Memoirs of Arthur Hamilton, B. A. Of Trinity College, Cambridge Part 15

"Edward seemed to ponder it deeply. He tried to starve himself to-day at lunch; and I refrained from pointing out to him that abstinence from meat at lunch was not the _unum necessarium_, for fear of confusing the ingenuous mind. I like to see people grasp the concrete issue in one of its bearings. The principle will gradually develop itself; from denying themselves in one point, they will or may grow to be generally temperate; when confronted with overmastering and baser impulses, it may be they will say, 'Let me be ?????t??

?a?t?? even here.'

"So much for Edward's lesson; now for my own. My first impulse was to loathe and reject the poor object, body and soul. He was merely the embodiment of long-continued vice. His body was a diseased framework, breaking quickly up, conscious of no pleasure but appet.i.te, and now merely existing and held together by the desire of gratifying it; the little vitality it possessed, just gathering enough volume in the quiet intervals to satiate one of its three jaded cravings-l.u.s.t, hunger, and thirst, and feebly groping after alcoholic and other stimulants to repair its exhaustion; the soul in her dreamy intervals drowsily recounting or contemplating l.u.s.t past and to come-a ghastly spectacle!

"And yet I am bound to think, and do record it as my deliberate belief, that that poor, wretched, withered, gross soul is destined to as sure a hope of glory as any of us: ay, and may be nearer it, too, than many of us, as it is expiating its willfulness in more terrible and direct punishment. There is not a single spasm in that decayed and nerveless frame, not a single horror of all the gloomy forebodings and irrational shudderings of the sickening delirium, not a single mile of the grim dusty roads he wearily traverses, which is not needed to bring him to the truth. The soul may be so clouded that it may not even be taking note of its punishment, may not be even conscious of it, may hardly calculate how low it has fallen and how wretched and hopeless the remainder of its earthly days are bound to be; but I a.s.sert that it is none of it blind suffering; that not a pang is unintentionally given, or thrown away; that I shall hand-in-hand with that soul go some day up the golden stairs that lead to the Father, and we shall say one to another, 'My brother, you despised me on earth; you took for a mark of the neglect and disfavour of G.o.d what was only a sign of His constant care; you took for an indwelling of foul spirits what was only a testimony of my distance from the truth.'

"And we shall speak together of new things, so marvellous that they will banish memory for ever.

"Who would have thought that the sight of a drunken tramp in a hedgerow would have brought one so close to a sight of G.o.d's purposes?

"Yet so it is, my friend. G.o.d keeps showing me by the strangest of surprises that He is all about us. This very incident, so seemingly trivial, is yet a part of my life already, it has set its mark upon me. All his life he has been led, from bad to worse, into drink, and haunted by all the other devils of sin, and piloted across the country thus, so that the lines of our lives cut at this instant never to cut again. There are no such things as _chance_ meetings.

There is no smaller or greater in the sight of G.o.d. It is as much a purpose of his life that he should preach this sermon to Edward and myself to-day, as that he should be shown by G.o.d's own strokes what happiness really is, by the strong contrast of the bitterness of sin."

The idea of the purpose of G.o.d underlying every incident, however apparently trivial, was much in his thoughts just then.

"We often are taught how momentous every thing and every moment is, by the charging of some trivial incident with tremendous issues. A man fires off his gun. He has done so thousands of times already, and yet, like Mr. Jamieson, my neighbour, on this one January morning he kills his own son, converting in a single instant, by a trivial incident, the whole of the rest of his life from sweet into bitter, by the terrible punishment which falls upon 'carelessness.' G.o.d seems to be asking us to weigh the fact, that in a chain of events the tiniest link is every bit as important and necessary in its place as the largest.

"And so I begin to take more and more account of little things. The very people we pa.s.s in the street once, it may be never to pa.s.s again, the stream of faces that flows past us in London-has all that no real connection with our life, except to stir a faint and vague emotion about the size of life and our own infinitesimal share in it? I think it must be something more. Of course, one lets drop grain after grain of golden truth that G.o.d slips into our hands. I keep feeling that if we could only truly yield ourselves up for a single instant, put ourselves utterly and wholly in G.o.d's hands for a second, the meaning of the whole would flash upon us, and our lesson would be learnt. I think perhaps that comes in death. I remember the only time I took an anaesthetic (when the body really momentarily dies-that is, the functions are temporarily suspended), the great sensation was, after a brief pa.s.sage of storm and agony, the sense of serenity and repose upon a lesson learnt, a truth grasped, so remote and so connected with infinite ideas, that the coming back into life was like the waking after years of experience; a phantom emotion, I expect; but, like many phantoms, a very good copy of the real one.

That is what I expect dying to be like.

"I was going to say that I try not to let even little things-things that are thrust in my way curiously and without apparent reason that is-go uninterpreted. Why should I, for instance, have been introduced by my clergyman to the friend who was staying with him this morning, when I met them in the lane? and why should he have come in to lunch, and talked dull and trivial talk till three o'clock, and interrupted all our plans? There seems some design in it all; and yet one is so impotent to grasp what it can be.

"Yet I suppose no one has failed to notice several small coincidences in their lives, of what might almost be called a providential kind.

"I read in a book about Laennec's method, without the vaguest idea of who Laennec was, or what his method was. The next day, I see, in a chart in the village school-room, 'Laennec, inventor of the stethoscope;' and, the day following, I find and read his biography in a volume that I happen to take up to pa.s.s five minutes. And yet we say 'by chance.'

"Or I come across an expression of which I haven't grasped the precise meaning, 'gene,' let us say, or 'eclectic,' and the next day I hear the rector and curate discussing them. These are real cases.

"Or I am interrupted in my writing by Edward, who takes the letters to the post, and forces this from under my hand, as I write: not, surely, only to spare you the receipt of a dull and immature letter.

"Arthur Hamilton."

I have only one other letter of any especial interest about this date.

"If only a book could be written about a hermit, a man that deliberately left the world, retiring, not to an impracticable distance-let us say to a small farm, in a country village, with half an acre of garden-and there let no sound from the world without reach him, except incidentally, and lived a pure and uncontaminated life, watching his garden, and turning over, very slowly, such experience as he had gained in life, with the intention, if anything came of it, of telling the world any solution that occurred to him of the great question-'Is one bound to meet life in the ordinary manner, by plunging into it and swimming up the stream, or does one meet it best by abjuring it?' There is much to be said for both views. I am not at all sure that these or similar lives are not lived, and that the only practical bearing of them is that a man is _not_ bound to tell his discoveries of our enigmas. I mean, I can conceive a man, under such circ.u.mstances, reaching a very high standpoint, arriving at very lofty knowledge of the problems of fate and life, and at the same time finding a ban laid upon him, a tacit ??????, not to reveal it to others, it being hinted to him that those who would attain to it at all must attain to it as he has himself attained, by finding out the way themselves."

CHAPTER XII

About this time he made the acquaintance of some neighbours whom he approved, and found companions for Edward Bruce in the boys of the family, who were home for the holidays. The boy brightened up so much under the new surroundings, that Arthur determined to get a boy of the same age to educate with Edward, and he accordingly inserted an advertis.e.m.e.nt in the _Times_. I have it before me now, in the fast-yellowing paper.

"A gentleman is anxious to find a companion to be educated with his adopted son; he offers him board and teaching free, but must see, personally, both the parent or guardian and the boy whom it is proposed to send."

But the advertis.e.m.e.nt was withdrawn, as a friend of mine, a certain General Ellis, not very well off, and with a large family, offered to send a boy of his to Tredennis-an offer which Arthur accepted provisionally. He had the boy to stay with him for a fortnight, and at the end of the time agreed to take him.

As the boys were not to go to a public school, and as neither of them looked forward to teaching as a career, the object of their teaching was to make them as quick in grasp of a subject as possible, as enthusiastic as possible, and as cultivated. Arthur favoured me with a letter, or rather a treatise, upon their education, fragments of which I submit to my readers.

"My aim will be to make them, generally speaking, as adequate as possible to playing a worthy part in the world. I want them to be as open-minded on all subjects as possible, to have no fixed prejudices on any subject, and yet to have an adequate basis of knowledge on important matters, enough not to leave them at the mercy of any new book or theory on any subject which handles its facts in at all a one-sided way-so that on reading a brilliant but narrow book on any point, they may be able to say, 'This and that argument have weight, they are valid; but he has suppressed this, and distorted that, which, if seen fairly and in a good light, would go far to contradict the other.' Then they must be without _prejudice_; they must not close their eyes or turn their backs on any view, because it is 'dangerous'

or 'damaging' or 'subversive' or 'unpractical.' They must not be afraid to face an idea because of its probable consequences if its truth is proved. They must not call anything common or unclean.

"For this they must have a basis of knowledge on these points; history, political economy, philosophy, science. The first three I am fairly competent to give them; that is to say, I am studying these hard myself now, and I can, at any rate, keep well ahead of them; and I have managed to win their educational confidence, which is a great thing. They take for granted that a thing which is dull is necessary, and follow me with faith; while, I am thankful to say, they are keen enough not to want driving when a thing is interesting.

"Then they must know French and German, and a modic.u.m of Greek and Latin. These last I teach them by a free use of translations; rudiments of grammar first, and then we attack the books, and let grammar be incidental. We don't compose in any of these languages; it's a mere waste of time.

"I teach them logic and Euclid, and get them taught some mathematics.

Then as to science, by reading myself with them we get on very well together. And I have bought a few chemicals, and we try experiments freely, which is very satisfactory.

"Music I teach them both, and harmony. They don't much like it, but they will be glad some day. I make them practise regularly. I don't believe any but very exceptionally gifted boys like that; but they are so awfully thankful when they get to my age if they have been kept at it.

"Then as to the external pa?de?a, there is my difficulty. I am not allowed to take any active exertion myself, and, indeed, it tells on me if I do, so that I have become a kind of thermometer, hopeless and headachy and listless the next day, if I overdo myself the very least; so that I have merely to encourage them by precept, not by example. They have ponies and bicycles, and scamper about all over the country. Edward has been brought home once in a cart, but not seriously damaged; and I like to leave them to themselves in these things-they won't damage themselves a bit the less for fussing and fretting over them, and they will lose ever so much independence and go. Then I teach them to shoot, and they are very fair shots with a pea-gun. And we also do a little carpentering, so we are well employed. They aren't showy performers at any game, but, as they won't be at school, that makes very little difference to them; it is handiness in general sports that is valuable afterward.

"You would think that this was a tremendous programme, but it is not; it is mostly reading and talking, with a certain amount of writing.

They have to a.n.a.lyse a chapter of a book of some kind every day; sometimes history, sometimes philosophy. We do both history and philosophy as much as possible by means of biographies. Lewes's book is an excellent text-book, and not a bit too advanced if you will talk it over with them carefully; clever boys are never really puzzled by meanings of words. In history we get the greatest man we can find in a period, and work out his view of all current events; and they have to write dialogues in character, and enjoy it immensely too. I don't press them to read for themselves very much, and I don't make ordinary English literature their task-books, because one always may be boring a boy, and I don't want to run the risk of boring them with things that I want them to enjoy as much as I did.

"I read to them for an hour or so every evening-novels, plays, anything that they seem to like. They are at liberty to choose.

"I don't know that they would 'go down' at present-certainly not among their compeers. They talk quite naturally and straightforwardly about all kinds of topics of general interest, and they are tremendously keen about their games, but I think some people might call them prigs. However, I keep them in a constant and wholesome contempt of their own abilities, and never let them despise or criticize anyone unfavourably; not by 'rebuking' it, but by indicating a point of view-and one can always find one-in which the person under fire is infinitely their superior.

"And they are as affectionate as they can be-they like one another and me; and they aren't easily disturbed by circ.u.mstances, not having had their morbid sensibilities developed, their innocent perceptions dimmed by alcoholic or other dissipations."

I select, rather at random, one or two other pa.s.sages from his letters at this time.

"I have just been reading Emerson's Essays. They certainly kindle one's belief in the greatness of life and the n.o.bility of little things; but, after all, the great refreshment of such books to me is-not that they give me new working ideas; I hardly know a book that has ever done that; the stock of ideas is almost constant in the world; but because they show that others are on the same track of admiration and hope as one's self for a goal only hinted at and conjectured to be glorious-on the same track, and farther advanced upon it; like older people, they fill in with experience what one has only guessed at. I find myself saying, 'I expect that life will be like this and that: it will confirm this and that idea in startling ways:' and then one of these great souls comes softly to me, and says, 'It is true.'"

And again:

"There are a great number of conventional ideas which are largely current, not only conversationally and among ordinary people, but in books-good and sensible books, written by people of experience-which are, in my opinion, radically and absolutely false, and yet no one takes the trouble to question them. I am always coming across them. Such as this: _No one is more incapable of affection than a profligate._ This, in my judgement, is a ludicrous error, though it is the statement of no less a moral physician than Lacordaire. If by affection you mean 'sustained, pure, disinterested emotion,' such as patriotism-well and good; but affection!-the two most affectionate persons I have ever known were thoroughly dissolute; and I mean by affection, not a s...o...b..ring sentimental pa.s.sion of a purely sensual type, but an affection quite untainted, to all appearances leading them to make considerable sacrifices for the sake of it, and causing them the acutest misery when not reciprocated. In so far as profligates are selfish brutal natures, as they often are, it is true; but that is not the case with half of them. They are not unfrequently people of infirm will, strong affections, and a violent animal nature. It is selfishness, regard to personal _comfort_ at all hazards, which is the hopeless nature, and can not be raised except through pain.

"Speaking of Lacordaire, another favourite position of his will ill.u.s.trate my point. He was constantly inveighing in his seminary against desultory reading. Homer, Plutarch, Racine, Bossuet, and a few other books, are all he wishes a man to have read. He calls miscellaneous reading a subtle dissipation, a moral poison.

"It seems to me to depend entirely upon temperament. Some natures are like _mills_, converting everything that comes in their way into grist; and in that case, no doubt, it is deleterious. They are people of slow-revolving mind, to whom statements in books are of the nature of authorities. Lacordaire was one, I think.

"But there are others who are like sieves; who want a constant pa.s.sing of materials of all kinds over them to let a little fall through; people who draw from a huge jumble of miscellaneous facts, theories, and thoughts, a little sediment of truth of the precise size to suit them. Such a person was Macaulay.

"I believe that interference does more harm than good. If you thrust books upon a mind of the first type, the result is confusion and weariness. If you deny them to the latter, all you get is poverty of ideas, and morbidity, and mawkishness. I make a rule never to interfere with anybody's reading."

Four years pa.s.sed. I went during that time once to Tredennis-in the summer, when I took my scanty holiday; for I was in a Government office where only six weeks were allowed. Arthur was generally away in the summer. He took Edward Bruce to several friends' houses; to his own home in Hamps.h.i.+re, now for a long time in the hands of strangers. He wanted to make him a real Englishman. It was arranged that he should go to Cambridge in October. He matriculated at Trinity, Arthur's own college; and he was looking forward with great delight to the prospect.

I went down to stay at Tredennis for a week in July. I got to the house through the quiet sultry lanes about the middle of the afternoon, having started very early from town. As I came up the little drive I could see through the trees an animated game of lawn-tennis proceeding on the lawn in front of the house, between two flannelled combatants. At the sound of the wheels they broke off the game, and Edward came up to greet me. He was now nearly nineteen, and had lost none of the beauty of his boyhood; a small brown moustache which fringed his upper lip being, to my eyes, almost the only sign of his advancing years. He introduced me to his friend, a young Eton man, possessed of that frank nonchalance which it is the privilege of that inst.i.tution to bestow. I inquired where Arthur was. Edward told me that he had gone down to the stream for a stroll. "We'll go down and find him," he said, putting his arm in mine, with that same demonstrativeness that had always characterized him, and that won people to him so quickly.

We crossed one or two adjacent fields which sloped down to the stream, conspicuous by its fringe of alder and hazel; and after crossing by a gravel-pit, we came on a level reach of it, all stifled with high water-plants, figwort, and loosestrife, and willow-herb, and great sprawling docks, till, down by a little runnel where it took a sudden turn round a shoal of gravel, we came upon the faint fragrance of a cigarette; then Flora ran forward to meet us; and, on turning the corner, we found a great long figure lying on the bank, with hat half pulled over his eyes, gazing dreamily up into the s.h.i.+fting willow leaves and the blue above.

Our voices, which had been drowned by the sound of the running water, aroused him, and he sat up, and, on seeing me, got slowly to his feet with a delightful smile of welcome on his face. "How are you, my dear man?" he said. "I didn't expect you so early, or I should have been at home to meet you-in fact, I should have driven down to Truro, only I am not quite the thing to-day."

I looked rather anxiously at him, to see how he appeared to be, and was much struck with the change in him. There had crept into his face what has been called a look of "doom." The Stuarts are said to have had it. I can not describe it in any other way. It was that of a man waiting for something, bravely and calmly, but still with a certain sort of apprehension. He looked very solemn and grave when he was not speaking, and he was apt to get a kind of brooding look, which did not disperse till one spoke to him. He was thinner, too, and paler, though the old lock of hair still dangled over his forehead, and his eyes had the old affectionate look.