My Life as an Author Part 5

CHAPTER VIII.

SUNDRY PROVIDENCES.

Carlyle somewhere gives utterance to a truism, which the present scribe at least can most gratefully countersign, that "it takes a great deal of providence to bring a man to threescore years and ten." Not only are we in peril every time we take breath, both from the action of our own uncertain hearts and from the living germs of poison floating in the air, but from all sorts of outer accidents (so-called, whereas they all are "well ordered and sure") wherewith our little life is compa.s.sed from, cradle to grave; in truth, trifles seem to rule us: "the turning this way or that, the casual stopping or hastening hath saved life or destroyed it, hath built up or flung down fortunes." Every inch and every instant, we are guided and guarded, whether we notice it or not: "the very hairs of our heads are all numbered." Here shall follow some personal experiences in proof. Nearly seventy years ago I knew a small schoolboy of seven who accidentally slit his own throat while cutting a slate-frame against his chest with a sharp knife; there was a knot in the wood, the knife slipped up, a pinafore was instantaneously covered with blood--(though the little semisuicide was unconscious of any pain)--thereafter his neck was quickly strapped with diaculum plaister,--and to this day a slight scar may be found on the left side of a silvery beard! Was not this a providential escape? Again--a lively little urchin in his holiday recklessness ran his head pell-mell blindly against a certain cannon post in Swallow Pa.s.sage, leading from Princes Street, Hanover Square, to Oxford Street, and was so damaged as to have been carried home insensible to Burlington Street: a little more, the doctors said, and it would have been a case of concussion of the brain.

The post is still there "to witness if I lie," as Macaulay's Roman ballad has it,--and here grown to twice its height, thank heaven! am I.

Then again, some ten years after, a youth is seen careering on a chestnut horse in Parliament Street, when a runaway butcher's cart cannoned against his shying steed, the wheel ripping up a saddle-flap, just as the rider had instantaneously s.h.i.+fted his right leg close to the horse's neck! But for that providence, death or a crushed knee was imminent.

Yet again, after some twenty years more: "aesop Smith" was one dark evening creeping up a hill after a hard ride on his grey mare Brenda, when he was aware of two rough men on the tramp before him, one of whom needlessly crossed over so that they commanded both sides, and soon seemed to be approximating; which when aesop fortunately noticed, with a quick spur into Brenda he flashed by the rascals as they tried to s.n.a.t.c.h at his bridle and almost knocked them over right and left whilst he galloped up the hill followed by their curses: was not this an escape worth being thankful for?

Once more: the same equestrian has had two perilous dog-cart accidents, noticeable, for these causes; viz.--broken ribs, and a crushed right hand, have proved to him experimentally how little pain is felt at the moment of a wound; which will explain the unconscious heroism of common soldiers in battle; very little but weakness through loss of blood is ever felt until wounds stiffen: further, a blow on the head not only dazes in the present and stupefies further on, but also completely takes away all memory of a past "bad quarter of an hour." At least I remembered nothing of how my worst misadventure happened; and only know that I crawled home half stunned by moonlight for three miles, holding both sides together with my hands to enable me to breathe: no wonder,--all my elasticity was gone with broken ribs. Though these two accidents cost me, one three months, and the other much longer of a (partly bedridden) helplessness, were they not good providences to make one grateful? I write my mental thanksgiving with the same healed broken hand.

So much of perils by land, by way of sample: here are three or four by sea, to match them. Do I not remember how a rash voyager was nearly swept off the _Asia's_ slippery deck in a storm, when a sudden lurch flung him to cling to the side rail of a then unnetted bulwark, swinging him back again by another lurch right over the yawning waves--like an acrobat? Had I let go, no one would have known of that mystery of the sea,--where and when a certain celebrity then expected in America, had disappeared! Captain Judkin after that always had his bulwarks netted; so that was a good result of my escape: I was the only pa.s.senger on deck, a favoured one,--the captain being on his bridge, two men at the wheel in their covered house, the stormy wind all round in a cyclone, and the raging sea beneath,--and so all unseen I had been swept away,--but for good providence.

Once again; do I not shudderingly recollect how nearly the little Guernsey steamer was run over by an American man-of-war in the Channel, because a tipsy captain would "cross the bows of that d---- d Yankee:"--the huge black prow positively hung over us,--and it was a miracle that we were not sunk bodily in the mighty waters. What more?

Well, I will here insert an escaped danger that tells its own tale in a sonnet written at the time, the place being Tenby and the sea-anemone caverns there, accessible only at lowest neap tide.

"An hour of peril in the Lydstep caves: Down the steep gorge, grotesquely boulder-piled And tempest-worn, as ocean hurrying wild Up it in thunder breaks and vainly raves,-- My haste hath sped me to the rippled sand Where, arching deep, o'erhang on either hand These halls of Amphitrite, echoing clear The ceaseless mournful music of the waves: Ten thousand beauteous forms of life are here; And long I linger, wandering in and out Among the seaflowers, tapestried about All over those wet walls.--A shout of fear!

The tide, the tide!--I turned and ran for life, And battled stoutly through that billowy strife!"

Perhaps this is enough of such hairbreadth 'scapes both by land and water: though I might (in America especially) mention many more. Then there are all manner of the ordinary maladies of humanity, which I pretermit. Carlyle was quite right; it _does_ require "a good deal of providence" to come to old age.

CHAPTER IX.

YET MORE ESCAPES.

But there are many other sorts of peril in human life to which I may briefly advert, as we all have had some experiences of the same. Who does not know of his special financial temptation, some sanguine and unscrupulous speculator urging him from rock to rock across the rapids of ruin, till he is engulfed as by Niagara? Or of the manifestly disinterested and generous capitalist, who gives to some young legatee a junior partner's free arm-chair, only that he may utilise his money and keep the house solvent for yet a year or two, utterly unheeding that ere long the grateful beneficiaire must be dragged down with his chief to poverty? Or, which of us has not had experience of some unjust will, stealing our rights by evil influence? Or of the seemingly luckless accident killing off our intending benefactor just before that promised codicil? Or of the ruinous investment? Or of the bankrupt Life a.s.surance? Or of the unhappy fact of your autograph, "a mere matter of form," on the back of some dishonoured bill of one's defaulting friend?

Yet all these are providences too,--lessons of life, and parts of our schools and schoolmasters.

And there are many like social evils besides. Let me delicately touch one of them. I desire as an Ancient, now nearing the close of my career, at least in this the caterpillar and soon to be chrysalis condition of my being, to give my testimony seriously and practically to the fact (disputed by too many from their own worse experience) that it is quite possible to live from youth to age in many scenes and under many circ.u.mstantial difficulties, preserving still through them all the innocent purity of childhood. True, the crown of greater knowledge is added to the Man; but although it be a knowledge both of evil and of good, theoretically,--it need not practically be a guilty knowledge. If one of any age, from the youngest to the oldest, has not the power of self-control perpetually in exercise, and the good mental help of prayer habitually at hand to be relied on, he is in danger, and may fall into sin or even crime, at any hour, unless the Highest Power intervene. But, if the senses are trained to resist the first inclinations to unchast.i.ty, by the eye that will not look and the ear that will not listen, then the doors of the mind are kept closed against the enemy, and even "hot youth" is safe.

We live in a co-operative cycle of society; and amongst other co-operations are all manner of guilds to encourage, by example, companions.h.i.+p and the like, divers great virtues, and some less important fads and fancies of the day: let me not be thought to disparage any gatherings for prayer, or temperance, or purity; though individual strong men may not need such congregated help as the weaker brethren yearn for. Many a veteran now, changed to good morals from a looser life in the past, may well hope to serve both G.o.d and man by preaching purity to the young men around, by vowing them to a white ribbon guild, and giving them the decoration of an ivory cross. But he is apt to forget what young blood is, his own having cooled down apace; anon he will find that Nature is not so easily driven back--_usque recurrit_--and he will soon have to acknowledge that if the higher and deeper influences of personal religion, earnest prayer, honest watchfulness, and sincere--though it be but incipient--love of G.o.d and desire to imitate Christ, are not chief motives towards the purification of human pa.s.sion, this brotherhood of a guild may tend to little except self-righteousness, and it will be well if hypocrisy and secret sin does not accompany that open boastfulness of a White Cross Order. After all said and done, a man--or woman--or precocious child--must simply take the rules of Christ and Paul, and Solomon, as his guide and guard, by "Resisting," "Fleeing," "Cutting off--metaphorically--the right hand, and putting out the right eye;" so letting "discretion preserve him and understanding keep him;" but there is nothing like flight; it is easy and speedy, and more a courage than a cowardice. Take a simple instance.

Some forty years ago, an author, well-known in both hemispheres, then living in London, received by post a pink and scented note from "an American Lady, a great admirer of his books, &c. &c.: would he favour her by a call" at such an hotel, in such a square? Much flattered he went, and was very gus.h.i.+ngly received; but when the lady, probably not an American (though comely enough to be one), after a profusion of compliments went on to complain of a husband having deserted her, and to throw herself not without tears on the kindness of her favourite author, that individual thought it would be prudent to depart, and so promptly remembering another engagement he took up his hat and--fled. He had afterwards reason to be thankful for this escape, as for others. _I, fac simile_; as no doubt you have done, and you will do, for there are many Potipheras; ay, and there exist some Josephs too.

Other forms of evil in the way of heterodoxy and heresy have a.s.sailed your confessor, as is the common case with most other people, whether authors or not. The rashest Atheism or more cowardly Agnosticism are rampant monsters, but have only affected my own spirit into forcing me to think out and to publish my Essay on Probabilities, whereof I shall speak further when my books come under review. But beyond these open foes to one's faith, who has not met with zealous enthusiasts who urge upon his acceptance under penalty of the worst for all eternity if refused, any amount of strange isms,--Plymouth, Southcote, Swedenborg, Irving, Mormon,--and of the other 272 sects which affect (perhaps more truly infect) religion in this free land? I have had many of these attacking me by word or letter on the excuse of my books. Who, if he once weakly gives way to their urgent advice to "search and see for himself," will not soon be addled and muddled by all sorts of sophistical and controversial botherations, if even he is not tempted to accept--for lucre if not G.o.dliness--the office of bishop, or apostle, or prophet, or anything else too freely offered by zealots to new converts, if of notoriety enough to exalt or enrich a sect; such sect in every case proclaiming itself the one only true Church, all other sects being nothing but impostors? We have all encountered such spiritual perils,--and happy may we feel that with whatever faults and failings, there is an orthodox and established form of religion amongst us in the land. For my own part, I go freely to any house of prayer, national or nonconformist, where the Gospel is preached and the preacher is capable: all I want is a good man for the good word and work--and if he has the true Spirit in him, I care next to nothing for his orders: though to many less independent minds human authorisation may be a necessity. From cradle hymns to the more serious prayings of senility, my own religion in two words is crystallised as "Abba, Father;" my only priest being my Divine Brother; and my Friend and Guide through this life and beyond it the Holy Spirit, who unites all the family of G.o.d. May I die, as I have lived, in this simple faith of childhood.

My "Probabilities" has, amongst others apposite, this sentence about the origin of evil, and the usefulness of temptation: "To our understanding, at least, there was no possible method of ill.u.s.trating the amiabilities of Goodness and the contrivances of Wisdom but by the infused permission of some physical and moral evils; mercy, benevolence, design would in a universe of Best have nothing to do; that universe itself would grow stagnant, as incapable of progress; and the princ.i.p.al record of G.o.d's excellences, the book of redemption, would have been unwritten. Is not then the existence of evil justified in reason's calculation? and was not such existence an antecedent probability?"

CHAPTER X.

FADS AND FANCIES.

In a recent page I have alluded to sundry "fads and fancies of the day,"

some of greater and others of lesser import, and I have been mixed up in two or three of them. For example;--as an undergraduate at Oxford I starved myself in the matter of sugar, by way of somehow discouraging the slave-trade; I don't know that either Caesar or Pompey was any the better for my small self-sacrifice; but as a trifling fact, I may mention that I then followed some of the more straitlaced fas.h.i.+ons of Clapham. Also, when in lodgings after my degree, I resolved to leave off meat, bought an immense Ches.h.i.+re cheese, and, after two months of part-consumption thereof, reduced my native strength to such utter weakness as quite to endanger health. So I had to relapse into the old carnality of mutton chops, like other folk: such extreme virtue doesn't pay.

Of course abstinence from all stimulant has had its hold on me heretofore, as it has upon many others,--but, after a persistent six months of only water, my nerve power was so exhausted (I was working hard at the time as editor of "The Anglo-Saxon," a long extinct magazine) that my wise doctor enjoined wine and whisky--of course in moderation; and so my fluttering heart soon recovered, and I have been well ever since.

Now about temperance, let me say thus much. Of course, I must approve the modern very philanthropic movement, but only in its rational aspect of moderation. In my youth, the pendulum swung towards excess, now its reaction being exactly opposite; both extremes to my mind are wrong. And here let me state (_valeat quantum_) that I never exceeded in liquor but once in my life: that once serving afterwards as a valuable life lesson all through the wine-parties of Christ Church, the abounding hospitalities of America, both North and South, through two long visits--and the genialities of our own Great Britain during my several Reading Tours. If it had not been for that three days' frightful headache when I was a youth (in that sense a good providence), I could not have escaped so many generous hosts and seductive beverages. That one departure from sobriety happened thus. My uncle, Colonel Selwyn, just returned from his nine years' command at Graham's Town, South Africa, gave a grand dinner at the Opera Colonnade to his friends and relatives, resolved (according to the fas.h.i.+on of the time) to fill them all to the full with generous Bacchus by obligatory toasts, he himself pretending to prefer his own bottle of brown sherry,--in fact, dishonest toast and water; but that sort of practical joke was also a fas.h.i.+on of the day. The result, of course, was what he desired; everybody but himself had too much, whilst his mean sobriety, cruel uncle! enjoyed the calm superiority of temperance over tipsiness. However, the lesson to me (though never intended as such) was most timely,--just as I was entering life to be forewarned by having been for only that once overtaken. I have ever since been thankful for it as a mercy; and few have been so favoured; how many can truly say, only that once? But I pa.s.s on, having a great deal more to write about temperance. On my first visit to America in 1851, all that mighty people indulged freely in strong drinks of the strangest names and most delicious flavours: on my second in 1876,--just a quarter of a century after,--there was almost nothing to be got but iced water. Accordingly when I was at Charleston I took up my parable,--and spoke through a local paper as follows: I fear the extract is somewhat lengthy, but as an exhaustive argument (and the piece, moreover, being unprinted in any of my books), I choose to give it here in full, to be skipped if the reader pleases. It is introduced thus by an editor:--

"In these days of extreme abstinence from wine and spirits, it is refres.h.i.+ng to see what the strong common-sense of an eminent moral philosopher has to say about temperance. We make, then, a longish extract, well-nigh exhaustive of the subject, which occurs in a lecture, ent.i.tled 'America Revisited--1851 and 1877,' from the pen of Martin Tupper, explaining itself. The author introduces his poetic essay thus:--'Since my former visit to the States twenty-five years ago, few changes are more remarkable than that in the drinking habits of the people; formerly it was all for spirituous liquors, and now it is "Water, water everywhere, and every drop to drink!" The bars are well-nigh deserted, and the entrance-halls of most houses are ostentatiously furnished with plated beakers and goblets ensuring an icy welcome: in fact, not to be tedious, intemperance has changed front, and excess in water has taken the place of excess in wine.'" To an Englishman's judgment the true "part of Hamlet" in a feast is the more generous fluid, and the greatest luxuries are simply Barmecidal without some wholesome stimulant to wash them down; accordingly, my too outspoken honesty protested thus in print against this form of folly in extremes, and either pleased or offended, as friends or foes might choose to take it.

"Temperance? Yes! true Temperance, yes!

Moderation in all things, the word is express; 'Nothing too much'--Greek, 'Meden Agan;'

So spake Cleobulus, the Seventh Wise Man; And the grand 'golden mean' was shrewd Horace's law, And Solomon's self laid it down for a saw That 'good overmuch' is a possible fault, As meat over-salted is worse for the salt; And Chilo, the Stagyrite, Peter, and Paul, Enjoin moderation in all things to all; The law to make better this trial-scene, earth, And draw out its strongest of wisdom and worth, By sagely suppressing each evil excess-- In feasting, of course, but in fasting no less-- In drinking--by all means let no one get drunk-- In eating, let none be a gluttonous monk, But everyone feed as becometh a saint, With grateful indulging and wholesome restraint, Not pampering self, as an epicure might, Nor famis.h.i.+ng self, the ascetic's delight.

"But man ever has been, and will be, it seems, Given up to intemperance, p.r.o.ne to extremes; The wish of his heart (it has always been such) Is, give me by all means of all things too much!

In pleasures and honours, in meats, and in drinks, He craves for the most that his coveting thinks; To wallow in sensual Lucullus's sty, Or stand like the starving Stylites on high, To be free from all churches and wors.h.i.+p alone, Or chain'd to the feet of a priest on a throne, To be rich as a Rothschild, and dozens beside, Or poor as St. Francis (in all things but pride), With appet.i.te starved as a Faquir's, poor wretch!

Or appet.i.te fattened to luxury's stretch; Denouncing good meats, on lentils he fares, Denouncing good wine, by water he swears-- In all things excessive his folly withstands The wise moderation that Scripture commands.

"This vice of excess is no foible of mine, Though liking and needing a gla.s.s of good wine, To help the digestion, to quicken the heart, And loosen the tongue for its eloquent part, But never once yielding one jot to excess, Nor weakly consenting the least to transgress.

For let no intolerant bigot pretend My Temperance Muse would excuse or defend, As Martial or tipsy Anacreon might, An orgy of Bacchus, the drunkard's delight: No! rational use is the sermon I'm preaching, Eschewing abuse as the text of my teaching.

"Old Pindar says slyly, that 'Water is best;'

When pure as Bandusia, this may be confest.

But water so often is troubled with fleas And queer little monsters the microscope sees; Is sometimes so muddy, and sometimes so mixt With poisons and gases, both fixt and unfixt, And seems so connected with juvenile pills-- A thought which the mind with unpleasantness fills-- That really one asks, is it safe to imbibe So freely the live animalcula tribe, Unkilled and uncooked with a little wine sauce Poured in, or of whisky or brandy a toss-- And gulp a cold draught of the colic, instead Of something to warm both the heart and the head?

"That Jotham-first-fable, the bramble and vine, Piles up to a climax the praise of good wine; For in Judges we read--look it up, as you can-- 'It cheereth the heart, both of G.o.d and of man;'

And everywhere lightness, and brightness, and health, Gild the true temperance texts with their wealth, Giving strong drink to the ready to perish, And heavy-heartedness joying to cherish.

"What is wanted--and let some Good Templar invent it, Damaging drunkenness, nigh to prevent it, Is a drink that is nice, warm, pleasant, and pale, Delicious as 'cakes,' and seductive as 'ale,'

Like 'ginger that's hot in the mouth' and won't hurt you, As old Falstaff winks it, in spite of your virtue; A temperate stimulant cup, to displace Pipes, hasheesh, and opium, and all that bad race; Cheap as pure water and free as fresh air-- Oh, where shall we find such a beverage--where?

"No wine for the pure or the wise--so some teach-- Abstinence utter for all and for each, Total denial of every right use, Because some bad fools the good creature abuse!

As well might one vow not to warm at a fire, Nor give the least rein to a lawful desire, Because some have recklessly burnt down their houses, Because the rogue cheats, or the reveller carouses!

I see not the logic, the rational logic, Conclusive to me, coherent and cogic, That since some poor sot in his folly exceeds, I must starve out my likings, and stint out my needs.

"Am I _that_ brother's keeper? He is not an Abel, Is strange to my roof, and no guest at my table: I know not his mates, we are not near each other, He swills in the pothouse, that dissolute brother!-- But there's your example?--The drunkards can't see it, And if they are told of it, scorn it and flee it; Example?--Your children!--No doubt it is right To be to them always a law and a light; But moderate temperance is the vise way To form them, and hinder their going astray; Whereas utter abstinence proves itself vain, And drunkards flare up because good men abstain.

"The law of reaction is stringent and strong, A youth _in extremis_ is sure to go wrong, For the pendulum swings with a multiplied force When sloped from its even legitimate course.

I have known--who has not?--that a profligate son Has been through his fanatic father undone; Restrained till the night of free licence arrives, And then he breaks out to the wreck of two lives!

"A fierce water-fever just now is red-hot; Drink water, or perish, thou slave and thou sot!

Drink water alone, and drink more, and drink much-- But, liquors or wines? Not a taste, not a touch!

Yet, is not this fever a fervour of thrift?

It is wine you denounce, but its cost is your drift; The times are so hard and the wines are so bad (For good at low prices are not to be had), That forthwith society shrewdly shouts high For water alone, the whole abstinence cry!

And, somehow supposed suggestive of heaven, The cup of cold water is generously given, But a gla.s.s of good wine is an obsolete thing, And will be till trade is once more in full swing!

I hint not hypocrisy; many are true, They preach what they practise, they say--and they do, And used from their boyhood to only cold water, Enjoin nothing better on wife, son, and daughter; But surely with some it is merely for thrift, That they out off the wine, and with water make s.h.i.+ft, Although they profess the self-sacrifice made As dread of intemperance makes them afraid.

And so, like a helmsman too quick with his tiller, Eschewing Charybdis they steer upon Scylla, To perish of utter intemperance--Yes!