My Life as an Author Part 23

He told me of a new novel--of the satirico-political sort--which he had written for the press, but as yet we hear nothing definite of its publication.

"My own personal acquaintance with the familiar 'Fred. Burnaby' was confined to several hospitable dinner-parties at the house of his relative, Lady W----, my near neighbour and friend at Norwood, about which I might anecdotise to any extent; but I never allow myself to record private conversation nor to reveal domesticities. All such are sacred in my memory, and on principle I despise the modern mischief-maker whose reminiscences are practically reminuisances. On a certain public occasion, however, Burnaby stood by me, to my great pleasure and advantage, and let me record his kindness thus. When I gave my lecture on Flying at the Royal Aquarium, he most appropriately took the chair, and made some excellent remarks. Altogether, let my testimony, however brief, however inadequate, to the merits of Fred.

Burnaby be this: I lost in his too sudden death a friend, as I had hoped, for many years to come, and my regrets are for him as one of the n.o.blest of mankind. Let me add a word further, as the worthy witnessing of one, quite a kindred spirit, whose acquaintance I made some long time back, and look for great things from his energy and enterprise, and multifarious talents,--_Charles Marvin_, then the famous Eastern Pioneer, who in his book on Asia, says: "Yes, our Burnabys, our Bakers, our MacGregors, our Gordons--these are the real pillars of the Empire.

These are the men who confer provinces upon England, who risk their lives to guard them. When the world is a little older, and the working man's vote is worth more than the statesman's opinion, then the splendid achievements of such men will be more generously appreciated: and the warm English feeling expended to-day on torpid, stupid, unpatriotic party politicians will be directed towards heroes whose steady undaunted patriotism, in face of public indifference and bureaucratic disdain, conveys a moral as grand as their careers."

A Dining-out Anecdote.

As I have before said, not having been much given to society, nor therefore a professional parasite of Amphitryon (though sometimes tempted to his side as "a lion," but more often vainly, for I always refused if I could), I have an instructive anecdote to give about a celebrated conversationist, whom I will not name nor indicate even by initials. One evening I found myself compelled to accompany him to a great man's banquet--_nota bene_, it was after I had well recovered speech--and so I found myself at his chambers perhaps ten minutes too soon. He called to me from his dressing-room, bidding me to amuse myself till he was ready. Now, on the study table were laid several books, open, with weights to keep them so: and I glanced from one to another to while away the time. Then up came his brougham, and off we went. At dinner my "diner-out" started a topic, whereof innocently enough I remembered instantly a suitable epigram. Not long after another subject gave me occasion to tell a witty story, which somehow came to me at the moment. My "friend" asked me with a keen glance where I had read it, and at once I recollected those open books and understood the position, resolving mischievously to outflank the manaeuverer. Accordingly, at each opportunity, with seeming innocence, I "wiped his eye," as they say at a _battue_, and certainly reaped the anecdotic "_kudos_" Mr. So-and-so had cunningly contrived and hoped to achieve for himself. I confess it was vicious of me, but who could help taking the benefit of such a chance?

Hosts should beware of wits who cram their jokes and anecdotes. Years after I met the same gentleman at another entertainer's table, where I found him in my presence not quite the livener-up they had expected, and he seemed a little shy of me; probably he thought me an omniscient, for I never told the poor man I had found him out. I fear he has departed to a world where genuine truthfulness is more accepted as a virtue than in this.

A Mormon Guest.

Quite recently I have had a visit from a young American, who brought me a letter from a so-called cousin--at all events a namesake--in the Far West, asking me to tell her about her German ancestry. My visitor was good-looking, well-dressed, fair-spoken, and gentlemanly; also well-bred and well-to-do. I will not indicate his name, but I may state that he is a near relative of the eminent electrician who illuminates so magnificently the fountains at South Kensington. Of course, as pleased with his manners and deportment, I kept him to luncheon; and finding that he hailed from Utah, naturally asked if he knew Salt Lake City and the Mormons there. Certainly; he lived not a hundred miles from the city, and those were his own people: as a Mormon himself from infancy, he had nothing but good to say of them, and we in England had been very much misled by Mrs. Stenhouse and other travellers. As to plurality of wives, not two per cent. of their whole 200,000 had more than one wife.

His own father, a rich merchant and a church-hierarch, a "stake" of the tabernacle (much as we should say a pillar), had but one--his own dear mother--and he scarcely knew any one with more. It was quite a European misjudgment that many followed Brigham Young's doctrine, which never had been Joseph Smith's,--and the present chief, Taylor, had but one. He showed us many cabinet photographs of Salt Lake City, his own family, leading Mormons, and the like: especially of the Old Tabernacle, like a monstrous tortoise, and one from a finished drawing of the new, of even more tasteless architecture, being the most gigantic piece of perpendicular ever perpetrated, and full of unsightly windows. When asked about the golden book,--well he had never seen it, but believed in it thoroughly; because all the twelve apostles had seen it and he trusted their testimony. Eleven of those apostles were now dead, one only surviving. (Just as with our friends of Mr. Irving's sect at Albury, which arose in the same year as Mormonism.) We had never set eyes on the originals of our own Scriptures--in fact, they did not exist--but believed the witnessing of others, as he did. He himself was not a missionary, but would go if he was sent by the Church; though he mightn't like it, he was bound to, obey, authority, &c. &c.

I had plenty more talk with him, and found him intelligent, modest, and in every way a remarkably agreeable young fellow: and I added to my mental _repertoire_ of better judgments that on Mormonism,--even as heretofore Mr. Sinnett has taught me not utterly to despise Buddhism, Dr. Wilkinson to revere Swedenborgianism, and a few other people I might name who are true believers, to be charitable as to other sorts of strange isms: once I met a very religious clergyman who still held by Johanna Southcote; and we have all heard how Lady Hester Stanhope had an Arab horse always ready saddled for Messiah when He is to ride into Jerusalem; and how some other person had a gold spoon and fork laid daily at his table for the sudden coming of a Divine Guest! Our personal lesson is to be tolerant of all manner of innocent enthusiasms, to hear both sides and bear with all opinions,--sometimes finding to our astonishment that black sheep may after all be whiter than they looked, and that uncharitable prejudice is but another name for ignorant folly.

Before taking leave of my Mormon guest, I ought to report that he was teetotal, handsome, taciturn rather than talkative, a hunter among the Rockies, an author himself, and of course an old book-friend, so I made him happy with some autographic poetries.

With reference to "Joe Smith's" own theological creed, there is a very neat and notable _precis_ of it on p. 171 of a bright little book I have lately read, t.i.tled "Frank's Ranche, or my Holiday in the Rockies,"

easily accessible. That creed is so good that when I read it aloud to my homeflock they said, "Why, we believe all that!"--and as to the evil matter of many wives, not only did the original Joseph repudiate that doctrine, but his namesake son, still a chief among the Mormons, does the same, and so far has seceded from the Brigham heresy: which a son of mine says is not bigamy, but Brighamy.

A few forgotten anecdotes may here find place: take these twelve as samples of many more such trivials which memory may have at the bottom of her well, if she only dipped for them.

1. A banknote experience: when a very small child I used to be taken to the Postford paper-mill at Albury by my nurse, who had a follower (or a followed) in the foreman there. While they talked together, I was deputed to amuse myself by making banknote paper, as thus: a spoonful of pulp put into a shallow tray of wire and shaken deftly made a small oblong of paper duly impressed with Britannia and water-marked: being then dried on a flannel pad. Many years after, when I was preparing for Oxford under Mr. Holt at Postford House, there was discovered a secret cupboard in the wall of his drawing-room which was found to contain several forged plates for printing banknotes: and this discovery accounted for the recent suicide of a Mr. H----, a previous owner of the paper-mill, who evidently feared exposure and conviction. No one now is allowed to make banknote paper, except the honourable firm of Messrs.

Portal, which has the monopoly thereof: but when I was a child, any one might do it, and if there was a forger handy, fraud was possible to any extent. Our "Newland's Corner" on Merrow Downs is so called from Abraham Newland, whose name is printed on old banknotes as F. May is on new ones, and who owned Postford Mill. Hence the word "Sham-Abram" for a forged note.

2. A noted piscatorial editor wishes me to record now I once caught a trout with its own eye--as thus: I was whipping the Tillingbourne, and hooked a fish foul, for it dropped off leaving an eye on the hook. In my vexation I made a cast again over the same spot where I had thrown, and actually caught that eager wounded fish with its own eye.

3. When I was a guest of Captain Hamilton at Rozelle, Ayr, he told me that he and all the crew had seen the sea-serpent!--but that his admiral had interdicted all mention of it in the log for fear of ridicule: on which I told him what I had seen of the same sort. When crossing the great Herring Pond in the _Arctic_, the pa.s.sengers were all summoned on deck from dinner to see that mystery of the deep, the sea-serpent. It was very rough at the time, and certainly within a little distance some apparent monster hundreds of feet long was rolling on the top of the waves: _but_ as some portions of it spouted, we soon saw there nothing but a school of whales, the big bull leading and the cows and calves following in a line. This looked like the real thing,--but wasn't. From other evidence, however, and the Rev. J.G. Wood supplies one, I do believe there are such monsters of the deep whose nest is in the Sarga.s.so Sea.

4. Here is a curious item of my biography. When I was in Canada in 1851, at an hotel in Kingston, the waiter comes to tell me that two persons wanted to see me on special business. Admitted, there appeared a very decent man and woman dressed in their best, and with ribbons and flowers. What might they want with me? Please, Mr. Tupper, that you would marry us! My good man, I can't, I'm not a clergyman. Oh but, sir, you write religion, and we like your books, and we've come across from New York State to Canada to get married,--so please, &c. &c. Of course, I did not please, and as to marriage at all gave them Punch's celebrated advice to persons about to marry, Don't. On which the hapless pair departed sorrowfully. If I _had_ read the service over them, possibly their respectable consciences might have been satisfied,--and as with Romeo and Juliet a lay friar Lawrence would have sufficed. Moreover, there's no penalty from one State to another: and even on board s.h.i.+p the captain may read services, and on land the Consul marries.

5. A picture story. I am invited to a dinner where a rich New Yorker has asked some connoisseur friends to inspect his new purchase, a Raffaelle Madonna and child, for which he has just given a fabulous amount of dollars. I was asked for special judgment as an artistic Englishman.

Well: the drawing was perfect; but I didn't like the colouring: I knew the picture, having seen the original somewhere on the Continent: but this couldn't be a copy, as it was less than life-size; so, while most of the other guests praised profusely, I requested to withhold my opinion of its merits till I could examine it in daylight,--which, as I was to sleep in the house, was easy next morning. When my eager host appeared, I took him alone after breakfast into his study, and proved to him what, alas! I had too truly suspected, that however well painted with the over-accuracy of a miniature and absolutely correct as was the drawing,--his prize Raffaelle was after all only an oil-coloured engraving! This he wouldn't believe, triumphantly showing me the ancient canvas at the back: but when I told him that between that canvas and the paint he would find paper, and when a penknife scratch under the frame-edge proved it,--he naturally stormed at the dealer who had taken him in, until I suggested a disgorging of the dollars, and promising my own silence as to the discovery, left him a wiser man and a grateful.

6. How often the poor letter H has crushed oratory and destroyed eloquence! Do I not remember how notably a late Lord Mayor raised the echoes of the Egyptian Hall to an explosion of laughter, by commencing grandiloquently, "When hi survey the dignity of my 'igh position," &c.

&c.; and similarly what a disastrous effect a certain preacher caused in church by the announcement, "This is the hare, come let us kill him?"

But we all know the mysteries of H and W: aesop Smith wrote a fable about them, whereof this is the finale: "H," said King Cadmus, "one of my oldest friends! never can I spare your respectable presence; your ancestor is the throat-uttered Heth of Moses; even as you, dear W, are descended from the stately digamma of Homer. Believe me, I value both of you all the more for graceful ambiguities: mystery is priceless to your king, and your usage is obscure: therefore do I lay upon you higher honour. Henceforth, ye vowel magnates, and you my faithful commons consonants, take heed that no one be accounted literate or eloquent who places these my oldest friends in a dilemma. Their right use is a mystery; so be it; but woe be unto those whose innate want of taste profanes that mystery. Honour be to H, and wors.h.i.+p be to W; and let those who misuse their secret excellences dread the vengeance of King Cadmus!"

7. Yet a seventh whimsical anecdote rises to the surface. When Prince Albert was made a fellow of Lincoln's Inn, and dined in the New Hall, I was present at the banquet. There was a roast joint and one bottle of port to each mess of four barristers: one would think a supply more than ample: however, some thirsty souls wanted more wine for the great occasion, and the complaint found utterance ludicrously thus. When the National Anthem was sung, some young lawyer who gave the solos, with a good tenor voice and no end of dry humour, raised a gale of laughter and applause by singing very devoutly--

"Long to reign over us _Happy and glorious,_ _Three half-pints 'mong four of us,_ G.o.d save the Queen!"

Of course, plenty more bottles were the result,--and the genial Prince Albert laughed as heartily as the rest of us.

8. Yet another anecdote, in these days of professional mendicancy not uninstructive. One day when calling on the Rev. Robert Anderson, at Brighton, a begging visitor came in, calling himself a Polish refugee, and speaking broken English: Mr. Anderson in his kindness was just about to open his purse, when I said to both of them, "I happen to know a little Polish, and wish to ask a few questions:" accordingly, I rapped out at intervals, with an interrogating air, the opening lines of the Antigone of Sophocles! on which that "banished lord," stammering out that he had been out of Poland so many years that he had forgotten the language, bowed himself from the room as a--discovered, impostor.

9. The recent lamentable fire at Kegan Paul's, wherein so much authorial wealth was cremated,--and especially no fewer than six of the works of that clever auth.o.r.ess, Emily Pfeiffer,--reminds me of an irrevocable loss sustained by "Proverbial Philosophy" owing to Oudinot's capture of Rome in 1849: for it so happened that the Cardinal Archbishop of Bologna had, as instructress to his nieces, a lady who afterwards became Mrs.

Robinson of South Kensington Museum: she, a great admirer of the work, translated my book for them into Italian, and had it printed at Rome, where unluckily both the whole MS. and the finished sheets were all burnt in the city's bombardment. I have since asked Mrs. Robinson if she could possibly reproduce it: but--the occasion pa.s.sed, there is now neither time nor need for it, and so my Italian version has no existence, except possibly as photographed on the "blue ether" whither Professor Tyndall hopes to go. A similar fatality, we may remember, affected Sir Isaac Newton through his little dog Diamond: and my friend in old days, Gilbert Burnett, the botanist, had to rewrite his index, a heartrending labour, because a careless housemaid lit a fire with it.

10. And this further reminds me of the perils to which an author's MSS.

are perpetually exposed; _e.g._, before I put a spring lock on my study at Albury (where, by the way, I wrote several of my early Proverbial chapters with a child on my knee) I used to find my papers regularly put out of order by the maid arranging the room; and upon my cautioning her not to destroy anything, I was horrified by the unconscious Audrey's instant reply, "O sir! I never burns no papers but what is spoilt by being written on." Again, I remember to have cautioned my Suffolk friend, Mrs. Crabtree, who had a fine library, not to keep her servants short of firepaper, as they might possibly help themselves out of bound books; whereat she was indignant, as if I was traducing a favourite menial: however, I went round with her, unfortunately proving the delinquency by exhibiting several handsome volumes with middle leaves torn out!--Once more, in the prehistoric days when we sported with loose powder and shot and paper wadding, I was a guest for some days in September with James Maclaren at Ticehurst, and recollect his horror at finding that the luncheon sandwiches were wrapped in some of his most precious MSS.--for he was writing a treatise on finance, and these leaves were covered with calculations--and that his shooting-party were ramming down their charges with the recorded labour of his brains! It was at Maclaren's that I once tasted squirrel; his woods were infested with the pretty creatures, which the keeper shot, and after keeping the skin gave the carcase to the cook: it tasted like very nutty rabbit: but I protested it was a greater outrage than lark-pudding, which I had recently seen at the Judges' Sentence dinner at Newgate, and said it was a shame to eat the sweet songsters. At Maclaren's I learnt the origin of "high" as applied to eatables. His game-larder was a tower of many bars, the lowest containing a to-day's shooting, the next yesterday's, and so forth, always moving up; hence the stalest were at the top, and so most serviceable as least fresh. Trench on words would approve this reason for "high" game.

11. _Providence._

I.

"Lo! we are led; we are guided and guarded Carefully, kindly, by night and by day; Punish'd belike, or haply rewarded, As we go wrong or go right on the way; Wisdom and Mercy, twin angels of kindness, Take by both hands the child lost in the night, Leading him safely, in spite of his blindness, Guiding him well through the dark to the light.

II.

"All things are ordered,--the least as the greatest; Motes have their orbits as fixt as a star,-- And thou may'st mark, if humbly thou waitest, Providence working in all things that are: Nothing shall fail in its ultimate object, Good must outwrestle all evil at last; G.o.d is the King, and creation His subject, And the great future shall ransom the past.

III.

"Ay, and this present,--perplexing, degrading-- None may despise it as futile or worse; Swift as it flieth, dissolving and fading, 'Tis the wing'd seed of some blessing or curse.

Telescope, microscope,--which hath most wonder?

Infinite great, or as infinite small?

Musical silence, or world-splitting thunder?-- He that made all things inhabits them all.

IV.

"Yea; for this present,--each inch and each second Hath its own soul in a thought or a word; Ev'n as I watch, G.o.d's finger hath beckon'd, Ev'n as I wait, G.o.d's whisper is heard!

Trifles, some judge them, that finger, that whisper,-- But on such pivots vast issues revolve; Those are the watchful reminders of Mizpah, Jazer and Bethel, Life's secret to solve!

V.

"Mizpah,--for carefulness, honour, uprightness; Jazer,--by penitence, meekness, and faith; Bethel,--in foretastes of gladness and brightness,-- These are the keynotes to life out of death: Providence bidding, and prudence obeying, Thou shalt have peace from beginning to end,-- Thankfully, trustfully, instantly praying, Walking with G.o.d as thy Father and Friend."

12. Apropos to my mention of Mortimer Collins' visit to Albury on another page, I make this extract from his "Pen Sketches by a Vanished Hand," vol. i. pp. 167, 168:--

"_A Walk through Surrey._

"At Albury I called upon a poet,--one whom critics love to a.s.sail, but who derides critics and arrides the public. Pleasant indeed is the fine old house, with emerald lawn and stately trees, wherein he resides. Not Horace in his Sabine farm, nor Catullus at Tiburs, had a more poetic retreat than the author of "Proverbial Philosophy" at Albury. But, like Catullus, the advent of May had set the poet longing for a flight far away:

"'Jam ver egelidos refert tepores, Jam coeli furor aequinoctialis Jucundis Zephyri silescit auris; Jam mens praetrepidans avet vagari Jam laeti studio pedes vigesc.u.n.t.'

And he was about to take wing for sea-side resorts, and the soft cyclades of the Channel, beloved by Victor Hugo.

"Right hospitable was he; a bottle of cool claret cheered the dusty wayfarer, and an hour's pleasant talk was even more cheering. Hence I walked through Albury Park towards Gomshall."

The exquisite bit from Catullus will best excuse my otherwise egotistical quotation.

A few more anecdotes about literary men and things may here find place.

Take these respecting _Thackeray_, and _Leech_, both of which immortal humorists were my schoolfellows at the Charterhouse; but, as I have said, they having the misfortune to be merely lower-form boys, and your present scribe ranging as a dignified Emeritus, of course there was then a great gulf between us, pleasantly to be bridged over in after life.

Thackeray's career has long been fully detailed in public, and I can have little to add of much consequence; but I call to mind how that quiet small cynic--so gigantic in all senses afterwards--used to caricature Bob Watki and the other masters on the fly-leaves of his cla.s.sbooks, to the scandal of myself and other responsible monitors; these ill.u.s.trated cla.s.sics having since been sold by auction at high prices. But "My School-Days" have recorded all that.