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Las diagrammes suivsnts illustrent le mOthode. 12 3 6 MiaOCOPY IfSOlUTION TEST CHAIT (ANSI and ISO TEST CHART No. 2) 1.0 I.I 1^ ■u 1^ 1^ ■lUU ■ 1.8 A /APPLIED IN/HGE Inc Sr 1653 Eost Main Street r.S Rochester, New York 14609 USA ^S (716) 482 -0300 - Phone ^ (716) 288-5989 -Fox Jft9f: C£^t London: HODDER AND STOUGHTON roRONxo: THE WESTMINSTER COMPANY W ITED f^nted by Haztll, JFaUan i- Viney, Ld., London and AyU»bury, England. TO MY FRIKND AND COf.LKAOUK J. E. HODDER WILLIAMS PREFACE This little volume was commenced and carried throngh under the influence of Oliver Wendell Holmes. Perhaps no one has written more wisely and copiously about the milestones of life than he. Alike in his prose and poetry, it is almost the dominant subject. In "The New Portfolio" he writes : " I have just lost my dear and honoured contemporary of the last century. A hundred years ago this day, December 13, 1784, died the admirable and ever-to-be-remembered Dr. Samuel Johnson. The year 1709 was made ponderous and illustrioas in English biography by his birth. My own humble advent to the world of protoplasm was in the year 1809 of the present century. Summer was just ending when those fonr letters, * son b.,' were written under the date of my birth, August 29. Autumn had just begun when my great pre-contemporary entered this un-Christian universe, and was made a member of the Christian Church on the same day, for he was born and baptized on Septembei 18. Vll VIU PREFACE "Thns there was established a close bond of relationship between the great English scholar and wnter and myself. Year by year, and almost month by month, my life has kept pace in this century with his life in the last centurj-. I had only to open my 'Bosvell' at any time, and I W jast what Johnson at my age, twenty or fifty or seventy, was thinking and doing; what were his feelings abont life ; what changes the years had wrought in his body, his mind, his feelings h.s companionships, his reputation. It was for' me a kind of nnison between two instruments, both playing that old familia.- air, ' Life ' • one a bassoon, if yon will, and the other an oate'n pipe. If yon care to find an image for it, but still keeping pace with each other, until the players both grew old and grey. At last the thinner thread of sound luT' . J .!''*"■' "'"' "' ^"'^ accompaniment rolls out Its thmider no more. I feel Jely now that my great companion and friend of so many years has left me." " Another passage may be quoted out of many : 'Nothing strikes one more, in the race of life than to sec how many give out in the first half of he course. ' Commencement Day ' alwavs reminds me of the start of the 'Derby' Zn he beautiful high-bred threc-year^lds of the season are brought up for trial. That day is PREFACE IX the start, and life is the race. Here we are at Cambridge, and a class is jnst * graduating.' Poor Harry I he was to have been there too, but he has paid forfeit. Step out here into the grass back of the church j ah I there it is : "*Hunc lapidem posuerunt Socii Moerentea.' " Ten years gone. First turn in the race. A few broken down ; two or three bolted. Several show in advance of the ruck. Cassock, a black colt, seems to be ahead of the rest. Those black colts commonly get the start, I have noticed, of the others in the first quarter. Meteor has pulled up. " Twenty years. Second corner turned. Cassock has dropped from the front, and Judex, an iron- grey, has the lead. But look I how they have thmned out I Down flat-five-six-how many ^ They lie still enough I they will get up again in this race, be very sure 1 And the rest of them what a Hailing oflf'I Anybody can see who is' going to win— perhaps. J' Thirty years. Third corner t ed. Dims, bright sorrel, ridden by the fellow in a yellow jacket, begins to make play fast ; is getting to be the favourite with many. But who is that \^' ^ PREFACE «^h« one that has been lengthening his stride from the first, and now shows close np to the front ? Don't you remember the qniet brown colt Asteroid, with the star in his forehead ? That is he J he is one of the ort that lasts. Look ont for him I The black 'colt.' as we nsed to call him, 18 m the background, taking it easily in a gentle trot. There is one they used to call the J'illy, on account of a certain leminine air he had • well up, you see. The Filly is not to be despised ' my boy I ^ ' "Forty years. More dropping off, but places much as before. " J'Viy years. Race over. All that are on the course are coming in at a walk ; no more running. Who is ahead ? Ahead ? What I and the winning- post a slab of white or grey stone standing out from that turf where there is no m- . jockeying or strammg for victory ! Well, the world marks their places in its betting-book j but be sure that these matter very little, if they have run as well as they knew how ! " There are, I think, not a few who like to know on their birthdays how others were farin- at the same age, and for these this book has been published. I have collected the facts at intervals for a considerable period. Though I PREFACE XI have had the help of kind friends, yet I have mainJy depended on my own reading, and I am painfully aware of the inadequacy of this com- pilation. Snch as it is, it has cost me mnch labour. Perhaps it may give pleasure to some, and it may even be taken as a basis for some more thorough and scientific work in the future. If I am not mistaken, psychologists are studying more earnestly the stages of life, and it is quite possible they may arrive at results valuable alike for teaching and for the conduct of life. Professor William James is particularly suggestive on these points. But on this subject I am allowed to quote from a letter by my friend Professor John Adams, of the University of London, who writes with authority. He says : " Hitherto the tendency among psychologists has been to ignore the question of age. It has been assumed that their subject ''« the fully developed mmd, and they have treated of * the soul ' much as a naturalist might treat of 'the lion.' The older point of view was static, the new is dynamic With the development of genetic psychology, age naturally came to be a matter of importance- but even here it is treated as of serious con' sequence only at the eariier stages. It is in OhUd Study that we have types classified by / xu PREFACE ages. When the adolescent period is passed, it seems to be assnmed that age ceases to cause senons variation, and that henceforth 'the way lies long, straight and dnsty to the grave.' " The newer psychology, with its bias towards experiment and quantitative thinking, tends naturally to give to the age element its due importence in the study of the development of mind and character. But as yet little has been done in the way of recording and classifying facts that depend upon considerations of the age of the persons studied. There seems every prospect that valuable results will be obtained by a scientific analysis of the facts of biography corrected, wherever possible, by direct observation arid experiment." My old friend and fellow-stadent, Mr. Duff Macdonald, in his remarkable book "Africana" tells us that when he was expounding the Sermon on the Mount to a savage tribe he was advised to omi "Sufficient unto the day is the evil hereof, and « Take no thought for the morrow." because as a matter of fact, the negro never thmks of to-morrow at all." It has also been said more broadly that the Arabians take no account of time, and cannot tell how old they are. On this subject Professor Margoliouth, of PREFACE xiii Oxford, has most kindly favonred me with the following memoranda : "Savaoks and Time " 1. The savage's inability to take count of time is connected with his inability to count ; L. L. Conant ('The Number Concept,' 1896) states that with some races of Bolivia there was no number sense at all. No Australian language contains a word for four; the natives can rarely count beyond two. I have read somewhere that in Afncan languages for numbers beyond five foreign words have regularly to be used. This must be modified : in Nubian their resources fail when they come to thirty ; in another at hundred. There is a story told of a Bedouin, shortly after the Prophet's time, who asked one thousand drachms (francs) for a jewel, but would have asked more had he known that there was any number higher than a thousand. "2. G. F. Abbott, * Macedonian Folklore,' p 277 (quoted by H. Hubert, ' fitude Sommaire de la representation du Temps,' 1905), gives an example of a calculation made by a story-teller ; ' A man took three years to go down to the Antipodes, where he made no stay ; it took him twelve years to come back : in all thirty years.' " 3. My brother-in-law, who lived for some time XIV PREFACE 111 Damaiicn8, nsed to BHsert that, if yon asked a ^donin his age, he wonld reckon np the ages ot his camel, horse, donkey, etc. (if he had snch animals), and give the sum-total as his own age The only experience of the sort of my own which I can remember is once asking a sheikh in Cairo whether any one there was known to be a centen- arian ; the sheikh i>ointed to a nnmber of persons whom he declared to be centenarians, and assured me that they were common. In the main, however, I donbt whether snch cases are more common among the Arabs of the larger communities than that of Phil Sqnod in ' Bleak House,' who knew that his age had an eight in it ; while the brickmaker in the same book, who is detected as possessing Lady Dedlock's watch because he reckons time by twenty minutes (whereas he would otherwise have been satisfied with hours as the unit), takes us back to the savage. " 4. The statements of Arabic authors, who make no difficulty about a man living three hundred years, are probably due to want of critical ability A very eariy Islamic work, 'The Long-Lived' by Abu Hatim Sijistani (died a.d. 849), contains a catalogue of such persons. The great geographer and biographer Yakut (of the thirteenth century A.D.) copies one of these biographies in his 'Dic- tionary of Learned Men ' : ' Ubaidallah, son of PR n PACK XV Suriyy.. ., lived three buudred yearn, but «ome «ay ouly two hnndred and twenty.' It seems to me that Islam, with its own aacred calendar, mast have made a vast diflference to Arabia in this matter ; and, indeed, pre-Islamic history teems with ab-' surdities of the sort mentioned, and has wholly inconsistent dates ; but in Islamic times complete Ignorance of chronology seems to me confined to the extremely ignorant or inhabitants of remote regions. I cannot find that those keen observers Burckhardt, Palgrave, and Doughty allude to it." It seems certain that in the future the years, the days, and even the hours of mortal life will be reckoned with ever-increasing solicitude. The main part of this volume deals with the experiences of men endowed more liberally than their fellows It has been held that our literature in general often misleads commonplace folks from the fact that its most influential portions are due to men of genius, and that men of genius, in their interpretations of ijie, are very apt to misinterpret the experiences of those who have no genius at all. Still, when we track tlie steps of most brilliant and fortunate careers, we find the same joys and the same trials as befall the obscure who draw in this atmosphere "so sweet to breathe, so sure to kill in a few score ot years at farthest." It need hardly be said that xvi PREFACE the characteriHatioDR given to the Instrnms of lif are in do way hard and fast. Thofie who live lonj enough will probably pass Oirongh them all, bat they will como earlier or later. There can be no attempt at rigidity or precision. For the division of life into lastmms I am able to qnote high authority. Sir Walter Scott has written in " The Abbot " : « At the revolr ion of every five years we find oarselves another, and yet the same — there is a change of views, and no less of the light in which we regard them ; a change of motives as well as of actions." My warmest thanks are Ine to the friends and correspondents who have helped mc with sugges- tions and c^Tectious. In particular I am deeply obliged to the eminent men in the Insurance world, who have most generously supplied me with the materials for Chapters II and XX. Among these are Mr. George Richmond, of the Scottish Widows Fund Life Assurance Society ; Mr. P. Chalmers, Manager for Scotland of the Sceptre Life Asso- ciation, Ltd. ; and Mr. S. G. Warner, F.I.A., Vice- President of the Institute of Actuaries, Actuary to the Law Union and Rock Insurance Co. To my colleague Miss Jane Stoddart, to Professor John Adams, and to the Rev. T. H. Darlow, of PREFACE xvii the British and Foreign Bible Society, I owe very ranch for the Bustained interest they have takf n in the preparation of this liook, for the asaistance they have given, and for the many vainnble sng- gegtions with which they have enriched it. zviu A SHAKESPEAREAN CALENDAR A SHAKESPEAREAN CALENDAR. What hour now ? * ' J think it lacks of twelve ' " " The clock has strucken tivelve" " And now the clock strikes one " " / think it be two o'clock ; The bell hath nmy " *' Two ? why, then, 'tis time " ^Hamlet, Act I. . Comedy of Errors. ■ Comedy of Errtyrs. ^ Romeo and Jidiet. Macbeth, (Henry IV., Second ^ Part. *' About three of the clock " Can St .wake by four o' the clock ? Cymbdine ''To-morrow, four o^clock^^ • • Measure for Meagre. '"^isalmostfve o'clock, cousin" r^^cA Ado About i. J. . , , , , ' ^ Nothing. At n,lo^k^n the morning'' . Measure for Measure. ^^^ thtnk tzs now some seven o'clock" Taming of the Shrew. " ^o-morrow at eight o'clock" . (Merry Wives of \ Windsor. 'About the hour of eight " "'Tis nine o'clock" . " It hath struck ten o'clock " ''■Eleven o'clock the hour" • Henry VIII. ■ Merchant of Venice. (Merry Wives of *■ Windsor. (Merry Wives of "IJ:^- '^" ^-^ "ruci.Mer^rZe. of J Windsor. SHAKESPEARE FOR EACH HOUR XIX SHAKESPEARE FOR EACH HOUR " The hell then heating One » . . Ifavilet, Act I. " Sure, Lvciarui, it is Two o'clock " Coniedy of Errors, II. " The clock hath stricken Three " . Juluts Ctesar, II. ' "Richmond: 'How far into the ^ morning is it lords?' \ Richard II I.,V. Ix)RD3 : ' Upon the stroke of Four"' j " At Five o'clock , / ^^receive the r,umey for the ^onudy of En'ors,lY . at ] The Tempest, V. 'Ariel: On the Sixth hour, at which time, my lord, You said our work should cease "^'o'cS'^ '^!''* '''*' "^'^ ^^^«^)^«»"«^«/ theShrew, " The Eighth hour, % Be that the uttermost ? " J Julius Coisar, II. " It's supper-time, my lord;\^. , It's Nine o'clock " ] Richard III., V. " Parolles : Ten o'clock ; within \ these three hours KAWs Well t/iat Ends 'Twill he time enough to go home '' ^ ^''^^' " Ford : Eleven o'clock the hour " f^^^^y Wives of „ „ . «^ Witidsor, IV. ^ Hamlet : ' What hour now?' ) Clve- '^*"* '' ^"^^^ o/JHanUet,!. 1 M ■f i\ 11^ -" The Letter, which Never Beached Hin.." p. 206. CONTENTS The Clock . • • PAGE II Has thb Length of Life increased? 12 III " His Acts being SEVE^T Ages " 22 IV " Who can tell what a Baby thinks ? " The First Five Years of Life . 36 The New Hero and Heroine : From Five to Ten 49 X21 XZIl CONTENTS TI Thb Scbool-bot: Fbom Tkn to Fifteen . PAOK 64 VII " Sturm xmn Dbano " : From Fifteen to Twenty 78 VIII "The Turn of the Road and You": From Twenty to Twenty-five .... 92 IX 'That Fateful Sixth Lustrum": From Twenty- five TO Thirty no "When our Children are about us": From Thirty to Thirty-five . . .129 XI " Sun, stand Thou still upon Gibbon " : From Thirty-five to Forty .... 162 CONTENTS ZXUl XII •'A Gate ih Ghent": From Forty to Forty- five PAUK 170 XIII " Discontents in Devon ": From Forty-five to Fifty 1 90 XIV "WiNNA Siller Do't?" From Fifty to Fifty- five 212 XV Thk Cataracts of Life : From Thirty-five to Sixty . . 228 XVI The Approach of Age . 242 XVII Zeniths • • • • . 264 XVIII " A Pension and a Hope ". . 265 XZIV CONTENTS XIX PAOK " Encomium Senectutis " : in Praise of Old Ace . 275 XX Nonagenarians and Centenarians XXI The Closing Years of Life . 296 lN»J=x 313 THE CLOCK years, with a donbtfnl evening afte'thfttt? J suppose this represented by a day of .it/ .' ""'^ f«.m six morning till ten night' l\m now a? 1"" afte";^ -JCr-'AfthTs^''' r," """^ thirty and his fatr*' 'sixty " '""^ ''"'''^'" "- year to year as indicated oTth' Zk I h "* "t - o-cloclc in the n.oraing and ^t Jry'hfa: 1 : : ! ! . I J 2 THE ROUND OF THE CLOCK marked by the honr-hand as five years. Each year wonld thus correspond with a minnte marked by the minnte-hand. In this way life is divided into lastrnms or periods of five years. I propose to indicate the character of each lastram, and to give from biography and other sonrces characteris- tics of each year. So far I follow Rnskin, bnt I shall extend the length of the day. Ten o'clock at night is a very respectable honr for bedtime, but those who sit up so long may well sit np a little longer. If they sit np till midnight they will be ninety ; if they sit np till very late they may go on to a hundred, and perhaps it is possible even to go twice ronnd the clock and remain alive till a hundred and twenty. We shall see. There is nothing new in the likening of the course of life to the travelling of the hand on the clock's face. It was rather a favourite idea with Samuel Pepys. He wrote to Evelyn in 1700: "Please remember what o'clock it is with you and me." It is very wise for one sometimes to call up this thought. He may summon it in connection with either of his two birthdays, his own birthday or New Year's Day. Charles Lamb f^ays : " Every man hath two birthdays, two days at least in every year which set him upon revolving the lapse of time, as it aflfects his mortal duration. The one is that which in an especial manner he termeth ^/s." The other is New Year's Day. The observance of the first he chiefly connects with children who do THE CLOCK not nnderstand anything in it beyond cake and orange. Of the second he says : « No o.. ever regarded It with indifference. It is that from which all date their time, and count upon what is left " They still show yon at Brampton, near Hunting, don, the little garden where Samnel Pepys had his gold buried in 1667. It was feared that the Dutch intended to follow up their victories at the month of the Thames and to capture London. Pepvs WM greatly alarmed, and sent off his father and wife with £1,300 in gold to bury it in the Brampton garden At the same time he made himself a girdle by which he carried £300 in gold about his body "that I may not be without^sleS m case I should be surprised." After the scare was over Pepys went down to recover his pro- perty, and was put in a great agitation with respect to It. He had other cares He had to fr^ * 1 °» *l^ ^^' ^'' '^'^^^' " ^*^' «h« grows old ^^,^^I\^''^ '^^^^ ^" '^^ darkness he went out t« dig he was almost out of his wits, because It had been "so sillily hid, not half a foot under- ground, and in the sight of the world from a hundred places. In the end he managed to recover the greater part of it, all in fact but fifty-five pieces. And so m and to cleanse them: and by this bed, and there lay m some disquiet all night telling of the clock till it was daylight." Nex morning more pieces were found, and Pepys took THE ROUND OF THE CLOCK i I coach to London. « My gold I pnt into a basket and get under one of the seat.; and bo my work eyeiy quarter of an hour was to look to see whether all was well , and I did ride in great fear .n « Mp"^ .V "f' ^^^ *« ^ *«> Particular ! ??.f ^^' '^*^^»" ^"^y "^^'^ than it is good to "nde in great fear all the day." Yet there is such a thing as taking account of the stoges in onr life, and it is at least interesting, and may be something more than interesting, to fine! how other fellow-creatnres thought and demeaned themselves at the same point of their journey. There is no such thing as a uniformity of experience. It would be pedantic and worse to map out the road in any rigorons manner. Nor can I pretend to anything approach- ing completeness. I have had little to depend on except what I remember of my own limited reading. II There is a satisfaction in the face of a good clock. When once you are thoroughly used to it the clock becomes a kind of friend. In Hayward's Corre- spondence there is an admirable letter from Mrs. Norton. Tl:8 famous reviewer had been the fast THE CLOCK friend of the iad.v dnri^g^r varioaT ^^^ir;^:^: .ent h,m . clock, .nd with it . letter pnZrtinVt™ be j.^„ byhe cioct ifelf. and .ignW "tf de mctic. Here n part of the letter : i have heard my donor eay that she wonM give world, to be able to eend you a cIo^L 1^1 v^rk, were warranted to make every honr of yo"r .fep„, pleasantly, in gratitnde for many hoar. " to. and t«,able spent by yon in that lady's ca^e Bnt smce snch miracle, are not, accept^ fnend and companion, and I will endeavonr^ Z I cheerfhl clock. I consider myself, if not naal j^ .man, at least better than a dog ,nd therefore^ fitter companion. (A dog moralif th not, he Ifeth 'on the rng snoozing; he reqnireth food iX He hcketh indeed, his master's hand, and wL-th a df ',: """'.f *•«" ' Even the;iothcSh and eateth leaves.') This is from a great author 'tet f T'l"'^ ""' '■'""'" ^-"'"ns « the fnend and favonrite of man.' How mnch dog 1 The clock hath part of his basiest hoar • the dog, not so. The clock, as it were, advises nlv almost commands. It points, as mnch Z\o say m nster .' "' p.V"" «T I" """' ^'"""' "' ^"^^ minster , oi-. Call yonr clerk, and get np that case or those papers will not be copied in time c!^ ' master moves, np jnmps Bow-wow, with the single 6 TUB ROUND OF THE CLOCK idea that he shall now walk, ran, or perchance bathe in the Serpentine! Tirere as if a clock should always strike ' One/ let what wonld be the hour! AdienI Hear me when I advise: that when the circle of Life's great dial is completed, and the ghosts of the Honrs accompany the sonl into another world, to give an acconnt of its occu- pations in this, you may recognise none worse employed than those I came to recall ; hours kindly, usefully, unselfishly, and I will hope happily spent ; hours which are vanished for ever, and have left behind a grateful impression and your old clock." In an old number of Blackwood's Magazine » there is a long address " To Our Old House Clock,'* which recalls not untenderly the manner in which the sweet and bitter happenings of life have been witnessed and summoned and accompanied by the clock, which in the course of the years has become a friend and compuLion. It begins : •' Old friend ! that many a long day through (Dogdays and all), in brown surtout. Hath stood enaconced, with wintriest look, I' th' warmest side o' the chimney nook ; That standeth still i' the self-same place, With that same cool composed face— (Few, by the way, 'mid sentient creatures. Made up of more expressive features)— Nor e'er in all that weary while Hath utter'd plaint of durance vile— In that stiff garment all of oak. Thy sentiy-box— of heat or smoke ; ' Jane 1834. THE CLOCK Of task perpetual— worae than mighty, Monotonous-H)f Uedium vita, Of false reflections on thy truth, From weary age-impatient youth. Of Time's deliver'd message, scorned Or heeded not by those thou'st warned." Perhaps no writer has allowed his thoughts to linger on the passing of the years as Oliver Wendell Holmes has done. We shall have to qnote him on various occasions, but as an introduction the following words from "The Autocrat of the Break- fast Table " may suffice : " Our brains are seventy-year clocks. The angel of life winds them up once for all, then closes the case, and gives the key into the hand of the angel of the Resurrection. " Tic-tac I tic-tac ! go the wheels of thought. Our will cannot stop them; they cannot stop themselves; sleep cannot still them; madness only makes them go faster ; death alone can break into the case, and, seizing the ever-swinging pendulum, which we call the heart, silence at last the clicking of the terrible escapement we have carried so long beneath our wrinkled foreheads." Ill Schiller, in Wallensteiriy has the line, "Die Uhr schlagt keinem Gliicklichen," which Dora Greenwell has somewhat freely translated, "The happy hear no clock." But this is not always true. It is not nnpleasing to watch the march of the 8 THE ROUND OF THE CLOCK hoars and years if there is no haunting terror to oppress the heart. Dickens has perfectly rendered the genial aspect of the clock-old, cheerful companionable, bringing comfort and consolation,' linked with the past, beautiful in itself-" a quaint old thing in a huge oaken case curiously and richly carved. What other thing that has not life could cheer me as It does? what other thing that has not life (I will not say how few things that have) could have proved the same patient, true, untiring Feve el, how the clock may be watched by a heart ntent on bliss. « Lucy stops on the landing where Z ''J"".^^^ '^^"^ eccentrically correct that night. Tis the palpitating pause before the gates of her transfiguration. Mrs. Berry sees her put fr n 1°^? '"^ ^^' ^^^ *^^°^ *« strike, and touch aJl the hours successively till she comes to the Twelve that shall sound * WifeMn her ears on the morrow, moving her lips the while." One of the great scenes iu " Old Mortality " describes how Morton was condemned by the This IS the Sabbath, and our hand shall not be on thee to spill thy blood upon this day ; but when the twelfth hour shall strike, it is a token that thy .ime on earth hath run ! " They set Morton amongst them, bound and helpless, in such a ZZZ *^*^*^^?PP««ite to the dock which was to strike his knell. Food was placed before him '"'' "hich he had little .-oDetiti^ 'mZxT- — Z praying, but ever and anonCi ,n^ ""'*" r;^i^.t:e°rfi?-f^^^^ '"•= St'pa'ntd "Cd^,: rr "^ "^ "" Which the index had vlff 7 f ^ '^»'°^"* nnUnt..HjV:rertarhr"'"^Lt^^;S tHeliL7rj::$Knr ix"'" -'' - »' breadths." MuTkW at^ / -^ '.' ""*' ''^ »'""'- "w?M^^ waited and wept or despair from the 1? »"»»»»«« of hope death-L..The'ttT';r\r',^^ 1^'M " h« told the tale quite perfectly t'^ '"""' "A NiGHTPIECE bat' ^Sll '^ Z '•"; "^'''' »' *"' ''''»'» -<"" out, hai.pened whether T H' "'"' ""' '""' >' il ea, Whether I had crossed first to him or 10 THE ROUND OF THE CLOCK he to me ; but, after being for a long time as the echo of each other's steps, we were together now. . . . There was a clock hard by that strack the qaarters, and one o'clock passed and two. What time is it now? Twenty past two. And now? It is still twenty past two. . . . " Well, as you know, the little nursery-governess did not die. At eighteen minutes to four we heard the rustle of David's wings. He boasts about it to this day, and has the hour to a syllable, as if the first thing he ever did was to look at the clock." Marion Crawford, in " A Roman Singer," writes : " The click of a few more seconds in the clockworks before the hammer smites its angry warning on the bell and leaves echoes of pain writhing through the poor bronze, that is Time. As for Eternity, it is a question of the calculus." There are those to whom the passing of the hours suggests nothing but a longed-for release. Mark Rutherford, in his best book, " The Deliver- ance," has told in his incomparable manner an experience, alas I too frequent : " There was a clock within a hundred yards of my window which struck the hours and quarters. How I watched that clock 1 My spirits rose or fell with each division of the day. From ten to twelve there was nothing but gloom. By half-past twelve I began to discern dinner-time, and the prospect was brighter. After dinner there was '\v. THE CLOCK U ""f °S *° ^« done bnt doggedly to "^^^^i^T^l frem five to 8even. ... It was a comfort to me to tbmk the moment the clock strnck seven, that my nothing by havmg anything to do with it." t. f„ ?'? °^ "°* '° *"" » *'™''dly «lo«k, and to Boggest pleasant thonghts of the good that may be fonnd m every part and period of life. Boassean was afraid of the clock. When he threw „p a po»? It grew irksome, he sold his watch with the smgnlar and joyfnl thonght that he would never agam need to know the time. It is wise to know It, and my clock is meant to be like George Gissings as he described it in "The Private Papers of Henry Eyecrofl " : mvtlt^\ *? ''T """^ '°*"y """='''««' '<> does my lamp at intervals utter a little gurgling eonnd when the oil flows to the wick, afd custom has ,W v^l'i """" *" "'• A'"'"'^' »onnd, blend- ing with both, IS the gentle ticking of the clock. I wltT- w,"" T "^"""^ ''™'"°S '""e clocks, which tick like a fever-pnlse, and are only fit for a stockbroker's office , mine hums very sLly, as though It savoured the minutes no less than I do • and when it strike., the little voice is silver-sweet! elling me, without sadness, that another hour of Jife 18 reckoned, another of the priceless honrs- Qtt3e nobis pereunt et imputantur.' " ' ! ! «i ill] J, 11 ill II HAS THE LENGTH OF LIFE INCREASED ? I REQUEST my readers, before they proceed to the main part of this chapter, which is necessarily somewhat dry, to make an experiment, or rather two experiments. Let them guess how mnch the average life has increased during the last thirty or forty or fifty years. Let them then ask their friends to make an estimate. I have done so my- self. The lowest estimate I have heard is six years and the highest twenty. Most fixed the figures' at about ten years. What is the truth ? Alas I so far as I can discover from the statistics to be quoted, the average increase in the expectation of life at all ages from twenty to seventy, in a vast constituency of assured lives, has been little more than six months. This is the estimate of the 12 WAS TBE LBN OTH JT^^Tl^^^^^J^^^^ Wa„« RecorJ^Kfn\ 2, imT^i^^^^, the oonclmion on statistic, compiled by the Institute of Actnaries in 1902 ^ T™™? '' T^'"'^*^^y « very startling result Immense advances have been made in science San.tat.on and other preventive measnres have been earned ont with enormonsly increased actinty n.^r\'" r'"""' "'"' ""S*""' knowledge Jd prachce has been admittedly very great. Yet it would seem that, with all these [hings, we have been able to roll back only bv an inch Z advancing tides of death. ' "'* "'* It was necessary for my purpose that this queshon should be considered, as^t wol be V..te open to any one to say that conclusilns abo„ unsettled by the great addition to life. So far •' \«»n Jndge, ,t is „„t ^ .^j j , care to have my argument read and endors^by the very h.ghest actuarial authority ^ In 1908 a paper was read to the Facultv of Actnar.es by Dr. James Buchanan on the Im \7"aT !" /""'"y ■" '!'«'='»»«' in "he British Lrfe Offices' Experience. To this paper is™ '^iz u ho^i:: " Hr "''^""'" "' "j"™- a nam.r iL T « !^" ^^O''^™''. « quotation from « P»per by Jr. S. Q. Warner, « On the Improve- 14 THE ROUND OF THE CLOCK ment in Longevity in the Nineteenth Century," seems to be endorsed by all. Mr. Warner's stady is based on the summarised returns of the Registrar- General's Reports for England and Wales for the years 1875 and 1900. Mr. Warner holds that the statistics show a distinct decrease in the rate of mortality as the century progresses ; a decrease, on the whole, so steady and symmetrical that it may fairly be looked on as a settled and permanent tendency. The improvement is slightly more marked in female than in male mortality, but it is evident and indubitable in both. But the out- standing feature of the whole evidence seemed to Mr. Warner to be that the weight of the improve- ment fell chiefly on the early years of life. Dr. Dunlop, in 1905, published a Supplement to the Forty-eighth Annual Report of the Registrar- General for Scotland, in which he gave a series of instructive life-tables. His conclusion was that there has been a progressive improvement at the early and also at the very advanced ages, but a slightly decreased expectation for the middle period of life. For the last decennium of the nineteenth century this decrease of vitality begins for both males and females about the age 35, and continues in each case to about the age 65 or 75. The ex- pectation of life of females is better than that of males at all ages. The statistics of insured lives give us a certain guidance. But it is evident that lives may now be \ 5 selected by stricter mediail teats (h.n f T also it may be that th.^ fomerly.and and more int/. fi,. • coming more more into the iKsnrance business .nj .1. apparent improvement i„ n,„w iV ' *''° be dne to thtt^t^h. ""''"'"ty may simply better'et, ont s iT. 1 f ""^ "■"•"■»' ""^ mitted that t:Zti^llZZ!' •" '^■ more stringent than it was forty 'I'^r^ after scratinising all the fignL n! I!\ ' came to the conclosion that, whHe the" ,;„ '"'"' in vitality had been most m d„rinTthT:T year, oflife, it has not been crflned to them h' thmks also that this vitality is ste^ily in' ^,inf In commenting „p„n Dr. Buchanan'sTpf; Sinio"n"ti; t\r ::vr^f, -^^'«-'^^^^^^ marked, and at rmi^VSr-V^ -pecution obser;^^ J^hTla Ir^^r" rTa to' 95. Dr. Dnnlop thinks that the s^ril' rf life tables for England and Wales, published in 1 'ot ^h oy ux, 1. E. Hay ward, the Medical Officer 16 TJE ROUND OF THE CLOCK of Health for Haydock, Lancashire, is the only comparable study known to him, and agrees in its reanlts with his. These tables, he says, show the expectation of male life to have markedly increased in the early age-periods, bo- to have somewhat diminished at the age-periods from 45 to 65, and the expectation of female life to have similarly increased at the early ages, but not to have done 80 later from 65 to 65. These conclusions are corroborated by the life-tables published in the English Registrar-General's Report. Dr. Dnnlop has prepared a table comparing the Scottish death-rates of the period 1861-70 with those of the period 1891-1900. It is so exceedingly interesting that I venture to reproduce it. AGE. MALES. Death-iate per 1,000. 1861-1870. 0-1 150-74 1-2 70-20 2-3 36-90 »-4 25-50 4-5 18-44 6-10 9-65 10-15 5-15 15-20 7-35 20-25 10-36 25-35 10-45 35-45 14-04 45-55 1908 66-66 31-42 66-76 64-02 75-85 139-94 1S9M900. Difference. 159-37 54-32 22-38 13-34 9-40 4-91 3-18 5-16 6-85 7-72 11-43 119-03 35-77 68-37 138-14 ■^ 8-63 -15-88 -14-52 -12-16 - 9-04 - 4-74 - 1-97 - 2-19 - 3-51 - 2-73 - 2-61 - 0-05 + 4-36 ■f 4-36 - 1-80 Difference per cent, of 1861.1870 rate. -^ 5-7 -22-6 -39-3 -47-7 -49-0 -49-1 -38-2 -29-9 -33-9 -26-2 -18-6 - 0-2 + 13-8 + 6-8 - 1-3 ^?^f^^^Z^^^Wl7 AOK. 0-1 1-2 2-3 3-4 4-6 6-10 10-16 16-20 20-26 26-35 35-46 45-66 65-66 66-76 76-85 Dt>U>-T«tep,rl,o oot 1861.1870. I iMMWa 126-76 66-77 36-76 26-21 18-72 9-31 6-36 7-21 8-48 9-89 12-16 16-66 26-67 64-77 128-24 128-10 61-67 22-13 13-63 9-76 626 8-61 BIS 6-02 7-80 10-41 16-23 29-09 68-33 120-98 lWM870rau. + 2-84 -16-20 -14-63 -12-68 - 8-96 - 4-06 - 1-75 - 2-03 - 2-46 - 2-09 - 1-7S - 0-32 f 342 h 3-56 - 7-26 the death-r.W ill ! '^''^ '""'"'»«' = "-at female, fem 1 to 65 hl^^T'"'''.^"' '"'^' '"«' diminution reachLa „!• *""■ '"""""I'^l, the 5 to 10 for maIe7a„nTr " ""^ "K'^P""'"" females, at wS LI thl d •'^">'' * *» * ^^ SOpercent.- and t^Mh !,'"""""' "*' «"')' of both aexe ^Ime ll, ?■""""" »' O^'tl'-mte M waa attained t .k! 1 ''" ■""" ""^ "^^ "^ >''»tead of a d minntion J T"' "S^-P^iod'. «n increase for both' ^.e^'^^^^^there U the age-period -il t^,,^l W^ """^aee being at cent^an^'T^the .JJZ'tm 'f' ''^' -• -'^-^asm^alrj^,^;^^^^^^^^ 2 18 rnS ROUND OF THE CLOCK obaervable in both sexes. These are not gratifying conclnsions. The main causes of death among children and yonng people, snch as small-pox, scarlet fever, diphtheria, cronp, typhns fever, enteric fever, and tubercle are all now less fatal than they were in the 'sixties. And yet the tables show less improvement than might have been looked for. II Is there any prospect of a farther improvement in the length of life ? Dr. Dnnlop is not very hopeful. His statistics show that, taking neariy fifty years' statistics in Scotland, there has been a very marked reduction of the urban death-rate, while the rural death-rate has been practically unchanged. He adds : " It is extremely improbable that the urban death-rate will ever fall much, if at all, below the rural death-rate, and as the urban death-rate recently has been very little above the rural, and the rural rate is not declining, the con- clusion is that much further diminution of the urban death-rate, with the consequent diminution of the national death-rate, is unlikely." This might possibly be modified by revolutionary discoveries in medicine. As things are, we are forced to the depressing conclusion that the length of life has increased very little, and that such increase as appears is rather a diminution of the fatalities of the weak than an addition to the vitality of the J^^^^^TBBJ^EimvOFjjrS lirCRSASEDt 19 •trong The fignre. of tbe"jfanche.ter Unity of Mdfellow. ,„ the comp.ri«,n between 1800-70 .„d the SfZ '" '"* ""'^' »' """""''^ f"» III wh^e'"'!"'* """"J" » '™P'" "oy." man h^ a^^t" "?'«'»«»» of life than his father .;^ . . T' '«*• " ">"« " ""y change hi, expectation has slightly diminished/ A child in ts first year of life, in Scotland, at any rate Z ess ch.„ f p,,„. ^^^^ was'thet e " W. Vu .i' ««e- th" hi great difficulty m finding a place, and the resnlt is M il i i THE ROUND OF THE CLOCK % wearing anxiety. Also most of my readers have observed how the business of small traders tends to be absorbed and mined by great stores. In the middle years of last century a man might hope to mherit a business from his father and hand it on unimpaired to his son. This gave a most comfort- ing sense of security. It is worry that kills, they say, and not work. There was less work fifty years ago, and a great deal less worry. Security of tenure IS more and more assailed, and the day may come when there will be no such thing, not even among the teachers. Efficiency, no doubt, is promoted by those ruthless methods, and yet a great deal is lost. Perhaps the chief of all things is peace of mind Peace of mind is harder and harder to keep, and the canker of care seems to eat the life away. The very small impression made on the death- rate of children in their first year is most perplex- ing, but perhaps it is to be accounted for by the fact that our population is more and more coming to be an urban population. However, there can be no doubt that the child and the youth have a better chance. On this I cannot do better than quote Mr. Warner. He says : "A democratic society, alive to the common good, and disposed to equip the State with power to secure it, will naturally benefit its members most in the early and defenceless years of their lives. The child and the youth, healthily housed, guarded more efficiently from infectious disease, trained more carefully both in body and in the.e make «can..'„*. H" '" ■*•« »' "eed- the „che.t to^ZX^^^'Z "'"■'";,""' -" t .^«. pUin that theTeXnre. .V^h in "'""''' the State, and in particnlar « !J m "''•"»«« to .-<• e.peoiaI„ to S^^, l:^^^^ '""■"• ! i ■ i I ^ i 1 WtWlL 1 ^* n M 1 mM ' -*-^;- 9 m ■9IKS *^« ^^^^ "^T^B W ^^F^^" ~ ^i^SSf^^ ™ III "HIS ACTS BEING SEVEN AGES" From the beginniog it has been customary to divide life into periods, each with its own characteristics. But eve:, if I could, I should not attempt any full account of these classifications. One, however, is so famous that it must be given at a little length. I In Shakespeare's -45 You Like It we have : "All the world's a stage, And all the men and women merely players: They have their exits and their entrances ; And one man in his time plays many parts, His acts being seven ages. At first the infant, Mewling and puking in the nurse's arms. Then the whining schoolboy, with his satchel, And shining morning face, creeping like snail UnwilUngly to school. And then the lover, 8S \t "HIS ACTS BEING SEVEN AGES" 23 Sighing like furnace, with a woeful ballad Made to his mistress' eyebrow. Then a soldier, FuU of strange oaths, and bearded like the pard. ^!!l°"' Z ^'^T.^' '"^^«" *"^ ^«ick in quarTel. Seeking the bubble reputation 4u«r«i, Even in the cannon's mouth. And then the justice. In fair round belly with good capon lined. ' With eyes severe and beard of formal cut, Full of wise saws and modern instances; Tn^^ fH f P^y^^i« P^rt. The sixth age shifts Into the lean and shppered pantaloon. With spectacles on nose, and pouch on side ; His youthful hose, well saved, a world too ^ide For his shrunk shank ; and his big manly voice, Turaing agam toward childish treble, pipes A^d whistles in his sound. Last scene ^ all, Ibat ends this strange, eventful history. Is second chUdishness and mere oblivioi, bans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything." On this, as on most Shakespearian subjects, we have the fullest information in the magnificent Variorum edition of H. H. Furness. Shakespeare did not mean that dramatic pieces were distributed into seven acts. It sufficed for him that there were several acts in a play, and that human life long before his time had been divided into seven periods. Proclus is said to have divided the life- tune of man into seven ages, over each of which one of the seven planets was supposed to rule. The Jirst age is called Infarwy, containing the space of foure yeares. The second age continueth ten yeares mitil he attaine to the age of fourteene : this age 18 called Childhood. The third age con- 24 TBE ROUND OF THE CLOCK ! i i sisteth of eight yeares, being named by our anncients Adolescencie or Youthhood ; and it lasteth from fourteene till two and twenty yeares be fully compleate. The fourth age paceth on, tUl a man have accomplished two and forty yeares, and is tearmed Young Manhood. The Jifth age, named Mature Manhood, hath (according to the said author) fifteene yeares of continuance, and therefore makes his progress so far as six and fifty yeares. Afterwards, in adding twelve to fifty-sixe, you shall make up sixty-eight yeares, which reach to the end of the aixt age, and is called Old Age. The seaventh and last of these seven ages is limited from sixty^ight yeares, so far as four-score and eight, being called weak, declining, and Decrepite Age. If any man chance to goe beyond this age (which 18 more admired than noted in many), you shall evidently perceive that he will returne to his irst condition of Infancy againe." Hippocrates likewise divided the life of man into seven ages, but differs from Proclus in the number of years allotted to each period. It is not likely that Shakespeare invented the distribution ; it seems that the notion floated in the society of his time, and was part of the traditionary inheritance of all. He exhibited the periods in a more brilliant and impressive way than his predecessors. Furness suggests that the number of ages was seven, because there were three steps of ascent, the soldier fitood on the summit, and then followed three steps ''HIS ACTS BEING SEVEN AGES' 25 of descent. Five steps wonid have been too few. and nine would have been too many. This is curious, and perhaps nothing more. II In Dante's "Convito" (xxni.-xxvm. of Book IV ) he expounds the course of « the noble soul » through Its Four Ages of this mortal life, taking as his text his " Canzone," m. 7 : "The soul that this high virtue doth adorn, Uoth keep it not concealed ; For from the moment that she weds the body She shows it until death. Obedient, gracious, full of noble shame. Hne hc.ds her early way, And even the body she makes beautiful. And all its limbs alert. ^,n T l^ l-""^^' T'' *««»Pe«te and strong, full of affectioa and courteous praise. Finding delight in lawful joys alone. And in her later age. Prudent and just and liberal to all ; Kejoicing in herself To hear and speak of aU that serveth man. llien m the fourth and last part of her life. Weds her again to God, Contemplating the end for which she waits. And blessing the past years." "Human life," says Dante, speaking of the division usual "in our books," "is divided into four ages. The first is called Adolescence, that is, in- crease of life ; the second is called Youtk, that is, the age that can help to, or give, perfection-and 26 THE ROUND OF THE CLOCK \ thns it is nnderBtood to be the perfect age, because no one can give except of what he has ; the third is called Old Age ; the fourth Decrepitude " (p. 350). Dante regards man's life as an arch, all life being "caused by Heaven," and Heaven being in itself, and revealing itself in all living creatures, " not as a complete circle, but as part of one." " Because the master of our life, Aristotle, recognised this arch, ... he appears to consider our life as an ascent and a descent." " Where the highest point ... is, it were difficult to say . . . but in most men, I believe, it is between the thirtieth and fortieth year. And I believe that in perfect 'latures it would be in the thirty-fifth year " (" Inf." v. 15, 20). " And this reason aflfects me, that our Saviour Christ, whose nature was perfect, chose to die in the thirty-fourth year of His age. . . ." (p. 347). " And these divisions are made in like manner in the year. . . . And so it is with the day " (in its canonical hours, " leaving the sixth " — noon — " as the centre"). "And therefore the Gentiles said that the chariot of the sun had four horses. . . ." Speaking then of this ascent and apex and de- scent of human life, Dante assigns (for the majority of men) twenty-five years to Adolescence ; twenty to Youth (ten being before and ten after the arch's central point, the age of thirty-five) j and another twenty-five to Old Age, which is reckoned as be- ginning at forty-five and ending at seventy. " But," he continues, " because Adolescence does ''HIS ACTS BEING SEVEN AGES" 27 not begin with the beginning of life, taking it in the way here described, but about ten years after- wards, and because our life hurries in its ascent, but holds back in its descent, . . . therefore it happens that beyond Old Age about ten years remain to us of life, perhaps a little more or less. And this period is called Decrepitude. Therefore we see that Plato (who may be said to have had the best of natures, . . .) Hved for eighty-one years, accordmg to the testimony of TuUius in his ' De Senectute.' And I believe that if Christ had not been crucified, and had lived out the term of His life, as allotted by nature. He would have been translated in His eighty-first year from a mortal to an eternal body." Ill Messrs. Sidgwick and Jackson recently published a reprint of "The Kalendar of Shepherds: being Devices for the Twelve Months." It was appar- ently written in 1296, and divides life by the months of the year in periods of six years. I copy the notes. "^ January "Take the first six yeare of Januarj, the which 18 of no vertue nor strength, in that season nothing on the earth groweth. So man after he is borne, tUl he be six yeare of age, is without witte. 28 THE ROUND OF THE CLOCK : I li i Strength, or conning, and may do nothing that profiteth." February "Then commeth Febrnary, and then the dayes beginne to waxe in length, and the snnne more hotter, then the fieldes beginne to waxe greene : So the other sixe yeares til he come to twelne, the child beginneth to grow and serue and learne snch as is taught him." March « Then commeth March, in the which the laborer soweth ye earth and planteth trees, and edifieth houses. The child in these six yeares waxeth big to learn doctrine and science, and to be faire and honest, for then he is xviii. years of age." April « Then commeth April, that the earth and the trees is couered in greene and flowers, and in euery part goods mcreaseth abundantly. Then commeth the child to gather the sweet flowers of hardines • but then beware that the cold windes and stormes that he should bring man to honour, for then he is xxiiii. yeare old." May "Then commeth Maie, that is both faire and pleasant, for then birdes sing in woodes and forrests *^HI8 ACTS BEING SEVEN AOES» 2 9 night and day, the snnne shineth hot. And as then 18 man most joyfnll and pleasant, and of hoeHer Se%oTtV"'f .t^^^' «^''«' -<^ "i pastime, for then is he fall xxx. yeare." June h J).?,*° t°""°'"' ''""''• »'"' then u the snnne he It "4' "',«'■•'"'"-« g»Men beams ripen" the come. And when man is xwvi. yeare hemav ^end no more, for then hath nat Je^ Wm seeaes ot perfect understanding." July "Then commeth July, that onr fruits bin sette a sunning and oar come a hardening, bnt then the So man then goeth from youth toward age a^ heTry^r^*"' "■"'""»«>— ,rt,:n^ August "After that then commeth August : then we gather m our come, and also the fruits of the earth. And then doth m«. his diligence to gather for to neither get nor w.u, and then after that vi. yeares IS he xlvui. yeare oJd." j » ca 30 THE ROUND OF THE CLOCK : t Skftbmber " Then commeth September : that wines be made, and the frnits of trees be gathered. And then therewithal! he doth freshly beginne to garnish his honse and make proaision of needfall things for to line in winter, which draweth very nere. And then is man, in his most joyfall and coragions estate, prosperous in wisdome, purposing to gather and keepe as mnch as should be sufficient for him in his old age, when he may gather no more, and these sixe yeares maketh him liiii. yeares.'* October " And then commeth October : that all is into the foresayd house gathered but come, and also other maner frnits. And also the labourers soweth newe seedes in the earth, for the yeare to come. And when he that soweth nought, shall nought gather. And then in their other sixe yeares a man shall take himselfe unto God for to do penance and good works, and then the benefits the yeare after his death, he may gather and haue spirituall profite, and then is man full in the terme of Ix. yeares." November "Then commeth Nouember: that the dayes be very short, and the sun in maner gineth little heat, and the w.es looseth their leaues. The fields that were greene, look horie and gray. When al maner i "HIS ACTS BEING SEVEN AGES" 31 of hearbes be hidde in the ground, and then appeareth no flowers. And then winter is come that a man hath understanding of age, and hath lost his kindly heate and strengthe : His teeth beginne to rotte, and also to chatter, and then, hath he no more hope of long life, but desireth to come to the life euerlasting, and these sixe for this moneth maketh him three score and sixe yeares." Decbmbeb "Then commeth December: full of colde with frost and snow, with great windes and stormy weather, that a man may not labour nor nought do: the sun is then at the lowest that it may descend, then the trees and the earth is hid in snow, then is it good to hold them nie the fire and to spend the goods that they gathered in summer. For then beginneth mans haire to wax white and gray, and his body crooked and feeble, and then he loseth the perfect understanding, and that six yeares maketh him ful Ixxii. yeare, and if he Hue any more, it is by his good guiding and dietmg m his youth. Howbeit, it is possible that a man may line till he be an hundred yeares of age, but there are but few that come thereto." IV Great weight has been given to the division of human life into periods of seven years. In fact, 82 THE ROUND OF THE CLOCK I ! i ! there is a popniar belief that the hnman body is entirely changed every seven years. On what authority this notion rests I cannot tell ; bnt most people know that the ages seven, fourteen, twenty- one, forty-two, sixty-three, and seventy are con- sidered to be significant Twenty-one marks the time when majority is attained. Seventy is the Scriptural term for human life. On the ages forty- two and sixty-three I have curious notes from the lives of the heroes of the Reformation. The forty-second year was held by astrologers to be dangerous. When Melanchthon reached it he prepared for death and made his will (1539). Dr. J. W. Richard writes : " Melanchthon had now reached the climacteric year of forty-two. Believing that death was near at hand, he made his last will and testament.*' A learned German work, Qeorg Oergers " Vom jungen Luther," contains in its first chapter an attempt to prove at Luther was born in 1482, not, as is nsualb jnderstood, in 1483. The only original authority I'or the date 1483 is Melanchthon, but Oergel points out that before Luther's death Melanchthon's researches had led him to the con- clusion that Luther's birth-year was 1484. Why did he change his view ? Oergel says : " We have more than once remarked on Melanchthon's fond- ness for astrological studies. Though Luther had a low opinion of these arts and liked to tease hid friend Philip about his hobby, there was one point '^ms ACTS BEING SEVEN AGES" 33 on which they both agreed. Luther, quite as much as Melanchthon and many of his contemporaries, at ached great importance to the seventh or so- called climacteric year of life. He called it also annua tariatitus, 'for the seventh year always changes man's constitution.' Very special import- ance was attached to the 8ixty-thi;d year {climacter Benum), m which nine times seven years was attained. This was always considered a specially critical year, in which the exceptionally increased alteration in the sap and strength of the bodily frame might easily bring with it peril to life. Many examples from antiquity and modern times were quoted with regard to persons who had died in this year. Luther died on February 18, 1646." And Oergel's argument 18 that the great amateur astrologer, Melanchthon (whose letters are literally crowded with occult matters), changed his views on the date of Luther's birth because if he had kept to his original date of 1484, Luther would not have attained his climacteric year, that is, the date at which he ought by all proper rules, to have died. " It was," says Oergel, a scientific duty for Melanchthon to make his defamte decision in favour of 1483 as Luther's birth- year. Only by the acceptance of this year would the natural law receive its due tribute, and the world could be informed that the climacter senum had exercised its deadly influence upon Dr. Martin Contemporaries and friends of Melanchthon like 3 M THB ROUND OF THE CLOCK Paul Eber, or enemies like Dr. Batseberger, accepted the coincidence without a qnestion. " Lather,** wrote the Elector*8 physicmn, Ratzeberger, " died in his climacteric year, which is specially dangerous for the old.*' >^ ir Thomas Browne, in his book " Enquiries into Vulgar and Common Errors," disputes the import- ance " of the great Climacterical year, that is, Sixty- three.** He begins by saying that the days of men are usually cast up by septenaries, and every seventh year is conceived to carry some altering character with it, either in the temper of body or mind or both. But among all other, three he singles oat as the most remarkable, seven times seven or forty-nine, nine times nine or eighty-one, and seven times nine or the year of sixty-three : which is conceived to carry with it the most considerable fatality ; " and, consisting of both the other num- bers, waa apprehended to cumprise the vertue of either : is therefore expected and entertained with fear, and esteemed a favour of Fate to pass it over. "Whic'u notwithstanding many suspect to be but a Panick terrour, and men to fear they justly know not what : and to speak indilferently, I find no satisfaction ; nor any sufficiency in the received grounds to establish a rational fear." Browne goes on to check the lists of men who are said to have died in their climacterical year. ''HIS ACTS BEim SBVBN AOSS» 35 He refers to the letter of Aiignstns sent to hii nephew Cains, enconraging him to celebrate his birthday becaase he had now escaped sixty-three, the dangerous year to man. Browne admits that Aristotle died in this year, adding, however, that owing to his delicate health it was wonderful that he lived so long. He quotes the Biblical declaration that the days of man are three score and ten, and points out that the same is affirmed by Solon,' as Herodotus relates in a speech of his to Crcesus' It is by the consent of elder times that seventy IS regarded as a final year. But as to the names given of those who died at sixty-three, Browne takes them one by one, and finds that they are wrongly assigned. Thus Plato is said to have died at sixty- three ; but he lived to be eighty-one. Of course a catalogue of remarkable persons who died in other years can easily be compiled. But, accord- ing to Browne, there is no special fatality about the climacteric year. When, in due course, we come to the year, w - sball be better able to determine the truth as to this. IV "WHO CAN TELL WHAT A BABY THINKS?" THE FIRST FIVE YEARS OF LIFE It will be noted by careful readers that the hoar- hand of the clock has moved to seven. The be- ginning of life I take as six o'clock in the morning, and the first five years of life are included between six and seven. At seven o'clock a child is five years old. We are still perhaps on the threshold of know- ledge as regards childhood. It is only within recent years that people have thought it worth while to record the sayings of children. The ancients doted on their children, and even made oflFerings of toys to their dead children for playthings in the world of spirits ; but I believe that, with one doubtful exception, not a single letter by a Roman or Greek 86 " WHO CAN TELL WHAT A BABY THINKS? " 37 child snrvives. No voice of a Greek child comes to OS across the gulf of time. Psychology, a science still in its infancy, is slowly furnishing us with facts ; but the faithful record of what happens in childhood begins late. Fielding, Gray, Cowper, and Goldsmith in particular, began to depict the wonder ; but I believe Mr. Scudder is right when he puts Wordsworth first among the English-speak- ing interpreters of childhood. This poet conceives of childhood as distinct and individual ; the isolated existence of the child is more important to him than the child's relation to its parents. He is one of the first to ^ay distinctly that childhood is more than innocence, more than grace ; it is something which the child brings to earth ; it is the con- sciousness of a spiritual woild which passes away as the earthly life penetrates the soul. "Hence in a season of calm weather, Though inland far we be, Our souls have sight of that immortal sea Which brought us hither, Can in a moment travel thither, And see the children sport ujwn the shore. And hear the mighty waters rolling evermore." Wordsworth says himself that in his childhood he had a deep sense of the indomitableness of the spirit. He persuaded himself that, whatever might become of others, he could not die. He was to be translated, like Enoch and Elijah, to heaven. Child- hood comes from the Divine, and has an echo of the Divme in its ears till life has dulled it 38 THE ROUND OF THE CLOCK Landor says : " Children are not men or women ; they are almost as different creatures, in many respects, as if they never were to be one or the other; they are as nnlike as bnds are nnlike flowers, and almost as blossoms are nnlike fruits." In the writings of Jean Paul Richter we find some help. Richter speaks of the early years as " the misty years," as « the first and thickest mist of life." A Terse is quoted by Dr. Noah Porter in his " Psychology " : " Who can tell what a baby thinks ? Who can follow the gossamer links By wnich the mannikin feels his way Out from the shores of the great unknown, Blind and waiUng and alone, Into the light of day?" Richter says that the three early years are the years which precede the opening of the gate of the sonl, which is language. He attaches the greatest possible importance to those three years, and counsels that education should do as much as possible during the first year of life. Then it can effect more with half the effort than it can with double in the eighth year, when the sense of freedom is aroused and all the conditions of being are indefinitely multiplied. Farmers believe it most advantageous to sow in mist, and the first " WHO CAN TELL WHAT A BABY THINKS f " 39 seeds of edncation shonld fall in the mist of life. " For the child— yet in native innocence, before his parents have become his serpents on the tree- speechless, still unsusceptible of verbal empoison- ment— led by customs, not by words and reasons, therefore all the more easily moved on the narrow and small pinnacle of sensuous experience ;— for the child, I say, on this boundary line between the monkey and the man, the most important era of life is contained in the years which immediately follow his non-existence, in which, for the first time, he colours and moulds himself by companion- ship with others. The parent's hand may cover and shelter the germinating seed, but not the luxuriant tree. Conse- quently, first faults are the greatest ; and mental maladies, unlike the smallpox, are the more dangerous the earlier they are taken. Every new educator effects less than his predecessor; until at last, if we regard all life as an educational institution, a circumnavigator of the world is less influenced by all the nations he has seen than by his nurse." Richter would have us in these years to pay special regard to morality. In mature years great examples of moral worth pass by and influence our course no more than a flying comet does that of the earth. I i 40 THE ROUND OF THE CLOCK \\ \ : Bat in the deep heart of childhood the first inner or outer object of love or injnstice throws a light or a shadow immeasurably far along all its fntnre years. The first fall and the first fight mfluence us our whole life long. Every first thing continues for ever with the child : the first colour, the first music, the first flower paint the foreground of his life. Richter prescribes that the child should be protected from all that is impetuous and violent and even from all sweet impressions. For this reason the crying of children, if composed of a union of discord, hastiness, imperiousness, and passion ought to be guarded against by all due means. I have read somewhere : "As soon as we begin to live Then we begin to die ; Into the world we weeping come Our whole life tells us why." During the first three years the child lives in the animal cloister, and only approaches us through the speech-grating of natural signs. The whole human being is as yet a closed bud where the blossom is concealed. The warmth of happiness should be provided for the human child. Anything is better than a melancholy child absorbed and weighed down by one black poison-drop of the present. " Think of a child led to a scaffold ; think of a Cupid in a Dutch coffin; or watch a butterfly after its four wings have been torn off', creeping like a worm, and you will feel what I mean." i " ^^^0 G^N TELL WUA T A liA RY THINKS ?" 41 II It is at three that the most important event in childhood, the birth of the ego, appears to take place. Fichte is said to have given a great dinner --as great a dinner as a professor could give— on the day on which his son first nsed ich Kichter says : "In earliest times the word 'philoso- phy —though there was also a second word, 'orient' -was to me an open heaven's gate, through which I looked on to long, long gardens of joy. Never snail 1 torget the inner sensation, hitherto untold to any, when I was present at the birth of my self- consciousness, of which I can specify both time and place. One morning, when still quite a young child I was standing under the doorway, and looking towards the woodstack on the left, when suddenly the mternal vision, ' I am an ego; passed before me like a lightning-flash from heaven, and has re- mamed with me shining brightly ever since ; my ego had seen itself then for the first time and for ever. Deceptions of the mem- ry are here hardly concaivable, since no story r, ated to me could mingle its additions with an occurrence which took place m the shrouded Holy of Holies of a human being, and whose strangeness alone has given per- manence to such everyday circumstances as those which accompanied it." In his « Letters » James Smetham writes : « Mv hrst awakening to consciousness, as far as 1 can i 1 ! 42 THE ROUND OF THE CLOCK remember, was in a valley in Yorkshire, ontside the garden-gate of my father's house, when at the age of two. I have a distinct remembrance of the ecstacy with which I regarded the distant blne- ness of the hills, and saw the lanrels shake in the wind and felt it lift my hair." Mary Howitt, in her "Autobiography," regards this epoch as taking place, in her experience, one evening as she was returning from a forest-ramble with her father : « It was the first evidence in my mind that I could think. I remember very well the new light, the gladness, the wealth of which I seemed suddenly possessed. It has curiously con- nected itself in my mind with passing a pinfold. That particular spot seemed like the line between rational and irrational existence ; and so childish was I in intellectual life, that it seemed to me as if, before I passed the pinfold, I could only say and think * Bunyan '— such was the expression m my mind— but that, after passing it, I had the full use of all intelligible speech." After this period the child's mind often rapidly develops. One of the quaintest descriptions of childhood is Lady Stephen's account of her boy, Fitzjames Stephen, who grew up to be one of the most trenchant controversialists amoag English writers. It is recorded of him that he wrote one of his most powerful articles in the Pall Mall Gazette— that on the death of Lord Palmerston— with many sobs and tears. Before he was three " WHO CAN TELL W UAT A BABY THINKS t" 43 months old he had "a calm, composed dignity in his conntenance," and at the age of half a year he showed himself most determined to have his own way. Before he was three he was known in the family as "the little preacher." Before he was five he complained to his father that he had « naughty thonghts"; bnt when his father advised that they should be sent away, and the advice was acted npon, he confessed to being so proud of his skill in dismissing them that he " wanted to get them that he might send them away." At an earlier date he pointed out to his mother, who had punished him for stubbornness by depriving him of his tea, that such punishment only « provoked him to be much more naughty." "Did you ever know your father do a thing because it was pleasant ? " asked his mother of the small boy The answer was: "Yes, once-when he married you." This composed and solemn confideiice has often been noted in babies. The tender-hearted Melanchthon, writing from Ntirnberg to his son- m-law on February 9, 1552, says : " Carissime fili, InaB filiBB desiderio mirifice adficior. Qnoties placidissimum ejus vultum et ocellos mente intueor. doleo me isthinc abesse." Ill When John Stuart Mill was three years old he was initiated by his stern father into the Greek 44 !!' i i I ; THE ROUND OF THE CLOCK language. When Isaac Watts was three he conld read the Bible ; and if he received any little present of money he wonld come mnning to his parent, crying eagerly, " A book, a book I Bny a book ! '* May his tribe be multiplied I Jonathan Swift could read any chapter in the Bible at three years of age. Of Kingsley it is said that he had preached a sermon when four years old, and that he wrote poems before he was five. Among the early sketches of Sir Edwin Landseer, now in possession of the nation, is one of a fox- hound, drawn from the life at the age of five. Allan Cunningham says that it is quite marvellous for its thorough conception of form and apprecia- tion of character. Mozart at four composed melo- dies, which his father wrote from his dictation. When he was little more than five he took part in the comedy Sigiamundus Hungaria ReXy performed in the Hall of the University of Salzburg in 1761. This was his first public appearance. Miss Yonge, a careful observer, in her " Life of John Coleridge Patteson," the martyr bishop, says : "Five years old is in many cases the age of a great deal of thought. The intelligence is free from the misapprehension and misty perceptions of infancy; the first irse of physical experi- ments is over, freedom o. speech and motion has been attained, and yet there has not set in that burst of animal growth and spirits that often ^ WHO CAN TELL WHAT A BABYTHINKSr 46 seems to swamp the deeper nature thronghoat boy- hood." Yonng Patteson was able to read at that age, and received on his fifth birthday from his father the present of a Bible. He read it eagerly, puzzled his brains as to what became of the fish during the Flood, and once, when suddenly called to the nursery, begged to be allowed to " finish the bind- ing of Satan for a thousand years." IV The change that takes place in the first five years of life may be illustrated from two poems, one by Swinburne and one by Charles Lamb. Swinburne's is a Birth-song for Olivia Frances Madox Rossetti, born September 20, 1875 : "Now, ere thy sense forget The heaven that fills it yet, Now, sleeping or awake. If thou couldst tell, or we Ask and be heard of thee, For love's undying sake, From thy dumb lips divine and bright mute speech Such news might touch our ear That then would burn to hear Too high a message now for man's to reach." This is the thought of Wordsworth— not the thonght of pre-existence in the ordinary use of the word, but the thought of something which has come straight from the arms of God. 46 THE ROUND OF TEE CLOCK Charles (or is it Mary?) Lamb writes in lines little known : "A child's a plaything for an hour; Its pretty tricks we try For that or for a longer space ; Then tire and lay it by. " But I knew one that to itself All seasons could control ; That would have mocked the sense of pain Out of a grieved soul. *' Thou straggler into loving arms, Young climber-up of knees, When I forget thy thousand ways Then life and all shall cease." n Can we trace the bent of life from these first years ? When a Chinese boy is twelve months old he is put into a large sieve, and round him are placed a set of money-scales, a pair of scissors, a foot-measure, a brass mirror, a pencil, ink, paper, ink-slab, and other articles. The assembled friends watch to see which thing he first handles, and if he takes up a book or a pencil they feel sure he is to be a scholar. But at a year a baby is hardly fitted to choose his profession. When Mazzini first walked with his mother they saw an old beggar seated on the steps of a church. The child suddenly stood still, and his mother, thinking he was frightened at the white beard and pic- " WHOCANTBIL WHAT A BABYTlIJNKSf" 47 tnresque rags of the old man, stooped to carry him away. Bnt he broke from her and ran raptnronsly forward, threw his arms round the poor man's neck, kissing him again and again, and cried ont to her, "Give him something, mother; give him something." The old man was affected even to tears. He tenderly retomed the child's caresses, and, addressing Signora Mazzini in pure Roman accents, said : « Love him well, lady ; he is one who will love the people." When Allan Cunningham was four years old he heard Burns read « Tam o' Shanter" to his father. Burns took his written copy over when it was finished to the farm at Sandbed to read it to his friend and neighbour. Standing in the ingle-neuk between the farmer's knees was a boy, a little child. He remembered the circumstance as freshly at forty as when he was four. "Burns's looks and his voice,'* wrote Allan Cunningham, " cannot well be forgotten.'* VI I may add that for many years three has been the minimum age at which a child can be entered on the register of a public elementary school According to Mr. Barrie, in his "Little White Bird," It has another signification : « David struck three and went into knickerbockers. The faces of mothers are a clock, in which you may read the faces of their young. When he is three they 48 TUB ROUND OF THE CLOCK are said to wear the knickerbocker face, and yon may take it from me that Mary assamed that face with a sigh ; fain wonid she have kept her boy a baby longer, but he insisted on his rights." Five, I believe, is regarded as the earliest age at which a pnpil should begin work in a school other than a kindergarten : up to this age the pupils are technically known as babies— at five they become technically infants, and remain so till seven. :ll THK NfiVV^ HBfiO AND HEROINE : FROM FIVE TO TEN In this chapter the hour-hand U u right o'clock .nd he penod dealt with i, between fi- f a:,d ten ' Mr Wattg-Danton describes c., .h ..j „ ,, fnlZ7- '"f " *"* ^'•'-^ -■" ' '•■= ■"" WW «m s SlTal,' "'' •"'"" -^^-f'-'^-'y recent ^1™. t "^^"^ '» Arthm ,.au Mamillius p Clares h.m y,„dly and truly, but, on the whole, he was formerly ignored and trampled on. The reaction was long in coming; but' when Victor Hugo and Tennyson and Swinburne and Miss Rossett. and Miss Ingelow with many others fd down and worshipped him, the New Hero became rich in poet-lanreates and in court painters. Mostly hey caught h-m at the time when he was emerring >uto consciousness, but no rigid line can be drawn 49 ^ I ;i 50 THE ROUND OF THE CLOCK between my first period and my second. Hnmorons witchery, beantifal mystery, and pathos are the characteristics ascribed to the New Hero by one of his most loving students. ' W The hnmorons witchery of the Young Hero has had homage from feminine worshippers even more than from men, though Mr. Swinburne's poem, "A Child's Pity," holds its own with any of its kind. The Hero's humorous witchery is acknowledged in that complexity of feeling which is shown when he is fondly teased by his worshippers " caressing him with grating teeth," and with words of mock anger. In "Christabel" the feeling is rendered and ex- plained : '*A little child, a limber elf, Singing, dancing to itself, A fairy thing with red round cheeks That always finds, and never seeks, Makes such a vision to the sight As fills a father's eyes with light ; And pleasures flow in so thick and fast Upon his heart, that he at last M-mt needs express his love's excess With words of unmeant bitterness." And Coleridge further explains it in lines as magical and as memorable : "Perhaps 'tis pretty to force together Thoughts so all unlike each other ; To mutter and mock a broken charm. To dally with wrong that does no harm. THE NEW HERO AND HEROINE 61 Perhaps 'tis tender, too and pretty At each wild word to feel within A sweet recoil ot ove and pity." ThephrsBe "sweet recoil" is final in its manner. So I might qnote from Victor Hugo, from Sydney Dobell, especially that lyric in "The Roman" beginning : * " Oh, Lila ! round our early love What voices went in days of old ! " from Nathaniel Hawthorne's « Little Pansie," and many other sources. The mystery of a child's existence is tonchingly felt and expressed in some nnes of Alexander Smith : "O thou bright thing fresh from the hand of God! T'is ages since He made His youngest star, * His hand is on thee as 'twere yesterday, Thou later revelation. Silver stream, Breakmg with laughter from the lake divine Whence all things flow." The infinite pathos that surrounds a distressed child has been piercingly rendered by Mrs. Brownin.. in her poem, "The Cry of the Children." and by Victor Hugo m many places. Mr. Watts-Dunton thinks that the pathos of a neglected child is more quickly felt by the poor than by the richer classes. It is the poor who have pity on the New Hero when, unwashed and in rags, he turns a somersault for a copper, or fashions dirt-pies for the pure love ot cookery. Mr. Watts-Dunton tells an experience ^ 52 THE ROUND OF THE CLOCK of his own. Once, when waiting in the train at Vanxhall, his eye was taken by the little street- arabs trying to make merry with life— trying to make merry even with the squalid and fetid life in which they find themselves down there, they know not how. In the hope of getting a copper thrown from a carriage-window, these little crestnres, of ages varying from five up to twelve, perform ail sorts of gymnastic feats, chanting the while a ditty, which sounds merry or in- tensely sad according to the ear that hears it. For ten minutes this will often con- tinue, during which time one, two, or even three coppers will perhaps be thrown to the chanting gymnasts — thrown always, Mr. Dunton observes, from third-class windows, and never from the first class. Once Mr. Watts-Dnnton travelled third class to find out what kind of people were there who could afibrd to throw an occasional penny to acrobatic skill when stripped of spangles. On his first journey he found near him a sturdy and defiant- looking young fellow, whom he would have taken to be a bricklayer's labourer cut of work. They watched the acrobats standing on their poor little heads in the mud, and by and by the poet's fellow- traveller said to himself, " Poor little chaps ! THE NEW HERO AND HEROINE 93 Tongh work that, on empty bellies " ; and, divine down mto h,8 pocket, he foand at last a penny and threw It to them. The man was ont of employment, 8eek.ng work witJ. only a few coppers in his ^ket and dming off baccy." He knew the meaning of It all. There is no more touching sight in the world than that of a child shuddering along a LoiKlon alley, its poor little limbs gleaming re- proaeftfolly at the passer-by through the rags that hang about them-its poor little lean face wearing s^etimes the look of chubby innocence, but more often the sharp, eager, wolfish, cunning look bom of a dreadful knowledge of the struggle for life deeper and truer than all the knowledge of all the savant^ On this may be read, for I have no space to quot« them, Victor Hugo in « Les Pauvres Gens," Chose Vue un Jour de Printemps," the descrip. tions of the children in " L'Ann^e Terrible," the episodes m " Quatre- Vingt-Treize," but especially in " Petit Paul" and « Guerre Civile." II The great fact in the second lustrum of life is that Its years are passed in the realm of imagination In my own childhood we lived in a house beside a village; every article of furniture was to us a personahtj-^ The president of the little tribe was the largest thing in the house-an old-fashioned mahogany wardrobe. Each room had its president 64 THE ROUND OF THE CLOCK I \\ but the wardrobe was president of all the rooms. We imagined the neighbonring village as a hostile city. We lived in a castle with a deep moat. Although our house was small, there were many books in it, and every book was a soldier in time of need. Day by day the story was carried on, of our attacks upon the village or the attacks of the village upon us. Night by night the president of the rooms, along with representatives from the other furniture, met together in a war-council. It was of these things that we talked for at least three parts of our time. Story-books helped us. We planted the scenes of the stories in our own environment. Mr. Canton, in his admirable essay on Children's Sayings, remarks that the doll is one of the best teachers of a child. Wonderful are the ways of a girl with her doll. " I am an anxious-minded doll- mother," observed a true make-believer, as on a windy night she gave up her eider-down to her favonrite and " tucked her in " with tender solici- tude. In the same way children talk inexhaustibly with imaginary companions. Everything is alive. According to Professor Sully, it is not till about thirteen that the perfect child's faith in dolldom passes away. Brutes, as we are pleased to call them, are "lesser brethren" to a child. The animals en- courage his fellowship in a beautiful, pathetic, wistful way. Cats, who are not at all patient as a rule with grown-up people, will allow children to THE NEW HERO AND HEROINE 66 do anything with thera that they please, and will submit to being dressed, pot into perambnlators, and whaled abont, with angelic complacency. Dogs are very kind, but perhaps not so kind. * It was through their friendship with children that the lower brethren were raised in the Middle Ages from oppression and were permitted to attend church on Christmas Day. And even now pity for the brute and recognition that it has its rights, even a dim understanding of the fact that the animal world is a great mystery— these are feelings that endure and grow with us, and we owe them to the child. Newman said : " We have more real knowledge about the angels tlian about the brutes ; they have, apparently, passions, habits, and a certain un- acconntableness, but all is mystery about them. We do not know whether they can sin or not, whether they are under punishment, whether they are to live after this life ; we inflict very great sufferings on a portion of them, and they in turn, every now and then, retaliate upon us as if by a wonderful law. . . . Cast your thoughts abroad on the whole number of them, large and small, in vast forests, or in the water, or in the blue air, and then say whether the presence of such countless multi- tudes, so various in their natures, so strange and wild in their shapes, living on the earth without ascertainable object, is not as mysterious as any- thing Scripture says about the angels." 56 THE ROUND OF THE CLOCK i ' III This period 18 the time of passionate affection, expressed whUe it is not replaced. I borrow from Mr Canton: "Cyril was seven years old. He loved his mother very deariy, and had been separated from her sometimes, as she had to go to India Once when she came to wish him good-night, he was nnder the bed-clothes. He came ont with a flushed little face, and said, as he hogged her tight, 'Mummie, do you know what 1 was doing ? I was asking God to love yoa as much as I do. He couldnH love you more. His mother was very delicate, and one day m winter he said: <0h, father, please shut window ; mummie may catch cold, and we must take care of our best.' A loving-hearted wee man said sweetly to his mother, ' Mother, I'm sorry I m not your father, for then I would love you 80 much and take care of you.' ' How much do you love mother?' a little giri was asked. 'Up to the sky, along a bit, and down on the other side. Two little lads were discussing how much they each loved father and mother.^ Thldder said *OhI I couldn't live without "muvver"' If she ever dies, I shall go and dig her up.' His' brother replied, ' Yours is a very stupid plan THE NEW HERO AND HEROINE 67 IV Mr. Kenneth Graham, in his book, "The Golden Age," has a chapter, " The Roman Road," which seems to be as true a picture of a child's imagmings as any ever written. Among all the roads of the neighbourhood, that road marched straight and full for the open downs. The children called it « The Knights' Road," because they thought that they might some day see Lancelot and his peers come pacing along it on heir great war-horses. But the boy had heard that all roads led to Rome, and his governess had spoken about a strange road that ran right through the misty Highlands to the Eternal City. So the boy was fascinated by the thought that, at the other end of the white ribbon which rolled Itself off from his feet, was Rome. He tried to fency what it would be like when he got there He put the Coliseum down in the middle, Td* patched up the rest from the little grey market- town where he had his hair cut twice a year. Place was found for the Red Lion, the Blue Boar, the doctors substantial red-brick house, the fa he .rtoniZl tium Hwr ^L Z "^ '\^<^^^^ *.. more •dmudoD. ^*"' ^*^ ^°' "d «>'«nted to her Age 7 permiMion to a^^^C M wSIlt wk'^ '''' ^^ ^* obtained an opportanitvo?nK. '*'**''* ^"'"'K Handel lifting him on S^Sl 2 he 1"S° ""^ '"^' '^'"^ °°« Duke of Haxeweissenfet^L;^^t^^Tfat;:^''1 "''" ""* ^''^ 8uaded the father to^ive rein tn M- *°'' •"'" ^"'^ f*'" was Handel emanci^^. ""'* " «""'""• I" "»" way Ages Ti.itedhisho.rin8prirrfieK.i!^" '''^' * ^""^ "' """«°« with hi. rude sketcKuLu h K^"'"''"'"^' ^'°« P'ea«ed .eiw colour wirjKfr.rt!;:.^ i^r '^^ -^^ -' id'a^^oZTL'tt^lT""' ^'"'r'^'^^o^^Pos.,. under none but himself could e«curr 1" 'f^"^ the age of nine. "® performed in p„blic at Age 9 MICROCOPY RESOIUTION TEST CHART (ANSI and ISO TEST CHART No. 2) l&O 13.2 1^8 |2^ 12.2 1.8 A /APPLIED IIVMGE inc '653 East Main Street Rochester, New York 14609 USA (716) 482 - 0300 - Phone (716) 288- 5989 -Fax 62 THE ROUND OF THE CLOCK \ Dante (1265-1321) saw Beatrice for the first time when she was at the beginning, and he at the end, of their ninth year. In the Memoirs of the Life of Anna Jameson (1794-1860), tlie art-critic, a sour but excellent and indefatigable lady, we read that she had a happy childhood. Once, when she was nine, she was moved by some supposed wrong done to her little sisters by a person in whose charge they had all been left at New- castle, while their parents went to Scotland. So the little Anna planned a flight, and actually set forth one evening, accom- panied by the three other little conspirators, who blindly fol- lowed their leader, to walk to Scotland, each being provided for the journey with " a tiny bundle of clothes, containing a change for Sunday," and as much bread and butter as could possibly be stowed away in the fronts and pockets of their frocks. As the oldest and strongest, Anna charged her own shoulders with the weight of a many-caped gig-cloak (presumably a garment of the period), belonging to their governess, under cover of which they could, she said, all sleep at night under the hedges ; and, as for food, when their own slices of bread and butter gave out, they need only knock at some cottage door on their way and say they were four little children going to Scotland to refind their father and mother, and no one would refuse them a drink of milk and a crust, Anna was quite sure. Sometimes the scientific genius shows itself very early. Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879) was one of the greatest physicists of the Victorian period. His mother died when he was nine years old, but the relations between the widowed father and his only child were the happiest conceivable. To explain mechanism to the boy, and to show him '♦ how it doos," was the father's chief delight during James's childhood ; and, indeed, it can have been no sinecure office to have to reply to his constant question, " What's the go o' that ? "—repeated, if the answer was sus- pected of vagueness, in the emphasised form, " But what's the particular go of it ? " HI' '3 Age 10 When Bach (1685-1750) was ten he lost his father and went to live with his brother, the organist, at Ohrdruf, who put great obstacles in the way of his musical studies ; but the boy as- li FROM FIVE TO TEN 63 Berte.l his talent b; copying: nut «o.nc music iH^.a;! clannestin.lv Milton Cowley, and Hyron all wrote verses Hnst at ten m.l Laurence Sterne (1713-17G8) use.l to say that at the .of' ten when m a school near Halifax, he wn.tc with .. brush in Iwe letters on the wall. " Lau. Sterne." The usher severely wh'S h arin. "T.^'" '^'"' '^ '''^- ""'^''^^••' -'- -i^. in « " ' boy genius ""'' '''^"'' ''"' ""™'^ ^'^ ^«-^-^''. ^- I was a whtt 1^:^:^'^-^^^''^ '"^'^^ "^^ «- "P^— as a piani.t IM VI THE SCHOOL-BOY: FROM TEN TO FIFTEEN The clock is now c\f nine, marking the completion of fifteer /ears of life. The period undtjr review is from ten to fifteen, which is normally the period for the school-boy. It is true that wherever compulsory education is found the commencing age is either six or seven. Very often when the age of six is quoted in the regulations it means six completed, that is the seventh year. From thirteen to fourteen is the period at whi^h compulsory education usaally stops. Glancing down a list of the compulsory ages in the various countries of the '-^-Id one finds himself left with the clear impressio^^ that six to seven begins it, and thirteen to fourteen ends it. Sixteen is the age that .finishes the education of pupils at secondary schools of the second grade, 64 if-' i sf THE SCHOOL-BOY 88 whUe eighteen completes the educationTrpnpilTit secondary schools of the first grade. My divisions cannot be pedantically accurate """ons Scotland entered the Unirersity at twelve op thir- teen. A relative of mine, Alexander Nicoll, born a poor man s son at the village of Monymusk, Aber- deenshire, went to college in Aberdeen at twelve removed to Oxfori at fonrteen, graduated thereat eighteen and when he was twenty-flve became B.g ns Pjofessor of Hebrew and Canon of Christ Chnrch, being made D.C.L. in the same year. NicoU, who was the predecessor of Dr Pnsev he d ed when only thirty-five-fairly worn ont with the labours and privations of his yonth. There is . egend that he induced his father to send h m I college by the promise that he would live upon two hard-Uled eggs a day. Adam Smith (1723-1 790) Bacon IS61-ia26) was sent to Trinity Col ege Umbndge at twelve. Dean Chnrch wonders wha w»hl U"™™ty. the boys took their places with men and ..onsorted with them almost on equal terms. Grotius (1583-1646) was at eleventh pnpil and companion of J. J. Scaliger (1.540-16U9) Cr^^^T t\^" " »«teen,aud publishTa learned book When Bacon was hardly sixteen he was admitted to the Society of "Ancients" of 5 • i 86 THE ROUND OF THE CLOCK Gray's Inn. But nowadays we treat our children mon sanely. What I have to say abont the school-boy may take the form of a comparison between the i)a8t and the present. The school-boy of to-day is very fortunate. t V. Ill ft In looking back at the good old times we discover that places of instruction were scenes of perpetual torture and agony. " From his experience of his first school Martin Luther speaks in later years of the vexations and torments with declining and conjugating and other tasks which school- children in his youth had to endure. . . . Schoolmasters, he says, in those days were tyrants and executioners, the schools were prisons and hells, and, in spite of blows, trembling, fear, and misery, nothing was ever taught. He had been whipped, he tells us, fifteen times one morning, without any fault of his own, having been called on to repeat what he had never been taught."' Fuller declared that many a schoolmaster occu- pied himself more in tearing his scholars' fiesh ' Kostlin's " Life of Luther " (Eng. Trans., Longmans). ■ 1 TBE SCHOOL-BOY ^ 67 "From Paul's I went to Eaton sent, VVhen fifty-three stripes given to mo For fault but small, or none at all. See, Udall, see the mercy of thee, To me, poor lad." It was charged against terrible teachers thaf f hpv caused many tongues to stammer that spot p^^^^^ by nature, and that they dulled mZ^^T ^ QuiclfPr fh.« *k "''/ uujiea many who were S hea^r t'T^""! ^^ """■""S them aboat tfleir heads. Rough and rode also were the domes- nonse did mdeed close npon the erowin, W eterV om 'Xr^w f ^^^ '"r'" ^"' -erit., harsh Ulrd mrherT^treT^' means rare. "When I am in presence dther of spl^r^'f "^' ^^ •^''- «-y. " -he het i speak, keep silence, sit, stand or go eat dr-nt lectiy a God made the world : or else r »m . »haT,Iy taanted, so crnelly thUenJlT /ea pre- sently sometimes with pinches, nips, bobs' and'otC 68 THE ROUND OF THE CLOCK ways wliich I will not name for the honoar I bear them, so without measnre misordered, that I think myself in hell till time come that I must go to Mr. Aylmer, who teacheth me so gently, so pleasantly, with such fair allurements to learning, that 1 think all the time nothing whiles I am with him. And when I am called from him, I fall on weeping, because whatsoever I do else but learning is full of grief, trouble, fear, and whole misliking unto me." In these times " breaking-np " day was hailed with a rapturous joy expressed in the school- boy anthem " Dulce Domum : " Tost grave tsediuin Advenit manium Meta petita laborum. • • • • Concinamus ad Penates Vox et audiatur: Phosphore, quid jubar Segnius emicans Gaudia nostra moratur ? " But in our time school-life has n ne a transformation. The home is no less ac;^., but the school is no longer pure weariness and misery. Things are not yet perfect ; all school-boys are not well housed and well fed ; all masters are not just ; but the general situation is improved, and indeed ennobled. In particular, the great gulf that used to be fixed between boys and masters has been narrowed and made shallow. Schoolmasters take :i i: THE SCHOOLBOY «9 a more hnman view of their dntie«. Often the strongest bonds of affection unite them with their pnpUs. Learnmg is less a matter of drndgery, and rawed with bis fortnnea. II Notwithstanding there is in the ordinary mind a great fear of the ordina^r boy. One observer tell' ns how he once saw the Strand thrown inl» terror confn,.o„, and distress by the nnaided wit of two !r„ X: TT" ' *'*^«^' '^•"P D'oember evening, when the lights were all brt yanqnished and the clothes and some straw, ont of which they made np an image snfflciently like a man to pass mnster n that nncertein light. With this, connterfeiting the action of aifectionate sons taking home \ beloved bnt intoxicated father, they wonld suddenly app»r ,n front of some passing omnibns, and then, affecting to Jose all presence of mind, allow their he pless parent to fall almost nnder the feet of the norses. The scene may be imagined. Terror of the passengers, horror of the driver, horses down through having been sharply turned aside or pulled up on the greasy pavement, general agitation- wh ch culminated when at length an omnibus with more way on than usnal actually passed over the body. 70 inPfr lii i THE ROUND GF THE CLOCK the wretched driver of course suffering the mental agonies of a homicide nntil relieved by seeing the straw intestines of his victim. It is not surprising that strong comments were passed on the perform- ance. Why shonld the penny-a-liner, with his nsnal flowery infelicity, write about the "street arab"? If there is a being in every respect the opposite of the grave, decorous, reverential Arab, it is the boy of the Rtrcets. Boys used to be fond of the Red Indian, and represent him as well as they could, and il. was granted that, of all human beings, the boy and the red man were the only two to whom cruelty per se was a pleasure. « We hear people talk of the fine, free, generous nature of boys, just as we hear them talk of whe noble red man of the forest, the noble savage, the gentleman of nature, etc., when they really mean a greasy, whooping, screeching, tomahawking savage." Even the boy who was careful about his dress and partial to ladies' societv was characterised as ho*, ing the same relatior the boy pure and simple as the town Indian with a civilisation consisting of trousers and fire-water sustains to the original red man of the prairie. A common question addressed by school-boys to one another is " Who's your tailor ? " The cruelty of this is clear in the case of those who have either out- grown their clothes or who have been dressed by thrifty parents to allow for expansion. The follow- ing, from "Tom Brown's Schooldays," probably falls THE SC HOOL-BOY 71 « w. ^Jl', ®"^^' ''°^'' ^«'' Ton», and Jks : Where did yon learn that throw?" *' Down in the coanti; when I was a boy." Hullo I why, what are you now?" I have preserved a gennine letter of a school- ^y to his mother which was printed in the opectator some years ago: "Mr Dear Ma, " I Wright to tell yoa I am very retched and my chilblains is worse again. I [Je tot made any progress and do not think I shall i am very sorry to be snch an expence, bnt I do no think this schnle is any good. One of the fellows has taken the crown of my best hat for a target, he has now borrowed m.' watch to make a water wheal with the works, but it wont act. Me anu him have tried to pnt the works back, bnt we think some wheals are missing L they wont fit. I hope Matilda's cold i. better, i am glad she is not at schule. i think i have .^ot consnmption. tiie boys at this place are not gentlemanly, bnt of conrse yon did not know thin when you sent me here, i will try not to get knees. 1 think the tailor mnst have cheated yon- he bnttons have come off, and they are loose n^ mind '7' ''"' *'^ '"^ '« ^^' ^"^ ^ ^^^1 not mmd if I was stronger. The piece of meat I n THB ROUND OF THE CLOCK send yon ie off the beef we had on Snnday, bnt on other days it i» more atringy. There are black beadles in the kitchen i*ud sometimes they cook ♦hem in the dinner, which cant be holesome when you are not strong. Dear Ma, I hope you and Pa are well, and do not mind my being so un- comfortable because i do not think i shall last long. Please send me some more money as i o 8d. if you cannot spare it I think I can borrow it of a boy who is going to leave at the half quarter and then he wont ask for it back again, but perhaps you wd. not like to be under an obligation to his parents, as they are tradespeople. I think you deal at their shop. I did not mention it or I dare say they wd. have pnt it down in the bill. " Yr. loving but retched son, (( III I make some notes from the psychologists in regard to the ages between ten and 5fteen. Between eleven and twelve there is a remarkable retardation in the bodily growth, as there is between seven and eight. At about eleven the child is expected to become somewhat critical and indeed fault-finding. About the thirteenth year the power of drawing inferences first begins to appear with some degree of vigour. Between nine and twelve there occurs a period i' ni Tns SCHOOLBOY 73 reneriJ^ „g,ried » the prep.rrtion for the we^t "pnrt that immediately follow, *^ fr„» flftt""^**. Wchologiet Earl Bamet «„ e- reue of the critical jndgment in matt.r. theolog-cal a, there 1. between twelve and fiC The enbject of precocity come, in here. The erm may be n,ed to denote prematnre «,tiWty „? the mtellect and also the far rarer phenomenon of nn.e..onable matnrity, or completeneee.Tf "ho Ihe brain that 18 nnasnallyactiye after four six or o^inary dnln^s before the age of twenty or hU has been re .'he;! The» .» &„ ^ , ' where - m i "ere are few recorded cases ^nrse^ftWH \'^'^'''f- "^en, in the common U -89- 1806) was matnre at three-and-twentv when .:m:r;'^T""if^-''«^-""tbet UK} more lit at three-and-fortv—hp "HiVi «^* example, for, great as his poetry is it is ™tr-,H. jocomplete, a.d this may b'e said I CoT^l perjading charms. « Hyperion » may be an er ception and that is left a fVagment On the other hand, boys who fail to dis ngaish 74 ! f I ^ TEE ROUND OF THE CLOCK themselves in ordinary stndies have sometimes a vision of their tme calling. T. H. Green (1836- 1882) when at Rngby wrote to his father : " The reason why most people think me idle is that I canno*^^ think it right to devote myself to the ordinary stndies of school and college, which to me, at least, are of very little profit; and hence the fruits of my labours do not at present appear, but I hope they will do in time." They did. Idealism, mysticism, transcendental- ism—these were not new. They have been as per- sistent through the ages as the buzzing in Socrates' ears that would not allow him to listen to Crito's common sense. But few have expounded them with a more potent and vital charm than Thomas Hill Green. \ %■■■■ 3 "! FROM TEN TO FIFTEEN Age 12 Whkn, at the age of twelve, Mohammed rB7ft-fia9\ - mot' f °"°^«/^«-^"«> to BassorahTelf I^akSr- monk who 18 said to have predicted for him a great future Joan of Arc (1412-1431) was in her thirteenth year Then her foleSvTrr:" ''" ""' ''' ^-'^ ^'^ -^- ^^^ 'er afttra:!::g^^::r jear":^^^^^^ -- School. He matriculated in O^Jobe, 1509 '"°'°*" Nckon (1768-1805) began as a midshipman on board the i?«ir.»n«*fe under his uncle. Captain Suckling. If Age 13 pupllTAStott IT ^T^Z^'-^ ^^-e at thirteen the Cn th^en'rhCr (H^^^^^^^ ^'''^^^' convel^t'afd ^oVi!'*"'" ""'"'""" Corday (1768-1793) entered a convent, and for some years was a model of piety. She dreamed 78 76 THE ROUND OF THE CLOCK of nothing but the closing of her life, which was then scarce opening at the first page. Age 14 Van Dyck (1699-1641) in his fifteenth year began to study nnder Bnbens. At fourteen Henry Temple (1784-1866), afterwards known as the redoubtable Viscount Palmerston, wrote to bis friend Hare : " I cannot agree with yon about marriage, though I should be by no means precipitate about my choice." At the age of fourteen William Bowan Hamilton (1806-1866) wrote a letter in Persian to the Persian Ambassador, who was then in DubUn. The strain is sufficiently Oriental : " As the heart of the worshipper is turned toward the altar of his sacred vision, and as the sunfiower to the rays of the sun, so to thy polished radiance turns, expanding itself, the yet unblossomed rosebud of my mind." Soon afterwards he acquired several other Unguages, Eastern as well as Western. This combina- tionof an extraordinary talent for languages with a yet higher genius for mathematics is rery rare. Marie Antoinette (1755-1793) was married at fourteen and suddenly introduced into the strange world at Versailles. Margaret, Countess of Blessington (1789-1849), was married at the same age. Anna, elder daughter of Melanchthon, was married at fourteen to George Sabinus. Age 15 Sophocles (496-405 B.C.) was fifteen years of age when the Greeks overthrew the Persians in the great sea-fight at Salamis, and he was chosen to lead the paean sung by a chorus of boja before the trophy raised to commemorate that victory. Bacon (1561-1626) was scarcely fifteen when the great thought took possession of him that the method of studying nature was wrong, and he asked himself if a better might not be found. Spedding says : "I believe it ought to be regarded as the most important event in his life; the event which had a greater influence than any other upon his character and future course " Prescott (1796-1859), the historian, was onlv fifteen when in a ^ROM TEN TO FIFTEEN 77 college frolic at Harvard he received a blow from a We hard enUrely lost the s.ght of this eye and the othe. became very ^owiey (1618-1667). Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879) wrote for the Royal Society of Edinburgh a paper "On the DescriptTon o^ Ova! Curves, and those having a Plumlity of Foci." " When wf con sider how little geometry Maxwell had at this time bTnTL/ht' the production of this paper must be regarded as anTstontshin; evidence of early power which can haiSly be pamHeled excro! Mtrd^T2'^^lSr ^-^^'-.ir*"^*^ of^ Jf ?a;;',r aawara 1. (1230-1307) was married in 1254 Mary, Queen of Scots, married in 1568 the Dauphin Francis fife mTn^S."^""^ "' °' ^"°°^> ''' '""^ ^« «' fifteTyeTrTrd •i .(, il ,t'- ■J I VII STURM UND DRANG : FROM FIFTEEN TO TWENTY To-day the clock is at ten, and the period dealt with is that between fifteen and twenty. We come now to the most critical, difficult, and complex period in human life. I shall make no attempt at a minute analysis of facts and sensa- tions. In an American book, "Adolescence," by Stanley Hall, much may be found about the physical changes of this period and their results. The American psychologists have also had much to say about the fact of conversion in this lustrum or that which preceded it. It is not for me to break the reticence on sexual matters which has come from the wisdom of the ages, and on religion I do not touch. The phrase Sturm und Drang (storm and striving) 78 "STURM VND DRANO" 79 wa, first uaed in . d.sma by Klinger. Ui^^» a great movement which took place in GennZ in he 'seventies of the eighteenth century. Men t ri S to bn>ak w,tl, the tradition, of the p«t, to abl L all law, and rule, hoping in this way to Tritt nie results were in some wavs bad ThJ c. a^dtl"^^ ''Tr' '»"--<' Herdl^lr aud Schiller, and they conquered its eMra—es Perhaps the obvions featnrPH n£ *k; best described by Professorl^ /j^^'' "f - Wnilg thl"' "t " r '""^ ""> ^-^ " '- ' ^ ^•««^<^- Wmonies ofTeln^^^^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^? ^"^« '^^ and chemical law Tlr , "''''"^^'' ^^ P^^y^ical and the meTihyl^^^^^^^^^^ ^chology their turn- and C .f n r*"' °^^'^^^'^« ^^^e arn, and, last of all, the drama of human 6 82 THE ROUND OF THE CLOCK affairs and worldly wisdom in the widest sense of the term. In each of as a saturation-point is soon reached in all these things : the impetus of our purely intellectual zeal expires, and unless the topic be associated with some urgent personal need that keeps onr wits constantly whetted about it, we settle into an equilibrium, and live on what we learned when onr interest was fresh and instinctive, without adding to the store/' m All this is just, but by no means complete. One great thing to be mas^,ered in youth is thoroughness. This is what gives significance to University dis- tinctions. These may uot prove superior mental iH)wer, and they do not guarantee persistence of success through life, but they are a proof, so far as they go, that their recipients know at least what knowledge means. Matthew Arnold defines charla- tanism as the "confusing or obliterating the distinctions between excellent and inferior, sound and unsound, or only half sound, true and untrue, or half true." Napoleon one day said, when some- body was spoken of in his presence as a charlatan, " Charlatan as much as you please, but where is there not charlatanism?" There is charlatanism everywhere, and the charlatan often seems to rise high and grow rich. But the disinterested love of knowledge brings its own reward, and strangely ennobles character. Perhaps this quality, as much "srcrjuf UND draa-o" — __^__ *' M .ny other, hs. made France illu.trioaa. Ita^m; the heart to read of Berthelot refusing to take"" Pitente on d«coverie8 which wonld Lvetolh to keep. Offered by .ngar-refiner. a life-anniiity of t W r ''""'" "f • "'""»'' '""«=» for a new m thod of extracting gl„co8e, he .aid : « I wil' gTvI .t to yon for nothing. We work for honon^ „ ,^„r t^ W e'rferv'"" u'; ^T" '»"«' *-"-»«"' " a word to wl l''*^" ^''•^"'■' '"«' ""'y '» »y a word to become the master of millions. He keot -j.^of^cer'TfLicrg^rity^i' ;-n« he wanted the prions stuff to e,;:"-' .tnH'" . ^t' "'"^ '"'<' » '=<>'»I««'y of medical .tadents the master-word of lifeLthe wonTwhth >» the open sesame to every rortal »h, . r I'r "" ""^ "O'"' *"« t- phUotther- sC il old' T'" f "" •""« '»'"«' »f h— y aX\;r:ti:^^:-»-" -i„roU^^^ stress I ifl . "^ ''^ '" "■« P»"°^« ^""^ he were "as poor as brought hira made an entire change in him, but his terrible religious struggle did not come to an end for «,me years James Boswell (1740-1795) came to London at twenty with his father in the hope of obtaining a commission in the o'ua" s They consulted the Duke of Argyll, and he discouraged the mnitar^ v ea "My lord." said the Duke. "I like yo^ur son! this toy must not be shot at for three shillings and sLpence a s4e'ini?75.^'"'' °'*'^' ^" '^"' appearance on the London 1 1^ i VIII "THE TURN OF THE ROAD AND YOU." —FROM TWENTY TO TWENTY-FIVE The clock is now at eleven, and the period treated from twenty to twenty-five. There is no a-e for ove, and it has been affirmed that in modern "times the spectacle of an elderly man in love has ceased to appear ridicnlons, and has become interesting and pathetic. Onr ancestors langhed at an elderly bachelor with a grand passion, and were more merciless to elderly spinsters. Marianne Dash- wood, in Miss Austen's story "Sense and Sen- sibiiity, when she was a girl of seventeen, declared that thirty-five has nothing to do with matri- mony. Thirty-five was the age of her lover, Colonel Brandon, and Marianne defended him from jokes on the ground of his advanced years. " When 18 a man to be safe from such wit," she cried « if age and infirmity will not protect him ? " Happily 92 i^jl ^E TURN OF TUB ROAD AND YOU- 93 Marianne consented to marry the Colonel two j^ afterwards, m spite of his thirty-seven years^and h.s flannel waistcoat. M. Bonrget, greatly dIrZ has declared that fifty-three is the ideal age fS remember how ha refers to Balzac's saying tha men are most dangerous to the hearts of snsceptible women at the age of fifty-two. « Balzac," says h ' "onght to know, if what is said by Goethe abont h.m .s trn, that each of his stories 'mnsmveteo' that men and women keep their yoath mnch longer than they once did. Still yonth is the natnralZe for love and thongh elderly people may be my wise m lovmg, it is best to love early ^ And no doubt yoath anticipates this counsel, and m1 T.k'"'"'^ \o...^mr. before twentylone but p easant memories, gome of them, however are djsasrous indeed. Walter Scotfs'fi,^tTove was also h.s last, and her name had power to stir h.s heart till that heart ceased to b»T "It because he knew passion too well that he i, not a poet of passion. There is nothing in Scott like the 't:k:ie?H:,,r™\"pt"'^ "^ '"^ '»-"'" i>)ck8ley Hall ana m 'Maud.' Only in the »g.t,ve iarew.ll caress of Diana Vernon.^toop ng rides into the night, do we feel the heart-throb of ■\\. I i ( S 94 THE ROUND OF THE CLOCK Walter Scott. Of love, as of human life, he knew too much to speak." Less is known of the passion which in a manner wrecked the life of J. M. W. Turner. He fell in love with the sister of an old Margate schoolfellow. After the usual exchange of vows. Turner left his portrait with the loved one, and, promising to write frequently, started v^ a long sketching tour. In his absence the girl's step- mother intercepted his letters, and, not hearing from her lover and thinking he had forgotten her, she gave her hand to another, and the day was fixed for the wedding. A week before. Turner returned; but it was too late. The young lady thought herself bound in honour, and Turner left her in bitter grief, declaring he would never marry. One of Turner's biographers lays much stress on this episode, and thinks that it wrought on the painter "incalculable harm by souring his great and generous nature. The misery of his scathed life, and the constant dwelling on those sad words, *the fallacies of hope,' prove the unchangeability of his passion." Heine fell in love when he was about nineteen, but his love was more than crossed ; it wub flung back with disdain, and the lady married another. This was a great and critical time in the life of the poet. The vision of the lost love hangs over his poems. He seems to be singing to one he cannot forget and can never win. " ■] ill ^^TUE TURN OF THE ROAD AND YOU" 95 Bat first loves are not always to be taken so serionsly. I hold that the test of the true Dickensian is neither Calverley's test nor Sivin- nfT' v"i ,*u' ^'^'''' *^ ^*"^« *t o»«« t^e lover, of Mrs^ Nickleby. Kate asked her mother whether she had many snitors. "'Suitors my dear!' cried Mrs. Nicklebv, with a smile of wonderful com- placency. 'First and last, Kate, I must have had a dozen at least.' "'Mamma I 'returned Kate in a tone of remonstrance. "*I had indeed, my dear,' said Mrs. Nickleby; 'not in- eluding your poor papa, or a young gentleman who used to go at that time to the same dancing-school, and who would send gold wafches and bracelets to our house in gilt-edged paper which were always returned), and who afterwards unfortunately went out to Botany Bay in a cadet b.I""\Tn''i \^^P ^ mean-and escaped into a bush and killed sheep (I don't know how they got there) and was going to be hung, only he accidentally choked himself, and the Government pardoned him. Ihen there was young Lukin,' said Mrs. Nickleby, beginning with her left thumb and checking off -.^ '■J ■n 96 THE ROUND OF THE CLOCK ^W the names on her fingers— * Mogley—Tipslark— Cabbery— Smifser '" Unfortnnately, at this point the gentleman with the vegetable marrow intervened, and we shall never know the rest In a book, "The Early Letters of Jane Welsh Carlyle," edited by D. G. Ritchie, we have a brief parallel. Some of us take leave to dislike Mrs. Carlyle and to be very sorry for her husband. When the lady was about nineteen she wrote to a confidential friend : « No lover will Jane Welsh ever find like St. Preux, no husband like Wolmar (I don't mean to insinuate that I should like both)-, and to no man will she ever give her heart and pretty hand who bears these no resemblance. George Rennie! James Aitken I Robert MacTurk! James Baird ! ! 1 Robby Angus ! . . . Where is the Wolmar? Bess, I am in earnest— I shall never marry." Bat it may be doubted whether Mrs. Carlyle passed quite unhurt through the fires. There was Edward Irving. Very sacred and beautiful is the true dawn of love in a maiden's soul, and few descriptions of it are more delicate than that of Sydney Dobell's in his poem on " The Coming of Love " : •' When we all lie still Where churchyard pines their funeral vigil keep, Thou shalt rise up early While the dews are deep ; Thee the earliest bird shall rouse From thy maiden sleep, Thy white bed in the old house Where we all, in our day. Lived and loved so cheer'-' And thou shaJt take thy ^ay Where the nodding daffodil lells thee he is near • Where the lark above' the com oings him to thine ear ; Where thine own oak, fondly grim And the beckoning beechen spray Beckons, beckons thee to him. Thee to him, and him to thee : Stealest through dim paths untrid Taking witness, quick and shy. Of each bud and herb and tree If thou doest well or no When no other dreams of ill ; The girl-tree whom best thou knowest, Waves the garlands of her joy Of all the paths in one path only The primroses where thou goest Thicken to thy feet, as though Ihou already wert in heaven, And walking in the galaxy." i; m II ihft V*"" w°^^°^ ^^ *^' ^^^« «^ « lifetime, of the meeting between two who look the look that 7 98 THE ROUND OF THE CLOCK » -IKS ^ I . ii 1 \ is at once an avowal and a covenant. This is what happens : "Soft, grey buds on the willow, Warm, moist winds from the bay, Sea-gulls out on the sandy beach. And a road my eager feet would reach, That leads to the Far-away. "Dust on the wayside flower, The meadow-lark's luring tone Is silent now, from the grasses tipiied With dew at the dawn, the pearls have slipped— Far have I fared alone. "And then, by the alder thicket The turn of the road— and you ! Though the earth lie white in the noonday heat. Or the swift storm follow our hurrying feet, What do we care — we two ! " It is on this mystic mating that the real happi- ness of life depends, and nothing else is to be named in comparison. Alaric Watts (1797-1864), a journalist of last century, who had no money, thought himself justified in marrying a charming Quakeress, with whom he had been smitten at first sight. He was twenty-four, and, according to his friend. Miss Jewsbnry, " had the rashest temper and kindest heart of any man she ever knew." He had no notion of economy, was rarely out of debt, and ultimately became bankrupt. Yet in her old age and widowhood Mrs. Watts was able to say, with an expression of rapture on her face, ** My life has not ■ ! been a prosperont one— far from it—UMiTZTT a banquet of love." "' " ''•" '««'' edited L :?"' *"■' *'° »»' '«'«' to be 3 ?■;■ . ^ "? '"'"' ""> *'""»' »' ""'dom, loth torn he biogrephie, of actor,. Macready ( T«3- and when hi, engagement to Mi,, Catherine Atkin, who wa. a very jonng provincial actre,, of no n ™' inends. Ihere i, an amusing account of how he ,«ter, evident surprise and disappointment for the'reTof :f '"f- "'"' ""> ""'^'p-S fc!r / ^ .? "■* •'"y- B"t Macready's own feehngfor Catherine was always tender andZticI? begun. She was to play Virginia to his Virginius iimselff "■'■ "' '""'*"' '^''»'"- He "rS of "int*.ir *»"■'«'''''''«' fo' « Fcniiar expression ^b^^V2 ■"«» uprightly gentleness' She Pril^ J ^T ^'"^""^^ ""> P^rt of the rtince of Wales, and was introduced to me by the On thff M ""-^ "^"^^^ ^" *« "«' nighfs play vS ',"""" *" SO through the scenes of d^eTsrf in T7 r '''^'™««'""- Sbe was dressed m a closely-fitting tartan frock, which m 100 THE ROUND OF THE CLOCK showed off to advantage the perfect lymmetry of her figure. . . . She might have been Virginia.** This last sentence slips oot qnite nnconscionsly and almost accidentally. ''She might have been Virginia." The matter was settled. Still more beantifnl is the brief romance of Charles Mayne Yonng, the tragedian (1777-1856). He was married at St. Anne's (*hnrch, Liverpool, on March 9, 1805, to Miss Jnlia Ann Qrimani, a descendant of the famons Venetian family of that name. She died at the age of twenty-one on Jnly 17, 1806, after giving birth to a son, Jnlian Charles, who became a clergyman, and wrote his father's life. Yonng lived fifty years longer, passing a blameless life and mnch respected by all, bat he never married again ; and before the end came, and as it came, his memory constantly reverted to the old love, from which no blandishment of woman had ever l^awn him away. His son tells as how, in moments of family intercourse, "he loved to revert to her beauty, her tenderness to him, her devotion to her parents." At such times he would take from the recesses of a secret drawer her miniature, and, as he gazed upon it till the tears ran down his furrowed cheeks, he would deplore its unworthy presentment of her sweet face, and then he would produce, from a cherished morocco-case, a long tress of chestnut hair cut from her luxuriant locks. Mr. Julian Young adds that the affection seemed to grow stronger as the supreme hour drew ''THE TURN OF THE ROAD AXD YOU" 101 nearer. The dying hntiband dreamed of heaven only in connection with her who for a brief Apace had created a heaven on earth aronnd them both. " Thank God I I ghall soon see my Jnlia," were almost the last words that fell from his lips. Ill This period, the fifth Instmmof life, is the time when great things start. It is the time when men feel a buoyant sense of mental vigour and delight m the exercise of intellectual weapons. Browning (1812-1889) published "Paracelsus" in 1836. It has been well said : "A poem so full of the life- blood of humanity would have been a wonderful phenomenon had the writer been a man in the very prime of a poet's strength, when the soul has been ripened by much joy and pain, schooled by a thoosand hopes and the thousand disappointments that come of a thousand hopes ; but what other English writer at the age of twenty-four ever con- centrated in a poem so much life, intellectual and emotional, as did Mr. Browning in "Paracelsus " ? Again, the critical faculty often takes years to mature, but Charies Lamb (1775-1834) at twenty- one was among the very first to detect the real significance of Coleridge and Wordsworth. ^ m Jll ill '1 i: 111. i FROM TWENTY TO TWENTY-PIVE Age 21 Sebastian Cabot was probably twenty-one when be sailed in 1499 on his expedition and discovered eighteen hundred miles of sea-coast of the North American continent. His crew mutinied, and he had to return. Martin Luther in 1505 became a monk and entered the Augustinian monastery in Erfurt. Melanchthon became professor of Greek at Wittenberg Uni- versity in 1618, a position he held for forty-two years, until his death. William Cobbett (1762-1835) was twenty-one when he quitted his home, and, without communicjvting his design to any one, started for London. He became an under-clerk to an attorney' but this kind of life did not suit him. He did not think of returnmg home, however, but on the contrary, rushing from one bold step to another still more so, he enlisted as a private soldier lu a regiment intended to serve in Nova Scotia. William Pitt made his maiden speech on February 26, 1781, on Burke's motion for the economical reform of the civil list. Henry Kirke White died in 1806, 8ir David Wilkie first exhibited in the Academy in 1806 Sir Robert Peel (1788-1850) entered Parliament in 1809, his father having bou ,'ht a seat for him at Cashel. Shelley published " Queen Mab " in 1813. Browning published " Pauline " in 1833. Oliver Cromwell married in 1620. George Romney, the painter, married Mary Abbot, of Kirkknd, a young woman who had nursed him through an illness. Shortly 102 FROM TWENTY TO TWENTY-FIVE 103 after he imagmea that he had taken a rery imprudent step, and set ont in 1762 for London. leaving his wife and two children behind. She was never invited to join him, and during thirty, two years he visited her only twice ; but in 1798. when he required a nurse, he returned to his wife, who tenderly ministered to him in his weakness. Richard Brinsley Sheridan (1751-1816) married the beautiful singer Miss Linley in 1773, ,fi5l''!"»,°t'^^*l;r?^™ Elizabeth Cleghorn Stevenson, married in 1832 the Rev. William Gaskell, a Unitarian minister. Age 22 Alfred the Great (849-901) succeeded his brother as King of the West Saxons, after having already distinguished himself against the Danes. Canute became King of England in 1016, and married Emma, widow of Aethelred. St. Bernard of Clairvaux, at the age of twentvtwo, with thirty companions, in 1113 entered the monastery of Citeaux, where he became famous for the strictness with which he observed a very strict rule. ' Kepler, after years of family trouble, brought on by the mis- conduct of his mother and the poverty of his father, became professor of mathematics at Gratz in 1593. Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727) in 1664 discovered the method of infinite series, and probably in this year or the next began to speculate on the subject of gravity. William Congreve in 1693 produced The Old Bachelor Mark Akenside (1721-1770) published in 1744 his "Pleasures of Imagination." George Washington (1732-1799) fought his first action, aided by a party of Indians, against the French. He was in the hottest nre, but was forced to surrender. On May 16. 1761, Boswell was introduced to Dr. Johnson in the shop of Mr. Davies, a bookseller, of 8. Russell Street. Covent Garden. Much came of that. At this age Lavoisier (1743-1794) competed for the prize for the best essay on lighting the streets of Paris. Finding in the course of his experiments that his eyes were not sufficiently sensitive to detect the difference between the power of the ■#1 if? I ' ii 1' ( i 10^ TffE ROUND OF THE CLOCK wl!ln ht ^Vl^^ *°* himself up in a dark room for six weeks, when his ,igbt became so sensitive that be was able to perceive the smallest distinctions. He gained the medal. ^ Thomas Campbell, the poet, of whom perhaps more was written im":?SePr'^^*i'" "^'^^ anyotherVet,pnblXedt rmat^^^dTr'^l'^^^^' '''^^' ^" '-tantl,^p„iar alike w« "^Hr"7/^^^'^^®^' '^^ twenty.two when at Oxford he SIS; I rf ""^ ^"* """^^ experience of the deadly breath t^^^^lT '^^^ "^ ""^- ^ °-^^ *-««* '^^ °"«^^ Disraeli published his first novel. '• Vivian Grey." in 1826 ^r^''''" "^^f '"^ '''' °° ''^^ ^""O'^^ ^^'V^' voyage. « -.1 ! o^ *" ''" twenty.two when on Octobw 6, 1845 he qmtted Saint Sulpice. leaving behind him the faith which Se had once hoped to teach. 1862, and had an immediate and stortUng success. Scotr^n •'^^^"^"^"'^ *' *"« ^« '^^'^ Mary Queen of Scots, who mamed Damley in 1565. and John WUkes his wife ^r^ble ^'°°'"^ '^' ^^'""'^"^^ '^ '^^^'^^d ">d Age 23 Alexander the Great defeated Darius at Issus. 333 B.C. " I am now master of Asia," he wrote somewhat later to Da ius " « you will not own me as such. I shall treat you as aTeJJl doer fidr Ish ut'^*' *'^ P°^°*' '^^ «° «^« — orthe Ltue: field. I shall take care to find you wherever you may be" ^^Savunarola entered the Dominican Monastery of Bologna in neS'lSm ^\^'\^^3«> ''^' the Augustinian monastery of f .. Spinoza, in 1666, was excommunicated by the syna«rojrue ^ Amsterdam, after the Rabbis Lad vainly tried briberyTnir^V FROM TWENTY TO TWESTY-FIVE 105 Pope Bu-^J"*'"*''*^ ^^ " ^^y °'» Criticism " in 1711 Sheridan produced Tke Rivah in 1775. which fiilrd H,» ««* night, but quickly achieved a triumphant suc^lsa. '"' bamuel Rogers published his first volume of poems in I78fi ■ I' S ' ""'■' •" *^"' 'nwes of hU tenia. John Beat, publishcu •• Endymion " In 1818 ' thi..f;?^°^u.<'?*-'"^'''"'"^« Cariin.1, obtoinedat i^LrMrs^'?,rr8rxr°^%"\7''"' '"^^^^^^^^ ess of '.Ppp„' rri. V ?^'"'*^^''^"'- ^^<»rtimer, author. ZSoJml '^'' ^°' '''' '"* ^^'-*«^ •^^ thought to L Among others who married at this age were Pesf^ln,,* i t,i Age 24 lost. ;. I ^ much fear, and it rend v^^l^ ^^^^^ ^^..^^J^- -- varying chances of that battle." It isTeSSed bv n^^^r I Beatrice Portinari died in 1290. at the age of twenty-four Cervantes (1547-1616) volnnteered a, a private soldier against 106 THE ROUND OF THE CLOCK the Turks and lost his left hand at the battle of Lepanto in 1671. At this age most probably Milton (1608-1674) wrote "L'Alle- gro " and " II Penseroso." Richard Baxter beg^n bis ministry at Kidderminster in 1640. William Penn wrote his famous tract called "The Sandy Foundation Shaken," for which he was committed to the Tower, in 1668. While there he wrote " No Cross, No Crown." Isaac Watts preached his first sermon on his twenty-fourth birthday, July 17, 1698. Voltaire's first tragedy, (Edipe, was performed in 1718, and achieved a triumphant success. Linnaeus in 1731 was appointed to travel in Lapland under royal authority, and at the expense of the University of Upsala. This gave him an opportunity for extended observation, and was an important turning-point in his life. George Whitefield (1714-1770) preached bis first open-air ser- mon. At Bristol he was forbidden the cburchesi, and took his stand upon rising ground within range of the Kingswood collieries, his first field-pulpit. Werner (1750-1817), the founder of the science of mineralogy, published from the obscurity of a mine at Freyberg, where he acted as officer, an epoch-making volume called " A Treatise en the Eternal Characters of Minemls." In 1783, after the defeat of the Coalition Ministry on Fox's India Bill, Pitt became Prime Minister at the age of twenty-four, George Canning made his maiden speech in Parliament on January 31, 1794, and it was more or less a failure. Lord Byron published in March 1812 the first two cantos of "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage." He awoke one morning and found himself famous. Thomas Carlyle in 1819 began to sufiEer from the dyspepsia which tormented him through life. The three most miserable years of his life followed, years of mental agony, religious crisis, and pecuniary struggle. T. B. Macaulay, a few months after his election to a fellowship at Trinity, published bis first article— that on Milton — in the Edinburgh Review for August 1825. Harriet Martineau was virtually engaged in 1826, when her betrothed became suddenly insane, and, after months of illness \\i FROM . 7ENTY TO TWENTY-FIVE 107 of body and mind, died. Bhe said : " I am in truth very thankful for not having married at all." John Ruskin published the first volume of " Modem Painters" in 1843. William Morris published " The Defence of Guinevere " in 1858. Among those married at twenty-four were Ebenezer ErKkiae, William Carey, H. P. Cary (the translator of Dante), Bulwer Lytton, and Charles Dickens, who " married the wrong sister." Ji 'fl,f Age 25 The crisis jf St Francis of Assisi's life came with a severe ill- ness at the age of twenty-five. He resolved to devote himself antirely to poverty and the religious life. Anne Askew was burned as a heretic in 1546. John Lyly published his " Enphues, or the Anatomy of Wit." in 1579. Ben Jonson published in 1599 Etery Man in hit Humour, his first independent work. In the same year he was in prison, and in danger of the gallows, for having killed Gabriel Spenser in a duel. In the pris i he met a Roman Catholic priest, and the result wes his conversion to Rome, to which he adhered for twelve years. Jacob Bohme (born 1675) had a •• revelation of the essences, properties, and uses of the grass and herbs of the field, etc." Descartes, after nearly five years' experience of military life, returned to France in 1621 and renounced the profession of arms. Rembrandt painted " The Anatomist" in 1632. George Berkeley in 1710 published his " Treatise concerning the Principles of Human Knowledge." The " Otles " of William Collins were published in 1746. When Edward Gibbon was twenty-five, in 1792, he reviewed his own character and position : " The shining qualities of my understanding are extensiveness a^J penetration ; but I want both quickness and exactness. As to my situation in life, though I may sometimes repine at it, it is perhaps the best adapted to my character. I can command all the conveniences of life, and I can command, too, that independence (that first earthly bless- ■itfiii 108 THE ROUND OF THE CLOCK ing) which U hardly to be met with in a higher or lower fortone." Charlotte Corday mardered Marat in his bath in 1793, and was ezeoQted foor days afterwards. Her demeanour is said to have been so self-possessed and noble as almost to remove her from the class of criminalo. In the aatnmn of 1795 Wordsworth decided to set np house- keeping with his sister Dorothy, and have no profession but poetry. In 1805 he wrote to Sir George Beaumont : " Upon the interest of the £900, and £100 more which the ' Lyrical Ballads ' have brought me, my sister and I contrived to live seven years, nearly eight." Poor Dorothy, even nature failed to please her when William was away I Si i " Only, my Love's away 1 I'd as lief that the blue were grey." In 1797 Coleridge wrote "The Ancient Mariner," "Geneviftve," and " Christabel." At twenty-five Palmerston was offered the Chancellorship of the Exchequer, but on consulting his friends he declined the honour and accepted an appointment to the War Office instead. He thus " declined the brilliant offer to accept the safe one." John Keats died at twenty-five. " On February 3, 1820, the first open sign of disease showed itself. Keats returned home late at night, severely chilled by a winter's drive without a coat on the outside of a stage coach ; and at Brown's suggestion at once went to bed." " I entered his chamber as he leapt into bed. On entering the cold sheets, before his head was on the pillow, he slightly coughed, and I heard him say, ' That is blood from my mouth.' I went towards him : he was examining a single drop of blood upon the sheet. 'Bring me the candle, Brown, and let me see this blood.' After regarding it stead- fastly he looked up into my face, with a calmness of countenance I can never forget, and said : « I know the colour of this blood- it is arterial blood — I cannot be deceived in that colour ; that drop of blood is my death-warrant ; I must die.' " In 1820 he went abroad, and at first the sea air seemed to soothe him, and he wrote, "Bright star, would I were steadfast as thou art." On February 23, 1821, he died in Rome, and Severn thus de- FROM TWENTY TO TWENTY FIVE 109 scribes the scene : <* He is gone : he died with the most perfect ease— he seemed to go to sleep. On the twenty-third, at about four, the approaches of death came on. < Severn— I— lift me up —I am dying— I shall die easy ; don't be frightened— be firm, and thank God it has come.' I lifted him up in my arms. The phlegm seemed boiling in his throat, and increased until eleven, when he gradnally sank into death so quietly that I still thought he slept." Abraham Lincoln was elected a member of the State Legis- lature in 1834, and thus entered on his political career. Henry Fawoett, afterwards Professor of Political Economy at Cambridge, was accidentally blinded by some pellets from his father's gun in 1868. Edward Whymper made the first ascent of the Matterhorn in 1865. Among those who married at twenty-five were Charles I., Thomas Fairfax, William '^^lake, and Thomas Arnold of Rugby. J. G. Lockhart in 1820 married Sir Walter Scott's eldest daughter Sophia. E. E. Manning, afterwards Cardinal, married Miss Caroline Sargent in 1833. In 1837 his young and beautiful bride died, leaving no children. " There is never a daughter of Eve but once, ere the tale of her day is done. She will know the scent of the Eden rose, just once beneath the sun 1 And whatever else she may win or lose, endure, or do, or dare, She will never forget the enchantment ii gave to the common air; For the world may give her content, or joy, fame, sorrow, or sacrifice. But the hour that brought the scent of the rose, she lived it in Paradise. I I 11 IX "THAT FATEFUL SIXTH LUSTRUM": FROM TAVENTY-FIVE TO THIRTY We come now to the Instrnm between eleven and twelve of the clock ; the lastrnm where the noon of life may be said to be attained ; the period beween twenty-five and thirty. This means for almost every man the first home, the first start in practical life. Many, indeed, have set out earlier. There are multitudes who have begun to earn their own living at fourteen, and in not a few sad cases much sooner than that. But by the time a man is twenty-five, or at any rate in the years between twenty-five and thirty, there is commonly a new seriousness and responsibility in life — a house, mar- riage it may be, and children, the true commence- ment of the independent career. Also, according to certain psychologists, this is the lustrum in which no ''THAT FATEFUL SIXTH LUSTRUM" 111 the character gets a set. Professor James says : " Already at the age of twenty-five you see the professional manneriRin settling down on the yonng commercial traveller, on the yonng doctor, on the young minister, on the yonng counsellor at law. You see the little lines of cleavage running through the character, the tricks of thought, the prejudices, the ways of the shop, iu a word, from which the man can by-and-by no more escape than his coat- sleeve can suddenly fall into a new set of folds." \ '■ Carlyle, in his essay on Scott, recognises with unerring insight the importance of this period, and the fact that it is especially critical to those who thus early have given promise or even attained a reputation. A young man shows signs of dis- tinguished ability. He gives pledges by college reputation and even by first essays in public life. Some speech of his attracts attention, or he writes a book which excites a lively interest in his future. He is tempted to think that his future is already assured. As Carlyle says : " What a strange Nemesis lurks in the felicities of men I In thy mouth it shall be as sweet as honey, in thy belly it shall be bitter as gall I Some weakly-organised individual, we will say at the age of five-and-twenty, whose main or whole talent rests on some pmrient susceptivity, and nothing under it but shallowness and vacuum, is clutched ^^1 112 THE ROUND OF THE CLOCK hold of by the general imagination, ii whirled aloft to the giddy height : and tanght to believe the divine-seeming message that he is a great man : snch individual seems the luckiest of men : and, alas, is he not the nnlackiest ? Swallow not the Circe-dranght, weakly-organised individual ; it is fell poison ; it will dry up the fountains of thy whole existence, and all will grow withered and parched ; thou shalt be wretched under the sun I Is there, for example, a sadder book than that * Life of Byron ' by Moore ? " In our country a father thinks that he has done all that can reasonably be expected of him when he has fitted his son for a trade or a profession. But, as has been said, the French parents recognise that the real tng-of-war comes in the first years of practical contact with the world, and do everything within their power to serve as buflTers for him against the hard knocks of these critical years. Thus, the Frenchman literally remains papa's boy {le Jila d papa), and the Frenchwoman mamma's girl {la fille a maman)^ so long as the father and mother live. n In his book on "The Intellectual Life," Mr. P. G. Hamerton, in a letter " To a young man of brilliant ability who had just taken his degree," draws a domestic picture : " It is always a great pleasure to me to pass "THAT FATSFDl SIXTH LUSTRVU" uj •n ereniDg »t yonr father's hon,e ; bat on the tut ocmion thrt pleunre wu very mnch enhanced beeaiue yon were once more with ne. I watched yoar mother 8 eye. as she «it in her place in the drawing-room They followed yon almost withont ceasing, and there was the sweetest, happiest ex- pression on her dear face that betrayed her tender pnde. Your father was equally happy in his own way : he was mnch more gay and talkative than I have seen him for two or three anxious years; he told amusing stories; he entered playfully into the jests of others ; he had projects for the future, and spoke of them with facetious exaggeration. I sat qnietly in my corner, slily ohserving my old friends, and amusing myself bv ^TtKdt^ rrof"" tht r '^"'^ the first successes of your manhood , by the evi dence of your strength ; by the realfsation „f hopes long cherished." "»aiion ol J}X " '"/'"I. " S"""" '■»" fo' parents, when sure found'. ""t "''"'''^" """" '» ^ - »" » Z .LT f "■;' '•"'' "■' i'°'«in»«on revels in the prospect of victories to come. 8 114 THE ROUND OF THE CLOCK I III Bat it tarns oat too often that the promising yoang man is foredoomed to disappoint himself and to disappoint others. Allowance mast be made for an occasional arrest of intellectaal development. In the ftiller life of manhood, as in early years, pre- cocity is sometimes followed by mediocrity. We mast allow also for the slowing of progress by feeble health. Bat the failures are mainly dae to a want of persistence. There are those who can make a short, strennoas eflfort, bat are incapable, apparently, of long and sustained exertion. With some the first step of recognition acts as a narcotic and paralyses the organs of action. There mast be strong and gennine devotion and high conscien- tionsness for the accomplishment of eager hopes. Those who have developed slowly, who have done little at school or college, who have neglected prescribed tasks, may retrieve whatever has been lost if they set themselves whole-heartedly to the weighty labours of life. Dr. Osier is emphatic on that point, and what is true of the medical pro- fession is equally true of others. I cannot do better than quote him. "Five years, at least, of trial await the man after parting from his teachers and entering upon an independent course — ytars upon which his future depends, and from which his horoscope may be cast with certainty. It is all the same whether he ""THAT FATEFUL SIXTH LUSTRUM" 115 iettles in a conutry village or goes on with hospital and laboratory work ; whether he takes a prolonged trip abroad or whether he settles down in practice with a father or friend— these five waiting years fix his fate, so far as the stndent life is concerned. Without any strong natural propensity to stndv, he may feel such a relief after graduation that the efibrt to Uke to books is beyond his mental strength ; and a weekly journal, with an occasional text-book, furnish pabulum enough at least to keep his mind hibernating. But ten years later he is dead mentally, past any possible hope of galvanising into life as a student, fit to do a routine practice, often a capable, resourceful man, bnt without any deep convictions, and probably more interested in stocks or in horses than in diagnosis or thera- peutics. But this is not always the fate of the student who finishes his work on (Commencement Day. There are men full of zeal in practice, who give good service to their fellow-creatnres, who have not the capacity or the energy to keep up with the times. -While they have lost interest in science, they are loyal members of the profession, and appreciate their responsibilities as snch. That fateful first lustrum ruins some of onr most likely material. Nothing is more trying to the soldier than inaction, to mark time while the battle is raging all about him ; and waiting for practice IS a serious strain under which many yield. In the cities it is not so hard to keep up : there is ilk .^..^ 116 THE ROUND OF THE CLOCK ,t i work in the dispensaries and colleges; and the stimnlas of the medical colleges ; bnt in smaller towns and in the country it takes a strong man to live throngh the years of waiting withont some deterioration." That fatefnl first Instmm ! A yonng man finds himself in a position which he considers mnch beneath his powers. If he has distingaished him- self in earlier stages he discovers, with disappoint- ment, that very few are aware of his success, and that those who know are watchfnl. He is tempted to think that anything will do. The words " This will do " have probably done more harm than any others. So in many cases a process of deterioration sets in, and the highest visions fade. Nothing is more noticeable in the great books on condnct than the universal conviction of wise men that the practice of reading is most difficult to keep up. At all events comparatively few remain students or investigators to the last. Any one who has kept his eyes open has seen the creeping of mental paralysis, the contentment with a low standard of work, the limitation of interests to the narrowest circle, and the ruin which every one perceives before the subject is aware of it. Sometimes the failure takes another form. There is an effort, by dogmatism or by eccentricity, to break in on the solid indifference of the world. In lieu of the gold of fame, the German silver of notoriety ''THAT FATEFUL SIXTH LUSTRUM" 117 is sought. The rashnesses of youth are often a sign of promise, and are not judged too harshly by the experienced. But the saddest of fates is for a good man to become a Cheap Jack. There may be an apparent triumph at the beginning, but the man is irrevocably lost, and the time comes when he is compelled to recognise it. No, there is but one way : that is the way of daily conscientious labour. The one object should be the faithful performance of the task, with a constant desire to learn. John Locke said that the main point of education is to get a relish of " knowledge." If this is so, much of our education seems to be inefficient. Those who have a relish of knowledge will go on to-day, satisfied to let the day's work absorb their thoughts. There is no way but « to follow the great wheel uphill." Whoever does that is sure of his own at last. Carlyle says of Scott : " Seemingly without much effort, but taught by Nature, and the instinct which instructs the sound heart what is good for it and what is not, he felt that he could always do without this same emblazonry of reputation ; that he ought to put no trust in it ; but be ready at any time to see it pass away from him and to hold on his way as before. It is incalculable, as we conjecture, what evil he escaped in this manner: what perversions, irritations, mean agonies without a name he lived wholly apart from, knew nothing of." f8 .- i f r- ■ ] 118 THE ROUND OF THE CLOCK IV One of the most wonderful of all literary achieve- ments was the publication of the " Pickwick Papers," pablished in 1837. Dickens had began them early in 1836, in which year his " Sketches by Boz " were collected and pnblished. The first of the Boz sketches appeared in December, 1833, when the anthor was twenty-one. As has been well said : ''He kept himself and his life apart from and above the temptations which the great world is only too eager to oflfer to every one who is new and brilliant and amasing. When ' Pickwick * came oat that great wit Sydney Smith said, in my hear- ing : * Three hundred soup tickets ! ' But from the first, as to the last, Dickens was not to be cajoled by the person of quality who desired to make an exhibition of possibly the most original English writer of domestic fiction the world has ever seen." It was at twenty-six that Carlyle passed through the severe experience which he called his conver- sion, or new-birth. He has described it in " Sartor Resartus " : " Thus had the Everlasting No (das ewige Nein) pealed authoritatively through all the recesses of my being, of my ME ; and then was it that my whole Me stood up, in native God-created majesty, and with emphasis recorded its Protest. Such a Protest, the most important transaction in Life, may that same Indignation and Defiance, in a ''THAT FATEFUL SIXTH LUSTRUM'' 119 psychological point of view, be fitly called. The Everlasting No had said : < Behold thon art father- less, outcast, and the Universe is mine' (the Devil's); to which my whole Me now made an- swer: '/am not thine, but Free, and forever hate thee I' It is from this hour that I incline to date my Spiritual New-birth, or Baphometic Fire- baptism ; perhaps I directly thereupon began to be a man." Napoleon I. was appointed to the command of the Army of Italy at twenty-six, and his great European career began. At the same age Cuvier, after much private str^'.y and research, got his chance, by being ap- pointed colleague to M. Mertreiu in the newly- created Chair of Comparative Anatomy in Paris. At this age Joseph Black presented his grad^-^tion thesis to the Faculty of Medicine of Edinburgh University, and laid the foundation of quantitative analysis. At twenty-seven John Bunyan began to preach in Bedford. Leibnitz at the same age discovered the differential calculus. Sophocles, at the age of twenty-eight, competed for the prize of tragedy against ^schylus, his elder by just thirty years. At twenty-eight Garlyle wrote in his diary: "Dec. 31. The year is closing. This time eight- and-twenty years I was a child of three weeks old, sleeping in my mother's bosom. ».il Ik fl:' A 120 THE ROUND OF THE CLOCK "Oh ! little did my mother think, That day she cradled me, The lands that I should travel in, The death that I should deei" Wordsworth was twenty-eight when the " Lyrical Ballads " was published in 1798. Was he not the link between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries ? At twenty-eight Emerson broke off his connection with the Second Unitarian Church of Boston, « because he found himself unable to ad- minister the Communion in the usual form." Albert, Prince Consort, writes to Stockmar: "I write to you on this my thirtieth birthday— an important period in a man's life ; and as I do so I remember with gratitude all the good lessons and practical maxims I have received from you, and all the valuable aids you have given me towards the establishment of my political position. I can say 1 am content with everything, and would now only desire more energy and perseverance to work as much good as circumstances will allow." Ignatius Loyola was thirty when, in the siege of Pampeluna, his leg was shattered by a ball. During his illness he read books of romance and piety, and resolved to devote himself to the service of the Blessed Virgin. This was the great resolve of his life. At thirty Charlemagne commenced the great mission of his life— the conquest and conver- sion of the Saxons. This he accomplished after a war which lasted for three decades. Thackeray • ; . : !i "TMAT FATEFUL SIXTH LUSTRUM" 121 was thirty when he published his " Paris Sketch Book." Madame de S^vign^, at the age of thirty, had already began to look back npon her yonth as a thing of the past. She thns writes in auswer to some verses composed in her praise : " Your verses have reminded me of my yonth, and I am curious to know why the remembrance of the loss of so irrecoverable a gift causes no sadness. Instead of the pleasures I experience, it appears to me I ought to have cried ; but, without examining whence comes this feeling, I will think only of my gratitude to you." It was Balzac who crowned the woman of thirty years, who called ce bel Age de trente ana " the poetic summit of the life of women." From that point they can survey the whole journey and look as far into the past as into the future. The Marquise d'Aiglemont, the heroine of " La Femme de Trente Ans," was still beautiful. Her greatest charm lay in that calm expression of face which spoke of an amazing depth of soul. « A woman of thirty," says Balzac, "has irresistible attractions for a young man ; nothing is more natural, nothing more strongly woven, more firmly based than those deep attachments of which we see so many examples in the world between a woman like the marchioness and a young man like Vaudenesse." ■>;ii\ ^1 •I wi 122 THE ROUND OF THE CLOCK VI Montaigne writes : " Of all the great human actions I ever heard of, of what sort soever, I have observed, both in former ages and our own, more performed before the age of thirty than after. . . . As to my own particular, I do certainly believe that, since that age, both my understanding and my constitution have rather decayed than improved, and retired rather than advanced. 'Tis possible that, with those who make the best use of their time, knowledge and experience may grow up and increase with their years ; but the vivacity, quick- ness, and steadiness, and other pieces of us of much greater importance and much more essentially our own, languish and decay." Charles Lamb wrote in his " New Year's Eve : "Not childhood alone, but the young man, until he is thirty, never feels practically that he is mortal. He knows it, indeed, and if need be he could preach a homily on the fragility of life ; but he brings it not home to himself any more than in a hot June we can appropriate to our imagination the freezing days of December." FROM TWENTTFIVS TO THIRTY Age 26 His William the CoNQnEr.>B married Matilda, daughter of Baldwin, Earl of Flanders, in 1063. Catharine of Aragon, in 1609, married Henry VIII., who was then only eighteen years old. Charles V. of Germany married Isabella of Portugal, to whom he was devotedly attached. Kepler, the astronomer, married a widow. Edmund Waller, in 1631, married his first wife, "a r'ch heiress in the city." In 1735 Samuel Johnson married at twenty-six a widow of forty-six, and no woman ever received a deeper or more lasting devotion. Tobias Smollett married, in 1747, Miss Anne Lascelles, a beautiful Creole heiress of Jamaica. John Howard, the prison reformer, having been nursed through an acute illness by an attentive landlady some fifty-three years of age, felt he could offer no adequate return short of marriage for her motherly kindness, and they were united in 1752, Napoleon I. was married to Josephine Beaubamaison March 9, 1796. Walter Scott married Miss Charlotte Carpenter in 1797. Among others who manied at this age were Jeremy Taylor, Lord Melbourne, Christopher North. John Calvin sent out into the world in 1536 bis " Institutes of the Christian Religion." It was essentially in the same shape as that in which it continued till the end of his life, through all 123 124 THE ROUND OP THE CLOCK the editions he saperintended. " CalviD'i • Inetitotei ' contain Motions that may be pnt beside the finest which Pascal and Bossnet wrote. PUsages like those on the sublimity of Holy Scripture, the misery of fallen man, the importance of prayer, can never fail to make a deep impression on the reader. Even Boman Catholic opponents have admitted these excellences, and used many sections of the work accordingly. Hence it is perfectly intelligible when he himself looks upon his work with a feeling of satisfaction and pride, gladly referring in his other writings to the • Institutes.'" Fanny Bnmey, afterwards Madame d'Arblay, issued her first novel, " BveUna." Bishop Butler preached his famous sermons between the age of twenty-six and thirty.three, Sheridan was twenty-six when the Sohool for Scandal was produced at Drury Lane. At twenty-six we find Bichard Wagner conductor of a German theatre at Biga, marrie'l to an actress, straitened in circumstances, and unhappy to the verge of despiJr. Strauss (1808-1874) published in 1834 the first volume and in 1835 the second volume of his " Leben Jesu." i !i I Age 27 Lucan, a young noble at the court of Nero, wrote bis " Pharsalia," perhaps the greatest continuous poem ever written at such an age. Tobias Smollett, born 1721, published "Roderick Bandom" when he was twenty-seven, and " Peregrine Pickle " when he was thirty. Edmund Burke's father, being angry at his rejection of the profession of law, withdrew, in 1756, the £100 he had allowed him, and thus Burke, who married in the same year Miss Nugent, of Bath, was forced to depend on literature for a living. In 1756 Burke published his " Vindication of Natural Society." George Crabbe had come up to London and found himself, in 1781, in danger of a debtors' prison. In this strait he wrote to Bnrke, who, though a complete stranger, generously came to the res. ue and saved him. FROM TWENTY FIVE TO THIRTY 125 Robert Bans wm twenty-Mvea when, in July 1786, he lent oat from Kilmamook hii fint volume of poems into the world. MThen he was twenty-seven Von Moltke wrote gnily to one of his sisters: " My health is wonderfal. I often lie nnconscions for eight or ten hoars— at night ; I have no appetite after meals ; towards evening soch convulsive yawning and stretching, and all day otter sleeplessness and restlessness in all my body. I only hope you do not suiter so." On November 13, 1846, John Coach Adams laid before the Royal Astronomical Society the long-sappressed investigation in which he had determined, from the irr^ubrities of Uranus, the orbit and place of Neptune. Matthew Arnold published '•The Strayed Reveller " and other poems in 1849, bis first volume of verse. Robert Louis Stevenson published his first book, " The Inland Voyage." Sir Thomas More married Jane Cotte in 1506. " And albeit," writes his biographer Roper, " his mind most served him to the second daughter, for that he thought her the fairest and best favoured, yet when he considered that it would be both great grief and some shame for the eldest to see her younger sister preferred before her in marriage, he then, of a certain pity, framed his fancy towards the eldest. There never was a happier union. They lived in unhjterrupted harmony and affection." John Donne, about Christmas, 1600, was secretly married to a bride of sixteen years of age. This cost him his post of secretary to Sir Thomas Egerton, the Lord Keeper. Rembrandt, in 1634, married Saskia van Ulenburgh, and the eight years following this marriage were the happiest of his life. Saskia died in 1642. George Washington, in 1769, married Mrs. Martha Custis, a rich young widow his own age, who brought him a fortune of more than a hundred thousand dollars. Le Sage married the daughter of a citieen of Paris, " whose face was her only fortune, but with whom he enjoyed for many years complete domestic happiness." Lord Byron's mysterious marriage to Miss Milbanke at Seabam, Durham, took place on January 2, 1815. In January, 1816, Lady Byron left her husband's house for ever. Among others who were married at this age were John M 126 THB ROUND OF THE CLOCK Fkxman, the Malptor, Daniel O'Ckmntll, Sarah Aostio, Jamea Watt, and Benjamin Weet. Age 28 At twenty^ight Cervantes, getting letters of recommendation from Don John and others, sailed with his brothers to Spain, and on the way was captured by pirates and carried to Algiers, where he was sold as a slave and for five years endured the very ez« tremity of evil fortune.' Alexander Wilson, the ornithologist, landed in America on July 14, 1794, " almost as poor as he began his mortal existence." He soon found his true vocation. Mnngo Fiurk published in 1799 "Travels in the Interior of Africa." In this book he suppressed many incidents of his journey, for fear they would not be believed, and so bring dis- credit on his book. Charles Kingsley published " The Sainto' Tragedy " in 1847. George Ticknor was appointed Professor of French and Spanish Literature at Harvard. This was the turning-point of his life, as he visited Spain to qualify himself, and so received bis master impulse. When Mohammed was twenty-eight be married a rich widow, Chadidscha, who was fifteen years his senior. He mourned her loss with sincere grief after twenty-four years of marriage. Laurence Sterne married Elizabeth Luraley in 1741, after a month's coi^ ship. Haydn. .760, married the daughter of a poor musician, and was just K. ed above indigence by being appointed Maeitro di capella iu jecond to Prince Esterhazy. Among others who married at this age were Lord Clive, Lord John Churchill, first Duke of Marlborough. In 1801 Novalis died at the age of twenty-eight. His wedding day was fixed, hi? future dwelling-place taken, and he was in high spirits. He was attacked by consumption, but to the last he seemed to be bright, eager, and full of life. On the morning of bis death he asked his brother to play to him, and fell asleep amid the melodious sounds. He never woke again in this world. "Free and happy, like a bird of passage," he bad taken his fiigbt. FROM TWENTY-FIVE TO Th*RTY 127 Age 29 The year 878 was the moat eventful in the career of King Alfred At mid*winter, witboat any warning, the Danes came ponrlng into Wessez from the north, seised Chippenham, and, making it a centre of their operations, qaickly overran the country. Alfred retired to the marshes of Somerset, and his fortune sank to the lowest ebb. If he had left his countrymen at this time probably the name of England and Englishmen would have disappeared from history ; but bis misfortune roused him, and he defeated the Danes in the great battle of Edington and established himself in comparative tranquillity. Dante wrote his •• Vita Nuova " in 1249. Christopher Marlowe was killed in a tavern brawl in 1593. Shakespeare published his " Venus and Adonis " in 1693. Robert Barclay, in 1678, published his famous "Apology," which became the standard exposition of the principles of the Quakers. William Drummond, of Hawthomden, married in 1614, and his wife died within the year. James Boswell had been courting in Ireland, but the lady repulsed him, and he sought comfort in complaining to his cousin, Margaret Montgomerie. She offered her sympathy, and Boswell in gratitude tendered bis hand, and they were married in 1769. Robert Bums married Jean Armour, 1788. William Cobbett was married in 1792. He first met his future wife when he was serving as sergeant-major in New Brunswick. He bad found her one morning before it was distinctly light scrubbing out a washing-tub before her father's door. " That's the girl for me," he said. They became engaged, but Cobbett 's regiment was ordered home to England. Not able to see her before he left, he sent her 150 guineas, the whole of his savings, and begged her to use it till his return. Four years afterwards, when he was able to marry her, he found her employed as a servant-of-all-work at £5 a year, and on their first interview she put into his hands the 150 guineas untouched. Anthony TroUope married Miss Rose Heseltine in 1844. Among others who married at this age are Francis Beaumont, Thomas Fuller, Henry Fielding, Joseph Priestley, Sir Philip Francis, Thomas Jefferson, William Maginn, and Sir Bartle Frere. I 1 i 138 THE ROUND OF THE CLOCK h: '^%*, Ag«30 Anielm, in 1068, raooeedcd Luifruio m Prior of B«c. H« WM in B«o M prior and aUwt for thirtj yeani, and dnring this period hif powrn devriopod thmnMlTca to tb« foil. In 1098 he anoceoded Lanfrano ai ArobUshop of Canterbury. Charles IL became King of England by the Restoration in 16«0. Otway pablLibed Ui last and greatest dramatic work, VtniM PrturMd, 1682. Charles Babbage was awarded, in 1822, the first gold medal given by the Astronomical Society for his first calonlating machine. Calvin, in 1S39, married Idalette de Bore. George Gtoning, in 1800, married Joan Scott, sister to the Dnchees of Portland, a yonng lady with £100,000. At thirty William Haslitt made bis amazing marriage with Miss Stoddart in 1808. Charles Darwin married his coosin. Miss Emma Wedgwood, in 1839, and soon after fell into ill-heaitb, from wnich he soflered all his days. His work was made possible by the lifelong devotion of his wife, who sheltered him from every avoidable annoyance, and omitted nothing that might save him trouble. Others who married at thirty are Sir Edward Coke, Hugh Blair, John Austin, Thomas Day, anther of " Sandford and Merton," Michael Faraday, John Fozi and Thomas Carlyle in 1826. ^1 "WHEN OUR CHILDREN ARE ABOUT US" • FROM THIRTY TO THIRTY-FIVE In this chapter we begin at noon, and our Instrum ends at one o'clock. It comprises the years from thirty to thirty-five. This in ordinary lives IS the time when the home contains father and mother and little children. It is the time when our children are abont us. I have taken my title from that of a fine sermon bv Dr. Alexander Raleigh, who had much of t at distinction of style for which his son, Professor Walter Raleigh, is so well known He took It from the dirge of Job, who, in the day of his accumulated calamity, recalled in a thrilling note the vanished joy of the time " when my children were about me." I once heard a wise and venerable man say that this was the hs time in all life. 129 130 THE ROUND OF THE CLOCK It is a time that does not last long, this time when the little birds are in the nest and the parent birds are not distant. Soon there comes the separation from home. The years bring their changes. "How the children leave us, and no traces Linger of that smiling angel band — Gone ! for ever gone, and in their places Weary men and women stand." But there is for most men and women the rich and peaceful time, when they teach their children and their children teach them, when the hearth is nninvaded, and when love and hope have their sweetest entertainment. ii Of this period tbere are many accounts in bio- graphy and fiction. Perhaps of all biographies the Life of Dr. Thomas Arnold gives the greatest impression of happiness. There is so little to "tame the glaring white" that some have even been irritated by its splendour. Thus Dr. Mozley, in his clever but slightly splenetic criticism of the book, complains that Arnold is too happy to be interesting. Indeed, his was a great happiness, and it was centred in the family. " A family was a temple and a church with Arnold — a living sanctuary and focus of religious joy — a paradise, a heaven upon earth. It was the " WHEN OUR CHILDREN ARE ABOUT US" 131 born of plenty, the sparkling cup, the grape and the pomegranate, the very cream of human feeling and sentiment, and the very well-spring of spiritual hopes and aspirations. He thought and he taught, and he worked and he played, and he looked at sun, and earth, and sky with a domestic heart. The horizon of family life mixes with the sky-ey life above, and the earthly landscape melted, by a quiet process of nature, into the heavenly one. * I do not wonder,' he said, 3, be published his famous work on the " Antiquity of Man." Elias Ldnnrot published, in 1836, Finland's great epic poem, the renowned " Kalevala." He surmised tiiat the various songs that he had heard from the lips of the people in the Russian Karelian border parishes were not complete in themselves, but parts of one grand whole. So he drew the Kalevala out of the forest depths, where it had lived for so long unknown to the world. In 1849 a new edition was issued, enlarged by the results of fifteen more years of hard and self-denying labours. He died in 1884, aged eighty-two, a man noted for his modesty and patriarchal simplicity, a true folk-man. Age 34 Thomas Fuller wrote his " Holy and Propbane States " in 1642. Molidre produced Z'Etovrdi and Le Dejnt Amourettx, the first of his original plays, in 1656. Joseph Butler, in 1726, published the " Fifteen Sermons." Thomas Oray published his "Elegy," in 1751. FROM THIRTY TO THIRTY FlYK 149 Napoleon I„ in 1803, raptured the peace of Amiens, and plunged Europe into war to satisfy his grasping ambition. Mungo Park sailed on his second and last expedition to West Africa, in 1806. There are no authentic accounts of his death, but b« was probably drowned in the Niger in attempting to escape from his boat to the shore when attacked by savages. In 1809 Jane Austen prepared for the press " Sense and Sensi- bility," begun in 1797, and " Pride and Prejudice," begun in 1796. They were published in 1811 and 1813. In 1874 Thomas Hardy published "Far from the Maddinc Crowd." " Montaigne was married to Fran^oise de la Chassaine. It was rather a marriage of convenience and family arrangement than of love. Cuvier married Madame Duvancel in 1803. In 1812 Sir Humphry Davy published his "Elements of Chemical Philosophy," and in the same year he married Mrs. Apreece, who brought him a large fortane. Benjamin Disraeli, in 1839, married the wealthy widow of Mr. Wyndham Lewis. She was much older than himself, but the marriage appears to have been on the whole a happy one; it relieved him from Onancial embarrassment, and left him to pursue his career. Age 36 Dante, in 1300, commenced his *' Divina Commedia." Isaac Watts published his " Hymns and Spiritual Bones." in 1707-9. * John Wesley attended the famous meeting in Aldersgate Street at which " bis heart was strangely warmed," in 1738. He began his open-air preaching in the following year. Sheridan delivered, in February, 1787, his famous speech in the House of Commons against Warren Hastings, which helped to decide bis impeachment. Mozart wrote his Requiem Mass, in 1791, in the conviction that he was dying, and when death came upon him he called for the score, and, musing over it, said, " Did I not tell you truly that it was for myself I composed this death-ohant T " Danton was brought to the guillotine on April 8, 1794. His m. 150 4 THE ROUND OF THE CLOCK l«Bt words were addreasetl to the executioner : " Thou wilt show my head to the people; it is worth showing," Robespierre was guillotined at the same age. Napoleon wats crowned Emperor in N6tre Dame, 1804. John Foster published his Essays, in 1805. Mark Tattison, born 1813, says : " While my contemporaries who started so far ahead of me, fixed their mental horizon before they were thirty-five, mine has been ever enlarging and expand- ing." In 1815 Chalmers was called to the Tron Churcli, Glasgow, and began his great career as preacher. Sir David Brewster in 1816 invented the kaleidoscope, but from some defect in the registration of the patent it was pirated. Dante says, in the " Convito," that " our Saviour Christ, whose nature was perfect, chose to die in the thirty-fourth year of His age, because it did not befit Divinity to decline." In the " Summa " Aquinas says Christ chose to die for us in the flower of His age for three reasons : " (1) The more to commend His love to us, because He gave His life for us at its prime ; (2) because it was not fitting that there should appear any diminution of His natural powers ; and (3) that dying and rising again in His natural prime. He should foresliadow the quality of the bodies of those who should afterwards rise in Him." Father Ryder has the following : "Though tJiy pangs were hard indeed. And all Thy botly wrench'd ami wrunj,', Homo pains Thou had.>it not, dying young. 1 know that 'neath the olive's shade A secular weight on Thee was laid ; The bitterness of ages pa.'« less MICROCOPY RESOLUTION TEST CHART (ANSI and ISO TEST CHART No. 2) Ho us IS lAO 1.8 ^ ^IPPLIED IN/HGE 1653 East Moin Street Rochester, New York 14609 USA (716) 432 - 0300 - Phone (716) 288-5989 -Fox inc 156 THE ROUND OF THE CLOCK probable ; for his mind was ever among the clearest and firmest. So the milder third gate was opened for him: and he passed not softly, yet speedily, into that still coaatry, where tLe hailstorms and fire-showers do not reach, and the heaviest-laden wayfarer at length lays down his load ! " Pascal died in convalsions on Angust 19, 16 ^'2. Great as a man of letters, as a philosopher, as a theologian, and as a mathematician and physicist, he is with the immortals. Professor Chrystal has said : " Whether we look at his pure mathematical or at his physical researches we receive the same impression of Pascal ; we see the strongest marks of a great original genius creating new ideas, and seizing upon, mastering, and pursuing farther every- thing that was fresh and unfamiliar in his time. After the lapse of more than two hundred years we can still point to much in exact science that is absolutely his ; and we can indicate infinitely more which is due to his inspiration." Charlotte Bronte died at the age of thirty-nine. She had long been in weak health — shy and shrinking, melancholy and self-conscious — and her feeble, nervous, suffering body was always sinking to its fall. After her last story, "Villette," was published and received with a burst of acclamation, the lonely author sat day by day in her chair, with saddest memories for her only company, late into the night, conversing with the spirits of the dead. A gleam of happiness came before the tud. She B\ '* sun; stand thou still upon GIBEON " 157 was touched at last by the steadfast devotion of her lover, and was married on June 19, 1854. Her health soon became precarious, and she died on March 31, :855. Her last words were: "Oh! I am not going to die, am I ? He will not separate us ; we have been so happy." So ended a deeply shadowed life. Her early friend, Mary Taylor, declared that Mrs. Gaskell's biography was " not so gloomy as the truth," that Miss Bronte had lived all her days in a walking nightmare of poverty and self-suppression. m Ill f ;'' f ■ m JK i: II The gloom of these deaths is lightened if we are to believe, with Professor Osier, that fruitful life ends at forty. After saying that he has two fixed ideas. Dr. Osier gives, as the first — " The comparative uselessness of men above forty years of age. This may seem shocking, and yet, read aright, the world's history bears out the state- ment. Take the sum of human achievement in action, in science, in art, in literature — subtract the work of the men above forty ; and, while we should miss great treasures, even priceless treasures, we would practically be where we are to-day. It is di£Scult to name a great and far-seeing conquest of the mind which has not been given to the world by a man on whose back the sun was still shining. The effective, moving, vitalising work of the world 158 THE ROrXD OF THE CLOCK is done between the ages of twenty-five and forty — these fifteen golden years of plenty, the anabolic or constrnctive period, in which there is always a balance in the mental bank, and the credit is still good." The words to be emphasised are astonishing words : " The comparatite uselessness of men above forty yearn of age'' Dr. Osier can only be answered by facts, and the chapters which follow will snpply many of the facts. Bnt a rough reply may be given, with a very little consideration, I have tried to think of the greatest works in ima- ginative literature, and I recall the memorable declaration of Macanlay, who says in one of his speeches on the law of copyright : " No great work of imagination has ever been produced under tn^ age of thirty or thirty-five years, and the instances are few in which any have been produced under the age of forty. I venture to say that no man acquainted with literary history will deny that, taking the writings of authors generally, the best and most valnable of their works have been produced within the last seventeen years of their lives." There are doubtless men like Frederic Ozanara, of whom Lacordaire said that he was one with whom jlooms quickl}', and all comes into bloom at once, as if time and eternity were at work on them together. But the masterpieces of the ima- gination are the fruit of long choosing and late " SrX, ST- -r -THOU STILL UPOX GIBEOX " 1 59 begJDuing. i.ie greatest prose book in the world is perhaps " Don Qnixote." Cervantes, the anthor, was born in 1547, and he published the first part of what Sainte-Benve has called "the book of hnmanity" in 1605. It was corapk -d abont a year before, when the anthor was in the utmost stress of poverty. Conld it have been written sooner? Conld it have been written witliout the five years' slavery in Algiers, from which Cervantes emerged sweet, nndiscouraged, and nnembittered ? Many would place beside " Don Qnixote " " The Pilgrim's Progress." John Bnnyan was born in 1628, and the first edition of "The Pilgrim's Progress" was published in 1G78. It was probably written in 16/5, when Bunyan was approaching fifty. Along with these books may be placed "Clarissa." The French are our chief rivals in prose fiction, and their opinion of "Clarissa" is summed up in the saying of Alfred de Musset— that it is le premier roman du monde. Among their latest critics there are those who write of "Clarissa" as the noblest of all novels, the most pathetic and the most sublime. " The conception stands by itself amid all the conceptions of genius. No Greek, no Italian, no English poet has painted such a figure in the great picture gallery which is common to the world. Neither ancient nor modern woman has ever stood before us thus pale and splendid in the shame which is not hers, sweet soul, though it kills her." When Samuel Richard- ''ill 160 THE ROUND OP THE CLOCK son began " Clarissa," in 1744, he was a man of fifty-five, and he was about sixty when it was completed. " Robinson Crnsoe " was written when the author was fifty-eight. Defoe had lived a hard life. The politician was worn with conflict, the tradesman was unable to cope with his losses, and the heart- weary writer pathetically exclaimed, " had William (i.e. King William III.) lived, he never would have snfiered me to be treated as I Lave been in this world." A fit of apoplexy had like to have ended his )7row8, but he recovered from it to commence a uew life, and to gain a literary immortality. In 1719 appeared the first volnme of "Robinson Crnsoe," a book which age cannot stale nor fashion render obsolete, which has won for its anthor the kindly love of all readers for all time. I might refer to "Gulliver's Travels," published in 1726, when Swift was fifty-nine, and to " Humphry Clinker," Smollett's greatest book, published in 1771, when he was fifty ; but it will be sufficient to mention the Waverley Novels. Scott was a poet, but as a poet he is in the second rank. He could never express his genius in poetical form. Com- pare his empty, romantic picture of James Fitz- James with the lustrous splendour of his portrait of Mary, Queen of Scots. But the first of the Waverley Novels was published when fv ott was forty-three. Dr. Osier may think that> without him, the world would have been where it \a ; but others will say, with Mark Ratherford : « If auy^ where in another world the blessings which men have conferred here are taken into account in dis- tributing reward, surely the choicest in store of the Most Higu will be reserved for His servant Scott I It may be said of others that they have made the world wise or rich, but of him it must be said that he, more than all, has made the world happier— wiser, too, wiser through its happiness." Instances might be multiplied from poetry, but it will be sufficient to mention " Paradise Lost," at which Milton laboured from 1658 to 1665, till he published it at fifty. 4 um 11 FROM THIRTY«FIVE TO FORTY Age 36 In 1302 Dante was banished from Florence ; and though he made several attempts to return, they were not successful, and he spent his nineteen remaining years in wandering. Correggio finished his masterpiece, the "Assumption of the Blessed Virgin," in the cupola of the cathedral in Parma, in 1530. Bacon published the first edition of his ' Essays " in 1597. Sir Thomas Browne married in 1641. Bichard Crashaw, the poet, died in 1649. In 1658 Moli^re published his first important play. Let Prioieutet Ridicules. Samuel Pepys was thirty-six when he gave over writing his Diary through approaching blindness. He wrote on May 29, 1669 : " And so I betake myself to that course, which is almost as much as to see myself go into my grave : for which, and all the discomforts that will accompany my being blind, the Qood Qod prepare me I " J. B. ■*' -'''n preached the Advent course of sermons at Versaillt /' and at once sprang into fame as a pulpit orator. Jonat ..,, that mighty and mysterious genius, published anonTmousi>, in 1704, one of the chief prose satires of the world, '• The Tale of a Tub," a satire of which the least that can be said is that it would have added to the reputation of Lucian or Erasmus. Alexander Cruden published his " Concordance of the Holy Scriptures" in 1737. In 1805 Wellington, then Sir Arthur WeUesley, K.C.B., left India, and thus brought to a close the first great period of his career. Landor, in the spring of 1811, met a young lady at a ball, and 162 UHti v:,i in bis obaraoteristio manner said, " By Heaven ! that's the nicest girl in the room, and I'll marry her," He did so, but the marriage was not happy. Tlie lady's name was Julia Thuilller. In 1821 De Qninoey published the " Confessions of an Opium Eater." Eugene Sue achieved his first great success in the novel " MathUde," published in 1840. Edgar Allan Poe had turned thirty-six when in 1845 he published "The Raven." W. M. Thackeray published "Vanity Fair" in monthly parts. 1847-48. H. T. Buckle published, in 1857, the first volume of his " Hi-.tory of Civilisation in Europe." i'hilip Bourke Marston, the blind poet, died in 1887. " Yes, sir," as the old farmer told Prince Otto in Stevenson's romance, "by six-and-thirty, if a man be a follower of God's laws, be should have made himself a home and a good name to live by ; he should have got a wife and a blessing on his marriage ; and his works, as the Word says, should begin to follow him." Age 37 Michelangelo completed the painting of the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel in 1512. Sir Thomas More composed the second part of his " Utopia " in the Low Countries in 1515, and the first after his return to England in 1516. Cervantes married in 1584. Richelieu received the Cardinal's hat in consideration of his services in reconciling King Louis X'll. with his mother. In 1609 Kepler published his most '-uportant work, " Astronomia Nova," containing what are known as his First and Second I aws. The Third Law was announced in his " Harmonica Mundi," 1619. In 1699 Richard Bentley's immortal " Dissertation upon the Epistles of Phalaris " appeared. Richard Steele, in 1709, issued the first number of the Tatler. Goethe visited Italy, and was in the South f- ^m the autumn of 1786 to June 1788, a most fruitful period in his life. Marie Antoinette was guillotined on October 16, 1793. Alexander Wilson, in 1803, determined on writing an American r 4K| 14 164 THE ROUND OF THE CLOCK Otaithology. Before he had determined on this enterprise we find him requesting Mr. Bartram to write the namet of the birds on all the drawings he sends, since, with the exception of three or four, he does not know them. This from a man straggling with an American ornithology I Sir Charles Bell, in 1811, published "A New Idea of the Anatomy of the Brain." Re also m.'irried in this year. Captain Marryat, in 1829, publish i Lis flrst novel, "Frank Mildmay." John Htnart Mill published, in 1843, his •• System of Logic." George Eliot published the " Scenes of Clerical Jtb forces destined for tin Peninsular War. This opened up the second great periot . in hi*- career. Ed' ard Irving was tliirty.nine when, in 1831, tlic oxtraoniin- ary scenes in c 'T*** tion n ith prophesyings ami speaking with tongues took p. ce In ' ^ent 'jquare Church. J. O. Bennett, en '.-76, 1H35, pnblishetl the first nu-^iber of the New Ymk Herald— 'x amall sheet published daily at one cent. Bennett prepared the entire contents. 1849 was Montalcmbert'a most brilliant year. Sainte-Beuvo says : " Up to that time he was admired, but not followed, ex- ept by those of his immediate party. Now he is followed .ilingly by men from all parties." After the sanguinary battle of Worth, 1870, Frcd'^rick III., then Crown Prince of Prussia, said to Gustav Frcytag, the Ger- man novelist and playwright, with deep feeling : " 1 abhor tMs butchery ; I have never striven for a soldier's honoiuB , I should have left military glory to another without any feeling of envy. Yet it has been my fate to pass from one war to another, and from one battlefield to another, and to wade through human blood before I mount the throne of my ancestors." Among those mars id at this age were Roger Ascham, who married Margaret Howe in 1554, and said afterwards : " Hitherto she hath founde rather a loveing than a luckye husband unto her " ; Richard Bentley, in 1701. Age 40 Mohammed, after leading a life of meditation, assumed the title of prophet at Mecca when forty years of age. Canute, King of England, Denmark, and Norway, died in 10.i5. Robert Bruce, in 1314, won the battle of Bannockburn. Edward IV. died in 1483. It was at the age of forty that St. Teresa awoke, in 1555, to the deeper spiritual life. Richard Lovelace, the Cavalier ic poet, died in 1658, poor and in obscure lodgings, in Gunpowder Alley, Shoe Lane, ndon. Joseph Bingham, in 1708, began to publish his learned work, " Origines Ecclesiasticie." William Law, in 172«, wrote his " Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life," i'« iii II ■■Hi i-H 168 THE ROUND OF THE CLOCK Alexander Pope published the " Dunciad" in May 1728. Captain Cook, in 1768, set out on the first of his great voyages. He visited the Society Islands, and circumnavigated and charted New Zealand. He was absent almost three years. In 1804 a cloud came over the mind of Bobert Hall, the celebrated preacher, and he became for a time insane. George Stephenson, perfecter of the locomotive, bom June 9, 1781. In 1821 he was appointed engineer of the Stockton and DarUngton Railway. The result was the opening, September 27, 1825, of the first railway over which passengers and goods were carried by locomotives. Elizabeth Barrett, in 1846, married Robert Browning. Edgar Allan Poe married in 1849. Tennyson married Miss EmUy Sarah Sellwood in 1850. She was thirty-seven. George Eliot published " Adam Bede " in 1869. Henry T. Buckle, the author of the unfinished " History of Civilisation," died in 1862 at Damascus. He was attacked by typhoid fever at Nazareth, but tried to shake it o£E and struggle onwards when he needed rest. "My book, my book I" were among his last words. Emily Brontg, writing of forty, says : " A period of mental vigour at which men seldom cherish the delusion of being married for love by girls : that dream is reserved for the solace of our declining years." p. Q. Rossetti wrote to his mother, May 12, 1868 : " The re- minder of the solemn fact that I am a man of forty now could hardly have come agreeably from any one but yourself. But, considering that the chief blessing of my forty good and bad years has been that not one of them has taken you from me, it is the best of all things to have the same dear love and good wishes still coming to me to-day from your dear hand at a distance, as they would have done from your dear mouth had we seen each other," Shakespeare writes in his Sonnet : " When forty winters shall besiege thy brow And dig deep trenches in thy beauty's field, Thy youth's proud livery so gazed on now Will be a tattered weed of small worth held." FROM THIRTY-FIVE TO FORTY 169 Trollope wrote in his " Small Honse at AUington " : " Women at forty do not become ancient misanthropes or stem Rhada- manthine moralists, indifferent to the world's pleasures— no, not even though they be widows. There are those who think that such should be the phase of their minds. I profess that I do not so think. I would have women, and men also, young as long as they can be young. It is not that a woman should call herself in years younger than her father's Family Bible will have her to be. Let her who is forty call herself forty; but if she can be young in spirit at forty, let her show that she is so." Robert Louis Stevenson, when he was forty, in 1891 wrote to Sidney Colvin : " I was only happy once, that was at Hy^res ; it came to an end from a variety of reasons— decline of health, change of place, increase of money, age with his stealing steps. Since then, as before then, I know not what it means. But I know pleasure still ; pleasure with a thousand faces, and none perfect, a thousand tongues, all broken, a thousand hands, and all of them with scratching nails. High above these I place this delight of weeding out here alone by the garrulous water, under the silence of the high woods, broken by incongruous sounds of birds. And take my life all through, look at it fore and back, and upside down— though I would be very fain to change my- self—I would not change my circumstances, unless it were to bring you here." But perhaps the wisest of all things said about the age of forty is in Cowley's essay "The Danger of Procrastinu ion " : " There is no fooling with life when it is once turned beyond forty." It-' XII "A GATE IN GHENT": FROM FORTY TO FORTY-FIVE We began at six o'clock in the morning, and we have now come to three o'clock in the afternoon, the period dealt with being forty to forty-five. I take my title from Sir Henry Taylor's lines : " There is a gate in Ghent, I passed beside it, A threshold there worn of my frequent feet Which I shall cross no more." Mr. Frederick Greenwood has said somewhere that the burden of the melancholy which oppresses the later generation of mankind more than any of their predecessors is expressed perfectly in the familiar words, " Change and decay in all around I see." This is an experience which may come to us early or late. Perhaps to most of us it comes most vividly as we are entering middle life. We 170 "A GATE IN GHENT" 171 have a sense of the insecnritv of things. Human beings appear as shadows streaming throngh the brightness o^ this fair world from dark to dark. Charles Lamb has given one of the most perfect expressions I know of this sentiment in his lines, "The Old Familiar Faces." Mr. Lucas, in his excellent notes, says that the poem was written in January, 1798, following, it is suggested, upon a fit of resentment against Charles Lloyd. On Christmas Day, 1797, Lamb wrote the verses beginning : " I am a widow'd thing now that thou art gone ! Now that thou art gone, my own familiar friend, Companion, sister, helpmate, counsellor ! " Mary Lamb, after seeming to be on the road to perfect recovery, had a relapse necessitating a return to confinement from the lodging in which her brother had placed her. Lamb was barely twenty-three when he wrote about " The Old Familiar Faces " ; so soon had night fallen on his soul. By mid-life, even if we are more fortunate than most, we have known estrangement and bereave- ment, and much of the sadness that comes when we think of absent faces and loosened hands. Dean Church, in one of his sermons, speaks of the doors closed where once we were welcome, of the empty cha 8 where those sat whom we dreamed we could never lose. The sorrow of the closed doors is as ; 172 THE ROUND OF THE CLOCK nothing in comparison with the sorrow of the empty chair, and yet it is bitter, and it may be long-lasting. Those of ns who have lived long in the same place cannot go into the street without passing one home after another where onr welcome was once warm and snre, but now the houses are filled with strangers, and life is darker and colder becanse it is so. On the melancholy of change there is no writer who has spoken more eloquently and with deeper feeling than John Ruskin. Mr. Frederic Harrison has marked with great acuteness the time when Ruskin's style altered. "When *Unto This Last' was finally published John Ruskin was forty-three : he had already written the most elaborate and systematic of all his books— those on which his world-wide fame still rests. He had long passed il mezzo del cammin di nostra vita — and even the middle of his own long years : his energy, his health, his hopes were not what they had been in his glorious youth and early manhood : his mission became consciously to raise men's moral standard in life, not to raise their sense of the beautiful in Art. The old mariner still held us with his glistening eye, and forced us to listen to his wondrous tale, but he spoke like a man whose voice shook with the memory of all that he had seen and known, over whom the deep "A GATE IN GHENT" 173 waters had passed. I am one of those who feel that John Raskin has told ns in his second life things more trae and more inr.portant even than he told ns in his first life. Bat yet I cannot bring myself to hold that, as a magician of words, his later teaching has the mystery and the glory which hnng roand the honeyed lips of the 'Oxford Gradnate.*" This is trae, and it is also true that, even in the midst of Raskin's passionate raptnre for all beautiful things, he had an undying seuHe of "the subtle, fitful, implacable smiting of the black waves of change." It is possible, I think, to keep o ir friends till death takes them away, but it is possible only if we make a serioas and deliberate and constant efibrt to keep our friendships in repair. Charles Lamb thinks that early friendships do not often endnre into middle age. " Oh, it is pleasant as it is rare to find the same arm linked in yoars at forty which at thirteen helped to turn over Cicero * De AmicitiA/ or some o uer tale of autiqae friendship which the young heart even then was burning to anticipate." This need not be so. If friendship is prized at its true worth, we shall not be left desolate. I cannot Hi jl III'- i Mj^ 174 THE ROUND OF THE CLOCK imagine what joy there can be in living when the eyes of others no longer look love into onre. But a very shrewd and experienced observer has said that there are plenty of men on the down-grade of years who own not a single friend for whom they wonld make a sacrifice, or who would make a sacrifice for them. In friendship, as in love, the test of reality is the readiness to sacrifice — sacrifice oi time or exertion, or whatever else. Dr. Johnson preached earnestly on the duty of nourishing aflFection, and he said that it was more frequently thrown away with levity or lost by negligence than destroyed by injury or violence. One great support of friendship is the fidelity that takes no heed of the risings and the fallings of life. In his reminiscences of Jowett, Mr. Swinburne says that the Master's friendships were quite in- dependent of calculation. They had a common acquaii Jice, with an easy amiability of manner, who never failed to worship the rising stars. When he was civil to peoplr. they concluded that he must have heard of some imminent promotion about to befall them. When he was chilly, they knew that in his opiniou at least things were going against them. This worthy was called by his acquaintances The Barometer. Swinburne despised him, but liked him, and told this to Jowett. Jowett replied that he " could not understand how you could like a man whom you despised." But against the death of friends we cannot fortify I "A GATE IN GHENT" 176 ourselves. What that death may mean we may anderstand from Montaigne's grief over the death of Stephen de la BOetie : " Menander of old de- clared him to be happy that had the good fortune to meet with bat the shadow of a friend; and doubtless he had good reason to say so, especially if he spoke by experience ; for, in good earnest, if I may compare all the rest of my life — though, thanks be to God, I have always passed my time pleasantly enough and at my ease, and, the loss of such a friend excepted, free from any grievous affliction, and in great tranquillity of mind, having been contented with my natural and original con- veniences and advantages, without being solicitous after others — if I should compare it all, I say, with the four years 1 had the happiness to enjoy the sweet society of this excellent man, 'tis nothing but smoke, but an obscure and tedious night. ... I have only led a sorrowful and languishing life ; and the very pleasures that present themselves to me, instead of administering anything of consolation, double my affliction for his loss. We were halves throughout, and to that degree that, methinks, by outliving him, I defraud him of his part. . . . There is no act or imagining of mine wherein I do not miss him. For as he surpassed me by infinite degrees in virtue and all other accomplishments, so he also did in all offices of friendship." Montaigne's letter to his father on the death of BOetie is one of the most moving in all literature ; hi a : Urn 176 THE ROUND OF THE CLOCK " * Brother, brother,' he said to me ; * what, won't yon give me room?' insomoch that he forced me to convince him by reason and say to him that, since he breathed and talked, he had by conse- quence a place. * Yes, yes,' said he, * I have ; but it is not the one I want; and besides, say what yon will, I have no longer a being.' < God will give you a being very soon.' 'Would to God, brother, I was there now ; I have longed to be gone these three days past.' In this distressed state, he often called to me, in order to know whether I was near him. About an hour after, naming me once or twice, and then fetching a deep sigh, he gave up the ghost, about three o'clock on Wednes- day morning, the 18th of August, 1663, having lived thirty-two years, nine months and seventeen days." One can only say that there is a sadness in the memory of the past and repeat the simple lines : " Our broken friendships we deplore, And loves of youth that are no more ; No after-friendships e'er can raise The endearments of our early days." And yet those who show themselves friendly can always make friends, even to the end of life ; and, since they can, they should. II There are blows that strike yet nearer home. Confucius says the three greatest miseries of a man II A GATE IN QHBNT** 177 are to lose in yonth his father, in middle age his wife, in old age his son. If we live our term of years, in the conrse of nature our fathers and mothers must die before us. It is a deep sorrow, but for the most part quiet. Carlyle*s tribute to his father in the " Reminiscences" is very beautiful, but I prefer the brief, proud sentences ^i his letter to Macvey Napier : "Unexpected occurrences forced me to give up the hope of returning by way of your city. I must hasten home direct into Annandale and make a visit into Edinburgh afterwards. The hand of death has been busy in my circle, as I learn that it has been in yours, painfully reminding us that ' here we have no continuing city.' The venerated Friend that bade me farewell cannot welcome me when I come back. I have now no father in this land of shadows." The loss of a mother cannot be repaired : "If only my mother knew How my heart is hurt within me, She would take my face in her tender hands And smooth my cheek as she used to do In the days that seem so long ago, When childish tears were quick to flow; She would smooth my face with her tender hands If she felt the grief within me." Thomas Gray, the poet, had a cold temperament and a passionless nature, but he had affections which, when once awakened, were deep, tender, and lasting. On the death of his mother he wrote to 12 ill 178 THE ROUND OF THE CLOCK ■ no one, and it was only in the change of hit conntenance when her name was mentioned years after that his nearest friends learned how faithfol was his memory. Writing to Mr. NichoUs on the occasion of the illness of his friend's mother, he tells him that it was not until too late he made the dis- covery that in one's whole life one can never have but a single mother. " It is thirteen years ago, and seems but yesterday ; and every day I live it sinks deeper into my heart." Mr. Barrie has said everything in " Margaret Ogilvy": "They knew now that she was dying. She told them to fold up the christening robe, and almost sharply she watched them put it away, and then for some time she talked of the long, lovely life that had been hers, and of Him to Whom she owed it. She said good-bye to them all, and at last turned her face to the side where her best beloved had lain, and for over an hour she prayed. They only caught the words now and again, and the last they heard were * God ' and * love.' I think God was smiling when He took her to Him, as He had 80 often smiled at her during those seventy-six years." A child's death is very often one of the sorrows of which Wendell Holmes has written : " A great calamity, for instance, is as old as the trilobites an hour after it has happened. It stains backward through all the leaves we have turned over in the book of life, before its blot of tears or ••-4 OATE IN a BE NT" 179 ^i 1- 4 koft- •t the finger e of it» of blood is dry on the page we are tomiDg. ^or this we seem to have lived ; it was foreshado^ k1 Id dreams that we leaped ont of in the cold sw« at of terror; in the dissolving views of dark d»jr- visions ; all omens pointed to it; all paths led to it. After the tossing half forgetfnlness of the fir^^t sleep that follows sach an event, it comes opon os afresh, as a surprise, at waking ; in a few moments it is old again— old as eternity. "Did you ever happen to see thu spoken and velvet-handed steam-eng Mint? The smooth piston slides b» forward as a lady might slip her ik in and ont of a ring. The engine lay fingers calmly, but firmly, upon a bit o mettel ; it is a coin now, and will remember that touch itid tell a new race about it, when the date upou t » crusted over with twenty centuries. 8o it it* . hat a great silent-moving misery puts a ^ew MtAtttp ob us in an hour or a moment — as sharit an impf«M» m as if it had taken half a lifetime to iigrav - Shall we not say that there are griefs wfc' fa w« know in an instant will stain forward tht >UI the coming years ? Emerson seemed cold to \y people; but when his son, "a piece of gf^nsbme well worth my watching from morning to tight," died, in 1841, he wrote to Carlyle: "You can never sympathise with me ; you can never know how much of me such a young child can take away. A few weeks ago I counted myself a very m m I ii ^ 'if 180 THE ROUND OF TBS CLOCK rich man, and now tht poorest of all.'* Nearly the last connected words which Emerson spoke on his own deathbed forty-one years after were: "Oh, that beantifnl boy I " Jess, in " A Window in Thmms/' tells of her Joey. The little lad thonght of being a minister, and his first text was to be " Thon Qod seest me." " He often said, * Ye'U be prond o* me, will ye DO, mother, wh n ye see me comin' sailin' alang to the pnlpit in my gown ? * So I wonld hae been prond o' him, an' I was prond to hear him speakin' o't. ' The other fowk,' he said, ' will be sittin' in their seats wonderin' what my text's to be; bnt yon'll ken, mother, an' yon'U tarn np to "Thoa God Seest me," afore I gie oot the chapter.' Ay, ont that day he was coffined, for all the minister prayed, I fonnd it hard to say, ' Thon God seest me.' It's the text I like best noo, thongh, an' when Hendry an' Leeby is at the kirk I tnrn't np often, often in the Bible. I read frae the beginnin' o' the chapter; bnt when I come to *Thou God seest me ' I stop. Na, it's no'at there's ony re- bellion to the Lord in my heart noo, for I ken He was lookin' doon when the cart gaed ower Joey, an' He wanted to tak my laddie tu Himsel'. Bnt jnist when I come to * Thou God seest me,' 1 let the book lie in my lap, for aince a body's snre o' that they're sure o' all." Bnt the death of a wife in the midst of the years is the greatest calamity of all, so great that it can '*A OATl iS QUE NT'* 181 be but touched with reverence and reticence. This grief fell to that trne and tender i»oet, William Barnes. Early in life he saw, for the first time, Jnlia Miles, "a slight, elegant child of about sixteen," with " blue eyes and wavy brown hair," and the unbidden thought came into his mind, " That shall be my wife." She died when he was in his prime, f.nd to the day of his death, thirty- five years after, every night the word " Giulia " was written like a sigh at the end of each day's entry. So did Dr. Johnson, on whom the same blow fell, write his dead wife's name in his journal— merely the word " Tetty." Such memories are religions. Towards the close of Barnes's life in his own beautiful rectory at Came he spoke to me about his love and his loss, and I shall never forget the intense feeling with which he quoted his ovio lines : " When my wife to niy hands left Her few bright keys— a. doleful heft." Then he added, in quivering tones, " Who shall roll us away the stone ? " Brave men can face the dangers and endure the calamities of life, but often they break down under one blow that shatters the heart : "What can we do, o'er whom the unbeholden Hangs in a night with which we cannot cope 1 What but look sunward, and with faces golden Speak to each other softly of a hope?" FROM FORTY TO FORTY-FIVE Age 41 Savonarola was, in 1493, at the height of his fame as a preacher in Florence. Martin Luther, on June 13, 1525, married Katharina von Bora. This marked his complete surrender of monastic views, and was at once a scandal to the Roman Catholics and an example to the Reformers. Edmund Spenser married an Irish girl named Elizabeth on June 11, 1594. George Chapman, in 1598, began his translation of Homer. At forty-one Isaac Casaubon produced, in 1600, his edition of Athen»us, which remained by far the most solid of bis achieve- ments. Descartes, in 1637, produced his " Discours de la M6thode." About 1639 Van Dyck married Lady Mary Ruthven, a beautiful girl in the service of Queen Henrietta of England. In 1713 Addison's Cato was acted at Drury Lane Theatre, and had an almost unequalled success. Thomas Day, the author of " Sandford and Merton," was killed by a fall from a horse in 1789. R. B. Sheridan, in 1792, lost his beautiful first wife. She died of consumption in the thirty-eighth year of her age. Jane Austen died at Winchester, unmarried, in 1817. William Blackwood, on October 1, 1817, published the first number of Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine. Henry Hallam's great work, " A View of the State of Europe during the Middle Ages," appeared in 1818, and was followed nine years later by his " Constitutional History of England." In 1837-39 appeared the "Introduction to the Literature of Europe in the Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Centuries." These are the three works on which the fame of Hallam rests. 182 FROM FORTY TO FORTY-FIVE 183 They at onoe took a place in English literature which has never been seriously challenged. Thomas Carlyle finished the manuscript of his " French Re- volution," and gave it to his wife, saying that he could tell the world, " you have not had for a hundred years any book that comes more direct and flamingly from the heart of a living man." At forty-one DxaasApire wrote " Lea Trois Mousquetaires." Age 42 In 58 B.C. Julius Caesar began in Gaul his wonderful series of campaigns. Francis Bacon, in 1603, began to think of the publication of his great work: "On one of these days his imagination, wandering far into the future, showed him in vision the first instalment ready for publication, and set him upon thinking how he should announce it to the world. The result of this meditation he fortunately confided to a sheet of paper, which, being found long after in his cabinet, revealed the secret which it Lad kept." The following are extracts from this paper : " Believing that I was bom for the service of mankind, and regarding the care of the commonwealth as a kind of common property, which, like the air and the water, belongs to everybody, I set myself to consider in what way mankind might beat be served, and what service I was myself best "tted by nature to perform. . . . When I found, however, that my zeal was mistaken for ambition, and my life had already reached the turning-point, and my breaking health reminded me how ill I could aflEord to be so slow, and I reflected, moreover, that in leaving undone the good that I could do by myself alone, and applying myself to that which could not be done without the help and consent of others, I was by no means discharging the duties that lay upon me, ... I put all those thoughts aside (thoughts of office, etc.), and (in pursuance of my old determina- tion) betook myself wholly to this work. ... For myself, my heart is not set upon any of those things which depend upon external accidents. I am not hunting for fame : I have no desire to found a sect, after the fashion of heresiarchs ; and to look ; nr . 184 THE ROUND OF THE CLOCK for any private gain from snch an undertaking as this, I account both ridioaloos and base. Enough for me the consciousness of well-deserving, and those real and effectual results with which Fortune itself cannot interfere." Moli&re wrote his most famous play, Tartuffe in 1664. Henry Fielding's " Tom Jones " appeared in 1749. William Paley published his " Principles of Moral and Political Philosophy," 1785, and received £1,000 for the copyright. Mirabeau died in 1791, " shattered by his various imprison- ments and exhausted by vices." William Cobbett, in 1804, began to take the popular side in politics. This made a great change in his life, for up to that time he had been an ardent Tory, and now he was to become a devoted Badical, with rather indefinite and shiftiag opinions, but with immense power. Henry Brougham, in 1820, defended Queen Caroline on her trial with much eloquence and boldness, and gr'ned great popularity in consequence. The wife of J. O. Lockhart, who was also the daughter of Sir Walter Scott, died on May 19, 1837. Lockhart wrote : •• I think no one ever lived a more innocent life, and it is my conso- lation now to reflect that it was perhaps as happy a life as is often granted to human creatures." In 1842 Macaulay published the " Lays of Ancient Rome." Harriet Martineau writes, 1844 : "At past forty years of age, I begin to relish life and without drawback. I believe there never was before any time in my life when I should not have been rather glad to lay it down. During this last sunny peiJot;, I have not acquired any dread or dislike of death : but I have felt for the first time a keen and unvarying relish of life." H. B. Manning went over to the Roman Catholic Church, and was received on Passion Sunday, April 6, 1851. John Lothrop Motley, in 1856, published " The Rise of the Dutch Republic " at his own expense. It met with immediate success, 17,000 copies being sold in the first year. Albert, Prince Consort, in 1861, not long before his fatal illness, in speaking to the Queen, said : " I do not cling to life. You do ; but I set no store by it. If I knew that those I love were well cared for, I should be quite ready to die to-morrow." In the same conversation he added : " I am sure if I had a FROM FORTY TO FORTY-FIVE 185 severe illness I should give np at once, I should not struggle for life. I have no tenacity of life." D. G. Rossetti published the first collection of his Poems in 1870. Among those married at this age were Kir Thomas Bodlej, 1587, and John Campbell, afterwards Lord Chancellor, 1821. Among those who died at this age were Queen Mary of England, in 1558 ; Van Dyck, in London, on December 9, 1641 ; Thomat Brown, the Scottish psychologist, in 1820; and A. H. Clongh, in 1861. Age 43 In 1512, the year of the fall of the Republic of Florence, Machiavelli began to write " The Prince," which was not published till 1632— after his death. - Milton became totally blind early in 1652. George II. came to the throne in 1727. Joseph Butler published "The Analogy of Religion" on the last day of February, 1736, and two years later was consecrated Bishop of Bristol. In 1781 Sir William Herscbel discovered the planet Uranus, and at a bound leapt into fame. He made this discovery with a telescope of his own construction. In 1793 Lady Anne Barnard, author of " Auld Robin Grav," was married. Sir Walter Scott published " Waverley" anonymously, in 1814. The first seven chapters bad been written in 1805. Towards the end of 1845 Lord George Bentinck, who had become prominent in the Protectionist party in the House of Commons, resolved to devote himself more fully to the public service, and with that object he sold his magnificent stud. This was a great epoch in his life, for, previous to this, his whole ener;.'ies had been given to the turf, and now he began to rise in Parliament with startling rapidity. A little before 1848 Sainte-Beuve writes : " There comes a sad moment in life ; it is when one feels that one has reached all that one can reasonably hope, that one has acquired all to which one could reasonably pretend. I am at this point. I I- I .. i!: ^1^ 186 THE ROUND OF THE CLOCK have obtained mach more than my destiny offered me at first, and I find at the same time that this mach is very little. ... In yonth there is a world within as, bat as we advance it comes to pass that oar thoaghts and oar sentiments can no longer fill oar solitade, or at least no longer charm it. ... At a certain age if year hoase is not peopled with children it is filled with ma ni aa or vices." Robert Loais Btevenson wrote to Sidney Colvin, in 1894 : '* I know I am at a climacteric for all men who live by their wits, so I do not despair. Bat the troth is I am pretty nearly aseless at literataic. . . . Were it not for my health, which made it impossible, I coald not find it in my heart to forgive myself that I did not stick to an honest com- monplace trade when I was yoang, which might have now sapported me daring these ill years. ... I do not think it possible to have fewer illasions than I. I sometimes wish I had more. They are amasing. Bat I cannot take myself serioasly as an artist ; the limitations are so obvioas. I did take myself serioasly as a workman of old, bat my practice has fallen off. I am now an idler and camberer of the ground ; it may be ezcascd to me perhaps by twenty years of indastij and ill-health, which has taken the cream off the milk." Among those who married at this age were Bishop Berkeley, in 1728, and Lord Broagham, in 1821. Age 44 St. Francis of Assisi, worn out by his many labours, died on October 4, 1226. In twenty-four years after his death his Order numbered 200,000 friars, distributed into twenty-three provinces, and occupying 8,000 monasteries. Lorenzo de Medici died in 1492, quite cheerfully. He said the only reason he would have wished life prolonged was that he might complete the public library at Florence. Cardinal Wolsey reached the summit of his power in 1515. Pope Leo X. created him Cardinal, and King Henry VIII. made him Chancellor. The Duke Francis of Guise was forty-four when he was assassinated by Poltrot de M6r6, onecf the great political crimes of the siarteenth century. FROM FORTY TO FORTY-FIVE 187 Mary Queen of Scots was beheaded in 1587. John Napier, of Merchiston, in 1594, conceived the general principles of logarithms, in developing which the next twenty '•^ears of his life were spent. Francis Bacon published, in 1605, "The Advancement of I.«arning." In 1621 Robert Burton published the first edition of the •' Anatomy of Melancholy." Benedict Spinoza died of consumption in 1677. Sir Isaac Newton presented the first book of his " Principia " to the Royal Society in 1686, and the whole work was published the next year. Frederick the Great, on August 24, 1756, suddenly crossed the frontier and compelled the Saxon army to surrender. This started the Seven Years' War, in which practically the whole Continent was in arms against him. The issue of this war was that Prussia was regarded as one of the great powers of the Continent, and she took her place in Germany as the rival of Austria. Goldsmith's play. She Stoopg to Conquer was acted in 1773. Thomas Bewick, in 1797, published at Newcastle the first volume of his "History of British Birds." In this book he reached his high-water mark in wood-engraving. Robert Hall was married in 1808. William Wordsworth published "The Excursion" in 1814. R. D. Blackmore published " Loma Doone" in 1869. Robert Louis Stevenson died in 1894. i Age 45 Chaucer, born 1340, began to write the "Canterbury Tales" when he was between forty-five and fifty, and died at sixty, leaving them unfinished. Descartes, in 1641, published his " Meditationes de Prim* Philosophic." In 1671 Madame de S6vign6 writes to her daughter : " You ask me, my child, whether I still love life as well as I did. I do not conceal from you that I find it full of poignant afflictions ; but I am even more disgusted with death. I consider myself so unfortunate that I have to end with it, that if I could turn back % 188 THE ROUND OF THE CLOCK I woald joyfully do so^ I am ia a position that embarrasses me I was started in life witboal my consent, and I must quit it ; this weighs on my heart." In 1768 the Boyal Academy was planned and established, and Joshua Reynolds was appointed its first President, and knighted in 1769. Schiller died in 1805. He said when dying that •< many things were now becoming plain and clear to him." John Stuart Mill was married in 1851. He wrote : " For seven and a half years . t blessing was mine ; for seven and a half only I I can say nothing which . could describe, even in the faintest manner, what that loss was and is. But because 1 know that she would have wished it, I endeavour to make the best of what life I have left, and to work on for her purposes with such diminished strength as can be derived from thoughts of her, and communion with her memory." Thackeray wrote from Washington to Mrs. Brookfield, February, 1863 : "God bless all there, say L I wish I was by to be with my dear friends in grief. I know they know how to sympathise (although we are spoiled by the world, we have no hearts you know, etc., etc.; but then it may happen that the high-flown romantic people are wrong, and that we love our friends, as much as they do). I don't pity anybody who leaves the world, not even a fair young girl in her prime ; I pity those remaining. On her journey, if it pleases God to send her, depend on it there's no cause for grief— that's but an earthly condition. Out of our stormy life, and brought nearer the Divine light and warmth, there must be a serene climate." Matthew Arnold wrote, in 1867, after his son's death : "And so this loss comes to me just after my forty -fifth birthday, with so much other « suffering in the flesh '—the departure of youth, cares of many kinds, an almost painful anxiety about public matters— to remind me that the ttvie past of our life may sttffiee «#.'— words which have haunted me for the last year or two, and that we ' should no longer live the rest of our time in the flesh to the lusts of men, but to the will of God.' However different the interpretation we put on much of the facts and history of Christianity, we may unite in the bond of this call, which is true for all of us, and for me, above all, how full of meaning and warning ! " FROM FORTY TO FORTY-FIVE 189 .a Aiohard Green, the historian, " died learning," at Mentone, :a Inarch, 188a A lady said to Dickens : •' I can never forgive yon, Mr. Dickens, for the death of Nelly in 'The Old Curiosity Shop.'" "You would not have liked her," he said in reply, "to nuurry a butcher or a baker." •4 i^i ;i!. i U'l ■ XIII •'DISCONTENTS IN DEVON": FROM FORTY- FIVE TO FIFTY In these papers I am trying to say something of the greater human experiences To fit these with precision into any lustrum of life is impossible. I can but make approximations to the normal. In most lives there is something of success and much of failure. In the next chapter I shall write of the sunnier and more prosperous side, and in this of the darker. Perhaps the order mi^ht have been reversed. In any case, I think it is true that, when men come to forty-five, they are compelled to consider what they have attained to and the possibilities that lie beyond them. "Who can doubt but that the vast majority are more or less disappointed ? They had hoped to do better— much better. The dark side of hope's fiery 190 *' DISCONTENTS IN DEVON'* 191 oolnmn i% tamed. They are where they do not expect to be, and they see small prospect of betteriiient. The trouble and the consolation are excellently expressed by Robert Herrick in his lines, *' Discontents in Devon *' : " More discontents I never had Since I was bom, than here ; Where I have been, and still am sad, In this dull Devonshire : " Yet justly too I must confess ; I ne'er invented such Ennobled numbers for the press, Than where I loath'd so much." Herrick was thirty-eight when he was admitted in 1639 to the living of Dean Prior, near Ashbnrton, Devon. He had come from gay days in London, and conld recall the lyric feasts " presided over by Ben Jonson at the Sun, the Dog, the Triple Tun." Bnt Devonshire was a weary place to him, and yet he spent some eighteen years .there, leaving the county in 1647, when he was fifty-six. He declared that he would never go back to Devon- shire till " rocks turned to rivers, rivers turned to men." Loudon was his birthplace, " a fine town and a gallant city," and in London he vowed he would spend the rest of his days. But in the course of fortune he returned after fifteen years, and he was in Dean Prior for the last twelve years of his life, and is buried tl ^, The experience of narrow circumstances, of % 192 THE ROUND OF THE CLOCK limited hnmaa interconne, of the Bcantiest recog- nition, it escaped by few, whether they ultimately pMB into a larger world or remain where they were placed at first. How often one has heard a sangnine youth speaking of his first place as a stepping-stone ! As time passes, he remains while others move on. But for years he has hopes, till at length a day comes when he recognises that in the crowded world he is not needed, and that the lonely furrow must be ploughed to the end. Others again, after yeara of waiting, hear their call. They take their place at the centre, and look back. ™ I do not remember any keener or more poignant expression of this experience than is to be found in the writings of that illustrious Hebraist, the late Professor A. B. Davidson. Davidson was a re- served and enigmatic personality, and he scorned what is called popular preaching. But there were always those who hung eagerly on his lips for the sake of what he gave them from his heart of hearts. He knew young men and loved them. He watched their careers with as much sympathy as Jowett, and often with deep disappointment. I make an extract : " In the lives of many men there comes a moment like this which had come on Saul. It came, perhaps, to many of the patriarchs. It came to Moses, when debarred from the promised land; ** DISCOXTEXTS IX DEVON'' 193 and it comes to many of us — a moment when it i.h made clear to us that we are not going to receive that which we had set our heart upon, or make that out of life which we hoped to make, or attain really to that which our circumstances, to set out with, gave promise of— a moment when we are told, as clearly as by a voice from heaven, that we shall not rise to that position in the world, or among men, or in the Church of God, that we hatl looked forward to ; that we shall not lead, or even be a part of, that movement of thought from one degree of truth to a higher, or from one degree of attainment in Christian life to a greater, which we once thought of; that, when that advance is made, no one will think of us in connection with it : or when we feel that evil is in us, which we had struggled against and prayed to have removed, and which we know to be the bar to our true influence, will not yield in this life, and are made conscious that we must stand aside and take a lower place, or, like one who has become lame in the march, fall out of the rank, and let the glorious array pass by us. There comes such a moment to us, I say, as it came to Saul, and as it came to Moses; and though others do not know it, yet God makes known to us the cause of it, what incapacity is in us, or what unadvised word or false step it was, that loses to us the harvest of our hopes. Yet surely even then we are not going to go moaning through the world, or become paralysed and feeble, and let our hands hang down. 13 194 THS ROUND OF THE CLOCK llatber let ob accept oar destiuy aa what Qod adjadges to ni, and strive to do what we still can, losing ourselves as mnch as we can in the general thought of God and man, and the great interests of life, in which we shall have some share still, although not that high one which we dreamed of having." Again Davidson pictures what is often the thonght of those who for years have been drearily situated in remote places and crave for their opportunity. " Are we not people who for long have been walking this way and that way, pursuing all ways that seemed open to us of thought and life, but in every case finding that, what- ever way we took, it carried us but a little distance — it suddenly stopped, and there rose up before us a wall, insurmountable and dead, with no entrance in it, no door, an absolute obstacle to further movement? Before and behind, such walls were around us, insurmountable and dead." It is perhaps quite true to say that the cure for such fretting and chafing is the realising of our own insignificance. We are where we are because we never hod it in us to rise higher. To us has been given the one talent. But this will not cover all the facts. The right men are not in the right place: *' DISCONTENTS IN DEVON" 195 that is part of the tragedy of the world. How is a man to bear himself when he h in the wrong place ? He may bear himself bravely and cheerfully, or he may moan and whine. I take Sydney Smith at Foston as an example of the heroic way, and Thomas Carlyle at Craigen- puttock of the not altogether unheroic bnt fretful and lacerating way. II Sydney Smith (17/ 1-1846) was one of the wisest, wittiest, and most brilliant men in the early nine- teenth century. His chances in life seemed to be good, and his remarkable qualities made friends for him everywhere and in all circles. There was probably never a man better fitted for society, and, alike in Edinburgh and in London, his sense and his good humour impressed all who met him. But he was on the people's side in politics, and promotion was very slow. He received the living of Foston, near York, valued at £500 a year, and, in the easy way of the time, proposed to draw the revenues and enjoy them in London. But the Clergy Residence Bill was passed, and Sydney bad to give up Foston or reside in it. He chose in 1809 to reside and to face his diflSculties. Foston had had no resident clergyman since the seventeenth century, and Sydney had to build a parsonage. He heartily faced his difficulties. He set to work to build a parsonage, snug if ugly, .if I i-i 'I ; ii 196 THE ROUND OF THE CLOCK with farm buildings and all complete at the coat of £4,000 of his own money. In his biography may be read the delightful details of his residence there. When he went to Foston b«? v^as hardly a young man. Thirty-eight years of h'H life had f cne, and he was to be rector of Foston l'>r iome twenty years. But his spirits never seemed ic fui!. I say " seemed," for tl.'ere are suggestive touches in Sydney Smith's writings. Thus he says in one place that we are all going to the grave with hearts scarred like a soldier's body. He did not allow his pain to find expression ; and, as Professor Saintsbury says in his excellent essay," it is impossible to read his letters without liking him warmly and personally, without seeing that he was not only a man who liked to be com- fortable (that is not very rare), that he was not only one who liked others to be comfortable (that is rarer) ; but one who in every situation in which he was thrown did his utmost to make others as well as himself comfortable (which is rarest of all)." I take the testimony of his wife, who writes to Francis Jeffrey : " We have been a sad house of invalids here, but we are all cheering up at the prospect of Sydney's return. The other day poor little Douglas was lying on the sofa very unwell, while Saba and I were at dinner ; and I said, ' Well, dear little Chuffy, I don't know what is the matter with us both, but we seem very good for nothing I ' ' Why, mamma,' said Saba, ' I'll tell you what the matter ''DISCONTENTS IN DEVON" 197 is : yon are so melancholy and so dnll becanse papa is away ; he is so merry that he makes ns all gay. A family doesn't prosper, I see, withont a papa ! ' I am much inclined to be of her opinion : and, suspecting that the observation wonld please him quite as well as that of any of his London flatterers, I despatched it to him the next day." His daughter Saba, who afterwards became his biographer, comments thus : " The letter is so complete and faithful a family picture, that I have not been able to resist the temptation to insert it. The joyous and joy-giving father, the tender and devoted wife and mother, the hai)p/ children, sousible of their happiness, are all placed before us in these few words." During his time at Foston Sydney never indulged in any pleasures in which his family did not share. Though he contributed to the Edinburgh Recimv, and was much in need of books of reference, he did without them. He hardly added one volume through all his years of poverty to the precious little store he brought down with him from London. When a present of books arrived from some of his kind old friends he was almost childlike in his delight. He read and wrote in his own family circle, in spite of talking and other interruptions. He had thoughts for every one, even for the beasts. " What in the name of wonder," said a visitor, " is that skeleton sort of machine in the middle of your field ? " " Oh, that is my universal scratcher, a i i t ! 5 .'i: I: 1 i 198 THE ROUND OF THE CLOCK framework so contrived that every animal, from a lamb to a bullock, can rub and scratch itself with the greatest facility and luxury." His head servant was his carpenter, and never appeared save on company days. " We were waited on by his usual corps domestique — one little girl about fourteen years of age, named, I believe, Mary or Fanny, but invariably called by them Bunch. With the most immovable gravity she stands before him when he gives his orders, the answers to which he makes her repeat verbatim to ensure accuracy." Sydney Smith maintained his manly indepen- dence in writing to the great. He did not conceal the limitations of his position, but smiled on them. Thus he writes to Jeffrey: "I like my new house very much. It is very comfortable ; and, after finishing it, I would not pay sixpence to alter it. But the expens- - f it will keep me a very poor man, a close priso: ^re for my life, and render the education of my ouiidren a difficult exercise for me. My situation is one of great solitude ; but I preserve myself in a state of cheerfulness and tolerable content, and have a propensity to amuse myself with trifles. I hope I shall write some- thing before I grow old, but 1 am not certain that I am sufficiently i.^^ustrious. I am truly glad to hear of your pleasurt from your little girl and your chateau. The ! -.ants of happiness are varied and rather unaccountable, but I have more often seen her among little children, and home firesides, "DISCONTENTS IN DEVON'' 199 and conntry houses, than anywhere else — at least, I think so." At last, when Sydney was approaching sixty, the preferment to which he justly thought himself entitled came to him. It is a great thing to say that he never showed jealousy of those for whom he had been passed by. It is one chief peril of the neglected that they may be "devoured by jealousy, gnawed by burning t^eth, rent by ice- cold claws." Ill I shall not repeat the oft-told tale of Carlyle's time at Craigenputtock, 1828-34 — the six years' imprisonment on the Dumfriesshire moors. Doubt- less it was a fruitful time for him, and a tia.e when he bore poverty, mortification, and disappointment rather than be untrue to that which was best within him. But Carlyle complained too much, and cared too little for his fellow-sufiferers. He spoke of the " lying draggle-tailb of byrp-women, and peat-moss, and isolation, and exasperation, and confusion." Life, he said, " here is a kind of life- in-death, or rather, one might say, a not being born : one sits as in the belly of some Trojan horse, weather-screened but pining, inactive, neck and heels crushed together. Let us burst it in the name of God. Let us take such an existence as He will give us, working where work is to be fonnd while it is called to-day. A strange shiver Ml I ' i I sis ill nil I -3 la ii 200 THE ROUND OF THE CLOCK i ■I! J I II rnns through every nerve of me when I think of taking that plunge ; yet also a kind of sacred faith, sweet after the dreary vacuity of soul I have through long seasons lived in as under an eclipsing shadow." Mrs. Carlyle, also, was unhappy. Fronde must always be read with caution, but on this point all the evidence confirms him. " Her life there, to begin with, had been a life of menial drudgery, unsolaced (for she could have endurod and even enjoyed mere hardship) by more than an occasional word of encouragement, or sympathy, or compassion from her husband. To him it seemed perfectly natural that what his mother did at Scotsbrig his wife should do for him. Every household duty fell upon her, either directly or in supplying the shortcomings of a Scotch maid-of-all- work. She had to cook, to sew, to s'^our, to clean, to gallop down alone to Dumfries if anything was wanted to keep the house ; and even on occasion to milk the cows." She never recovered the strain of these six years. The loneliness of Craigenputtock was dreadful to her, and she saw very little of her husband. " For months together, especially after Alick Carlyle had gone, they never saw the face of guest or passing stranger. So still the moors were that she could hear the sheep nibbling the grass a quarter of a mile off. For the many weeks when the snow was on the ground she could not stir beyond the garden, or even beyond her door. She ''DISCONTENTS IN DEVON" 201 had no great thoughts, as Carlyle had, to occupy her with the administration of the universe. He had deranged the faith in which she had been brought up, but he did not inoculate her with his own, and a dull gloom, sinking at last to apathy, fell upon her spirits." It was not till Mrs. Carlyle was dead that her husband saw the meaning of it all. IV Even among strong spirits at this period of lite the escape by death is often coveted. In the letters of Melanchthon we find more than one striking phrase, " Duriter servio et sajpe de fuga cogito" (I serve in hardness and often think of flight). Melanchthon 'vas then forty-six. But this was not from the absenr^ of work, but rather from its excess, from that pressure of great affairs which sometimes crushes a man in mid-career, but which, when conquer ^, seems to be borne easily and lightly. i ! i ' In i i f ! i - ^ ii S l i I ; I ' I' } : 111 I have two favourite (quotations on reconciliation with circumstance. There is a sombre grandeur in the words of T. H. Green : " Our final repose does not arise from uncon- sciousness of the law, but from reconciliation with it. The solid walls of circumstance which shut in our energies stand firm as ever ; but, instead of = :i 202 THE ROUND OF THE CLOCK I chafing against them, we see them reflecting the brightness of onr own Deliverer's coming." And Robert Browning says : "Somewhat narrow, somewhat slow, Used to seem the ways, the walking : narrow ways are well to tread When there's moss beneath the footsteps, honeysuckle overhead." We may come to look at the familiar, cramped, but not nnloved snrronndings and say : " I began with tremendons ambitions, hopes, intentions. I was going to set the world afire ; I was going to build such wonders as never man beheld. Well, it wasn't in me, that's all. I had to face my limita- tions, and to work on from them." FROM PORTY-FIVE TO PIPTY Age 46 On March 20, 1663, John Foze's " Acts and Monamenta " was published in English. In March, 1764, Winckelmann pnbliahed his epoch-making " History of Ancient Art." Jmmanuel Kant, in 1770, after fifteen years' teaching as a private lecturer in the University of Konigsberg, was at last appointed to the chair of logic and metaphysics. John Howard was named High Sheriff for Bedfordshire in 1772, and the characteristic work, of his life began. He entered the prisons, and began bis immortal undertaking of prison reform. 1815 was one of the most eventful years in the crowded life of Napoleon. On February 20 he was in banishment in Elba, and set sail thence, and on March 20 entered Paris in triumph. On June 18 he was defeated at Waterloo, being overcome with the most unaccountable sleepiness and inattention during crises of the fight. On October 16 he arrived at iSt. Helena to spend the rest of his days in banishment. The Duke of Wellington, who was bom in the same year as Naprleon, won the battle of Waterloo. Hegel's " Logic," in which his system was for the first time presented in what was its ultimate shape, appeared complete in 1816, when he was forty-six ; his " Philosophy of Kight " followed in 1821. Between 1823 and 1827 at Berlin his activity reached its maximum. "Hegel himself in his class-room was neither imposing nor fascinating. You saw a plain, old-fashioned face, without life or lustre — a figure which had never looked young, and was now bent and prematurely aged ; the furrowed face bore witness to concentrated thought." 203 204 THE ROUND OF THE CLOCK Nathaniel Hawthorne published " The Scarlet Letter "in 1850, when he was forty-six, "The House of the Seven Gables" in 1851, and "The Blithedalo Romance" in 1862. He flowered late, and his permanent work was all accomplished in a short time. John Lawrence, in 1857, disarmed the mutineers in the Punjab, raised an army of 59,000 men, and captured Delhi from the rebels after a siege of over three months. Charles Tickens separated from his wife in 1868. When A. P. Stanley was forty-six his mother died, and soon after he met Lady Augusu Bruce, whom he married in 1863, immediately before his investiture as Dean of Westminster. He writes : " I have often thought that marriage is the only event in modern life which corresponds to what baptism was in the ancient Church— a second birth, a new creation, old things passing away, all things becoming new. I feel as if this double move must indeed be the crisis of my life, in which I must either be extinguished by the greatness of the event, or be made more useful to my Church and country than I have ever been before." Among those who died at this age were ; Edward the Black Prince, 1376 ; Savonarola, who was put to death in Florence, in 1498 ; Jolm Fletcher, 1625 ; Alfred de Musset, 1857. ■! Age 47 The first edition of Montnigne's Essays appeared in 1580. Richard Baxter, in 1662, refused to submit to the Act of Uniformity, and, bidding farewell to the Church of England, retired to Acton, in Middlesex. In the same year he married Miss Charlton. Le Sage published the first two volumes of " Gil Bias " in 1715. Admiral Anson returned, in 1744, from his voyage round the world, having inflicted much damage on the Spaniards, and captured treasure to '.lie amount of half a million. Nelson fell in the battle of Trafalgar, October 21, 1805. He died exclaiming, " I have done my duty ; I thank God for it." Among those who died at forty-seven were Edmund Spenser, in 1599, for lack of bread, in King Street, Westminster. He FROM FORTY-FIVE TO FIFTY 205 refused "twenty pieces sent him by my lord of Essex, saying that he had no tune to spend them"; Isaac Barrow, 1077; and John Gay, the fxiet, 1732. Johnson says: " 'Hie letter which brought an account of his death to Swift wag laid by for some days unopened, because when he received it he was impressed with the pretsumption of some misfortune." James Thomson, the author of "The Seasons," diecigbt when the ** Esaajs of Eiia " were publiubeil in collected torm. Thierii published in 1846 the first volume of his chief work, " L'Histoire du Connulat et de TEmpire," which occupied twenty volumes and was completed in 18G2. T. B. Macaulay published the first two volumes of his " History uf England " in 1848. Until tiie year 1857 Oliver Wendell Holmes had no ruputatioa outside a small and critical New England circle. Then he began " The Autocrat of the Breakfast Table " in the Atlantic Monthly. " At forty -eight, when everything begins to pall and men doubt whether the world holds any more of delight, he woke cue (lay to find himself not simply famous, but an object of affection to all who speak our tongue." J. W. Colenso, Bishop of Natal, ^> *bliHhed in 18<)2 the first volumes of " The Pentateuch and the Book of Joshua Critically Examined." Among those who died at forty-eight were William Shenstonc, 1763, and Richard rorson, 1808. Charles I. was beheade^assinate2 when she wa.s forty-nine. On June 18, 1H58, Charles Darwin received a letter from Alfred Wallace, "containing the astounding news that the theory he had been elaborating during twenty years had been suddenly arrived at by Mr. Wallace in the East. ... I would far rather burn ray whole book than that he or any other man should think that I had behaved in a paltry spirit." John Brown published " llab and His Friends" in 1859. 1 I' « Age 50 In 1541 Ignatius Loyola was made the first General of the Jesuit Order, and attained the summit of his ambition. William Harvey began as early as 1G15 to speak of his new views on the action of the heart and the circulation of the blood, but it was not till lt;28, when he was fifty, that his great ^ork, "Exercitatio Anatomica de Motu Cordis et Sanguinis, expour.iing his theory and discovery, was pubUshed. Edward Gibbon writes : " It was on the day, or rather the night, of the twenty-seventh of June, 1787, between the hours of eleven and twelve, that I wrote the last lines of the last page in a summer- house in my garden [at Lausanne]. After laying down my pen I ^ M PROM FORTY-FIVE TO FIFTY 209 took Mveral tunu in a covcrect of the country, the lake, and the mountaini. I will not diM8,.mble the fimt emot ions of joy on recovery of my froetlor... and perhaps on the CHtablighment of nay fame. Rut my prido wa« 8>on humbled, and a sober melancholy was spread over my mmd, by the idea that I had taken an everlasting leave of an old and agreeable companion, and that, whatever miglit be the future fate of my history, the life of the historian mu.st be short and precarious." The following is Gibbon's summing- np of his memoirs, when, as he said, "the general probability is about three to one that a new-born infant will not live to complete his fiftieth year. I have now passed that age." Boswell's "Life of Johnson" appeared on May Ifi, \TJ\ in two quarto volumes, sold at ten guineas. ' H. 0. Bohn started, in 1846, his Standiird Library, which proved an immense success, and gave him a unique position among the publishers of his time. The first edition of Edward Fitzgerald's '• Omar KhavyAra " came out in 1859, without gaining any immediate recognition. When writing to Professor Cowell, he says : "Ten years ago I might have been vexed to see you striding along in Hnnskrit and Persian so fast; reading so much; remembering all; writing about it so well. But now I am glad to see an v man d, . anytl.ing well ; and I know it is my vocation to stand and wait and know within myself whether it is done well." Henriette Renan, the elder sister who devoted herself to her brother Ernest, and went with him to Syria, where he wrote his " Vie de Jfisus," died of fever at Byblos, September 24, 1861 at the age of fifty. There is much pathos in that final scene described by her brother when they were both lying ill a few feet from one another, both unconscious, and she taking her " endlesse leave," " Without a sad look or a solemn tearo," from the brother for whom she had sacrificed evervthing— even a happy marriage-in life. The "Vie de J^sus" is dedicated A Fame pure de ma Soeur Henriette. Constantly in the letters and m the memoir Ernest talks of her and addresses her by the exquisite French term of endearment, mun amie, and in truth U 210 THE ROUND OF THE CLOCK there are few Bisters of whom Christina ilossetti'H fine lines can so truly be said ai of Henriette Renan : " There is no friend like a sister In calm or stormy weather, To cheer one on the tedious way, To fetch one if one goes astray, To lift one if one totters down. To strengthen whilst one stands." Tolstoi in 1878 resolved to devote himself to the problems of life, and gradually resigned all privileges of rank. Among others who died at fifty were Catharine of Aragon, in 1636 ; Winckelmann, murdered in 1768 ; Tobias Smollett, in 1771 ; Captain Cook, killed in 1779; Lavoisier, guillotined in 1794 ; Sir Humphry Davy, in 1829, at Geneva, from an attack of paralysis ; Count Cavour, in 1861. His last words were, " Frate, frate, libera chiesa in libero state " (brother, brother, free church in free state). Sydney Dobell, in 1874. Matthew Browne says : " The best minds have inany maturities. Milton was precocious, and yet he sat down to write • Paradise Lost' at fifty." 8truogi.es in Mid Life There is a very flue letter of Nathaniel Hawthorne to Hillard, sending back the sum with interest which was given him by unknown friends about four years before. "I have always hoped and intended to do this, from the first moment when I made up my mind to accept the money. It would not have been right to speak of this purpose before it was in my power to accomplish it ; but it has never been out of my mind for a single day, nor hardly, I think, for a single working hour. We are not rich, nor are we ever likely to be ; but the miserable pinch is over. This act of kindness did me an unspeakable amount of good ; for it came when 1 most needed to be assured that anybody thought it worth while to keep me from sinking. And it did me even greater good than this, in making me sensible of the need of il FROM FORTY-FIVE TO FIFTY 211 sterner efforts than my fo»mcr ones, in onler to establish a riglit for mvself to live and be comfortable. For it is my creed (and was 80 even at the wretched time) that a man has no claim upon his fellow creatures, beyond bread and water, and a grave, unless he can win it by his own strength or skill. But so much the kinder were those unknown friends, whom I thank again with all my heart." Hawthorne was forty-six when he accepted the loan, and forty-nine when he returned it. « WINNA XIV SILLER DO'T?"— FROM FIFTY TO FIFTY-FIVE When the stnnning news of Effie Deans's accusation fell upon old Davie Deans, who had in his early youth resisted the brow of military and ciTJl tyranny, he "fell extended and senseless on his own hearth." All hastened round him with their appropriate phrases of consolation— the laird with his purse, Jeanie with burnt feathers and strong waters, and the women with their exhortations. " Davie— winna siller do't ? " insinuated the laird, proffering his green purse, which was full of guineas. The decade between fifty and sixty is often the time of life's greatest prosperity, and sometimes of its greatest calamity. In dealing with the lustrum from fifty to fifty-five, I bear in mind the observation of an experienced friend who said to me, " It is at fifty that a man generally begins 212 i "WINNA SILLER r a »» 213 to make money." In outwardly snccessfnl lives the preliminary diflScultiea are over, the period of stability has begun, the energies are not sensibly weakened, and there is no thought of life's decline and fall. I find it a general opinion that fifty is middle age. Yon see the flourishing man of fifty in the best of health, with his investments in- creasing, with a certain air of condescension, and a slight convexity of person. Mr. Hewlett describes one such in his book, " Open Country " : " The name of Thomas Welbore Percival was soundly respected in the City of London. It stood for a turnover of £15,000 and a private income of at least £6,000 a year. It centred in the person of a rosy-gilled, full- waist- coated gentleman of middle life— Mr. Percival was fifty-five and admitted it — to whom a joke was dear, and not less dear because its scope and measurements were accurately known. When Mr. Percival came into Lomax's 'jank he said, ' Morning, Wilkins — growing weather ! ' to the grey-whiskered cashier, and handed over his slip of green paper— a glance at the back was the only formula. Then came, »hip like itT nothing eats out the best in the sonl as avarice does. But I confess to a very strong sympathy with those who desire to provide for their own day of need and to leave those who have loved and trusted them with m shelter from the storm. When Carlyle was oflfered a baronet y and a pension by Lord Beaconsfield he wa.^ al ie to say, in his letter of refusal, that he dul not need the money— "Thank God, and ujose who have gone before." The careful Haddin-tou doctor who saved enough to buy the iittl estate of i !! ''WINNA SILLKR JH/Tf 228 Oaigenpnttock made life possible for ('arlyle. How many little peaceful homes are unroofejl wlien a bauk breaks! There is no cruelty like the cruelty of pecuniary crime. Such crime is nnuh worse than murder, for the suffering it inflicts in its long duration is terrible to think of. An Anglo-Indian, after forty years of honourable labour, returns to England with a competency, to be swindled in the first month out of the whole by a rascally agent, and to be for another quarter of a century a iKjverty-stricken pensioner on the charity of a friend. We may measure the value of a little competency by what follows on its loss. Cliarles Keade, in his novel, " Hard Oash," describes what followed the fall of a bank, a fall resulting from the banker's hubitnal tiieft of his clients' securities for puri)08es of -ipeculation. " Turned au atheist and burned the fjuuily Bible before his watching wife and terrified children and gaping servant girl, Mr. Wil]iam>, a Sunday-school teacher, known hitherto only as a mild, respectable man and teetotaler, and a good parent and husband. He did not take to drinking, but he did to cursing, and forbad his own flesh and blood ever to enter a church again. This man became au outcast, shunned by all." " Three elderly sisters, the Misses Lumley, well born and bred, lived t'"^"*her on their funds, which, small singly, uni' ' - . *iupetence. Two of them ha(' u g^ for M 224 THE ROUND OF THE CLOCK fear the third shonld fall into less tender hands than theirs. For Miss Blanche Lumley was a cripple ; disorder of the spine had robbed her of the power to walk, or even stand upright, leaving her two active little hands and a heart as angelic as we are likely to see here on earth. She died of pity for her sisters' fate." in " J FROM PIPTY TO PIPTY-PIVE Age 61 In 49 B.C. Julius Csesar crossed the Rubicon. It was probably in 1265 that Roger Bacon, encouraged by Pope Clement IV., began to write his •« Opus Majus," at op"- the Encyclopaedia and the Organon of the thirteenth century In 1529 Sir Thomas More was made Ix>rd Chancellor of England in succession to Wolsey. Samuel Butler, in 1663, published the first part of " Hudibras," which achieved the widest popularity. Samuel Richardson published, in 1740, the first part of " Pamela." On December 23, 1783, on the victorious conclusion of the war with Great Britain, George Washington resigned his commission as Commander-in-Chief of the American troops. In November 1860 Abraham Lincoln was for the first time elected President of the United States. Among the deaths at this age were : William the Silent, Prince of Orange, who was assassinated by Balthasar G6rard. The Prince had been showing signs of age, in consequence of his tremendous burdens, but his physicians said that at the time of his death he was thoroughly healthy, and might have lived many years ; Tasso, 1596; Molidre, in Paris, 1673; William III. of England, 1702 ; Madame de Stael, 1817 ; Napoleon I., at St. Helena, 1821 ; Balzac, 1860; J. E. Cairnes, Political Economist, 1876; Walter Bagehot, 1877; Henry Fawcett, the blind Postmaster-General and Economist, 1884. Age 62 Cardinal Beaton was murdered at St. Andrews, 1546. Beethoven, in 1822, after a germination of three years, pro- duced his Mass in D. 226 10 M t f' 226 THE ROUND OF THE CLOCK Henry Brongham became Lord Chancellor in November, 1830. George Grote pablished the first two volumes of his " History of Greece." 1846. At this age there died: Shakespeare, 1616; Francis Qoarles, 1644, who left a widow and eighteen children ; Peter the Great, 1726; Lessing, 1781; William Hazlitt, 1830 (his last words were, "Well, I've had a happy life") ; Hartley Coleridge, 1849 ; Thackeray, 1863; General Gordon, 1885; and John Davidson, 1909. Age 63 Qaspard de Coligny was in his fifty-fourth year when he was murdered in August, 1672-the first victim of the St. Bartholo- mew. Thomas Fuller died, 1661, crying out for his pen and ink to the last. Adam Smith published his •' Wealth of Nations," 1776. In 1785 William Cowper published '« The Task." Age 54 Deiaosthenes, in 330 B.C., made a splendid defence of his past policy in the greatest oration of the old world, his speech on the Crown. In 1632 Sir Thomas More resigned the Lord Chancellorship. This was one of the most joyous days in his life. " He immedi- ately recovered his hilarity and love of jest, and was himself again." Bossuet, in May, 1681, became Bishop of Meaux, and seldom preached afterwards. John Churchill, first Duke of Marlborough, won the battle of Blenheim in 1704. George I. succeeded to the British throne in 1714. Lord William Cavendish Bentinck, in July, 1828, assumed ofllce as Governor-General of Bengal, and thus began his career in India which produced so many notable resr .ts. Among those who died at fifty-four were : Scipio (Africanus Major) in 183 B.C. ; John Calvin in 1664 ; Charles II. of England in 1685 ; James Boswell in 1795 , id Engine Sue in 1869. FROM FIFTY TO FIFTY FIVE 227 Age 55 St. Bernard, in 1146, at the Council of Vdzclay, began to preach the second crnsade. Robert Bmce died in hia fifty-sixth year (1329). Trof. Hume Brown saj s : " In the conditions in which men then lived, this was in reality an advanced age. So thoroughly had he done his work that not even the weakness of his immediate successors could und.) it. In view of the work be accomplished it may be confidently said that he was the greatest king that ever sat on the Scottish throne." Charles V., Emperor of Germany, carried out the purpose he had Ijng cherished in his mind, and abdicated in 1565. Handel, in 1740, when he was fifty-five years of age, com- menced the " Messiah." During the year 1743-4, when Emanuel Swedenborg was in his fifty-sixth year, occurred the great crisis in his - il's history, which changed the eminent practical philosophrr into a theo- logian and a seer. He became at once completely absorbed in his new subject, a id &pent thirteen years of hard toil at it. Among the many who died at fifty-five were : Isaac Casaubon, 1614 ; George Whitefield, 1770; Sir David Wilkie, 1841 ; Elizabeth Barrett Browning, 1861 ; Mrs. Gaskell, 1866 ; and Charles Kingsley, 1875. 'if u 'lillEi I XV THE CATARACTS OF LIFE.-FROM FIFTY-FIVE TO SIXTY In this chapter we complete The Round of the Clock, We began with six o'clock in the morning, and took each hour as representing a lustrum, or five years. Now we have come to the lustrum that ends the round. We reach six o'clock in the evening— sixty years of age. A man's life does not end at sixty. There remain for many not the least happy and peaceful years of their appointed time. Professor Osier humorously suggests that people after that period should be thrown over bridges or chloroformed. Dr. Osier, it may be noted, admits that the influence of women after sixty on their own sex may be most helpful, "par- ticularly if aided by those charming accessories— a cap and a fichu." 228 THE CATARACTS OF LIFE 229 Over and over again I have pointed oat that no special characterisation will fit the particular Ins- trams with any approach to exactness. We have dealt only in generalities. The years between fifty and sixty are often the years of great prosperity and power. They are often also the years of calamity. I have given illustrations of the brighter side, and now I tarn to the latter. It does seem as if it were between fifty and sixty that many strong hearts cracked, as if between those years the cataracts of life are often reached and the sonl awakened to the fall experience and intelligence of tragedy. Of this a chief example is to be found in Sir Walter Scott. His Journal, first published in its completeness by Mr. David Douglas in 1890, is one of the most memorable records of struggle in the whole range of literature. The undispnted facts that brought about Scott's downfall may be stated in a few words. He became associated la basiness with Ballantyne & Constable, and in the end they were all ruined in 1826. Scott's liability amounted to £130,000. His associates were dis- charged of their indebtedness for payments of 10 per cent, of their debt. Scott, if he had chosen, might have made a similar arrangement with his creditors, but he would not. He wrote in his Journal : " If they [his creditors] permit me, I 230 THE ROUiVD OF THE CLOCK will be their vassal for life, and dig in the mine of my imagination to find diamonds (or what will sell for such) to make good my engagement not to enrich myself." Again he wrote : " I will never relax my labour in these affairs either for fear ot pain or love of life. I will die a free man if hard working will do it." Towards the end he said to his physician : " I could never have slept straight in my coffin till I had satisfied every claim against me." The cost at which this was done by a man who had reached fifty-five years is told in a way which shows the grandeur of a hero's make and character. a j ^u The collapse came on January 16, 1826. In the same spring there followed the illness and death of his wife, and he writes : " I am as alert in thinking and deciding as I ever was in my life. Yet, when I contrast what this place now is with what it has been not long since, I think my heart will break. Lonely, aged, deprived of my family—all but poor Anne— an impoverished and embarrassed man, I am deprived of the sharer of my thoughts and counsels, who could always talk down my sense of the calamitous apprehensions which break the heart which must bear them alone." But he yoked his great imagination t<> constant labour. After he had toiled all day at the drudgery of his « Life of Napoleon," he lay at night dreaming about hia lost wife, " and it was only when I was fully awake that I could persuade myself that she was dark, THE CATARACTS OF LIFE 231 low and distant, that my bed was widowed." he came to grudge every mi ante that he did not spend at his desk. A feeling of bodily helplessness from week to week crept over him. His handwriting became more and more cramped and confused, bat he grappled manfully with his sufferings, throwing the whole force of his indomitable nature into the effort to do his best. During this period he wrote, among many other things, " Woodstock," "The Fair Maid of Perth," and " Anne of Geierstein." On September 24, 1827, he notes : " Something of the black dog still hanging about me ; but I will shake him off. I generally affect good spirits in company of my family, whether I am enjoying them or not. It is t'^o severe to sadden the harmless mirth of others by suffering your own causeless melancholy to be seen, and this species of exercise is like virtue, its own reward, for the good spirits which are at first simulated at length become real." He goes to f * e the mother of his lost love, and writes (November 7, 1827): "I went to make another visit, and fairly softened myself, like an old fool, with recalling old stories till I was fit for nothing but shedding tears and repeating verses for the whole night. This is sad work. The very 232 THE ROUND OF THE CLOCK grave gives up its dead, and time rolls back thirty years to add to my perplexity. I do not care. I begin to grow overhardened, and, like a stag turning at bay, my natural good temper grows fierce and dangerons." By 1829 he is writing: " I am working hard, and it is what I onght to do and must do. Every hoar of laziness cries fie on me, bat there is a perplexing sinking of the heart which one cannot always over- come. At snch times I have wished myself a clerk, qaill-driving at twopence per page." By the end of 1830 he has hopes that the year 1833 may see him in possesiiion of his estate. Bat 1831 brings the gloomy news that " Count Robert of Paris " is a failure. '' The blow is a stunning one, I suppose, for I scarcely feel it. It is singular, but it comes with as little surprise as if I had a remedy ready. Yet God knows I am at sea in the dark and the vessel leaky, I think, into the bargain. I cannot conceive that I should not have tied a knot with my tongue which my death cannot untie. We will see." He compared his labour to the efforts of the Roman coursers driven forth free from the control of any rider, but pricked by spurs which jangled constantly against their sides. But he did not consciously yield an inch of ground. He never pretended that he was not suffering, but he passed through the dark eclipse without bitterness or terror. It has been truly said that the mighty and sober will which struggled on even under the overwhelming m THE CATARACTS OF LIFE 233 li harden of a conscions sense of decay was more impressive in defeat than it had been in victory. Scott was a Christian stoic, and there is as mach of Christianity as of stoicism in his high sense of honoar, in his magnanimity, in his grave resolve, in his deep resignation . He had to yield at last, bat the victory had been won, and won for all time. William Laidlaw, who attended him in his last hoars, remem- bered " that one fine afternoon, when the snn was shining bright into his bedroom, bat he was very low, I said, 'Cheer np. Sir Walter; yoa ased to say, " Time and I against any two " ; ' apon which he raised himself on his elbows, pushed back his night- cap, and merely said, * Vain boast,' fell back on his pillow, and relapsed into silence." n It may be doabted whether even Scott passed throagh sach mortal agony and profound gloom as Abraham Lincoln(1809-1865) did, and Lincoln's trial fell in the same period of life. When he died all that was most augast in the world paid tribnte to his grave, and the best men among his own people felt that the nation had gained in him one more ideal character. It is humiliating to think that certain English journalists during the Civil War applied the epithet '* a brutal boor " to the twice- elected representative of the American nation, and to such a man as that representative was. Every 234 THE ROUND OF THE CLOCK hi year that has passed since the awful day on which he was assassinated has deepened and confirmed that impression. We see him now in something of his true glory— the npright, self-devoted, un- wavering, and unwearied servant of his country. Lincoln was no lover of power. He had a domin- ating sense of duty, and a real sense of the presence and providence of God. This made him calm in danger, temperate in success, scrupulously and anxiously just and unaffectedly modest. What he passed through can never be fully known. It is clear that he was morbid, abnormal, sensitive, and most heavily burdened by a weight of responsibility. When his deep anxieties were at their height his deariy loved child Willie died suddenly. We read that those who lived with him testified that the President felt the loss of the child with a grief more like a mother's than a father's. Observers say that they never saw a sadder face than that of President Lincoln during the war. " The stamp of a sad end," says one, " was impressed by nature on that rugged, haggard face. But the eyes that were so exceeding sad had also a strange sweetness, and seemed to see more than the outer objects of the world around." He took up his tasks as they presented them- selves to him, and in the execution of his public duty he had to give terrible orders. But he would not make personal enemies. When he refused to triumph over his defeated rival at the last THE CATARACTS OF LIFE 235 I Presidential election he conld say, " I have never willingly planted a thorn in any man*8 bosom.*' There is something very high and noble and grave and religious in his published writings. Thns : " I claim not to have controlled events, but confess plainly that events have controlled me. Now, at the end of three years' struggle, the nation's condition is not what either party or any man devised or expected. God alone can claim it. Whither it is tending seems plain. If God now wills the removal of a great wrong, God wills also that we of the North as well as you of the South shall pay fairly for our complicity in that wrong. Impartial history will find therein new causes to attest and revere the justice and goodness of God." On the afternoon of the day on which the Presi- dent was shot there was a Cabinet Council, at which he presided with unusual dignity. He ex- plained : " I have had a dream, and I have now had the same dream three times : once on the night preceding Bull Run, once on the night pre- ceding snch another," naming a battle also not favourable to the North. His chin sank on his breast again, and he sat reflecting. '^ Might one ask the nature of this dream, sir ? " said the Attorney-General. " Well," replied the President, without lifting his head or changing his attitude, " I am on a great, broad, rolling river — and I am in a boat — and I drift— and I drift I But this is IS tii- ii! 236 THE ROUND OF THE CLOCK not bDBinesB '*— snddenly raising his face and look- ing round the tAble — " let ns proceed to bnsiness, gentlemen." He was shot that night. Ill I have many more examples at my hand, but it will suffice to give that of Oliver Cromwell, who died at fifty-nine. Carlyle says : " The * three-score and ten years,' the Psalmist's limit, which probably often was in Oliver's thoughts and those of others there, might have been anticipated for him : Ttm Years more of Life— which, we may compute, would have given another History to all the Centuries of England. But it was not to be so, it was to be otherwise. Oliver's health, as we might observe, was but uncertain in late times ; often indisposed the spring before last. His course of life had not been favourable to health ! * A burden too heavy for man 1 * as he himself, with a sigh, would some- times say. Incessant toil ; inconceivable labour, of head and heart and hand ; toil, peril, and sorrow manifold, continued for near Twenty years now, had done their part : these robust life-energies, it afterwards appeared, had been gradually eaten out. Like a Tower strong to the eye, but with its foundations undermined ; which has no*, long to stand; the fall of which, on any shock, may be sudden." THE CATARACTS OF LIFE 237 Among all his throng of carea the Protector foand his chief joy in the faithfnl family gathered ronnd him in his periloos day of greatness. The eldest son, Oliver, had fallen in battle for the canse. Among the rest was his old mother, who died at ninety-fonr, and a little before her death gave her son her blessing in these words: "The Lord canse His face to shine upon yon and comfort yon in all these adversities, and enable you to do great things for the glory of your most high God, and be a relief nuto His people. My dear son, I leave my heart with thee ; good night." " That smiling circle small" was being broken. His favonrite daughter was dying under great sufferings and great exercises of spirit, and at last she died. Not long after came the last struggle, when Crom- well spoke much of the Covenants. " Children, live like Christians. I leave you at which age I wonld have him retired on a double allowance. Whether Anthony Trollope*8 Buggeation of a college and chloroform should be carried out or not I have become a little dubioua, as my own time is getting so short." Ill The "double allowance" is decidedly preferable to the chloroform. Edward Gibbon did not reach the age of sixty. He was born in April, 1737, and died in January, 1794. To his magnum opus he gave the servitude of twenty years. On the pub- lication of the last three volumes he writes : " For my own part, I now feel as if a mountain was removed from my breast. ... I look back with amazement on the road which I have travelled, but which I should never have entered had I been previously apprised of its length." In a very in- teresting letter to M. Langer, of the ducal library at Wolfenbiittel, he rejoices at his emancipation. I translate from the French. The original will be found in Mr. Prothero's excellent edition of Gibbon's correspondence : "The memory of my twenty years' servitude alarmed me, however, and I made up my mind that I would never again launch out on a long- winded enterprise which I should probably never complete. It will be much better, I said to myself, to choose, from all countries and from all ages, portions of history which I shall deal with separ- * -i THB APPROACH OF AGE 249 ately, according to their nature and my own taste. When theie small works (I might call them in English ' Historical Excnrsions ') are namerons enough to fill a volame I shall give it to the pablic. This gift may be repeated nntil either the pablic or I myself are weary ; bat each volnme, complete in itself, will reqnire no seqnel ; and instead of being confined, like a stage coach, to the high road, I shall wander freely over the field of history, pausing wherever I find pleasant points of view." Gibbon, at the conclusion of his Autobiography, gives his thoughts on the experience which never arrived for him : " I shall soon enter into the period which, as the most agreeable of his long life, was selected by the judgment and experience of the sage Fontenelle. His choice is approved by the eloquent historian of nature, who fixes our moral happiness to the mature season, in which our passions are supposed to be calmed, our dnties fulfilled, ambition satisfied, our fame and fortune established on a solid basis. In private conver- sation that great and amiable man added the weight of his own experience ; and this autumnal felicity might be exemplified in the lives of Voltaire, Hume, and many < her men of letters. I am far more inclined to embrace than to dispute this comfortable doctrine. I will not suppose any pre- mature decay of the mind or body ; but I must reluctantly observe that two causes, the abbrevia- MICROCOPY RESOLUTION TEST CHART (ANSI and ISO TEST CHART No. 2) 1*5 l&o Its IK I& !r » ■lUu |2£ 14.0 IRI^H 12.0 III 1.8 ^ APPLIED IIVHGE inc 1653 East Main Street Rochester. New York 14609 USA (716) 482 - 0300 - Phone (716) 288- 5989 -Fo« 250 THE ROUND OF THE CLOCK ii tion of time and the failure of hope, will always tinge with a browner shade the evening of life." On this 1 may note that Voltaire once talked to Frederick the Great after his usual manner, of being old and worn out, and tottering on the brink of the grave. " Why, you are only sixty- two," said Frederick, "and your soul is full of the fire which animates and sustains the body. You will bury me, and half the present generation. You will have the delight of making a spiteful couplet on my tomb." Voltaire was eighty-three when he died. David Hume, in the sixty-fifth year of his age, began, as he writes, to see "many symptoms of my literary reputation breaking out at last with additional lustre, though I know that I can have but few years to enjoy it." His reputation was established long before that, though his ambition made him minimise it. IV It is perhaps true that hard-working literary men are not as a rule long-lived. One of the most laborious of the Victorian men of letters was Tom Taylor, editor of Punch, When he died, in 1880, Mr F Wedmore wrote : " Mr. Tom Taylor has died at a period of life which the man of literature is hardly ever permitted to overpass. Even the robustness of an exceptional temperament, and one THE APPROACH OF AGE 251 upon which the strain of work told seemingly but little, did not carry him beyond the time which, to the lawyer, the country squire, tho merchant, or the politician, is but the beginning of active old age. He was sixty-two or sixty-three. Some compensation for a premature death may perhaps be seen in the fact that Mr. Taylor died in the strenuous pursuit of the business which was his pleasure." When Thomas Aird, the Scottish poet, retired from the editorship of the Dumfries Herald^ at the age of sixty-one, a dinner was given in his honour, at which he said: "Well, if I were a judge, I should never resign ; if I were a physician, I should never resign ; if I were a minister of the Gospel, I should never resign. And fifty other spheres of active duty there are which can be not only well served, but best served, by the ripeness of years and judgment. But, gentlemen, the Press is scarcely one of these. It demands ceaseless vigil- ance, ceaseless enterprise, ceaseless animation, and these in many cases by night as well as by day. . . . When I tell you, for myself, I have been on the Herald for twenty-eight years, and during all that time, through good health and bau health, have written more or less in every newspaper, and have borne alone the necessary anxiety of every recurring week, you will scarcely wonder that I am now needing my day of rest, and I beg it rr-^pect- fuUy from you." ri,.! m 'm i I il' if !i 1 252 THE ROUND OF THE CLOCK Whatever may happen, we cannot quite forget that, after sixty, we are under sentence of capital punishment with a short reprieve. The horizons must narrow, the physical life must shrink and dwindle. But surely the wiser part is that of Jowett, to go on meditating great tasks and pur- suing them, in so far as we may, even though we are not destined to fulfil them. There is something noble as well as pathetic in Jowett's desire that he and his friends should make the most of life. He wrote to Dean Stanley, under date July 14, 1880, urging him to plan out a course of study and writing as the one thing needful : "It always seems to me that the last ten years of life are the most important of all (and for myself I build my hopes entirely on what I can do in them). I sometimes fear that you are allowing yourself to be crushed by personal misfortunes — some very real, like the loss of dear Lady Augusta, which I shall never cease to lament, but others partly fanciful, like this matter of the Prince Im- perial, which does not affect you in any important manner. Will you not shake them off, and fix your mind exclusively on higher things ? I really believe that this * expulsive power ' is necessary for your happiness. I am certain that your talents are as good as ever, and your experience far greater. . . . Will you not reflect upon the whole matter ? TEE APPROACH OF AGE 253 Forty years ago ^c all expected yoa to be the most distingnished man amongst ns, and you must not disappoint us." It was good advice, though Dean Stanley died just a year after, and though Jowett himself was able to add very little to his own permanent work. H XVII ZENITHS Mr. Hamilton Fyfe, in the Daily MailofJnne 11, 1910, gives an interview with Mr. Roosevelt on the eve of his departure from England. He says : " Among the many virtues for which he has won the admiration of the world (an ad- miration expressed in a unique measure, and by no means without precedent during his wonderful progress through Europe), modesty is not usually reckoned. Yet he is a truly modest man. He has noticed that in all careers there is a wavelike tendency to gather, to reach a certain height, and then to break. He thinks it quite possible that he has reached the crest of the wave. He would be quite content to live his life quietly, happy in his home and in his triends, with a thousand interests to keep hib mind active and his sympathies keen. No man was ever less dependent upon the excite- ment or the rewards of public life. He could do without them perfectly well." There are zeniths in the humblest life, and they are to be distinguished. There is the zenith of 254 ■I! ZENITHS 255 happiness, there is the zenith of efficiency, and there is the zenith of snccess. These do not coincide by any means, 'a all probability the zenith of happiness comes first. It is to be fonnd in the earlier years. Often it slips past very partially recognised. Bnt when the years have done their best and their worst with ns, and we look back on the long way, we see things, and know them even as they truly were. The zenith of efficiency mast vary with the difference in individuals and the difference in professio >, bnt as a rule it comes a long while before the zenith of snccess. The late Dr. Dale held that the zenith of a preacher's efficiency should be between the age of fifty-five and that of sixty-five. I should put it between forty and forty- five. Recently I asked an eminent authority on education about the zenith of a teacher's efficiency. This he placed without hesitation at between thirty- five and forty years. There is good authority for the view that a medical man is at his best from forty-five to fifty. However this may be, it frequently happens that the age when the teacher is most effective, when the preacher is most eloquent, when the physician is surest and keenest, comes at a time when their powers have received no proper recognition. To beat down difficulf-'es, hindrances, prejudices, one must go on living .d labouring. And so I am inclined to put the zenith of success— the time of most consideration 256 THE ROUND OF THE CLOCK and public honour— as somewhere in the sixties, say from sixty-five to seventy. At that time a man may be in full vigour, and yet be able to look back on a laborious and successful career. He is safe, or comparatively safe, in the position he has climbed to. Criticism dies down, people accept him as an institution. Honours are con- ferred on him partly because he deserves them, and partly because it is felt that there should be no more postponement. All this is, I think, particularly true of the three great professions. Bishops may be younger than they used to be, but they are not young. Surgeons may shrink from major ope^-ations after sixty, but physicians are at their ripest, and the authority of a great specialist between sixty-five and seventy is unchallenged. By this time, or a little before, lawyers are pro- moted to the Bench. There have been a good many instances where even those who have climbed to the woolsack have passed away at a comparatively green and tender age. Lord Talbot died in his fifty-third year. Lord Cowper in his sixtieth year, Lord Northington in his sixty-fourth year, Lord Harcourt, Lord Maccles- field, and Lord King when they were no more than sixty-five. But against these we may set liord Camden, dying at eight/ ; Lord Bathurst, who built Apsley House at eighty-five; Eldon, who talked racily and drank his two bottles of port at a sitting in his eighty-seventh year ; Lyndhurst, who ZENITHS ->7 was a lively and welcome guest at dinner-parties when he had passed ninety ; and Bronghara, who attained the same age. Lord St. Leonards was another who lived till past ninety, and Lord Cottenham died in his eighty-first year, and so did Lord Cranworth, and Lord Campbell survived to be seventy-three. Lord St. Leonards conld write clear, pithy, pungent English when he was past ninety. These are facts that help to take away the terror of old age, but of most of these distinguished and fortunate men it may be said that their best days were between sixty-five and seventy, or earlier still. U When the zenith is reached there most be, sooner or later, decline. In one of her latest and most poignant stories, Mrs. Oliphant, from her own bitter experience,' discourses on :h.- ebb-tide. It is a strange dis- covery when . finds himself carried away by the retiring n, This does not mean necessarily the approach .. .ge or the failure of life. It means the overwhelming revelation which comes to most who live long enough that their successes, whatever they may have been, are over, and that thencefor- ward they must accustom themselves to the thought of going out with the tide. The discovery may be as sudden as it is strange for the suflFerer himself, though other people may have seen what was 17 '' ii 258 THE ROUND OF THE CLOCK 1^ 1 I I coming long before. " The moment when we first perceive that onr individnal tide has turned is one which few persons will find it possible to forget. We look on with a piteous surprise to see our little triumphs, our not-little hopes, the future we had still believed in, the past in which we thought our name and fame would still be to the gooil, whatever happened, all floating out to sea, to be lost there, out of the sight of men. In the morning all might seem as sure to go on for ever— that is, for onr time, which means the same thing— as the sky over us, or the earth beneath our feet ; but before even- ing there was a different storv, and the tide was in full retreat, carrying with it both conviction of the past and hope in the future, not only onr little laurels, all tossed and withered, and onr little pro- jects, but also the very heart of exertion, our confidence in ourselves and providence. The dis- covery comes in many different ways— in the unresponsive silence which greets an orator who was once interrupted by perpetual cheers, in the publishing of a book which drops and is never heard of more ; or, as in the present case, the un- sold pictures: and in the changed accent with which the fickle public pronounces a once-favoured name." Life is greatly changed to those who have felt the turn of the tide. Mrs. Oliphant asks : " Why did not Napoleon die at AVaterloo? He lived to add a pitiful postscript to his existence, to accu- ZENITHS 259 luJate all kinds of gqualid miseries aboat his end, instead of the dramatic and clear-cut concloiion which he might have attained by a merciful bullet or the thrust of a bayonet. And how well it would be to end thus when we have discovered that onr day is over I But so far fron that, the man has to go on, as if nothing had happened, * in a cheerful despair,' as I have read in a notebook— as if to-day were as yesterday, or perhaps more abundant." The novelist tells us of an artist, Mr. Saudford, in perfect health, who had attained early the height of his profession, and had since attracted a large and very even share of popular approbation. His income was very steady, and his life pleasant and ample and agreeable. His wife had been his true com- punion and helpmeet. They had two pretty grown- up girls, full of the chatter of society, and likewise full of better things. There were also two grown- up sous, both agreeable and clever, but not earning money. That question indeed was never discussed with the young ones, * Mr. Sandford's revenues were sufficient. There was just a little anxiety because the young men were earning no money, but there was no serious trouble. The artist was painting one day at his Academy pictures, and felt a little anxious about the lads. Shortly afterwards one of his patrons, Lord Okeham, visited the studio, and went away without giving any commission. Next his Academy picture, tlie principal one of the year, came back unpurchasc I, without any S60 THE ROVn OF TBE CLOCK I i 3 J i ^f explanation at all. Mrs. Sandford said it was a pleasure to see, and that the worst thing of being a painter's wife was that she never cared to have the pictures taken away. Mr. Sandford, however, was slightly disturbed, and the disturbance incr»iased as visitor after visitor came, and nobody bought a picture. By-and-by a picture-dealer arrived iu the company of an exceptionally ignorant and outspoken millionaire. The picture-dealer urges him to buy one of Mr. Sandford's finest paintings, and he says at last that he will take the picture, but expect the discount. Mr. Sandford is about to protest against the discount when he catches the picture-dealer's eye. The man makes all kinds of gestures, and at last, in a hoarse whisper, says imperatively, " Take it," in the painter's ear. So the picture is sold at a slight reduction indeed, yet sold at a good price. Next the painter suddenly remembers that he has completed a little picture on which he is working, but has no other commission of any kind on hand. It was a little thing, but it gave him a tragic shot. It seemed to mean the sudden and sharp arrest of everything. But Mr. Sandford reflected that there were ups and downs in every painter's life, and his pain was stilled for a while. The picture-dealer, however, showed him several pictures of his own which remained unsold. ''I i,..oaght," said the dealer, " they were as safe as the bank. I bought them on spec , thinking Fd get a customer as soon as they were in the shop— and, if you'll believe me. S. i tl ZBNITHS 261 nobody '11 have them. I can't tell what people are thinking of, bnt that's the troth." Mr. Sandf )rd is heart-stricken. An artist at his age conld have no fresh start. He remembered, with a forlorn self- reproach, of having himself said that So-and-so should retire ; that it wonld be more dignif; i to give up work bofore work gave him np. It was snch an easy thing to say, and so crnel, for he had no money. He and his wife had spent their income, and all they had done was to make an insurance of a thousand pounds for each of the children. The artist says little, bnt his conrivi o completely fails him, and the children think he is dull and grnmpy. He goes to visit a friend in the North, and, when driving, he is the victim of a terrible accident. Before he dies his wife comes to him, and he com- forts her. " My dearest, I had not a commission- not one. And there are three pictures of mine unsold in Daniells' inner shop. He'll tell you, if you ask him. The last three. That one of the little Queen and her little Maries, that our litik- Mary sat for, that yen liked so much ; >'»a remember? It's standing in Daniells' lao.ii; thm' of them. I think I see them against tns wall." During his wanderings in those vague regions between consciousness and nothingness he said: " All against the wall—with their faces turned." " Three— all the last ones : the one ray wife liked so. In the inner room : Daniells is a good fellow. He spared me the sight of them outside. Three— 262 THE ROUND OF THE CLOCK Ik ■A I that's one of the perfect nnmbers — that's— I could always see them ; on the road, on the moor, and at the races : then — I wonder — all the way npon the road to heaven? No, no. One of the angels — wonld come and tnrn them round. Nothing like that in the presence of God. It would be dis- respectful—disrespectful. Turn them round — with their faces " He paused ; his eyes were closed, an ineffable smile came over his mouth. "He — will see what's best in them." And so the poor artist dropped back upon his pillows with an air of content indescribable, slept again, and woke no more. He had thought it best for his family that he should die, and all things happened as he thought they would. The house sold well, his widow had a satis- factory pension, one of his sons took to his profession with zeal, and got on ; another obtained a post through the exertions of an influential friend. The danghtcrs were settled comfortably in life, and so, " after doing his best for his own, and for all who depended on him in his life, he did better still, as he had foreseen, by dying. Daniells sold the three pictures at prices higher than he had dreamed of, for a Sandford was now a thing with a settled value, it being sure that no new flood of them would ever come into the market. And all went well. Per- haps with some of us, too, that dying which it is a terror to look forward to, seeing that it means the destruction of a home, may prove, like the ' i ^ 1 i! ZENITHS 263 painter's, a better thing than living even for those who love ns best. But it is not to every one that it is given to die at the right moment, as Mr. Sandford had the happiness to do." Ill There is snch a thing as declining and risinj* again. In one of Marion Crawford's novels an artist, who is spending every penny and more of a large income, is warned of the inevitable resnlt. " Oh, well," said he, " misery will be the foundation of my second manner." Many a time brave men have had calumny heaped upon them because of their unflinching stand for a noble cause, and enemies have been forward to predict that they will never be restored to favour. But history is full of strange reversals of human judgment. There are not a few who have reached the zenith of fame after they have died. But Mrs. Oliphant's story is one that is often told. " It seems to me," said Dumas a few days before he died at sixty-seven, " that I have built only upon sand." The old, un- conquerable spirit had sunk into dejection and Eubmission. The neglect of contemporaries had blighted it. Happier by far was Hans Andersen, who died at seventy in 1875, and wrote, towards the end of his completed life: " It is as if I had filled up my wheel of life with fairy-tale spokes quite close together. i ! 264 THE BOUND OF THE CLOCK If I go into the garden among the roses, what have they (and even the snails upon them) to tell me that they have not told me already ? If I look at the broad water-lily leaves, I remember that Thnmbelisa has already finished her jonrney. If I listen to the wind, it has already told me abont Valdemar Daae, and has no better story." \i ' ''!! I ' ! y. kve [ne at lat If )nt XVIII "A PENSION AND A HOPE" In the Times for April 22, 1909, there appeared the following enigmatic announcement, which I give in facsimile. It suggests my title. There are some who are happy enough to retire on a pension and a hope : " The Rev. A. J. Wright, vicar of Lapley, StaflFord, is retiring shortly on a pension, and a hope that the gifts will prove useful." 11 Recently I spent an evening very happily in the company of two eminent men who have just attained the age of seventy. They are looking, if possible, better than ever, and they were in the highest spirits. « We do not grow old now," said one of them ; " we grow older." No infirmity of old age was visible, and yet both men had quietly given over part of the work that has made them famous. A man must bethink himself when he reaches seventy years, for it is the allotted span of human life. 265 266 THE ROUND OF THE CLOCK u On January 12, 1895, Bishop Westcott wrote m his notebook : " Foil term of years completed." On the same day he wrote to his youngest daughter, Mrs. Prior, in the matter of his birthday cake, which she proposed to adorn with a number of candles appropriate to his age: "Ah! seventy candles I The only way to deal with them which occurs to me is to abolish the cake, which could not find room for them. The necessity is a par- able It is strange to feel that the working time that comes now is a clear gift over and above the allotted span. In some ways I feel as strong as ever." Mark Twain wrote, when nearly seventy-one : ''When I passed the seventieth milestone ten months ago I instantly realised that I had entered a new country and a new atmosphere. To all the public I was become recognisably old, undeniably old ; and from that moment everybody assumed a new attitude to me— a reverent attitude, granted by custom to age - and straightway the stream of generous new privileges began to flow in upon me, and refresh my life. Since then I have lived an ideal existence, and I now believe what Choate said last March, and which at the time I did not credit ; that the best of life begins at seventy ; for then your work is done ; you know that you have done your best, let the quality of the work be what it may ; that you have earned your holiday— a holiday of peace and contentment— and that thenceforth tc "A PENSIOHr Ai\D A HOPE" 267 the setting of your san nothing will break it, nothing interrnpt it." John Kenyon, when mnch beyond seventy, said to a friend : " Life is so very pleasant that I do not Hke to think how old I am." George Grate's calm estimate of himself when he was seventy is as follows : " My power of doing work is sadly diminished as to quantity, as my physical powers in walking are ; but as to quality (both perspicacity, memory, and suggestive association bringing up new communications), I am sure that my intellect is as good as ever it was." II Old age cannot well bear the pressure of pecuniary anxiety. This is the age of pensions. I am told, oy those who should know, that young people and their parents now seek for careers where if the income is modest it is at least secure, and where a provision is made for the time of old age and in- firmity. The incomes paid under these conditions are often amazingly small. I know men who have won first-class degrees at universities, and have published important books, who are working away cheerfully at the age of nearly forty on £200 a year, with the prospect of a rise, and the certainty of a pension. The question is whether this craving to be released from anxiety is altogether healthy. Lord Rosebery spoke lately, with his usual I "■ ft 268 THE ROUND OF THE CLOCK 1 1 il ii ' i ii > I. i ■'i freshness and snggestiveness, on the education of boys. He was of opinion that " boys should leave school with some definite end in view — some definite occapation to which they betake themselves." He feared that modern Englishmen are, in the mass, an inferior race to Elizabethan Englishmen. On this the Westminster made some admirable and weighty comments. Mr. Spender's view was that what is needed by yonug men nowadays is a tonch of the adventni ons spirit. He went on : " This, it seems to us, is what needs chiefly to be said to the young Englishmen of the weli-to-do classes in these days. The doctrine of efficiency is always being dinned into him, and, if he is of an industrious disposition, he sets laboriously to work to make himself an expert in one or other of the prescribed courses, whether science or history, or ancient or modern literature. Having done that, he has a marketable investment which he desires to lay out in the securest manner, so that he may be sure of an income for life and a pension to follow. His demand is always for security of tenure, even though the income be modest. He comes to consult you about journalism, or the Bar, or a business career, and you have to tell him that al] these professions have their uncer- tainties and vicissitudes, that there are no pensions to follow, and that no one can guarantee his success. So often enough he turns away sorrowfully, and takes service for life in some public employment, which will shelter him against all storms." ill *M PENSION AND A HOPE" to 269 I believe these words are profonndly trne~ It 18 now not easy to get the best talent for jonrnahsm and for literature. The insecnrity of the journalistic profession has frightened multitudes rf clever men into Whitehall and elsewhere. Un- doubtedly the career is too precarious, and if a man finds himself out in the cold at sixty, his chances are very small. What is he to do ? I know cne able man who has held excellent positions m his time, and has now no steady occupation. Happily for himself, he is an en- thusiastic vegetarian, and manages on very little, but I am not sure about the comfort of his family. I believe there is an improvement, and that this may well proceed, for talent in a competitive market must command its pric^ As to earning a livelihood by the writing of books, no one can do it but the novelist, and perhaps no novehstwhod-snot save money can go on doing It for thirty years or forty years. Still these pro- fessions (for those adaptod to them) are more remunerative and more full of opportunities than outsiders think. It should be possible for a com- petent man to lay aside enough to ensure the peace of his old age. When Lord Rosebery says that modern English- men are, in the mass, an inferior race to Elizabethan Englishmen, it is not easy to con- tradict him. There was about the Elizabethans that grand, saving, adventurous touch which one J i i iff:! I 270 THE ROUND OF THE CLOCK comes npon bo often in the lives of the early explorers in the volumes of the Hakluyt Society. The complete unconsciousness with which the most terrific sufferings are related, as if they were merely natural phenomena, only worth mentioning in so far as they threw light on the nature of new lands, is singularly impressive. The active manhood and hardiness of virtue developed by the dangers and sufferings of exploration attained heraldic and mystic dimensions. For example, some English- men, whose adventures on the coast of Greenland form part of a later volume, though in danger of perishing from want of fuel, would only appro- priate such timber from buildings and old vessels belonging to the company by which they had been sent out " as mighte well be spared without damni- fying of the voyage of next yeare," which year they seemed to have extremely little chance of surviving to see. « We got together," says their spokesman, « all the firing that we possibly could make, except we would make spoyle of the shallops and coolers that were there, which might easily have overthrown the next yeare's voyage, to the great hindrance of the worshipfull company whose servants we being, were every way carefull of their profite." And so these poor brave creatures con- demned themselves to the scantiest fires and badly cooked food for eight months of a winter, the prospective horrors of which caused them to stand " with eyes of pitie beholding one another." "il PENSION AND A HOPE'' 271 III There are assuredly men who are jnst beginning the best of their lives at seventy. When Palmerston was made Prime Minister, fifty years of official toil lay behind him, and when, after long delay, the cnp of trinmph was pressed to his lips, it had an exquisite flavour. He wrote to his brother, Sir William Temple, on February 15, 1855 .- "My dear William, " ' . . . Quod nemo promittere Divum Auderet volvenda dies en attulit ultro.' " A month ago, if any man had asked me to say what was one of the most improbable events, I should have said my being Prime Minister. Aber- deen was there; Derby was head of one great party, John Russell of the other; and yet, in about ten days' time, they all gave way like straws before the wind ; and so here am I, writing to yon from Downing Street, as First Lord of the Treasury." He lived more than ten years after that, died as Premier on October 18, 1865, and was buried in Westminster Abbey. I once thought that most men expected after re- tirement to do work which their official labour had made impossible, but on inquiry I am inclined to doubt it. A man prominent in the educational world is at present compulsorily retired at the age 111 lltl .'Ui I: ■^:i i: lu 272 r^:^ ROUND OF THE CLOCK of sixty-five. He is well known in literature, bot his whole thought is regret at leaving his work. It is no consolation to him that he can write more books : " I have written all the books I want to." Another, in the same circumstances, has but one desire— that he may be allowed, as of old, to take charge of the school library. The dominant mood seems to be a desire for exemption from fresh toil. In "Homola" Bardo says, "What says the Greek ? • In the morning of life, work ; in the mid-day, give counsel ; in the evening, pray.' It is true, I might be thought to have reached that helpless evening ; but not so, while I have counsel within me which is yet unspoken. For my mind, as I have often said, was shut up as by a dam ; the plenteous waters lay dark and motionless ; but you, my Tito, have opened a duct for them, and they rush forward with a force that surprises myself." There must be many whose daily business shuts the mind up like a dam, but I suppose by the time of retirement there comes too often a disabling weariness. So it was with Charles Lamb, though he was « superannuated " at fifty. He had Sundays, a day at Easter, and a day at Christmas, and a full week in the summer, but for the rest of the year the rigours of attendance, and he had a perpetual dread of some crisis to which he would be found unequal. (1 give his own version of the facts, though it is scarcely accurate.) So when he was set free, it was like a passing out of time hiii "A PENSION AXD A HOPE' 273 nto eternity. He had a q«i«t ' ome-feeling of the bleasedneas of his condition when the fint giddy raptures had subsided, but he had no thought of further toil. ^^ Opua operatum est. I have done ail that I came into thiH world to do. I have worked task-work, and have the rest of the dav to myself." •' Dean Hook wrote his " Lives of the Archbishops of Canterbury" after his retirement, and they occupied him for fifteen years, and at the end he adopted a remark from Dr. Hammond : " It is time for me to be weary while I am yet nnwiUing to be while my labour may be useful." It is added: "The latter is the wiser view of iile. 'Threescore and ten ' may give men a right to plead weariness, but a man is only as old as he feels, and, like Dr. Hammond, if he feels strong work is heartily welcome." Theodore Agrippa D'Aubign^, a great soldier in his day, retired in 1610 at the age of sixty to a life of literary study in Geneva. He had still twenty years to live, and during that period he wrote his great and indispensable historical works. George Macdonald in " Alec Forbes " te\U us about the aged schoolmaster, Mr. Cupples, who came to see Alec and Annie every summer, and generally remained over the harvest. « He never married ; but he wrote a good book." In reply to congratulations on attaining his seventy.fifth birthday, Oliver Wendell Holmes 18 II J74 THK ROUND OF TlIK CLOCK % ^ ¥ wrote : " Coming to me bo late in life, they seem almost like open letters of introdnction to a celestial household, to which I am commended by my air- breathing friends and associates. Could I but carry them with me as credentials, it seems as if the angels themselves would make obeisance to a new-comer so highly spoken of. Speak as in- dulgently as you may to one who has crossed the dead line of the Palmist's reckoning, he cannot forget that he is sitting amid the ruins of the generation to which he belongs— himself a monu- ment, if not « ruin, oa which all but himself can read the inscription. I^t not tlie critic weigh too nicely the value of the praise bestowed upon him. They come to me at one of those periods of life when kind words are most needed and most tenderly welcomed." The great charm of retirement to not a few is that they will have their time to give to their books. But Prospero, that monarch in retirement, said : "And deeper than did ever plummet sound I'll drown my book." i ■. \- XIX "ENCOMIUM SENECTUTIS": IN PRAISE OF OLD AGE In the foregoing chapters I have told " The Story of our Lives from Year to Year." I have followed the round of the clock. Bnt when old age sets in it l)ecome8 tedions and difficult, if not impossible, to assign characteristics to the separate lustrums. Nature has traced no hard-and-fast line of years and conH*'>ution which mental activity cannot overpass. I content myself, therefore, with some general notes on old age, and in these, as all through, my desire 18 to set forth the more favourable and hopeful aspect of our chequered years. The writer on old age finds himself singulariy unhelped by literature. With the exception of Cicero's immortal book, I do not know any formal treatise on the subject which has obtained the least currency. Cicero's book, noble in parts .3 it is, can hardly be described as authoritative, for Cicero wrote rather on the needlessness of old age than on its pnvileges. He put what he had to say into the mouth of Cato the elder at the age of eighty-four. His ground thought is, that we must struggle against 275 276 THE ROUND OF THE CLOCK old age a8 we do against death. But Cicero himself was hardly converted hy his own counsel, for though he perished at sixty-three, he had written previously, " Old age makes me more and more bitter." Two renowned American writers have discoursed well and bravely on the theme— Emerson and Holmes. It was happily remarked that Holmes's book, " The Iron Gate and other Poems," published in 1880, might have been styled, "Encomium Senectntis," for never before were the compensations and advantages of age set forth so comfortingly to the world. Holmes's cheerful theories are most distinctly advanced in " The Iron Gate." To .he question whether others have shown him old age asking the aid of Death and sad Ecclesiastes sigh- ing over the loosened cord, the broken bowl, he responds : "Yes, long indeed, I've known him at a distance. And now my lifted door-latch shows him here ; I take Lis shrivelled hand without resistance, And find him smiling as his step draws near. •• What though of gilded baubles he bereaves us, Dear to the heart of youth, to manhood's prime? Think of the calm he bungs, the wealth he leaves us, The hoarded spoils, the legacies of time ! " Altars once flaming, still with incense fragrant, Passion's uneasy nurslings rocked asleep, Hope's anchor faster, wild desire less vagrant. Life's flow less noisy, but the stream how deep ! !ll=^ "EXCOMWM SEXECTUTIS" 277 StiU as the silver cord gets worn and slender, Ite lightened task-work tugs with lessening strain. ^f!»f .?wt *?'^P^y^' '^°^*^"'' S^°^° n^o~ tender, boothe with their softened tones the slumberous brain. "Youth longs and manhood strives, but age remembers, bits by the raked-up ashes of the past Spreads its thin hands above the whitening embers Ihat warm its creeping life-blood till the last. "Biit, O my gentle sisters, O my brothers. These thick-sown snow-flakes hint of toil's release. These feebler pulses bid me leave to others The tasks once welcome ; evening asks for peace. "Time claims his tribute; silence now is golden • Let me not vex the too long-suflFering lyre ; 1 hough to your love untiring still beholden, The curfew tells me— cover up the fire." From fiction very little consolation is to be found The novelist and the playwright have not enough use for people who are past thirty. They are regarded as fit to watch over the interests of their juniors, but with no right to value their own concerns. Bio- graphy helps us a little, but not so much as might have been expected. The underlying assumption of much fiction and biography is that, after a certain period, all care for one's own health and one's own future ought to be abjured. But, for all that, there are advantages of old age, not so obvious perhaps as the disadvantages, but quite as real. I! 278 TUE ROUND OF THE CLOCK We need not linger on the disadvantages. The failure of physical ower, the dimness of sight, the dullness of hearing, the warnings that the taber- nacle of the soul is falling and must soon be left— these are but too patent. There may be, and there generally are, signs of mental failure. The lamp does not burn with a steadily increasing brightness till its extinction. It wanes, as a rule; and in particular the memory often is impaired. Also the earthly future is short and is shortening. " It is a time," says one, " of shrinking hopes and growing regrets, of failing powers and increasing com- punction." Is it so ? Surely this is not the whole story. Tho pessimist may become more gloomy, but many are optimists. The past in retrospect holds manifold disenchantments, failures, and even tragedies ; and yet the worst may be forgotten and the best held fast. The French centenarian chem is t Chevreul said on his hundredtn birthday that everything in life tends to optimism, and that he believed the people would soon become more brotherly and peaceful all over the globe. Chev- reul had seen, as a child, the horrors of 1793, and he lived to see the horrors of the Commune, which occurred when he was a very old man. No doubt he kept a hopeful and open mind, and allowed himself to be carried on by the current of his time. An instructive contrast has been drawn between ''ENCOMIUM SENECTUTIS" 279 the old age of Carlyle and of Gladstone. Carlyle at eighty-four was very gloomy. He thought he saw aronnd him an ever-increasing levity and super- ficiality, a new life of distraction, a new dread of rigid, steady, unvarying purpose. He thought that his own preaching had failed to teach his genera- tion, and that his long toil had ended in utter defeat. But Gladstone, up to nearly the same age, was the most effective optimist of his time, yielding himself to ideas of his age, and trusting to their impulse as if they carried with them nothing b'lt good. Even Gladstone's strong spirit was subdued in the end by pain, but only pain could have mastered it. In one thing Carlyle and Gladstone were at one— they habitually ignored all that made against their own convictions. II The chief blessing of old age is rest. It is a blessing which many of the aged are unwilling to accept. The last generation was one in which hardly any prominent figure was youthful. In 1887 it was remarked that a great part of the world was almost governed by old men. The German Emperor was ninety. Von Moltke was eighty-six, Prince Bismarck was seventy-one, M. Gr^vy seventy-six, and Mr. Gladstone seventy-seven. In my closing chapter I shall give instances of men in the nineties and later still in the full \\ \ ^ 280 THE ROUND OF THE CLOCK \ blaze of public life, and still apparently in the possession of their accustomed vigonr and nseful- ness. Bnt for ordinary men to take example by these is a profonnd mistake. Men of average vigonr watching the old age of men of miracnlons vigour are apt to be misled. The advice that the old should remain in harness to the last is almost always bad advice. In fact the work of life, as it is called, is the work of only a part of life. We shonld learn gradually to die to a great many of our former pursuits. Old men are proud, and their pride shows itself chiefly in their persuading them- selves that they are more efficient than ever. But it has been well said that the self-sacrifice which in youth is oftenest represented by readiness to sur- render pleasure for duty is in age oftenest repre- sented by readiness to surrender what was once a duty but is a duty no longer. The work shonld be given up gradually. It should be abandoned piece by piece as the strain continnes to increase. People do not get tired of life, but they get very tired of their want of life. They become very weary nnder a load which to every one but themselves is obviously too heavy. To accept rest and release, to hand over without jealousy and without fretting the heavier labours to young men, to be willing to substitute counsel for control, is the road to a happy old age. When ambition ceases to torment, when men are willing to withdraw themselves from the crowded thorough- ''ENCOMIUM SENECTUTIS" 281 fares of life, the young will rally round them with veneration and with love. f ji III Old age should also be full of happy memories and calm thoughts. When the working time is fairly over, there may steal iito the thoughts of those who have had little apparent success or triumph a certain wistfnl, humble envy. They have seen those who began the journey with them climbing higher and higher, while they remained unnotip«»d and obscure. This mood has never, I think, been so well expressed as by W. W. Story in his lines : "Yes, 'twas a beautiful day, The guests were all laughing and gay ; All said they enjoyed and admired. But oh, I'm so tired,— so tired ! I'm glad that the night's coming on, I am glad to get home and be quiet ; I am glad that the long day is done, With its noise and its laughter and riot. " For somehow it seemed like a fate, I was always a moment too late : The music just stopped when I came, I saw but the fireworks' last flame ; The dancing was over, the dancers Were laughing and going away ; The curtain had dropped, and the footlights Were all that I saw of the play. 282 THE HOUND OF THE CLOCK "It was only my luck, I suppose, And the day was delightful to those Who were right in their time and their place. But for me, I did nothing but race And struggle; and all was in vain. We cannot have all of us prizes, And a pleasure that's missed is a pain ; And one balance goes down as one rises. "And I'm tired— so tired at last, That I'm glad that the great day is past. The pleasure I sought for I missed, And I ask. Did it really exist? Were they happy who smiled so, and said 'Twas delightful, exciting, enchanting? I doubt it : but they perhaps had Just the something I always was wanting." Bnt the melancholy is not deep, and there is an underlying consolation. "I have my cruse of oil, I have my cake of meal ; I am worn with life's long toil, The threads are few on the reel. One by one from the ranks fall out The mates who joined them with cheer and shout, When the merry march in the morn begun, Under the laugh of the rising sun ; One by one they drop to the grave, Where the pale stars glejim and the grasses wave ! On the surcoat is rent and soil. The dents are deep on the tteel. Yet I have my cruse of oil, I have my cake of meal." Life may have been a poorer thing than we hoped it would be, but it has brought us beyond our an ''EXCOMIUM SEXECTUTIS" 283 lioi)iiig, and wo do not grieve because the road of onr pilgrimage has been *' somewhat narrow, some- what slow." Indeed, life has failed to work its best results, if old age does not keep what is most I)reciou8 in youth : "You keej our youth as yon Scotch firs, Whose gaunt line my horizon hems, Though twilight all the lowland blurs, Hold sunset in their ruddy stems." " Age does something in taking away energy— and energy, if rightly directed, is enviable. It weakens the tenacity of memory— and memory, if it can only manage to drop what is not worth keeping, is also enviable ; and it diminishes the vivacity and spring of the imagination. But in a noble mind it takes away prejudice and passion and irritable self-consciousness. It takes away more that misleads and perverts the judgment and the imagination than it takes away of judging and imagining power. It does an immense clarifying and purifying work, a work which tends more to the true appreciation of the relative places of human beings in tuc universe than in any other agency in life. It may even attain, as Milton says, * to something of prophetic strain.' Age may drain away all the generous passion and leave nothing but envy, vindictiveness, and wilfulness. Age is a sieve which strains away either the dregs, and leaves behind all that is finest, or strains away the i n 284 THB ROUND OF THE CLOCK finer elements of experience, and leaves only the dregs. Yet the veneration for age is founded wholly on the assumption that the finer elements of experience are retained in the mind, and the grosser ones purged away." IV Age brings us to rest, and to more than rest. The aged, like Charles Lamb's bookseller, are "setting bedwards,*' and that is not the whole story. They may hear the " Song of the Aerial Spirits":* "Poor mortals, that are clogged with earth below, Sink under love and care, While we, that dwell in air. Such heavy passions never know. Why, then, should mortals be Unwilling to be free From blood, that sullen cloud, Which shining souls does shroud ? Then they'll show bright. And like us light. When, leaving bodies with their care, They slide to us and air." As Mr. Andrew Lang has said : " It is reunion after this life that we really want ; the rest is nothing." " O thou soul of my soul, I shall clasp thee again, And with God be the rest." In Mrs. Humphry Ward's "Marcella," Mrs. * Dryden. "ENCOMIUM SENBCTUTW* 285 Jellwon says : " ' It wor she taught me.... She had a queer way wi' the hard words, I can tell yer miH8. When she couldn't tell 'em herself she'd never own up to it. « Say * Jerusalem,' ray dear, and pass on." ... An' when Isabella an' me used to read the Bible nights, I'd alius rayther do't than be beholden to me own darter. It gets yer through, anyway.'" ° ' The author of 'John Inglesant," writing of his friend Bishop Bowlby, of Coventry, says : « In these last testing moments, when the superficial mtellect no longer keeps rigid guard over the secrets of the soul, his mind wandering, as we say, not knowing where such a wandering may happily lead, the bright August sun shining into his room with the old familiar human warmth, he said, ' It is a pleasant day to go up to Jerusalem this Easter- time.' So his pure and knightly soul passed from us mto the great darkness like to some stainless Ualahad of old, to whom the dim and shadowy forest field of strange voices and forms of dread open suddenly in a blaze of glory upon the great vision of the City of God." t i i m XX NONAGENARIANS AND CENTENARIANS It is impossible to qnestion Bismarck's sayiug: " Undoabtedly the first seventy years are the most important part of life." There have been those long past seventy who have done great things, bnt after seventy the steps, however feeble and halting, are steps that devour the way. When Oliver Wendell Holmes had attained the age of eighty he wrote his last paper on old age. He quoted from the Bible the valiant words of Caleb, the son of Jephunneh : " This ancient warrior speaks of himself in these brave terms : * Lo, I am this day fourscore and five years old. As yet I am as strong this day as I was in the day that Moses sent me : as my strength was then, even 80 is my strength now, for war, both to go out and to come in.' " But not all octogenarians were like him. Hear the piping of old Barzillai : I am 286 ypyAGBXARTAXS AXD C EXTEXARIAXS 287 this day fouwcore years old ; and cau I discern between good and evil ? Can thy servant taste what I eat or what I drink ? Can 1 hear any more the voice of singing men and singing women ? Wherefore, then, shonld thy servant be yet a burden nnto my lord the king ? " Among the nona- genarians mentioned by Holmes were Lord Lynd- hurst, Josiah Quincy, and Sydney Bartlett, who were remarkable for retaining their faculties in their extreme age. Kanke, the great German historian, died at the age of ninetyH)ne. Dr Holmes, writing in 1889, traces the history of his* fellow graduates at Harvard sixty years before. Ihere were fifty-nine, and ten were living As they were on an average about twenty years old at their graduation, these must have climbed " tiie white summit, the Mont Blanc of fourscore " " In the first ten years after graduation, our third de- cade, when we were between twenty and thirty years old, we lost three members-about one in twenty; between the ages of thirty and forty, eight died-one in seven of those the decade began with; from forty to fifty, only two- or one in twenty-four ; from fifty to sixty, eight -or one in six ; from sixty to seventy, fifteen -or two out of every five ; from seventy to eighty, twelve-or one in two." The men of supenor ability have outlasted the average of their fellows. ^ Holmes saw more clearly at eighty the effects \-! i 288 THB ROUND OF THE CLOCK of the kindly anodyne of Natnre telling more an< more with every year. " Onr old doctors nsed U give an opiate which they called ' the black drop. It was stronger than laudanum, and, in fact, i dangerously powerful narcotic. Something like thii is that potent drug in Nature's pharmacopoeia which she reserves for the time of need — the latei stages of life. She commonly begins administering^ it about the time of the 'grand climacteric,' th< ninth septennial period, the sixty-third year. More and more freely she gives it, as the years go on to her grey-haired children, until, if they lasl long enough, every faculty is benumbed, and the) drop o£f quietly into sleep under its benigt influence." Also he believed that the great privilege of oU age was the getting rid of responsibilities. " It if very grand to die in harness, but it is very pleasaul to have the tight straps unbuckled and the heav) collar lifted from the neck and shoulders." Tlic original edition of Lord Morley's " Life of Glad stone " gives one volume to Gladstone's first fiftj years, and two to the rest. The second volume takes the period from 1859 to 1880, and the third from 1880 to 1898. Gladstone said: "The besl and happiest period of my life dates from m; sixtieth birthday " ; and he also said : "■ Had I died at threescore years and ten, fully half my life-work would have remained nndone." He was seventy- seven when, in 1886, he introduced the Irish Home mXAOEXARIAXS AND CAWrsyA/i /AXS 289 Role Bill; I,e wa8 eighty-five when, in imTh^ rwi^ned office. At that time he ^aid : '« For my own i»art, suave mtri magno Mtealn n|K)n me ; or at any rate, an inexpressible sense of relief from an exhausting life of incessant contention But I have not yet abandoned the hoi^e that 1 may be permitted to grapple with that considerable armful of work which had been long marked out for my old age." Till the very end there were no great changes in his physical condition, but he suffered at last from acute and continued pain ; and when a friend said to him, « Oh, sir, you'll live ten yeare to come," he answered, " 1 do trust that God lono '* ™®''*'^ "^"^ ^P*""^ "'^ ^^at-" He died in 1898, at the age of eighty-nine. Michelangelo, who was born on March 0, 1475 ived until February 17, 1564. Thomas Hobbes,' the philosopher, lived even longer. He was born m 1688, and did not die till 1679. Martin Joseph Kouth, the President of Magdalen College, Uxtord, was born in 1755, and died in 1854. In his ninety-fourth year he could walk six miles-a hue old man in his wig and gown, choleric and generous to the last. Samuel Rogers, poet and banker, was born in 1763, and died in 1855. Lou- past his ninetieth year, when he had almost wholly lost his memory, he remembered in a dim faint manner a particular lady whom he had once asked to marry him. Mrs. Somerville, the most remark- able woman of her generation, died at Naples iu 19 III \A 290 THE ROUND OF THE CLOCK November, 1872, at the age of ninety-two, in full possession of her mental faculties. When she had attained her eighty-ninth year she published a book, « Molecular and Microscopic Science : a Summary of the Most Recent Discoveries in Chem- istry and Physics." Titian, in 1576, undertook a large picture for the Franciscans. On August 27 of that year he died of the plague, aged ninety- nine. Hadetzky, the Austrian general, was nearly ninety when he crushed the Austrian risings in 1848 ; and he passed his ninetieth birthday before he died. The Shakespearian scholar, John Payne Collier, died at ninety-four. The cynical explanation of longevity is that it is due to the possession of a hard heart and a good digestion. Of Fontenelle, who boasted that he had never laughed, and lived to the utmost limit of mortality, it has been recorded : " II n'avait jamais pleur6 ; il ne s'^tait jamais mis en colore; il n'avait jamais conru ; et, comme il ne faisait rien par sentiment, il ne prenait point les impressions des autres. II n'avait jamais interrompu personne, il ^coutait jusqu'au bout sans rien perdre; il n'^tait point press^ de parler ; et, si vous I'aviez accost, il aurait 6cout6 tout le jour sann rien dire." It 18 better to say that " the most plausible moral and the most consoling which can be drawn from the long lives of famous men is that great intellect is generally found combined with great physical strength." NONAOBNARIANS AND CENTE NARIANS 291 And yet most of as can verify the remark of Holmes : « How often we see these great red flarine flambeaux of life blown ont, as it were, by a puff of wmd, and the little, single wick. >i night-lamp of bemg, which some white-facui and atteruated in- valid shades with trembling f^i.^ers, fli< kering on while they go out one after another, until its glimmer is all that is left to us of the generation It belonged to I " fiis II Shall we put in for a hundred ? to use Johnson's phrase. Does any one of us really desire to be a centenarian? Are there any centenarians? If there are, who are they ? It is well known that men like Sir George (Jornewall Lewis and Mr. W. J. Thoms were ex- tremely sceptical as to the possibility of completing a hundred years, though Thoms had to grant some instances. Their books, however, have been super- seded by the authoritative work of Mr. T. E. Young, "On Centenarians," which has been brought up in' the last edition to 1906. Mr. Young, who was formerly President of the Institute of Actuaries, has based his conclusions on the authoritative statistics of assurance offices. « In Life Assurance and Annuity transactions the precise establishment of the age and identity of the Assured and An- nuitant is an essential factor of the solvency ot , •'*4'''l 392 THE SOUND OF THE CLOCK mil m f lb '■■ these InstitntioDS, and hence is scrapnlonsly and minutely regarded." Mr. Yonng takes the statistics of the Institute of Actuaries and the Faculty of Actuaries and the completed experience of Government Annuitants, and from them he sifts out the centenarians whose claims are authenticated after the rigorous application of the tests of age and identity. He found only twenty-nine indisput- able examples of centenarians, with ages ranging to a hundred and eight. Mr. Young admits two centenarians external to the records of Assurance Companies and the National Debt Office. Thus nearly all the claims of centenarians are void. In the first place, documentary evidence is frequently impossible to procure. In the second place, evidence furnished by other centenarians who possess a personal knowledge of the date of birth of the assumed centenarian, and can presumably testify to the fact, is from the nature of the case usually inadmissible. No witnesses in the absence of documentary proof can be accepted but those who are practically centenarians themselves. In the third place, the age recorded in the certificate of death is not conclusive. Nor are tombstones. Then, even where the proof of age is placed beyond sus- picion, the difficult question arises of the supreme necessity of identifying the supposed centenarian with the child recorded in the certificate, or other approved document. This difficulty is enhanced when favourite family names are perpetuated. There NONAGENARIANS AND CENTENARIANS 293 is also the well-known tendency of very aged people to exaggerate, without wilfal intention to deceive, the age to which they have attained. Three typical instances of abnormal longevity which are constantly cited are those of Henry Jenkins, Thomas Parr, and the Conntess of Desmond. They are all mythical. The case of Jenkins, who is said to have been born in 1501, and buried on Decem- ber 8, 1670, rests wholly upon his own assertion that, to tae best of his remembrance, he must be 162 or 163. Thomas Parr's reputation fur extreme age depends exclusively on his own assertion, and upon the lucubrations of John Taylor, the water poet. No facts or figures are available. The autopsy of Parr, made on November 16, 1635, by the celebrated physician, William Harvey, is constantly referred to as a corroborative testimony to Parr's alleged age. But Mr. Young, who hap ^fully examined the record, says that Harvey y testifies, as the result of his post-mortem examination, that Parr appeared to be "an aged individual." Thus he in no way indicates, even approximately, the apparent age of Parr. The Countess of Desmond is reported to have attained the age of a hundred and forty at her death in 1604. But Mr. Tb' m has shown that an earlier Countess of that name had been confounded with the lady in question, and i^ at about forty years should, ill consequence, be deducted from her reputed age. Among the very few established centenarians was I M \ 294 THE ROUND OF THE CLOCK Sir Moses Montefiore, who died on July 28, 1885, at the age of a hundred. Sir Moses was a Hebrew of the Hebrews, and a man so large-hearted in his charity that no man ever songht help from him in vain. In extreme old age he was something of a dandy, a miracle of neatness from his snowy jabot to the silver bnckles on his shoes. Though very carefnl to eat little, aDd thongh he rigidly observed the fasts prescribed by his religion, he rarely drank far short of a bottle of port wine at dinner. Thoroughly conservative in his life and opinions, he would never yield to the modern weakness of having gas and water laid on in his house. Lamps, candles, and a well sunk in the chalk, supplied his wants in his Bamsgate home. He read eagerly to the last, his favourite books being Sturm's " Reflections " and Cicero's « De Senectute." Of the very oldest among them all, Mrs. Elizabeth Hanbury, the mother of Mr. Cornelius Hanbury, who died on October 31, 1901, aged a hundred and eight years and ja hundred and forty-four days, it is said that a life of unblemished goodness and practical love and the hereditary placidity of the Quaker temperament, seemed to have formed potent factors in promoting longevity. But the end comes at last to all. "William Dewey, Tranter Reuben, Ftrmer Lellow late at plough, Robert's folk, and Tom's and Ned's and the Squire and Lady Susan, Lie in Melstock churchyard now." NONAGENARIANS AND CENTENARIANS 295 Or as a Border rhyme has it : "And when it pleasit God of His micht, They all departed to Heaven's licht ; To which bring us the Trinity. Amen, amen. So let it be." i I if 'if i THE CLOSINO TEARS OF LIFE « > int \ »■ Age 61 Edmund Burke, in 1790, issued his •' Reflections on the French Kevohition,"and before a year had passed eleven editions were called for. Few books have been more directly iafiaential. The laiit proof of G rote's great history was returned on Decem- ber 23, 1855, when the historian was sixty-one, and Mrs. Qrote thus describes 'the scene : "I remember we had a bowl of punch brewed at Christmas for our little household at History Hut, in celebration of the completion of the opug magnum ; Grote himself sipping the delicious mixture with great satisfac- tion, whilst manifesting little emotion outwardly, though I could detect unmistakable signs of inward complacency as I descanted upon 'the happiness of our living to see this day,' and so forth." Sir Walter Scott died in 1832. He had been calculating according to family precedent, and nearly a year and a half before his death he writes: "God knows I am at sea in the dark, and the vessel, I think, leaky into the bargain— I often wish I could lie down and sleep without waking. But I will fight it out if I can." Lockhart's description of the death scene is well known. " Sir Walter breached his last in the presence of all his children. It was a beautiful day, so warm that every window was wide open, and so perfectly still that the sound of all others most delicious to his ear, the gentle ripple of the Tweed over its pebbles, was distinctly audible as we knelt around the bed, and his eldest son kissed and closed his eyes." At this age died Robert Burton, author of "The Anatomy of Melancholy," in 1639 ; Samuel Rutherford in 1661 ; Rembrandt in 1669; Garrick in 1779; Archdeacon Paley in 1805; James Ballantyne, the friend of Scott, in 1833 ; S. T. Coleridge in 1834 ; Sir John Franklin in 1847 ; Thierry in 1856 ; Mary Ann Cross (George Eliot) in 1880. 296 THE CLOSING YEARS OF LIFE 297 Age 62 Cicero died in 43 B.C., in his sixty-third year. He had written much about old age and death. " O wretched old man, who in so many long years of life hast not learned that death is a thing to be despised. Death may plainly be disregarded, if it altogether extingaishes life ; and is no leas to be wished for, if it leads us to a place where the soul will live for ever. There is no third condition possible. What then should I fear if I am about to be either not miserable or eltiie blessed." J. Sebastian Bach began to go blind at this age from cataract, brought on through excessive application. In 1832 Baron Cuvier was attacked by partial paralysis of his arm, and knew that the end was near. He said to M. I'asquier, who saw him the day before his death : "I I tad great things still to do. All was ready in my head. After thirty years of labour and research there remained but to write, and now the hands fail and carry with them the head." Sir J. W. Lubbock died in 1865. De Morgan writing of him says : " It cannot be affirmed that a man who dies in his sixty- third year has shortened his life by too wide a range of occupa- tion." J. T. Delane died in 1879. In March, 1877, his intention of retirement was announced to Mr. John Walter, the proprietor of the Times, in the pathetically simple words : " Within a few months of sixty I cannot dispute thdt it is time to rest, and that if I were to complete my fifty-ninth j'ear I should deprive myself of the last autumn I shall probably live to enjoy, for no adequate advantage. ... I may or may not live a few months, but my real life ends.here. All that was worth having of it has been devoted to the paper." Among others who died at this age were : Demosthenes, 322 B.C. (he took poison to avoid falling into the hands of the Macedonians) ; the Prophet Mohammed in 632 ; The Venerable Bede in 735. The notable failure of the second crusade seems to have broken St. Bernard's heart, and lie died at Clairvaux in 1153. Martin Luther in 1546 ; Peter Paul Rubens in 1640; Jean Paul F. Richter in 1825. 11 {' I. J- f ■ I ^1 fM 298 THE ROUND OF THE CLOCK m Age 68 John Howard, in July, 1789, let oat on his iMt jonmey. His medical advice was asked in the case of a yoang lady who was snUering from fever, and in attending her lie himself took the disease, which terminated fatally on January 20, 1790. '* Give me no monament," he ha<* said, " but lay me qnietly in the earth ; {dace a sundial over my grave, and let me be forgotten." In 1795 Haydn was well stricken in yean, and might have rested on his lanrels. Bat so far from this being the case, the two works on which — apart from his symphonies and sonatas — his immortality most mainly rest belong to this last epoch of his life. Thase were the oratorio "The Creation" and the cantata " The Seasons." Emerson was sixty-three years old when be read to his son the poem he called " Terminas," beginning : "It is time to be old, To take in sail. The Ood of bounds. Who sets to seas a shore. Came to me in bis fatal rounds And said, 'No more!'" Dr. Chalmers was sixty-three in the year ef the Disruption. In February, 1868, Disraeli succeeded Lord Derby as Prime Mmister. Hkelton describes Disraeli st sixty-three, when he visited Edinburgh. *' The potent wizard himself— with his oil 3 com- idexion and coal-black eyes, and the mighty dome of his forehead (no Christian temple, be sore)— is unlike any living cnature one ever met. He was more than cordial. * I fancied indeed till last night that north of the Border I was not loved, but laet night made amends for much. We were so delighted witti our reception^Mrs. Disraeli and I — thr ifter we got back we actually danced a ^ in oar bedroom 1 ' Mrs. Disraeli's age was then eighty-four, aeuoh, 125 Adams, Professor John, ix Addison, 182 JBsohylus, 119 Aird, Thomas, 260 Akenside, Mark, 103 Albert, Prinoe Consort, 120, 184 Alexander the Great, 75, 104, 147 Alfred, King, 103, 126 Alison, Sir Archibald, 207 Ambrose, 147 Andersen, Hans, 263 Angas, O. F., 311 Anseim, 127, 241 Anson, Admiral, 204 Antoinette, Marie, 163 Aquinas, 150 Aristotle, 36 Arkwright, Richard, 105 Arnold, Benedict, 166 Arnold, Dr. Thomas, 109, 130, 132, 148, 205 Arnold, Matthew, 82, 90, 125, 188, 300 Asoham, Roger, 167 Askew, Anne, 107 Atterbury, Francis, 303 Augustus, 36 Austen, Jane, 149, 182 Austin, John, 128, 303 Austin, Sarah, 125, 306 Aytoun, W. E., 146 Babbage, Charles, 128, 307 Bach, J. S., 62, 297 Bacon, Francis, 66, 76, 145, 162, 183, 187, 225, 240, 300 Bacon, Sir Nicholas, 304 Bacon, Roger, 307 Bagehot, Walter, 147, 226 Baily, Francis, 304 Ballantyne, James, 297 Balsac, 93, 121, 225 Banim, Michael, 307 Banks, Thomas, 304 Bannister, John, 306 Barbauld, Mrs., 145, 307 Barbour, John, 307 Barclay, Robert, 127 Barebone, Praise-God, 308 Baretti, Giuseppi, 304 Baring, Sir Francis, 304 Barnard, Lady Anne, 186. 305 Barnes, Earl, 73 Barnes, WiUiam, 181, 245 Bamevekit, J. von Oklen, 304 313 314 INDEX Burrie, J. M.. 9. 47, 178 Barrington, Bishop, 311 Barrow, luao, 206 Barry, James, 300 Bartlett, Sydney, 287 Btffton, Bernard, 146 Bathurst, Lord, 256 Baxter, Richard, 106, 204, 303, 306 Beaconsfield, Lord, 104, 146, 149, 222, 298. 303, 306 Beaton, Cardinal, 225 Beaumarohais, 302 Beaumont, Francis, 127 Bede, Venerable, 90, 297 Beethoven, 225, 239 Bell, Andrew, 307 BeU, Sir Charles, 164, 302 Bellingham, 310 Bencatt, J. O., 167, 306 Bentham, George, 309 Bentinok, Lord George, 185 Bentinck, Lord William Cavendish, 226, 300 Bentinok, William Caven- dish, Duke of Portland. 304 Bentinck, William, Earl of Portland, 206 Bentley, Richard, 163, 167, 307 Beresford, William Carr, Viscount, 310 Berkeley, Bishop, 107, 186, 302 Bernard of Clairvaux, lOi. 227, 297 Berthelot, 83 Betterton, Thomas, 306 Bigland, Percy, 312 Bingham, Joseph, 167 Binney, Thomas. 106 Birkbeck, George, 300 Bishop, Sir Henry, 105, 303 Bismarck, Prince, 147, 279, 286, 308 Black, Adam, 310 Black, John, 304 Black, Joseph, 119. 304 Blaokmore, R. D., 187 Blackstone, Sir William, 89, 239 Blackwood, William, 182, 240 Blair, Hugh, 128, 308 Blake, Admiral, 240 Blake, William, 109, 303 Blane, Sir Gilbert, 309 Blessington, Margaret, Coun- tess of, 70, 241 Bodley, Sir Thomas, 185, 302 Bohme, Jacob, 00, 107 Bohn, H. G., 209, 310 Boniface, St., 305 Bossuet, 145, 226 Boswell, James, 91, 103, 127, 209, 226 Bourget, M., 93 Boyd. A. K. H.. 298 Brewster. Sir David, 150 Bronte, Charlotte, 132, 145, 156 Bronte. Emily, 168 Brookfield. Mrs.. 188 Brougham, Henry, Lord, 184, 186, 226, 239, 257, 310 Broughton, Lord, 305 INDEX 315 Brown, John, 208 Brown, Thomas, 146, 186 Browne, Matthew, 210 Browne, Sir Thomas, 34, 162, 165 Browning, Mrs.. 61, 168, 227 Browning, Robert, 101, 102, 1S4, 202, 307 Bruoe, Robert, 144, 167, 227 Buoer, Martin, 145, 241 Buchanan, Dr. James, 13, 15 Buchanan, George, 306 Buckle, H. T., 163, 168 Bulwer, Henry Ly tton. Baron Dalling, 304 Bunyan, John, 91, 119, 146, 159, 241 Burghley, Cecil, Lord, 306 Burke, Edmund, 124, 240, 296, 300, 302 Bumey, Fanny, 124 Burns, Robert, 47, 124, 127, 155 Burton, Sir Richard, 306 Burton, Robert, 187, 297 Butler, Bishop, 124, 148, 185, 241 Butler, Samuel, 225, 302 Byron, Lord, 63, 88, 91, 106, 112, 125, 153 Cabot, Sebastian, 102 Csesar, Julius, 183, 225, 239 Cairnes, J. E., 225 Caius, 35 Calverley, 96 Calvin, John, 123, 128, 226 Camden, Lord, 256 Campbell, John, 185, 301 Campbell, Thomas, 104, 301 Candlish, Dr. R. 8., 302 Canning, Ooerge, 106, 128, 240 Canton, William. 54, 56 Canute, 103, 167 Carey, William, 107. 147.304 Carlyle, Mrs., 06. 200, 307 Carlyle. Thomas. 60, 84, 106, 111. 117. 118, 110, 128, 155, 177. 179, 183, 195, 199, 222. 236 Carpenter, Miss Charlotte, 123 Cartwright, Thomas, 302 Cary, H. F., 107, 148, 304 Casaubon, Isaac, 182, 227 Catharine of Aragon, 123, 210 Catharine of Siena, St., 50 Cavour, Count, 210 Cervantes, 105, 125, 159, 163, 240, 302 Chalmers, Dr., 150, 244, 298, 302 Chambers, Ephraim, 206 Chapman, George, 182, 305 Charlemagne, 120 Charles I., 109, 207 Charles II., 128, 226 Charles V. of Germany, 91, 123, 227, 240 Chateaubriand, 90 Chatterton, Thomas, 88, 89 Chaucer, 187, 241 Chaworth. Miss, 88 Chovreul, 278 Chrystal, Professor, 156 Church, Dean. 65, 171 Churchill, Ist Duke of Marl- In ' 316 INDEX I I ! 1^ i! borough. Lord John, 1S0» tt«,S04 Cibber, COII07, SIO Oloero, t47, S75, 297 C9ark, Sir Andrew, 249 CUvo, Lord, 129, 145, 207 Clough, A. H., 185 Clyde, Lord, S04 Cobbett, WilUvn, 102, 127, 184 Coke, Sir Edward, 128, 808 Colenao, Bishop, 147, 207, 303 Coleridge, Hartley, 220 Coleridge, Sara, 208 Coleridge, S. T., 50, 101, 106, 108,207 oligny, Oaspard de, 226 Collier, J. P.. 290 CoUiiu, WiUiam. 107, 164 Colvin, Sidney, 169, 186 Conant, I<. L., xi Confucius, 176 Congreve, William, 103. 240 Cook, Captain, 168, 206, 210 Copernicus, 301 Corday, Charlotte, 76, 108 Correggio, 91, 162 Cowley, Abraham, 63, 77, 169 Cowper, Lord, 266 Cowper, William, 37, 206, 226 Crabbe, George, 124, 303 Cranmer, 302 Crashaw, Richard, 162 Crawford, Marion, 11, 263 Crito,74 Croesus, 36 Cromwell, Oliver, 102, 236, 241 Crosse, Mrs., 154 Crtidan, Aleundw, MS CridkriiMik, Oaoffi, 109 Ounoin^uun, Allan, 44, 47 Curio, 8S Cu. or. 110, 147,106,297 r.-!e, r»r., 255 Oatiin't Samtwl, 240 D. .^ . 26, 62 105, 127, 149, •"> \ '62 ".'•'^ j^/intor;, 'o'l Dar% >i, /!harle«, 104, 128, 208: 3 D'Aubign*. T. A., 273 Davidson, A. B., 192 Davidson, John, 220 Daviee, Sir John, 166 Davy, Sir Humphry, 149, 210 Day, Thomas, 128, 182 Deane, Anthony, 246 Defoe, 160, 240, 304 Dekker, Thomas, 304 Delano, J. T., 297 Demosthenes, 147, 226, 297 De Qiiinoey, 145, 163, 306 Descartes, 107, 182, 187, 206 Desmond, Countess of, 293 Dickens, Charles, 8, 107, 1 18, 136, 166, 189, 204, 240 Diderot, 166, 303 Disraeli. ryden, John, 147, M», 310 DunuM, 18S DondM, Hsnfy, 303 Dwilop, Dr., 14, 18 DaiwUn, St.. 2W Dyoe, Alexander, 304 Eber. Paul, 34 EderriMim. Dr. Alfred, 209 Edgeworth. Merie, 308 Edward I., 76, 302 Edward III., 147. 300 Edward IV., 167 Edward the Black Prince, 14S, 204 Egerttm, Sir Thomas, 125 EldoD, Lord, 256 Eliot. George, 134, 164, 108, 297 Elisabeth, Queen. 303 Emeraon, 120, 179, 180, 276, 298, 307 Eraamue, 104, 147, 207, 303 Erakine. Ebenezer, 107. 306 Euripidee. 88, 166 Evelyn, 2 Fairfax. Thomas, 109 Faraday, Michael, 128 Fawoett, Henry, 109, 226 Ftoelon, 206, 299 Fiohte, 41 Fielding, 37, 184, 206 Fitcgerald. Edward, 146, 209, 303,306 Flaxman, John, 126, 30^, 304 Fleteher, John. 204 FooteoeUe, 249, 290 Forster, W. E., 14ft, 301 Foatar, John, 182, 160. 244, 306 Fox, C. J., 240 Foxe, John, 128, 203, 304 Franklin, Benjamin, 309 Franklin, Sir John, 297 Francis of AMiai. St., 107, 186 Franoia. Sir PhiUp, 127 Frederiek III., 167 Frederick the Ckeat, 187, 260, 306 Frere. Sir Bartle, 127. 303 Frobiaher. Sir Mitftin, 241 Froude. J. A.. 299 Fry, Elisabeth, 88 Fuller, Margaret, 138 Fuller, Thomas, 127, 148, 226 Fumess, H. H., 23 Fyfe. Hamilton, 264 Gainsborough. Thomas, 90 Gait, John. 241 Garrick. David. 147. 297 OaskeU. Mrs.. 103, 167. 166, 227 Gay, John, 2U6 George I.. 226, 302 George II.. 186 George III.. 308 Gibbon. Edward. 107. 20g. 248 Gissing. George, 11 Gladstone, W. E., 279. 288, 3U9 318 INDEX Goethe. 79. 93. 163, 241, 307, 308 Goldsmith, 37, 166, 187 Gordon, General, 226 Grahame, llr. Kenneth, 67 Gratry, P^re, 241 Gray, Thomas, 37, 147, 149, 177 Green, J. R., 189 Green, T. H., 74, 201 Greenwell, Dora, 7 Greenwood, Frederick, 170 Gregory II., 166 Gr6vy, M., 279 Grey, Lady Jane, 67, 88 Grote, George, ?97, 226, 267, 296 Grotiua, 66 Guise, Duke, Francis of, 186 Gutenberg, Johann, 304 Hall, Robert, 168, 187, 301 Hall, Stanley, 78 Hallam, Henry, 182 Hamerton, P. G., 1 12 Hamilton, Mrs. Alexander, 311 Hamilton, Sir W. R., 69, 76 Hanunond, Dr., 273 Hanbury, Mrs. Elizabeth, 294, 312 Handel, 61, 227, 239 Hannibal, CI Harcourt, Lord, 266 Hardy, Thomas, 149 Harriman, Mr., 219 Harrison, Frederic, 172 Harvey, William. 208, 293 Hastings, Warren, 88, 149 Hathaway, Anne, 90 Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 61, 204, 210 Haydn, 126, 298, 306 Hayward, Abraham, 4 Hay ward. Dr., 15 Hazlitt, WiUiam, 128, 226 Hegel, 203 Heine, 94, 239 Herder, 79 Herodotus, 36 Herrick. Robert, 191 Hewlett, Maurice, 213 Hippocrates, 24 Hobbes, Thomas, 289 Hogarth, William, 147, 301 Holmes, Oliver Wendell, v, 7, 93, 166, 178, 207, 273, 276, 286, 287, 291 Hook, Dean, 273 Hlbughton, Lord, 306 Howard, John, 123, 203, 298 Howitt, Mary, 42 Hugo, Victor, 49, 61, 63, 139, 308 Hume, DavtJ, 249, 260 Hunter, John, 300 Huxley, 243 Ignatius, Loyola, 120, 208 Ingelow, Miss, 49 Irving, Edward, 96, 167 James, Professor William, ix, 79,80,84. 86, 111 Jameson, Anna, 62 INDEX 319 Jeffenon, Thomas, 127, 147, 308 Jeffrey, Francis, 196 Jenkins, Henry, 293 Jordan, William, 310 Joan of Arc, 75, 88 Johnson, Samuel, v, 103, 123, 142, 174, 181, 205, 209, 291, 302, 305 Jonson, Ben, 107, 191 Jowett, Benjamin, 174, 242, 262, 306 Kant, 203, 239 Keats, John, 73, 89, 106, 108, 133 Kenyon, John, 267 Kepler, 103, 123. 163, 240 King, Lord, 266 Kingsley, Charles, 44, 126, 227 Klinger, 79 Knowles, Sheridan, 90 Kossuth, Louis, 311 Laoordaire, 168 Laidlaw. William, 233 Lamb, Charles, 2,46, 46, 101, 122, 148, 171, 173, 207, 272. 284 Landor, 38, 162, 309, 310 Landseer, Sir Edwin. 44 Lanfrano, 127 Lang, Andrew, 284 Langer, M., 248 Lavoisier, 103, 210 Law, William, 168, 305 Lawrence, Brother, 89 Lawrence, John, 204 Leibnitz, 88, 119, 299, 303 Leighton, Robert, 305 Leopardi, 88 Le Sage, 126, 204, 307 Lessing, 89, 226 L'Estrange, Sir Roger, 310 Lewis, Sir George Comewall, 291 Lincoln, Abraham, 86, 109, 225, 233 Lind, Jenny, 60 Linnseus, 106, 304 Liston, John, 304 Livingstone, David, 240, 241 Lloyd, Charles, 171 Lloyd, Mary, 171 Lloyd, Prisoilla, 147 Locke, John, 117, 240 Lockhart, J. G., 109, 184, 241 Longfellow, 14b Lonnrot, Elias, 148 Lovelace. Richard, 167 Loyola, Ignatius, 120, 208 Lubbock. Sir J. W,, 297 Lucan, 124 Lucas, E. v., 171 Ludlow, Edmund, 306 Luther, 32, 66. 91, 102, 147, 164, 166, 182, 297 Lyell, Sir Charles, 148 Lyly, John, 107 Lyndhurst, Lord, 266, 287 Lytton, Bulwer, 89, 107 Macaulay, T. B., 76, 106, 168. 184, 207, 241 I 320 INDEX MMoleafleld, Lord, 266 ^Ig^^ Maodonaldy Duff, x Maedonald, George, 273 MMhuveUi, 185, 240 Mackenzie, Henry, 309 Maokintoeh, Sir June*, 301 Ifaoreedy, 99 Maginn, William, 127 Maistee, Joaeph de, 90 Mandeville, Sir John, 304 Manning, H. E., 106, 109. 184 Mansfield, William Murray, Earl of, 810 Margoliouth, FrofeMor, x Marie Antoinette, 76 Marlowe, Christopher, 127 Marmontel, J. F., 306 Marryat, Captain, 164, 239 Marston, Philip Bop'ke. 163 Martineau, Harriet, 106, 184 Marvell, Andrew, 240 Mary, Queen of England, 186 Mary, Queen of Scots, 77, 104, 187 Massillon, J. B., 162. 307 Massinger, Philip. 239 Maxwell. Clerk. 62, 77 Macarin, Cardinal. 240 Maccini, 46 Medici, Lorenzo de, 186 Melanchthon, 32, 43, 76. 102. 106. 201. 299 Melbourne. Lord. 123. 303 Mendelssohn. 63. 76. 166 Meredith. George. 8 Meiriman. Henry Seton. 143 Meyerbeer. 60 Michelangelo. 76. 163. 289. 301, 310 Middleton, Thomas, 240 MiU, J. Stuart, 48, 164, 188, 301 Milton, 63, 106, 161, 186, 210, 240. 283. 300 Mirabeau, 106, 184 MitcheU, Dr. Weir, 241 Mitford, Miss, 302 Mohammed. 76. 126, 167, 297 MoUdre, 148, 162, 184, 226 Moltke, von, 124, 279 Montaigne, 87, 121, 149, 164, 166. 176. 204. 241 Montalembert. 167 Montefiore, Sir Moses, 294 Montesquieu, 240 Montgomery, James, 308 Moore, Sir John, 206 Moore, Thomas, 147 More, Hannah, 76, 310 M<»e, Sir Thomas, 126, 163, 226, 226, 239 MiHrison, Cotter, 164 Morley, John, 142, 288 Morris, WiUiam. 107 Mortimer. Bfrs.. 106. 306 MotherweU. WiUiam, 164 Motley, J. L., 184, 299 Mozart, 44, 60, 149 Mozley, Dr. 130 Munro. H. A. J.. 300 Murohison. Sir Roderick. 309 Murillo. 300 Murray. Lindley, 307 Muflset. Alfred de. 169. 204 Napier. Sir Charles, 306 Napier, Sir C. J., 304 INDEX 321 Napier, John, 187, 299 Napier, Macvey, 177 Napoleon I., 82, 106, 119, 123, 149, 150, 203, 225, 230, 258 Nelson, 75, 204 Neubauer, Dr., 299 Nevill, Lady Dorothy, 309 Newman, 55, 140 Newton, Sir Isaac, 103, 187, 309 NicoU, Alexander, 65 North, Christopher, 123, 302 Northcote, James, 309 Northington, Lord, 266 Norton, Mrs., 4 Novalis, 126 O'Connell, Daniel, 126, 304 Oergel, Oeorg, 32 Oliphant, Mrs., 257, 303 Osier, Dr. William, 33. 114, 153, 157, 160, 228, 246 Otway, 128, 147 Ozanam, Frederic, 158 Paganini, 61, 239 Peine, Thomas, 304 Paley, William, 184, 297 Paliasy, Bernard, 206 Pahnerston, Lord, 42, 76, 108, 271, 308 Park, Mungo, 126, 149 Parr, Thomas, 293 Pascal, Blaise, 88, 144, 156 Pasteur, 83 Patmore, Coventry, 145 Patteson, J. C, 44 Pattiaon, Mark, 160 Peacock, T. L., 305 Peel, Sir Robert, 102, 166, 240 Penn, William, 106, 166, 206 Pepys, Samuel, 2, 3, 162, 239, 245, 304 Perceval, Spencer, 207 Pestalozzi, 105, 239 Peter the Great, 226 Petrarch, Francesco, 304 Pitt, William, 73, 102, 106 Plato, 35, 308 Plautus, Maccius, 304 Poe, Edgar Allan, 163, 168 Pope, 105, 168, 239 Person, Richard, 207 Porter, Dr. Noah, 38 Porter, Jane, 305 Portinari, Beatrice, 106 Poussin, Nicholas, 304 Praed, W. M., 164 Prescott, W. H., 76, 165, 208 Priestley, Joseph, 127, 303 Prior, Matthew, 240 Proclus, 23 Purcell, Henry, 164 Pusey, Dr., 65, 104 Quarles, Francis, 226 Quincy, Josiah, 287 Rabelais, 207, 304 Radcliffe, Ann, 105, 240 Radetzky, 290 Raikes, Robert, "^05 21 I 322 INDEX Raleigh, Dr. Alexander, 129 Raleigh, Prof. Walter, 129 Raleigh, Sir Walter, 300 Ramsay, Allan, 166 Ranke, 287 Raphael, 164 Ratzeberger, Dr., 34 Reade, Charles, 223 Rembrandt, 107, 125, 297 Renan, Ernest, 104, 209 Renan, Henriette, 209 Rennie, John, 239 Reynolds, Sir Joshua, 88, 188, 301, 302 Richard, Dr. J. W., 32 Richardson, Samuel, 159, 225, 304 Richelieu, 163 Richmond, G. W., 15 Richter, Jean Paul, 38, 297 Ritchie, D. O., 96 Robertson, F. W., 164 Robertson, William, 304 Rogers, Srniuel, 105, 289, 311 Romney, George, 102, 302 Roosevelt, 264 Rosebery, Lord, 267, 269 Rossetti, Christina G., 49, 90, 210 Rossetti, D. O., 168, 186 Rossetti, Olivia, 46 Rousseau, 301 Routh, M. J., 289 Rubens, Peter Paul, 147, 297 Ruskin, 1, 107, 172 Rutherford, Mark, 10, 161 Rutherford, Samuel, 297 Ryder, Father, 160 Sainte-Beuve, 159, 186 Saantsbury, Prof., 196 Sarpi, 301, 304 Savonarola, 104, 182 Soaliger, J. J.. 65 Schiller, 7, 60, 79, 90, 145, 165, 188 Schlegel, August von, 306 Soipio, 226 Scott, Sir Walter, 8, 93, 111, 117, 123, 148, 160, 185, 206, 207, 229, 233, 296 Soudder, Mr., 37 Sellwood, E. S., 168 Seneca, L. AnnsBus, 304 Sevign6, Madame de, 121, 157 Shaftesbury, Seventh Earl of, 301, 309 Shakespeare, 22, 49, 90, 127, 146, 168, 226, 274 Shelley, 89, 90, 102 Shenstone, William, 207 Sheridan, R. B., 103, 105, 124, 149, 182 Shirley, James, 303 Siddons, Sarah, 90, 91, 239 Sidney, Sir Philip, 144 Sinclair, Upton, 218 Skelton, J., 298 St. Leonards, Lord, 257 Smetham, James, 41 South, Adam, 65, 226, 302 Smith, Alexander, 51, 104 Smith, Sir Sidney, 305 Smith, Sydney, 118, 145, 165, 195, 197 Smollett, Tobias, 123, 124, 160, 210 INDEX 323 Soerates, 74 Solon, 35 Somerville, Mrs., 289 Sophocles, 76, 119 Southey, Robert, 300, 302 Spencer, Herbert, 138 Spender, J. A., 268 Spenser, Edmund, 164, 182, 204 Spinoza, 104, 187 Spurgeon, C. H., 91, 240 StaSl, Madame de, 226 Stanley, A. P., 60, 204, 242, 301 Stanley, H. M., 240 Steele, Sir Richard, 163, 240 Stephen, Fitzjames, 42 Stephenson, George, 168 Sterling, John, 165 Sterne, Laurence, 63, 126 Stevenson, R. L., 126, 163, 169, 186, 187 Stewart, Dugald, 146, 305 Story, W. W., 281 Stowe, Mrs. Beecher, 217 Strauss, 124 Suckling, Captain, 76 Sue, Eugene, 163, 226 Sully, Due de, 308 Sully, Professor, 64 Swedenborg, 227, 239, 309 Swift, Jonathan, 44, 162, 240, 306 Swinburne, 227, 239, 309 Syon, M. de, 90 Talbot, Lord, 256 Talfourd, Sir T. N., 241 Tasso, 144, 225 Taylor, Sir Henry, 170 Taylor, Jeremy, 123 Taylor, Mary, 167 Taylor, Tom, 260 Temple, Henry, 76 Tennyson, 49, 164, 168, 308 Thackeray, 120, 163, 188, 226 Thierry, 297 Thiers, 207, 307 Thoms, W. J., 291 Thomson, James, 205 Thrale, Mrs., 142 Ticknor, George, 126, 240, 307 Tintoretto, 305 Titian, 290, 310 Tolstoi, 210 Tooke, J. H., 305 Toplady, A. M., 164 Townsend, Meredith, 216 TroUope, Anthony, 127, 146, 169, 246, 248, 302 Turner, J. M. W., 94, 306 Tusser, 67 Twain, Mark, 266 Van Dyck, 76, 90, 182, 185 Veitch, Dr. W., 311 Veronese, Paul, 241 Vinci, Leonardo da, 302 Voltaire, 106, 142, 249, 260, 308 Wagner, Richcxd, 124 Wallace, Alfred, 208 Waller, Edmund, 90, 123, 308 . 324 INDEX Walpole, Earl of Orford, Whymper, Edward, 109 Horace, 307 WilbeHoroe, WiUiam, 305 Walpole, Sir Robert, 302 Wilkes, John, 104, 304 Walter, John, 297 Wilkie, Sir David, 102, 227 Walton, Isaak, 241 William the Conqueror, 61, Ward, Mn. Humphry, 284 123, 166, 241 Warner, 8. O., 13, 19, 20 WiUiam III., 160, 225 Wadiington, George, 90, 103, William the Silent, Prince of 126, 225, 239, 302 Orange, 225 Watt, James, 125, 146, 166, Wilson, Alexander, 126, 163 308 Winckelmann, 145, 203, 210 Watts, Alaric, 98 Wither, George, 307 Watts, Isaac, 44, 106, 149, Wolcott, Dr. John, 308 306 Wolfe, General, 146 Watts-Dunton, Theodore, 49, Wolsey, Cardinal, 186 61 Wordsworth, Dorothy, 108 Wedmore, F., 250 Wordsworth, 37, i5, 101, 106, Wellington, Duke of, 162, 108, 120, 187, 306, 307 167, 308 Wren, Sir Christopher, 311 Wentworth, Thomas, Earl of Wycherley, William, 305 Strafford, 89, 206 Wydiffe, 241 Werner, 106 Wesley, Charles, 307 Wesley, John, 149, 310 Yonge, Miss, 44 West, Benjamin, 61, 126, 308 Young, Cheirles Mayne, 100 Westbrook, Harriet, 90 Young, Edward, 309 Westcott, Bishop, 266 Young, Julian Charles, 100 Whately, Richard, 140 Young, T. E., 291, 293 White, Gilbert, 303, 306 White, Henry Kirke, 102 Whitefield, George, 106, 227 Zimmermann, 301 Prinltd 6y Haxdl, Watum 4t Fiiwy, £