An American Four-In-Hand in Britain Part 9

A cheery voice behind me. "What is the matter? Are you ill? You look as if you hadn't a friend in the world!" Thanks, gentle remembrancer. This is no time for the Scribe to forget himself. We are not out for lessons or for moralizing. Things are and shall be "altogether lovely." One must often laugh if one would not cry.

Here is a funny conceit. A worthy draper in the town has recently put an upright stone at the head of his wife's grave, with an inscription setting forth the dates of her birth and death, and beneath it the following verse:

"For the Lord has done great things for us, whereof we are exceeding glad."

The wretch! One of the wives of our party declared that she could not like a man who could think at such a crisis of such a verse, no matter how he meant it. She was confident that he was one of those terribly resigned kind of men who will find that the Lord has done great things for him in the shape of a second helpmeet within two years.

This led to a search for other inscriptions. Here is one which struck our fancy:

"Under these ashes lies one close confined, Who was to all both affable and kind; A neighbor good, extensive to ye poor, Her soul we hope's at rest forevermore."

This was discussed and considered to go rather too far. Good Swedenborgians still dispute about the body's rising again, and make a great point of that, as showing their superior wisdom, as if it mattered whether we rise with this body or another, any more than whether we wear one suit of clothes or another; the great matter being that we rise at all. But this good friend seems to bespeak rest forever for the soul.

One of us spoke of having lately seen a very remarkable collection of pa.s.sages from Scripture which seemed to permit the hope that all for whom a kind father has nothing better in store than perpetual torture will kindly be permitted to rest. One of the pa.s.sages in question was: "For the wicked shall _perish_ everlastingly." The question was remitted to the theologians of our party, with instructions to give it prayerful consideration and report.

[Sidenote: _Everlasting Punishment._]

If there be Scriptural warrant for the belief, I wish to embrace it at once. Meanwhile I am not going to be sure that any poor miserable sinner is to be disturbed when after "life's fitful fever he sleeps well" on the tender, forgiving bosom of mother earth, unless he can be _finally_ fitted for as good or a better life than this. Therefore, good Emma and Ella and the rest who are staunch dogmatists, be very careful how you report, for it is a fearful thing to charge our Creator unjustly with decreeing everlasting torture even to the worst offender into whom He has breathed the breath of life. Refrain, if possible,

"Under this conjuration speak; For we will hear, note, and believe in heart That what you speak is in your conscience washed As pure as sin with baptism."

I have not yet been favored with the report asked for, and therefore the question rests.

The Charioteers got upon delicate ground occasionally, as was to be expected, and although in all well regulated families two subjects--politics and religion--are proscribed, we came near running foul of the latter to-day. There were wide differences of opinion among us, of course, from the true blue Presbyterian, strong for all the tenets of Calvin, down to the milder Episcopalian who took more hopeful views and asked:

"Shall there not be as good a 'Then' as 'Now'?

Haply much better! since one grain of rice Shoots a green feather gemmed with fifty pearls, And all the starry champak's white and gold Lurks in those little, naked, gray spring-buds."

I related an incident which happened in Rome. As I entered the general drawing room one evening, an exciting discussion was going forward on the very subject which we were then considering. A lady of rank was giving expression to very advanced ideas which others were combatting.

An old gentleman at last said: "Ladies and gentlemen, all this reminds me of a discussion we young men were having once in my good old father's hall, when my father happened to enter. After listening to us a few minutes he said: 'Young men, you may as well cease your arguing. I'll tell you all about it. In this life

"Our ingress is naked and bare, Our progress is trouble and care, Our egress is--no one knows where.

If you do well here, you'll do well there,-- I could tell you no more if I preached for a year."'"

The effect was instantaneous. Unanimous adhesion was given to the old gentleman's conclusion, and the party bid each other a cordial good night and went reconciled to bed. I am happy to record that such was also the effect upon the Charioteers.

[Sidenote: _Shakespeare Stories._]

It will be taken for granted that while the Charioteers were in this hallowed region many stories were told about Shakespeare. Two of the gentlemen of our party, at least, dated our love of letters to the circ.u.mstance that we were messenger boys in the Pittsburgh telegraph office; and when we carried telegrams to the managers of the theatre, good kind Mr. Porter (followed by one equally kind to us, Mr. Foster) permitted us after delivering them to pa.s.s up to the gallery among the G.o.ds, where we heard now and then one of the immortal plays. Having heard the melodious flow of words, which of themselves seem to have some spiritual meaning apart from the letter--differing in this from all other combinations of words--how could we rest till we got the plays and learnt most of the notable pa.s.sages by heart, crooning over them till they became parts of our intellectual being? One story, I remember, shows how completely the master pervades literature. It is authentic, too, for the teller was one of the actors in it.

Visiting friends in a country town, he went with the family to church Sunday morning. The clergyman called in the evening and seeing upon the parlor table an open copy of Shakespeare, perhaps suspecting (which was true) that our friend had been entertaining the ladies with selections from it, Sunday evening as it was, he felt moved to say that it was the worldling's bible, which for himself he thought but little of and never recommended for general reading. It was the mainstay of the theatre.

That is very strange, said our friend, for we have all been saying that the finest part of your sermon was a short quotation from Shakespeare, and I have been reading the whole pa.s.sage to the ladies. Here it is:

"The quality of mercy is not strained; It droppeth, as the gentle rain from heaven, Upon the place beneath: it is twice blessed; It blesses him that gives, and him that takes."

Imagine the feelings of the narrow, ignorant man, who really thought he had a call from G.o.d to teach mankind. But he could not help it. A man can no more escape the influence of Shakespeare than he can that of surroundings. Shakespeare is the environment of all English-speaking men.

Davie's Shakespearean story was of a fellow in Venango County who, having just "struck ile," bought from a pedler a copy of "As You Like It." He was so pleased with Touchstone that he wrote to the pedler: "If that fellow Shakespeare ever writes anything more, be sure to get me one of the first copies--and d-- the expense!"

[Sidenote: _Sir Thomas Lucy._]

We had one of the loveliest mornings imaginable for leaving Stratford.

Many had a.s.sembled to see the start, and our horn sounded several parting blasts as we crossed the bridge and rode out of the town. Our destination was Coventry, twenty-two miles away, and the route lay through Charlecote Park and Hampton Lucy. This was one of the most perfect of all our days. The deer in hundreds gazed on us as we pa.s.sed.

There were some n.o.ble stags in the herd, the finest we had seen in England, and Charlecote House was the best specimen of an Elizabethan mansion. It was built about 1558 by the very Sir Thomas Lucy whom Shakespeare satirized as Justice Shallow. The original family name was Charlecote or Cherlcote, but about the end of the twelfth century William, son of Walter de Cherlcote, a.s.sumed the name of Lucy and took for his arms three luces (pike fish); so Justice Shallow was warranted in affirming that his was an "old coat." The poet's verses will stick to him as long as the world lasts; but judging from other circ.u.mstances, Sir Thomas was a very good sort of a man and no doubt a fair specimen of the English Squire of the time. His effigy may still be seen on his tomb in Charlecote Church, beside that of his wife--a not unintelligent face, with moustache and peaked beard cut square at the end, surrounded by the ruff then in fas.h.i.+on. There is no epitaph of himself, but the marble bears a warm memorial of his wife, who died five years before him, concluding thus:

"Set down by him that best did know What hath been written to be true."

THOMAS LUCY.

It is commonly said that Shakespeare was arrested for poaching in this very park, but the antiquaries have decided that it was the old park of Fulbrook on the Warwick road, where Fulbrook Castle once stood. But it makes little difference where the precise place was. That is of interest only to the Dryasdusts. All we care to know is that Shakespeare wanted a taste of venison which was denied him, and took it without leave or license. The descendant of that squire, my gentle Shakespeare, would give you the entire herd for another speech to "the poor sequestered stag," which you could dash off--no, you never dashed off anything; create? no; evolved? that's nearer it; _distilled_--there we have it--distilled as the pearls of dew are distilled by nature's sweet influences unknown to man. He would exchange Charlecote estate, man, for another Hamlet or Macbeth, or Lear or Oth.e.l.lo, and the world would buy it from him for double the cost of all his broad acres, and esteem itself indebted to him forever. The really precious things of this world are its books.

To _do_ things is not one-half the battle. Carlyle is all wrong about this. To be able to tell the world what you have done, that is the greater accomplishment! Caesar is the greatest man of the sword because he was in his day the greatest man of the pen. Had he known how to fight only, tradition would have handed down his name for a few generations with a tolerably correct account of his achievements; but now every school-boy fights over again his battles and surmounts the difficulties he surmounted, and so his fame goes on increasing forever.

What a man says too often outlives what he does, even when he does great things. General Grant's fame is not to rest upon the fact that he was successful in killing his fellow-citizens in a civil war, all traces of which America wishes to obliterate, but upon the words he said now and then. His "Push things!" will influence Americans when Vicksburg shall be forgotten. "I propose to fight it out on this line" will be part of the language when few will remember when it was spoken; and "Let us have peace" is Grant's most lasting monument. Truly, both the pen and the tongue are mightier than the sword!

[Sidenote: _Beautiful Trees._]

The drive from Warwick to Leamington is famous, but not comparable to that between Leamington and Coventry. Nowhere else can be found such an avenue of stately trees; for many miles a strip about two hundred feet wide on both sides of the road is wooded. In pa.s.sing through this plantation many a time did we bless the good, kind, thoughtful soul who generations ago laid posterity under so great an obligation. Dead and gone, his name known to the local antiquary and appreciated by a few of the district, but never heard of beyond it. "So s.h.i.+nes a good deed in a naughty world." Receive the warm thanks and G.o.d bless you of pilgrims from a land now containing the majority of the English-speaking races, which was not even born when you planted these stately trees. Americans come to bless your memory; for what says Sujata:

"For holy books teach when a man shall plant Trees for the travellers' shade, and dig a well For the folks' comfort, and beget a son, It shall be good for such after their death."

Who shall doubt that it is well with the dear, kind soul who planted the thousand trees which delighted us this day, nodding their graceful boughs in genial welcome to the strangers and forming a triumphal arch in their honor.

COVENTRY, June 24.

[Sidenote: _George Eliot._]

Coventry in these days has a greater than G.o.diva. George Eliot stands alone among women; no second near that throne. We visited the little school-room where she learnt her first lessons; but more than that, the Mayor, who kindly conducted us through the city, introduced us to a man who had been her teacher. "I knew the strange little thing well," he said. A proud privilege indeed! I would have given much to know George Eliot, for many reasons. I heard with something akin to fellows.h.i.+p that she longed to be at every symphony, oratorio, or concert of cla.s.sical music, and rarely was that strong, brooding face missed at such feasts.

Indeed, it was through attending one of these that she caught the cold which terminated fatally. Music was a pa.s.sion with her, as she found in it calm and peace for the troubled soul tossed and tried by the sad, sad things of life. I understand this. A friend told me that a lady friend of hers, who was staying at the hotel in Florence where George Eliot was, made her acquaintance casually without knowing her name. Something, she knew not what, attracted her to her, and after a few days she began sending flowers to the strange woman. Completely fascinated, she went almost daily for hours to sit with her. This continued for many days, the lady using the utmost freedom, and not without feeling that the attention was pleasing to the queer, plain, and unpretending Englishwoman. One day she discovered by chance who her companion really was. Never before, as she said, had she felt such mortification. She went timidly to George Eliot's room and took her hand in hers, but shrank back unable to speak, while the tears rolled down her cheeks.

"What is wrong?" was asked, and then the explanation came. "I didn't know who you were. I never suspected it was _you_!" Then came George Eliot's turn to be embarra.s.sed. "You did not know I was George Eliot, but you were drawn to plain me all for my own self, a woman? I am so happy!" She kissed the American lady tenderly, and the true friends.h.i.+p thus formed knew no end, but ripened to the close.

The finest thing not in her works that I know this genius to have said is this: Standing one day leaning upon the mantel she remarked: "I can imagine the coming of a day when the effort to relieve human beings in distress will be as involuntary upon the part of the beholder as to clasp this mantel would be this moment on my part were I about to fall."

There's an ideal for you! Christ might have said that.

The state here imagined is akin to her friend Herbert Spencer's grand paragraph.

"Conscientiousness has in many outgrown that stage in which the sense of a compelling power is joined with rect.i.tude of action. The truly honest man, here and there to be found, is not only without thought of legal, religious, or social compulsion, when he discharges an equitable claim on him; but he is without thought of self-compulsion. He does the right thing with a simple feeling of satisfaction in doing it, and is indeed impatient if anything prevents him from having the satisfaction of doing it." Who is going to cloud the horizon of the future of our race with traitor-doubts when already, in our own day, amid much which saddens us, the beams of a brighter sun, herald of a better day, already touch the mountain tops, for such are this woman and this man towering above their fellows. By and by these beams will reach the lesser heights--and anon, the very plains will be transformed by them, and

"Man to man the world o'er shall brothers be, And a' that."

I think that because we are so happy in this glorious life we are now leading, we are disposed to be so very kind to each other. The Charioteers, one and all, seem to me to have reached Mr. Spencer's ideal. If there's a thing that can be done to promote the happiness of others, they are only impatient till they have the satisfaction of doing it. Happiness is known to be a great beautifier--but is it not also a great doer of good to others? It was resolved to debate the question whether the happy person is not also the one who really thinks most and does most for others--not for hope of reward or fear of punishment, but simply because he has reached the stage where he has a simple satisfaction in doing it.

[Sidenote: _George Eliot's Poetry._]

Here is George Eliot's greatest thing in poetry, for her poems are much less known than they should be.

"O may I join the choir invisible Of those immortal dead who live again In minds made better by their presence: live In pulses stirred to generosity, In deeds of daring rect.i.tude, in scorn For miserable aims that end with self, In thoughts sublime that pierce the night like stars, And with their mild persistence urge men's search To vaster issues.