the ejaculation at Oliver Twist’s bedside, ‘Ladies is present, Mr. Giles.’ After the shooting, I was told to go to tea with the Empress – a terrible ordeal, for one had to face the entire feminine force of the palace, nearly every one of whom, from the highest to the lowest, was provided with her own CAVALIERE SERVENTE.

The following night, when we assembled for dinner, I received orders to sit next to the Empress. This was still more embarrassing. It is true, one does not speak to a sovereign unless one is spoken to; but still one is permitted to make the initiative easy. I found that I was expected to take my share of the task; and by a happy inspiration, introduced the subject of the Prince Imperial, then a child of eight years old. The MONDAINE Empress was at once merged in the adoring mother; her whole soul was wrapped up in the boy. It was easy enough then to speculate on his career, at least so far as the building of castles in the air for fantasies to roam in. What a future he had before him! – to consolidate the Empire! to perfect the great achievement of his father, and render permanent the foundation of the Napoleonic dynasty! to build a superstructure as transcendent for the glories of Peace, as those of his immortal ancestor had been for War!

It was not difficult to play the game with such court cards in one’s hand. Nor was it easy to coin these PHRASES DE SUCRECANDI without sober and earnest reflections on the import of their contents. What, indeed, might or might not be the consequences to millions, of the wise or unwise or evil development of the life of that bright and handsome little fellow, now trotting around the dessert table, with the long curls tumbling over his velvet jacket, and the flowers in his hand for some pretty lady who was privileged to kiss him? Who could foretell the cruel doom – heedless of such favours and such splendid promises – that awaited the pretty child? Who could hear the brave young soldier’s last shrieks of solitary agony? Who could see the forsaken body slashed with knives and assegais? Ah! who could dream of that fond mother’s heart, when the end came, which eclipsed even the disasters of a nation!

One by-day, when my wife and I were riding with the Emperor through the forest of Compiegne, a rough-looking man in a blouse, with a red comforter round his neck, sprang out from behind a tree; and before he could be stopped, seized the Emperor’s bridle. In an instant the Emperor struck his hand with a heavy hunting stock; and being free, touched his horse with the spur and cantered on. I took particular notice of his features and his demeanour, from the very first moment of the surprise. Nothing happened but what I have described. The man seemed fierce and reckless. The Emperor showed not the faintest signs of discomposure. All he said was, turning to my wife, ‘Comme il avait l’air sournois, cet homme!’ and resumed the conversation at the point where it was interrupted.

Before we had gone a hundred yards I looked back to see what had become of the offender. He was in the hands of two GENS D’ARMES, who had been invisible till then.

‘Poor devil,’ thought I, ‘this spells dungeon for you.’

Now, with Kinglake’s acrimonious charge of the Emperor’s personal cowardice running in my head, I felt that this exhibition of SANG FROID, when taken completely unawares, went far to refute the imputation. What happened later in the day strongly confirmed this opinion.

After dark, about six o’clock, I took a stroll by myself through the town of Compiegne. Coming home, when crossing the bridge below the Palace, I met the Emperor arm-in-arm with Walewski. Not ten minutes afterwards, whom should I stumble upon but the ruffian who had seized the Emperor’s bridle? The same red comforter was round his neck, the same wild look was in his face. I turned after he had passed, and at the same moment he turned to look at me.

Would this man have been at large but for the Emperor’s orders? Assuredly not. For, supposing he were crazy, who could have answered for his deeds? Most likely he was shadowed; and to a certainty the Emperor would be so. Still, what could save the latter from a pistol-shot? Yet, here he was, sauntering about the badly lighted streets of a town where his kenspeckle figure was familiar to every inhabitant. Call this fatalism if you will; but these were not the acts of a coward. I told this story to a friend who was well ‘posted’ in the club gossip of the day. He laughed.

‘Don’t you know the meaning of Kinglake’s spite against the Emperor?’ said he. ‘CHERCHEZ LA FEMME. Both of them were in love with Mrs. – ‘

This is the way we write our histories.

Wishing to explore the grounds about the palace before anyone was astir, I went out one morning about half-past eight. Seeing what I took to be a mausoleum, I walked up to it, found the door opened, and peeped in. It turned out to be a museum of Roman antiquities, and the Emperor was inside, arranging them. I immediately withdrew, but he called to me to come in.

He was at this time busy with his Life of Caesar; and, in his enthusiasm, seemed pleased to have a listener to his instructive explanations; he even encouraged the curiosity which the valuable collection and his own remarks could not fail to awaken.

Not long ago, I saw some correspondence in the Times’ and other papers about what Heine calls ‘Das kleine welthistorische Hutchen,’ which the whole of Europe knew so well, to its cost. Some six or seven of the Buonaparte hats, so it appears, are still in existence. But I noticed, that though all were located, no mention was made of the one in the Luxembourg.

When we left Compiegne for Paris we were magnificently furnished with orders for royal boxes at theatres, and for admission to places of interest not open to the public. Thus provided, we had access to many objects of historical interest and of art – amongst the former, the relics of the great conqueror. In one glass case, under lock and key, was the ‘world-historical little hat.’ The official who accompanied us, having stated that we were the Emperor’s guests, requested the keeper to take it out and show it to us. I hope no Frenchman will know it, but, I put the hat upon my head. In one sense it was a ‘little’ hat – that is to say, it fitted a man with a moderate sized skull – but the flaps were much larger than pictures would lead one to think, and such was the weight that I am sure it would give any ordinary man accustomed to our head-gear a still neck to wear it for an hour. What has become of this hat if it is not still in the Luxembourg?

CHAPTER XLV

SOME few years later, while travelling with my family in Switzerland, we happened to be staying at Baveno on Lago Maggiore at the same time, and in the same hotel, as the Crown Prince and Princess of Germany. Their Imperial Highnesses occupied a suite of apartments on the first floor. Our rooms were immediately above them. As my wife was known to the Princess, occasional greetings passed from balcony to balcony.

One evening while watching two lads rowing from the shore in the direction of Isola Bella, I was aroused from my contemplation of a gathering storm by angry vociferations beneath me. These were addressed to the youths in the boat. The anxious father had noted the coming tempest; and, with hands to his mouth, was shouting orders to the young gentlemen to return. Loud and angry as cracked the thunder, the imperial voice o’ertopped it. Commands succeeded admonitions, and as the only effect on the rowers was obvious recalcitrancy, oaths succeeded both: all in those throat- clearing tones to which the German language so consonantly lends itself. In a few minutes the boat was immersed in the down-pour which concealed it.

The elder of the two oarsmen was no other than the future firebrand peacemaker, Miching Mallecho, our fierce little Tartarin de Berlin. One wondered how he, who would not be ruled, would come in turn to rule? That question is a burning one; and may yet set the world in flames to solve it.

A comic little incident happened here to my own children. There was but one bathing-machine. This, the two – a schoolboy and his sister – used in the early morning. Being rather late one day, they found it engaged; and growing impatient the boy banged at the door of the machine, with a shout in schoolboy’s vernacular: ‘Come, hurry up; we want to dip.’ Much to the surprise of the guilty pair, an answer, also in the best of English, came from the inside: ‘Go away, you naughty boy.’ The occupant was the Imperial Princess. Needless to say the children bolted with a mingled sense of mischief and alarm.

About this time I joined a society for the relief of distress, of which Bromley Davenport was the nominal leader. The ‘managing director,’ so to speak, was Dr. Gilbert, father of Mr. W. S. Gilbert. To him I went for instructions. I told him I wanted to see the worst. He accordingly sent me to Bethnal Green. For two winters and part of a third I visited this district twice a week regularly. What I saw in the course of those two years was matter for a thoughtful – ay, or a thoughtless – man to think of for the rest of his days.

My system was to call first upon the clergyman of the parish, and obtain from him a guide to the severest cases of destitution. The guide would be a Scripture reader, and, as far as I remember, always a woman. I do not know whether the labours of these good creatures were gratuitous – they themselves were certainly poor, yet singularly earnest and sympathetic. The society supplied tickets for coal, blankets, and food. Needless to say, had these supplies been a thousand-fold as great, they would have done as little permanent good as those at my command.

In Bethnal Green the principal industry is, or was, silk- weaving by hand looms. Nearly all the houses were ancient and dilapidated. A weaver and his family would occupy part of a flat, consisting of two rooms perhaps, one of which would contain his loom. The room might be about seven feet high, nearly dark, lighted only by a lattice window, half of the panes of which would be replaced by dirty rags or old newspaper. As the loom was placed against the window the light was practically excluded. The foulness of the air and filth which this entailed may be too easily imagined. A couple of cases, taken almost at random, will sample scores as bad.

It is one of the darkest days of December. The Thames is nearly frozen at Waterloo Bridge. On the second floor of an old house in – Lane, in an unusually spacious room (or does it only look spacious because there is nothing in it save four human beings?) are a father, a mother, and a grown-up son and daughter. They scowl at the visitor as the Scripture reader opens the door. What is the meaning of the intrusion? Is he too come with a Bible instead of bread? The four are seated side by side on the floor, leaning against the wall, waiting for – death. Bedsteads, chairs, table, and looms have been burnt this week or more for fuel. The grate is empty now, and lets the freezing draught blow down the chimney. The temporary relief is accepted, but not with thanks. These four stubbornly prefer death to the work- house.

One other case. It is the same hard winter. The scene: a small garret in the roof, a low slanting little skylight, now covered six inches deep in snow. No fireplace here, no ventilation, so put your scented cambric to your nose, my noble Dives. The only furniture a scanty armful of – what shall we call it? It was straw once. A starving woman and a baby are lying on it, notwithstanding. The baby surely will not be there to-morrow. It has a very bad cold – and the mucus, and the – pah! The woman in a few rags – just a few – is gnawing a raw carrot. The picture is complete. There’s nothing more to paint. The rest – the whole indeed, that is the consciousness of it – was, and remains, with the Unseen.

You will say, ‘Such things cannot be’; you will say, ‘There are relieving officers, whose duty, etc., etc.’ May be. I am only telling you what I myself have seen. There is more goes on in big cities than even relieving officers can cope with. And who shall grapple with the causes? That’s the point.

Here is something else that I have seen. I have seen a family of six in one room. Of these, four were brothers and sisters, all within, none over, their teens. There were three beds between the six. When I came upon them they were out of work, – the young ones in bed to keep warm. I took them for very young married couples. It was the Scripture reader who undeceived me. This is not the exception to the rule, look you, but the rule itself. How will you deal with it? It is with Nature, immoral Nature and her heedless instincts that you have to deal. With what kind of fork will you expel her? It is with Nature’s wretched children, the BETES HUMAINES,

Quos venerem incertam rapientes more ferarum,

that your account lies. Will they cease to listen to her maddening whispers: ‘Unissez-vous, multipliez, il n’est d’autre loi, d’autre but, que l’amour?’ What care they for her aside – ‘Et durez apres, si vous le pouvez; cela ne me regarde plus’? It doesn’t regard them either.

The infallible panacea, so the ‘Progressive’ tell us, is education – lessons on the piano, perhaps? Doctor Malthus would be more to the purpose; but how shall we administer his prescriptions? One thing we might try to teach to advantage, and that is the elementary principles of hygiene. I am heart and soul with the Progressive as to the ultimate remedial powers of education. Moral advancement depends absolutely on the humanising influences of intellectual advancement. The foreseeing of consequences is a question of intelligence. And the appreciation of consequences which follow is the basis of morality. But we must not begin at the wrong end. The true foundation and condition of intellectual and moral progress postulates material and physical improvement. The growth of artificial wants is as much the cause as the effect of civilisation: they proceed PARI PASSU. A taste of comfort begets a love of comfort. And this kind of love militates, not impotently, against the other; for self- interest is a persuasive counsellor, and gets a hearing when the blood is cool. Life must be more than possible, it must be endurable; man must have some leisure, some repose, before his brain-needs have a chance with those of his belly. He must have a coat to his back before he can stick a rose in its button-hole. The worst of it is, he begins – in Bethnal Green at least – with the rose-bud; and indulges, poor devil! in a luxury which is just the most expensive, and – in our Bethnal Greens – the most suicidal he could resort to.

There was one method I adopted with a show of temporary success now and then. It frequently happens that a man succumbs to difficulties for which he is not responsible, and which timely aid may enable him to overcome. An artisan may have to pawn or sell the tools by which he earns his living. The redemption of these, if the man is good for anything, will often set him on his legs. Thus, for example, I found a cobbler one day surrounded by a starving family. His story was common enough, severe illness being the burden of it. He was an intelligent little fellow, and, as far as one could judge, full of good intentions. His wife seemed devoted to him, and this was the best of vouchers. ‘If he had but a shilling or two to redeem his tools, and buy two or three old cast-off shoes in the rag-market which he could patch up and sell, he wouldn’t ask anyone for a copper.’

We went together to the pawnbroker’s, then to the rag-market, and the little man trotted home with an armful of old boots and shoes, some without soles, some without uppers; all, as I should have thought, picked out of dust-bins and rubbish heaps, his sunken eyes sparkling with eagerness and renovated hope. I looked in upon him about three weeks later. The family were sitting round a well provided tea-table, close to a glowing fire, the cheeks of the children smeared with jam, and the little cobbler hammering away at his last, too busy to partake of the bowl of hot tea which his wife had placed beside him.

The same sort of treatment was sometimes very successful with a skilful workman – like a carpenter, for instance. Here a double purpose might be served. Nothing more common in Bethnal Green than broken looms, and consequent disaster. There you had the ready-made job for the reinstated carpenter; and good could be done in a small way, at very little cost. Of coarse much discretion is needed; still, the Scripture readers or the relieving officers would know the characters of the destitute, and the visitor himself would soon learn to discriminate.

A system similar to this was the basis of the aid rendered by the Royal Society for the Assistance of Discharged Prisoners, which was started by my friend, Mr. Whitbread, the present owner of Southill, and which I joined in its early days at his instigation. The earnings of the prisoner were handed over by the gaols to the Society, and the Society employed them for his advantage – always, in the case of an artisan, by supplying him with the needful implements of his trade. But relief in which the pauper has no productive share, of which he is but a mere consumer, is of no avail.

One cannot but think that if instead of the selfish principles which govern our trades-unions, and which are driving their industries out of the country, trade-schools could be provided – such, for instance, as the cheap carving schools to be met with in many parts of Germany and the Tyrol – much might be done to help the bread-earners. Why could not schools be organised for the instruction of shoemakers, tailors, carpenters, smiths of all kinds, and the scores of other trades which in former days were learnt by compulsory apprenticeship? Under our present system of education the greater part of what the poor man’s children learn is clean forgotten in a few years; and if not, serves mainly to create and foster discontent, which vents itself in a passion for mass-meetings and the fuliginous oratory of our Hyde Parks.

The emigration scheme for poor-law children as advocated by Mrs. Close is the most promising, in its way, yet brought before the public, and is deserving of every support.

In the absence of any such projects as these, the hopelessness of the task, and the depressing effect of the contact with much wretchedness, wore me out. I had a nursery of my own, and was not justified in risking infectious diseases. A saint would have been more heroic, and could besides have promised that sweetest of consolations to suffering millions – the compensation of Eternal Happiness. I could not give them even hope, for I had none to spare. The root-evil I felt to be the overcrowding due to the reckless intercourse of the sexes; and what had Providence to do with a law of Nature, obedience to which entailed unspeakable misery?

CHAPTER XLVI

IN the autumn following the end of the Franco-German war, Dr. Bird and I visited all the principal battlefields. In England the impression was that the bloodiest battle was fought at Gravelotte. The error was due, I believe, to our having no war correspondent on the spot. Compared with that on the plains between St. Marie and St. Privat, Gravelotte was but a cavalry skirmish. We were fortunate enough to meet a German artillery officer at St. Marie who had been in the action, and who kindly explained the distribution of the forces. Large square mounds were scattered about the plain where the German dead were buried, little wooden crosses being stuck into them to denote the regiment they had belonged to. At Gravelotte we saw the dogs unearthing the bodies from the shallow graves. The officer told us he did not think there was a family in Germany unrepresented in the plains of St. Privat.

It was interesting so soon after the event, to sit quietly in the little summer-house of the Chateau de Bellevue, commanding a view of Sedan, where Bismarck and Moltke and General de Wimpfen held their memorable Council. ‘Un terrible homme,’ says the story of the ‘Debacle,’ ‘ce general de Moltke, qui gagnait des batailles du fond de son cabinet a coups d’algebre.’

We afterwards made a walking tour through the Tyrol, and down to Venice. On our way home, while staying at Lucerne, we went up the Rigi. Soon after leaving the Kulm, on our descent to the railway, which was then uncompleted, we lost each other in the mist. I did not get to Vitznau till late at night, but luckily found a steamer just starting for Lucerne. The cabin was crammed with German students, each one smoking his pipe and roaring choruses to alternate singers. All of a sudden, those who were on their legs were knocked off them. The panic was instantaneous, for every one of us knew it was a collision. But the immediate peril was in the rush for the deck. Violent with terror, rough by nature, and full of beer, these wild young savages were formidable to themselves and others. Having arrived late, I had not got further than the cabin door, and was up the companion ladder at a bound. It was pitch dark, and piteous screams came up from the surrounding waters. At first it was impossible to guess what had happened. Were we rammed, or were we rammers? I pulled off my coats ready for a swim. But it soon became apparent that we had run into and sunk another boat.

The next morning the doctor and I went on to England. A week after I took up the ‘Illustrated News.’ There was an account of the accident, with an illustration of the cabin of the sunken boat. The bodies of passengers were depicted as the divers had found them.

On the very day the peace was signed I chanced to call on Sir Anthony Rothschild in New Court. He took me across the court to see his brother Lionel, the head of the firm. Sir Anthony bowed before him as though the great man were Plutus himself. He sat at a table alone, not in his own room, but in the immense counting-room, surrounded by a brigade of clerks. This was my first introduction to him. He took no notice of his brother, but received me as Napoleon received the emperors and kings at Erfurt – in other words, as he would have received his slippers from his valet, or as he did receive the telegrams which were handed to him at the rate of about one a minute.

The King of Kings was in difficulties with a little slip of black sticking-plaster. The thought of Gumpelino’s Hyacinthos, ALIAS Hirsch, flashed upon me. Behold! the mighty Baron Nathan come to life again; but instead of Hyacinthos paring his mightiness’s HUHNERAUGEN, he himself, in paring his own nails, had contrived to cut his finger.

‘Come to buy Spanish?’ he asked, with eyes intent upon the sticking-plaster.

‘Oh no,’ said I, ‘I’ve no money to gamble with.’

‘Hasn’t Lord Leicester bought Spanish?’ – never looking off the sticking-plaster, nor taking the smallest notice of the telegrams.

‘Not that I know of. Are they good things?’

‘I don’t know; some people think so.’

Here a message was handed in, and something was whispered in his ear.

‘Very well, put it down.’

‘From Paris,’ said Sir Anthony, guessing perhaps at its contents.

But not until the plaster was comfortably adjusted did Plutus read the message. He smiled and pushed it over to me. It was the terms of peace, and the German bill of costs.

‘200,000,000 pounds!’ I exclaimed. ‘That’s a heavy reckoning. Will France ever be able to pay it?’

‘Pay it? Yes. If it had been twice as much!’ And Plutus returned to his sticking-plaster. That was of real importance.

Last autumn – 1904, the literary world was not a little gratified by an announcement in the ‘Times’ that the British Museum had obtained possession of the original manuscript of Keats’s ‘Hyperion.’ Let me tell the story of its discovery. During the summer of last year, my friend Miss Alice Bird, who was paying me a visit at Longford, gave me this account of it.

When Leigh Hunt’s memoirs were being edited by his son Thornton in 1861, he engaged the services of three intimate friends of the family to read and collate the enormous mass of his father’s correspondence. Miss Alice Bird was one of the chosen three. The arduous task completed, Thornton Hunt presented each of his three friends with a number of autographic letters, which, according to Miss Bird’s description, he took almost at random from the eliminated pile. Amongst the lot that fell to Miss Bird’s share was a roll of stained paper tied up with tape. This she was led to suppose – she never carefully examined it – might be either a copy or a draft of some friend’s unpublished poem.

The unknown treasure was put away in a drawer with the rest. Here it remained undisturbed for forty-three years. Having now occasion to remove these papers, she opened the forgotten scroll, and was at once struck both with the words of the ‘Hyperion,’ and with the resemblance of the writing to Keats’s.

She forthwith consulted the Keepers of the Manuscripts in the British Museum, with the result that her TROUVAILLE was immediately identified as the poet’s own draft of the ‘Hyperion.’ The responsible authorities soon after, offered the fortunate possessor five hundred guineas for the manuscript, but courteously and honestly informed her that, were it put up to auction, some American collector would be almost sure to give a much larger sum for it.

Miss Bird’s patriotism prevailed over every other consideration. She expressed her wish that the poem should be retained in England; and generously accepted what was indubitably less than its market value.

CHAPTER XLVII

A MAN whom I had known from my school-days, Frederick Thistlethwayte, coming into a huge fortune when a subaltern in a marching regiment, had impulsively married a certain Miss Laura Bell. In her early days, when she made her first appearance in London and in Paris, Laura Bell’s extraordinary beauty was as much admired by painters as by men of the world. Amongst her reputed lovers were Dhuleep Singh, the famous Marquis of Hertford, and Prince Louis Napoleon. She was the daughter of an Irish constable, and began life on the stage at Dublin. Her Irish wit and sparkling merriment, her cajolery, her good nature and her feminine artifice, were attractions which, in the eyes of the male sex, fully atoned for her youthful indiscretions.

My intimacy with both Mr. and Mrs. Thistlethwayte extended over many years; and it is but justice to her memory to aver that, to the best of my belief, no wife was ever more faithful to her husband. I speak of the Thistlethwaytes here for two reasons – absolutely unconnected in themselves, yet both interesting in their own way. The first is, that at my friend’s house in Grosvenor Square I used frequently to meet Mr. Gladstone, sometimes alone, sometimes at dinner. As may be supposed, the dinner parties were of men, but mostly of men eminent in public life. The last time I met Mr. Gladstone there the Duke of Devonshire and Sir W. Harcourt were both present. I once dined with Mrs. Thistlethwayte in the absence of her husband, when the only others were Munro of Novar – the friend of Turner, and the envied possessor of a splendid gallery of his pictures – and the Duke of Newcastle – then a Cabinet Minister. Such were the notabilities whom the famous beauty gathered about her.

But it is of Mr. Gladstone that I would say a word. The fascination which he exercised over most of those who came into contact with him is incontestable; and everyone is entitled to his own opinion, even though unable to account for it. This, at least, must be my plea, for to me, Mr. Gladstone was more or less a Dr. Fell. Neither in his public nor in his private capacity had I any liking for him. Nobody cares a button for what a ‘man in the street’ like me says or thinks on subject matters upon which they have made up their minds. I should not venture, even as one of the crowd, to deprecate a popularity which I believe to be fast passing away, were it not that better judges and wiser men think as I do, and have represented opinions which I sincerely share. ‘He was born,’ says Huxley, ‘to be a leader of men, and he has debased himself to be a follower of the masses. If working men were to-day to vote by a majority that two and two made five, to-morrow Gladstone would believe it, and find them reasons for it which they had never dreamt of.’ Could any words be truer? Yes; he was not born to be a leader of men. He was born to be, what he was – a misleader of men. Huxley says he could be made to believe that two and two made five. He would try to make others believe it; but would he himself believe it? His friends will plead, ‘he might deceive himself by the excessive subtlety of his mind.’ This is the charitable view to take. But some who knew him long and well put another construction upon this facile self- deception. There were, and are, honourable men of the highest standing who failed to ascribe disinterested motives to the man who suddenly and secretly betrayed his colleagues, his party, and his closest friends, and tried to break up the Empire to satisfy an inordinate ambition, and an insatiable craving for power. ‘He might have been mistaken, but he acted for the best’? Was he acting conscientiously for the best in persuading the ‘masses’ to look upon the ‘classes’ – the war cries are of his coining – as their natural enemies, and worthy only of their envy and hatred? Is this the part of a statesman, of a patriot?

And for what else shall we admire Mr. Gladstone? Walter Bagehot, alluding to his egotism, wrote of him in his lifetime, ‘He longs to pour forth his own belief; he cannot rest till he has contradicted everyone else.’ And what was that belief worth? ‘He has scarcely,’ says the same writer, ‘given us a sentence that lives in the memory.’

Even his eloquent advocate, Mr. Morley, confesses surprise at his indifference to the teaching of evolution; in other words, his ignorance of, and disbelief in, a scientific theory of nature which has modified the theological and moral creeds of the civilised world more profoundly than did the Copernican system of the Universe.

The truth is, Mr. Gladstone was half a century behind the age in everything that most deeply concerned the destiny of man. He was a politician, and nothing but a politician; and had it not been for his extraordinary gift of speech, we should never have heard of him save as a writer of scholia, or as a college don, perhaps. Not for such is the temple of Fame.

Fama di loro il mondo esser non lassa.

Whatever may be thought now, Mr. Gladstone is not the man whom posterity will ennoble with the title of either ‘great’ or ‘good.’

My second reason for mentioning Frederick Thistlethwayte was one which at first sight may seem trivial, and yet, when we look into it, is of more importance than the renown of an ex- Prime Minister. If these pages are ever read, what follows will be as distasteful to some of my own friends as the above remarks to Mr. Gladstone’s.

Pardon a word about the writer himself – it is needed to emphasise and justify these OBITER DICTA. I was brought up as a sportsman: I cannot remember the days when I began to shoot. I had a passion for all kinds of sport, and have had opportunities of gratifying it such as fall to the lot of few. After the shootings of Glenquoich and Invergarry were lost to me through the death of Mr. Ellice, I became almost the sole guest of Mr. Thistlethwayte for twelve years at his Highland shooting of Kinlochmohr, not very far from Fort William. He rented the splendid deer forest of Mamore, extensive grouse moors, and a salmon river within ten minutes’ walk of the lodge. His marriage and his eccentricities of mind and temper led him to shun all society. We often lived in bothies at opposite ends of the forest, returning to the lodge on Saturday till Monday morning. For a sportsman, no life could be more enjoyable. I was my own stalker, taking a couple of gillies for the ponies, but finding the deer for myself – always the most difficult part of the sport – and stalking them for myself.

I may here observe that, not very long after I married, qualms of conscience smote me as to the justifiability of killing, AND WOUNDING, animals for amusement’s sake. The more I thought of it, the less it bore thinking about. Finally I gave it up altogether. But I went on several years after this with the deer-stalking; the true explanation of this inconsistency would, I fear, be that I had had enough of the one, but would never have enough of the other – one’s conscience adapts itself without much difficulty to one’s inclinations.

Between my host and myself, there was a certain amount of rivalry; and as the head forester was his stalker, the rivalry between our men aroused rancorous jealousy. I think the gillies on either side would have spoilt the others’ sport, could they have done so with impunity. For two seasons, a very big stag used occasionally to find its way into our forest from the Black Mount, where it was also known. Thistlethwayte had had a chance, and missed it; then my turn came. I got a long snap-shot end on at the galloping stag. It was an unsportsmanlike thing to do, but considering the rivalry and other temptations I fired, and hit the beast in the haunch. It was late in the day, and the wounded animal escaped.

Nine days later I spied the ‘big stag’ again. He was nearly in the middle of a herd of about twenty, mostly hinds, on the look-out. They were on a large open moss at the bottom of a corrie, whence they could see a moving object on every side of them. A stalk where they were was out of the question. I made up my mind to wait and watch.

Now comes the moral of my story. For hours I watched that stag. Though three hundred yards or so away from me, I could through my glass see almost the expression of his face. Not once did he rise or attempt to feed, but lay restlessly beating his head upon the ground for hour after hour. I knew well enough what that meant. I could not hear his groans. His plaints could not reach my ears, but they reached my heart. The refrain varied little: ‘How long shall I cry and Thou wilt not hear?’ – that was the monotonous burden of the moans, though sometimes I fancied it changed to: ‘Lord how long shall the wicked, how long shall the wicked triumph?’

The evening came, and then, as is their habit, the deer began to feed up wind. The wounded stag seemed loth to stir. By degrees the last watchful hind fed quietly out of sight. With throbbing pulse and with the instincts of a fox – or prehistoric man, ’tis all the same – I crawled and dragged myself through the peat bog and the pools of water. But nearer than two hundred yards it was impossible to get; even to raise my head or find a tussock whereon to rest the rifle would have started any deer but this one. From the hollow I was in, the most I could see of him was the outline of his back and his head and neck. I put up the 200 yards sight and killed him.

A vivid description of the body is not desirable. It was almost fleshless, wasted away, except his wounded haunch. That was nearly twice its normal size; about one half of it was maggots. The stench drove us all away. This I had done, and I had done it for my pleasure!

After that year I went no more to Scotland. I blame no one for his pursuit of sport. But I submit that he must follow it, if at all, with Reason’s eyes shut. Happily, your true sportsman does not violate his conscience. As a friend of mine said to me the other day, ‘Unless you give a man of that kind something to kill, his own life is not worth having.’ This, to be sure, is all he has to think about.

CHAPTER XLVIII

FOR eight or nine years, while my sons were at school, I lived at Rickmansworth. Unfortunately the Leweses had just left it. Moor Park belonged to Lord Ebury, my wife’s uncle, and the beauties of its magnificent park and the amenities of its charming house were at all times open to us, and freely taken advantage of. During those nine years I lived the life of a student, and wrote and published the book I have elsewhere spoken of, the ‘Creeds of the Day.’

Of the visitors of note whose acquaintance I made while I was staying at Moor Park, by far the most illustrious was Froude. He was too reserved a man to lavish his intimacy when taken unawares; and if he suspected, as he might have done by my probing, that one wanted to draw him out, he was much too shrewd to commit himself to definite expressions of any kind until he knew something of his interviewer. Reticence of this kind, on the part of such a man, is both prudent and commendable. But is not this habit of cautiousness sometimes carried to the extent of ambiguity in his ‘Short Studies on Great Subjects’? The careful reader is left in no sort of doubt as to Froude’s own views upon Biblical criticism, as to his theological dogmas, or his speculative opinions. But the conviction is only reached by comparing him with himself in different moods, by collating essay with essay, and one part of an essay with another part of the same essay. Sometimes we have an astute defence of doctrines worthy at least of a temperate apologist, and a few pages further on we wonder whether the writer was not masking his disdain for the credulity which he now exposes and laughs at. Neither excessive caution nor timidity are implied by his editing of the Carlyle papers; and he may have failed – who that has done so much has not? – in keeping his balance on the swaying slack-rope between the judicious and the injudicious. In his own line, however, he is, to my taste, the most scholarly, the most refined, and the most suggestive, of our recent essayists. The man himself in manner and in appearance was in perfect keeping with these attractive qualities.

While speaking of Moor Park and its kind owner I may avail myself of this opportunity to mention an early reminiscence of Lord Ebury’s concerning the Grosvenor estate in London.

Mr. Gladstone was wont to amuse himself with speculations as to the future dimensions of London; what had been its growth within his memory; what causes might arise to cheek its increase. After listening to his remarks on the subject one day at dinner, I observed that I had heard Lord Ebury talk of shooting over ground which is now Eaton Square. Mr. Gladstone of course did not doubt it; but some of the young men smiled incredulously. I afterwards wrote to Lord Ebury to make sure that I had not erred. Here is his reply:

‘Moor Park, Rickmansworth: January 9, 1883.

‘MY dear Henry, – What you said I had told you about snipe- shooting is quite true, though I think I ought to have mentioned a space rather nearer the river than Eaton Square. In the year 1815, when the battle of Waterloo was fought, there was nothing behind Grosvenor Place but the (-?) fields – so called, a place something like the Scrubbs, where the household troops drilled. That part of Grosvenor Place where the Grosvenor Place houses now stand was occupied by the Lock Hospital and Chapel, and it ended where the small houses are now to be found. A little farther, a somewhat tortuous lane called the King’s Road led to Chelsea, and, I think, where now St. Peter’s, Pimlico, was afterwards built. I remember going to a breakfast at a villa belonging to Lady Buckinghamshire. The Chelsea Waterworks Company had a sort of marshy place with canals and osier beds, now, I suppose, Ebury Street, and here it was that I was permitted to go and try my hand at snipe-shooting, a special privilege given to the son of the freeholder.

‘The successful fox-hunt terminating in either Bedford or Russell Square is very strange, but quite appropriate, commemorated, I suppose, by the statue there erected.

Yours affectionately,

‘E.’

The successful ‘fox-hunt ‘ was an event of which I told Lord Ebury as even more remarkable than his snipe-shooting in Belgravia. As it is still more indicative of the growth of London in recent times it may be here recorded.

In connection with Mr. Gladstone’s forecasts, I had written to the last Lord Digby, who was a grandson of my father’s, stating that I had heard – whether from my father or not I could not say – that he had killed a fox where now is Bedford Square, with his own hounds.

Lord Digby replied:

‘Minterne, Dorset: January 7, 1883.

‘My dear Henry, – My grandfather killed a fox with his hounds either in Bedford or Russell Square. Old Jones, the huntsman, who died at Holkham when you were a child, was my informant. I asked my grandfather if it was correct. He said “Yes” – he had kennels at Epping Place, and hunted the roodings of Essex, which, he said, was the best scenting- ground in England.

‘Yours affectionately,

‘DIGBY.’

(My father was born in 1754.)

Mr. W. S. Gilbert had been a much valued friend of ours before we lived at Rickmansworth. We had been his guests for the ‘first night’ of almost every one of his plays – plays that may have a thousand imitators, but the speciality of whose excellence will remain unrivalled and inimitable. His visits to us introduced him, I think, to the picturesque country which he has now made his home. When Mr. Gilbert built his house in Harrington Gardens he easily persuaded us to build next door to him. This led to my acquaintance with his neighbour on the other side, Mr. Walter Cassels, now well known as the author of ‘Supernatural Religion.’

When first published in 1874, this learned work, summarising and elaborately examining the higher criticism of the four Gospels up to date, created a sensation throughout the theological world, which was not a little intensified by the anonymity of its author. The virulence with which it was attacked by Dr. Lightfoot, the most erudite bishop on the bench, at once demonstrated its weighty significance and its destructive force; while Mr. Morley’s high commendation of its literary merits and the scrupulous equity of its tone, placed it far above the level of controversial diatribes.

In my ‘Creeds of the Day’ I had made frequent references to the anonymous book; and soon after my introduction to Mr. Cassels spoke to him of its importance, and asked him whether he had read it. He hesitated for a moment, then said:

‘We are very much of the same way of thinking on these subjects. I will tell you a secret which I kept for some time even from my publishers – I am the author of “Supernatural Religion.”‘

From that time forth, we became the closest of allies. I know no man whose tastes and opinions and interests are more completely in accord with my own than those of Mr. Walter Cassels. It is one of my greatest pleasures to meet him every summer at the beautiful place of our mutual and sympathetic friend, Mrs. Robertson, on the skirts of the Ashtead forest, in Surrey.

The winter of 1888 I spent at Cairo under the roof of General Sir Frederick Stephenson, then commanding the English forces in Egypt. I had known Sir Frederick as an ensign in the Guards. He was adjutant of his regiment at the Alma, and at Inkerman. He is now Colonel of the Coldstreams and Governor of the Tower. He has often been given a still higher title, that of ‘the most popular man in the army.’

Everybody in these days has seen the Pyramids, and has been up the Nile. There is only one name I have to mention here, and that is one of the best-known in the world. Mr. Thomas Cook was the son of the original inventor of the ‘Globe- trotter.’ But it was the extraordinary energy and powers of organisation of the son that enabled him to develop to its present efficiency the initial scheme of the father.

Shortly before the General’s term expired, he invited Mr. Cook to dinner. The Nile share of the Gordon Relief Expedition had been handed over to Cook. The boats, the provisioning of them, and the river transport service up to Wady Halfa, were contracted for and undertaken by Cook.

A most entertaining account he gave of the whole affair. He told us how the Mudir of Dongola, who was by way of rendering every possible assistance, had offered him an enormous bribe to wreck the most valuable cargoes on their passage through the Cataracts.

Before Mr. Cook took leave of the General, he expressed the regret felt by the British residents in Cairo at the termination of Sir Frederick’s command; and wound up a pretty little speech by a sincere request that he might be allowed to furnish Sir Frederick GRATIS with all the means at his disposal for a tour through the Holy Land. The liberal and highly complimentary offer was gratefully acknowledged, but at once emphatically declined. The old soldier, (at least, this was my guess,) brave in all else, had not the courage to face the tourists’ profanation of such sacred scenes.

Dr. Bird told me a nice story, a pendant to this, of Mr. Thomas Cook’s liberality. One day, before the Gordon Expedition, which was then in the air, Dr. Bird was smoking his cigarette on the terrace in front of Shepherd’s Hotel, in company with four or five other men, strangers to him and to one another. A discussion arose as to the best means of relieving Gordon. Each had his own favourite general. Presently the doctor exclaimed: ‘Why don’t they put the thing into the hands of Cook? I’ll be bound to say he would undertake it, and do the job better than anyone else.’

‘Do you know Cook, sir?’ asked one of the smokers who had hitherto been silent.

‘No, I never saw him, but everybody knows he has a genius for organisation; and I don’t believe there is a general in the British Army to match him.’

When the company broke up, the silent stranger asked the doctor his name and address, and introduced himself as Thomas Cook. The following winter Dr. Bird received a letter enclosing tickets for himself and Miss Bird for a trip to Egypt and back, free of expense, ‘in return for his good opinion and good wishes.’

After my General’s departure, and a month up the Nile, I – already disillusioned, alas! – rode through Syria, following the beaten track from Jerusalem to Damascus. On my way from Alexandria to Jaffa I had the good fortune to make the acquaintance of an agreeable fellow-traveller, Mr. Henry Lopes, afterwards member for Northampton, also bound for Palestine. We went to Constantinople and to the Crimea together, then through Greece, and only parted at Charing Cross.

It was easy to understand Sir Frederick Stephenson’s (supposed) unwillingness to visit Jerusalem. It was probably far from being what it is now, or even what it was when Pierre Loti saw it, for there was no railway from Jaffa in our time. Still, what Loti pathetically describes as ‘une banalite de banlieue parisienne,’ was even then too painfully casting its vulgar shadows before it. And it was rather with the forlorn eyes of the sentimental Frenchman than with the veneration of Dean Stanley, that we wandered about the ever- sacred Aceldama of mortally wounded and dying Christianity.

One dares not, one could never, speak irreverently of Jerusalem. One cannot think heartlessly of a disappointed love. One cannot tear out creeds interwoven with the tenderest fibres of one’s heart. It is better to be silent. Yet is it a place for unwept tears, for the deep sadness and hard resignation borne in upon us by the eternal loss of something dearer once than life. All we who are weary and heavy laden, in whom now shall we seek the rest which is not nothingness?

My story is told, but I fain would take my leave with words less sorrowful. If a man has no better legacy to bequeath than bid his fellow-beings despair, he had better take it with him to his grave.

We know all this, we know!

But it is in what we do not know that our hope and our religion lies. Thrice blessed are we in the certainty that here our range is infinite. This infinite that makes our brains reel, that begets the feeling that makes us ‘shrink,’ is perhaps the most portentous argument in the logic of the sceptic. Since the days of Laplace, we have been haunted in some form or other with the ghost of the MECANIQUE CELESTE. Take one or two commonplaces from the text-books of astronomy:

Every half-hour we are about ten thousand miles nearer to the constellation of Lyra. ‘The sun and his system must travel at his present rate for far more than a million years (divide this into half-hours) before we have crossed the abyss between our present position and the frontiers of Lyra’ (Ball’s ‘Story of the Heavens’).

‘Sirius is about one million times as far from us as the sun. If we take the distance of Sirius from the earth and subdivide it into one million equal parts, each of these parts would be long enough to span the great distance of 92,700,000 miles from the earth to the sun,’ yet Sirius is one of the NEAREST of the stars to us.

The velocity with which light traverses space is 186,300 miles a second, at which rate it has taken the rays from Sirius which we may see to-night, nine years to reach us. The proper motion of Sirius through space is about one thousand miles a minute. Yet ‘careful alignment of the eye would hardly detect that Sirius was moving, in . . . even three or four centuries.’

‘There may be, and probably are, stars from which Noah might be seen stepping into the Ark, Eve listening to the temptation of the serpent, or that older race, eating the oysters and leaving the shell-heaps behind them, when the Baltic was an open sea’ (Froude’s ‘Science of History’).

Facts and figures such as these simply stupefy us. They vaguely convey the idea of something immeasurably great, but nothing further. They have no more effect upon us than words addressed to some poor ‘bewildered creature, stunned and paralysed by awe; no more than the sentence of death to the terror-stricken wretch at the bar. Indeed, it is in this sense that the sceptic uses them for our warning.

‘Seit Kopernikus,’ says Schopenhauer, ‘kommen die Theologen mit dem lieben Gott in Verlegenheit.’ ‘No one,’ he adds, ‘has so damaged Theism as Copernicus.’ As if limitation and imperfection in the celestial mechanism would make for the belief in God; or, as if immortality were incompatible with dependence. Des Cartes, for one, (and he counts for many,) held just the opposite opinion.

Our sun and all the millions upon millions of suns whose light will never reach us are but the aggregation of atoms drawn together by the same force that governs their orbit, and which makes the apple fall. When their heat, however generated, is expended, they die to frozen cinders; possibly to be again diffused as nebulae, to begin again the eternal round of change.

What is life amidst this change? ‘When I consider the work of Thy fingers, the moon and the stars which Thou hast ordained, what is man that Thou art mindful of him?’

But is He mindful of us? That is what the sceptic asks. Is He mindful of life here or anywhere in all this boundless space? We have no ground for supposing (so we are told) that life, if it exists at all elsewhere, in the solar system at least, is any better than it is here? ‘Analogy compels us to think,’ says M. France, one of the most thoughtful of living writers, ‘that our entire solar system is a gehenna where the animal is born for suffering. . . . This alone would suffice to disgust me with the universe.’ But M. France is too deep a thinker to abide by such a verdict. There must be something ‘behind the veil.’ ‘Je sens que ces immensites ne sont rien, et qu’enfin, s’il y a quelque chose, ce quelque chose n’est pas ce que nous voyons.’ That is it. All these immensities are not ‘rien,’ but they are assuredly not what we take them to be. They are the veil of the Infinite, behind which we are not permitted to see.

It were the seeing Him, no flesh shall dare.

The very greatness proves our impotence to grasp it, proves the futility of our speculations, and should help us best of all though outwardly so appalling, to stand calm while the snake of unbelief writhes beneath our feet. The unutterable insignificance of man and his little world connotes the infinity which leaves his possibilities as limitless as itself.

Spectrology informs us that the chemical elements of matter are everywhere the same; and in a boundless universe where such unity is manifested there must be conditions similar to those which support life here. It is impossible to doubt, on these grounds alone, that life does exist elsewhere. Were we rashly to assume from scientific data that no form of animal life could obtain except under conditions similar to our own, would not reason rebel at such an inference, on the mere ground that to assume that there is no conscious being in the universe save man, is incomparably more unwarrantable, and in itself incredible?

Admitting, then, the hypothesis of the universal distribution of life, has anyone the hardihood to believe that this is either the best or worst of worlds? Must we not suppose that life exists in every stage of progress, in every state of imperfection, and, conversely, of advancement? Have we still the audacity to believe with the ancient Israelites, or as the Church of Rome believed only three centuries ago, that the universe was made for us, and we its centre? Or must we not believe that – infinity given – the stages and degrees of life are infinite as their conditions? And where is this to stop? There is no halting place for imagination till we reach the ANIMA MUNDI, the infinite and eternal Spirit from which all Being emanates.

The materialist and the sceptic have forcible arguments on their side. They appeal to experience and to common sense, and ask pathetically, yet triumphantly, whether aspiration, however fervid, is a pledge for its validity, ‘or does being weary prove that he hath where to rest?’ They smile at the flights of poetry and imagination, and love to repeat:

Fools! that so often here
Happiness mocked our prayer,
I think might make us fear
A like event elsewhere;
Make us not fly to dreams, but moderate desire.

But then, if the other view is true, the Elsewhere is not the Here, nor is there any conceivable likeness between the two. It is not mere repugnance to truths, or speculations rather, which we dread, that makes us shrink from a creed so shallow, so palpably inept, as atheism. There are many sides to our nature, and I see not that reason, doubtless our trustiest guide, has one syllable to utter against our loftiest hopes. Our higher instincts are just as much a part of us as any that we listen to; and reason, to the end, can never dogmatise with what it is not conversant.