The Vagabond in Literature Part 1

The Vagabond in Literature.

by Arthur Rickett.

FOREWORD

In the introductory paper to this volume an attempt is made to justify the epithet "Vagabond" as applied to writers of a certain temperament.

This much may be said here: the term Vagabond is used in no derogatory sense. Etymologically it signifies a wanderer; and such is the meaning attached to the term in the following pages. Differing frequently in character and in intellectual power, a basic similarity of temperament gives the various writers discussed a remarkable spiritual affinity. For in each one the wandering instinct is strong. Sometimes it may take a physical, sometimes an intellectual expression-sometimes both. But always it shows itself, and always it is opposed to the routine and conventions of ordinary life.

These papers are primarily studies in temperament; and the literary aspects have been subordinated to the personal element. In fact, they are studies of certain forces in modern literature, viewed from a special standpoint. And the standpoint adopted may, it is hoped, prove suggestive, though it does not pretend to be exhaustive.

If the papers on Hazlitt and De Quincey are more fragmentary than the others, it is because these writers have been already discussed by the author in a previous volume. It has been thought unnecessary to repeat the points raised there, and these studies may be regarded therefore as at once supplementary and complementary.

My cordial thanks are due to Mr. Theodore Watts-Dunton, who has taken so kindly and friendly an interest in this little volume. He was good enough to read the proofs, and to express his appreciation, especially of the Borrow and Th.o.r.eau articles, in most generous terms. I had hoped, indeed, that he would have honoured these slight studies by a prefatory note, and he had expressed a wish to do so. Unhappily, prior claims upon his time prevented this. The book deals largely, it will be seen, with those "Children of the Open Air" about whom the eloquent author of _Aylwin_ so often has written. I am especially glad, therefore, to quote (with Mr. Watts-Dunton's permission) his fine sonnet, where the "Vagabond" spirit in its happiest manifestation is expressed.

"A TALK ON WATERLOO BRIDGE "THE LAST SIGHT OF GEORGE BORROW

"We talked of 'Children of the Open Air,'

Who once on hill and valley lived aloof, Loving the sun, the wind, the sweet reproof Of storms, and all that makes the fair earth fair, Till, on a day, across the mystic bar Of moonrise, came the 'Children of the Roof,'

Who find no balm 'neath evening's rosiest woof, Nor dews of peace beneath the Morning Star.

We looked o'er London, where men wither and choke, Roofed in, poor souls, renouncing stars and skies, And lore of woods and wild wind prophecies, Yea, every voice that to their fathers spoke: And sweet it seemed to die ere bricks and smoke Leave never a meadow outside Paradise." {0}

A. R.

London, _October_, 1906

INTRODUCTION THE VAGABOND ELEMENT IN MODERN LITERATURE

"There's night and day, brother, both sweet things; sun, moon, and stars, brother, all sweet things; there's likewise a wind on the heath."-_Lavengro_.

I

There are some men born with a vagrant strain in the blood, an unsatiable inquisitiveness about the world beyond their doors. Natural revolutionaries they, with an ingrained distaste for the routine of ordinary life and the conventions of civilization. The average common-sense Englishman distrusts the Vagabond for his want of sympathy with established law and order. Eccentricity and unconventionality smack to him always of moral obliquity. And thus it is that the literary Vagabond is looked at askance. One is reminded of Mr. Pecksniff: "Pagan, I regret to state," observed that gentleman of the Sirens on one occasion. Unhappily no one pointed out to this apostle of purity that the naughtiness of the Sirens was not necessarily connected with paganism, and that the siren disposition has been found even "in choirs and places where they sing."

Restlessness, then, is one of the notes of the Vagabond temperament.

Sometimes the Vagabond is a physical, sometimes only an intellectual wanderer; but in any case there is about him something of the primal wildness of the woods and hills.

Thus it is we find in the same spiritual brotherhood men so different in genius and character as Hazlitt, De Quincey, Th.o.r.eau, Whitman, Borrow, Jefferies, Stevenson.

Th.o.r.eau turned his back on civilization, and found a new joy of living in the woods at Maine. 'Tis the Open Road that inspired Whitman with his rude, melodic chants. Not the ways of men and women, but the flaunting "pageant of summer" unlocked the floodgates of Jefferies' heart. Hazlitt was never so gay, never wrote of books with such relish, as when he was recounting a country walk. There are few more beautiful pa.s.sages than those where he describes the time when he walked between Wrexham and Llangollen, his imagination aglow with some lines of Coleridge. De Quincey loved the s.h.i.+ftless, nomadic life, and gloried in uncertainties and peradventures. A wandering, open-air life was absolutely indispensable to Borrow's happiness; and Stevenson had a schoolboy's delight in the make-believe of Romance.

II

Another note now discovers itself-a pa.s.sion for the Earth. All these men had a pa.s.sion for the Earth, an intense joy in the open air. This feeling differs from the Nature-wors.h.i.+p of poets like Wordsworth and Sh.e.l.ly. It is less romantic, more realistic. The att.i.tude is not so much that of the devotee as that of the lover. There is nothing mystical or abstract about it. It is direct, personal, intimate. I call it purposely a pa.s.sion for the Earth rather than a pa.s.sion for Nature, in order to distinguish it from the p.r.o.nounced transcendentalism of the romantic poets.

The poet who has expressed most nearly the att.i.tude of these Vagabonds towards Nature-more particularly that of Th.o.r.eau, Whitman, Borrow, and Jefferies-is Mr. George Meredith.

Traces of it may be found in Browning with reference to the "old brown earth," and in William Morris, who exclaimed-

"My love of the earth and the wors.h.i.+p of it!"

but Mr. Meredith has given the completest expression to this Earth-wors.h.i.+p.

One thinks of Th.o.r.eau and Jefferies when reading Melampus-

"With love exceeding a simple love of the things That glide in gra.s.ses and rubble of woody wreck; Or change their perch on a beat of quivering wings From branch to branch, only restful to pipe and peck; Or, bristled, curl at a touch their snouts in a ball; Or, cast their web between bramble and th.o.r.n.y hook; The good physician Melampus, loving them all, Among them walked, as a scholar who reads a book."

While that ripe oddity, "Juggling Jerry," would have delighted the "Romany"-loving Borrow.

Indeed the Nature philosophy of Mr. Meredith, with its virile joy in the rich plenitude of Nature and its touch of wildness has more in common with Th.o.r.eau, with Jefferies, with Borrow, and with Whitman than with Wordsworth, Coleridge, Sh.e.l.ley, or even with Tennyson-the first of our poets to look upon the Earth with the eyes of the scientist.

III

But a pa.s.sion for the Earth is not sufficient of itself to admit within the charmed circle of the Vagabond; for there is no marked restlessness about Mr. Meredith's genius, and he lacks what it seems to me is the third note of the genuine literary Vagabond-the note of aloofness, of personal detachment. This it is which separates the Vagabond from the generality of his fellows. No very prolonged scrutiny of the disposition of Th.o.r.eau, Jefferies, and Borrow is needed to reveal a p.r.o.nounced shyness and reserve. Examine this trait more closely, and it will exhibit a certain emotional coldness towards the majority of men and women. No one can overlook the chill austerity that marks Th.o.r.eau's att.i.tude in social converse. Borrow, again, was inaccessible to a degree, save to one or two intimates; even when discovered among congenial company, with the gipsies or with companions of the road like Isopel Berners, exhibiting, to me, a genial bleakness that is occasionally exasperating.

It was his const.i.tutional reserve that militated against the success of Jefferies as a writer. He was not easy to get on with, not over fond of his kind, and rarely seems quite at ease save in the solitude of the fields.

Whitman seems at first sight an exception. Surely here was a friendly man if ever there was one. Yet an examination of his life and writings will compel us to realize a lack of deep personal feeling in the man. He loves the People rather than the people. Anyone who will go along with him is a welcome comrade. This catholic spirit of friendliness is delightful and attractive in many ways, but it has its drawbacks; it is not possible perhaps to have both extensity and intensity of emotion.

There is the impartial friendliness of the wind and sun about his salutations. He loves all men-because they are a part of Nature; but it is the common human element in men and women themselves that attracts him. There was less of the Ishmaelite about Whitman than about Th.o.r.eau, Borrow, or Jefferies; but the man whose company he really delighted in was the "powerful, uneducated man"-the artisan and the mechanic. Those he loved best were those who had something of the elemental in their natures-those who lived nearest to the earth. Without denying for a moment that Whitman was capable of genuine affection, I cannot help feeling, from the impression left upon me by his writings, and by accounts given by those who knew him, that what I must call an absence of human _pa.s.sion_-not necessarily affection-which seems to characterize more or less the Vagabond generally, may be detected in Whitman, no less than in Th.o.r.eau and Borrow. It would seem that the pa.s.sion for the earth, which made them-to use one of Mr. Watts-Dunton's happy phrases-"Children of the Open Air," took the place of a pa.s.sion for human kind.

In the papers dealing with these writers these points are discussed at greater length. For the present reference is made to them in order to ill.u.s.trate the characteristics of the Vagabond temperament, and to vindicate my generic t.i.tle.

The characteristics, then, which I find in the Vagabond temperament are (1) Restlessness-the wandering instinct; this expresses itself mentally as well as physically. (2) A pa.s.sion for the Earth-shown not only in the love of the open air, but in a delight in all manifestations of life.

(3) A const.i.tutional reserve whereby the Vagabond, though rejoicing in the company of a few kindred souls, is put out of touch with the majority of men and women. This is a temperamental idiosyncrasy, and must not be confounded with misanthropy.

These characteristics are not found in equal degree among the writers treated of in these pages. Sometimes one predominates, sometimes another. That is to be expected. But to some extent all these characteristics prevail.

IV

There is a certain type of Vagabondage which may be covered by the term "Bohemianism." But 'tis of a superficial character mostly, and is in the nature of a town-made imitation. Graces and picturesqueness it may have of a kind, but it lacks the rough virility, the st.u.r.dy grit, which is the most attractive quality of the best Vagabond.