TJL THE STORY OF WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH EDITED BY GEORGE S. MERRIAM BOSTON AND NEW YORK HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY <${* tf toersi&e prees, CambriDoe 1890 Copyright, 1889, BY GEORGE S. MERRIAM. All rights reserved. The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A. Electrotyped and Printed by H. 0. Houghton & Company. PREFACE. " I THINK I can trace the growth of his opinions, from the little delicate boy who read his Bible and prayed the more resolutely because of the jeers and taunts of his com- panions at the first school he went to; the thoughtful youth, who, very early sent to Glasgow University, and while under the spell of Chalmers's eloquence, 4 got think- ing' over metaphysics ; the poet in nature and aspiration, chained to the dull routine of a lawyer's office ; the ma- ture mind, to which the incompatibility of the theory of punishment as held by theologians and by jurisprudence grew more and more intolerable ; through all and in all the same elements unflinching search, honest unbiassed striving toward truth, and unshaken devotion of the whole moral nature toward the Supreme Wisdom the Highest God ! Sometimes I think, Surely some kindred nature will one day take the threads I could supply him with, and weave them into a whole. Sometimes I resolve to write out, only for myself and the nieces, all I know ; or for myself only, the sweet eventless record of indeed, indeed, a great untroubled happiness." This passage, from a wife's letter soon after her hus- band's death, may be taken as the key to the present vol- ume, which attempts the portraiture of both husband and wife. He was a man of genius and rare fineness of na- ture ; the associate in early years of Mill, Sterling, Mau- rice, and Lewes. He was a constant contributor to " Blackwood's Magazine " from 1839 to 1871, and that journal said at his death : " No better type could be found 384618 iv PREFACE. of the true man of letters, the student, scholar, and critic of our days." But his reviews were anonymous, and he was withdrawn from society and an active career by a re- tiring disposition and the fascination of thinking purely for the sake of thought. His very name, William Smith, the commonest name in England, seems like a passport to oblivion. His personal history, quite devoid of external adventure, has yet for thoughtful minds an interest com- parable to that which attends the fortunes of a Stanley or a Livingstone. For he too was an explorer, and in realms whose secrets have an attraction for our generation be- yond those of the Dark Continent. And his researches were fruitful. " Thorndale," the book which won for him the greater part of such modest celebrity as attached to his name, gives an inadequate measure of the degree of solid conviction and clear light he attained. "Graven- hurst," his later and probably less known production, brings the world's latest thought to the study of the world's oldest problem, with results which contribute not a little of clearness to philosophy, energy to religion, and peace and strength to the heart. This volume includes extracts from his writings, dra- matic, critical, and philosophical, writings which various causes, external and internal, seem to have hindered from due recognition. A biographer may be considered too partial an advocate to set his estimate against that of the world, though, on the other hand, that final judge some- times nods, and when afterward roused may shape his opinion differently. Be that as it may, this author, by no means indifferent to the world's good opinion, was very far from depending on it for his happiness. One might well apply to him his own words, written of a man of like spirit with himself, Arthur Clough: "It was not till after he had left the scene that the world at large knew that there had been a poet amongst them. Then there was much clapping of hands. Could he who had passed PREFACE. v in behind the veil have returned at our summons, to re- ceive our plaudits, we feel persuaded that for such a pur- pose he would not have re-lifted the fallen curtain." The idea which the wife intimates, of writing herself some story of her husband's life, was so far carried out that she did write a sketch of him for their friends only, which afterward she hesitatingly allowed to be published, as the prefix to a reprint of some of his philosophical works, a connection not favorable to any wide circulation. This exquisite memoir is the basis of the present volume. No other hand could approach hers in fitness for the task she undertook. But that task did not include any history of her husband's intellectual development, nor any statement of his final views ; it was the beauty of his per- sonal traits that at that time filled her heart and inspired her pen. A fuller exposition of the subject is here es- sayed ; and with it there is blended a portraiture of her who brought completion and happiness to his life. Her charming personality unconsciously portrayed itself in her letters and writings, with a vividness which makes her a living figure. "No woman yet," said "The Spectator" recently, " has ever really told us the history of her life as Rous- seau and Pepys have told theirs, that is, without any attempt at concealment." It adds the suggestion that a refinement, a delicacy, and sense of the sacred seclusion of the heart might restrain any woman's mind from the necessary introspection. Certainly any conscious self- display to the world would have been quite impossible to the womanly nature of Lucy Smith. But to her own friends one of her many and great charms was the trans- parency with which to those she trusted she expressed her real and inner life. It was an openness which sprang from a generous confidence, and from her constant dispo- sition to share her best possessions with others. Espe- cially in writing of her husband, the love which in her was vi PREFACE. almost a worship inspired a frankness of utterance in which her own traits reveal themselves. In self-forget- fully picturing him, she has delightfully pictured herself. Of literary ambition she had not a particle; when she made a translation or a sketch it was to "turn an honest penny ; " and when she dashed off verses, it was to ease her heart of its fulness of joy, of struggle, or of playful- ness. Rare charms of intellect, feeling, and character were combined in her. The ardor and depth of her na- ture were matched by its disciplined fidelity and winning grace. It is in her private letters that her genius shines brightest, if genius be the right word for such a union of insight, tenderness, sympathy, and vivid interest in every- thing about her. One can scarcely imagine a creature more brimming over with life, a life as pure as brilliant. Such self-revelation, of such a woman, we have here. And it is to be added that this life is displayed to us under all the great typical experiences of womanhood, except only that of mother. This story ends not at the marriage-altar ; it goes on through the every-day experi- ences of a most happy wedded life ; still on, through the midnight shadows of bereavement, and the sacred and sublime experiences of love stronger than death. One other element of interest is present. The wife, fully sharing the husband's thought, is like him led to relinquish much of the traditional creed, comes into full presence of all the new thought and the new doubt, and while the problem which engaged him was an intellectual one, on her it falls to find a place under the changed con- ditions for her heart in its supreme needs. Whatever value belongs to this story is largely due to the extraordinary openness and transparency of the woman who is really its author. It is not inconsider- ately, nor without sense of possible animadversion, that such full self-disclosure is set before the general public. But " Wisdom is justified of her children," and they who PREFACE. vii rightly reading shall understand this royal woman, and appropriate her as a personal possession, will need no ex- cuse for letting her show herself as she was. One who opens the pages at random may light on passages which come to him like secrets overheard without right. But whoever reads the whole, and understands her who is speaking, will scarcely wish to spare a word. The contributions of many of her friends and no one had more devoted friends have given material for this volume. Of the best part of the book, she is the author ; but it has been wrought into form by the hand of one, an American, of that number who without ever seeing her knew her and loved her. No word better sums up the double story than an inscription on the inner wall of Dur- ham Cathedral, centuries old, following the names of a husband and wife : " We once were two, We two made one, We no more two Though life be gone." CONTENTS. PART L CHAPTER PAGB I. MORNING 3 II. CLOUDS 19 III. LIGHT BREAKING 25 IV. "THE WOOL-GATHERER" 33 V. " WILD OATS A NEW SPECIES" .... 40 VI. WORK AND ASSOCIATES 54 VII. COUNTER-CURRENTS 62 VIII. " GIVEN SELF, TO FIND GOD" .... 69 IX. "A DISCOURSE ON ETHICS" 77 X. THE REVIEWER 92 XI. "ATHELWOLD" 110 XII. THE TRAVELLER 127 XIII. SOLITUDE . 139 XIV. APPROACHING UNSEEN 150 XV. "THORNDALE" 172 PART H. XVI. MEETING 219 XVII. NEARER AND NEARER . . . . . .233 XVIII. UNITED 247 XIX. GRAVENHURST " 267 XX. SWITZERLAND . 301 X CONTENTS. XXI. MOTHER AND DAUGHTER 310 XXII. ABROAD AND AT HOME 324 XXIII. AMONG FRIENDS . , . . 339 XXIV. PEN PORTRAITS 355 XXV. BESIDE THE SEA 373 XXVI. RIPENING YEARS 391 XXVII. THINKER AND LOVER . . . . . .404 XXVIII. PARTING .426 PART III. XXIX. BEREAVED 453 XXX. READJUSTMENT 473 XXXI. "LovE OTHERS TOO" 487 XXXII. NOT AS WITHOUT HOPE 496 XXXIII. LED ONWARD 516 XXXIV. "HE RESTORETH MY SOUL " . . .531 XXXV. THE MOUNTAIN RILL 547 XXXVI. THIS FRIENDLY WORLD 560 XXXVII. THE RELIGION OF TO-DAY 583 XXXVIII. SUNSET LIGHTS 592 XXXIX. REUNITED 617 APPENDIX 637 PART I. THESE men were philosophers, not from the desire of fame, not from the pleasure of intellectual discovery, not because they hoped that philosophy would suggest thoughts that would soothe some private grief of their own, but because it was to them an overpowering interest to have some key to the universe, because all even of their desires were suspected by them until they could find some central desire on which to link the rest ; and love and beauty and the animation of life were no pleasure to them except as testifying to that something beyond of which they were in search. Quarterly Review. " Led by the Spirit into the wilderness." CHAPTEK I. MORNING. (From the Memoir.) THAT must have been a happy home at North End, Hammersmith, into which, during the January of 1808, William Henry Smith was born, the youngest of a large family. His father, a man of strong natural intelligence, after having made a fortune sufficient for his wants, early retired from business, in consequence mainly of an asthmatic tendency, which had harassed him from the age of thirty. The impression I gained of him from his son's description was that of one peculiarly fond of quiet and of books, but whose will gave law to his household, and was uniformly seconded by the loving loyalty of his wife. The large family had a recognized head, a condition I have often heard my husband insist upon as essential to all healthy domestic life. Whatever the spirits of the children might prompt, it was an understood, a felt law, that " Papa's " tastes and habits must be respected. And these, being interpreted by so gentle a mother, were never viewed in the light of unreasonable restraints. This dear mother seems to have been a woman of a quite primitive type, full of silent piety, wrapped up in the home and the family. She was of partly German extraction ; her mother had been an eminently saintly character, and I have caught glimpses too of a grandfather devoted to the study of Jacob Boehme, whose folio volumes, and the tradition of the veneration in which they had been held, still ex- isted in the Hammersmith home. How often", by the divination of love and sorrow, I have WlLtlAM SMITH. tried to 'conjure ,up-'that koine before my mind ! My bus- band once took me to its site, but the good old house had been cut up into shops, and the large garden was all gone, the large garden, that had seemed so large to the happy child playing there by the hour " under the scarlet and purple blossoms of the fuchsias," under the benignant eye, too, of a well-remembered old servant, gardener, and groom, who kept the plants and the sleek discreet horse " Papa " drove in his gig in equal order. It was an every-day delight to play in that garden, a high privilege to ride in that gig. I think I can see the father, very tall, a little worn by asthma, with black eyes of peculiar piercing power, and a certain stateliness and natural dignity which were wont to receive from officials at public places a degree of deference, noticed with some amuse- ment by the little observant companion and sight-seer. What he must have been at an early age a miniature then taken shows. It represents a fair, yellow-haired child of about three, with great black eyes full of the new joy and wonder of life, and a smile of singular sweetness, of al- most benignity. No wonder that, as his eldest surviving sister affectionately recalls, " he was the pet of both parents," though his exceeding mobility did sometimes a little agitate the valetudinarian father, who would lay down a half-crown on the table and say, " William, you shall have it, if you will only sit still for ten minutes ! " A child with such an expression as the picture shows would surely have complied had it been any way pos- , sible ; but he did not remember that the half-crown was / ever won. One day, when he was very small, a canary bird belonging to a sister died, and was buried beneath a flower-bush in the garden ; and on that occasion, when the bright and restless creature lying suddenly motionless on the palm of some young hand had given the happy child his first experience of wondering sadness, he wrote his first verses. MORNING. 5 . . . l The cheerful drawing-room in the Hammersmith home had a window at both ends. Round the one that looked into the garden clustered the white blossoms or hung the luscious fruit of a surpassing pear-tree a swan-egg the like of which was never met in later years. From the other window the children could watch the following spectacle, which my husband evidently en- joyed recalling in a notice of Mr. Knight's " Reminis- cences," published in 1864: "... We are transported in imagination to a bay- window that commanded the great western road the Bath Road, as people at that time often called it. Every evening came, in rapid succession, the earth tingling with the musical tread of their horses, seven mail-coaches out of London. The dark-red coach, the scarlet guard stand- ing up in his solitary little dickey behind, the tramp of the horses, the ring of the horns can one ever forget them? For some miles out of London the guard was kept on his feet, blowing on his horn, to warn all slower vehicles to make way for his Majesty's mails. There was a turnpike within sight of us; how the horses dashed through it ! with not the least abatement of speed. If some intolerable blunderer stopped the way, and that royal coachman had to draw up his team, making the splinter-bars rattle together, we looked upon it as almost an act of high treason. If the owner of that blockading cart had been immediately led off to execution, we boys should have thought he had but his deserts. Our myste- rious seven were still more exciting to the imagination when, in the dark winter nights, only the two vivid lamps could be seen borne along by the trampling coursers. No darkness checked the speed of the mail ; a London fog, indeed, could not be so easily vanquished ; but even the London fog which brought all ordinary vehicles to a stand- 1 The Memoir is sometimes slightly abbreviated in this reproduc- tion. 6 WILLIAM SMITH. still could not altogether subdue our royal mails. The procession came flaring with torches, men shouting before it, and a man with a huge link at the head of each horse. It was a thrilling and a somewhat fearful scene." The first sorrow that left a trace on my husband's re- membrance was the going to school, at the age, I think, of eight or nine. He did not go far, indeed, but to the sen- sitive and much-petted child the change from the atmos- phere of love and joy that filled his home was simply appalling. ' He was sent to a clergyman of the name of Elwal, and found himself surrounded by a good many older boys, who appeared to him, and probably were, boisterous and brutal. At all events the little fellow, to whom the Bible his mother so loved was the most sacred of all things, could not read it, could not kneel night and morning beside his little bed, without jeers and taunts and rough dissuasives. He only read and prayed the more resolutely. The unflinching spirit that throughout life followed after truth at any cost, was even then awake in the lonely and sorrowful child. Then, too, the compara- tively coarse fare, the inevitable fat, for which he had a constitutional loathing, somewhat impaired his health. Yet he probably kept back with the strange reticence that belongs to childhood the full amount of his unhap- piness, or he would never have been left at this school ; and no doubt, too, school-life to one so quick to learn, so active in play, must also have had a pleasant side. . . . The next school to which he went was in every way a contrast. Mr. Elwal taught well, but disregarded as was indeed almost universal at that time the material comforts of his pupils. At Radley, near Abingdon, the latter were well attended to, but the standard of learning was not high. But the two years or so spent there were always cheerfully adverted to. It might jar the High Church susceptibilities of the present inmates of Radley Hall to know that early in the century it was a Dissent- MORNING. 1 ing school the head-master a Dissenter, who seemed to have little vocation for his office beyond failure in some former business. However, he had a fair staff of mas- ters, and an amiable, popular wife, who liked William Smith to drive with her in her little pony-carriage, which he appeared to have liked too. In fact, at Radley, so far as I could discern, he did nothing but what he liked. A religious profession was supposed to be in the ascendant there, would have insured approval ; one is not therefore surprised to find that the feeling of devotion, which oppo- [ sition had only stimulated, now retired out of sight. He very soon learned all that the masters could teach him, was at the head of the school (a distinction which he carefully impressed upon me implied but mediocre scholarship), and had his time almost entirely at his own disposal. I have become indebted to the Rev. H. H. Dobney for a further glimpse of these school-days. Mr. Dobney was at Radley at the same time, a younger boy, in a different class ; the personal contact of the two was therefore slight, and they quite lost sight of each other. Yet Mr. Dobney writes me word that he never took up " Graven- hurst," " ever one of my favorite books," or " Thorndale," " without thinking of the William Smith whom he knew as a boy, and wondering whether their author could pos- sibly be he." He vividly remembers him, " a lightly- made boy, not joining much in boisterous amusements " nor " mixed up in scrapes ; " but even then, one u to whom it was natural to speak with something of an almost def- erential manner," one " who seemed the student rather than the school-boy." Radley was then a noble but still unfinished house, standing in beautiful grounds. There was one room especially fine in its proportions, with rows of stately pillars, and looking into the park, a room orig- inally destined for a library, but almost unfurnished, and with a scanty choice of books; and this room was the boy's favorite and undisturbed resort. And among the 8 WILLIAM SMITH. few volumes it contained he found Byron ! And pacing up and down that pillared room, book in hand, the potent spell wrought in the young poetic heart. No sketch of his youth could be faithful that omitted this Byronic phase. He has often described its sufferings to me, but I prefer to give them in words of his own, written in 1864. Throughout the long series of his articles on various sub- jects I can trace occasional allusions to this morbid influ- ence : " The youth of the last age were battling blindly and passionately against fate, were full of gloomy mysteries, great devotees to beauty, which after all was but to them the rainbow in a storm which they thought might abate, but which never ceased, rainbow always upon clouds which broke up only to reunite in darker masses, rain- bow of beauty, not of hope, incongruous apparition in a troubled and chaotic world. " Our Byronic fever had more than one phase ; some- times it exhibited itself in a mere moody fantastical mis- anthropy, combined with a reckless pursuit of very vulgar pleasure ; but in a less numerous and more meditative order of minds it displayed itself in a morbid passionate discontent with themselves as with all others. These were not pleasure-seekers, they had a great scorn for human life." ... It is needless to point out to which of these two classes the writer could ever have belonged. But although the first reading of Byron's poetry dated as far back as the two years spent at Radley school, it was later that the Byronic spirit was fully developed. Certainly the germ must have lain dormant during the brief and happy period that the boy passed at Glasgow College (1821-22). He was young to go there only fourteen ; but a brother, eight years older than himself, his favorite brother Theyre, a keen logician even then, re- markable throughout life for worth and charm as well as O intellect, and still remembered as the eloquent preacher MORNING. 9 at the Temple Church from 1832 to 1846 was at that time a student at Glasgow, and it seemed desirable that Wil- liam, who had evidently absorbed what of learning Radley could afford, should share higher advantages under his brother's care. He always remembered this session at Glasgow with peculiar interest, and more than once described to me the passage from London to Leith, made in foggy weather (in a sailing vessel of course), the impressions received on landing, the introduction to Scotch collops, and the am- brosial sweetness of the first glass of Edinburgh ale. A clever student (now a dignitary of the English Church) shared the lodgings of the two brothers ; John Sterling was one of their intimate associates, and much eager con- versing and debating went on, to which I cannot doubt that the boy contributed many an apposite illustration and subtle argument. His elder brother in one of his home letters writes : " The opinion which I have formed of William's abilities is confirmed and increases. . . . He evinces at certain periods a very superior capacity. I may be mistaken, and I should be sorry to strengthen an un- founded expectation ; but if I can converse with him on almost any subject without a difficulty from his want of apprehension, lose sometimes the idea of a disparity ex- isting between us, and forget that I am talking to a boy, surely I may be permitted to infer that his understanding is above the level of ordinary minds." It was now that for the first time William Smith fell in with Scotch metaphysics, that, to use his own words in talking over the subject with me, " he got thinking" As a consequence, the old theological foundations became gradually disturbed, at first perhaps insensibly, for his supreme enjoyment was still found in hearing Dr. Chal- mers preach. That fervent eloquence always remained one of his most vivid memories. At the time I write of, the three friends and fellow-students were all Dissenters, 10 WILLIAM SMITH. but iny husband was the only one of them who throughout life not only firmly adhered in theory to the Voluntary system, 1 but as a matter of taste preferred the simple Presbyterian service. The large family in the Hammer- smith home was indeed in the habit of attending the par- ish church once a day, the father had the old-fashioned Church-and-King reverence, but it was in the Independ- ent chapel that the younger members had their strongest emotions roused. It is easy to trace the influence of early associations in the passage I am about to extract from a notice of Sheridan Knowles, written by my husband in the summer of 1863 : If a French actor or Italian opera-singer retires from the stage to a convent of La Trappe, there to dig his own grave in silence and seclusion, we hasten to throw round the incident a halo of poetry. If we do not altogether admire and applaud, we stand aside in submissive, respectful attitude ; we look in mute amazement at this man who is so palpably forsaking earth for heaven. No poetry hovers over the Dissenting meeting- house. Neither the pew nor the pulpit of the Baptist chapel presents anything attractive to the imagination. Good Protest- ants as we are, we sympathize more readily with the Trappist than with the less ardent but surely more rational devotion that takes shelter in the walls of the little Bethel. Yet this should not be. In reality that little Bethel may be the scene of a pious enthusiasm as remarkable as any that demonstrates itself, under more poetic circumstances, in the convent of La Trappe. We have but to throw ourselves into the heart of the true worship- 1 Nevertheless I give a little anecdote which I owe to my hus- band's gifted brother-in-law, Mr. Weigall, to prove that long before the Glasgow days, indeed at a very early age, William Smith could look upon both sides of a question. "His brother Theyre," writes Mr. Weigall, " always predicted to me his future distinction. I re- member his mentioning as an evidence of his quickness that when he (Theyre) was driving him in a little pony-carriage of rather fragile- looking construction, kept chiefly for the use of his sisters, William said to him, * I don't like riding in this thing. I never feel secure. I always feel as if I were being supported by voluntary contributions.' " MORNING. 11 per, and the most unsightly edifice of brick and mortar that ever glared on us from the dusty street of a provincial town will become invested with a poetry of the highest order. See the well-regulated methodical tradesman enter such a building. Leaving the cares and gains of the week behind him, he walks at the head of his family up the narrow passage, which we will not call the aisle ; he needs no verger to usher him into his seat ; his hand reaches over to the familiar button that fastens the door of his pew ; he opens the door, lets in wife and chil- dren, then establishes himself in his accustomed corner. He deals out from some secret depository, perhaps from a drawer under the seat, the Bibles and the hymn-books, calf-bound, and the oldest of them not a little soiled and dog-eared. These he distributes, and then prepares for the morning devotion. One great sentiment he more or less distinctly recognises, the senti- ment which, differently modified, constitutes the essence of religion in all churches and in all hearts, that he and his family are then and there doing homage to the Lord of allj are pledg- ing themselves to obedience to whatever is just, and wise, and good, because His ways are perfect, and He requires of us, His rational creatures, what poor attempts at perfection we can make. After some interval of silence, a man in spotless black coat and white neckcloth rises from the deal pulpit opposite ; a square deal box, with a reading desk on it, which desk has no other ornament or furniture than the one large book, on which the minister reverently lays his hand. That one book sanctifies the whole place. Take that away, and all is dirt and dinginess. But our man in the corner of his pew could tell you that from that central spot there has emanated, he knows not how, a subtle influence that has pervaded the whole building, so that its very plastered walls are sacred to him. There is a knot in the un- painted wood-work of his pew on which his eye has often rested as he followed the worthy preacher. Were our man to travel, and to be absent in foreign kingdoms, that knot in a piece of soiled deal would rise before his imagination, and suggest holy memories to him. His hand would be again on the button of that pew, and he would prepare himself for solemn medita< tions. Oh, believe us, the poetry comes from within. 12 WILLIAM SMITH. To return to the youthful Glasgow student. Perhaps nothing can convey so accurate an idea of what he was at this early age as a letter written in most delicate and legible characters to one of his elder sisters. In it we already see something of that blending of thought and feeling, of self-control and reflectiveness with spontaneity, which distinguished the man. It shows, too, how happy and loving was the home-circle he was nurtured in a circle, I have heard him say, of which no member per- mitted him or herself an uncourteous tone or the disre- spect of personal comment towards any other. There was a latent fire in the dark eyes of all, and a tacit conviction prevailed that such a liberty would be resented. I copy the letter verbatim. It was written in the summer of 1822 : MY DEAR ESTHER, I surely need not tell you with how much pleasure Selina's letter was received. Need I say, I shall be glad to see you all. With how much pleasure I look forward to the happy time, how many fond anticipations, and how many expectations I indulge ! You have lately felt all these, and know them well ; but you cannot tell the change my mind has undergone. Before the arrival of that joy-bearing letter, I had been " making up " my mind to spend my summer at Glasgow, and perhaps part of that summer alone. I say " making up," for it was a kind of process, and one rather tedious and diffi- cult. For, as I told my dear mamma, the thought would often come with great force, " How I should like to see them all ! " Now this would greatly retard the process, and therefore I set strict watch over my thoughts ; and when they rambled to North End, I checked them, after a very short indulgence, for fear they should end in a desire to visit that happy corner. It has set all in a flame. Those smothered feelings burst forth, hope and expectation shine with double lustre, all is light and gladness. And shall I see you all so soon ? Yes, I shall, I shall ! This is the first time I have stopped to take breath since I began this letter, for, whenever the subject of home copies apross MORNING. 13 my mind, it imparts such an impulse that there is no resisting it. Perhaps it has carried me on with precipitation in this case. Sometimes it crosses my path while I am taking a walk, and then it is sure to make me take extraordinary long steps, or make fantastic leaps. In short, wherever it comes it gives an irresistible stimulus, which no gravity can withstand and no will restrain. But gently ! gently, my pen ! There is one little circumstance I cannot help mentioning. When Theyre had perused the letter, and knew how the con- tents would please me, he put on a grave look, and, with a solemn manner, read to me that part which contained the news. The contrast was very great, for, while he was standing in this solemn manner, I was laughing and wriggling about the chair, as though bewitched. Well then, you may expect us the first week in August, at the latest ; and glad shall I be when that week comes, for I do so want to see you all. No doubt it will give you pleasure to hear that Theyre has carried off the first prize in the Logic class. There are in every class a certain number of prizes given, and they are dis- tributed according to the votes of the students. Theyre ob- tained his unanimously. He also was successful in a prize essay. I must also tell you that the Greek professor gave me one for two or three poetical translations I wrote. There is no little ceremony in distributing them, but I will not trouble you with that. How many circumstances are there which are constantly directing our thoughts to that place where our affections are placed ! The most trifling thing will sometimes carry us away many miles, and detain us there for a long time. The other day, as I was demonstrating a proposition (for I am attending a little to mathematics), I happened to put the lid of the case of instruments upon my compass, and, twirling it round, it made a noise like a rattle. This rattling immediately reminded me of May-fair ; it was but a step to North End, and, when once you have set your foot there, you know how many difficulties to take it away again. " Well, some time after I found myself look- ing intently on the proposition, and holding the compass and the case on it in my hand, but quite ignorant of what I was doing. I seemed to have been roused from a vision. 14 WILLIAM SMITH. Then follow messages of love to the different members of the family, and a little significant postcript : " You promise you won't keep me ! " which proves how much the college life was appreciated. 1 But though he did return at the commencement of the next session, a sharp attack of inflammation of the lungs soon led to his being sent away home, and in the January of 1823 his father died, at the age of sixty-three. And now came many changes, all of them fraught with pain. There was the loss of the indulgent father, the spectacle of the mother's meek, deep-seated grief, the break-up of the cheerful home, and in addition there was the closing of the college career, for the climate of Glas- gow was pronounced too severe to be safely returned to ; and the youth in whose secret soul the problems of the metaphysician and the visions of the poet were already 1 My husband throughout life entertained a very decided prefer- ence for the Scotch system of mental training. I may illustrate this by some observations of his in an article, written in 1855, on the Life of Lord Metcalfe. That distinguished man, as a young Oxonian, professed to " abhor metaphysics," and in his journal prayed to be delivered from " the abominable spirit " of reliance on reason as a guide ; " blessed reason," as he in irony termed it. " One cannot help remarking that a Scotch youth of the same age might be equally pious, equally steadfast in his faith, and perhaps more conversant with the several articles of his creed, but he never would have expressed the tenacity of his convictions in this manner, never would have spoken of * blessed reason ' ironically. ... His first and last boast would have been that his faith was the perfection of reason. A Scotch lad, who had only breathed the air of Glasgow or of Edinburgh, would have never shrunk from intellectual contest, or professed that the creed he held and cherished was not in perfect harmony with the truly blessed reason. He would as soon have thought of proclaiming himself a lunatic in the public streets, and avowing a preference for a slight shade of insanity. Such distinc- tion we cannot help noticing between the systems of education in England and Scotland ; but we have no intention of pursuing the subject, or drawing any laboured comparison between their respective merits." MORNING. 15 seething, found himself destined to an uncongenial call- ing, that of the law. " He was articled," I quote from a letter of Mr. WeigalFs, " to Mr. Sharon Turner, the An- glo-Saxon historian, who was by profession an attorney ; but the office routine was so distasteful to him that he soon solicited Mr. Turner to cancel his articles. Mr. Turner told him he did not feel justified in doing so, as he did not consider William, at that time the best judge of what was expedient for him. William dragged through the weary hours he was required by his agreement to spend in Mr. Turner's office, and has often told me they were the most tedious and profitless in his existence." When it is remembered, too, that at this early age necessity was laid upon the earnest seeker after truth to loose from the old moorings and put forth, he alone, he so loving, so sensitive, so considerate of the feelings of others alone on what then seemed " a dim and perilous way," one to- wards which, at all events, no member of his home ever so much as glanced, it need excite no surprise that he viewed this period of his youth as profoundly unhappy. He would occasionally revert to it, but I never encouraged any reminiscence that cast a shadow over his spirits. I feel, however, that the following passage from one of his early works sprang from personal experience : It generally happens that the external influences of daily scene and customary actions oppose their timely resistance to the desponding humour of our early days. But in my case the outward scene of life was such as to foster and encourage it. The encroaching disposition became sole possessor of my mind. The ivy grew everywhere. It spread unhindered on my path, it stole unchecked upon my dwelling, it obscured the light of day, and embowered the secluded tenant in a fixed and stationary gloom. ... In this moody condition of my soul, every trifling disgust, every casual vexation, though disregarded of them- selves, could summon up a dismal train of violent and afflicting meditations. The first disturbance, the first ripple on the sur 16 WILLIAM SMITH. face, soon indeed subsided ; but, to take an illustration from some fairy tale I have read, the pebble was thrown upon en- chanted waters, and it roused the gloomy and tempestuous gen- ius that lay scarce slumbering beneath them. Yet nothing could be more true than that " his misan- thropy injured no one but its owner." Such was the sweet- ness of his nature, and his equitable recognition of the claims of others, that I doubt if his devoted mother, or any one of the home-circle " to whose hilarity he conspicuously contributed," ever suspected that beneath such a sunlit smiling surface any gloomy genius whatsoever dwelt and stirred. A lady, however, who in her character of ac- quaintance may have observed more accurately than rela- tives, who often stand too near to see, describes him at this period as " most gentle and gracious, but seemingly quite apart from the rest in his dreamy, gentle way." She adds : " Looking at his face, one could only think of the wonderful depth and intellect of his eyes, this was some- thing marvellous.'* And now comes a period of which I can give scarce any account, for to my husband, whose life had long been one of abstract thinking, impersonal, one might almost say, any attempt to recall dates was distinctly painful ; and I, while gladly garnering any crumbs that fell for me from his past, was aware that he could not, even had he tried, reconstruct it consecutively. But I know that he lived with a most tender mother, a mother in whjose eyes whatever William did was right ; to whom his very leav- ing off attending church and chapel, though it might have disturbed her in the case of others, could not seem wrong. I know that his first visit to Switzerland, first sight of the Lake of Lucerne and the glories of the mountains, was paid during an early period of youth, while there was on him that misanthropic Byronic mood, in which, to use his own words, " a love and an enthusiasm for nature was a compensation for want of cordial sympathy with mnn, MORNING. 17 not a related feeling strengthened by and strengthening that sympathy." Exactly when that mood passed away forever I cannot determine, but in his earliest productions it is already looked back upon as from a distance. I will finally dis- miss it in two passages of his own : " He who has read, and felt, and risen above the poetry of Byron, will be for life a wiser man for having once been thoroughly acquainted with the morbid sentiments which there meet with so full and powerful an expression. And so variously are we constituted that there are some who find themselves best roused to vigorous and sound thinking by an author with whom they have to contend. There are who can better quiet their perturbed minds by watching the extravagances of a stronger maniac than themselves, than by listening to placid strains, however eloquent. Some there are who seem destined to find their entrance into philosophy, and into its calmest re- cesses, through the avenue of moody and discontented re- flection." And: "It is a sort of moral conversion when a youthful mind turns from a too exclusive admiration of Byron's genius to the pages of Wordsworth." This con- version in my husband's case took place early. I have heard him say that during his youth he was a quite rapacious reader of English and French literature. All the dramatists, all the essayists, all the historians of both countries, in addition to their philosophical writers, nothing came amiss to him ; and if the day seemed long in the lawyer's office, the nights flew in eager study. It was his custom to sit up till three or four. The dear mother must have had many an anxious thought as to the effects of such a practice on so sensitive and fragile a frame, but she never seems to have interfered, even by tender remonstrance, with her son's perfect liberty. I ex- tract a passage of his (written in 1847) which is evi- dently the expression of a personal experience. 18 WILLIAM SMITH. The student's lamp was burning ; how calm, how still is the secluded chamber ! . . . Reflection has her emotions, thrilling as those of passion. He who has not closed his door upon the world, and sat down with books and his own thoughts in a soli- tude like this, may have lived, we care not in how gay a world, or how passionate an existence, he has yet an excitement to experience which, if not so violent, is far more prolonged, deeper, and more sustained than any he has known, than any which the most brilliant scenes or the most clamorous triumphs of life can furnish. What is all the sparkling exhilaration of society, the wittiest and the fairest, what all the throbbings and perturbations of love itself, compared with the intense feeling of the youthful thinker who has man, and God, and eternity for his fresh contemplations, who for the first time perceives in his solitude all the grand enigmas of human existence lying unsolved about him ? His brow is not corrugated, his eye is not inflamed ; he sits calm and serene ; a child would look into his face and be drawn near to him ; but it seems to him that on his beating heart the very hand of God is lying. CHAPTER II. CLOUDS. THE boy's letter to his sister brings him before us in his fifteenth year, the year which proved to be the last of his boyhood. He comes before us again in the first of his published writings, six years later. The intervening pe- riod gave the decisive stamp to his life. We see in him at the beginning a refined and sensitive nature, its affec- tions developed and satisfied in the warm atmosphere of home, and its intellect already stimulated by Scotch the- ology and metaphysics. It was a nature that early showed its essential bias, an attraction toward truth, beauty, and love. Then came the rough transplanting into an attorney's office. The study and the work were dull and uncongenial ; the knowledge acquired was dry and unnutritious ; for the present, there was no recompense in the sense of service rendered to others, or even the sat- isfaction of earning a daily wage ; and as preparation for the future, the way led to a profession which was hope- lessly unsuited to the man. The result of an outward sit- uation so repellant was to throw the young man back upon that purely interior life, of fancy, feeling, and specu- lation, to which by innate constitution he was prone enough without external incitement. Among the men of his time, Arthur Clough is the one with whom it is most natural to compare him. The two were alike in their thirst for truth and their purity of life, and they swam in the same sea of thought. But Clough was happy in the circumstance that his early years were passed at Rugby and at Oxford ; where along with his Latin and Greek he 20 WILLIAM SMITH. got the hardy training of the foot-ball ground and the river, the grand influence of Dr. Arnold, and that com- panionship with fresh youthful spirits which he so charm- ingly portrays in the " Bothie." For him, the unsparing quest for absolute truth was postponed until his sinews had been knit and he had been fortified by generous com- radeships against the loneliness which besets the thinker. But no such kindly apprenticeship fell to the boy of our story. Glasgow College and Dr. Chalmers had already set him to thinking. Such thought led into fields infi- nitely attractive to a mind like his. Now there were no counter attractions, and the entire energies of his nature were swept along into a world of such fascination, its splendors so enthralling, its terrors so enchaining, that under its spell the whole external world, its law-books, its drudgery, its London streets, its men and women, and even its home companionships, became in comparison far away and dim. As the children of Hamelin followed the piper's music, so this boy followed the mysterious musi- cian whose melodies are reverie and speculation, and passed into a realm apart from the workaday world. There is nothing to indicate with certainty the precise course of his early thinking. But one of the characters in " Thorndale " affords a clue which we may follow with reasonable confidence that under the name of Cyril we have in substance, if not in form, a part of the youthful experience of William Smith. A pious and affectionate youth may, without blame on his part, commence his career of independent thinking by a rebel- lion against some of his most sacred feelings, by a violence done to his best affections. His peace of mind is disturbed, and the harmony of the family circle is broken by an invisible enemy, who has stolen upon him in the very hours of study and medita- tion. Those earliest and dearest friendships, as well as those first and sacred convictions, which should have lasted him his whole life, are put in jeopardy at the very outset. CLOUDS. 21 For some time our inquiring youth keeps his doubt a close prisoner within his own Bosom. At length, one day, being more daring or more despondent than usual, he gives expression, in the family circle, to some of those sceptical questionings he has been secretly revolving. As soon as the words have passed his lips how those lips trembled as he spoke ! he feels that it was not an opinion only he has uttered, but a defiance. And it is not an answer, but a reproof, that he receives. An elder brother frowns, a sister weeps, a parent solemnly rebukes. Sad and in- auspicious entrance on the paths of inquiry. He retreats into himself, perturbed, disdainful, with a rankling sense of injustice done to him. Beyond the family circle the case is little better. In gen- eral society he soon learns that the subject of religion is alto- gether inadmissible. There is but one thing more distasteful to well-bred people than a religious sentiment or opinion, and that is the least show of opposition^ to it. You must think over these matters if you must think in perfect retirement. The one half of society requires that you respect its faith, the other half that you respect its hypocrisy. . . . Such an one, when I knew him, was Cyril. A youth of more blameless manners there could not be. His parents were distinguished for their evangelical piety, and were de- lighted to watch the development of his ardent and unaffected devotion. His nature had entirely responded to the religious training he had received. How came doubt, it will be asked, in such a mind ? What sceptical works was he likely to read ? And if he had been persuaded to read any such works, would they have produced any other impression on a person of this de- scription than pain and offence ? Let their statements or reason- ings be what they might, such a person would only have been stung, irritated, wounded by them not convinced or shaken. But the enemy may approach in a far more insidious manner than by a direct attack. His father took a great interest in the subject of reformatory punishment, as it is sometimes called. (The combination of reformatory and educational measures with punishment, would be a more accurate expression for the object which such philanthropists have in view.) Schemes of prison discipline formed the most frequent topic of conversation at his 22 WILLIAM SMITH. own home. The house was full of books treating upon this subject in every possible manner, either investigating the ra- tionale of punishment, or proposing new methods for the moral restoration of the criminal. In short, it was the paternal hobby. Now, in works treating on the subject of criminal jurisprudence, there will invariably be intermingled ethical discussions on the nature and objects of punishment itself, and on the meaning which is attached to such words, for instance, as retributive pun- ishment, and of penalty, when imposed in order to secure obe- dience to a promulgated law. As I understood him, the perusal of these books, together with the constant reiteration in the family circle that the reformation of the criminal himself was never to be lost sight of as one of the ends of punishment, forced upon his mind the perception of a strange contrast between the ethical principles which his father advocated when discoursing upon this favourite topic, and the ethical principles which he ad- vanced or implied when he expounded his Calvinistic divinity. Cyril, at least, could not reconcile the two. He could not help saying to himself though he recoiled at first with horror from his own suggestions that his father claimed for a human leg- islator principles more noble and enlightened than those he at- tributed to the Divine Governor. The idea was at first repudi- ated ; it was thrust back ; but it would return. The subject was not allowed to sleep, for every fresh visitor at the house called forth from his father an exposition of what he deemed to be the true principles of criminal jurisprudence. To punish for re- venge, he pronounced unchristian and irrational ; he admitted no ends for punishment but the protection of society and the reformation of the criminal, which also was the best protection for society ; nor would he allow that the first of these was an end which could be legitimately pursued without being coupled with the second. . . . That the future punishments of God should have for one end the reformation of the offender does not appear to be a heresy of a very deep dye, nor one that ought to have dis- turbed a pious mind ; but it shook the whole system of theology in which Cyril had been brought up. If punishment has in itself wise and merciful ends, if it is conducive, or accom- panied by measures that are conducive, to the restoration of the CLOUDS. 23 criminal, what becomes of all those ideas attached to the word salvation, in which he had been educated ? I only indicate the train of thought awakened in Cyril's mind. Those only who have been educated as he was can understand the terror and anguish of heart which such a train of thought brought with it. . . . The first murmur of dissent he ventured to raise against the system in which he had been educated was on the doctrine of eternal punishment. It was the doctrine he most frequently discussed with me. The more he studied it, whether in works of ethics or works of religion, the less could he assent to it. Yet the denial of it shook all the rest of the system ; his doctrine of Atonement must be entirely remodelled ; in short, he was plunged into the miseries of doubt. ... To appreciate the distress of Cyril it must be borne in mind that he had been brought up in the conviction that un- belief was a sin of the greatest magnitude ; that it could not fail to incur all the penalties of extreme guilt, as the unbeliever was cut off from the only means of salvation. Say that he was wrong, then his very denial had sentenced him directly or indi- rectly to that final doom he called in question. His unbelief had incapacitated him from seizing upon the sole means of es- cape. This terrible responsibility was forever with him. A voice would peal incessantly in his ears, " You may be wrong, and then " ... I cannot describe, and do not wish to describe, the depth of terror and affliction which Cyril felt as his earliest faith was being rent from him. A soul athirst for piety seemed driven from the only temple in which it could worship. He grew restless, gloomy, at times even morose. ... [At Oxford.] The cloud was darkening over him. At length he rarely came to my room. Hearing he was unwell I went to see him. I asked him after his health ; he did not an- swer the question took no heed of it ; his thoughts were else- where. "Oh, Thorndale! " he said, " to pass long sleepless nights sleepless and in pain and not to know how to pray ! " And as he pressed Iny hand he burst into an agony of tears. . . . With some few men this gloomy contest, carried on apart and alone, has absorbed all the energies of their intellect. 24 WILLIAM SMITH. Coerced into silence, they gain no help from other minds ; the cloud hangs over them perpetually ; no word from another disperses it for a moment ; perhaps they are ashamed to confess the secret terrors they more than occasionally feel. They seek no distraction ; for them there is no oblivion ; they must front their enemy with a steady eye, or they sink vanquished, and lose entirely their self-respect. Perhaps there is no interest or pleasure so absorbing as to shelter them during one whole day from some recurrence of their sad and interminable controversy. They live on, knowing nothing of philosophy but its doubts, and retaining nothing of religion but its fears. CHAPTER III. LIGHT BREAKING. AND how is our poor boy to cope with these vast prob- lems ? The bitterness of the struggle has been partly shown in the passages from Cyril's story. It is a com- plex suffering. The centring of his deepest interests on a topic which he cannot share with the others consigns to loneliness a nature framed for sympathy and tenderness. The impulse of a reverent soul toward worship and ado- ration finds itself baffled, the glorious image of its Deity dissolving into mists of uncertainty. Deepest trouble of all, the practical rule of life, the chart and compass for daily and hourly guidance, seems lost to a man of reli- gious nature when his beliefs become unsettled. Such guidance is sufficiently furnished for many men by the standards of social usage, of acquired habit, or of obvious utility. But the sensitive and spiritual nature yearns to connect its common acts and choices with some lofty and abiding reality; dead reckoning will not serve its pur- pose, it must take observation by the heavenly bodies. So great were the troubles into which the youth fell. And it was not a weakness or a fault that involved him in his difficulties, but the highest quality in him. He obeyed a voice which bade him unsparingly ask, " What is true ? " Even that impulse of worship which is the heart of piety laid on him, by the whole force of its austere sanctity, the requirement that the object of his worship be a worthy one, that it be a reality and not a delusion. How fares it then with this boy as he ripens early into manhood under the stress of such questionings? Des- 26 WILLIAM SMITH. tined he clearly is to spend his life in thinking his way just so far into the order of the universe as his faculties and opportunities will carry him. But how meantime is his personal life to go on ? Must he wait until he has thought out the ultimate problems of existence, or been persuaded to accept some other man's scheme, before he can have scope for his piety, guidance for his conduct, and love answering his love ? The purpose which he set before himself, or rather which was inexorably set before him, was the search for truth. But along with this, including it and transcending it, lay a problem of another sort to fit his own personality rightly and truly to its place in the order of things. In modern speech, the individual must adjust himself to his environment ; in the older phrase, man must learn and do the will of God. The main business of every man, even the philosopher, is not to explain the universe, but rightly to live his own life. The story of Cyril reveals much as to the general nature of the youth's first conflict. But to Cyril is assigned a wholly different issue from that which happened in the case of the mind that conceived him ; for Cyril finds refuge and peace in the Church of Eome. To William Smith that road was quite impracticable. The directions in which his thought took shape and ripened toward conviction we shall trace hereafter. But the really critical stage in his personal development, the process deeper than all specu- lative thought, we may safely believe to be that to which his wife refers, when she tells of his passing from the in- fluence of Byron to that of Wordsworth. It is not to be supposed that Byron and Wordsworth were altogether the decisive factors in the business. They counted for something. But, beyond what they were in themselves, they stood as the types in literature of two different attitudes of character; and it was the change from one attitude to the other which was so important and LIGHT BREAKING. 27 decisive that the word " conversion " might well be given to it. It was a process which the poems of Wordsworth doubtless did much to help, but which was also forwarded by the strong inward bent of the young man. It was as when the compass-needle, after vibrating under conflicting attractions, swings at last with the unseen current, and is thereafter held tremulous but true to the northward line. Byron stands for the rebellion of the soul against a world that does not please it. He craves freedom, beauty, joy; he finds restraint, ugliness, trouble. He betakes himself to resistance and to scorn. He finds the gratifi- cations that he craves prohibited ; and where the law that restrains him may be broken, he snatches at the forbidden fruit ; where the law is above his power, he is sullen and bitter. He is partly but not wholly of the earth, earthy ; moral beauty and grandeur, as well as physical, have a charm for him ; he admires, but he will not worship. Practically it is himself that he sets as God, his own mixed being, with head of gold, body of iron, and feet of clay, and because the world of nature and of man is not subject to him, he stands rebellious and scornful. The music of his verse, the splendor of his imagery, the rapid dramatic action, catches the fancy of our youth while he is yet a school-boy. Then later, when he too finds his world an unfriendly place ; when his thirst for joy and freedom is mocked ; when the object of his wor- ship fades into uncertainty ; when, looking on the splen- dors of the Alps, he feels his own spirit clouded, then lie finds in Byron's defiant temper a mood congenial to his own. He too is a rebel. There is no visible outbreak ; he does his task work ; at home he may be often silent, but he speaks 110 wounding word. Libertinism of the senses is repugnant to him. But in silence he protests against this whole cruel order of things ; against a God who hides himself, and against a universe which tantalizes its children with glimpses of a good it forbids them to grasp. 28 WILLIAM SMITH. The characteristic of Wordsworth is the spirit of obedi- ence and reverence. He faces life not with a demand that it shall yield him pleasure, but with the wish to know his true place and do his rightful part. Are irksome tasks laid upon him ? He will meet them faithfully ; and so meeting them, Drudgery is transfigured before his eyes, and becomes Duty, "stern daughter of the voice of God." He looks out upon the world of humanity and of nature with sympathy and awe. This glorious universe, vaster far is its significance than to minister ease to him, or give applause to his merit. His is the secret of pos- session, a self-forgetfulness that appropriates by sympathy the good of others. Because he brings to the contempla- tion of Nature a mind which seeks no homage for itself, and watches her beauty and listens for her message, un- troubled by the turmoil of selfish passion, therefore Nature, whom Byron finds " heedless and inaccessible," 1 1 Wordsworth gathers from this visible beauty of the creation more than a pleasure and delight, more even than that sentiment of romantic devotion which other poets have rapturously pro- claimed ; he detects in it a communion and an intelligent influence, passing in all ages between the Spirit of the universe and heart of man. He reads in the cloud, touched by the light of heaven, an un- utterable love. Here is the keynote by which the variable human being may at all times tune his mind, if he will, to be in harmony and accordance with that " great idea " which the world was framed by Divine Wisdom to answer. No man has so exalted and refined this sentiment. Beauty is with him a piety. In the sombre seclu- sion of a metropolis I have read his verse and worshipped. I am transported to the eternal hills, to that first and enduring temple which mountain and the sky have reared, and where it needs not that any perpetual flame be kept alive upon the altar by the hand of man, for the whole scene is one animated type, placed there for the com- munion of the human family with heaven and with each other ; and the Spirit of God is felt moving in the midst. . . . Byrori, too, could extol that beauty in strains of unsurpassed magnificence, but with him a love and enthusiasm for nature was a compensation for want of cordial sympathy with man, not a related feeling strengthened by and strengthening that feeling. With him Nature was a goddess LIGHT BREAKING. 29 shows herself to this humble worshipper as a divine mother. Her glory is sacramental to him ; it is like the visible face of God. Was it as he read some page of Wordsworth, or was it in lonely communing with himself and the Unseen, we know not, but there came to the troubled young spirit a voice, " Peace, be still ! " There came to him, grew* upon him, wrought itself through his obedience into an inward law of his nature, the impulse to accept the order of the universe, without waiting to comprehend it ; to faithfully discharge the near and known duty ; to look reverently upon all beauty and grandeur as the manifestation of some eternal good. He heard and obeyed the command to submit, to obey, to revere. Of that command, borne in upon a spirit like his by in- fluences more and finer than can be distincly traced, yet Wordsworth stood as the most articulate interpreter. Under such teaching, the young man ripens out of the stage of rebellion and bitterness into sweetness and humility. He has still much of suffering and perplexity to encounter. It is not given him to emerge at once into such tranquil sunlight as shines on Wordsworth's pages, and there to abide. But he is learning a disposition and habit which will stand him in stead through all sorest need. His is one of those natures endowed with too much sensi- bility, with too unsparing a desire of truth, to allow an easy or a tranquil life. But he is coming now into true relation with the world in which he is to live and serve, and with that awful Power which his eyes and heart strain to dis- cern. He has taken obedience and reverence for his guides. which he placed in hostile contrast to Humanity, and for this very reason was the more willing to adore. His imagination endowed her with a quite separate existence, apart alike from God and man. In the sort of chivalrous homage he paid to this sovereign mistress of his soul, he delighted to pronounce her heedless and inaccessible to the presence or the prayers of her poor human worshippers. William Smith, in Blackwood, March, 1841. 30 WILLIAM SMITH. In the poetry of Wordsworth he found an aid, and under its influence he came not only into more of in- ward peace, but into a larger intellectual outlook. But Wordsworth's was not a religion or a philosophy to wholly satisfy him. On the one hand, Wordsworth steadily holds the traditional creed of Christianity and the Church of England. That creed has no very conspicuous part in his writings ; but his unquestioning acceptance of it gives to his mind a settled position, and a freedom to survey man and nature as it were at leisure. On the other hand, his own peculiar philosophy is mystical ; he accepts seen things as symbols of higher things unseen. Why he so accepts them, he does not try to explain. It is so that they present themselves to his mind ; and to one order of minds, such acceptance is as natural and self-evident as the operations of the physical senses. But the mind with which our story deals, though endowed with something of this illuminated vision, included also a more searching and exacting quality. It was acute and analytical, bent to trace every stream to its earliest source, to test all so- called intuitions by rigid laws of evidence, and to go back of every assertion with an inexorable WTiy ? This quality was doubtless stimulated by the training in Scotch meta- physics ; it must have been fostered, too, by long study of the civil law ; and it accorded with the principles of inves- tigation of physical science, which have played so great a part in our day. In short, there were combined in this man the traits of the poet, the saint, the metaphysician, and the scientist. In the consummate and perfect man, the ideal product of humanity, all these characteristics would unite, and form a perfect harmony. But the effort to harmonize their workings in an actual man, of flesh and blood limitations, is an arduous business. It made of life an arduous business for William Smith. We get an incidental glimpse of help given him toward one great forward step, toward emancipation from that LIGHT BREAKING. 31 fear of Divine wrath menacing the doubter which haunted his first departure from the faith of his fathers. In one of his earliest publications he makes cordial mention of Shaftesbury's " Characteristics." That book has the mild, rational, moderate tone which is perhaps the best trait of the English philosophical writers of the eighteenth cen- tury. It does not probe the great questions closely home, according to our later ideas ; but it introduces, instead of the lurid atmosphere of polemical controversy, an air of good temper and of composure, akin to that with which truth is followed in the dialogues of Plato. There is one passage which bears so directly upon the fear that had shadowed the soul of the young doubter that it is worthy of quotation here. We must not only be in ordinary good humour, but in the best of humours, and in the sweetest, kindest disposition of our lives, to understand well what true goodness is, and what those attributes imply which we ascribe with such applause and honour to the Deity. We shall then be able to see best whether those forms of justice, those degrees of punishment, that temper of resentment, and those measures of offence and indignation, which we vulgarly suppose in God, are suitable to those original ideas of goodness which the same Divine Being, or Nature un- der Him, has implanted in us, and which we must necessarily presuppose in order to give Him praise or honour in any kind. This is the security against all superstition : To remember that there is nothing in God but what is God-like, and that He is eitber not at all or truly and perfectly good. But when we are afraid to use our reason freely, even on that very question, * Whether He really be or not' we then actually presume Him bad, and flatly contradict that pretended character of goodness and greatness, whilst we discover this mistrust of his temper, and fear his anger and resentment, in the case of this freedom of inquiry. We have a notable instance of this freedom in one of our sacred authors. As patient as Job is said to be, it cannot be de- nied that he makes bold enough with God, and takes his Provi- 32 WILLIAM SMITH. deuce roundly to task. His friends, indeed, plead hard with him, and use all arguments, right or wrong, to patch up objec- tions, and set the affairs of Providence upon an equal foot. They make a merit of saying all the good they can of God, at the very stretch of their reason, and sometimes quite beyond it. But this, in Job's opinion, is flattering God, accepting of God's person, and even mocking Him,. And no wonder. For what merit can there be in believing God, or his Providence, upon frivolous and weak grounds ? What virtue in assuming an opinion contrary to the appearance of things, and resolving to hear nothing which may be said against it ? Excellent charac- ter of the God of truth ! that He should be offended at us for having refused to put the lie upon our understandings, as much as in us lay ; and be satisfied with us for having believed, at a venture, and against our reason, what might have been the greatest falsehood in the world for anything we could bring as a proof or evidence to the contrary ! The gradual progress of the young man's thought will be unfolded hereafter. But, from the time he leaves his Byronic passion behind him with his boyhood, during all his years, in whatever of struggle and perplexity he may be involved, he is always in heart and life a worshipper. The sun is often behind a cloud ; he vainly strains his eyes to discern its orb ; but its softened light suffuses the heavens and earth about him. A passage in one of his latest writings describes in the character of Clough that quality which was the accepted law of his own life. The only thing absolutely essential to him was the approval of his own conscience. This man, so free in speculation, who had sounded all the perilous depths of human thought, who had cast off dogmas as the serpent casts his skin, and with as little thought of returning to them again, was a very slave to the sen- timent of duty. The thing that was right the doing of this stood to him in the place of ambition ; and it had sometimes to stand in the place of doctrine too. Faith in the right this never forsook him ; nor in that Being whom, when the reason refuses to clothe in any mythological or objective form, it still finds even in itself ! CHAPTER IV. "THE WOOL-GATHERER." THE last two chapters have portrayed in grave hues the young man's thought and life. But with the sombre strain there was interwoven in him an element of pure joy and even of light-heartedness. The noble delight of the thinker is portrayed in the passage which his wife quotes (page 32). There were, too, lighter kinds of intellectual resource, on which he feasted with healthy youthful ap- petite. It was something very different from theological problems which engaged his pen in his earliest published writings. In the year 1828 a weekly literary paper called " The Athena3um, v which had lately made an unnoticed begin- ning in London, was observed to take on a new quality, and to show fine and promising work, as of vigorous though youthful hands. It had come into the control and editorship of two young men, fresh from Cambridge Uni- versity, John Sterling and Frederick Denison Maurice. Among the contributions of this first year was a series of eight papers, on various topics, signed " A Wool-Gath- erer." The writer was William Smith, then twenty years of age. The first paper, " On Periodicals," pleads the cause of this species of literature in a style which plays easily between the grave and the humorous. The maga- zine, says the writer, is not to be despised because it scarcely aims at more than a transient interest. " It is the perpetual fountain, whose life and whose beauty are not to be found in any one drop of the ever-changing liquid, a fountain whose boast it is to be continually exhibiting 34 WILLIAM SMITH. under a graceful form some portions of the collected and otherwise stagnant waters of learning." For his own part, he even disclaims the usual contempt for an an- tiquated periodical, and finds in it a curious interest. " There the writer stands, in the same attitude of defiance or astonishment into which he was surprised by the popu- lar excitement of the time; he is still gazing with awe and wonder upon the ghost which the rest of the world has long since discovered to have been a white sheet upon an ivy bush." As to the broad question of the periodical form, he admits there is a drawback in the tendency of the paper to interrupt the social chat of the family ; and for this, he says : " I would propose it as a remedy that everybody should make it a stipulation in the marriage settlement ' that the said A. or B. shall not, nor will, dur- ing the hours of breakfast, tea, or supper, or for the space of sixty minutes after each and every of the said meals (the said sixty minutes to be calculated by the minute hand of the outside clock of the nearest parish church, provided that the said clock be going, and be in thorough repair, certificate of which, etc.) read or peruse, or ap- pear to be reading or perusing, any gazette, journal, maga- zine, etc.' ' In conclusion, the essayist disavows any expectation of imitating either the excellences or defects of the eighteenth-century writers whose forms and machin- ery he has adopted. " The playful wit and elegance of the lighter parts of the 4 Tatler ' and ' Spectator,' I have never dreamed of copying ; neither will I wilfully imitate the manner of their more serious papers, a manner more polite than honest, in no danger of being ruffled by zeal, or made dogmatic by too strong a conviction or too cogent a reason." The second paper is "On Enthusiasm." It justifies the general distaste for so-called " perfect characters," in literature, on the ground that that is no real or human perfection in which " every passion is under the calm and "THE WOOL-GATHERER." 35 apathetic sway of reason." Tranquillity is to be obtained " not by moderating all passions ; it is to be sought only by delivering ourselves up to one. There is no garden virtue, which can lie on beds of roses in indolence and security ; but there is a virtue to whose more enraptured gaze the wilderness becomes glad, and the desert blossoms as the rose." The next paper, " On Martyrs," is a plea for toleration of free thought and speech, on the highest grounds. " All martyrs ought to be looked upon not as sufferers for this dogma or for that, not as supporters of this religion or the other, but as common sufferers in one and the same cause, that of liberty of opinion and of speech." The writer ex- tols the historic martyrs of England in a strain in which he might be sure of his readers' sympathy. " They fought the good fight. They fought it often blindly, not know- ing the true end of their labours, and little disposed, per- haps, if they had, to contemplate it with pleasure. Still it is to that phalanx of men who in any age, in any coun- try, for any opinion, have braved the cruelty of bigots, that we owe the mental freedom we now enjoy. If there remains anything to perfect it, let us not sleep." When this was written, it appears, a Mr. Taylor had been im- prisoned for attacking Christianity ; and the journals which had condemned the imprisonment had generally done so on the ground that it gave undue conspicuousness and importance to an advocate of contemptible opinions. But the issue involved, says the essayist, is a far more serious matter ; it touches the most important question that can be agitated, namely : Whether men may or may not reason openly against religion. " I would not," he declares, " stop the mouth of the direst ranter who ever dealt damnation to a world of which he knew nothing." Another paper is " On Mystics," a name, we are told, coming into frequent use, generally in a vague and often in an opprobrious sense, but which is defined thus : " I 36 WILLIAM SMITH. apprehend that he is strictly a mystic who arrives at any sentiment or belief by any other than those modes of rea- soning common to all mankind. It is not necessary that this belief should be unintelligible, or peculiar to himself ; it is enough that he has reached it by a method which the rest of the world cannot pursue. All inspired people, all who appeal to the influences of some spiritual agent upon their minds, all who discover in their own consciousness what others look in vain for in theirs, however good, how- ever fortunate, however sincere, they may be, are essen- tially mystics. Be it remembered, however, that in attach- ing this name to them I do not charge them with any deception or any error. I imply only by it that with regard to that subject on which their consciousness has been otherwise informed, it is impossible to reason with them ; as impossible as to argue upon external objects with one who should have more senses than five. Our paths cannot be the same, but they will not be very diver- gent ; and wishing each other ' God speed ' we part as did Faithful and Christian, of whom the readers of Buiiyan will remember that the one took the upper road and the other the lower road, but both travelled toward the same point." And with this friendly farewell the author turns to eulogize a work of a widely different school, Shaftes- bury's " Characteristics." He defends Shaftesbury against the censure he has received for applying the term " beauty " to virtue ; and urges that the " good humour " on which he insists in religious discussion describes not a frivolous state of mind, but that composure and benignity which are the most favorable conditions for finding the truth. An essay on " Sir Andrew Aguecheek " contains this passage : " To have conceived and portrayed such a char- acter was the highest effect of humour. There was a time when this word seems to have been applied only to a lower species of wit, but lately humour has been allowed to " THE WOOL-GATHERER." 37 signify the most refined and delicate perception of all that is grotesque in human nature, and in this sense has been justly considered as the most incontestable privilege of genius. Wit is the sport that an active mind makes with its knowledge; humour is the giving out to others the original impression as made by the object itself. Wit ranges wide, and collects from the most distant quarters ; humour is the result of a more tranquil susceptibility, ' the harvest of a quiet eye.' Wit combines things apparently the most dissimilar ; humour is occupied with things as they are. Wit is the property of the intellect alone ; hu- mour requires as well a high cultivation of the affections. An ordinary person may make an occasional witticism ; a clever one may write a good comic scene ; but to create such a personage as Aguecheek requires, and is the sure test of, the highest qualities of mind." The most striking of these papers is one which contains an imaginary letter from Chatterton to his sister, on the evening before his suicide. He bids farewell to her, as he is about to take leave of a world in which he can find nothing to hold him. He tells her that except for the gen- tle affection of a few like her, who have loved him only out of the goodness of their hearts, which did not perceive how poor a thing he is, he has found no ties with his kind. He is bidden to love his fellow-beings, but if he is to in- terpret humanity by the only one he knows, himself, he must find it not lovable, but despicable. " Take it not to heart that a starved and miserable reprobate, who enjoyed neither the pleasures of this world nor the visions of another, who could protect himself neither from the rack of passion nor from the pangs of sense, should quit a life in which he had become utterly incapable of giving or receiving happiness. Some hand, perhaps his own, has mingled a bitter with the waters ; separated again it can- not be ; and to turn from them with disgust, is it not par- donable, is it not wise ? I shall watch through the night 38 WILLIAM SMITH. till the dawn of another day breaks upon me. This intel- lectual being which I have so often execrated grows pre- cious on the eve of its extinction ; as the sun which stood still in heaven that the slaughter of the Amorites might be continued would be beautiful in its setting, even to the remnant of that afflicted host which all day long had cursed its unrelenting light. There seems to be an unus- ual serenity in the night, and the stars shine with a softer and more spiritual lustre. I feel as I gaze upon them how easy it is for men to persuade themselves of the hap- piness of future worlds. Fancies all we know nothing. Why do we dare to hope ? Why do we stoop to fear ? ..." I have no aim then what should gladden me ? I have no love then wherefore should I live ? I have no visions in eternity, And my own soul is dark and fugitive. ..." There rests in me no misanthropic gall, Nor have I shunned, as some have done, my kind, But midst the crowd there was not one of all Who could my struggling, sympathies unbind. ..." I blame not them the fault, the guilt is mine, My discontent breeds ever from within, And if I now in solitude repine, It is that others should not hear the din." The series concludes with a paper on " The Present and the Future," of which these sentences indicate the tone : " The great object of man is, or ought to be, the perfec- tion of his moral character ; and although it may be necessary that to be fully convinced of this he should have looked abroad upon the future, yet, the object once recognized, he can only effect it by entrenching himself within the present. . . . Men are taught to expect in some future time, in some distant place, the heaven which they ought to seek now in their own bosoms. . . . Let him limit himself to the hour ; let him live by the day ; let him think honestly and feel honestly now ; and it will "THE WOOL-GATHERER." 39 soon come that the morrow will take care for itself. With the philosopher, as with the libertine, the present hour is worth all the rest." The impression which these papers would probably make upon one having no knowledge of their author is that of a disciplined maturity. They show a fine but tempered ardor, and a mingled firmness and delicacy in thought and style. In the letter under the name of Chat- terton, skilfully veiled by one and another device of dra- matic construction, the writer was expressing the tragic side of his own life. This was a nature exquisitely attuned to beauty, to harmony, to all finest aspirations and de- sires, but a nature which had not yet found a work to engage its energy, a creed to satisfy its aspirations, or a companionship to fill its heart. He hungered for the so- ciety of a kindred spirit, and such spirits are very rarely to be met. Companionship less perfect and ideal might yet have consoled and strengthened him. But he was perpetually drawn apart from those around him by the fascination of an inward life which they could not share ; and something like over-refinement held him back from the homely contact with men in every-day experiences, through which a robust nature may penetrate to interior wealth and true comradeship. But the profound melancholy which is disclosed in this paper should be understood as but one mood or phase of a life which had very different experiences. It was not a miserable, and it was far less a weak, mind that produced these essays, evincing so much of tranquillity, of delight in the sublimities and the humors of the world, of moral soundness and health. Even in the sadness is " Elysian beauty, melancholy grace." He has not come face to face with unveiled Truth, but Truth has breathed into him her own spirit. He has not found the love he craves, but he has grown worthy to be loved. For he has practised well the greatest lesson man can learn the lesson of self- command. CHAPTER V. "WILD OATS A NEW SPECIES." AT twenty years of age, the young man had thus showed himself already no mean proficient in the noblest of arts, and his literary success was sufficient to open to him the society of the scholarly and thoughtful, if he chose to enter there. His brother-in-law, Mr. Weigall, says the Memoir, told in after years, what William Smith did not choose to tell for himself, that John Sterling's father, the 44 Thunderer " of the " Times," called to congratulate him on the success of his young kinsman, and declared, in his ardent Irish fashion, that " such pure and elegant English had not been written since the days of Addison." He was invited to join the Union Debating Society. " I ac- companied him," Mr. Weigall writes in 1873, "more than once to the Union debates. I remember one occasion especially on which John Stuart Mill was in the chair. There were present on that evening Mr. Roebuck, Mr. H. L. Bulwer (afterwards Lord Bailing), Mr. Romilly (the present Lord), Sir Henry Taylor (author of " Philip Van Artevelde "), and William. ... I never on any other occasion heard such an eloquent debate. William spoke chiefly in reply to Sir H. Taylor very forcibly, but not with his usual gentleness." Here, one would have said, were the omens of an active and distinguished career. The young knight had shown his mettle, not only in letters, but in the manly jostle of debate. He had fallen in company with such strong and promising young spirits as Sterling and Maurice and Mill. Equipped with power of thought, of love, of self-control : "WILD OATS A NEW SPECIES." 41 having already won a hearing ; with generous companion- ship at his command, what was to hinder his playing a stirring part in the leadership of the time ? But he was already under the spell of the enchantress who was to lead him by far different paths from those of stirring leadership. Her name was Solitude. The fasci- nation of his own thoughts perpetually withdrew him from the society of his kind. He was haunted by visions of ideal beauty and questionings about absolute truth. Such themes absorbed and possessed him ; they wrapt him away from that homely and matter-of-fact earth on which men are wont to hold intercourse with each other in striving or serving. To those about him he often seemed like one in a dream ; while to his own consciousness he was living in a world of intense reality, which yet he felt to be set apart by some strange impalpable barrier from the world of visible realities. But the life of thought and imagination in the indi- vidual tends to cut its own channel of communication with the actual world. That channel is self-expression in literature. " Every reflective man," says William Smith, " may be set down as at heart an author, whether he has yielded or not to the seductive impulse. Some intention, though it may be most vague and remote, to write mingles itself with the efforts of every man who from reading has been taught to think" There are three productions of William Smith's which date from the period between his twentieth and thirtieth years. Of his first prose work " Ernesto : a Philoso- phical Romance," his wife tells us that it was written " much about this time " apparently soon after " The Wool-Gatherer," but was only published in 1835, as the last volume of " The Library of Romance," edited by Leitch Ritchie. It was with some difficulty, she tells us, that she prevailed upon her husband to give her a copy of this early production, " the very story of which he had 42 WILLIAM SMITH. utterly forgotten, and never cared to glance over. Imma- ture he no doubt was right in pronouncing it, but it abounds in thoughtful and eloquent passages. There is in it the promise of ' Thorndale.' ' It is not until eight years after " The Wool-Gatherer " that we find, in 1836, a little volume put forth containing two poems. They illustrate what had been the workings of the young man's heart in the intervening time. One of them, entitled " Solitude," is evidently a direct tran- script from experience. Two passages will show its quality : Oh, there is rapture in this thoughtful calm ! I see the utmost summit of the cliff, Lone in the azure an eternal rest ! I see the bounding waters at my feet To and fro rushing an eternal change ! And here am I, a spirit between both, Poised with the mountain, with the wave afloat, Embracing all things, finding in them all, Their rest or motion an eternal peace ! . . . Fast fills my heart With spirit of benevolence that sheds A second dawn of beauty on the world, Brightens the sky with benison to man, Tempers the wind with charitable thought, Yea, in the cloudy chariot of the storm Sees a sweet shape, close folded in soft plumes, That prompts its thundering speed. Creeps the moist mould No living thing so dull, but its dull joy Shall be a joy of mine ; walks not in heav'n, With step reflected in its golden floor, Bright form angelic, but the spirit of love Can hither bring me of its happiness. Fair, lone acacia, midway down the cliff, That on thy platform, like a beauty veiled, Stands with droopt head before the azure dome, Thus ever stand, thus motionless, and I Will share the while thy voiceless piety. Ye pair of sea-birds, who with clanging wings So neighbourly, have made the general air "WILD OATS A NEW SPECIES." 43 A home for only two oh, wheel again Around my head, again your circling flight ! And still as falls that faint and piercing cry, Will I partake the sympathy it speaks. Ye little children, yonder on the beach, Twining with restless arms incessantly Each other's neck glad of one scanty vest To make a cloak for both consulting still How ye may closer sit oh, do not fly Ye little social pair ! but let me here Still see, unseen, and love though not beloved. Ah happy man ! the fisherman at eve Who raising high in air with outstretched arms His laughing burden, shall with kisses snatched From your soft lips his boisterous toil repay ! One beating heart ta' en from the hive of life, What doth it here ? What fellowship can find With nature all-sufficient to herself ? Oh, that a human hand a human voice, With lightest pressure of my listless palm, With simplest utterance in my vacant ear, Might stir again to unaccustomed smile My solitary features, sunk I feel To torpid, slow, and desolate regard ! What was my crime ? What horrid guilt was mine, That I was banished here ? Unhappy fool ! 'T was thy own sentence thou thyself wert judge, And this thy choice felicity. Beauty, melancholy, self -imprisonment, the same note runs through the whole. The other poem, " Guidone," is a drama ; and in the dramatic form, the variety of char- acters, and the action of the story, we see, in contrast with " Solitude," the effort to break away from lonely musing, to mingle with and portray the world's life of action and passion. But the world here mirrored is a very troublous one. Upon the gentle and sensitive spirit which looks out on the fray, it is the terror, the confusion, the tragedy, which makes the deepest impression. Two distinct stories 44 WILLIAM SMITH. are brought together in " Guidone," with little dramatic unity. In the one, a youth is roused from dreamy seclu- sion by a mutual love, which yields him an ecstasy intense but brief, and followed by complication and wreck. With this is coupled an outlaw, in whom wrong - doing has changed the calm ponderings of serene philosophy into visions of terror and emotions of despair, and who at last by an act of forgiveness regains the sense of peace and hope. Of this drama the author says that it was " writ- ten without the most remote reference to the theatre, and that it aims at exhibiting states of mind rather than indi- vidual character, and pretends to no interest of plot or story." It contains many passages which by their beauty tempt to quotation, but the strain of sadness and intro- spection is closely interwoven with the whole. There are phrases and thoughts that sink into the memory. The drama once begun can scarcely be laid down unfinished by any thoughtful reader. The ear and the imagination are charmed, and thought is deeply stirred. The defects of imperfect structure and of excessive melancholy are obvious. Evidently it is the outcome of a nature too deeply self-involved. The mind casts on every object the hues of its own introspection. Lover, outlaw, hermit, each is enmeshed in speculation and self-consciousness. The real earth of action and passion and struggle is seen invested in exaggerated terrors, because the spectator is too much aloof from it to share the throb and glow which to the actors make good the pains. This of the book, and what of the writer ? His his- tory at this period can in no way so well be inferred as from a chapter of professed fiction, written some four years after the publication of " Guidone." A reference by his wife to two incidents as autobiographical, and a multi- plicity of internal evidence, show that the paper called " Wild Oats a New Species," in "Blackwood's Maga- zine " for June, 1840, published anonymously, was essen- "WILD OATS A NEW SPECIES. 1 ' 45 tially a chapter from William Smith's own experience. Its title alludes to the intellectual vagaries in which a man may waste his youth. Its spirit is somewhat indicated in one of its sentences, referring to " the youth given over to the fascination of verse and the delusion of fame," and the self -portrayal which he may make at a later day. " Some- times a bitter self -derision, that seeks to resent itself on early follies, sometimes a lurking tenderness for past hopes and aspirations, will quicken the pencil ; and a sub- ject contradictory in itself is not unfairly treated in this contradictious humour." Yet the satire which runs through most of the narrative can scarcely be called bitter : it is with a subtle blending of kindness and derision that the man rehearses the experience of his younger days. The words in which he introduces the teller of the story, whom he names Howard, are referred to by his wife as exactly fitting his own character. We knew Howard, the subject of the following sketch ; we knew him intimately. He was indeed of a peculiarly open and candid disposition, and at once revealed to you whatever was passing in the innermost recesses of his mind. Yet he was not social in the same degree that he was frank and confiding. When in your company he would let you see, without the least distrust or reserve, the very working of his mind, in all its strength and weakness, and in all that inconsistency of purpose and conclusion which invariably attends upon men of over-quick feelings, and which, for their own credit's sake, they may learn to conceal, but seldom in reality to overmaster or prevent, he would do this naturally, without egotism, and seemingly without designing it ; but though he was thus genial and open in your company, he was not apt to seek your society. He would forget you if you suffered him. This man, who has become a successful lawyer, meets a friend of earlier years, and in an after-dinner confab tells his story, a story of which we give the most character- istic passages : 46 WILLIAM SMITH. The wildest rake never spent his energies more wastefully than I have mine ; but if the rake, when reformed, will some- times congratulate himself on that knowledge of the world which his wildness. procured for him, I think that I, with some- what better reason, may console myself for wasted years and miserable hours, by recalling that knowledge of the intellectual life which my own intellectual wanderings have purchased. I think when you first knew me, I was the poet of imagi- nation all compact. It was not quite clear to me whether I should rise to great celebrity in my lifetime ; but that I should secure a name with posterity, even now I blush at the recollec- tion, I had no doubt whatever. . . . The young poet, amidst all his high and generous emotions, and he is always generous to a folly, is in many respects obnox- ious to ridicule ; and, what is worse, his quick sensibility makes him feel that he is so. An extreme sensitiveness, incompatible with a free and open intercourse with society, and which shrinks from that rude but wholesome rivalry which in the arena of life everywhere encounters us ; this, and an intense anxiety after a species of renown the most precarious and most disputable, present to us a character which, whatever points of interest it may reveal, is surely the most uneasy and discomfortable that ever mortal was called upon to sustain. ... It is his aim and his nature to cultivate a delicacy of feeling and a curious re- finement of expression, which, though pleasing infinitely to him- self, and in certain moods, and in less measure, to others also, yet oftentimes will sound very simple, strange, or extravagant when uttered aloud, man to man, in the broad light, and amidst the stir of this busy and hard-working world. He finds, as one of the tribe has told us, he finds his muse to be "in crowds his shame, in solitude his boast." From crowds he therefore re- coils, to solitude he flies. Amidst the ordinary transactions of life, in all that men call business, he feels himself an utter stranger, nerveless, helpless, with a painful repugnance to take his share in anything that bears the appearance of strug- gle or collision, which is quite inexplicable to persons of robust and vigorous understandings. Lulled by the music of his verse, he loses, he foregoes all active, energetic purpose. He can only think, and feel, and write. "WILD OATS A NEW SPECIES: 1 47 Such a one was I. How vivid to my memory at this mo- ment are those moody walks along green lanes which I used daily to take, courting as much of solitude as a residence in the neighbourhood of London could afford. With eyes directed to the ground, I paced slowly along, or else stopping before the hedge or the green bank, to observe some insect or the leaves of a plant, my thoughts would become implicated in the poetic theme on which I was engaged, and there I would stand, forget- ful of all else, till I had fitted together to my satisfaction the words of some intractable verse. This done, I would start off with sudden alacrity ; at such moments I would snap my fingers at the world as one who had found a treasure. . . . The fulness of time came, and my poem was published well thou knowest with what startling effect upon the world. Not a single copy sold ! It was duly advertised, and editors were favoured with its perusal gratuitously. Not a single word was written on it, good or bad ! One does not quite suddenly give up the idea that one is a poet and has a genius ; but this experiment was so very satisfactory that at the end of a few months I had resigned forever this very glorious and most la- mentable delusion. I took a solemn farewell to poetry. Look- ing over my remaining manuscripts, I selected a few fragments, which still retained some merit in the eyes of their author; these, which consisted of mere scraps of loose paper, I placed within the leaves of a copy of the printed poem ; the rest I con- sumed. The volume, thus additionally enriched for oblivion, I folded up in parchment, sealed, and deposited in an iron chest, where our family papers were kept. The whole of the impres- sion besides, amounting to between two and three hundred vol- umes, I ordered home from the publisher. Going into the gar- den, I dug with my own hands a profound pit, and there I laid the new uncut volumes, arranging them in even piles just as regularly as they would have stood on a bookseller's counter. Then, with most vigorous handling of the spade, I shovelled in the damp earth, and pressed it hard upon them. Thus I buried my poetic offspring, and turned again towards the world to seek what now it had to offer me. Nor did any one ever turn from a grave in sadder or more desolate condition than I from this mock burial. . . . Some 48 WILLIAM SMITH. intention, though it may be most vague and remote, to write, mingles itself with the efforts of every man who from reading has been taught to think. For my own part, I found that in resigning all aim of authorship, I had resigned half the luxury of thought. I found to my cost, how intimately the pleasure or purpose of literary enterprise had combined with my most soli- tary cogitations. I could still enjoy, I said to myself, those sen- timents of which I wrote, without telling them to the world. Alas ! when I reverted to them again, I was returning to a country which had been laid waste in my absence. The fleet- ing thought, why should I arrest or retain it ? I had no longer to make it permanent in my verse. Every mood of my mind, every feeling, seemed now indeed smit with transiency, and to rush past into sudden oblivion the record of my life was no longer to be kept the light and shifting sand would not bear my footmark henceforth I should be, at each moment of my existence, as if I had never been till then. . . . You came upon me again about two years after, and you found me immersed in the profundities of philosophy. From poetry to metaphysics seems a great stride. But in reality it is not so. We are led into metaphysical lucubrations by those problems of thought which are most exciting of all, and most likely to attract the poetic temperament, the mysterious ques- tions of free-will and fate, of immortality and the divine nature. These directly conduct us unto what, without this connection, would indeed be a scene of more weariness and vexation. For myself, I seemed to have left the shore, and all sight of shore, and in some little cock-boat to be rising and falling amidst swelling waves, which hid all prospect except their own change- ful and yet monotonous forms. Instead of labouring within a definite circle of thoughts, where not only some intelligible ideas can be mastered, but where knowledge is felt to be a sort of wealth, a possession for which men respect you, I had launched forth, regardless of every personal consideration of whatever de- scription, and thrown my spirit loose and self-abandoned on a vast sea of subject, which I had no visual power to embrace or to overlook. Nor was this sort of philosophy enough, it seemed, to perplex and confound ; but theories of society, and Utopian "WILD OATS A NEW SPECIES." 49 projects for the reconstruction of the world on an altogether better plan, were added to my labours These modes of thought, on the one hand, this obstinate in- quiry into the incomprehensible, into mysteries which lie without the circle of nature, this constant peering over the boundary ' wall of our mundane habitation into the eternal stillness be- yond ; and, on the other, this painful search, almost equally vain, after a given possible condition of human society which shall solve the problem that lies between man's existence and God's benevolence have their use, I doubt not, and a noble use ; but it is very easy to have more of them than enough. . . . I seemed separated from the world of action by a magic circle which I could not overpass. However, though I could not break the circle, I, by dint of thinking, raised myself higher in it. I attained a certain calm position, whence I could at all events survey the world with equanimity. I by degrees inured myself to the dubiety and indifference of philosophy, and en- deavoured to satisfy the propensity for something more genial and distinct, by a very cordial sympathy with all good senti- ments and good faiths as they exist in other men. I used to boast that, while I could analyze with the most severe anatomist of thought, I could also re-combine, nor had forgotten how to admire the revived compound ; and that the very habit of penetrating into the secret operations of the mind taught me to enter with full and unembarrassed sympathy into all its boldest flights, into all the daring dreams and faiths of humanity. I knew well what the imagination was, and re- spected it ; I knew well that middle region of the air, neither earth nor heaven, where the meteors form and play, meteors which are still to be admired, though neither credited nor feared. Sentiments the most dreamy, thoughts the most va- grant, feelings the wildest and most conflicting, I knew them all, could claim or dismiss them at will. Whether it were that lucid enthusiasm of a lettered imagination, whereby we partake of the rapture of strong feelings, though our own lives are calm and serene ; or whether it were the solemn mood, speculative or religious, chanting hope or a dirge over the human race, I could feel it all, respect, and participate. And thus I walked along the level line of reason, yet not above humanity. . . . 50 WILLIAM SMITH. At some such explosion as this it was that you most irrever- ently burst into a fit of laughter. Then, suddenly checking your mirth, you very gravely said, shaking that long head of thine, " This won't do, Howard. This is worse than ever. When you were riding your hobby, though it were ever so cursed a one, though it were even of Pegasian breed, you made some way, or at all events had a way you wished to go ; but now that you have not even got a hobby to mount, I cannot tell what is to become of you. Have you really no better stuff to make a life of than this super-refinement of philosophy ? Do you expect to remain ' there standing where we cannot soar,' merely looking on, just thinking of us all, or rather viewing all things as they are reflected in a sort of mirror which you have fixed up for yourself on that serene altitude ? God help thee ! I say." Even you, when you uttered these ill bodings, had little ex- pectation how soon they were to be justified, or by how slight and gentle a hand I was to be dashed from my elevation. There came to visit us the daughter of an old friend of the family, a captain who had retired into Devonshire to make his half-pay extend over the expenses of the whole year. She was neither the most beautiful, nor the most witty, nor the most accomplished of her sex ; but she was wonderfully pleasing, con- stantly cheerful and amiable, with a genuine frankness of man- ner quite delightful. I suppose that, in my conversations with Juliana, which grew to be frequent enough, it was I who bore the chief part, yet it seemed to me that from her alone all the conversation really sprung. Had I been asked, I should have attributed all the merit, if merit of any kind there was, all that was curious or refined in our dialogue, all its mirth and pleas- antry and feeling, entirely to her. The period of her visit flew like magic. She returned home. The day of her departure passed long and heavily. I smiled at myself, and anticipated forgetfulness and tranquillity on the morrow. The morrow came, and the day after, but they brought neither forgetfulness nor tranquillity, but many new trains of thought, simple enough, yet disquieting in the extreme. If to love it is necessary to believe all beauty and all amiability centred in one woman, I was certainly not in that predicament. But the charming social intercourse which had been suddenly "WILD OATS A NEW SPECIES." 51 broken up had made a revelation to me of what existed in my own heart, which it seemed impossible again to forget. I could not follow her. I could not marry. For* the first time in my life I knew that I was poor. And now there rushed upon me at once, as if up to that moment I had been stone-blind, the vision of the real world. I saw it as it stood in relation to me. I stood face to face with it. God ! how I felt the utter loneliness of that moment ! I had spent my days in weaving a miserable screen-work between me and the sole happiness of life. I had forfeited, I had thrown away, I had lost forever, that only boon which seemed to justify the providence of God in the creation of this world. You, my friend, came upon me in the height of this despair. You found me sitting alone in my study. You remember the scene that followed. I cannot recur to it. I have felt a pleasure in re- calling the past wanderings of my spirit ; but those moments of passion I cannot dwell upon. You know how bitterly I railed, scoffed, jeered at myself, and at every employment that had ever engrossed me. I had found in philosophy no faith, in the world no path of duty ; in my heart I had found affections, and these were to be utterly crushed. I had somewhere read, I think in one of the novels of Goethe, of a melancholy man, who, finding his thoughts run much and incontrollably upon self-de- struction, procured a dagger, and whenever the black hour of his melancholy recurred, the production of the keen and polished instrument, the handling of it, and the consciousness that if he pleased he might, used to calm the fever of his thoughts. A vague idea that either in this way or another, I might find a remedy in such an instrument, induced me to procure one, and 1 had deposited it in my writing-desk. As I chafed myself with bitter and miserable talk, I suddenly snatched it from its hiding-place, and dashed the blade against my heart. It would have been driven to the hilt, but that you rushed forward and struck it from my hand. Can either of us ever forget that mo- ment when we both looked upon the dagger as it lay upon the floor? Doggedly, sullenly, but without a relapse, I have since laboured at the profession in which you find me. You may per- ceive that my labours have not been without recompense. But 52 WILLIAM SMITH. this is not half my reward. Severe and steady occupation has brought with it an equanimity of mind which I need not tell you is more precious than wealth. My friend, the wine stays with you. With a few omissions and changes, we may undoubt- edly in this story substitute for the imaginary Howard the real William Smith. The unsuccessful books were buried just as is here related. It may fairly be presumed that there did succeed a period in which meditation ran its own unchecked course, with little or no attempt at literary ex- pression. The duration of this period can only be guessed. " Guidone " and " Solitude " were published in 1836 ; and in 1839 we find their author engaged with some regularity in literary work and living in a circle of friends. To the intervening time we may refer the experience indicated in "Wild Oats." For the light, not unkindly satire with which he touches on his own fruitless ponderings, an im- partial historian might substitute a very different tone. Inconclusive the thought may well be which essays these loftiest themes, of the nature of the universe and the des- tiny of mankind, inconclusive, yet not the less noble and enriching. The sympathy with all the various moods of the intellect, it is not the quality which builds rail- roads, or wins proselytes, or guides a parliament, but it is a generous and lofty disposition. Yet the satire has a basis of truth. The attempt of a human life to support itself wholly in the region of ab- stractions is as hopeless as for a bird to try to live al- ways on the wing. And in this case, the fall to earth, the bruising contact with actualities, came in just the way related. Many years afterward, to the happy be- trothed whose love had made good all previous loss, the story was told, as it is outlined in the tale, of an attrac- tive woman who awoke in him a regard, which was checked at the outset by the consciousness of the poverty to which his unpractical life had consigned him. The pas- sion does not seem to have been a deep one, but its frus- "WILD OATS A NEW SPECIES." 53 tration had to him a wide significance ; it came as a most poignant reminder of the intense, unquenchable yearning of his human nature for close human affection, which all his wanderings in the ideal world had left unsatisfied. The revulsion and despair may have taken no such extreme form as the attempt at suicide portrays, yet may have been hardly less profound. The worldly success which Howard afterward wins is far from a representation of anything that came to William Smith. But the brief sentence which tells of " equanimity of mind " acquired hints at the truth. It is characteristic of the writer that even in the disguise of fiction he makes no appeal to ad- miration and little even to pity. So much of his story as was fair theme for satire, and perhaps for warning, he would give and no more. Only at the catastrophe of the poem's failure, and again at the final climax, the easy self-command and self -derision passes for a moment into profound pathos. The power to tell the story in such a vein of composure best marks the self-conquest that had followed. But in actual life the conflicting elements which strive for mastery in a soul rarely work out a stable equilib- rium in a single encounter. Not in one battle, nor in one campaign, does even the victorious man conquer a lasting peace. When we read in the Epistle to the Romans of man's struggle with sin, emerging in the triumphant cry, " I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord ! " we may be pretty sure that as a personal experience some- thing like this happened to Paul, not once, but many times, after he wrote the Epistle as well as before. There may be one critical fight which is a turning-point in the war, or there may be several, but the enemy never capit- ulates. To William Smith, meditation was always an enchant- ress, but her spell was in part a rightful one. His task was to keep her in place as friend, as helper, as queen even, but not to let her enslave him. CHAPTER VI. WORK AND ASSOCIATES. THE story of the next few years is now to be told by the wife. For a true view of his character, her descrip- tion is the fit supplement to such self-disclosure as our last chapter contains. Self-portraiture is always incom- plete. A man can tell his own thoughts and feelings bet- ter than any one else, but a further and essential measure of his character is the impression he makes on others. The reader will have felt a note of sadness predominat- ing in the self -disclosure. He will recognize as the prom- inent feature in the wife's portrayal the beauty and charm of character. The two aspects are to be accepted, not only as equally real, but as helping to interpret each other. He locked up the sadness in his Own heart ; no gloom, no shadow was cast by it upon the lives around him ; the only expression it found was in the hue it lent to his writings, where it was ennobled by association with lofty thought. That gracious and winning aspect which he wore not only to his devoted wife, but in a degree to all who knew him, including natures as masculine and ro- bust as Lewes and Sterling, derived its sweetness in part from the firm self-control with which his melancholy was held shut in his own breast. There is no finer chem- istry than that by which the element of suffering is so compounded with spiritual forces that it issues to the world as gentleness and strength. Of the events which the wife's pen now traces, it may summarily be said that in them we see the man getting gradual and sure hold of his proper work. He was born WORK AND ASSOCIATES. 55 to think and write ; and now, his writing in the field of poetry and romance having met with no extended success or encouragement, he learns by degrees what wares he can supply that the market calls for. He finds a channel for his work in the great periodicals, and less in original creation than in reviewing the work of others, a func- tion for which he is admirably fitted. At the same time he has so honestly and thoroughly mastered the theory of his nominal profession, the law, that, though accomplish- ing nothing whatever in its actual practice, he can give clear and effectual exposition to the new applications of its principles which society needs. And meantime we see him cultivating a cordial fellowship with men of generous tastes and various pursuits, while he has no small share of domestic happiness. The dreaming poet depicted in " Wild Oats " has schooled himself to play well his part as a man among men. Thus, then, runs the wife's story : (from the Memoir.) In 1836 and 1837 my husband wrote several articles for the " Quarterly Review," in reference to which I find some notes from Lockhart, at that time its editor. These, and a few other letters that I shall presently refer to, had been put aside by William long years ago, and first came to sight again after our marriage, when a box of stored- away books was sent to him at Brighton. I remember well that his first impulse was to destroy these letters, but I pleaded for their preservation, and they were therefore consigned to another stationary and seldom-opened box, and thus escaped the doom of every justly appreciating written tribute paid him in later years the flames. I can recall a note from Mr. J. S. Mill, in the autumn of 1865, alluding in his large-hearted generous way to certain lectures William had delivered at Kensington more than twenty years before (lectures of which I had heard him 56 WILLIAM SMITH. make a casual and disparaging mention), and that note I meant to abstract and preserve ; but when I rummaged my husband's little desk, which always stood open to my inspection, I could not find it ; the note had been burnt ! But to return to the " Quarterly." It appears that Mr. Lockhart did not wish it to transpire that William Smith's articles were those of a young and unknown writer. In one of the notes I find, " I have heard nothing but good of your paper on Landor, and I am sure it has told tenfold the more from no one knowing as yet where it came from. Be it so with Mr. Bulwer. You will lose nothing in the issue." Never surely did editor find a contributor more conveniently willing to suppress himself ! Two of these articles were on legal subjects, one on Sir Harris Nic- olas, a kind friend of my husband's, at whose house he was in the habit of meeting interesting society, one was on Modern Science, and the remaining two on Landor and Bulwer. I wish I could more distinctly trace William Smith's legal experiences. I know that he studied every branch of law that a solicitor can practice, before he began to read for the bar with a Mr. Brodie. I think that it must have been in 1838 that he was called to the bar at the Middle Temple. Although I have spoken of office routine as irksome to him, yet in the history and philosophy of jurisprudence he always found vivid interest, and would recommend the study as eminently favorable to the best development of the mind. Certainly he never regretted in later years having undergone this legal training. Perhaps he owed to it the rare tempering of lively imag- ination by shrewdest common sense, of quick feeling by dispassionate judgment. But in his early days the bias towards a life devoted to poetry and abstract thought was too strong to be resisted without suffering, and the com- bining professional study with literary pursuits must have been a strain upon a frame that was never a strong one. WORK AND ASSOCIATES. 57 On no point was his counsel to the young more strenuous than in regard to the dangers of such divided allegiance. Here are some words of his on the subject : " It is a piece of advice we would give to every man, but especially to the student, Harmonize your labours. If ambition prompt you to mingle two conflicting studies that will not accord, that breed perpetual civil war in the mind, we charge you to fling away ambition. If the higher and more beloved study be it science, or poetry, or philos- ophy will not yield, then choose at once for it and pov- erty, if such must be the alternative. Better anything than a ruined, disordered mind ; or, if you prefer the ex- pression, than a confirmed cerebral disease." We shall find the writer of this passage making such decided choice by and by. But the time had not yet come. In 1839 William Smith published "A Discourse on Ethics of the School of Paley." ... It was also in 1839 that my husband, having been introduced by Mr. Warren to the Messrs. Blackwood, wrote his first article, entitled " A Prosing on Poetry," for their magazine. Thus began a much valued connection, that endured to the end of his life, and an uninterrupted friendship. His contributions were very varied tales, adaptations from foreign litera- ture, at first intermingled with reviews. Later the articles became more exclusively critical and devoted to philosoph- ical subjects. I have the whole series, bound up in eight volumes, containing a hundred and twenty papers, not one of them hastily or carelessly written, not one that does not contain unbiassed criticism and earnest thought. I often look at the volumes regretfully; so much wisdom and charm of style seem buried there forgotten ! But I can- not doubt that these contributions did good work in their day, enlarged and enriched many a kindred mind, woke inquiry and diffused toleration. Some years ago Mr. Blackwood proposed to reprint a selection from them, but my husband declined; and though he still would from 58 WILLIAM SMITH. habit tear out and lay aside his articles, I found written on a paper that contained all these of later date, " To be burnt when " In that one instance I could not obey him. In 1840 William Smith published a pamphlet on " Law Reform," written in his own easy, lucid style, " for the general reader," and calling not only for certain changes that have since taken place, but for several now under consideration. I think that about this time my husband's life must have been peculiarly pleasant. He was still living with the mother who so loved him, and whom he so loved ; there were cheerful homes of married brothers and sisters, where he was always eagerly welcomed, depended upon on social occasions to make the " party go off well " by his bright talk and smile, and he had besides his own circle of personal friends, amongst whom I may name George Henry Lewes, Samuel Warren, the author of " The Correlation of Physical Forces " (now Mr. Justice Grove), Frederick Denison Maurice, and John Sterling. I have before alluded to his habit of underestimating perhaps I should rather say his inability to realize the amount of the regard he inspired. Hence, while delight- ing to enlarge upon the special merits of more successful men, he would touch very lightly upon his own inter- course with them. But from other sources I know some- thing of the charm they found in his society, and the re- gret with which they lost sight of him ; and I shall here copy a letter of Sterling's, the man of all others, I have heard my husband say, whom he could have best loved, both because it is interesting in itself, and proves the value Sterling set upon his friend : CLIFTON, January 6, 1840. MY DEAR SMITH, I have very little time for writing any but the most indispensable letters before I leave England. Yours, however, is too kind, and gave me too much unexpected WORK AND ASSOCIATES. , 59 pleasure, to be left unacknowledged. I attach little value to the contents of my volume as poems ; but had my judgment of them been different, no corroboration of it from others could give me the kind of gratification which I derive from finding that you sometimes think of me, and return so cordially the regard which I must always feel for you. The future is with me still more uncertain than with most people, but if any among the strange chances of life should bring us within reach of each other, I should consider it a more unalloyed advantage and pleasure than most of those which life affords. As to the professorship, my suggestion in answer to Mill's inquiry whether I knew of a fit- ting person would have been the same had I known of you only what I have read in your writings. There was at that time some reason to imagine the stars might be turned from their courses for once, and the Glasgow professors from jobbing. It would have been, of course, very pleasant to see you in your right place, and I still trust that some opportunity may arise of having you established as a public teacher. I should be very glad to know something of what you are about, and also to have some accounts of Theyre and of Wei- gall, to both of whom pray remember me warmly. I leave this on Friday for Falmouth, whence I am to embark for Ma- deira. I have had a long and severe illness, and at one time seemed hardly likely to recover. It is still very doubtful whether I can face another English winter, and I may very pos- sibly be afloat again on this yeasty world, with a wife and four children to lighten my movements. At all events I shall be always Affectionately yours, JOHN STERLING. In connection with this faint hope of a Glasgow chair, to which the letter alludes, I find two notes of Mr. J. S. Mill's, full of friendly cooperation and interest ; but highly as my husband esteemed the post of Professor of Moral Philosophy in a Scotch University, I am sure that the whole scheme arose entirely from the zeal of a few friends, and that its impracticability gave him no sense of disappointment. I never heard him dwell upon it. 60 x WILLIAM SMITH. Mr. Lewes has sent me his reminiscences of his friend, which I gratefully transcribe here, though they refer to a somewhat later period. It was, I think, early in the year 1842, that I first made the acquaintance of William Smith, an acquaintance that very rap- idly grew into a friendship over which no cloud ever crossed. Our ways of life separated us, and we saw but little of each other during the last twenty years, but the separation was of bodies only, not of minds. He was at first what I knew him at last, one of the few men deservedly called distinguished, a gen- uine and individual nature not in any degree factitious or com- monplace. He was himself, and all his sentiments and opinions were his own, not echoes or compromises. In spite of his shy- ness there was an affectionate expansiveness in his manner which irresistibly attracted me, and although I always spoke of him as ** Little Smith," the epithet, absurd enough coming from one no bigger than himself, only expressed the sort of tender feeling one has for a woman. So far from its implying any assumption of superiority, I regarded him not only as my elder, but in many respects my superior; and in the height of our discussions, which were incessant, my antagonism was always tempered by that veneration which one irresistibly feels in presence of a gen- uine nature. It was this genuineness and his keen, flexible sym- pathy which formed the great charm of his society. One felt thoroughly at home with him at once. At that time he had lodgings in Pembroke Square, Kensing- ton. [This was after his mother's death.] I lived in the same square, so that we saw each other frequently ; though it was I who mostly had to pay the visit, his reserve making him less willing to come in to me. He led a lonely, uncomfortable life, as such a man in lodgings inevitably must, unless he goes into society. I used to preach to him against his waste of time in desultory study, and his injudicious arrangements of the hours of work. In vain. Like most literary men, he had a prejudice in favour of night work, and would fritter away the precious hours of morning, taking little exercise, and less relaxation. I used to tell him that marriage was the only safety for him, uml so it proved. So affectionate a nature could not be content vith studv and work ; the heart claimed its own. WORK AND ASSOCIATES. 61 There was another point on which I used to preach with equal unsuccess the waste of his fine mind in metaphysical research. This was a standing subject of controversy. His pro- found seriousness and restless desire to get to the bottom of every subject made him cling pertinaciously to even the faintest hope of a possible answer to those questions which for centuries have vexed speculative minds, and no failure could discourage him. We were always battling, yet never once did we get even near a quarrel. On many points wide as the poles asunder, we man- aged to mangle each other's arguments without insult, and whenever opposition seemed verging towards the excitation of temper, some playful remark or wild paradox of retort was ready to clear the air with laughter. In this way we " travelled over each other's minds," and travelled over the universe. On mat- ters of poetry and criticism we were more at one; but even there, precisely because Smith had his own views, his own mode of looking at things, there was an endless charm in listening to him and differing from him. Till deep into the night we would sit " talking of lovely things that conquer death ; " and I seem now to see the sweet smile and lustrous eye fixed on me, and hear his pleasant voice playfully uttering some fine truth. One of the noticeable points in him was the lambent playfulness, combined with great seriousness, the subtle humour and the subtle thought, which gave a new aspect to old opinions, so that we may say of him what Goethe says of Schiller, that " Hinter ihm, im wesenlosen Scheme, Lag, was uns Alle baudigt das Gemeine." CHAPTER VII. COUNTER-CURRENTS. WE have followed far on the track of the man's life ; we have seen him with the eyes of his associates, of him- self, and of the wife of later years; and yet we have not faced, except in glimpses, the field of his deepest en- ergies, or the truest manifestation of his character. For that, we must consider the religious problem of the age, as he met it and as his contemporaries met it. The effort of the religious mind has always been to dis- cern a relation between the human soul and the power which governs the universe ; a relation which shall guide man's action, shall support him under all calamities and fears, and shall justify a perfect trust and hope. Chris- tianity in its own way affirmed such a relation. The stumbling-block which in our age the religious mind has found in Christianity was, in the first instance, that the divine government of human destiny which it presented appeared in one respect unjust and inhuman. William Smith has set forth his own early experience, under the guise of Cyril's revolt against the doctrine of eternal pun- ishment. In a word : " A government of mankind unjust and inhuman therefore uuworshipful therefore in- credible ! " The dogma of eternal perdition had not been inconsist- ent with the general sentiment and practice of Europe in earlier times. The right of every human being to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness may in our day be an axiom ; to the mediaeval world it would have been a paradox. Through the laws and manners of those centu- COUNTER- CURRENTS. 63 ries there runs a deep vein of savagery. Into the lineage of Christendom, the Jew brought a full share of " Asia's rancor ; " the Roman after an insurrection lined his high- ways with crucified slaves; the Northern people were a fierce, fighting stock. The mild genius of early Chris- tianity, fusing with such elements, in a degree softened them, and in a degree received their impress. The practi- cal attitude of society toward the heretic, the criminal, and the infidel was such as accorded not ill with the be- lief that Divine Justice assigned a part of its erring creatures to hopeless ruin. But, in the new growth of society, man had now come to feel more tenderly to his fellows, and also to think more highly of himself as man. Christianity itself, in its best phases, had toiled with a new ardor of compassion for the unfortunate classes. While the philosophers of the eighteenth century taught man to think of himself as something better than a guilty worm, while Rousseau gave expression to a great impulse of universal brotherhood, it was also largely due to churchmen like the Wesleys and John Howard, and to the reformers of English jurisprudence, that Englishmen were coming to feel that the wicked and the degraded ought to be saved rather than to be cursed by their fel- low-men. By their fellow-men then why not by their Maker ? That was the startling question with which prac- tical Christianity turned back on theoretical Christianity. On just this ground the father of John Stuart Mill broke away from Christianity altogether ; to him and to his greater son, " the omnipotent author of hell " was incred- ible, impossible. So for many others the whole fabric of Christianity went down because of this terrible dogma. " But why reject the whole ? Why give up a historical revelation of God to man, the divine Christ, the faith and aspiration ripened by eighteen hundred years, be- cause some elements of superstition and horror have min- gled with it, and ought now to be abandoned ? " So felt 6 WILL/AM SMITH. and reasoned those men, at once reverent and progressive, who remained within the Christian church, and, against the inertia or hostility of its blindly conservative elements, introduced gradually a more humane and rational teach- ing. And far more extensive than any explicit renuncia- tion of the dogma of hopeless perdition has been its fad- ing into dimness and unreality in most of those who still think they believe it. But for another class of minds, the first difficulty, a moral difficulty, led the way to another, an intellectual difficulty. Impelled to reject one article of the church's creed, they were forced upon the inquiry, On what au- thority does this entire creed rest ? Modify this body of doctrine if you will ; make its assertions conform to our highest ideals and aspirations ; enthrone pure justice and benevolence over the universe ; but, after all, be the creed made ever so beautiful and attractive, how do we know that it is true? What foundation of known fact sup- ports it ? The old answer had been, " The church declares it." The mystic, infallible authority of the church has been asserted with so potent an appeal to the imagination and to religious sentiment, that even in our own day a few of the finest minds and an army of the less intelligent re- spond to it. But the sturdier intellect of Europe has long since concluded that Leo Tenth had no access to the divine counsels beyond what Luther had ; that neither baptismal water nor consecrating oil nor papal tiara gives any initiation into mysteries hid from common eyes. But though there be no infallibility of popes or councils, yet in the Bible Protestants still hold we have an infalli- ble book, or, at the least, a trustworthy historical account of a direct revelation made by God to man, consummated in the divine life and teaching of Christ. And on this Protestantism planted itself. Now, while these ecclesiastical controversies have been COUNTER-CURRENTS. 65 in progress, for some three centuries past another kind of inquiry has been going on. Man has been engaged, with immense interest and growing success, in finding out by actual, close scrutiny, what kind of a world he is living in, what the generations before him were, what his body is, and in fine, what he is himself. For a long while the church had undertaken to tell him all it was necessary to know about these things. "The church," well, after all it appeared that the church was simply a company of his fellow-men. Certainly they could not tell him all he wanted to know; assuredly this company of his fellows should no longer forbid him to use his eyes and his mind for such knowledge as lay in them to acquire ! The Catholic Church was very confident that it knew all about God and the unseen and future worlds ; the church's re- volted daughters, too, the Protestant sects, were well as- sured on these themes. So be it, then ; let churchmen of all shades hold their knowledge or belief about God and heaven and hell ; very likely they may be right. But here meanwhile is this seen and present world, with its rocks and plants and animals and human creatures, and its stars above ; let us find out all we can about these ! Un- der this impulse has grown all that wonderful knowledge of which we speak as science. Now, after a while, this accumulation of knowledge, and this way of regarding man and the world, must needs encounter the assertions which the church has been mak- ing as to how the universe is governed, where man came from, where he is going to, and how he ought to conduct himself. And true science, in its exact and scrupulous fashion, will make here no sweeping affirmation or denial as to the vast and various body of tenets which are laid down by individual churches, or by all churches in com- mon. To some of the most familiar ideas of Christian theology, men of the scientific habit will generally be opposed ; as to other ideas, they may be favorable, or 66 WILLIAM SMITH. divided among themselves ; and as to yet others, it may be generally agreed that science proper has nothing to say pro or con ; in other words, that they are not matters on which we can have clear and definite knowledge, though they may perhaps have a place and a weight in human life. The broadest result of scientific inquiry has been the discovery, in every quarter to which its researches could penetrate, of a regular order in the succession of events. It has traced a definite and fixed relation of cause and ef- fect running through all the phenomena of nature, even in those which in earlier ages could be referred only to the inscrutable will and pleasure of God. In the movements of the whirlwind and of the planets, in eclipses and me- teors, in pestilence and famine, science has traced the ex- istence of sure, unvarying causes. In a word, the steady tendency of science has been to suggest a perfect unity, an unvarying order, through all the known creation. Now this idea of universal order collides at several points with the traditional conceptions of Christian theol- ogy. It is unfavorable to the belief in a rebellious and hostile power forever warring against the Supreme ruler, and an early infraction of man's normal relations, fol- lowed by a costly and imperfect retrieval. It is unfavor- able to the belief in a habitual interruption of the natu- ral order of events by special divine interventions. And meantime the study of history has discovered a natural genesis of " miracles," not as wilful impostures, but as products of a fervid and untrained imagination. And at last the inevitable issue is raised, Were the phenomena recorded of the birth of Christianity the genuine creden- tials of an authoritative revelation from Heaven to man ? Or were those miracles simply an imaginative dress, in- vesting the central fact of a very noble but only human personality ? It is through the acceptance of the latter conclusion COUN TEH-CURRENTS. o'7 that the authority of Christianity has been undermined, for most of those who in our day disown its claim. The moral revolt against some articles of the Christian creed might have found satisfaction, and has for many found ample satisfaction, in the modification of that creed. But others, like William Smith, who began from the moral difficulty, have been drawn by that stream to the river of scientific thought, and by this influence carried completely away from belief in an authoritative revelation. But for such minds there still remain the great topics of natural religion, man's moral nature, the existence and nature of God r and whatever grounds of achievement and aspiration and hope may exist for the human spirit. Say that there be no infallible oracle in these provinces of thought, none the less is it a possibility, a necessity, of the human mind to explore them. It is only the long habit of depending upon authoritative teaching that makes all religious knowledge and belief seem dependent on such a teacher. The whole progress of modern knowledge has been made under this condition, that man must not blindly follow authority, but must find out for himself. Just so is it with religious truth. The renunciation of authorita- tive Christianity brings a mind like Wijliam Smith's only to the threshold of its task. The men who have been named as his early associates or acquaintances Maurice, Sterling, Grove, Lewes, and Mill fairly represent or suggest the principal tenden- cies of thought in the mind of the English-speaking people in the middle period of this century. Maurice became a leader of that Broad Church movement to which Cole- ridge and Dr. Arnold had given the impulse. Theyre Smith, too, was one of the progressive churchmen. (The High Church school has no representative in the group ; neither has the Evangelical.) Sterling was the pupil of Coleridge, then of Carlyle, two representatives of the intuitional philosophy. Grove, author of " The Correla- 68 WILLIAM SMITH. tion of Forces," well typifies the achievements of pure science. Lewes was a leader in that company of Positiv- ists who addressed themselves to working out the con- crete problems of society, abandoning all quest toward the divine as hopeless. Mill wrought vigorously in the philosophy which limits knowledge to the sphere of the visible and tangible, and in broad problems of society and politics. 1 These various currents have agitated this century, as torrents swollen in spring-time stir into turmoil some mountain lake. Only when the tumult has abated does it appear that the tranquillized surface overlies a deeper volume. There have been some men whose minds were like the very meeting-points of the currents, and among such men were Arthur Hugh Clough and William Smith. 1 See Appendix. CHAPTER VIII. "GIVEN SELF, TO FIND GOD." THE two men just named had this as their common peculiarity, that, deeply religious by nature, they found themselves in the light of modern knowledge unable to accept Christianity as a supernatural revelation, and were absorbed in the effort to discern, apart from such revela- tion, an object for man's supreme allegiance, love, and trust. It is no wonder that men who gave themselves unre- servedly to this quest should have been drawn far apart from the ordinary activities and associations of men. To those, on the one side of them, who were devoted to the pursuits of science or the positive philosophy, they seemed to be hopelessly wasting their time and strength. By the churchmen, on the other hand, they were likely to be re- garded with a mixture of pity and aversion. That active religious life to which the churchman of the best type de- votes himself has for its object the promotion of the high- est virtue and the purest happiness. Now that field of in- quiry whose doors were inexorably thrown open before such minds as Clough and William Smith, offers at the outset a vast tract of doubt, vast, perhaps interminable ! And doubt, so long as it possesses the mind, is the certain foe of happiness, and seems a menace to the fairest forms of virtue. But what is the spirit of the unsparing truth-seeker ? It is a spirit that has played no small part in our day : the interest in William Smith's personality is that he, like Clough, was a singularly pure type of it. Delicate as he 70 WILLIAM SMITH. appeared, sensitive, fastidious, over-fine for practical uses, his spirit was under one consistent, unswerving, all-powerful sway, the search for truth. Choice it could hardly be called, and purpose is too weak a word for the passion of his life. The impartiality of his intellect equalled his singleness of aim. All truth was sacred to him ; he must needs listen reverently to the churchman, to the man of science, to the metaphysician, to the mystic. To blend their various glimpses of reality into one clear, full disclosure, was the intense and constant effort of his nature. Yet, so long as the facts did not agree in their testimony, he would not and could not betake himself to any harmony gained by some suppression, some refusal to look. Such a quest carried with it conditions of severe priva- tion. Heaviest privation of all was the withholding from the soul of that clear vision of a divine and perfect beauty which it thirsted to behold and to adore. There was the deprivation, too, of that organized social assistance in the highest life, which is a deep necessity of the religious man, and for which the church had made abundant provision, but on the basis of beliefs which to minds like these were no longer tenable. And there was laid upon them an in- ability to declare a positive and confident gospel to man- kind, a disqualification for that preaching of good tid- ings which is one of the highest joys and firmest sup- ports of the human spirit. The religious inquirer, until his quest was satisfied, and a lifetime might prove too short to satisfy it, had no clear message to give of in- spiration, comfort, or triumph : he could only commune with his own heart and be still. Yet the men who stood thus alone, and seemingly aside from the splendid activities of the age, were taking a fore- most part in the age's most vital work. They were learn- ing the conditions under which was to be possible hence- forth the noblest life of man, that life which is faithful "GIVEN SELF, TO FIND GOD.'' 1 71 alike to the love of truth, the love of men, and the love of God. What is in a word the essential difficulty which con- fronts the man who is at once devout in spirit and candid in thought when he essays to worship ? It is the presence of evil. The object of religious worship must be the supreme power of the universe. That power is disclosed to us by the facts of existence which we experience and observe. At the threshold of experience and observation, and on to their farthest earthly limit, we encounter some things which we can only call evil. The heart feels within itself, mixed with nobler qualities, elements of weakness, of sin, and of seeming chaos. The world of humanity, broadly surveyed, presents an appalling degree of misery and wrong, evils which man's noblest impulses bid him to seek to remove. How, in the presence of these facts of existence, is it possible to view the supreme author of ex- istence with reverence or with trust ? That is the old, old difficulty of the religious intellect. One answer after an- other has been offered, has satisfied for a while, and has at last failed to satisfy. Yet surviving all failures has been the impulse to revere, to trust, and to love the author of all. If now Christianity, too, shall fail as an answer to the problem, if its philosophy of a fall and a redemp- tion seem unworthy, if its credentials of a supernatural message appear untrustworthy, if its central figure prove but a human personality deified by loving imagination, must, then, this old impulse to worship God be given up at last as outgrown childishness ? Yes, said the church- man, that is the inevitable result ; therefore hold fast to the supernatural revelation and the divine Christ, no matter what so-called science, history, and reason may al- lege. Yes, said the Positivist, with Christianity perishes all worship of divinity : therefore follow science, history, reason, and learn to live without a God ! Said a few oth- ers, though through long years only in the silence of their 72 WILLIAM SMITH. own hearts : " Let us learn all that science, history, and reason can teach ; let us give up, since so we must, the belief in any supernatural message ; yet let us think, live, wait, in the hope that the power sustaining the universe will prove the worthy object of the highest allegiance, rev- erence, and rapture that man can give." These two men, Clough and William Smith, were among the purest exemplars of this spirit. As to their intellec- tual traits, while both were richly endowed with both the logical and the imaginative faculties, yet of the two Clough was rather the poet and Smith the philosopher. Among Clough's verses, deeply shadowed as a whole by doubt and struggle, are a few which shine out like the radiant gleams of sunshine in a cloudy November day. Some of them are among the most inspiring expressions we possess of a faith which rises serene and victorious in the mind that cannot yet formulate and explain its con- victions. And even these poems seem not to give ade- quate expression to the deeper peace which came with Clough's later years, and came, alas for us ! along with so much of outward occupation as silenced the poetic voice. But of Clough this seems always the characteristic, that, while fully facing all the considerations which can be brought before the deliberative intellect, and accepting whatever can be fairly established before that tribunal, he yet at last follows hope and trust under some impulse which is beyond analysis. He is content without definite proof, and with only the most general conclusion. It is the intellectual man to whom his poems appeal, but the deepest appeal is not to his logic or analysis but to the man. " Hope evermore and believe ! " Hope what, be- lieve why? He scarcely tells us, but the grand verse moves our hearts irresistibly ; we obey it as we obey Life itself, which also does not give its reasons. We shall find, too, that some of William Smith's weightiest words address something in us which lies deeper "GIVEN SELF, TO FIND GOD." 73 than analysis. But the general characteristic of his mind was to seek a perfect lucidity. He desired not only to trust, but to understand. He had that longing for re- ality which belongs to every truth-seeker, and he also wanted clear and definite reality. He was inclined to dis- trust any idea or any assertion which could not give an intelligible account of itself in the language of plain rea- son. Probably, the natural bent of his mind had been strengthened by his early education in Scotch metaphys- ics, and by his long training in the science of law, which tolerates nothing vague or indefinite. One might say that his mind was English in its instinct for reality and con- creteness ; Scotch in its tendency to metaphysics, which essays definite analysis of the most abstract subjects ; and French in its clearness and grace ; while it held in sus- picion that mysticism which belongs to the Teutonic genius, and of which it had by inheritance its full share. There were indeed in him strong elements of imagina- tion, poetry, and feeling ; and apparently from the very liveliness of his emotional nature he drew a Varning against letting feeling encroach one step on the domain of reason. He habitually treats the poetic faculty as only a graceful and pleasing way of stating things ; the substance and essence of things being determinable only by the severer faculties. He thus excludes, at least in set terms, from the highest tribunal the testimony of that vivified, interior perception, of which Wordsworth and Emerson are the highest expressions in literature, and which be- longs to the religious mystic of whatever creed. He ex- cludes this witness in set terms and in theory ; but his nature was too wide to forbid generous inconsistency, and, as if in spite of his severer self, he sometimes gives exquisite expression to the mystic's sense of "the light that never was on sea or land." But as a philosopher, he belonged to the more exact and scientific school, and this although he was perpetually attracted to themes which 74 WILLIAM SMITH. merge in the infinite, and transcend all finite expression. A friend, Dr. Lietch, wrote of him after his death that a habitual expression, characteristic of his whole thought, was " Yes ; but I want to know definitely." If the higher realities and relations of man's nature can never find perfect expression in exact and scientific terms, yet to William Smith, and to his generation as well as our own, there was set as legitimate and as vast a task for philosophy as ever was given to man. An immense volume of new knowledge is being furnished by science in its various branches, -It is the office of philosophy to mould the new with the old knowledge into some approx- imate conception of man in his entirety, and of the uni- verse in its spiritual as well as external relations. It is the work of the philosopher to discover the harmony which unites the various facts of existence. It is the hope of the religious philosopher to discern that there ex- ists not only harmony, but moral order and divine benefi- cence. This,"then, was the inquiry, immense, many-sided, per- petually recurring, which engaged and fascinated the man we are contemplating through all his earthly years. His life went on meantime in other functions. He found worthy and congenial literary work, upon themes less ab- struse. He became almost by profession a literary critic. He saw and studied and pictured, in essays, letters, dramas, the beauties of nature, the works of art, the various play of human life. But in his own musings he perpetually reverted to the greatest problems of all ; and it was as material for these problems that art and nature and humanity had for him their deepest interest. Must, then, Religion stand idle until Philosophy works out its question ? Must the ship drift on an aimless course so long as its master cannot get a clear observa- tion of the heavenly bodies ? The best answer is given by individual lives such as our generation has witnessed "GIVEN SELF, TO FIND GOD." 75 not a few, and of which Clough and William Smith are typical. In their most troubled periods, we see neither of them failing in moral fidelity. In each there was always recognized by his associates a rare quality of purity and of sweetness. There was forbidden to them such kinds of beneficent labor as are wrought by the reformer of society or the apostle of an ardent faith. They were withdrawn to lonelier tasks, tasks which even to their own hearts seemed often to promise no outcome of good to the world. But there is a virtue of silence and humility, which may be not less noble than the zeal of the reformer or the apostle. By the unquestioning believer, any religion which the speculative inquirer may possess is likely to be regarded as cold. Whatever excellence it may have, he thinks, it cannot know the tenderness, the ardor, which belong to the worshipper of Christ. We are told that a young niece of William Smith, with the self-assertion of early youth, once tried to force upon him some theological discussion, and by way of reply he put into her hand these verses : There is a sweetness in the world's despair, There is a rapture of serenity, When, severed quite from earthly hope or care, The heart is free to suffer or to die. The crown, the palm, of saints in Paradise, My wearied spirit doth not crave to win, Breathe in thy cup, O Christ, of agonies, Breathe thy deep love, and let me drink therein. To weep as thou hast wept, I ask no more, Be mine the sorrows that were known to thee ; To the bright heavens I have no strength to soar, But I would find thee on thy Calvary. But he that loseth his life shall save it ; and in the truth-seeker's self-renunciation there is a prophecy of a sunrise beyond the darkness, not for himself alone, but for 76 WILLIAM SMJTH. the world. Clough, in " The New Sinai," represents the resolute abandonment of a creed become incredible, as the Israelites left behind them the gods of Egypt : Though old Religion shake her head And say in bitter grief, " The day behold, at first foretold, Of atheist unbelief," Take better part, with manly heart, Thine adult spirit can ; Receive it not, believe it not, Believe it not, O Man ! Then follows the view of the world as a mechanism of blind force, a view as dark as the cloud and blackness which wrapped Sinai when Moses went upon the mount ; the people going back to worship their old gods and the golden calf ; the " prophet-soul sublimely meek " seeking Deity within the cloud, the heart of man bidden mean- while neither to go back nor to despair. No God, it saith ; oh, wait in faith God's self -completing plan ; Receive it not, but leave it not, And wait it out, O Man ! Devout indeed, that priestly creed O Man, reject as sin ; The clouded hill attend thou still And him that went within. He yet shall bring some worthy thing For waiting souls to see : Some sacred word that he hath heard Their light and life shall be ; Some lofty part, than which the heart Adopt no nobler can, Thou shalt receive, thou shalt believe, And thou shalt do, O Man ! CHAPTER IX. "A DISCOURSE ON ETI " In 1839," says the Memoir, " William Smith pub- lished 'A Discourse on Ethics of the School of Paley.' * The late Professor Ferrier ' (I quote from the obituary notice in the * Scotsman') 4 used to speak of this pam- phlet in bulk it is nothing more as one of the best written and most ingeniously reasoned attacks upon Cud- worth's doctrine that had ever appeared.' It is interest- ing to find that the favorite brother, Theyre, William's fellow-student at Glasgow, who had now for several years been a clergyman of the Church of England, and was Hulsean Lecturer in 1839-40, adopted the opposite standpoint, and in the notes to the second volume of his lectures vigorously contends against the theory put forth in the ' Discourse on Ethics,' while admitting, with evi- dent satisfaction, that it had never ' met with a more in- genious as well as eloquent advocate.' ' Could this paragraph have been read by William Smith, one fancies that a quiet smile might have played about his lips. It justly describes what the " Discourse on Ethics " purports to be, an argument upon one side of a long-debated and familiar question : namely, Whether the sense of moral obligation in man is an original and primary instinct, or a derived and compounded principle. It is an old theme of metaphysicians ; Christians and churchmen are found on both sides of the debate ; 'the au- thor of this treatise ranks himself under the banner of the orthodox Paley, and professes only to develop more fully a theory whose substance is virtually implied in Paley's 78 WILLIAM SMITH. avowals. If the line of his advance seems sometimes to run along perilous ground, yet his flank is always care- fully protected ; he is writing, so he reminds us, only about what we know by the light of nature, and leaves untouched that inner stronghold of faith which is given by the revelations and sanctions of supernatural Christian- ity. The author's strong confidence in his own views is expressed always with perfect modesty, dignity, and com- posure. It is impossible in a brief epitome to reproduce even the main lines of the discussion. Its leading proposition is embodied in this paragraph : The feeling of responsibility appears to issue at once full- formed from the recesses of the individual mind. Be happy ! Be virtuous ! are described as two distinct commands of nature, two great dictates of our being, which in general are in per- fect harmony, but of which the second is to take precedence whenever that harmony is disturbed. Now as an account of what is immediately felt by the moral man, this is not inaccu- rate. There are these two commands, Be happy ! Be virtuous ! and the second, from its nature, domineers over the first. But, nevertheless, the second, we say, is in fact a modification of the first; and this moral sentiment, however authoritative, is but a result of the play of our desires and the exercise of our reason, under a social condition of existence. Briefly stated : " Eight and wrong are good and evil with the authoritative stamp of general approval." In fuller words : Whatever action makes for human happi- ness is intrinsically good ; whatever makes for human misery is intrinsically bad. The mere perception that an action makes for happiness or misery carries with it a sort of command to seek or shun ; " the knowledge of what is best must bind a rational being." But this orig- inal rational impulse toward the "best," that is, to- ward the action which tends to produce happiness, is im- mensely reinforced in the individual by the voice of the "A DISCOURSE ON ETHICS." 79 community praising or blaming him; it gets such new force and color that new terms are needful to describe it, and the choice of the better or the worse is invested with the name of " right " and " wrong," with all the tremen- dous associations which gather about those words. The sense of morality is thus a creation of public opinion : " This moral sentiment, however authoritative, is but a re- sult of the play of our desires and the exercise of our rea- son, under a social condition of existence." But, having thus been developed by the social atmosphere, the moral sentiment acquires an independent authority, and the good man no longer governs himself by the opinions of his neighbors, but by his own conviction of right. The essential temper in which our essayist follows his quest is instanced in these words : There is mystery enough in and about our being, the world rolls on encompassed by it, and I am far from ranking myself with those who think there is no place and no recognition for it in a philosophic mind. But morality, which springs from and concerns the palpable business of men, ought not to be treated in a vein of mystery. Nothing is gained, even to our admiration, by endeavouring to invest our moral feelings at once in a sort of celestial panoply. The natural and true proportions of the hu- man mind, as of the human form, contain, after all, the only beauty ; it is of little use to deck the figure of humanity with painted wings that cannot fly, to the hindrance and disparage- ment of the natural limbs which Heaven has assigned to it. This is the keynote of the modern search into the na- ture of man as revealed in the history of man. The book is pervaded by the spirit of modern science, and much of its substance is an anticipation of what has been said, not with more force and eloquence, but with wider hearing, in later days. The force of its arguments of which not even the heads can be given here lies in the explana- ations they offer of broad facts of human society. We have a theory generated in an imaginative brooding upon 80 WILLIAM SMITH. a few certain facts of a period long past ; then we have the hypothesis tested by its adequacy to explain all the phenomena which lie within its field. It is assumed at the outset, on the ground of evidence now familiar and abundant, that mankind once existed in some primitive and savage state, whence some of its branches gradually rose to civilization. Then the student considers the ele- ments which must be found in the lowest state of man- kind we can imagine such as the sensitiveness to pain and pleasure, the feeling of anger and of affection, the sense of social sympathy. From these elements alone, he asks, could a moral sentiment be gradually educed? In imagination he follows out such a process. Then he in- quires : Does such an origin of the moral sense harmonize with what we know of the various forms and workings in which the moral sense actually displays itself among the various sorts of men ? Into the wide and rich field of il- lustration on which our author enters, space forbids us to follow him. Nor does it lie within our province to weigh his arguments against the opposite school. But we may give illustrations of the temper which pervades his discus- sion, enough to show that his theory banishes neither loftiness of motive, nor imaginative grandeur. No cramped horizon bounds his view ; splendors are not lacking to his vision of humanity. Below all the changes of time stands an abiding foundation. The only immutable morality is this, that the happiness of all be protected and cultivated. This is a precept which knows no change, an eternal truth, recognised, we may be sure, in every condition in every region wherein reasonable beings have their abode; and the spirit of benevolence which animates this precept is that unchangeable goodness which is virtue every- where, which is gold in all climes, that goodness which has its rest in the mind of the Eternal. There appears a singularly even appreciation of two different types of virtue, the self-sustained and the de- pendent : "A DISCOURSE ON ETHICS." 81 The same power which breaks and subdues to obedience also elevates to self-respect ; and the world, after having bound and tutored its pupil to its own service and allegiance, throws him back in an attitude of proud reliance upon himself. . . . And let me add that no man, because he views with just ad- miration the magnanimity of that virtue which suffices to itself, and is its own reward, ought to yield therefore a cold and reluc- tant praise of that humbler sentiment which clings with close dependence to the approbation of neighbours and of fellow-men. This last is the more frequent and perhaps the safer guide. He who should ta^e his conscience altogether from the keeping of society would place it in a perilous position. His proud inde- pendence might operate for evil, as well as for good. There is a limit to the boldness of virtue, and just on the other side of the boundary lies the boldness of crime. In the generous spirit there is apt to be a kind of im- patience with any theory which finds in happiness our " being's end and aim." The heart responds to Carlyle's stirring words : " There is in man a higher than love of happiness; he can do without happiness, and in place thereof find blessedness ! " Yet can we accept this senti- ment as sufficient for human nature's daily food ? Man is a poor creature truly unless he can endure the eclipse of happiness, but must he be willing that its sun should for- ever disappear from the sky ? To do justice to the two attitudes the defiant heroism which rises to a spiritual emergency, and on the other hand humanity's deep, persist- ent desire for happiness belongs only to a rare and well- poised mind ; such a mind as speaks in these words : To expect one tone of moral feeling from all mankind, what is it but to expect one mode of happiness, one temper of mind, one fortune, and one taste, from all the race of man ? He who, after familiarizing himself with the stern morality of the Stoic school, turns his observation upon some domestic scene of civil- ized life, and on the manners of amiable and enlightened men, feels that the rigid fortitude and ardour of endurance, which he has been contemplating, have here no place, no meaning, no 82 WILLIAM SMITH. purpose. A moral force of far more temperate and bland de- scription is quite sufficient for scenes, and for men, like these. Nay, if he looks at society in some aspects, he may be surprised to find how great a part of the business of life is transacted without the direct observable interference of a moral control, which seems rather to have prescribed to men at once their career, than to accompany them at each step of their progress. Men labour at their several callings all the world is abroad from the rising of the sun to the going down thereof in full activity, need and ambition constraining and impelling them, and only now and then, when a shock is given to the usual tenor of existence, do they raise serious question as to what the conscience will or will not permit. Habit does it all, and seems everywhere to ordain and to disallow. But if the same observer carries still further his examinations, he will not fail to discover some positions in life where the sternest moral resolution and a sort of desperation in virtue are not more than enough to pre- serve the mind from dejection, from utter overthrow, and total alienation from existence. Such positions produce what they require. A moral sentiment, strongly excited, and put to con- stant and severe task-work, becomes separated in the mind of its possessor from all that the world is accustomed to call hap- piness. The end of virtue is lost sight of in the efforts of vir- tue. It becomes its own end and purpose ; a virtue militant, contending for a cause apparently quite distinct from the hope- less and abandoned one of human felicity. I respect, I revere, the high tone of moral feeling which conducts to this state of opinion. Next to the cheerful calm of prosperous hours, what more valued boon can Providence bestow than this stubborn independent philosophy, so fitted to adverse and distressful seasons ? The afflicted spirit assumes a greatness which almost puts to shame the gay and the fortu- nate. The form of the moral hero is seen to dilate as the gloom falls around it. I respect, I say, this noble consolation which the virtuous man, beset by calamity, finds in the simple exag- gerated claim of virtue ; I leave him in undisturbed and im- perturbable possession of a philosophic faith which imparts new energies to a mind else drooping and self-deserted ; but I can- not consent to impose on all mankind a sentiment so exclusively " A DISCOURSE ON ETHICS." 83 r r v>ropriate to the position and temper of a few ; I cannot re- peat as dogmatic truth for the reception of all the world what the mind gives forth as truth for itself under peculiar circum- stances, and in the hour of its need and tribulation. If the heart of man, some gayer moralist might say, is to be thus con- sulted as an oracle of truth, why should we prefer its sadder to its more cheerful responses ? Why should we consult the oracle when invested in clouds and darkness, and not trust as well to what it utters when light is breaking upon all things, and it gives its answer in music to the morning beam ? The mind at ease says nothing of the vanity of all things, never decries the pursuit of reasonable pleasure, never divorces the claims of vir- tue from the cause of happiness. Throughout the book there is kept up in terms a care- ful distinction between the obligations of natural morality and whatever further sanctions may be derived from su- pernatural religion. " Religion has with us its distinct and proper source : we have Heaven's own word for what we believe of Heaven. The Christian . . . practises morality from motives which no system of ethics can supply." But it needs very little reading between the lines to discern that this formal recognition of Christianity as a distinct source of knowledge is purely for the benefit of a supposititious reader, and is not the conviction of the writer's own mind. The validity of supernatural revela- tion is not the issue he is discussing, nor has he any wish to discuss it. Upon himself the renunciation of it for that by this time the renunciation was complete in his mind is hardly to be doubted has been sadly, unwill- ingly forced : let others keep it if they may ; to an apos- tolate of denial he feels not the slightest vocation. So throughout his discussion of ethics he concedes as undis- puted ground whatever may be claimed for a sanction superadded by Heaven to the morality generated in the natural processes of society. Yet for well he knows that on the path he has 84 WILLIAM SMITH. silently trodden there will in time many follow yet he will share with his readers one keen, searching gaze into the inmost realm of human thought. He brings them to it, as it were, by a side-door, to consider the result that would follow from a hypothesis which they may consider purely fanciful ; so that from any unwelcome conclusions they may have an easy retreat. In the latter half of his closing chapter, he raises the question as if in mere spec- ulative curiosity : If we had no divine revelation, what could the unaided mind discern of God ? The displacement of the old religions by Christianity is simply mentioned as a fact, without discussing the sources whence the new faith sprang. In place of this, the essay- ist shows how paganism, if it had not yielded to Chris- tianity, must have fallen before that knowledge of the world which science brings in. To us in whom the first deceptive impression of the senses has been corrected almost as soon as we could think, by knowl- edge it cost ages to acquire, and other ages to extend and circu- late to us it js a curious and distinct effort of the imagination to conceive what manner of world this was to its earlier inhabit- ants. They lived at least the multitude, and the multitude are in this matter everything in a very straitened, circumscribed creation, a flat and stationary earth, arched over by the sky as by its natural roof. In this miniature of nature the human form was great. A god was invested in it without thought of violation to his dignity, and men assigned him for habitation a region just beyond the clouds, or else the waste and inaccessible places of their own world, the air, and the ocean, and tops of mountains, and caverns in the rock. The humanized divinity had a fit location, and could be supported in the imagination without much incongruity. But what if such forms had con- tinued to exist till Science had worked her great transformation ? When Astronomy had dislodged the rounded world from its rest at the centre of all things, and sent it to revolve on its wide cir- cuit, one only of a multitude of similar and far-scattered globes, when that arch which so securely overbuilt it had expanded into "A DISCOURSE ON ETHICS." 85 a limitless vacancy and left the earth diminished, and alone, and far from the gates of Heaven, what place, what function, would have remained to the astonished gods of Olympus ? Had they survived till our day of science, they must have then vanished like a dream. As pure hypothesis he then asks, What course would the general mind take if it were to relinquish as unreal the light of Christian revelation ? If without irreverence we might venture to suppose the with- drawal from the world, for a season, of the Christian doctrine, though we should lose indeed the incalculable benefit of a faith the sole medium of salvation, and therefore, as regards our eter- nal interest, be utterly bankrupt and ruined ; yet so far as piety is a sentiment controlling the heart and elevating the character of man, we might not, perhaps, be left in so destitute and de- plorable a condition as those who love religion are apt to fear, and those few who are its enemies are accustomed without any pain to anticipate. There are certain presumptions of a reli- gious character, already hinted at, and indeed familiar to all minds, which so readily occur to human thought, and these there are so many passions, so many interests, so many reasons, for keeping alive in ourselves, and upholding in the belief of others, that they might be almost as generally received, or at least professed, as Christianity at the present day. The same feelings which perform no ineffectual part in upholding the authority of that, as of every religion ; the same disquietude of heart ; the same aspirations after a happier existence ; the same desire to believe in another region, though it be fruitful only of present hopes, or even of present fears, and afford but an object of new solicitude and endeavour ; the same sense of public policy, whether made effective by permanent institutions, or that perpetual and all-pervading force of general opinion that surrounds us like another atmosphere, all these would be equally engaged in support of the imperfect tenets and more scanty creed of natural theology. The old heart of humanity might be too strong for all the fetters which science would im- pose. 86 WILLIAM SMITH To the philosophic mind, meanwhile, there remains al- ways at least one sentiment of religion. There would remain at least one source of profound, anti- terrestial sentiment, which can never be closed to the reflective mind, and which no scientific knowledge can affect. There is a mystery within and around us. Let science complete her task, and accomplish all which the most enlarged and accurate minds can assign for her province, there is still a region of thought if thought it can be called, where only question is heard, and no response, and the question itself is scarce intelligible into which she can make no incursions. The philosophy of Newton and La Place, the experimental knowledge of all Europe, has not encroached one inch upon this territory. It is the same now as to Chaldean shepherds. Where are we ? Whence this whole of things ? Whither ? Wherefore ? These are the same unanswerable questions as when they first were asked, and the unbroken silence which is their sole return makes the same deep impression on the human heart. Render the whole world clear and transparent to scientific vision ; turn it before us, as it were, in the sun ; make us familiar with all its movements, intricate and incessant, so that we trace the precise succession of all events throughout the complicated maze ; it matters not, the whole scene, the whole circle of interwoven incidents, floats on over an abyss of unfathomable mystery. . . . To the reflective mind this dim outlying space of the unknown and impenetrable has a strange and powerful fascination. That which to all mankind is the last boundless distance suffusing a scarcely recognized charm over the near landscape of life, he fixes on with strained effort of vision. There where the line is drawn, as well to human passion as to human knowledge, his gaze is arrested ; he would pierce through the sphere of endless change into the still eternity beyond ; he has no optics for such a purpose, he has no power to withdraw. From such a mind you may take temple and altar, miracle and prophet, you can- not take religion ; you may obscure the form of Deity pain- fully dark it may grow before him, you will not abstract all sentiment of piety : he bows before the veiled divinity, he still adores an unknown God ! M DISCOURSE ON ETHICS." 87 The words die upon the ear like a strain of music, lovely but awful. It is the musician himself who breaks the hush, as he turns from his instrument to mingle with the crowd. As he utters again the common speech, it is like Prospero bidding farewell to his enchantments, and coming back from Ariel and the spirits to every-day com- pany. " But happily for mankind, the conjecture as to what form natural religion might of itself assume is for all practical purposes as useless and unnecessary as it is to the speculative inquirer dark and intricate. ... If the reader in his study of practical ethics in the works of Paley and others should find himself somewhat less em- barrassed than before by subtle questions relative to the nature of the moral sentiment, this has answered the ut- most and sole end at which it aspired." And he ends his treatise with this disclaimer of any unsettling intent, a disclaimer that would seem to have been taken seriously by the intellectual world, which paid little heed to the message until it was uttered by later and louder voices. Of that message, so far as it relates to natural religion, we may say : it is the utterance of a reverent and pious soul, finding itself unhoused from the old familiar dwell- ing-place of reverence and piety, and brought as it were suddenly under the open sky. There must be a time for readjustment to the new conditions, the eye, long used to the near roof, cannot instantly adjust itself to the cope of heaven. Deep awe there must be, and for a time per- plexity and depression ; yet always the intent gaze, al- ways a welcome of the partial light, and the prophetic expectation of fuller light. This man had in his sensi- tive childhood been familiarized with a conception of religion under the most definite outlines, with full provi- sion for the most familiar human forms of relation between the soul and its deity. That conception had faded away, and, though years had already passed in the process, yet the adjustment of the religious sense to a new set of facts must still be long in the completing. 88 WILLIAM SMITH. To ask of a man who thus finds himself confronted with the task of reshaping from the foundation the be- liefs of his fathers, to ask of such a one a full solution of the question he propounds would be idle indeed. It has been set before him as his life-work to make what genuine, modest addition he can to the common store of moral truth. And we find him at the outset giving elo- quent expression to what in later years has been offered by some as the adequate or only provision for man's re- ligious needs, awe in the presence of the Unknowable. But not by him is it for a moment offered as an adequate religion, religion, whose function is to guide, comfort, and ennoble the lives of mankind. It is but as one phase of one class of minds that he suggests it, a phase that may in them endure while all else is fluctuating. At the lowest there is wonder and awe ; at the highest, at the last, shall there not be much more than this ! More, we must say, there is even now in him who professes only this. All true worship is deeper than the phrases in which it clothes itself. This worshipper before an un- known God feels constrained by his exacting intellect to say that of absolute knowledge he has indeed nothing ; that it is only the blank region beyond visible space on which his gaze is fixed. But the emotion that fills his words is deeper and more sacred than mere wonderment before uncertainty. A " veiled divinity," an " unknown God ? " Yes, but it is not the veil, it is not the sense of ignorance, which so stirs the heart, but the instinct of some highest Divinity behind the veil ; the sense of some holy of holies, something august beyond articulate thought. And now we are in a position to appreciate the motive and the value of that ethical speculation which constitutes the body of the treatise. It really represents, and with an original and important modification, one of the two great lines of effort by serious thinkers to find a firm "A DISCOURSE ON ETHICS." 89 basis and sanction for human morality, independent of that reliance upon a literal, historical revelation in the Scriptures which has characterized Protestantism. The one of these two movements is represented by Kant, who, admitting an inability of the speculative intellect to ar- rive at absolute truth, finds in conscience an original, intuitive faculty of the mind, giving in itself an authori- tative law of duty, and serving also as a sure indication of a moral governor of the universe by whom it is im- planted. Thus, in Kant's theory, conscience as an intui- tive faculty affords both a law of conduct and an assur- ance of God. The theory has naturally found favor in the religious world, as either a buttress for a supernatural revelation, or a substitute for it. It was sure to arrest the attention of an inquirer like William Smith. But he finds it quite inadequate to meet the observed fact of the immense discrepancy with which conscience acts in different ages, classes, and individuals. This inadequacy his treatise sets forth with great force. Weighing the familiar rival theory, that the sense of duty is identical with the sense of utility, he evidently finds that this does not of itself explain the more authoritative sentiment as- sociated with the idea of duty. He is led to conclude that what we call conscience has been a slow development, and as the potent factor in giving it force and form he rec- ognizes the influence upon the individual of the collective sentiment of his fellows in praise or blame. To the scientific mind, the test of every theory is : Does it harmonize with the known facts, and is it the only hypothesis that does harmonize with them ? If yes, then let it stand, unless new facts shall overthrow it ; mean- time, practice and sentiment must make their account with it as best they can, but they may not set it aside. Accepting, on the severe ground of induction, a theory of conscience as a developed and not an original faculty, William Smith, a man having the keenest sense of the 90 WILLIAM SMITH. moral and religious needs of men, considers how this theory meets those needs. It does not profess to find any such immediate, authoritative disclosure of a moral gov- ernor as does the intuitive theory, a profession which avails nothing if the theory is overthrown by facts. But his view recognizes a vast, orderly, progressive scheme of things, suggestive at least of a moral order underlying the universe. Clear and satisfactory provision for worship he does not yet find. But we have a provision, holds our essayist, a provision firm and powerful, for the conduct of man among his fellows. For the enlightened mind, this is the obvious elementary principle : " That the hap- piness of all be protected and cultivated ; " and " the knowledge of what is best must bind a rational being." As an external force, we have the tremendous engine of public sentiment : The influence of society a weak, insufficient foundation for the moral sentiment ! I entreat those who make the objection to consider what and how great a thing to man is the good opinion of his fellow-man. It visits him in every relation of humanity, from parents, from children, from neighbours, from citizens; it is equally present in life public and domestic; it mingles with almost every enjoyment ; it is blended, either as object or as means, with every hope and every project of his existence. . . . Man lives, for pleasure or for pain, in deed or in thought, in constant collision with his fellow-men ; they are beings without whom he can do nothing, yet as they are beings of the same passions with himself they have conflicting claims ; he must yield, he must compromise, must secure their friend- ship, must avert their emnity. A new want arises, perpetual, and that can never be shaken off a want the summary of a thousand wants the want of the good opinion of these fellow- men. Is this a motive, a part of our mental constitution, likely to fail us, to grow weak and languid as society advances, and becomes, as it must become, more and more complicated ? Is it likely to decay as the interests of life become more keen, wide- spreading, and interwoven ? God has set men to be rulers over "A DISCOURSE ON ETHICS." 91 men all over each ; that is his moral government, which He has, in the first instance, established upon the earth, a gov- ernment which must continue and improve with every improve- ment made in the means and knowledge of happiness, a gov- ernment which in its plan, and progress, and by its connection and harmony with other parts of the system of nature, claims to have sprung from the Author of creation. And now that he has spoken his deepest, most serious word, he returns to quiet work, upon book reviews and sketches and one or two dramas, and it is almost twenty years before he again in the world's hearing recurs to the direct discussion of the greatest themes of all, whose fas- cination for him has never intermitted. CHAPTER X. THE REVIEWER. IN the connection with " Blackwood' s Magazine," which began in 1839, William Smith found what proved to be the chief external business of his life. For a few years longer there continued some formal allegiance to the law, but writing for the magazine, principally in the form of literary reviews, soon became his main occupation. It was a work and a place which admirably suited him. His contributions brought a modest income, which came ere long to be his main dependence. For such a man litera- ture in any shape could never be a lucrative profession, and it was much to find in it a resource sufficient for bread-winning and for independence. The work was in the direct line of his tastes and powers, it dealt with congenial and beloved themes, yet it lay apart from those fundamental problems of thought whose fascination had so strong an element of disquiet. There would seem at first an incompatibility between a speculator so daring and heterodox, and the organ of staunch conservatism ; all the more, since the articles in " Blackwood " were unsigned, and stood in the name of the editorial " we." But Wil- liam Smith's articles dealt neither with current politics nor with theology, and in the fields of general literature, poetry, history, and metaphysics, as well as romance and travel, the magazine gave all the scope he required. The obituary notice of him in " Blackwood " (October, 1872) shows in what high estimation he was held by its conductors, who, it is equally plain, were at a wide re- move from that attitude in religion and philosophy which THE REVIEWER. 93 characterizes " Thorndale " and " Gravenhurst." The more noticeable therefore is the recognition of his per- sonal traits. In his youth, the circle of young men who surrounded him ex- pected for him the highest fame ; he was to be their leader, the foremost in all intellectual progress, always the superior, in those visions of the future which are often so widely apart from re- ality. But if others passed him in the race, pressed on higher, and won more dazzling prizes, it was because the finer qualities of his mind outweighed the coarser, and fastidious taste and a retiring disposition withdrew him from the common arena, where, amid shouts and cheers and commonplace din, the ordi- nary competitors for fame take their places, disregarding all its vulgar circumstances. He could not disregard them. His na- ture was so constituted that he shrank from the noises, whether applausive or otherwise. No better type could be found of the true man of letters, the student, scholar, and critic of our days, who is already begin- ning to yield to a hastier and more shallow class of modern commentators. He was not of those who dash off a breathless criticism on the spur of the moment, or arrogantly pretend to judge of subjects upon which they have the merest smattering of knowledge. He belonged to the older fashion of man, who had the habit of mastering a subject before speaking of it, and of bringing a richly cultivated understanding, a mind and memory full of all that is excellent in the past, to the consideration of the affairs and productions of the present. That charm of culture which, next to genius, is almost the most delightful of mental conditions, was his in an eminent degree. In finding at last a vocation so well fitted to his inclina- tion and his powers, he had gained one of the prime con- ditions of happiness and content. If we have been right in discerning in " Wild Oats " the traces of a self-mastery and recall from undisciplined brooding and idleness, we may find one of the evidences of a more concentrated and purposeful life, as well as a great aid to it, in this entry upon periodical literature as a profession. Fame there 94 WILLIAM SMITH. was none from anonymous contributions, but there was outlet for the eager faculties, there was that conscious- ness of a worthy and an attentive audience which is the best spur to a true author; and that absorption of the writer's personality by the magazine which deprived him of personal credit weighted his words to the world's ear with the sanction of a great authority. He was inherently a judge and not an advocate, and the wool-sack to which he was predestined was in the courts not of law but of literature. The most striking feature of his reviews is the quality of even-handed jus- tice. He makes it his business to give a frank and dis- criminating award upon each book's merits and faults; to instance to the reader its quality by free quotation, a matter in which he is far more generous than is now the usual practice of reviewers; and, also, to discuss somewhat from his own standpoint the ground which the book traverses. The easy and lucid style seldom rises into brilliance ; there is a generous but tempered ardor ; the constant purpose to be just does not often allow the sparkle of epigram ; but now and then there occurs a passage of delicate and melodious grace. The contribu- tions of the earlier years are diversified by brief tales and romances, sometimes with an underlying moral, some- times of pure amusement, showing the mind unbent and the fancy in free play. From this broad and tempting field we can gather here only the merest handful, so choosing as to illustrate how some phases of life were received and interpreted by this observer. Let us take first a scene ( u Mildred," Decem- ber, 1846) from a region where as yet we have had no glimpse of him, in a ball-room. Found where it is, it is certainly a remarkable phenomenon, this waltz. Look now at that young lady how cold, formal, stately ! how she has been trained to act the little queen amongst her admirers and flatterers ! See what a reticence hi THE REVIEWER. 95 all her demeanour. Even feminine curiosity, if not subdued, has been dissimulated ; and though she notes everything and everybody, and can describe, when she returns home, the dress of half the ladies in the room, it is with an eye that seems to notice nothing. Her head has just been released from the hair- dresser, and every hair is elaborately adjusted. To the very holding of an enormous bouquet, " round as my shield," which of itself seems to forbid all thoughts of motion everything has been arranged and rearranged. She sits like an alabaster figure ; she speaks, it is true, and she smiles as she speaks ; but evidently the smile and the speech have no natural connection with one another ; they coexist, but they have both been quite separately studied, prepared, permitted. Well, the waltz strikes up, and at a word from that bowing gentleman, himself a piece of awful formality, this pale, slow, and graceful automaton has risen. Where is she now ? She is gone vanished trans- formed. She is nowhere to be seen. But in her stead there is a breathless girl, with flushed cheeks, ringlets given to the wind, dress flying all abroad, spinning round the room, darting diag- onally across it, whirling fast as her little feet can carry her faster, faster for it is her more powerful cavalier, who, hold- ing her firmly by the waist, sustains and augments her speed. To his experience in the law we owe some striking pas- sages, of which one may be given from " Giacorno da Valencia" (September, 1847). "Science ! " said the young enthusiast, "can conclusions wrested often with perverted ingenuity from artificial principles and ar- bitrary axioms be honoured with the name of 'science ? And the law, to obtain this fictitious resemblance to a science, leaves justice behind and unthought of. I will study it, my father, as I would practise any mechanical art, if you should prescribe it as a means of being serviceable to my family ; but you who are a scholar ah ! place not a tissue of technicalities, however skilfully interwoven, on a level with truth which has its basis in the nature of things. I would help my fellow-man to justice ; but must I spend my life, and dry up and impoverish my very soul, in regulating his disputes according to rules that are some- thing very different from justice ? often mere logical deduc- 96 WILLIAM SMITH. tions from certain legal abstractions, in which all moral right and wrong, all substantial justice between man and man, is utterly forgotten ? " " My son," said the father, " you are young, and therefore rash. You think it, perhaps, an easy thing to do justice between man and man. We cannot do justice between man and man. No combination of honesty and intelligence can effect it ; the whole compass of society affords no means for its accomplish- ment. To administer moral justice, each case must be decided on its own peculiar merits, and those merits are to be found in the motives of the human heart. We cannot promise men jus- tice. But we must terminate their disputes. Therefore it is we have a system of law our only substitute for justice by which men are contented to be governed because it is a system, and applicable to all alike. Believe me, that wise and able men of all countries are well occupied in rendering more symmetri- cal, more imposing, and as little immoral and unjust as possible, their several systems of jurisprudence." The most remarkable of the contributions inspired by the reviewer's legal experience is the story entitled " Man- ner and Matter" (October, 1845). The interest of the narrative holds the attention, and suggests no suspicion of a moral, till the catastrophe sends it home with start- ling force. The story is that of a rich man who forces one of small means into a chancery suit, and completely ruins him by legal expenses. " The only remedy " for such mischiefs " would be this : That the State administer civil justice, at its own expense, to rich and poor alike ; that, as it protects each man's life and limb, so it should pro- tect each man's property which is the means of life, which is often as essential to him as the limbs by which he moves. This is the only mode of realizing that 4 equal justice ' which at present is the vain boast of every sys- tem of jurisprudence, when the suitor has to pay for pro- tection to his property." Rarely does our author appear to better advantage than when he is dealing with the giants who in their THE REVIEWER. 97 greatness break through metes and bounds. His appre- ciation of their grandeurs, his own steady regard for the laws they contemn, and the delicate humor which their extravagances provoke, stand out in fine relief against the turbulent splendors of men like Carlyle and Victor Hugo and Ruskin. He comments thus on Victor Hugo's book upon Shakespeare (August, 1864). It is useless to raise objections or detect faults ; absurdities are too numerous and glaring ; they seem perfectly conscious of themselves and defy you. Yet it would be a still greater mis- take to adopt a tone of derision or of contempt. Ridicule is soon checked by some terrible earnestness, and by a display of power that forces respect. One cannot laugh comfortably at the gambols of a giant. What if he should come too near where we ourselves are standing ? If Achilles should issue from his tent and race madly about the field, going through his mar- tial exercises in some wild, maniacal fashion, yet now and then throwing his heavy spear with truest aim and marvellous power, we should look on with more of gravity than mirth. And some such impression is produced by this Titan amongst writers. There is no proposition so rash or monstrous that he fears to as- sert it ; there is no word so harsh, rude, or grotesque that he will not use it. Sometimes this terrible rhetorician heaps word on word, adds name to name, till he leaves us stunned and sense- less at the end of his lengthy paragraph. Sometimes he plays with the facts of history with all the petty dexterity of a con- jurer, bringing them together from remote epochs for the sake of a little flash, a conceit, a contrast, as if the cloud-compelling Jove were to bring up his clouds from the north to the south merely to produce a faint electric spark. This man, as coarse as Swift, is as tricksy as Dumas. It would weary the most in- defatigable critic to follow him through all his rhetorical of- fences. But then he is a Titan. You see that oak, he split it at one blow. After all the clang and discord and endless fugue of some distracted orchestra, there comes a burst of music which reminds you of a chorus of Handel's. With this mention of the great Frenchman we may 98 WILLIAM SMITH. join his encomium on France (" Michelet's History," September, 1842). Even if you care not to watch the successive phases which European society has exhibited if you have grown weary of political lessons, forever taught and never learned if you read history merely for its story and for its examples of the general passions of mankind, you will nowhere find a richer narrative than in the annals of France. Nowhere is the human heart laid so open ; nowhere does it beat greater strokes ; nowhere is it seen in more violent or variable action ; nowhere greater crimes greater virtues. France may not only be considered the fit- test type of Europe in her several mutations, but the truest type of our variable humanity itself. This vivacious sympathetic race, so passionate, so intelligent, so prompt to seize whatever is new, so capable of carrying out to its utmost limits whatever it embraces, be it good or evil, pleasure or devotion, power or free- dom, are they not preeminently man ? preeminently the selfish, social, headstrong, inconstant, reasoning, unreasonable man? For this it is, that albeit we are English, irreclaimably English, and could breathe no air but what plays under our own cloud- built sky, and comes to us mingled with our own ocean-music for this it is we love the Frenchman even as we love humanity. Paris has long been, what it still is, the busiest of all human hives where there is more buzzing, more stinging, and more honey made than in any other like receptacle on the face of the earth. Nothing so light as this people ; its quick intelligence does but mingle and harmonize with its keen sense of pleasure ; it is laughing at that very foppery it loves so well, and which it at once practises and ridicules with such inimitable ease. Noth- ing so serious and resolved as this same pleasure-loving people ; the chord is struck ! and all Paris rises up a crowd of heroes if enthusiasm, and courage, and the self-oblivion of passion be sufficient of themselves to constitute heroism. The article on "Mr. Ruskin's Works" (September, 1851) awards a mixture of praise and blame, with a care- ful discrimination which could not be preserved in a brief extract ; but we quote a single passage, as a fine instance THE REVIEWER. 99 of analysis of a complex emotion. He is discussing the sense of beauty. Each sense the touch, the ear, the smell, the taste blend their several remembered pleasures with the object of vision. Even taste, we say, although Mr. Ruskin will scorn the gross al- liance. And we would allude to the fact to show the extreme subtilty of these mental processes. The fruit which you think of eating has lost its beauty from that moment it assumes to you a quite different relation ; but the reminiscence that there is sweetness in the peach or the grape, whilst it remains quite subordinate to the pleasure derived from the sense of sight, mingles with and increases that pleasure. While the cluster of ripe grapes is looked at only for its beauty, the idea that they are pleasant to the taste as well steals in unobserved, and adds to the complex sentiment. If this idea grow distinct and prom- inent, the beauty of the grape is gone you eat it. A severe tone is taken toward Carlyle, in reviewing his " Cromwell " (April, 1847). Carlyle is there castigated as vigorously as ever Macaulay handled one of his victims, and the severest part of the punishment is the quotation of extravagances which justify the denunciation. What rouses this habitually mild judge to indignation is Car- lyle's glorifying of the worst features of a past age, while he is blind to all the good in the present. We were prepared to see Mr. Carlyle, in his own sardonic fashion, abet and encourage the violence and ferocity of the Pu- ritans ; his sympathy is always with the party who strikes ; but that he should identify himself with their mumming thoughts, their " plentiful reasons," their gloomiest superstitions, was what no one would have anticipated. . . . The same clear-sighted au- thor, who sees the Christian doctrine so beautifully and preemi- nently developed in the Ironsides of Cromwell, in the troopers of Lambert and Harrison, sacking, pillaging, slaughtering, and in all that tribe of men who ever shed blood the readier after prayer -time men who had dropped from their memory Christ's own preaching, to fill their mouths with the cursing which the Hebrew prophets had been permitted, under apastdis- 100 WILLIAM SMITH. pensation, to denounce against the enemies of Judea, who had constructed their theology out of the darkest parts of the New and the most fearful portions of the Old Testament; this same author, opening his eyes and ears upon his own day and generation, finds that Christianity has died out of all hearts, and its phraseology, as he expresses himself elsewhere, " become mournful to him when spouted as frothy cant from Exeter Hall." . . . He sees nothing good, or generous, or high- minded, in any portion of the world in which he lives ; he re- serves his sympathies for the past, for the men of buckram and broadsword, who, on a question of church government, were always ready " to hew Agag to pieces," let Agag stand for who or what number it might. If we possessed a review of " Sartor Resartus " by this same hand, we should find a very different keynote. That book was long a constant companion with him. In allusion partly to it, he says in writing on " Past and Present," " We regard the chief value of Mr. Carlyle's writings to consist in the tone of mind which the individ- ual reader acquires from their perusal : manly, energetic, enduring, with high resolves and self -forgetting effort." This same article on Cromwell, passing from the his- torian to his subject, gives a masterly sketch of the Puri- tan leader, from which we select one or two traits : It is the glaring defect in Cromwell a defect which he had in common with many others of his time that he threw him- self into a revolution having for its first object to remodel the civil government, animated only with the passions of the collat- eral controversy upon ecclesiastical government. He fought the battle which was to destroy the monarchy without any fixed idea or desire for the republican government which must be its substitute. This was not the subject that had engaged his thoughts or inflamed his ardour. When, therefore, the royalists had been conquered, it is not at all surprising that he should have seen nothing but the difficulties in the way of forming a republic. At this point of his history some excuse for him may be drawn from the very defect we are noticing. His mind had THE REVIEWER. 101 dwelt on no theory of civil government to the cause of the commonwealth his heart had never been pledged and we can hardly call him, with justice, as Godwin does, a traitor to the republic. But, on the other hand, what a gap, what a void, does this disclose in the mind of our hero ! What should we say of one who had plunged heart and soul into the French Revolu- tion, conducted only by his rage against the Roman Catholic hierarchy ? Such a one, had he risen to take a leading part in that drama, might have acted with greater wisdom and modera- tion than ardent and patriotic men ; the very absence of any po- litical opinion or passion might have enabled him to see more clearly than others the position which they all occupied ; but this would not justify or palliate the original error, the rash, ex- clusive, self-blinding zeal which had brought him into that posi- tion. . . . It is at this latter period of his career that the character of Cromwell, to our apprehension, stands out to greatest advan- tage, becomes more grave, and solemn, and estimable. Other dictators, other men of ambitious aims and fortunes, show them- selves, for the most part, less amiable, more tyrannous than ever, more violent and selfish, when they have obtained the last reward of all their striving, and possessed themselves of the seat of power. It was otherwise with Cromwell. He became more moderate, his views more expanded, his temper milder and more pensive. The stormy passions of the civil war were over- blown, the intricate and ambiguous passages of his political course had been left behind ; and now, whatever may have been the errors of the past, and however his own ambition or rashness may have led him to it, he occupied a position which he might say with truth he held for his country's good. Forsake it he could not. Repose in it he could not. A man of religious breeding, of strong conscientiousness, though tainted with superstition, he could not but feel the great responsibility of that position. A vulgar usurper is found at this era of his career to sink into the voluptuary, or else to vent his dissatisfied humour in acts of cruelty and oppression. Cromwell must govern, and govern to his best. The restless and ardent spirit that had ever prompted him onwards and upwards, and which had carried him to that high place, was now upon the wane. It had borne him to that 102 WILLIAM SMITH. giddy pinnacle and threatened to leave him there. Men were now aiming at his life ; the assassin was abroad ; one half the world was execrating him ; we doubt not that he spoke with sincerity when he said that u he would gladly live under any woodside, and keep a flock of sheep." He would gladly lay down his burden, but he cannot ; can lay it down only in the grave. The sere and yellow leaf is falling on the shelterless head of the royal Puritan. The asperity of his earlier character is gone, the acrimony of many of his prejudices has, in his long and wide intercourse with mankind, abated; his great duties have taught him moderation of many kinds ; there remains of the fiery sectarian, who so hastily " turned the buckle of his girdle behind him," little more than his firmness and conscien- tiousness ; his firmness, that, as he truly said, " could be bold with men ; " his conscientiousness, which made the power he at- tained by that boldness a burden and a heavy responsibility. The whole of this article suggests, what much else con- firms, that our author was admirably qualified for an his- torian. But we must confine ourselves to a few further citations from his literary criticisms. Among the best of these is the one on Wordsworth (March, 1841), and of this a single delicate stroke may be given. The passion is, for the most part, checked and controlled by thought, or it is itself wrought out from meditation. He feels, he compassionates, he musingly deplores ; but he cannot allow his own peace of mind to be overthrown. Let no one suppose that it is any sign of real lowliness or humility of mind, that he so often selects a lowly subject for his sympathy. This is rather the sign of a lofty bearing, of an intellectual reserve. He chooses a subject he can look down upon, that so calm thoughts may mingle with his feelings. He cannot let his sympathy go forth upon a level line to an intellectual equal ; this would too much implicate him in the passions of another ; it would carry him from himself. He cannot be so compromised. He cannot quit his free, solitary, reflective station. He watches pensively over the scene of human woe ; I cannot think that he ever drops a tear. He gives the meed of approbation to the warrior THE REVIEWER. 103 and the valiant hero ; but he partakes not his ardour even for a moment. He casts but a hasty glance at the lover's happiness ; it is too turbulent, he fears it, he turns aside. The most daring and original of American thinkers re- ceived hardly anywhere a warmer welcome than from the magazine supposed to embody the stiffest Scotch Toryism. The greeting of " Blackwood " to Emerson (December, 1847) was from the pen of William Smith. It need not be said that the praise is discriminating, and that there is demur at the element of mysticism, but the prevailing tone is of cordial applause. The aversion to the idealist philosophy is overborne by admiration of the man. Yet, up to this moment, America has not given to the world anything which, in point of original genius, is comparable to his writings. That she has a thousand minds better built up, whose more equal culture and whose more sober opinions one might prefer to have, this is not the question ; but in that highest department of reflective genius, where the power is given to im- part new insights into truth, or make old truths look new, he stands hitherto unrivalled in his country ; he has no equal and no second. Very popular he perhaps never may become ; but we figure to ourselves that, a century hence, he will be recognized as one of those old favorite writers whom the more thoughtful spirits read, not so much as teachers, but as noble-minded companions and friends, whose aberrations have been long ago conceded and forgiven. Men will read him then, not for his philosophy, they will not care two straws for his idealism or his panthe- ism : they will know that they are there, and there they will leave them, but they will read him for those genuine confes- sions of one spirit to another that are often breathed in his writings ; for those lofty sentiments to which all hearts re- spond ; for those truths which make their way through all systems, and in all ages. The literary topic to which our author reverts most often and most lovingly is the writings of Shakespeare. 104 WILLIAM SMITH. From articles devoted to special phases of Shakespeare, and from allusions in other connections, there might be gathered a choice volume of Shakespearean criticism. It is a criticism equally sympathetic and fearless. In his notice of Victor Hugo's Shakespeare (August, 1864) he supports a view quite at variance with the still prevalent tendency to attribute to Shakespeare an infallibility like that ascribed to the Bible. Some of our most distinguished critics proceed on the suppo- sition that Shakespeare, before writing his dialogue, formed for himself a complete conception of the character he was about to portray. It is this conception the critic has to seize upon and secure. Now we venture to assert that it is very seldom that any dramatist has proceeded in this manner. We feel per- suaded that Shakespeare did not. He took some well known story, and the inevitable passions of the agents in it, and by developing these a character was necessarily developed also. But the character was the result of the story and the passion ; it was no separate preconception. The story was not invented to display the character, but the story was there, and the char- acter grew out of it, and was made to accommodate itself to all its turns and windings. Shakespeare never seems to have given himself the trouble to think whether the men and women he brought upon the stage, and to whom he gave his marvellous dialogue,' or whether any human beings whatever, could have acted in the manner which his story says they did. ... It sometimes happens that Shakespeare, by throwing the wealth of his own highly reflective mind on the characters he portrays, produces an incongruity between them and the actions which, according to the story, he has to ascribe to them. . . . [After instancing Lear and Othello.] Was Macbeth a cruel man ? Was he a tyrant by temperament? Was he superstitious? Had he that overweening pride which, in common parlance, is dignified with the name of ambition ? How far was he led to the murder of Duncan by the prophecy of the witches ? how far by the incentives of his diabolical wife ? Questions like these our analytic school of critics agitate, and on the solution of THE REVIEWER. 105 such questions they bring to bear those noble and pathetic speeches which, especially towards the close of the drama, Shakespeare puts into the mouth of Macbeth. But the almost tender eloquence which the poet takes this opportunity to utter, and the murder which only a savage could commit, are simply incompatible. Shift your point of view how you will, you can never get these in the same line of vision, so as to harmonize them together. The Macbeth of the story and the Macbeth who utters Shakespeare's tJwughts are not to be reconciled. But the pleasure of the reader is, after all, very little disturbed by this incongruity, because in fact, it is the Macbeth who spealcs and thinks who absorbs our attention, and this to such a degree that it is the murderer, and not the sons of the murdered Duncan, to whom we give our sympathies : no one has a horror of Macbeth. We admit the justice of his fate, but regret it at the same time. There follows a striking exposition of Hamlet, in this view, that from the elements of a traditional story, blended with the free play of his own imagination, Shakespeare has drawn a character in which it is vain to seek a wholly consistent individuality. Among these articles are scattered glimpses of self- revelation; as in this passage: "He well knew how essential was solitude to the highest gratification which either nature or art afford. It is but a secondary or de- clining excitement that we feel when we are restless to communicate it to another. The heart is but half full of its object, that, to complete its pleasure, craves sym- pathy." We come upon such delicate touches as this : " Her face was a melody which you cannot quarrel with for being sad which you could not desire to be other- wise than sad whose very charm is that it has made the tone of sorrow ineffably sweet." In dipping as it were a cupful out of the brimming cistern which these collected reviews offer, there rises a sense of a real grievance suffered by the world at the hands of this gentlest of men. It is hard to forgive him 106 WILLIAM SMITH. for balking Mr. Blackwood's plan of publishing a volume of selections. Scattered through the endless numbers of the magazine, his articles are to the readers of the present day like carbon dispersed through a coal-bed ; condensed and crystallized, they would have yielded a diamond. This is the list of his contributions : 1839. August, A Prosing upon Poetry. October, On the Feigned Madness of Hamlet. 1840. January, Hints on History. Part 1. February, " " " Part 2. June, Wild Oats A New Species. September, The Boundary Question. December, On Population (a Review of Alison). 1841. March, Wordsworth. 1842. May, Gabrielle de BeUe Isle. June, Angelo. September, Dennis on Shakespeare. History of France (Review of Michelet). Part 1. October, " " " " Part 2. 1843. March, Comte. May, Dumas on Italy. " Leap Year : A Tale. July, Past and Present, by Carlyle. October, Mill's Logic. 1844. June, The Diligence : A Leaf from a Journal. August, Some Remarks on Schiller's Maid of Orleans. " M. Girardin. September, M. Louis Blanc. November, French Socialists. 1845. February, The Superfluities of Life. April, Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation. June, The Novel and the Drama. July, Torquato Tasso (Goethe's). August, On Punishments. September, Warren's Law Studies. October, Manner and Matter : A Tale. November, Hakem the Slave : A Tale. December, The Mountain and the Cloud. 1846. December, Mildred : A Tale. Part 1. 1847. January, " " Part 2. February, " ' " Part 3. THE REVIEWER. 107 1847. April, Cromwell. May, The Visible and Tangible : A Metaphysical Frag- ment. July, Sir H. Nicolas's History of the Navy. August, Grote's History of Greece. September, Le Premier Pas. " Byways of History. " Giacomo de Valencia ; or, the Student of Bologna. October, Works of Hans Christian Andersen. November, The American Library. December, Emerson. 1848. June, Guesses at Truth. October, J. S. Mill's Political Economy. December, Mrs. Hemans. 1849. March, M. Prudhon, Contradictions Economiques. April, Tennyson's Poems. May, Colonisation ; Mr. Wakefleld's Theory. August, Charles Lamb. October, Physical Geography (Mrs. Somerville). 1850. January, Howard. February, Goldsmith. Part 1. March, " Part 2. " A Late Case of Court-Martial. April, Festus. September, The Night Side of Nature. 1851. March, Southey. Part 1. April, " Part 2. May, Some American Poets. August, Voltaire in the Crystal Palace. September, Mr. Ruskin's Works. October, The Essays of Mr. Helps. November, The Dramas of Henry Taylor. 1852. March, Miss Mitford's Recollections. May, Life of Niebuhr. September, Jeffrey. Part 1. October, " Part 2. " Corneille and Shakespeare. " Review of Sortain's Count Arenberg. " Dr. Chalmers as Political Economist. 1854. January, Lander's Last Fruit off an Old Tree. February, Gray's Letters. March, The Epidemics of the Middle Ages. March, Jerome Cardan. 108 WILLIAM SMITH. 1855. March, Life of Lord Metcalfe. April, Sir Benjamin Brodie's Psychological Inquiries. August, Warren's Blackstone. 1856. March, LiddelPs History of Rome. April, Prescott's Philip the Second. 1858. January, Debit and Credit. March, Sullivan on Cumberland. August, Gladstone's Homer. " White's Eighteen Christian Centuries. November, Buckle's History of Civilisation. 1859. July, Dr. Mansel's Bampton Lectures. August, Leaders of the Reformation. October, Sir William Hamilton. November, Vaughan's Revolutions in English History. Vol. i. December, Motley's Dutch Republic. 1860. August, Dr. Hanna's Wy cliff e and the Huguenots. October, Charles Hemans on Papal Government. 1861. February, Carthage and its Remains. May, Motley's History of the Netherlands. June, Miss Bremer in Switzerland and Italy. August, Vaughan's Revolutions in English History. Vol. ii. November, M. Ernest Renan. 1862. May, Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. 1863. January, T. Trollope's Italian Novels. April, Spedding's Life of Bacon. May, Wilson's Prehistoric Man. September, Jean Paul Richter. October, Sheridan Knowles. December, Tyndall on Heat. 1864. February, Kirk's Charles the Bold. April, Mr. Knight's Reminiscences. August, Mr. Lewes's Aristotle. " Victor Hugo's Shakespeare. October, Max Miiller's Lectures on the Science of Lan- guage. 2d Series. 1865. March, William Blake. 1866. May, J. S. Mill on Sir William Hamilton. " Scraps of Verse from a Tourist's Journal. June, Life of Steele. 1867. February, Dallas's Gay Science. March, Ferrier. April, Hemans's Ancient Christianity. June, The Duke of Argyll's Reign of Law. THE REVIEWER. 109 1867. September, La Physique Moderne (Saigey). 1868. July, Motley's History of the Netherlands. November, Lewes's History of Philosophy. December, Dean Milmau. 1870. July, Lecky's History of Morals. November, Professor Porter on the Human Intellect 1871. July, The Coming Race. CHAPTER XI. Six years had passed since the unsuccessful publica- tion of " Guidone " and " Solitude," when their author, in 1842, gave to the world another drama, " Athelwold." There were some who in private praised it highly. Mill wrote to the author quoting the good opinion of his friend Mrs. Taylor, and Serjeant Talfourd expressed in a Jetter his warm admiration. The next spring, Macready brought it out on the stage, himself taking the part of Athel- wold, while Miss Helen Faueit impersonated the heroine. On its first night, the play met with decided success, and the author was enthusiastically called for. We are not told that he responded it is hardly possible to imagine him coming before the foot-lights, and bowing in response to the plaudits of the house. But for an hour he must have tasted in its full flavor the highest reward that ex- ternal success can bestow on the author. The other forms of literary fame seem poor and cold beside the satisfaction of the dramatist in seeing his creations worthily bodied forth and striking home to a thousand hearts whose an- swering emotion speaks in face and voice. All we are told of the author's feelings is that he seemed most im- pressed by Maeready's exquisite rendering of the charac- ter of Athelwold. The Memoir adds that Macready pro- nounced ono particular moment in Miss Faucit's acting of Elfrida, " the best thing she ever did." So for one instant the drama stood on the shining height of popularity. Then it sank into oblivion. Its produc- tion on the stage occurred just at the end of the theatrical "ATHELWOLD." Ill season, and the next year it was not reproduced. The literary critics seem to have paid it no attention. Eight years afterward, a reviewer in " Black wood " disentombed from a dusty pile of books the little volume containing " Athelwold " and its companions, and gave to it enthusias- tic praise. But it won no general recognition, and prob- ably very few readers are acquainted with it. There is no trace of any effect of this failure upon the author's mind. The youth who in bitterness of spirit made a literal grave for his first unsuccessful book had become the mature and disciplined man, not to be elated by success nor cast down by failure. And in truth the mind that could create " Athelwold " might well be so strong in its own resources as not to depend on popularity. The play is based upon the story of King Edgar, Athelwold, and Elfrida, as Hume relates it. The action is vigorous, and the development of the story hurries the reader with breathless interest to the tragic close. The wealth of philosophic thought and of poetic imagery does not clog the movement of the plot. The graver scenes are diversified with lighter action, full of spirit and grace. The interest centres in the characters of Athelwold, Dun- stan, and Elfrida. At the opening, Edgar is amusing him- self with the nun Edith, whom he has carried off from her convent. Dunstan comes upon him with stern rebuke, but imposes only a trivial penance. He treats Edith's pitiful plea for compassion with the harshest scorn. Then Edgar confides to him that he is about to dispatch his trusted soldier and servant Athelwold on a secret errand, to see whether a certain noble lady, Elfrida, kept by her father in seclusion, is worthy of her reputation for won- derful beauty ; with the purpose, if Athelwold brings a favorable report, to make her his queen. Then follows a dialogue between Dunstan and Athelwold, the church- man's purpose being revealed in his previous soliloquy. 112 WILLIAM SMITH. The only man who scans and penetrates My measures and my motives, he is now The favoured noble of our fickle king ; Loved by the people ; even by the court, The envious court, esteemed and idolized. Now Athelwold, I win thee for my friend, Or, as my dangerous rival, tread thee down ! The cause exacts it, and I may not shrink, That cause which makes of all this mortal world But one vast engine for its purposes, And still works on, and pauses not, nor spares, Though every strained and shrieking cable there Is spun of human fibre. Here he comes. Athelwold arraigns him for artfulness and cruelty ; for his leniency with the weak and vicious Edgar, and his previous severity to the innocent Edwin for a virtuous marriage. Dunstan defends himself as having acted solely in the interest of the Church, in humoring the weak monarch and crushing the rebellious one. Athelwold. Thus has it ever been ! The cruel zealot First frames a duty Heaven never meant, And in fulfilment of it acts such crimes As wondering Hell made no provision for. Dominion ! still dominion ! Cannot thy church instruct, control, and guide, Sharing a sway with all good influences, But it alone must rule the human mind, And paralyze to rule making a crime Of the bare judgment, till our faith is fear, And in the very best the callous thought Foregoes, forgets, the finer sense of truth ? The generous hope which bears us to the skies Oh, make not this our bondage ! Dunstan. Mark you not, My Athelwold, how in the faith of all Each child of frailty, each poor worldling, finds The path he treads to Heaven ? On the broad base, By ages strengthened, of a nation's creed, As on some mole immense and palpable, Wrought o'er the abyss, fast to the doors of Heaven, Each solitary foot treads firm ; the flock "ATHELWOLD." 113 Of men pass on they pause they fail they fall But on the road itself, and where it leads, Or who contrived, they waste no bootless care, No sad, unequal scrutiny. Therefore We punish error as we punish crime, Lest by the perverse freedom of a few Truth lose her hold on the gross, giddy world. And hear me out with patience, my good lord And fortunate, I deem, are men thus ruled, Who reason not, but in belief obey, Or with the reason happily confound A foregone sense of duty ; fortunate, In my esteem, that subject-multitude The monarch- priest, by his bold government, Protects from worst of anarchies, from doubt, And its undying fear : their creed lives in them Like blood within their veins, and glows or thrills, As questionless. Know this that he who towers Above his kind, nor can be taught of them, Who trusts his faith to solitary thought, Who strains his ear for accents from the skies, Or tasks the wavering oracle within, Shall feed on heavenly whispers, few and faint, And dying oft to stillness terrible ! Dunstan then goes on to appeal to Athelwold to ally himself with the power of the Church ; but is unsuccessful. Athelwold, left to himself, contrasts his own purpose and attitude with Dunstan's. This Dunstan deals In a dissembling policy, in arts Tortuous and little for a noble mind ; And yet in him there is no littleness, For all is done as task-work, wise or not, For greatest purposes. This 't is to be One of your world-controllers. I 'd not stoop From my own pride of virtue and of truth To rule the planet. He visits Olgar, Elfrida's father, concealing his errand. In an interview between Elfrida and her confidante Gil- bertha, she is shown divided between attraction toward the stranger knight, and a longing for wider conquests. 114 WILLIAM SMITH. Gilbertha. Oh, 't is more Than woman wants to win one noble heart, And all beyond is danger. I should tremble To have the power that lies in thy sweet face To dizzy human brains my own might turn. Elfrida. Now would that I were but in Edgar's court To play this fearful part among his thanes ! How glorious in some royal festival To feel I was the queen of it ! Gil. Fie ! fie ! When all this while thou hast this wandering knight, Like a stray deer, within the mortal toils ! Say, could the ransacked court supply a match Nobler than Athelwold ? Elf. Oh, he 's an emperor, A very demi-god ! Let me say it 'T is only to thy ear say it aloud Though burning blushes rush, against my will, To my hot cheek that I do love this thane ! Mark, my Gilbertha, what a brow he has ! How proud ! how thoughtful ! Peace and war at once With all their several virtues, rally there. Sometimes his full black eye, taking no note Of present object, with its thought dilates, And seems to drink in knowledge from the air ; Anon it flashes like an energy, That seems to scorn dependence for the deed Even on his noble arm. Oh, be sure His is a spirit that profoundly thinks, And can as boldly dare ! Gil. Why then athirst For wider conquests, lady ? Why just now So restless for the court ? Elf. I 'd have, my girl, Whole troops of lovers and of prostrate knights, That I might sacrifice them all to him. I hate to be thus caught, like a tame thing, Cooped in this place. He '11 think me nothing worth, Finding me here alone, unsought, unprized, So cheap a victory. But out alas ! We know not all this while if the thane cares To make the conquest we are grudging him. "ATHELWOLD." 115 Athelwold, meanwhile, finds himself perilously fasci- nated by Elfrida's beauty. If on the eye the light of beauty falls, The eye must see ; if on the ear there steals Soft speech of woman, the unsheltered nerve Cannot refuse the melody ; if thought Of that embrace which blissful lovers win Enters the heart, I cannot make it stone, And it must fill with the fast rising tide Of tremulous desire I cannot help Its pausing pulse or the faint breath it draws ; But whilst I feel, I yield not. Love with me Is but a pain, an exquisite endurance, Where reason listening to the throbbing heart, And hanging o'er its sorrow, gazes down Like sage physician on the sick man's couch. I taste love's sweetness but in love's despair. A bride a beautiful and loving wife Grant it a good the chief est good the sole Notorious happiness for which we live Why, in the name of reason, why alone This woman's beauty ? Why her love alone ? Could sweet affection from no eyes but hers Look out upon me ? could no hand but hers Give that soft pressure felt upon the heart ? Are there no smiles, no beauty, none but hers In this wide world ? Is all that 's dear in woman Summed in Elfrida, that I must pursue Her only at the hazard of my life, And certain loss of honour ? Gracious Heaven ! This madness even as I drag it forth For utter scorn and mockery lo, my heart Claims as her own ! I 'm blotted from the list Of reasonable beings ! lost ! lost ! lost ! But one resolve but one the spell were broke ! My horse ! my horse ! with spurs into his flanks I '11 ride to Edgar tell the blazing truth As far as tongue can speak it, and then fly Forever these deserted shores. Soft, she comes. He discerns in Elfrida's bearing that he might win her lit) WILLIAM SMITH. love, but masters himself, and is hastily departing when he meets Olgar, who frankly offers him his daughter's hand and fortune. For answer he tells him that she is destined for the king. Olgar. What say you ? What ! My daughter wed this royal libertine ? I 'd rather give her to the basest hind That tills my land. Hold, Athelwold ! If I have been a courteous host to thee If thou hast feeling for a father's love Name not to Edgar that I have a daughter Who is, I know it, passing beautiful. Do you esteem Elfrida, there she is, With half a province for her dowry take her, You cannot take more gladly than I give But if you heed her not, oh, pray forget You ever saw my child ! Play not the spy To point that treasure to lascivious theft Which to your honorable custody Has been with friendly confidence proposed. Athelwold. She is mine, Olgar ! mine ! Were all the kings On earth my rivals, she is mine ! He returns to the court, and tells the king that El- frida's beauty has been overpraised, but that for himself she is by birth and fortune a suitable match ; and the king unsuspectingly relinquishes her to him. Dunstan learns the truth, and arranges for its disclosure to the king. He then retires to a hermit's retreat, where he is beset by terrible doubts as to the very foundations of his faith. Dunstan (alone.} I stand on the bare earth, beneath this vault, Alone with God and nature. Nature, yes, But where the God ? Oh, terrible Is this unseen Omnipotence ! Come back ! Ye shapes that sat with me erewhile, coine back ! Come back, ye devils ! for your hostile rage Were comfort in this blank immensity That spreads around me, wider, wider spreads, One silent, void, and infinite abyss, "ATHELWOLD." 117 O'ershadowed only with a fear, That darkens darkness, of an unknown Power, But where no power is seen. [Kneels and then rises again. In vain I kneel, I cannot shape a presence for my prayers, All human thought dies out in the attempt, And reason is a chaos. God, where art thou ? I call for thee, they give me but a world, Thy mechanism ; I call aloud for thee, My father, friend, sustainer, teacher, judge, They give me world on world, planet on planet, Take them away ! They hut encumber heaven I cannot see my God ! Why should I pray ? Now what is man, O heaven ! that thou shouldst have Regard for him, his virtue, or his guilt, His homage, or his prayers ? Man tortures man, Let man see to it, punish and prevent ; Why else didst thou bestow his little share Of reason and of social government ? Creature most weak, sad, and contemptible, The devils do but mock thee when they grin Their hideous threats. Think'st thou thy puny life Can anger its Creator ? Canst thou give, Give or withhold an honour to the God That made thee, puppet ? Or, poor jealous fools, Do ye contest it as a point concerns Your own high honour and prerogative, That He should plague ye everlastingly For mutual, mad, and transitory sins ? Not mine ! not mine ! these thoughts, this blasphemy ! It is the whispering demon at my ear Pours in these impious doubts. Oh, dark ! dark ! dark ! Are all things in this world. From his solitude, lie flies back to the court, where he comes upon Edgar and Edith. Enter DUNSTAN, his manner disturbed. Dunstan. Let me be with my fellow-kind. Your hand. Ha ! 'T is a king's give me a human hand. [Throws aside Edgar's and takes the hand of Edith Let me take refuge with nay kind ! Thoughts bred in Hell assailed me ; they were sent For my humiliation I am humbled. 118 WILLIAM SMITH. Edgar. Not to your king, it seems. But perhaps your slight Of him is part of your devotion, saint. Dun. Edith, you are in tears. This fickle king Has cast you off ? Edith. Ask me not let me go. Dun. Thy tears confess it. Leave now this cruel court ; I '11 plant thee where a kindly sisterhood With care and tenderness shall heal thy wounds, And bind thy broken heart. In some far abbey, Beneath another sky, and if it please, Another name, thou shalt be happy yet. Edith. The voice of Dunstan, but how much unlike The Dunstan that I lately spoke withal ! Oh, now thou mak'st me feel, and mourn indeed, My wretched weakness. Dunstan. Grieve not so much that sin Hath found a stealthy passage to thy heart, As now rejoice that penitence hath tracked Its subtle footsteps there. Sin and repentance These two give men religion and their God, Their faith, their hope. It is not innocence, It is not wisdom claims the skies for man, Or wings his soul to immortality, 'T is guilt that leads to the celestial gate, And weeping mercy stands to open it. Edgar. And whilst you rave, or sermonize a girl, Your monarch, in his palace, may stand by, May speak, address you, insolent proud priest, And wait in vain an answer ! Dun. lam bent On charitable deed am occupied With deep and serious thought. Go to thy pander Consult with him some newer lust entrap Some fresher victim for one sensual hour Kill all her days to come. Such are thy deeds, Such are thy noble thoughts. I cannot gloss, Or parley with them now. When next I need The king I '11 speak with thee. [Going with Edith. Edgar. And thou, lewd minx, Wilt thou conspire with him ? Wilt thou too brave me In my own palace walls ? Go with that priest, And dearly, bitterly, shalt thdu abide it. Edith. Let me not part in anger with thee, Edgar, "ATHELWOLD." 119 'Tis I I only that am wronged, I only suffer here yet let us part . In sorrow, not in anger. [Rushes towards him, but Dunstan restrains her. Dun. Thou 'rt his no more, He has repulsed thee thou art mine I will Protect thee, even from thyself, fond woman. Edgar, Release thy hold and let her come to me, Or Dun. I attend. What is this mighty threat Which cannot find fit utterance, as it seems, Even from a monarch's threat ? Oh, have I lived In severe abstinence from all delights That make life dear to man, and courted pain For the great liberty she brings, and now Is there a mortal power shall threaten me ? What is it, Edgar ? Oh, thou dost compete With unembodied spirit. On my life Where canst thou hang a threat, or plant a wound ? Edgar. I can complete the sentence if you force me. There was a Dunstan, abbot of Glastonbury, Was banished from his country. Dun. And he ruled it Even from his exile, and the man returned Archbishop, as I think, of Canterbury, And ere he set his foot upon the soil, He had the power to set another king Than him who banished him, upon the throne. So runs the narrative. O God of Heaven ! I thank thee for this strife \ Here here my faith In all its fulness is restored to me. I am that Dunstan thou hast given in charge To subdue monarchs and to rule a people I am that Dunstan whom in this vile body Thou hast allowed with angels to commune, And with the powers of Satan to contend I am that Dunstan still retained on earth To walk so long with men, that regal pride, Assailing thy dear church, may meet its check, And none be greater than the priest of God. Behold I pass before thee with my charge, My timid charge, nor shalt thou see her more. 120 WILLIAM SMITH. Athelwold has wedded Elfrida, and is living with her in seclusion. Elfrida. And you can find content, my Athelwold, Here, in this place, with only your Elfrida ? Ath. Less than content, and more than happiness. How pass these hours, no tongue I think could tell, - The down upon an angel's wing Not fleeter, softer, or more tremulous. Elf. Your love it wanes not, though the first sweet moon Of wedded life be waning fast ? Ath. Ah no ! I have f oreborne to weigh thy spirit, dear, Or rob this period of its perfect bliss, By any dark perspective, but be sure 'T is no frail love could live in such a sea As in my bosom is now running high ; Less passion were despair. Here, on thy neck, Would that I now could breathe my last, Elfrida ! I gave all else of being for this bliss It has been mine why should I live beyond ? Elf. You talk the sweetest wildness, Athelwold, And give the sweetest kisses therewithal, That ever lover dealt in. Ath. Love is wild, And from his cradle has the wildest thoughts. I could make strange confessions. Meantime his secret has been betrayed to Edgar by Dunstan's contrivance. The court jester sings in the presence of Edgar and Edith a song which conveys to the king that he has been cheated by his favorite noble. A messenger now announces to Athelwold the king's ap- proach. Athelwold tells Elfrida the truth as to his for- mer mission, and suggests as their only means of escape that she disguise her beauty by some artifice during the king's visit, and afterward they will take refuge on the Continent. But Elfrida is piqued : Elf. From all which story now first told me, thane, I gather this I was marked out to be "ATHELWOLD." 121 The queen of England, and the messenger Wooed for himself instead. Ath. And won thee, dear. Won thee forever is 't not so ? Elf. And further That this ambassador, to gain his ends, Slandered my beauty to his royal master. Ath. Which love will amply justify to thee, Though in my memory it should rankle still. Elf. I have been told that true and valiant hearts Would just as soon recant their Christian faith, As slander thus the lady of their love. Surely it was a cold, considerate love That could consent to such an artifice. Ath. Cold and considerate ! Oh, what words are these ? A change, Elfrida, has come over thee, An altered manner, and a tone which I Have fought against, refusing to receive Into my mind their due significance. Considerate love ! By Heaven ! I purchased thee With loss of all men value upon earth. Elf. Of that you best may judge. It seems that I Am here the person wronged, yet through thy tale, Which well expounds thy falsehood to the king, And thine own peril, I have heard no word Which speaks of my irreparable wrong. Ath. Thy wrong ! I made thee wife of Athelwold. Elf. I have been libelled, cheated of a crown, Kept here in secrecy, your guilty prize, Told to begrime my cheek to the foul hue You doubtless gave it in your narrative, And, last of all, am promised as reward Of spousal tame obedience fair exchange For royal honours pilfered from my brow A banishment to Rome. What 's Rome to me ? Be sure you give it out to all your friends That you have hid me in this privacy, And now exile me, out of very shame Of my deformities. Ath. Bear witness, Heaven ! I doubted not Elfrida would have deemed it A nobler destiny to wed with one Who honourably loved, than to be queen WILLIAM SMITH. Of a lascivious monarch, faithless, vain, And fickle as the wind, But low indeed Must Athelwold have fallen to play the part Of his own advocate. Elf. Oh, give me back My maiden state, and let me play the game Of life out fairly ! What hadst thou to come 'Twixt me and England's monarch ? It was mine To choose or to reject. But justice now, Redress and restoration of my rights, You cannot give 't is folly to demand. Even the poor show of sorrow which were here So safe you deign not to put on, nor speak As one who has his peace to make with me. Aih. Let the king come ! throw wide the doors for him ! I have no wife. She whom I took for mine, She is already Edgar's. Vanity Has seized at once each passage of thy heart. O God ! and did I give my very soul To this mere mask ! Elf. What insulting gaze Is this you fix upon my face, my lord ? Aih. Insulting ? Oh, no, no ! I do admire, Thou supernatural mischief ! do adore, Thou sweetest incarnation of the power That tempts but to destroy ! Oh, thou fiend, Incomparably armed to clutch men's souls, All Hell does worship thee ! Nay, let me look, Give me leave still. The king arrives, is captivated by Elf rida's beauty, and, when alone with Athelwold, turns fiercely upon him for his treachery. Athelwold makes no defence or resist- ance. The king, relenting a little toward his old favorite, offers to spare his forfeited life if he will consent to a divorce from Elfrida, for which some pretext can be in- vented. Athelwold refuses the king may take his life, but he will not assist in his scheme for wedding Elfrida by accepting a divorce though his own love for her is dead. "ATHELWOLD." 123 Edgar. Then aid In this divorce. A th. Not with your canonist. Edgar. Madman ! But thus it is. Men of your stamp Long while so wise, discreet and disciplined, Take they some single passion to their breast, They are self-willed as Satan, nothing daunts; Honour and priestcraft, they outface them all It is their will in open day they fling Their conscience down before the gaping crowd, And it may roar aloud, they can defy The universal storm. That fever past, Lo, they are cold again as rocks, unmoved As adamant, and come this very world With sober counsel and with friendly aid, They have their virtue then their scruples then Nor of a hair's-breadth can be turned aside Out of their mulish path of rectitude. Yet what hast thou to do with honour more, Who didst betray thy sovereign, false thane ? Ath. Who spoke of virtue who of rectitude Who here of honour breathed one single word ? Not I not I ! the simple " I will not," Was all my answer. What ! shall none but kings Be peremptory ? Thou mere selfish man, Stranger to generous thought, fall I within The scope of thy rebuke ? Could one step sink me To the poor level of your majesty ? Are years of discipline, and all the pride Of virtue in one error lost ? Not so. I look that wretched error in the face Know it for what it is but I '11 not grow Like to my fault by gazing on it. Honour May show on me like tarnished panoply, Bruised, battered, and decayed I know it yet An armour of good proof. Elfrida has at first toyed with the fancy of a royal con- quest. When she has charmed the king by her beauty, she learns from Gilbertha that Athelwold has been thrown into prison. Still for a moment she dallies with the thought of queenship. Then Gilbertha's horror recalls 124 WILLIAM SMITH. her to her better self. Meeting Edgar again, who now makes bold suit to her, she realizes his worthlessness. But her remorse comes too late. Either Athelwold must die, or the king will either seize her as his mistress, or drive them forth as beggars and outcasts. Athelwold in his prison is visited by Dunstan, who now tries once more to win him to the church. Dunstan. Joy is a weak and giddy thing, that laughs Itself to weariness or sleep, and wakes To the same barren laughter ; 't is a child Perpetually, and all its past and future Lie in the compass of an infant's thought. Crushed from our sorrow all that 's great in man Has ever sprung. In the young pagan world Men deified the beautiful, the glad, The strong, the boastful, and it came to nought; We have raised Pain and Sorrow into Heaven, And in our temples, on our altars, Grief Stands symbol of our faith, and it shall last As long as man is mortal and unhappy. The gay at heart may wander to the skies, And harps be found them, and the branch of palm Be put into their hands; our earthly church Knows not of such ; no votarist of our faith Till he has dropped his tears into the stream Tastes of its sweetness. Ath. Wherefore this to me ? Dun. Because to spirits wounded but not weak The church is more than refuge, it transmutes Calamity to greatness. Athelwold, The same bold promises that church held forth To the rich noble, to the favoured thane, The envied of a court, she proffers still To him who by his angry sovereign now Is pillaged, captived, and condemned to death. Ath. If to my death, why talk of promises ? Dun. The vow divorces. Not his rage alone The amorous Edgar seeks to gratify : Behold the path of safety as of honour. Ath. (Rising.) I hear and hear not. What I am become You partly know, but how it is within, "ATHELWOLD." 125 How blank and desolate, ye cannot tell. My life is gone from ine claims not a care Lies on the future an unvalued thing, Untended and unowned. Dun. Think of the passing hour, think of the peril That in each moment rides. Let me conduct thee Now to some sanctuary Ath. That I may kneel Perpetual liar in your temples ? No, There is an honour to the absent God, To the veiled skies a chastity of speech. Dunstan, I can in you discern a spirit Of no mean order, but I know my own Not subject to it ; all in vain you seek To mould its destinies. The god who hung On the scathed rock the vulture at his heart Dowered with high wisdom and eternal pain, I share his spirit, though I lie too low To share the vision. Elfrida comes in, having received from the king the password which gives authority over the guards. By every plea she appeals to her husband's heart. Elf. Condemn me not unheard. My lord, my lord, I do entreat thee, hear me ! I was weak I was a very child my trial came, Surprised, and overthrew me. Would to Heaven That trial might but come again ! I Ve learned More of my heart in these few dreadful hours Than all my life had taught I do know now How I would meet it. Oh, be merciful ! Had you, my lord, shown but a little pity On my first wavering thought, had you but deigned When my rash anger was subsiding fast To reason with me, and my weak chagrin To soothe with kinder speech, deigned but a little, A little solace to my pettish pride, Oh, you have flattered when there was less need I had been tractable you would have saved me. I was a child, and you you met my anger As equal meets an equal was it well ? 126 WILLIAM SMITH. The woman that is beautiful ye love. But wrong as much by that high estimate Which makes and leaves her weakest of her sex. Say, Athelwold, will you condemn forever For one brief hour of weakness ? But Athelwold is inexorable. We feel that if her sin alone were in question, he might relent ; but to have for- feited his own honor for a prize which has proved so poor a thing seals up in him all fountains of tenderness. He scornfully bids her back to Edgar. She eagerly offers to share with him poverty and exile, it is all in vain. Driven desperate she proposes to slay Edgar and share his throne with Athelwold. Either that, or for he is still immovable his own death ! He throws her off ; she calls the guard, and with a gesture gives the signal for his instant death. Dunstan, returning with the king to save Athelwold, comes too late. The miserable woman cares nothing for his rebukes, her heart is with the man she has murdered ; she will seize all earth now has for her, the throne ; but she speaks her own sentence. Oh, ye wise priests that have one constant song For all men and all seasons, ye but know Scantly the human heart. Ye weigh a sin Ta'en in its final full accomplishment, And weigh its penance out but of the sinner And how he came to stumble on the crime, How little do ye reck ! But yesterday I was a woman beautiful and vain, The malice of the world could say no worse; One little day, one angry fluttering thought, And it has come to this ! Go, scan this change, Go, weigh this heart, and to a fraction tell Its sum of guilt say what the sort of wretch I am amongst the damned. Turn o'er your books Ruffle their leaves peruse and ponder well Oh, ye '11 not find it there. As the nobles approach to do homage to the new queen, she falls with a shriek on Athelwold's body and the cur- tain drops. CHAPTER XII. THE TRAVELLER. (From the Memoir.) IN the summer of 1842 a great grief befell him. His dear mother died at the age of seventy-five, having sur- vived her husband nineteen years. I have spoken of the peculiar tenderness between the mother and son. Some friends who remember her well have described her to me in her later years, placid and smiling in her arm-chair, knitting away, with William seated on a footstool beside her, kissing her hand, interrupting her work by his play- ful and tender raillery, she pretending to chide, she, so proud, so fond ! Into his intellectual nature, his thought- life, the dear mother did not and could not enter, but she had a boundless love for him ; his comforts, his tastes, were paramount with her he was her first object al- ways ; and his sister, Mrs. Walker, the " dear Esther " of the early Glasgow letter, writes to me: "I shall never forget the desolation of heart William expressed when the grave closed over our mother." Later, his wife and he held it as a treasure in common that both were the young- est and peculiarly loved children of their mothers, and never felt their hearts more closely knit together than when speaking of them. I believe that he spent the winter of that first orphan year with a married sister. Afterwards the dreary London lodging life to which Mr. Lewes refers must have set in. The autumn of 1843 was spent by my husband in Paris, where the lectures at the Sorbonne were his especial interest. I have before me a note to his sister, Mrs. 128 WILLIAM SMITH. Weigall, characteristically describing his position in a French boarding-house: "Stuttering out my broken sen- tences of French, thinking it a great good fortune if the simplest thing I utter is understood, and a great honour if the dullest person in the company will condescend to talk with me." I know that for a time William Smith went the West- ern Circuit, but to him it proved u so expensive and prof- itless he had to relinquish it." Probably he had already done so at this time, for in the summer of 1845 he made a tour in Switzerland. How intensely he enjoyed it appears in a paper, " The Mountain and the Cloud," written on his return, and published in " Blackwood's Magazine." The winter following was spent in Brussels at the house of his eldest brother Frederick (who had for some years lived in Belgium), where William had the cheerful com- panionship of young nieces. It was there that he wrote " Sir William Crichton," l which appeared, with a reprint of " Athelwold " and of his two early poems, in a small, a very small, unpretending volume, published by Pickering towards the end of 1846. This small volume was never 1 Sir William Crichton ranks with Athelwold in power and beauty. Serjeant Talfourd, indeed, gives it the preference, though such a judgment seems questionable in consideration of the unrelieved gloom which darkens the later drama. Its most impressive and ter- rible figure is a monk who, while blameless in conduct, is haunted by a profound scepticism, which makes him seem to himself and to others the guiltiest of men, and who voices the most melancholy sense of the nothingness to which life is reduced when faith is de- stroyed. The other elements of the story are scarcely less tragic, including a conflict between public and private duty, in which either choice gives but a maimed virtue ; while Fate at last whelms all in irremediable disaster. The contrast is wonderful between that side of the author's personality which his wife depicts in these pages equable, sweet-tempered, joy-giving and that aspect of gloom- iest contemplation which this drama displays, a gloom which seems the heavier and more unescapable because expressed with such com- posure. THE TRAVELLER. 129 widely circulated, but it met with cordial recognition from a few. Walter Savage Landor was one of those who esti- mated it highly. It is to Mr. Weigall that I owe this knowledge. He writes thus : " About eighteen years ago I saw a great deal of Landor. On one occasion I men- tioned William's works. He said immediately : ' I know Mr. Smith, and everything he has published. I have a great respect for him, sir. There are things in his works quite equal to anything that Shakespeare ever wrote.' I said I was much gratified to hear him say so, and wished the world thought so too. He replied, ' The world does not think so now, because it is chiefly composed of fools ; but I know it, and I believe some day the world will agree with me.' " It was in the spring of 1846 that my husband visited Italy. 1 He travelled, as usual, alone, and with eager, un- resting haste. I have heard him say that he spoke to no one ; that the excitement the marvels of ancient art occa- sioned was inexpressible ; that he went on from place to place regardless of fatigue. On his homeward way he became ill, and had to make a halt at his eldest brother's house in Brussels. By him William was, as I have often heard the latter recall, most tenderly nursed. In many particulars there was a family likeness between the two men. Both had the faculty of inspiring intense affection in those who knew them best, both the same refined courtesy in domestic life. Their cast of mind was indeed dissimilar, but the elder brother fully appreciated the nature of the younger. I shall never forget his looking at William with moistened eyes, on the 1 1 think it must have been before this that the bust given as frontispiece was taken. The sculptor, Mr. Weigall, writes of it as follows : " I saw then in William the profound philosopher, the pen- etrating, calm, judicious critic, and the tender, passionate poet ; and I believe, to those who have eyes to see such things, all these phases of his character may be found in the bust." L. C. S. 130 WILLIAM SMITH. occasion of a flying visit of ours many years later, and saying: "He was always quite different from the rest of the world." His daughters, too, most lovingly remember the student uncle, so interested in their pursuits, so en- couraging, so playful. In him the solitary nature was strangely combined, or I might rather say alternated, with the eminently social. When he did come out of his own element of abstract thought, it was to enter with genuine interest into the very slightest concerns of others ; to set talk flowing with greater spontaneity ; to bring out the best of every mind. He came into a room where he felt himself welcome like an influx of fresh air and light. Whoever he addressed was conscious of a certain exhilara- tion and increased freedom, for he, more than any person I have known, " gave one leave to be one's self." But it may be asked, Why are not more of his own letters quoted to illustrate his character better than the words of another can ? I do not know that there are any of his early letters extant. At no time of his life does he appear to have kept up a large or varied correspondence, and he had an especial dislike to letters of his being pre- served or referred to. In more than one case I know he entreated that they should be destroyed, and (however reluctantly) his wish was complied with. I think it pro- ceeded from the same quite abnormal sensitiveness that made him shrink not only from any allusion to his own books, but from the very sight of them. Never was I able to keep a volume of his writings on table or shelf for three days together ! Silently they would be abstracted or pushed into some dark recess. But as to his letters, though naturally I am averse to extract from my own stores, and I have no letters on general subjects to draw from, I know from testimony as well as experience that they were quite special in their simplicity and natural grace. No one familiar with him could possibly have at- tributed his shortest note to any other person. It was THE TRAVELLER. 131 sure to bear some indefinable stamp of his individuality. Here is a passage of his regarding the letters of Southey, most applicable to his own : The letters, as we advance through these volumes, become more and more characterized by that consummate ease and un- studied elegance which are the result only of long practice in composition ; for the perfect freedom and grace of the epistolary style may be described as the spontaneous expression of one previously habituated to a choice selection of terms. It requires this combination of present haste and past study. The pen should run without a pause, without an after-thought, and the page be left without a correction ; but it must be the pen of one who in times past has paused very long and corrected very often. The influence of William Smith's foreign tours is trace- able in his contributions to " Blackwood's Magazine " dur- ing the years 1846 and 1847. "Mildred," a tale pub- lished in the latter year, the scene of which is laid in Italy, contains some descriptions of the treasures of the Vatican, which will, I think, be read with interest. They paused before the Menander sitting in his chair. " The attitude," said she, "is so noble that the chair becomes a throne. But still how plainly it is intellectual power that sits enthroned there ! The posture is imperial ; and yet how evident that it is the empire of thought only that he governs in ! And this little statue of Esculapius," she added, *' kept me a long while before it. The healing sage how faithfully is he represented ! What a sad benevolence acquainted with pain compelled to inflict even, in order to restore ! " They passed through the Hall of the Muses. " How serene are all the Muses ! " said Winston. " This is as it should be. Even Tragedy, the most moved of all, how evi- dently her emotion is one of thought, not of passion ! Though she holds the dagger in her down-dropt hand, how plainly we see that she has not used it ! She has picked it up from the floor after the fatal deed was perpetrated, and is musing on the ter- 132 WILLIAM SMITH. rible catastrophe, and the still more terrible passions that led to it." They passed through the Hall of the Animals, but this had comparatively little attraction for Mildred. Her companion pointed out the bronze Centaur for her admiration. " You must break a Centaur in half," said she, " before I can admire it. And if I am to look at a satyr, pray let the goat's legs be hid in the bushes. I cannot embrace in one conception these fragments of man and brute. Come with me to the neighbour- ing gallery. I wish to show you a Jupiter seated at the further end of it, which made half a Pagan of me this morning as I stood venerating it." " The head of your Jupiter," said Winston, as they approached it, " is surpassed, I think, by one bust of the same god that we have already seen ; and I find something of stiffness or rigidity in the figure ; but the impression it makes as a whole is very grand." " It will grow wonderfully on you as you look at it," said Mil- dred. " How well it typifies all that a Pagan would conceive of the powers of nature, the great administrator of the world, who has the Fates for his council ! His power irresistible, but no pride in it, no joy, no triumph. He is without passion. In his right hand lies the thunder, but it reposes on his thigh ; and his left hand rests calmly upon his tall sceptre surmounted by an eagle. In his countenance there is the tranquillity of unques- tioned supremacy, but there is no repose. There is care, a con- stant wakefulness. It is the governor of a nature whose ele- ments have never known one moment's pause." In place of the further quotations from " Mildred," we give some extracts from the paper on " The Mountain and the Cloud." The cloud is to the mountain what motion is to the sea ; it gives it an infinite variety of expression gives it a life gives it joy and sufferance, alternate calm, and terror, and anger. Without the cloud, the mountain would still be sublime, but monotonous ; it would have but a picture-like existence. How thoroughly they understand and sympathize with each THE TRAVELLER. 133 other these glorious playmates, these immortal brethren ! Sometimes the cloud lies supported in the hollow of the hill, as if out of love it feigned weariness, and needed to be upheld. At other times the whole hill stands enveloped in the cloud that has expanded to embrace and to conceal it. No jealousy here. Each lives its own grand life under the equal eye of heaven. As you approach the mountains, it seems that the clouds be- gin already to arrange themselves in bolder and more fantastic shapes. They have a fellowship here. They build their moun- tains upon mountains their mountains which are light as air huge structures built at the giddy suggestion of the passing breeze. Theirs is the wild liberty of endless change, by which they compensate themselves for their thin and fleeting existence, and seem to mock the stationary forms of their stable brethren fast rooted to the earth. And how genially does the sun pour his beam upon these twin grandeurs ! For a moment they are assimilated ; his ray has permeated, has etherealized, the solid mountain, has fixed and defined the floating vapour. What now is the one but a stationary cloud ? what is the other but a risen hill ? poised not in the air but in the flood of light. I am never weary of watching the play of these giant chil- dren of the earth. Sometimes a soft white cloud, so pure, so bright, sleeps, amidst open sunshine, nestled like an infant in the bosom of a green mountain. Sometimes the rising upcurl- ing vapour will linger just above the summit, and seem for a while an incense exhaling from this vast censer. Sometimes it will descend, and drape the whole side of the hill as with a transparent veil. I have seen it sweep between me and the mountain like a sheeted ghost, tall as the mountain, till the strong daylight dissolved its thin substance, and it rose again in flakes to decorate the blue heavens. But oh, glorious above all, when on some brightest of days the whole mass of whitest clouds gathers midway upon the snow-topped mountain. How magnificent then is that bright eminence seen above the cloud ! How it seems rising upwards how it seems borne aloft by those innumerable wings by those enormous pinions which I see stretching from the cloudy mass ! What an ascension have we here ! what a transfiguration ! O Raphael ! I will not disparage thy name nor thy art, but thy angels bearing on their 134 WILLIAM SMITH. wings the brightening saint to Heaven what are they to the picture here ? Look ! there fairly in the sky where we should see but the pure ether above the clouds which themselves are sailing high in serenest air yes, there, in the blue and giddy expanse, stands the solid mountain, glittering like a diamond. O God ! the bewildered reason, pent up in cities, toils much to prove and penetrate thy being and thy nature toils much in vain. Here, I reason not I see. The Great King lives lo, there is his throne. . . . I have seen hills on which lay the clear unclouded sky, making them blue as itself. I have gazed on those beautiful far-receding valleys as the valley of the Rhone when they have appeared to collect and retain the azure ether. They were full of Heaven. Angels might breathe that air. And yet I better love the interchange, the wild combination of cloud and mountain. Not cloud that intercepts the sun, but that reflects its brilliancy, and brightens round the hills. It is but a gorgeous drapery that the sky lets fall on the broad herculean shoulders of the mountain. No, it should not intercept the beams of the great luminary ; for the mountain loves the light. I have ob- served that the twilight, so grateful to the plain, is mortal to the mountain. It craves light it lifts up its great chalice for light this great flower is the first to close, to fade, at the with- drawal of the sun. It stretches up to heaven seeking light; it cannot have too much under the strongest beam it never droops its brow is never dazzled. But then these clouds, you will tell me, that hover about the mountain, all wing, all plumage, with just so much of substance for light to live in them these very clouds can descend, and thicken, and blacken, and cover all things with an inexpressible gloom. True, and the mountain, or what is seen of it, becomes now the very image of a great and unfathomable sorrow. And only the great can express a great sadness. This aspect of na- ture shall never by me be forgotten, nor will I ever shrink N from encountering it. If you would know the gloom of heart which nature can betray, as well as the glory it can manifest, you must visit the mountains. For days together, clouds, huge, dense, un wieldly, lie heavily upon the hills which stand, how THE TRAVELLER. 135 mute, how mournful ! as if they, too, knew of death. And look at the little lake at their feet. What now is its tranquillity when not a single sunbeam plays upon it ? Better the earth opened and received it, and hid for ever its leaden despondency. And now there comes the paroxysm of terror and despair ; deep thunders are heard, and a madness flashes forth in the vivid lightnings. There is desperation amongst the elements. But the elements, like the heart of man, must rage in vain must learn the universal lesson of submission. With them, as with humanity, despair brings back tranquillity. And now the driving cloud reveals again the glittering summits of the mountains, and light falls in laughter on the beaming lake. How like a ruined Heaven is this earth ! Nay, is it not more beautiful for being a ruin ? . . . I lie rocking in a boat midway between Vevay and Lausanne. On the opposite coast are the low purple hills crouching beside the lake. But there, to the left, what an ethereal structure of cloud and snowy mountain is revealed to me ! What a creation of that spirit of beauty which works its marvels in the uncon- scious earth ! The Alps here, while they retain all the aerial effect gathered from distance, yet seem to arise from the very margin of the lake. The whole scene is so ethereal, you fear to look aside, lest when you look again it may have vanished like a vision of the clouds. And why should these little boats, with their tall triangular sails, which glide so gracefully over the water, be forgotten ? The sail, though an artifice of man, is almost always in har- mony with nature. Nature has adopted it has lent it some of her own wild privileges her own bold and varied contrasts of light and shade. The surface of the water is perhaps dark and overclouded ; the little upright sail is the only thing that has caught the light, and it glitters there like a moving star. Or the water is all one dazzling sheet of silver, tremulous with the vivid sunbeam, and now the little sail is black as night, and steals with bewitching contrast over that sparkling surface. . . . Mont Blanc ! Mont Blanc ! I have not scaled thy heights so boldly or so far as others have, but I will yield to none in wor- ship of thee and thy neighbour mountains. Some complain that the valley of Chamouni is barren ; they are barren souls that so 136 WILLIAM SMITH. complain. True, it has not the rich pastures that lie bordering on the snow in the Oberland. But neither does it need them. Look down the valley from the pass of the Col de Balme, and see summit beyond summit ; or ascend the lateral heights of La Flegere, and see the Alps stretched out in a line before you, and say if anything be wanting. Here is the sculpture of landscape. Stretched yourself upon the bare open rock, you see the great hills built up before you, from their green base to their snowy summits, with rock, and glacier, and pine forests. You see how the Great Architect has wrought. . . . Forever be remembered that magnificent pass of the Col de Balme ! If I have a white day in my calendar, it is the day I spent in thy denies. Deliberately I assert that life has nothing comparable to the delight of traversing alone, borne leisurely on the back of one's mule, a mountain-pass such as this. Those who have stouter limbs may prefer to use them ; give me for my instrument of progression the legs of the patient and sure- footed mule. They are better legs, at all events, than mine. I am seated on his back, the bridle lies knotted upon his neck the cares of the way are all his the toil and anxiety of it ; the scene is all mine, and I am all in it. I am seated there, all eye, all thought, gazing, musing ; yet not without just sufficient occu- pation to keep it still a luxury this leisure to contemplate. The mule takes care of himself, and, in so doing, of you too ; yet not so entirely but that you must look a little after yourself. That he by no means has your safety for his primary object is evident from this, that, in turning sharp corners or traversing narrow paths, he never calculates whether there is sufficient room for any other legs than his own takes no thought of yours. To keep your knees, in such places, from collision with huge boulders, or shattered stumps of trees, must be your own care ; to say nothing of the occasional application of whip or stick, and a very strong pull at his mouth to raise his head from the grass which he has leisurely begun to crop. Seated thus upon your mule, given up to the scene, with something still of active life going on about you, with full liberty to pause and gaze, and dismount when you will, and at no time proceeding at a railroad speed, I do say unless you are seated by your own incomparable Juliet, who has for the first time breathed that she THE TRAVELLER. 137 loves you I do say that you are in the most enviable posi- tion that the wide world affords. As for me, I have spent some days, some weeks, in this fashion amongst the mountains ; they are the only days of my life I would wish to live over again. But mind, if you would really enjoy all this, go alone a silent guide before or behind you. No friends, no companion, no gossip. You will find gossip enough in your inn, if you want it. If your guide thinks it his duty to talk, to explain, to tell you the foolish names of things that need no name make be- lieve that you understand him not that his language, be it French or German, is to you utterly incomprehensible. I would not paint it all couleur de rose. The sun is not al- ways shining. There is tempest and foul weather, fatigue and cold, and abun- dant moisture to be occasionally encountered. There is some- thing to endure. But if you prayed Heaven for perpetual fair weather, and your prayer were granted, it would be the most unfortunate petition you could put up. Why, there are some of the sublimest aspects, the noblest moods and tempers of the great scene, which you would utterly forfeit by this miserable immunity. He who loves the mountain will love it in the tem- pest as well as in the sunshine. To be enveloped in driving mist or cloud that obscures everything from view to be made aware of the neighboring precipice only by the sound of the tor- rent that rushes unseen beneath you how low down you can only guess this, too, has its excitement. Besides, while you are in this total blank, the wind will suddenly drive the whole mass of cloud and thick vapour from the scene around you, and leave the most glorious spectacle for some moments exposed to view. Nothing can exceed these moments of sudden and par- tial revelation. The glittering summits of the mountains appear as by enchantment where there had long been nothing but dense vapour. And how beautiful the wild disorder of the clouds, whose array has been broken up, and who are seen flying hud- dled together in tumultuous retreat ! But the veering wind ral- lies them again, and again they sweep back over the vast ex- panse, and hill and valley, earth and sky, are obliterated in a second. He who would ponder what man is should journey 138 WILLIAM SMITH. amongst the mountains. What men are is best learnt in the city. . . . There is a little church stands in the valley of Chamouni. It was open, as is customary in Catholic countries, to receive the visits and the prayers of the faithful ; but there was no service, no priest ; nor indeed a single person in the building. It was evening and a solitary lamp hung suspended from the ceiling, just before the altar. Allured by the mysterious appearance of this lamp burning in solitude, I entered, and remained in it some time, making out, in the dim light, the wondrous figures of vir- gins and saints generally found in such edifices. When I emerged from the church, there stood Mont Blanc before me, re- flecting the last tints of the setting sun. I am habitually tolerant of Catholic devices and ceremonies ; but at this moment how in- expressibly strange, how very little, how poor, contemptible, and like an infant's toy, seemed all the implements of worship I had just left ! And yet the tall, simple, wooden cross that stands in the open air on the platform before the church, this was well. This was a symbol that might well stand, even in the presence of Mont Blanc. Symbol of suffering and of love, where is it out of place ? On no spot on earth, on no spot where a human heart is beating. Mont Blanc and this wooden cross, are they not the two great- est symbols that the world can show ? They are wisely placed opposite each other. . . . But from the mountain and the cloud we must now depart. We must wend towards the plain. One very simple and con- solatory thought strikes me though we must leave the glory of the mountain, we at least take the sun with us. And the cloud too, you will add. Alas ! something too much of that. But no murmurs. We islanders, who can see the sun set on the broad ocean had we nothing else to boast of can never feel deserted by nature. We have our portion of her excellent gifts. I know not yet how an Italian sky, so famed for its deep and constant azure, may affect me, but I know that we have our gorgeous melancholy sunsets, to which our island tempers be- come singularly attuned. The cathedral splendours the dim religious light of our vesper skies I doubt if I would exchange them for the unmitigated glories of a southern clime. CHAPTER XIII. SOLITUDE. (From the Memoir.) A COMPLETE and decisive change in William Smith's manner of life was now drawing near. I may mention an incident supplied by Mr. Weigall which must have closely preceded it. " Soon before the Corn Laws were repealed," writes Mr. Weigall, " William was urged by John Stuart Mill to attend a meeting to aid the advo- cates for repeal. The Honourable Mr. Villiers, Mr. Mill, and William were the principal speakers, and Wil- liam was beyond doubt the most impressive of them all. The Chartists at the time were getting rampant, and were in great force at that meeting, both men and women. They had disapproved of almost every wisely qualified utterance of Mr. Mill, but when William opened his speech with a most happy and harmonious sentence, the women about me said, 4 Oh, what a beautiful speaker ! don't disturb him,' and for some time they seemed de- lighted ; but when he began with his prescient wisdom to caution them against expecting too much from the repeal, that the effect of free trade in corn would be to equal- ize prices throughout Europe, they began to howl him down. William stopped and faced the turmoil boldly, and by a very stirring appeal to their candour and sense of fair-play secured again their good-will, and sat down, the great success of the evening. From what I observed on that occasion," adds Mr. Weigall, " I felt convinced that could William have overcome his retiring habits he 1-10 WILLIAM SMITH. would have won distinction in public life." But the re- tiring habits were just then on the point of decisively prevailing. I do not know whether it was in 1848 or 1849 that my husband acted upon a resolve that must have been for some time gathering, the resolve of entirely relinquish- ing the pursuit of his profession, and devoting himself to thinking and writing, in perfect solitude, amidst the beau- tiful scenery of the English lakes. He had made no way at the bar ; he was not likely to make any he had no legal connections ; his heart was not in his calling ; his sensitive nature shrank from collision with purely per- sonal aims and ambitions, from the inevitable turmoil and dust of " life's loud joyous jostling game." He could not, with any hope of success, compete on that arena. And, indeed, in addition to other hindrances, his private for- tune, seriously diminished by a loan to an unsuccessful relative (loan which he in his refined generosity converted into a gift), was no longer adequate to the expenses cham- bers and circuit entailed on the briefless barrister. Then there were other influences at work. The " love of think- ing for its own sake " was growing irresistible, and was seconded not only by a " passionate thirst for nature and beauty," but by that craving for solitude which strangely underlay all social charm, all his enjoyment of society, which found such forcible expression in his earliest poems, and renders portions of " Thorndale " so unutter- ably pathetic. Circumstances and character alike now pointed one way. There is a line of Browning's that sums it all up. Thenceforth " This man decided not to Live, but Know." My husband has often described to me his first plunge into the new life. It was made at Bowness (on Winder- mere), a quiet village in those days. There he took a small lodging, where the sitting - room opened into a garden, and for six months he never spoke to a creature, SOLITUDE. 141 except indeed the few words of necessity to his landlady. It comforts one to remember what loving letters from sisters and nieces must have varied that solitude, as well as what high raptures Nature and Thought bestowed upon their devotee. And then the winters were always social. Some weeks would be spent at the house of his brother-in- law, Mr. Weigall, where there were clever nephews grow- ing up and two much-loved nieces, of whom his sister has told me he was " the idol and the oracle." Some would be pleasantly passed at Bath or Brighton, where he had several friends. In 1851 his still secluded summer life was varied by an incident that might have given a different direction to all his future. One day the following letter from Professor Wilson was delivered to him. Although it is marked " strictly private and confidential," there can be no indis- cretion in giving it now and here : MY DEAR SIR, Our excellent friend John Blackwood has kindly undertaken to put this letter into your hands at Bowness, or if not, to find your direction there and forward it to you. My health has become very lately so precarious that I have been interdicted by my medical adviser from lecturing this en- suing session, and I can think of no man so qualified meanwhile to discharge for me the duties of my Chair as yourself. I am therefore most anxious, without delay, to see you here, when I will explain fully to you what will be required from you. As yet the matter is in my own hand, and I do not fear but that, though laborious, your duties will be agreeable. You will have to give a course of lectures on Moral Philosophy to my class during my leave of absence from College. It is absolutely necessary that you should be with me immediately for a day, that you may empower me to say that I can depend on you, for not a word can I utter publicly or privately without a perfect understanding with you. I shall therefore be looking for you in return to this, and be most happy to receive you in my house on your arrival. Yours with all esteem, JOHN WILSON. 6 GLOCESTER PUVCE, EDINBURGH, September 29, 1851. 142 WILLIAM SMITH. Here seemed an opening every way congenial, for William had, as we have seen, a great respect for Scotch philosophy, and looked upon the duties of a Chair in a Scotch University as most honorable and useful. He has told me that he asked for two hours of deliberation, and carried the matter out, to be revolved and decided in the course of his morning's walk. He decided to decline, swayed by some scruples (how needless !) as to his fit- ness, possibly by some other scruples, for he was too truthful ever to profess certainty where he was conscious of doubt, swayed, perhaps, by the spell of the moun- tains and the life of unfettered thought, by the " spell of the desk," on which already lay the early pages of " Thorndale." At all events he did decline, nor have I ever heard him express a regret that he did so. I gain a glimpse of him at this time from a letter of Mr. Black- wood's written to me after I lost him: "I remember going up to the Lakes a great many years ago, and find- ing him all alone at Bowness. It made me sad to leave him so solitary, as I felt that his fine sensitive nature re- quired some one ever nigh who could sympathize with him." In the May of 1852 a heavy blow fell upon William Smith. His favorite brother Theyre, at that time rector of Wymondham, in Norfolk, died suddenly and prema- turely. Thenceforth Brighton, where Mrs. Theyre Smith and her children made their home, became a centre of tenderer interest to William, and his constant winter re- sort. It was in the same year that my husband exchanged Windermere for Keswick Lake, the lovely Derwentwater, afterwards so dear to ns both. There the summer soli- tude was less entirely unbroken than heretofore. He was introduced by an early friend, who had left the Bar for the Church (the Rev. J. H. Smith, of Leamington), to Dr. Lietch, a physician who had been led by ill-health to SOLITUDE. 143 give up practice in a large town, and benefit a then com- paratively retired district by his active and enlightened benevolence. How refreshing the society of each to the other appears from a letter written to me by Dr. Lietch in the October of 1872 : In 1852, '53, and '54, when your husband was at work on " Thorndale," I saw much of him ; the old felled spruce-tree, converted into a rude seat on the hill of Faw Park, is still, or was last year, in existence, on which we often sat and talked of many things, which, when " Thorndale " was published and sent to me by him, were vividly recalled to me. At that time there was something of Clarence in him, something (at times much) of Cyril, occasionally gloomy flashes of Seckendorf, and fre- quently " the perfect tranquillity with which the poet would ad- mit, on some most momentous subjects, his profound ignorance." The " wistful perpetual argument " which was his life was then going on with incessant energy, and was more visible to me then than during the last twelve or fifteen years of his life, when I saw less of him, and when, indeed, your presence and love had silenced many conflicts, and reconciled him to many doubts and difficulties in this incomprehensible world. Several summers had now been spent at Portinscale, a pretty hamlet within a short walk of Dr. and Mrs. Leitch's cheerful and kindly home ; but in 1856 an at- tractive row of new lodging-houses, and the close vicinity of the very excellent library that the town of Keswick possesses, induced William Smith to move to 3 Derwent- water Place. And there, in a light, pleasant, three-win- dowed room, with peeps of lake and mountains, " Thorn- dale " was getting finished. There is not a word of outward event to add to this brief story of retirement from the world. For these six or seven years the action halts. But we must dwell a lit- tle on the significance of this most characteristic phase of the man's life. - WILLIAM SMITH. We may say that of the two worlds, the active life of society, and the life of thought alone with nature, in the former he felt himself helpless, incompetent, astray ; while in the latter he was free, at home, and strong. His unfitness for active society was partly real, as judged by ordinary standards, and partly lay in the distance between his fastidious ideal and the possibilities of actual exist- ence. Others thought him a success where he recognized hardly more than failure. He was considered a delight- ful companion in that social intercourse where he thought himself out of his element. In his Corn-law speech, with the mastery over a rebellious audience, we have a distinct glimpse of robust and masculine power ; here seem to be " the wrestling thews that throw the world." Yet on the whole there is hardly a greater disqualification for success in the world of social activity a world whose perpetual law is compromise than the disposition which inexora- bly craves the perfect and ideal good. That disposition was in this man's life-blood. Perfection there is in the beauty of nature and to that he turned as his abiding- place. To find the perfect, the absolute, is the very busi- ness of pure thought, and to that business he could wholly surrender himself. With Emerson he might have said " Good-by, proud world, I 'm going home ! " And Emerson's words of himself (in his journal for 1839) best portray the constitution of the spiritual recluse : Some men are born public souls, and live with all their doors open to the street. Close beside them we find in contrast the lonely man, with all his doors shut, reticent, thoughtful, shrink- ing from crowds, afraid to take hold of hands ; thankful for the existence of the other, but incapable of such performance, won- dering at its possibility ; and though loving his race, discovering at last that he has no proper sympathy with persons, but only with their genius and aims. He is solitary because he has so- ciety in his thought, and when people come in they drive away his society. . . . Never having found any remedy, I am very SOLITUDE. 145 patient of this folly or shame ; patient of my churl's mask, in the belief that this privation has certain rich compensations. And yet, in one who sets his mark so high, who presumes so vast an elevation as the birthright of man, is it not a little sad to be a mill or pump, yielding one wholesome product in one particu- lar mode, but as impertinent and worthless in any other place or purpose as a pump or coffee-mill would be in a parlour ? To the man, and still more to the woman, whose inner fibre is all interwoven with warm and close human sympa- thies, it is scarcely possible to interpret or even hint at the delight which may lie in lonely musing. Says Emerson : " It is strange how painful is the actual world, the pain- ful kingdom of time and space. There dwell care, canker, and fear. With thought, with the ideal, is immortal hilar- ity, the rose of joy. Round it all the muses sing. But with names and persons and the partial interests of to-day and yesterday is grief." Lowell portrays Columbus, on the verge of his discov- ery, brooding apart from his crew : " If the chosen soul could never be alone, In deep mid-silence, open-doored to God, No greatness ever had been dreamed or done; Among dull hearts a prophet never grew; The nurse of full-grown souls is solitude." Yet the name of Columbus reminds us that the great purposes which grow in solitude are fulfilled in society, and that he who saw the new world first with inner eye led the way to it through intriguing courts and mutinous sailors. Moses dwells long in the desert with only God for his society, but he goes forth to be leader and servant of a nation of emancipated slaves. So must it always be with the greatest leaders of men. But there are pure and lofty souls who have no vocation to be leaders of the multitude. Their service is humbler perhaps, but they may be no less faithful to their calling. The words put in the mouth of Athehvold speak the au- thor's own heart : 146 WILLIAM SMITH, This strange world of ours This dire complexity of pain and joy, . . . this huge world, So lubber great, so intricately fine, Beyond the scope of any single eye, Beyond the skill of any single hand, To scan or regulate, I touch it not ! I cannot frame a happiness for want, Passion, and toil nor fashion creeds for them; I cannot teach, with formal discipline, This many-hearted monster how to live; I cannot fit the singleness of truth To its untold variety. Dunstan has his place, and Athelwold has his, and it is all in vain that the former speaks his warning : Know this that he who towers Above his kind, nor can be taught of them, Who trusts his faith to solitary thought, Who strains his ear for accents from the skies, Or tasks the wavering oracle within, Shall feed on heavenly whispers, few and faint, And dying oft to stillness terrible ! No doubt, too, there is some moral deprivation in the exemption from the trivial labors and responsibilities of domestic and social life. Tennyson speaks truly of " The cares that petty shadows cast By which our life is chiefly proved." But to every man is set his lot and his vocation, and we can scarcely wonder that William Smith was drawn from the empty form of a barrister's life, from London streets and London society, to the seclusion of the Westmoreland lakes and his own uninterrupted thoughts. Such a retreat might look to those absorbed in the practical service of mankind like a flight from the appointed battle and the manly task. But of active workers our age has countless armies, while the service of the thinker few have the capacity to render. Nor was there in this retirement any shirking of his share in the world's burden of pain. It SOLITUDE. 147 was not in his power to much lessen that pain in material forms ; but the sense of mankind's trouble rested on him ; it was that which laid a burden on his mind, the burden with which he perpetually strove. Might it not indeed be his office to find some interpretation of all the pain and sorrow which should itself be some lightening of the load, and give some guidance and aid toward bearing it ? Some- thing like this, we shall find, was indeed a part of his con- tribution to the common cause ; and it was a contribution he could only make when so far withdrawn from the im- mediate pressure of the crowd as to get in broader view and truer perspective the movement of the throng, an oppressive jostle to those in its midst, perhaps a trium- phant march when viewed from some serene, distant height. So far from being an idler, he was one of the busiest of men. His work was of the kind which is never laid aside. It was with him while his eyes rested on the land- scape, and when in the night he woke from sleep it woke with him. He was essaying a task as great as man can set before himself, to learn, so far as may be, the plan of this universe. None knew better than he how far that aim soars beyond the possibilities of full realization. But in the unremitting exploration lay a fascination and a pro- found delight, as well as a noble sadness. Hours there were of joy in the perception of some truth, the harmoniz- ing of old contradictions, the rapt contemplation of ineffa- ble realities ; joy like that of " Some watcher of the skies When a new planet swims into his ken." And meanwhile, month by month, the book was growing under his hand, the chart that registered his discoveries and his perplexities ; the flags planted on new islands ; the signals and memoranda for future explorers who should push farther the quest. How dear to the author is the 148 WILLIAM SMITH. book as it slowly matures in his brain, slowly shapes itself in visible form ; what sacred gestation, as of the child nourished by all finest distillation of its mother's frame, her long-prepared, supreme gift to the world ! Other work there was, less arduous ; the series of con- tributions to " Blackwood " went on without interruption, some four or five a year ; reviews of works on meta- physics, poetry, biography, natural science, law. There is one paper in August, 1851, on " Voltaire in the Crystal Palace," which greatly tempts to quotation. It is the im- aginary comments of the shrewd worldling, as he strolls through the great exhibition, and surveys the material trophies of the century. The vein is altogether charming ; with rapid, penetrating glance at social and industrial problems ; with satire for follies of the day, and through all the amiable temper which befits a holiday. It is " the philosopher at the fair ; " the large mind looking in kindliest survey on the society from which it stands apart. But this isolation deepened that loneliness which from youth had lain upon his sensitive and gentle nature. At heart he was a true lover of his kind. He longed for ten- derness, for communion. Some subtle withdrawal, some invincible reserve, held him as if in a crystal prison, through which he looked with yearning eyes to the fair forms of humanity, on which his hands could not lay hold. The quotations we have given from his early poem, " Sol- itude," show something of the perpetual revulsion from the mind's delight in its visions to the heart's ache in its loneliness. It is the household atmosphere which makes the shrine of human happiness. From its warmth he was quite apart, from the clinging hands of little children, from the tender cares which solace while they task, from the pure blessedness with which husband and wife look into each other's eyes. It was a characteristic completion of his isolation that he had not the society of animals, he did not like dogs. One wishes for him in his solitary SOLITUDE. 149 rambles at least the companionship of a faithful four- footed friend, to break in upon his master's reverie with a nose thrust lovingly into his hand, or draw a smile to the abstracted face as he plunges into some doggish delight of frolic or exploration. The winter visits to friends there were indeed, and even in the summer some occasional brief companionship. But how alone the man seems ! What waste of a heart that might enrich some other ! What starvation of a nature formed for the full, glorious estate of love ! Can Heaven do no better for its creature than this ? CHAPTER XIV. APPROACHING UNSEEN. IN the years when William Smith was " a fair yellow- haired child, with great black eyes full of the new joy and wonder of life," another child's life began. A young Scotch physician had gone into Wales to push his for- tunes, and there found a wife. She was of an old Welsh family, of higher social station than his, and her relatives were slow in becoming reconciled to her marriage with a young doctor without advantages of rank or wealth. But he had the force of brain and of character to win his way in the world, as he had won his wife. He practised his profession for some years in Chester, and finally settled in Wales, near Denbigh, in a lovely home which was named Dolhyfryd, " Happy Valley." Here in 1818 Lucy Caro- line Cumming saw the light, and here she grew to woman- hood. A sister and a brother completed the family, of which she was the youngest. The mother, " a bright, energetic, delightful woman," loved in later years to talk of her Lucy's childhood. The young nature began early to show its quality, swift, vivid, and ardent. At eighteen months the child could repeat a great number of hymns, and at two years she could read in any ordinary book. Before she was ten, she read and delighted in a class of books of which Mo- liere's plays, in the original, is mentioned as a specimen. When she was about ten, her taste ran to theological reading, and she used to discuss these topics with a friend of her own age, being herself a staunch Calvinist. But this sort of precocity does not indicate the highest APPROACHING UNSEEN. 151 gifts with which the child had been dowered, as if by good spirits, at her birth. One might fancy that the mix- ture in her veins of Scotch and Welsh blood had given her all the intensity and tenacity of the one, the per- ftrmdum ingenium Scotorum, together with the ardor and spontaneity of the more southern temperament. Above all she was rich in capacity to give and to inspire love, a trait involving for herself possibilities almost unbounded of joy and pain, of hope and fear ; while for others it bore throughout her life an unmixed fruitage of blessing. Her mother, we are told, used to talk to her when she was a mere child as to a grown-up person, telling her all her troubles and anxieties. Every one loved her, and her old nurse told one secret of the charm in saying, " You can come so near Miss Lucy ! " She was on the friend- liest terms with the po.or families in the neighborhood ; and it is related that in one of these, a child being danger- ously ill, and she having known of it, when there came sudden relief to the child the father's first words were, " Run quick and tell Miss Lucy ! " She grew up into most attractive maidenhood, beau- tiful, brilliant, a young Diana in her spirit and her charms. From the age of sixteen she was the object of one devoted attachment after another. But the heart was not lightly to be won in its stronghold. The ro- mances which followed each other did not touch her with their flame, not though she was sometimes sought with so true a passion that two men who failed to win her vowed to be faithful to her memory all their lives, and never married. More than once she acknowledged an at- tachment, and even a charm, in which there seemed the promise of a mutual happiness, but always the tie snapped instead of strengthening ; something proved to be wanting that her fastidious taste, her exacting nature, required, and as she afterward said, " In those days I never met my master" 152 LUCY SMITH. There was a young attendant in the family (whose father was in Dr. Cumming's service), a year younger than Lucy, and this Mrs. Jane Browne has written down some of her early recollections : You ask me how long I remember her. It is from my ear- liest thoughts, and the love was never blighted. I am sure I can remember many things before I was four years old. I can never find words to describe how beautiful and noble and good they were [the mother and daughters]. Miss Lucy never said anything but what she meant ; and how clever in everything painting, drawing, music, wax flowers. She did not often sing nor play the harp, but Mrs. Wrench [the sister] did, and such a beautiful voice ! Miss Lucy was very clever in making experi- ments with Dr. Gumming, and gathered many fossils. How pleased I was to be waiting on them, seeking and fetching any- thing they wanted. I have now a small work-box she gave me when I was about eight years old. ' She gave me lessons and heard me read to her. I used to do their hair, and assist them to dress, and I never remember hearing a cross word from her, and if any one else did she always sided with me it was al- ways love for my short-comings. She always said, " I wish I had Jane's hair " mine then curled all over, and I could not get any of it straight, and I wished I had hers, which was beau- tiful and worn in plaits. My dear Mrs. Gumming used to enjoy hearing what was passing between us. Mrs. Gumming was very charitable, and every needy one had only to apply to her and was never sent empty away. She took her daughters with her to visit the poor and sick, and I was an interpreter for those who could not speak English. I can remember Miss Lucy's learning to read Welsh, which I could not do then, that she might read the Bible to the aged and the sick. What a power she had of discerning and devising everything in the right way ! She was so just and her judgment so pure, and I can remember well the regard and reverence that was shown her when young in years, even by those who knew no respect of persons. I never could discern in others what she possessed, nor knew any so angel-like or so handsome as they both were. APPROACHING UNSEEN. Miss Annie Clough, another life-long friend, thus pic- tures her in early days : It was a summer evening, and I had come from a busy life in Liverpool to pay a visit to Lucy Gumming hi her beautiful home hi the country, Dolhyfryd, about a mile from Denbigh. I found her hi the garden with her mother and friends, and a favourite dog. She came forward to welcome me, and make me feel at home after my long journey. The long, low house, half cottage, half mansion, covered with creepers, and standing on a velvet lawn shaded by trees, looked very inviting and sheltering in the June sunshine. It lay folded round by hills clothed with lovely woods, a stream flowing through the grounds with a murmuring, soothing sound. * After a while we walked by the stream and through the wood, talking of many things. We were both young, and each full of our dreams and visions of the future. Her life was then as a dream of joy and delight ; mine was full of toil and anxiety, and yet the dreams were not wanting. Was it on this account that she was seeking me out as a friend, and trying to cheer me ? We were so different that I felt half perplexed by her advances of friendship. We had been acquainted before, and she knew my family and my brothers very well, and was very sympathetic in all that con- cerned me. The next morning was partly spent in the drawing- room, which was upstairs, overlooking the lawn. It was full of curious quaint old furniture, a great collection of books, many of them rare. Mrs. Gumming, her mother, had her own occu- pations, to which she was much devoted. Her poultry and ani- mals took up her time, and old Betty, the head servant and factotum, helped with the housekeeping. Dr. Gumming, the father, who was a philosopher full of improvements and inven- tions, was generally in his study, or working at the Denbigh Infirmary, which was his great interest and occupation. We had many walks and drives about the neighbourhood. Lucy's brightness, intelligence, and great interest in things in general gave a charm to our intercourse, but I still wondered why she wanted one so serious, and with such strict views of life, for a companion. But we parted friends, for her charm and her grace had won me. 154 LUCY SMITH. Afterwards I met her in Chester. To this ancient city Lucy often went, and attended with friends at the balls, which in those days were resorted to by the county families about Chester ; Lucy belonged by her mother's side to these families. I have seen her full of enjoyment and brightness, but sometimes her heart was not satisfied still she was ever a bright orna- ment to the scene. She was above the middle height, slender, and " car- ried herself like a queen." Her walk had a swan-like stateliness; and together with this dignity there was a sweetness and sympathy that made the shyest and most awkward person instantly at home with her. Yet her amiability was by no means indiscriminate, and she could be haughty and icily cold in manner. Her head was small and beautifully shaped, and she wore her masses of dark hair coiled around it. Her face was delicately oval ; the eyes dark gray, large, and intent. Her skin was very fair, and creamy white ; the lips straight, thin, and firm, the teeth very white and even ; a rather pointed little chin. " But no words can convey the charm of her face, the sparkle and brilliancy and bewitchingness of it." A life-long friend, afterward Mrs. Ruck, thus describes her in early years : I shrink from writing about her, because it is like an at- tempt to perpetuate the beauty of a lovely flower, to paint the glories of a sunset, or to describe the subtle essence of some delicious odour. She knew how to run the gamut of feeling from grave to gay in such a way that one almost laughed and cried at the same time. In the early days of our friendship she was very orthodox in faith, and clung to the evangelical teaching of her youth. We had many a discussion on those points, because no one had ever been able to persuade me of the existence of a devil, or the truth of everlasting punishment. She knew the Bible almost by heart, and has told me that she acquired this knowledge by reading it for hours in a cave by the seaside when she was a child. Her marvellous gift of mem- APPROACHING UNSEEN. 155 ory made everything that she had read hers forever. Armed as she was with such a weapon, I fared badly in debate, but her kind heart found some way of reconciling her to my errors, and our differences of opinion never in the least estranged us. As an instance of her powers of memory, I may mention that I have known her, after listening to a French sermon by Pastor Rousel, go home and write it out ; it was afterward shown to its author, who pronounced it to be verbatim what he had said, with the transposition of one sentence. Her love of animals was very great, and they responded to it in the same way that human beings did. I used to listen with amaze to the many things she had to say to dogs, and I have seen her flush with pleasure at the sight of one. To her everybody brought their sorrows and perplexities, well knowing they came to an inexhaustible fountain of sympathy. To one so gifted there came many lovers, and these when rejected always turned into friends. Here is a letter, written when she was twenty-nine, to another life-long friend : DOLHYFRYD, 1847. MY DARLING MARY, I cannot, you must feel that I cannot, tell you how I grieve to find that you are suffer- ing from delicacy which affects the spirits through the health. And yet I don't know that I quite attribute the depression you speak of to physical causes. And I do know that of all explanation it is the most unsatisfactory to the one who suffers. Dear Mary, of course I cannot expect you to leave your kind aunt's care for that of other friends whose power of making you comfortable would be less, only I cannot help thinking that when you are better you may still fulfil your promise to the Miss L s, and I cling to the hope this gives us also. You who want complete rest, to bathe your very soul in silence and quiet, after all the excitement and long-sustained effort through which you, my precious one, have passed where could you find such quiet more absolute than here ? in this lit- tle green nest where all day long you would have undis- 156 LUCY SMITH. turbed the companionship of your books and thoughts, and mine should be negative or positive as you wished it. I would be a loving presence, darling, not a talking com- panion. And then, am I mistaken in thinking that I un- derstand you and your complex sadness better than the happier, perhaps more healthful, natures around you do ? I experimentally know (and what avails knowledge to us unless distilled from our own heart's blood ?) that depres- sion may be vague and yet most real. I know the mood in which all earth's good and glad things come before the frightened spirit as temptations, and earth's sorrows as despair. And I know that all this may be clouding the life within while droll words are on the lip, and the smile caught from others' laughter is bright and ready. The sense of unreality, uselessness in the past, weakened ener- gies and limited scope for the future of the flowers of one's nature dropped faded and scentless away, and the branches reft of their summer beauty and in autumn bear- ing no fruit. I do not expect this to seem to you rhap- sody artificial, exaggerated. It is one thing to know all this from one's own consciousness, and another to fos- ter the feeling and to yield to its dominion. And I do think, darling Mary, that for you this cloud will be most transient, leaving no token but the rainbow glory and the refreshed and livelier growth of all fair and lovely things within you. I have always the same bright anticipation of the return of one to whom years can work no change in you. I have not forgotten the pretty playful allusion you mentioned in one of your dear letters some time ago. Your image is as engrossing as it ever was, and I feel a sort of conviction that so much true devotion is not to be wasted. And it was more with reference to this than to any future conquests or present admiration that I so much rejoiced to hear from all that you were looking so lovely. I fear illness must now (at least to your own view) have altered you for the present, but that APPROACHING UNSEEN. 157 is nothing. Dear Mary, though there is but a fortnight's difference in our ages, still I cannot in your case realize that at twenty-nine youth is fled from you. Early youth, of course, but still enough of youth and its graces remains to give fascination to wit and brilliancy, and irresistible charm to a frank kindness of manner in virtue of which all hearts are yours that you like to claim. You know 1 speak now hardly as I should of you to others that I say less than I mean and you are above pretending to think this flattery. There is one point which I am not able by my own experience to speak of, and perhaps I shall disappoint you by my opinion of the value of the intellectual excellence to which you look back as to that which might have been and is not now your own. I think, dearest, that your time has been far better employed in making all around you happy, in writing long letters to friends who warmly welcomed them and counted their pages, in working when others worked, joining readily in the aimless (it may be) talk of morning visitors than it would have been in concentrated pursuit of any accom- plishment, any science. What can a woman do, even if mental culture be brought to the highest pitch ? Are there twelve authoresses of the present day whose fame you would care to have ? Or if, pursuing the studies that attracted your girlish taste, you had astronomy and his- tory at your fingers' ends, do you think you would be a more delightful companion than you are now, with your ready intuition, your love of knowledge, your facility of expression ? I believe you would have lost by the process. To regret that in the years gone by we have done so little toward enlisting habit on the side of good, our real good, on the side of religious duties, self-denying impulses that I can enter into, though I have no reason to believe that you have failed in this as I have done. After all, dear Mary, is it not well that something should teach us that " this is not our rest " ? That we should " begin to 158 LUCY SMITH. be in want," that so we may arise and return to One who will see us " a great way off " that our immortal na- tures are not contented with the mortal and the finite? This yearning for something better, something more real, something that we can grasp and make our own I think that though it may sadden us a while, it is the dark hour before day, the promise of an expansion of our usefulness, and the earnest of things to come. I know something of your wish for change of scene, but I have not a hope of it for myself. I know more of your wish for some engrossing study, but then indolence is always fighting pitched bat- tles with this wish, and nine times out of ten it comes off victorious. Have you a thirst for metaphysics ? I do not say this to many, for I can imagine the laughter it would provoke. But in Novalis and Fichte's Idealism, I think one would so rest one's mind from the cares and annoyances of the actual, the things seen and temporal, which like the fogs of our climate hide all the sky and make even the earth dull and dismal. How nice to read those books together, to compare notes we, friends for so many years, and I think understanding each other better and loving each other more on every birthday ! With me it is so. To this same friend for whom her prediction of hap- piness was amply fulfilled these verses were sent two years later. They were published in " Good Words " in 1861. NEW YEAR WISHES. Good New Year wishes for my friends ! Good New Year wishes truly ! I feel my heart beat high with these, Yet cannot speak them duly. The very phrases others use Half jar upon my ear ; They seem to miss my inmost thought Of blended hope and fear. APPROACHING UNSEEN. 159 " A happy year, with many more To follow in its train ! " So runs the hackneyed form, as though Long life to all were gain ! As though bright suns had only power To colour, not to fade ! As though no growth of human flower Were fairest in the shade ! My many friends, I dare not breathe A common wish for all ! A honeyed thought to you or you To others were but gall. So different the heart withinj The outward life around, You scarcely see the self -same sky, Or tread the self -same ground. There are who wake from troubled sleep, This birthday of the year, To feel their anguish but renewed By sounds of general cheer : Some voice is still that greeted them On last year's opening day Some eyes that dwelt on theirs with love In earth are put away. Last year had days and nights that passed In sorrow soothed by sharing ; Now there is none to soothe and bless By calm and cheerful bearing ! Their eyes may weep in dimness now ; No further need for hiding ! Of smiling back their loving flow, For fear of loving chiding. There are, to whom a cup of joy So foaming o'er is given, It seems too full for Life to drain It seems as Earth were Heaven ! They fain would fling their weight of bliss On Time's too rapid flying, Stretch the glad moments into years, And stay the years from dying ! 160 LUCY SMITH. There are whom still the Future lures From present pastures fair, With promise of a fuller life, With whispered " Then ! " and There ! " Their hope-lit "Now" seems cold and slow, They pray to Time, "Speed fleeter ! Set, summer suns ! pass, tranquil hours ! And make our bliss completer ! " And there are others, who foresee Throughout the coming year, No rainbow in their leaden sky, No special hope or fear : Their morrows tell the tale inscribed On yesterday's dull page ; No wayside flower to mark the path That leads from youth to age. My many friends, how should I find A wish ye all might share ? I dare not utter one at all, Or only as a prayer That He who knows each spirit's wants Beyond my love to read, May mould my wishes to His will, And crown them thus indeed : May give the lonely patient hearts The weight of Life to bear ; May nerve the loving and beloved The thought of Death to dare ! Before you all One Presence go, To guard and guide you right ; To some, the pillared cloud by day, To others, light by night ! When she was about in her thirty-sixth year, a sharp change came to the family life. The father was equally generous and unbusinesslike, and the mother too had a large and liberal disposition, without much appreciation of the value of money ; the household went on in a free and open-handed way and thus it happened that Dr. Cum- APPROACHING UNSEEN. 161 ming's affairs at last became very much involved. Lucy had hitherto hardly known how things stood, but now she was called into council. When she learned the state of the case, her mind was soon made up. Everything must be sold that could be sold ; her own portion must be given up ; nothing could be kept back so long as a single bill remained unpaid. And so it was done. The lovely home was given up to strangers ; most of its pretty and refined adornments, the wife's diamonds, the old books and pic- tures, were sold. Then, in 1854, they moved to Edin- burgh, and there, on an extremely small income, Lucy set to work to make a home amongst strangers. The art of economy was wholly new to her. The narrow rooms were made to look graceful and home-like with a few furnishings that had been saved from the wreck. She had been in the habit of making occasional translations from the French and German, for her own amusement; now she turned this faculty to account and earned a little money by it. She met with the kindest of helpers in Mr. Thomas Constable, who found work for her among the publishers. She sometimes wrote tales for " Chambers' Journal," but she had no complacency or pride in original work ; it was only, she said, " to turn an honest penny " that she ever did it. She did not care enough for her stories and verses to keep a copy of them, nor did she even keep copies of her translations, though this work she enjoyed. " Debit and Credit " (Freytag's Soil und Ha- ben) was one of her translations, and the rendering of Victor Hugo's poems into English was a delight to her. In Edinburgh new friends soon became devoted to her, including some for whom she had a very warm affection and admiration through life. But there were trials harder than those of straitened means. Her father had become entirely and hopelessly blind. Her mother between whom and Lucy the tie was always peculiarly strong and dear was now an 162 LUCY SMITH. almost helpless invalid, with chronic and deep depression. To the care of them the daughter devoted herself with her whole heart. She read to her father ; did all in her power to relieve and cheer her mother, from whom she could never now win a smile, so grievous was the gloom which the body's failure had irflicted; husbanded their little income, and increased it as she could by work for the booksellers. The family now included a young grand-daughter, whose father (the husband of Lucy's sister) had received a for- eign appointment, whither he went alone, so that their home too was broken up. This little girl, Mary Wrench, was always most fondly attached to her aunt Lucy, and now for several years was for the most part in the same household with her. It is to her recollections, and to the life-long and intimate correspondence between them, that we owe many of the most graphic traits in this volume. She says : My aunt was always my ideal, she always seemed to me the most beautiful and the most infallible person possible. She had a way of illuminating everything she spoke of, and making it interesting, and even to a child she would give of her best and spare no trouble. I never cared then for friends of my own age, thinking them so dull compared to what I was used to ! And she made a great companion of me, she had so large and generous and confiding a nature that she could not live with any one without sharing her interests. She used to rely on one's discretion, and made one feel it a crime to repeat anything that could give pain or make mischief. How she strove to make ends meet in those days, and how hard the restrictions of small means must have been to her gen- erous nature ! She so loved giving and helping, and wanted noth- ing for herself. And all she gave or did was done in a royal, ungrudging way. She loved to share all she could with others, if she had not money to share, it was her time, her interest, her affections, which she gave with all her heart and at once. She was a most loyal friend, and she bound her friends together, APPROACHING UNSEEN. 163 interesting each one in the other, and though amongst such a large band of friends as she had there were those of totally different ways of thinking, she had a marvellous way of fusing them, and making each seem attractive to the other. The letters to Mr. Thomas Constable yield some vivid glimpses of her life at this period. (1855.) It is very seldom that a delay prefaces a JVb, but do not, and do not let Mrs. Constable, think me ungracious because I return to my original decision. I know that I am losing a very pleasant evening spent with my kind friends, but though my dear mother could not bear to lose me my enjoyment, and I am sure believes that she wishes me to go, yet I could observe a shadow upon her dear face when I went down with my much shaken resolve. And this very evening, when calling upon nice kind people, I was warmly invited to spend an evening evenings to which I replied that I never meant to go out. We do not do anything very well, nurs- ing included, without giving ourselves wholly to it. Nat- urally I was only too fond of society ; and in short, it is best so and I am very much obliged to you both for wishing to give me pleasure. (1855.) Herewith comes to torment you Mr. 's manuscript. The Messrs. Chambers must be made aware that if they lose it 'tis as much as the writer's life is worth. I send you his innocent letter. Ah, how our small doings and small thinkings dilate when we look at them long, at them only. And how they shrink when we compare them with those of others. But good Mr. in his glen ponders his hobby till the hills are filled with the shadow of it. But what were life without our hob- bies ? I am very tender of illusions, and your better na- ture is tender of all things. (1856.) I have got quite fond of Allonby. My mother prefers it to any place we have yet been at. 164 LUCY SMITH. There is not a smart bonnet or hat to be seen far or near, and that is the perfection of a bathing-place in her eyes. Oh, I shall be so sorry to take her back to her prison ! But what can be done ? My father would be so wretched in the country. This long, long holiday has been of great use to her, and we must be thankful for its repose and en- joyment. It could not have been so long, nor could that of last year have been taken, but for my translations. I know that this will be a pleasure to you to hear, and you do not wonder at my having so earnestly longed for and so gratefully received the pleasant work. ... I have been expecting proofs to-day, but none appear. Some- body I hope revises them after me, but I do not trust to any one doing so, instead of me, owing to the prejudice that exists against my handwriting as illegible, which might prevent an efficient comparison of proof and MS. by any one else. There was a long sentence about " For- gram " (the words were " for years "), and the printer, to make it all fit in with his preconceived notions, had al- tered " which " to " who," and made quite a consistent passage, with " Forgram " for its hero. At first I thought he must be some German author, and wondered I had for- gotten his name ! (Undated.) Last night I heard Thackeray. The per- fect nature, the self-possession, the entire freedom from effort or self-consciousness of any kind, and the musical voice were all so fascinating I could have sat there till midnight. Yet how slight these lectures are ! * A mere pleasant telling of what every one knew. And how sad and hollow the heart feels when he has in his cold, impar- tial *way praised the worst characters, given the devil his due, in short, and brought into strong relief the failings of the best. I can't define the impression he made upon me. Yet surely all who heard must have left the room utter- ing from their hearts' depths the old expression, " Vanity of vanities, all is vanity ! " 1 The lectures on the Four Georges. APPROACHING UNSEEN. 1G5 (1856.) Will you think me odiously egotistical for sending you this scrap just when you are setting out and have your hands so full ? I want your kind sympathy for two minutes, that is all. No one knows how much hope they have of anything till the hope be taken away. I thought myself prepared for this, yet had I been so I should not have that serrement de coeur which in my case won't bring a tear, but which makes me wish for them. Well, these small things too are all ordered for us. How my paths have been hedged up ever since I could walk alone ! How many fair prospects I have seen shut out ! The hope of work which had replaced the hope of happi- ness must be given up, like it. I am sure it was not ill done yet had they thought it well done they would have qualified the refusal by some nice courteous fayon de par- ler. However, though this be a heavier trial than you can guess, you will like to know that I am quite sure it is all right, and part of the discipline to which I desire to com- mit myself for oh, how I need discipline as well as de- liverance ! (1856.) Very soon you will be out of all reach, but while still in Thistle St. 1 will make my appearance every now and then and insist upon a hearing. I want to know whether is going with you. How charming to escape a little from that stormy wife of his. Now does not that give you a shudder ? " Good heavens ! Did I ever tell that indiscreet woman of my dear friend's home cross ? Perhaps she has told half a dozen people." No such thing. I am discreetly indiscreet, and a safe repos- itory for many a secret. . . . My tale was but a short affair, and my sister having read it decides that it is too true to life, too simply and undisguisedly portraiture, to be even offered to any magazine. 'T is but a little thing, and I believe I shall tear it up. " Household Words " would reject it as too religious in tone at all events. But I am sure it has no merit, no piquancy, no plot, and I 166 LUCY SMITH. know now what I always believed, that I have no talent for fiction. (Undated.) Mr. Constable, dear Mr. Constable, you are really vexed with me ? Oh, how I shall hate all books, all miscellanies, translations, and literature, if you take a dislike to me, and quarrel with me ! What if I said I liked you a little less because you had said this or that ? I like you so much, I value your friendship and kindly interest so much ! You will not withdraw them ? You see it 's all so new to me. And I dare say I am foolishly sensitive, proud, vain. But never mind, please ! After all, what did I say ? That you had been fickle about the poor dear book which I wish I had never seen ! Why, you are mortal you must have faults. I don't know what they can be, if you were not fickle about that book. I hold to that point ! You know 't is an admitted fact that no one is faultless. Pray, pray, don't write me as if seriously vexed ! I say a good deal in half -play, and I never thought you would have taken my note as really meaning any more than it did. You will not dislike me ? I have so much to sadden me. I have been doing Perthes, and oh, if it will but do ! Will you not come and see me, and let me read it you some day soon ? You and Mr. Gordon made me a very kind offer, I know. And if you don't come soon and tell me you are not vexed, I '11 accept it, write a true fiction, and you shall lose horribly by me. For the sake of a familiar picture of the Edinburgh life from her own pen, we may here run a little ahead of our story, and give a letter to her niece written in the autumn of 1857. She had just returned from a visit to the west of Ireland, in which the mother's health and spirits had greatly improved. I have really longed to write to you for the last fort- night, especially since our arrival in these familiar quar- APPROACHING UNSEEN. 167 ters, but I have been too busy to sit down for half an hour. I thought you would be disappointed rather than pleased by a short letter. First of all, let me commend your unassisted and successful packing efforts. The Gran's best bonnet has emerged unscathed from its prison, and things in general " turn up smiling." The unpacking is no light undertaking, with the arrangement, into one chest of drawers, of what we need for winter wear, and the shutting up in boxes of what we do not need. I have not yet emptied all our packages, but I think I shall go to sleep to-night with a sense that a place has been found for everything, and that everything is in its place. My dear, order is essential to happiness, and happiness is essential to good nature, which makes the happiness of others, and so let you and me try hard to keep our drawers neat. To both an irksome task, but to you far easier because no fatal habits have coiled with strong hold round your young nature. Habits, however, are coiling, day by day, and I rejoice to believe that you are really desirous they should be good habits. Perhaps your Gran told you that at Carlisle I had so overpowering a headache, and was so violently sick, that to proceed was out of the question. It was the second sick headache I have had in my life-time, and when I think how often your poor dear mamma suffers from these pros- trating attacks, I do feel as if one could never sympathize enough with her on that score. Was it not charming to save by our avoidance of the cruel express, by which your G. P. [grand per e] whirled off, more than enough to cover our delightful beds and good breakfast at that pleasant County Hotel which you well remember? The following morning we went to the cathedral, which is beautiful, but far less so than Chester ; were in time for the service, and then prowled in the market-place, where a charming second-hand bird-cage was sought ; and looked into shops, where Gran had to be forcibly withheld from 168 LUCY SMITH. buying ine gloves and a new brush, and where she invested in a few pins and needles, firmly persuaded they were better than in Edinburgh ! We had no fellow-travellers to or from Carlisle, and at half -past eight our cabs Mary, luggage, and Poll in one, we in the other stopped at No. 1, and Irish Mary came out to meet us. Oh, my child, what an awkward giantess it is ! How she can ever be made to look neat or taught the proprieties of waiting- maid life I do not know. My heart sometimes sinks, I confess, but Gran is full of hope, and rejoices in her Hibernians. Biddy, nice old soul, bore her journey admirably ; they actually stumbled upon a Bundoran man in Glasgow, and in short nothing could be more pro- pitious than their journey hither. Our room looked very nice and comfortable, and Gran at once declared herself reconciled to No. 1. The following morning she was up with the dawn, intent upon going out to buy a cage for Poll, who was fast pulling his travelling van to pieces. So we were dressed and ready to set out before ten, when dear Mr. Constable arrived. In his kind welcome, he first took both my hands, patted me on the back, and finally kissed me, which seemed quite natural. I declare ! He could not stay long, but he asked me to dine there on Monday, to meet three clever men, without their wives, Mrs. Constable and I to be the only ladies. I told him he would spoil his party, for men discuss all subjects more freely together, and generally feel themselves obliged to talk down to women, as that odious K talked down to the children, you remember. I 'm not sure I shall go. I should like to listen unseen, but I should be too conscious we were spoiling their enjoyment to derive any myself. You should have seen your Gran in the bird-shop! The man there was after her own heart, and so were his feath- ered family. A large black cat strolled in, and he told us that Charlie such is the pleasing fellow's name is left with the birds day and night, na}% that he will go and APPROACHING UNSEEN. 169 catch a mouse in their cages without touching a bird. Before he came to this sense of duty, however, he ate about five pounds' worth, and had many and severe burnings of the nose and other chastisements. Your aunt was thrown into a moralizing vein by this singular fact, and could not but think how little we should dare to plead temperament in excuse for sin when even an animal can so put off its old nature and be disciplined to duty. A charming cage was got for Poll, and I wish you could see how ornamental he is, with his scarlet tail glowing through the bright bars. We did a little shopping on our homeward way, and Gran delights in green-grocers, and will, I am sure, be out daily. Your aunt Matilda sent to ask whether she should come Thursday afternoon or Friday morning, but as I expected dear Mrs. Jones I said Friday. However, the evening wore away, and no Mrs. Jones appeared, so I sallied forth, taking Mary with me, and found that Mrs. J. was prostrated by a violent sick headache. Mr. J. showed the regiments of bottles, some to make him well, some to keep him so. You know what I think of this unreasoning faith in doctors, and trust to their mixtures and concoctions, rather than to the observance of the gen- eral laws of health. But rather than diet themselves and take regular exercise people will take medicine to the end of the chapter. Yesterday morning E. came in to ask me to a very gay dinner party, which I declined, but I must make an effort or misanthropy will creep over me. How- ever, I am clearly right to eschew cabs. Poor E. suffers much, and the sister, husband, and children, being ruined, have been indefinitely invited by that most excellent R., who indeed is not the fright I think him if " handsome is that handsome does." We were not out yesterday, it was so wet and wretched, but the day went much too fast in unpacking and arranging, and snatches of reading. I '11 tell you of my latest votive offerings, a pretty blue and white knitted short cloak from dearest Mrs. Lyon, for my 170 LUCY SMITH. wear, bat I give it to Gran, as it decorates her much ; from Mima and Hessie beautiful black and gold pins, which dress me at once, and dangle and ring in the most en- chanting way, they are a noble votive. From dear Mrs. Jones a bottle of real eau-de-cologne, from the Cologne shop. Mrs. Jones came last night and had cocoa with us. She then took me back to your aunt Matilda's, where I had coffee, and your aunt Matilda and I went to the Philosophical Institution, where a very objectionable man delivered what I thought a trite and pompous lecture. I dare say I was wrong. We have dined, dear Chick. That dark den without a fire is incompatible with appetite, but in every respect economical ! The streets are greasy and dirty ; we think of a cab to do a little calling in. Your Gran wants to get out. She is so well, and so amused. Her activity is tremendous. I must not be too late for the post. Your D. and C. [Debit and Credit], dear, I passed on to Mima, as your uncle B. had given me a copy. All the newspapers I have seen speak favorably, but there will be no profits. How the woman reveals herself in this letter! The little things which make up a woman's life, told with a touch so graphic ; the heartiness which gets out of every petty incident its fullest value ; the racy diction ; the love of animals ; the fond, anxious tenderness for the mother ; the swift, incisive estimates of people ; the humor which plays so kindly ; the almost careless mention of her own literary work ; the wise counsel to the young girl, so gentle and unobtrusive, yet weighty, there is a volume of homely philosophy in the little sentence about order. And everywhere, we see a strong and gracious spirit, doing its service and learning its lesson amid the humblest cares, which love and fidelity ennoble. A life so faithful and so full as this, shall we expect to find at its heart a contentment with its lot ? Or is APPROACHING UNSEEN. 171 there something not given to it, some deep want which being bravely borne prepares for a gift held in reserve by Heaven ? At a later time, the woman gives us a glimpse into her deepest life in these years, she is writing of a time in 1856, when with her mother, improved but not yet restored, she had gone for a while to Keswick in the Lake country. " I remember so well one day that summer ; alone, under the dark shadow of a yew-tree on the hill- side, whence one saw beneath one the rocks and the river of sweet Borrowdale, I remember so distinctly a mental struggle. I never had any other than one ideal of happi- ness, love intensely felt and returned. Do those who really care for love care for anything else ? I never did. But I believed that for me that one ideal was not intended. My life had had its vicissitudes of feeling and imagination. I thought that the future had no great joy for me, only duties. I desired, I prayed, to be satisfied without per- sonal happiness" CHAPTER XV. " THORNDALE." THE thoughts long brooded in silence and in solitude were given to the world at last. "Thorndale, or The Conflict of Opinions, by William Smith " was published in the autumn of 1857. This book did not fail of an audience. By its beauty, its profound thought, and its rare union of piety with open-mindedness, the attention of the intellectual world was caught. Eminent critics on both sides of the Atlantic discussed and praised it. The day of its special fame was perhaps brief. But it may be said to have won a permanent place in literature. It was one of those books which exert an influence beyond their fame, which enter as a potent factor into many minds, and find at least a few devoted and life-long lovers. As a mirror of the higher phases of the age's thought, it may have in after times a monumental significance. " Thorndale " is a book of some six hundred pages. The closeness of thought in every paragraph, the wide range of topics, and the subtle interblending of diverse elements make it an almost hopeless task to justly epitomize its contents. Yet it is a book which needs both interpreta- tion and comment. Its most distinguishing characteristic is the union of the religious temper and the finest sensibility with an im- partial, receptive attitude toward the most various theo- ries of the universe. Materialist, theist, Catholic, and evolutionist receive an equally candid hearing. The ver- dict on some points and those sometimes of the highest interest appears to be left undecided. " THORNDALE." 173 The work to which the reviewer is called is to resolve and recombine the elements of the book ; to distinguish between its substantial contribution to thought and those traits which are wholly subjective and personal ; and to trace the lines of a harmony arising out of the conflict. To do this seems to be in fulfilment of one of the book's closing suggestions ; " I think I could have brought into harmony what seems at first a mere conflict of opinions, and shown that every genuine utterance of thought, whether from Cyril or Seckendorf or my poor friend Montini, might have some place assigned it in a large and candid view of our progressive nature, and the position we, in this century, occupy in the great drama of human history." Clarence, who utters this sentence, with Cyril and Seck- endorf whom he mentions, and the Charles Thorndale to whom he speaks, are the chief personages in the story. Cyril is the representative of youthful doubt passing into fervent Catholic piety ; Luxmore embodies the poetic, im- aginative temper, unconcerned about creeds ; Clarence, a landscape painter, is the sweet-natured and rational en- thusiast for human progress; and Seckendorf by no means the least attractive figure is a robust German- English physician, who voices " the spirit of denial " incredulous of spiritual entities and social Utopias, but with a vigorous grasp on the present concrete world. Thorndale writes in the first person ; the book consists of his Diary, some chapters of reminiscences, a series of dis- cussions among the group of friends, and an expanded statement of belief by the one to whom Thorndale inclines most favorably. Thorndale's slight autobiography bears small resemblance to the history of William Smith. But the opinions which Thorndale expresses as his own may be taken with little qualification as those of the author. The various speakers are also in the main personifications of different phases of the author's own thought. It is 174 WILLIAM SMITH. the debate in his own mind which he pictures in the form of conversation in the Khigi inn or by the lake side. We have to look below the surface of the book's narrative, to find the real clue to the progress of the thought, and then to construct for ourselves a synopsis of the results reached. The proper starting-point is the story of Cyril, which we have ventured to take as representing in its early por- tion the experience of William Smith, and as such have already quoted. It is the natural starting-point of a mind bred under a dogmatic Christianity, and roused to in- quiry. But, for the next step, we are not to follow Cyril into the Catholic Church, but to accompany Charles Thorndale as he wanders through England in his youth a disappointment in love serving in the story to send him forth into the world. He sees and ponders the miseries of the poor. I am passing along a highroad. It is in the north of England, amongst some of the most beautiful scenery we possess. A stone wall skirts the road, just high enough, as is so often the case, to conceal all the prospect from the pedestrian. . . . Within that wall, pacing the soft turf by the margin of the lake, or standing in mute contemplation of the scene, was a gentle lady, who, from the studied simplicity of her dress, evi- dently belonged to the Society of Friends. She was absorbed in the beauty around her. One felt that her spirit reflected all the peace and serenity of the scene. Placid, contemplative, pious, I could almost read her thoughts. " Will heaven be very unlike this ? " I hear her murmur to herself. " Can it be very much more beautiful ? Can I, should I, hope for a scene more lovely to meet the angels in ? " Such, I feel persuaded, must have been the tenor of her meditations. Without that wall, on the hard highroad, came by, at the same time, a cart drawn by a miserable horse. It came slowly enough, yet clattered noisily along, as the wide shafts swayed to and fro against the sides of the starved beast that drew it. Be- side the cart walked a ragged woman. With one hand she held on by the shaft, that she might be partly dragged along ; the " THORNDALE." 175 other and disengaged hand brandished a stick, which descended in repeated blows on the wretched animal. Each blow was ac- companied by foul and odious curses, which, though addressed to the unoffending brute, I interpreted as merely the ungovern- able outbreaks of her own tormented and miserable spirit. Peace, beauty, goodness, were things unknown to her words for which she had no meaning. And this, too, was woman ! The same clay of humanity had been moulded thus, and thus ! Both women, both walked through the same scene, at the same hour. The one needed but the companionship of the pure and holy to feel that she was already in heaven ; the other if such a thing will bear the nam- ing W as walking through this paradise very like a soul in hell. Then, again, I asked myself, Must it be thus always ? This creature of rags, and pain, and curses, has become what she is by no natural eccentricity of character. Why could not both have been gentle, refined, pious, cultivated ? (Pages 101 103. 1 ) ... I sat down under the portico of a church in Regent Street ; a place which, at that time, was a good deal infested by loiter- ers of all descriptions. I found myself amongst beggars, itiner- ant venders of knives and slippers, women with large pieces of wash-leather displayed for sale, Italian boys with their images, and the like. It was November ; I had on a travelling cloak and cap ; I was probably taken for a foreigner. . . . Out there in the street before me rolled by carriage after car- riage elegant equipages, as they are called. How very pal- pable it became to me, as I now sat here on the pavement, that those who looked out of carriage-windows regarded us as a quite different race of beings, as quite out of the pale of humanity. Evidently the dogs in the street, the lamp-posts on either side of the way, or the heaps of mud scraped up for the scavenger's cart, were just as likely to occupy their thoughts as the human group to which I then belonged. The lady and gentleman who walked past us, with stately or with careless step, were equally indifferent. Unconscious they of our presence, unless as obsta- cles in the path, to be especially avoided. We were at their feet, but far beyond their vision ! Soh ! thought I this it is to sit on the lowest round of the ladder. It is well to try the 1 The references are to the pages of the second (or third) edition. 176 WILLIAM SMITH. place. How very near the dirt we are ! What if this were verily my position in society ? I imagined for the moment that it was, and identified myself with these children of the streets. I learnt something from my new position, and the novel society around me. I felt that the passionless neglect of our superiors was returned by us with something far more energetic. You simply pass us by ; you have no hostility, nor dream of ex- citing it ; you think no harm, you would not hurt us no, nor would you hurt the crawling toad upon your path ; you avoid us both, and for the very same reason the contact would be dis- agreeable. Simply you do not love us this is the extent of your feeling ; but ours ? I detected that we return neglect with hate ! . . . A coarse fellow stands near me. A gentleman with his dog passes. The dog thinks proper to assail the man does not bite, but barks, as if he was very much disposed to do so. The gentleman calls off his dog chides and reproves the animal but, as the manner of the English gentleman is, he does not cast a look, a glance, apologetic or otherwise, upon the man ! All passes as a breach of discipline on the part of the dog. But the man followed not the dog, but his master followed with a scowl that made my blood run cold. " Our turn may come one day," he muttered between his teeth, " and then ! " some hor- rible imprecation was lost in the jostle and turmoil of the street. Without a question, we of the pavement, if we had our will, would stop those smooth-rolling chariots, with their liveried attendants (how we hate those clean and well-fed lackeys!) would open the carriage-door, and bid the riders come down to us ! come down to share good heaven, what ? our ruffianage, our garbage, the general scramble, the general filth. " War to the knife rather ! " they of the chariots would ex- claim. " War to the death rather than this ! " and with good reason. Meanwhile they ride there softly, thinking no evil thinking very little of anything at all. (Pages 109-111.) These pictures best indicate the change of view that comes to the young and ardent spirit, which at first was dis- tressed about its own salvation, and dismayed by the in- trusion of doubt between itself and its God. The doubt " THORNDALE:' 177 is not at once dispelled ; the vanished God does not clearly reappear. But there has been a diversion and a broaden- ing of interest. The immediate wants of others, the press- ing and momentous problems of this human society, have aroused his sympathies and his thoughts. And when he reverts to the earlier questionings, it is by another ap- proach. The problem of his own soul has become the problem of the whole. The fortunes of the human fam- ily, what have they been, what shall they be ? Do they move forward toward propitious consummation, or circle in stationary eddies ? This life of the race, this frame- work of nature in which it is set, are the manifestations to us of the Supreme Power ; in what aspect do they dis- close that Power to us ? " God Immortality Progress, these are my three watchwords, these are three great faiths which I desire to keep steadily before my mind. ... I can say and am happy in saying it that these three faiths are mine." So at the last says Thorndale and this may fairly stand as the author's Credo. Beyond this, the book leaves us in doubt how far his speculations and sentiments have crystallized into convic- tions. It is evident that he sympathizes with the view elab- orated by Clarence as a " Confessio Fidei ; " yet the im- pression is left that he holds it under some reservations and doubts ; while it wholly omits some of the most momentous topics on which the earlier discussions have turned. In the personal musings of Charles Thorndale, which make up Book First, we feel sure that William Smith is speak- ing from his inmost heart ; but in these we sometimes find uncertainty where the Confessio is positive ; and again we find hopes and faiths as to which the Confessio is silent. And in the discussion among the friends, there are thoughts and sentiments which do not altogether chime either with the Confessio or the Diary, which yet seem to have the stamp of the author's own approval. But we 178 WILLIAM SMITH. have an important clue in the evidence furnished both by his earlier and later writings, and especially by " Thorndale's " successor, " Gravenhurst," as to the real and final trend of his convictions and as to the directions in which he never attained conviction. With this clue in hand, we venture to compile from " Thorndale," and to present with some defmiteness of outline, the religious phi- losophy of William Smith, the philosophy which at the age of fifty he had substantially reached, and of which his later thinking was an expansion. This is his corner-stone it is in the words of Clar- ence : This relationship of Creature and Creator is the keynote of all my philosophy. I have nothing distinct to teach I have nothing great to hope I can represent nothing intelligibly to myself, unless the reality of this relationship is accorded to me. Not only is this relationship of Creator and Creature the peren- nial source of such religious sentiments as are destined eternally to exist in the human race ; but every intelligible conception I can form of the material world around me, or of my own con- scious being what matter ts, what mind is all my philoso- phy, as well as all my religion, is bound up in this relationship in this belief of an Intelligential Power through whom all is, and has been, and will be. (Page 432.) Meanwhile some one asks me, Is it a personal God you be- lieve in ? I can understand no other, I cannot conceive Intelli- gence without personality. But neither am I obliged to make profession of understanding the peculiar nature of God's per- sonality ; nor am I compelled to apply what psychology may teach me of the nature of human personality to the Divine Be- ing. . . . To him who is baffled in his efforts to personify God to him to whom the Monarch-Judge upon his throne, with his in- numerable host of angels around Him, seems all too plainly the work of human imagination to him who, when he refines upon his conception of a personal God, finds it melting into thin air, and who, when he calls it back into distinctness, finds it too full " THORNDALE." 179 of humanity to such a one I would say, Learu to see in na- ture and man the constant work and vivid manifestation of God. These are the forms in which He has invested himself for us. Look around you you are in the very presence of God. Look within you if you cannot see the Giver, you see in your own life the constant gift. This feeling that you are God's crea- ture so simple as it is is the perennial source of piety, of purest consolations, of noblest hopes. The darkest cloud which can pass over a human soul is that which obscures from it the recognition of this great relationship of Creature and Creator. He who has doubted here, and then regained his faith, will feel so singular a gladness that he will be thenceforth almost indifferent as to what else is doubtful. It is in vain you urge the importance of other controversies, he can- not feel their importance ; he leaves your polemics to those who care for them, or need them. He is again in the great universal fold. There is peace and security throughout the universe, and throughout all eternity ; for there is supreme wisdom and su- preme love ruling and creating everywhere. Love and wisdom are but two names for the same thing. We call love by the name of wisdom when it acts ; we call wisdom by the name of love when it thinks and feels. Whatever such men as Cyril, on the one hand, or Seckendorf, on the other, may assert to the contrary, it is not a mere abstraction that is given to us in the human reason : our God is very Being, very Reason, very Love. I, too, can recall some miserable moments, when I have walked forth alone under the open sky, and as the winds blew the great clouds along, I have felt that I also, like those clouds, was being borne along by a power as incomprehensible to me as the torment of the winds to them. How terrible, then, seemed the unresting and irresistible activities of nature ! How fearful this prodigality of life ! How fearful seemed the unpausing cur- rent of the generations of mankind ! a stream of conscious be- ing poured out by some deaf inexorable Power pains and pleasures tossed together, flowing tumultuously along. No eye of wisdom, no heart of mercy, presiding over all ; only untiring Power hurrying on the interminable stream. Happily such in- tellectual chaos did not last long within me. Light broke through ; the sun was again in the heavens ; the whole world 180 WILLIAM SMITH. beamed forth with reason and with love, and I found myself walking humbly and confidingly in the presence of God. He who believes in God is necessarily an optimist ; an opti- mist, mind you, for that whole of things which embraces the has been, the is, and the will be. I cannot but feel assured that, if the whole plan of our world, as it will finally be developed, could be understood by us, it would be understood as one great and perfect idea. I may not be able to unravel the perplexities which human life, and the social condition of man, present to me ; I may not be able to foresee the future, or to trace the way to happier societies ; but I know, through faith in Him, that all will finally be revealed to be, and to have been, supremely good. (Pages 440-442.) The second article of his creed is the progress of hu- man society. He bases the law of that progress, not merely on a wide observation of the world's history, but on the constitution of the individual mind. Society is progressive, because the individual -mind is pro- gressive, and here and there one outshoots the others, and leads the rest forward. Thus the law of progress must be sought for in psychology, or the nature of the individual mind. (Page 442.) We may look upon the progress of man as ultimately resolv- ing itself into a gradual revelation of truth to the human intel- lect. His advance in knowledge manifests itself : 1. In his increased power (the powers of nature are put into his hands) ; 2. In the great contemplation of science the world is seen, admired, loved as the Divine Idea ; and, 3. In that knowledge of Humanity, or of Human Life as a whole, which each one should carry in his own mind, and which should be the fountain source of his morality. If you ask whence this increment of truth which initiates all these progressive movements, I can only trace this mental light, like the common sunlight at our feet, to its source in heaven. Very fitly has all knowledge been called God's revelation. Ponder it well : are not our three great gifts, the True, the Good, and the Beautiful, constantly being disseminated by this one process the expansion of the human intellect ? And still it grows 7 it grows ! Is there not hope that a time may come " THORNDALE." 181 when all will get their great inheritance their share in these three great gifts ? (Page 33.) I can predict the advancement of human knowledge, because experience proves to me that it is the nature of the human mind to advance from knowledge to knowledge. . I can also, and per- haps still more safely, predict the extension of the knowledge already attained by the few to the many, because I see the means in operation for such extension ; and I can, above all, form some estimate, from past experience, of the effect which will be produced on the whole organism of society by this ex- tension of the knowledge and habits of thinking of the few to the many. These are very modest claims to prophecy very limited powers of prediction ; but it will be found that they are sufficient to justify some confident anticipations of the future of human society. (Page 430.) The author makes no claim as an original discoverer ; he speaks of Progress as an idea pervading the intellec- tual atmosphere of the age. But he interprets that idea in a fashion of his own. From his survey of the leading stages of the race's advance, we take a few passages among others almost equally striking. Man's power of making new combinations of thought, and thus advancing beyond the direct tuition of the senses, is first stirred into exercise by his bodily wants. Apparently no crea- ture has to get his food with such difficulty. These wants prompt his ingenuity, prompt him to self-help, prompt him also (the imaginative being that he is) to wild petitions for help from unseen hands. He makes some rude instrument, he frames some rude worship. He enters, from the same impulse, into art and into religion. We see him at once the most laborious and the most imaginative of creatures. (Page 468.) I saw yesterday a countryman leading his horse and cart down a hill. He wanted to rest his horse, and he adopted the simple expedient of putting a stone under the wheel to keep the cart from pressing forward. Here, I thought, was a case so simple that the man might easily have been the original in- ventor. He hardly needed any one to tell him of such an ex- 182 WILLIAM SMITH. pedient. He had seen stones enough on the road, and had noticed them as impediments to his progress. Here he wants the implement ; a stone is at hand, and he applies it. If he wanted still to proceed downhill, without distressing his horse, he perhaps ties the stne to the rim of the wheel, and here is a drag invented. As this tying implies the previous invention of a string or a rope, we have also, in this instance, a rude illustra- tion of the manner in which one invention assists and leads on to another. The more arts, the more probability of new com- binations amongst them. Art begets science. You produce a desired effect with one thing, you try another similar thing to produce the same effect. You begin to classify things according to some common effect or property. And then, without being urged by any immediate need, you ask yourself the question, Will this act like that ? will this burn ? can this be eaten ? without having any particular wish to burn or eat it. (Page 469.) Those who fail to perceive the gradual development of the higher modes of moral thinking and feeling lose the greatest source of hope we have for the future progress of society. These higher modes will extend, not only by the direct teaching of men and books, and the communication of ideas from one class to another, but also, and mainly, because a greater number (owing to the steady advance of arts and sciences, and a mate- rial prosperity consequent thereon) will be in a condition favor- able to their reception and their development. The highest form of pure or simple morality is where the reason of the man chooses and adopts a line of conduct because it is for the good of the whole. Here the reflective man legis- lates at once both for himself and for society. For himself, because the reason, having once approved a certain conduct, must issue a self-condemnatory sentence if a momentary passion obscures the rule, or leads him to transgress it. For society, be- cause he stands there proclaiming a great truth to others, in which all others are concerned. But this legislative mode of thinking is not the first which is developed : it is developed only in a few minds, and not in those till society is somewhat ad- vanced. In no mind does it exist alone, or unaccompanied by other and more ordinary motives of morality. Still it does THORNDALE." 183 most certainly exist. It is a grand element wherever it is found. It will always make its appearance amongst reflective minds. Over them the great idea of public good will sometimes domi- nate like a passion. From time to time, and in comparatively dark ages, there have risen eminent teachers, raised up by God, I do not. say miraculously, because, in my conception, all his works are equally miraculous, who have been full of this great idea. Such is the plan of our world. Minds here and there outgrow the rest, and lead them onwards, whether in religion, or in science, or in morals. (Pages 476-477.) Man depends on man, and must have morality of some kind. Man depends on nature, which he soon interprets to be a de- pendence upon God, and must have religion of some kind. How these two mutually aid, support, and elevate each other, I shall have occasion to show. It is my belief that no high morality could have grown up, in the first instance, without the aid of religion; on the other hand, religion is but a grand ego- tism, a selfish fear or selfish hope, till it is linked with the love of man, or the genuine desire to promote the good of others. We live more and more, as we advance, under the felt govern- ment of God ; but then we understand that government better as we advance. Obedience to the will of God, and sincere de- sire for the good of the whole, become intimately and insepa- rably blended together in the conscience. (Page 427.) We are ultimately in the power of our ideas. These modify our passions. In this or that individual man, the victory be- tween Passion and Reason may be doubtful. In Humanity, as it lives from age to age, the final victory is not so doubtful. Slowly and surely the Intelligence modifies the passion to itself. (Page 31.) He illustrates the soul of good in things evil in the case of slavery, and the transition to free labor. I have no wish to disguise the harsh nature of this relation- ship of master and slave. But it was what the times demanded. What we see most prominent in all early periods are the pas- sions of war. These, too, have their terrible joy. It was some step in advance when the victor spared the captive to convert him into a slave. A harsh relationship it must have been under 184 WILLIAM SMITH. these circumstances. No equal rights ; labor compelled by the scourge ; obedience prompted by force. Yet the relationship itself modifies, and its harsh lineaments fade away. If the slave is a domestic, some community of feeling and of interest will rise up between him and the family he serves. If multitudes of slaves are herded together, they have a society of their own a society within a society. Nature and habit so contrive it that no permanent condition of humanity is without its solace. Harsh enough, however, the relation must still appear to us. But it is indispensable that we note the important part it has performed in the onward progress of society. A single tyrant compels thousands to work for him to build a palace, or it may be to build a tomb for him and he gives them a rag and an onion apiece. What seems more monstrous than that these half-naked creatures, who have so much to pro- cure for themselves, should be toiling at an immense pyramid for the dead carcass of a man ? But the natural order of events is often precisely that which, at the first blush, we pro- nounce to be most unnatural ; for we think very mistakenly that what is most rational would be first chosen. This most rational thing is just what we have, through many curious paths, to get at. The great pyramid of Egypt presents no very rational or very aminable object to a reflective man. It stands there a most egregious egotism ; at the best, a sublime folly ; an eternal mountain of stone, and this absurd mummy at the core of it. Nevertheless, the knowledge and skill were doubtless very great which this monstrous symbol of egotism was the means of elicit- ing. Let it stand there forever in the desert as a monument of a great era in the progress of mankind. Throughout all this ancient civilization, note one thing : The Judge and the Moralist, Law and Public Opinion, all decree in favour of this right of property of man in man. Men become enlightened jurists and profound philosophers, and reason much of the public good and Religion puts on her high moral aspect, and enforces the most equitable and philanthropic maxims of conduct ; but all these generalizations of law, morality, and reli- gion circle harmless around this institution of slavery embrace it, or do not oppose it. The public good requires it, or did re- quire ; its necessity is still believed in. It is written down as " THORNDALE." 185 with an iron pen in the table of the law, that man has an undis- puted right to his slave. I advance at one bound from the Past to the Present, from the era of slavery to what, so far as the organization of industry is concerned, may be called the era of wages. The Many must work for the Few before the Many can work for the Many. And this working for the Few is brought about, in the first instance, by compulsion by slavery which, again, is the result of war the combination of armed men giving to few the power over many. It may appear to us that the harsh system of slavery lasted much longer than was necessary, but its necessity as a prior condition to the system that followed cannot be denied. And what system is it that dies out just when we think it might be dispensed with ? How could it be a system, and have all the permanence and stability of custom and habit, and not also manifest this inconvenient and obstinate vitality ? He who has reflected on what we owe to custom and habit will not be very impatient when he observes them still perpetuating some insti- tution long after it has reached what seems to us its legitimate period of dissolution. It was only in the city already built and peopled it was only in the already organized community, that the relationship of employer and employed, of capitalist and workman, destined to substitute that of master and slave, could spring up. It would be needless for me to describe what has been narrated by many others, the manner in which free and paid labour was substituted for compulsory labour. Speaking generally, one may say that there grows up in the great city (as descendants of free men and otherwise) a large class who are neither slaves nor proprietors of slaves. Of these some apply themselves to trade and commerce, and enrich themselves ; others, being poor, are willing to enter into their service. Thus the relation of employer and employed would gradually arise, and for a long time coexists with that of master and slave. It would probably soon be found by the enterprising citizen that, even though he could purchase slaves, the paid labourer was more profitable than the slave. The slave must be bought and fed, and was after all an unwilling workman ; it was bettter economy to buy the 186 WILLIAM SMITH. labour only, and labour of a more voluntary character. The improved plan would make its way slowly from the town to the country. The owner of land and serfs manumits his serf, and pays wages to him as his labourer. He manumits himself at the same time from the responsibility of maintaining his serf. But the change of one system for another has never perhaps been effected in the case of land without the aid of cooperating causes, such as political revolutions, or that destruction of the Roman empire which dispersed the inhabitants of cities into the country, and gave both new owners and new labourers to the soil. . . . Mark now how, with the proved possibility and establishment of a new system, the moral code of society changes ! Slavery has become criminal. The rights of property have been thus much abrogated, that property in man is gone. To claim such a property is stigmatized as a flagrant wrong ; and society can- not go back to its old code. We call this right to personal freedom an eternal right, although it is comparatively new to us ; for it must be eternal for all time to come. Slavery can never again belong to what we deem the perfect type of society. (Pages 504-507.) Out of our present phase, too. something better is to grow, but only through a right employment of this pres- ent : And now if this progress continue if the multitude of man- kind should be able to command by their labour those advan- tages which pass familiarly under the names of comfort, compe- tence, civilized condition, and the like, how can I but foresee in this a preparation for a still greater approximation, and a more equal and permanent relationship, between employer and employed ? I cannot but foresee in this power of producing for the multitude an abundance of all the requisites of a human- ized existence, combined with the increasing intelligence of that multitude a condition of things in which this great busi- ness of " food, clothes, and fire " will be conducted in such a manner that want, and the great evil of our present state, un- certainty, will be driven out of the world. Not that I suppose a time will come when men will suddenly say amongst themselves, THORNDALE." 187 " Lo ! we have now a productive industry which, if wisely and equitably directed, would suffice to give house, clothing, books, instruction, and the like, to all. Let us then reorganise this industry, that it may accomplish so desirable a result. Let us set to each one a task, and assign to each the conditions of a happy existence." This is wild talk, and shows an utter obliv- ion of the manner in which society progresses, and in which all great permanent changes are effected. The " desirable result " is already in part accomplished, and the part accomplished will gradually lead to such modifications in our customs and rela- tionships of life as will tend to its complete accomplishment. Meanwhile all our prosperity and well-being, present and future, , are bound up with fidelity to the existing system the charter we live under the present rights of property. The landlord and the capitalist are as essential to our civilization at this moment as the hand that holds the spade or forges the steam-engine. I would assist in making this clear if it were at all necessary. For not only do I hold this conviction in com- mon with all sober and rational men, in common with those who would smile at my hopes of the future as visionary, but on account of these very hopes, I perhaps hold the conviction with even more earnestness than they do. Everything depends here in England, the future as well as the present, on faithful allegiance to our laws of property. (Pages 508, 509.) The merits in the present system, the usefulness of the capitalist and the landlord, are arrayed against the fever- ish impatience of the revolutionist : The capitalist does nothing to produce, at least directly, the corn and meat that feed the labourer ; but he is quite as neces- sary as if he did ; for it is he who combines men together for the production of commodities, whether of need or of luxury. If, indeed, men had intelligence enough to form the same com- binations, for the same purposes, without his aid, his office might be dispensed with. But they have not this intelligence, and great must be the training and discipline and elevation of taste before they could possibly have it. You complain of the misdirection of industry that the 188 WILLIAM SMITH. workmen are not exclusively employed in producing what they themselves want. Why, this is one of the indispensable func- tions of the capitalist that he employs men in producing some- thing of a higher character or description than could be pro- duced for all ; than could, at least in the first instance, be produced for all. And as to the landlord, without him, in some form or other, there would never have been any civilization at all, nor any products of industry beyond the rudest and quite indispensable. To him all refinement is in the first place due. In England, at this moment, if it were not for the landlord, the earth itself would be utterly defaced ; not a tree would be left growing ; nothing but a miserable patchwork of half-cultivated plots and allotments would meet the eye. I need not add that the capi- talist, in his character of man of wealth, performs also many of the functions of the landlord. Some one perhaps says, This seems true, but explain to me why there is this contradiction between institutions which are to command approbation, and the plainest maxims of justice and equity. He who sows shall reap ; and we should share alike in what God gives to all. Explain to me this contradiction. I both can and will explain it. The maxims of justice, as you call them, and which you adopt as the last general laws to which appeal is to be made, are not the ultimate rules of moral- ity that you take them for. They have to submit, and to be subordinated to, a higher and wider rule. The good of the whole is the paramount, all-embracing law, to which appeal is always finally to be made. The only unalterable law of moral- ity is this, that the good of the whole be secured, at every epoch, according to the existing power and intelligence of mankind. This maxim, that a man should possess the produce of his own labour, or a full equivalent to it, admirable maxim as it is, is not final ; it has to submit to a greater law the good of the whole ; it never has been applied unrestrictedly in any human society, worthy of the name, and never could be so applied. All such excellent maxims as express themselves in the terms Equality and Fraternity " Share alike," and " Love each other as brothers " submit, in each age, to different limita- tions and interpretations ; and rights which contravene such " THORNDALE." 189 maxims are still preeminently moral rights, if the good of the great organic whole of society require them. (Pages 511, 512.) Passing over large tracts of thought, we cite next the development of the religious sentiment : It is by the religious imagination through gods and divi- nation and the like that man first starts into intellectual life. What make you of this ? That the intellectual life shall, at a subsequent period, altogether depart from its original direction, and ignore religion ? I, for my part, find that the first dream of imagination is in a line with the last truth of reason. I find the whole series one consistent development. Religion grows with science, and they are ultimately seen to be inseparable. What is the theological imagination of early times? It is essentially this that man transports himself into nature endues the great objects or powers of nature with human feel- ing, human will and so prays and worships, and hopes to propitiate, and to obtain aid, compassion, deliverance. Well, this primitive imagination is in the line of truth. We begin with throwing a man's thought there into nature ; we purify and ex- alt our imaginary being; we gradually release him from the grosser passions of mankind. We are, in fact, rising ourselves above the domination of those grosser passions ; and as we grow wise and just, we make the god wise and just, beneficent and humane. Meanwhile science begins to show us this goodly whole as the creation of one Divine Artificer. And now we recognize, not without heart-beatings, that God indeed is not man, but that He has been educating man to comprehend Him in part, and to be in part like Him. Are not the Imagination and the Reason here strictly affili- ated ? We begin, as it has been boldly and truly said, by mak- ing God in our own image. What else could we do ? Nature had not yet revealed herself to us in her great unity, as one whole, as the manifestation of one Power. We make God in our own image, but by and by, as our conceptions on every side enlarge, we find that it is God who is gradually elevating us by the expansion of our knowledge into some remote similitude with Himself. He is making us, in one sense, in his own image. This correspondence between the human and the 190 WILLIAM SMITH. divine is the keynote of all religion ; and Imagination, in her apparently wild and random way, had struck upon the note. God is making man in his own image, when He reveals to him the creation in its true nature, when He inspires him with a knowledge of the whole, and a love for the good of the whole. But the first step in this divine instruction was precisely the hold imagination by which man threw out into nature an image of himself. The form that imagination threw into the air was gradually modified and sublimed as man rose in virtue, and na- ture was better understood, till at length it harmonizes with, and merges into, a truth of the reason. Was man to wait for his God and his religion till his consciousness, in all other respects, was fully developed ? Or was the revelation of the great truth to be sudden? Apparently not. Man dreamt a god first. But the dream was sent by the same power, or came through the same laws, that revealed the after-truth. Nay, he dreams on still, and reasons on still, up to this very epoch ; and the dream is penetrated by the truth, and the truth is still benefi- cently pictured to him in the dream. Perhaps in religion some floating relic of the imagination will be always with us. Men cannot look upon the sun itself ; and the brightest part of the firmament on which they can rest their eyes is those pinna- cles of the topmost cloud where the light seems to be made pal- pable to us by that earth-born vapour which interposes between us and it. (Pages 528-530.) One of the most fruitful and suggestive passages is that which depicts the rise and the usefulness of the idea of a God of Battle, of Terror then a God of Punishment and so of Justice and at last a God of Love. This is the climax : Men of passion and imagination, men full of anger, and pray- ing for the destruction of their enemies, enthroned, not without feeling of fierce cordiality, an Infinite Anger in the skies. Afterwards the dark and gloomy throne was gradually shaped into a Judgment-seat, then into a Mercy-seat, but with the old thunders lingering round it still. Without these* there would have been no feared judgment, and consequently no vivid con- "THORNDALE" 191 ception of mercy. Love makes its first entrance into our hearts under the name of niercy. The new dispensation under which we are said to live left the old Infinite Anger where it was, and brought forward an Infinite Mercy, forever to neutralize it. And now does not something like a climax stand out clear before us ? For how could this great belief in Mercy, which is subduing the human heart to an unutterable tenderness, how could it have appeared in the world but for its antecedents the reign of Divine Anger and of Judgment ? The three great ideas of Anger, Judgment, and Mercy are blended together most conspicuously in our own faith. But there is an idea higher than that of Mercy which has en- tered last of all into the world. The word " Grace " not only signifies pardon, but the Spirit of God moving in us to the pro- duction of a new life. I hold this word " Grace "to be one of the noblest, and of fullest significance, that has ever been ut- tered in popular theology. At this point the highest philosophy appears blent in that twisted cord of reason and imagination which binds so many ages together. For is it not indisputably true that God, by his free gift, is creating us, age after age, into new and higher life, and wiser love to man and to Himself ? u Throw thyself upon the love of God, thy Creator ! " " Per- fect love casteth out fear ! " These are the last utterances of religion in the most advanced nations of the earth. Add, too, that the perfect love which casteth out fear is the love also of goodness and of man. By no other means will fear be cast out. I speak generally of mankind, or of a society. I say the Furies will live forever in the imagination of guilt or crime. Whether the terror arise spontaneously in our own mind, or descend from tradition, from the imagination of other men, the result is the same. It has been so ordered by God that there is no peace to the heart of man but in the great sentiments of virtue and the love of God. If any man holds that a human society standing where we stand in the progression of ages can es- cape from the fear of God by any other outlet, he must defend his own thesis. I should be a hypocrite, and false to the most irresistible and ineffaceable sentiments of my own mind, if I taught such a doctrine ; for I daily and hourly feel that there can be no peace with God unless there is good-will to man, no es- 192 WILLIAM SMITH. cape from fear but in the sentiments of love and obedience. A people that passed from superstition into crime would inevitably return, passion-led, back to superstition. (Pages 550, 551.) We must now revert to the discussions in which Seck- endorf plays a prominent part. The author entitles this section, " Seckendorf, or the Spirit of Denial ; " yet this denier and critic contributes some strong elements to the final and positive result. We must let him speak for himself. This is his general ground : I stand here, the advocate for the world as it is, and our faiths as they are. For the world as it is, with its ignorant multitudes and its wiser few, with its passions of hate and of love, its griefs, its consolations, its truths, its errors, and, above all, its great religious faiths, which are rooted in the sorrows and the wrongs of men. I do not ask if these are true ; enough for me that they are here. Iven your Utopian dreams, if I saw that they made ten men happy, should have a place in the cata- logue. I like this wide world. I like the sinner, I like the saint ; I like its uproarious youth and its penitent old age. Nor am I overmuch distressed about the miseries of life. Every creature grows to its circumstances ; the fur grows rough as the climate roughens. This marvellous force of habit is a provi- sion against all fortunes or misfortunes. I have tried it. I Baron von Seckendorf have lived in a garret, on a herring. Not agreeable. But the second herring was very savoury, and vastly welcome. (Page 269.) Seckendorf is by no means set up as the advocate merely of false and hateful ideas. A great deal is to be learned from him. This cordial affirmation of large good in humanity's actual present may well win response. But the destructive phase of his thought 'follows close : : Clarence. You look upon our great religious faiths merely as parts of life as great delusions, in short. Seckendorf. They do not owe their origin to philosophy or sci- ence, so far as I understand the matter. But they are spon- taneous products of the imagination and the passions of men, " THORNDALE." 193 which philosophy and science would do well to let alone ; and which that " intellectual progress " you boast so much of would assuredly put in peril. (Pages 269, 270.) As to the fundamental question, the being of God, Seckendorf's position is not one of denial, but of inability to reach any clear conception : Thorndale. There is at least one great truth that reveals it- self the being of God a truth that rides high in the heav- ens, clear and bright as the sun at noonday. Seckendorf. Bright as the sun at noonday ! Is it always noon- day with us, Thorndale ? Is there always a sun in our sky to hide the dark and illimitable space beyond ? Is there not also an infinitude of night and of stars ? And tell me, in the widest view we catch of" the universe is it light or darkness that chiefly prevails for the vision of a man ? The existence of God is clear to demonstration till we ask ourselves what conception of God we have attained. Reason, meaning thereby the unity of parts in a whole, adaptation, har- mony, is everywhere apparent ; without it, I suppose, nothing exists that does exist. But the reasoning Being how form this conception ? To me The All seems to be the only represen- tative, for us, of this Reason or Power ; for it is hard to give any name to what transcends all human thought. (Pages 270, 271.) Here from another connection is a pregnant saying : " I believe," Seckendorf 'would sometimes say, "I believe in God, till your philosophers bring me a demonstration of his existence." " And then ? " I said. " And then I do not believe in the demonstration." (Page 433.) Against the belief in an upward progress of society, Seckendorf arrays the evils which attend man in barba- rism and in civilization. The steam-engine is the great boast, and fairly so, of modern times ; but follow the steam-engine throughout its whole history, its making, and all the work it performs, and for every stroke of 194 WILLIAM SMITH. the piston there has been the stroke of a human arm, or perhaps the throbbing of some human brain. For when the man has got the machine to work for him, he always finds that he has converted himself also into a machine, and stands by, working mechanically with it hour after hour. No engine has yet been invented which, if it profited one part of mankind, has not also been an engine of torture to another. . . . To my mind, one of the saddest spectacles the earth reveals is precisely this : The traveller depicts to me some fertile island in a delicious climate, where the bread-fruit hangs from the tree, where the soft winds are themselves warmth and clothing de- picts to me an earthly paradise ; and the next moment he shows me the human tenant of it, a very child, a simple savage, very little wiser than the fowls of the air, or the fishes of the sea. No progress was made, because the earth "was spontaneously fruitful, and the skies were kind. You tell me that man invents marvellous machines that work for him. He cannot ; his machines are only complicated tools, with which he also must continually work. But if he could make the iron and the wood really work for him, then behold the bread-fruit tree is again growing over his head the winds again are clothing him he is again an idler, and crawling like an infant on the ground. We labour and we die. Well, but the moralist will teach us how to live the little life we have. If by morality be meant a control of the passions, the teacher has either a very hopeless, or very needless task. Whilst the passion is young and strong, the moralist is not heard ; when it is feeble or extinct, the man can moralize for himself only much too late. Just when we have learned to live, we find that we are dying out ; just when we begin to value this mysterious gift of life, it is taken from us. We leave our place to some puling infant ; " the sage is withering like a leaf." We are mere stubble, and the plough passes over us that a new verdure may spring up. Not a day even of the brief space allotted to us is secure. We tread per- chance upon a rolling stone we breathe an air too keen and there is an end to all. Fool or philosopher, it is all alike. (Pages 303, 304.) "THORNDALE." 195 The problem of the individual destiny is interwoven with the analysis we make of the individual man. Seck- endorf takes the materialistic view : " Matter cannot think inert matter," as we hear it said, " cannot think." Certainly not. Inert matter cannot move. It is moving matter that moves. It is growing matter that, in the vegetable, grows. If your definition of matter is limited to some one property, which all matter, at all times, displays, your definition cannot help us much. The property of extension leads us no farther than the property of extension. If your defini- tion is to embrace all properties, which matter, at any time, un- der any circumstance, may manifest, mechanical, chemical, vital properties, then it is evident that such a definition must be the last result of all our knowledge. Whether the property of sensibility or feeling shall be added to those already enumer- ated is precisely the question we should have to discuss. I notice you adopt the expression so frequently used, the brain is the instrument of the mind. Be it so. But it is an instru- ment of that curious order that takes the initiative. (Page 345.) Thorndale. If material objects and their relations exist inde- pendently of me, yet my perception of these relations is a power quite my own. There is a power here which lies unseen, behind the vital organism, and makes use of it as its instrument. Seckendorf. Its instrument \ This is the favourite analogy. The body is an instrument. Why may it not be the seat itself of those susceptibilities which constitute consciousness ? But if the brain is an instrument of the mind, it is one which, as I have said, takes the initiative. If your analogy be of a musical in- strument, it looks very like the performer. Adopt this last fan- ciful comparison. The vital organism shall be the pipe, and the spirit shall be the breath blown into it. Now, what if the pipe have a rhythmical movement of its own, by which it enlarges and contracts its orifice, causing a sharper or, a lower note at each change, which is the performer, the breath or the pipe ? My companion takes a few glasses of wine ; the circulation of the blood through the innumerable vessels of the brain is quick- 196 WILLIAM SMITH. ened (to say nothing of what the champagne or the hock may have added to the blood itself) ; and the processes of thought are quickened too. But they are more than quickened ; they are varied, they are improved. My companion grows witty, cheerful, perhaps eloquent. I listen to combinations of thought which most assuredly but for the wine would not have made their appearance that day. He drinks a few more glasses, and the wit degenerates into nonsense, and the amiabil- ity into a maudlin humour, or the vivacity of spirit into a quar- relsome temper. He drinks still more, and there ensues a complete confusion in all his thoughts : we say he is no longer a rational being. Now observe, it is precisely on the succession and combina- tion of our ideas that our rationality depends ; and here you see that these are determined by the physical condition of the man. I want to know what proof you could have more convincing than such a commonplace fact that the vital organism takes the initiative that in its movements and functions, whatever they may be, you have the proximate cause of that succession or association of ideas which distinguishes us as rational beings. (Pages 362, 363.) I think one idiot humbles us all. Here, in these beautiful valleys of Switzerland, amongst these sublimities of nature, is born the Cretin. He has, or may have, all his senses ; he .can see, touch, hear, more or less perfectly ; but his brain is mal- formed, or an impure blood deteriorates its growth, or fails to supply some appropriate stimulant. He learns nothing ; makes no more advance than the cattle in the stall ; child always, let his age be what it may. A pious Mahometan would tell us that his soul is in heaven, and on this account would invest the poor creature with a sort of sanctity. A strange superstition ! gentle if not wise. Meanwhile the disease of the Cretin is sometimes partially curable. As the physician conquers the malady as a purer blood is produced as this and that tissue is restored or raised to its normal susceptibility lo ! a glimmer of the soul appears ! The Mahometan would, I suppose, tell us that the physician is summoning it from heaven. To the physician it seems very " THORN DALE." 197 clear that the animal health he has partially restored was that missing link in the great established order of development, without which there could be no higher thinking than the idiot had displayed. (Page 342.) Seckendorf relates some stories from his own life, and among them this : It happened that a citizen of Berlin, noted for his wretched and violent temper, finally ended his career by blowing out his brains. He chose a sentry-box in the public street for the scene of this exploit. Though life was extinct, the people neverthe- less carried him into the hospital. I was passing at the time. I had some little knowledge of the man, and, mingling with the medical students, I entered with them into the hospital. The man was quite dead, and a post-mortem examination ensued. An eminent physician, passing through the room just as the operators were commencing their work, said, as he hurried on to some pressing avocation of his own, " Look under the dura mater, and see if there are not some osseous deposits." The operator did not fail to look, and lo ! there were osseous depos- its, " evidently," as they all pronounced, " of a very irritating sort." I was struck with this incident, both because of the certainty and precision of the physician's knowledge, and because of the palpable cause here discovered of the violent and ungovernable temper of the unhappy man. I thought that the temper of some other men I knew would be a little more intelligible if one could only look under their dura 'mater. (Page 283.) He portrays himself : The temperament of a man, the blood that is in him, is apt, I suspect, to overrule his philosophy. If this thinking faculty of mine had been lodged in some slender, feeble shred of a body all nerve and sensibility I should have doubtless taken, once for all, to books and meditation, and laboured, perhaps I also to obtain the reputation of a philosopher. But only measure me ! (and Seckendorf, laughing at his own idea, stood up at his full height) I stand six feet some inches, the naked heel rest- ing on the mother earth. Age has narrowed and rounded in 198 WILLIAM SMITH. my shoulders ; but there was a time when I could have borne off a professor of philosophy upon each one of them. I had the thews and sinews of a tiger ; I could have endured fatigue with a North American savage ; I have fasted for three days, and then fed like a boa-constrictor. Was this the digestion for a philosopher ? Was this the organization for one who asks noth- ing of material nature but a headpiece to think with, and so much animal mechanism as goes to the moving of a pen ? I could for weeks together spend the whole day, and much of the night, in indefatigable study. Then would follow a craving for physical excitement, an appetite for action, quite irrepressible. I would then ride the fleetest horses, urged to their utmost speed ; or I would repair to the fencing-school. The use of every weapon was familiar to me, but the sword and the foil were my favourites. The energetic contest of man with man, some sort of fighting, believe me, comes very natural to the human animal. Foot to foot, eye on eye, stroke on stroke, there is no excite- ment like the combat. (Page 285.) We do not attempt to precisely disengage from Seck- endorf 's views the elements which commend themselves finally to Thorndale or the author. But the foregoing may be well accompanied by Thorndale's recognition of the degree to which character is inevitably the result of antecedent circumstances : You take a single soul, and tax it with its single guilt. It is right and fit to do so. And yet in every single soul it is the whole world you judge. Yes ! it is right, and fit, and reasonable that the man, whilst living with his kind, should be treated as the sole originator of all he does of good or of evil. Cover him with honour ! Stamp him with infamy ! Thus only can man make an ordered world of it. And are not this reciprocated honour .and dispraise, given and received by all, great part of human life itself ? But in thy hands, O Rhadamanthus, judge of the dead ! what is this soli- tary soul? It is but as a drop in the great ocean of life clear, or foul, as winds from either pole have made it. Aye, and the very undersoil on which it lay, on which it was tossed to " THORNDALE." 199 and fro, had been broken up by forgotten earthquakes and ex- tinct volcanoes. A whole eternity had been at work where that drop of discoloured water came from. (Pages 40, 41.) As to the materialistic theory of man's nature, which Seckendorf presents, the author himself appears unde- cided. He seems to give the weight of argument on Seck- endorf's side ; and in the adverse arguments of Clarence and Thorndale we find nothing so striking as to call for citation in this condensed resume. Yet the author's agreement appears to be with Clarence when he declares, " I am utterly unable to conceive of thought as the func- tion of a material and constantly fluctuating organization. I have no doubt myself of the immateriality of that which ultimately is conscious." He seems at once unable to re- fute the argument for materialism and unconvinced by it. He does not consider that materialism leads necessarily to atheism, or even to the denial of immortality. But from this last conclusion Seckendorf does not shrink, and he states it in the most telling way : Do you think that the belief in immortality could last a mo- ment if stated as a bare fact of natural philosophy ? There lies a dead man ! Nature does not revive that dead man. She has a quite different plan. She makes another. He is already here. The living son is carrying the dead father to his last rest. You put out a man's eyes, and he no longer sees ; you dam- age his brain, and he no longer remembers ; you kill him out- right, and he is supposed to start up all sight and all memory ! Confess this does not wear the air of probability. (Page 277.) He asserts that the theory of a spiritual existence in man, distinct from matter, is only clung to because it alone gives room for the hope of immortality. Thorndale disclaims this bias, and maintains that the materialistic view too permits that hope : Seckendorf. Confess, Thorndale, it is not a " scientific ne- cessity," it is not the aid it affords to a scientific exposition, that 200 WILLIAM SMITH. induces you to cling to this spiritual ens. It is a theological necessity ; it is the aid it renders to religion, and^ especially to the doctrine of immortality. You need something to carry out beyond the world, beyond the circle of nature beyond the at- traction of your earth. It is this which determines the complex- ion of your metaphysics ; and let it be so, Thorn dale, now and always. A religious creed is something in the happiness of a man ; a metaphysical system nothing at all. Thorndale. I certainly should regret to find myself com- pelled to adopt any conclusion adverse to a belief in the im- mortality of the soul. But if I know myself, this reluctance or recoil has had no undue influence on my judgment here. And, moreover, I will add this, that though the doctrine of the im- materiality of the thinking being lends itself readily to the belief of immortality, or of a perpetuated consciousness, yet ma- terialism itself (to one who believes that all is created by God) is not absolutely repugnant to that faith. The power which created our consciousness here on earth could re-create it else- where. The question, " material or immaterial," may not, after all, be of so much theological importance as is generally sup- posed. For if, on the one hand, matter itself be nothing else, in our last conception of it, than a mode of divine action, one manifestation of divine power ; and if, on the other hand, we cannot attribute to mind, or soul, self-existence, but must always regard it as upheld by its Creator ; it follows that we rest as directly on the power and will of God, whether we call ourselves materialists or immaterialists. If it is a thinking body, and not a thinking soul, that God has created here, He may create else- where another thinking body to perpetuate this consciousness, just as well as He could uphold and transport a thinking soul. I can detect nothing absurd in the idea of the creation of another organism to carry on and perfect the consciousness de- veloped here that consciousness which is the great result, so to speak, of the whole world. (Page 354.) Clarence suggests that even if this life terminates our existence we have still the ground for gratitude and wor- ship : And is it not true that, just in proportion as our scope of THORNDALE." 201 thought is enlarged, we must rise into grander conceptions of the Creator, and feel, in the simple fact of being his creature, an inexhaustible source of piety and of hope ? Say that each one of us has but this present life, how great this life becomes, great in its ample vision of nature and of God, great in itself and its own affections, great in its embracing the lives of others ! Say even that our dream of immortality is but a sort of provisional faith, educating and disciplining us for a noble so- ciety on earth (a doctrine I should lament to be compelled to believe) ; say that to ask for the reproduction or re-creation of a given man is to ask for the re-creation of the whole world of which he was a part ; say that it is as idle to wish back the dead as to wish back the roses of last summer ; you still have this living man before you, with all his expanding knowledge and generous affections, you still must admit the continuous growth of this humanity, this greatest creation of God, the sum and climax of all else we call creation. (Page 485.) And the poet Luxmore dwells on the idea of a delight in the spectacle of the world, and in the sense of existence, independent of any aspirations for individual perma- nence : I see the poet ; I see him lying by the borders of his lake. . . . But mountain and shadow, and lake and tree, are all for him, for him. These wonderful creations of unconscious space are born again, and have their full and complete existence in the poet's mind. For him, and in him, all this beauty lives. The mountain becomes a grandeur only in his thoughts ; as it exists in the unconscious air, it is mere bulk and measurement. I see my poet, leaning on the moss-covered rocks, looking at it all aslant. And hosts of little wild-flowers are peeping into his eyes. They, too, would live ! They, too, will become a con- scious loveliness if he but looks on them. He does look. Every- thing in creation has its accomplished and exalted being in the consciousness of man. If the silent waters move mystically, if the murmuring waters murmur peace, if the torrent and the waterfall speak of power, it is only as they flow and murmur through his thoughts. In him they become mystery, and peace, and power. 202 WILLIAM SMITH. But the poet departs. He vanishes like the mist ; he withers like the. leaf. Aye, but another and another poet will lie on those moss-covered rocks. This living man will transmit his life. He will improve it before he transmits. His life is always the greater in just such proportion as he can feel him- self one in the great whole of humanity. (Pages 376, 377.) But Luxinore himself immediately renounces this self- renunciation : After a pause, in which Luxmore had been busily occupied in cleaning and loading a brace of pistols, he broke out again, and in a very different strain. The revolvers had evidently something to do with the transition. " See here ! " he said, " I am prepared to defend my little spark of life by blowing into dust and ashes any one who as- sails me. 44 It won't do, Thorndale ! This impersonal and pantheistic way of thinking does not accord with our nature ; not, at least, with the nature of an Englishman. We live self-centred. / am 'more than a life ; I am the somewhat who has the life, and means to keep it. This little word / has a wonderful mean- ing and potency in it. All. our heroism or greatness dies out if this little word loses its power with us. What is our im- mortality but a sublime egotism ? The old Saxon king spoke best : We flutter in at the one window, and spread our wings, and fly forth at the other, into infinite space. I shall keep my faith in the mystical /. Each individual man stands eternally face to face with a created nature. He receives it all, learns from it all, and stands also in clear contrast to it all. That seeming contradiction is the secret of his greatness. There you have ' my last word.' " (Page 378.) Thorndale, in his Diary, states thus the ground for his own hope : As a speculative reasoner, I should say that this great hope develops itself out of the knowledge and contemplation of God, coupled with our moral aspirations. To live in felt harmony with the good of the whole is our highest morality, and also our point of communion with God. The desire for further knowl- "THORNDALE." 203 edge of our Creator, and for this perfect life (I must consider these together as forming one desire, or one state of mind, be- cause a wish for moral perfection alone might refer solely to this world), brings and justifies a faith in immortality. (Page 46.) His greatest discouragement is mankind's seeming un- worthiness of so high a destiny. The hardest trial to our faith is the actual aspect of the liv- ing multitudes of mankind. Looking round the world, it is very hard to find one's immortals, or celestials that are to be. Not always do men seem worthy of living even on this earth, which one might imagine to be more like heaven than they are akin to angels. Sometimes it rather seems as if the earth were waiting for its fit inhabitants, than that its present inhabitants were entitled to spurn the world beneath them in their haste to ascend into a better. I raise my eyes from my paper and what a beautiful vision lies before me ! The blue sky reflected on these ample waters gives me a double heaven, one above and one beneath me ; and these islands of enchantment, Ischia and Capri, seem to be sus- pended, floating midway between them. And now the whole surface of the sea is glowing like one entire sapphire, on which a thousand rainbows have been thrown and broken. " Surely," I exclaim, " here, if anywhere, man might have been immor- tal ! " Yet if I descend from my solitude, and pass through yonder neighbouring city, I shall find myself amidst a noisy, angry, quar- relsome multitude, each one of whom would think it the grossest insult if I doubted that he was an immortal spirit waiting to put on his angelic nature " in another and better world." Pity he cannot put on a little of it here. What does this world want but that he and his fellow-men should be somewhat better than they are ? (Page 55.) He distrusts even the presage given by friendship and love, because, alas, friendship and love themselves appear to him frail and mutable. In a book which I have just laid down, and where the author 204 WILLIAM SMITH. was arguing this very subject, I met with the following pas- sage : " How cruel would it be if friendships formed on earth should be extinguished on the borders of the grave ! " This is the natural language, I presume, of ardent feeling. Yet, in reality, how few of our friendships last so long as to be carried to the borders of the grave ! How often do they suffer a speedier and far more cruel extinction ! Are there many of us to whom, on disembarking on that other shore, a hand could be extended on which we would swear an eternal friend- ship ? (Page 47.) Two lovers, soon after their happy union, are separated by death. How vivid is the faith of the survivor that they shall meet again ! Surely somewhere they shall be reunited. Is there not space enough, are there not stars enough in the wide heavens ? And all they want is a little space to love in, some foothold given them in the creation. All the rest of their eter- nal joy they carry with them ; such joy as it would surely be amazing waste and prodigality to let fall out of the universe. What if they had lived and loved a little longer on the earth ? Perhaps the star would not have been wanted. (Page 49.) But the soul's aspiration toward God, toward knowl- edge of Him and union with Him, points to a future fruition. Here is a want felt imperatively by each reflective soul, and which never will be gratified on earth. If I were therefore asked for my ground of belief in the second great doctrine of religion, I should say it was involved in the first ; it follows, I think, as a corollary from a belief in God. Nay, even the terrible anxiety which sometimes seizes us to know whether a God exists or not brings with it a sudden and imperious conviction in some future condition of our being in which we shall know. It would stand alone in nature if a thinking being should be born into this great scheme of things, where all is fit and harmonious, with one burning question for- ever in his heart, which was never to be solved. If I ever touched for a moment the borders of complete scepticism, I felt "THORNDALE." 205 at that moment the impossibility that I could altogether die that I could become extinct with this uuremoved ignorance upon my soul. (Pages 51, 52.) I never could look long upon the stars, and not feel that I claimed some kindred with the infinite and the eternal. Why am I vexed incessantly with this question, " Mortal or immortal," if nothing is to come of it ? Or who can think upon that other and greater problem the nature of Him who perchance sits central amidst the stars and not feel that a creature who can who must state such problems to himself is surely destined, one day, somewhere, to have them solved for him ? Oh, yes ! believe it ! believe it ! there is an eternal life within us. It will burn on ! it is akin to those stars. And, Clarence, you are right ! As men grow better on the earth, they will grow more confident in their great hope of im- mortality. They will support it in each other and in them- selves. Have I not said that the aspect of the living world was the .conspicuous cause of our despondency ? Here, as elsewhere, we meet with that reciprocal action that encounters us through- out in this great organic growth of society ; the faith that ele- vates our morality is again confirmed and animated by the higher morality it has assisted to produce. (Page 57.) This last thought is a most characteristic feature of his belief in progress. That belief has been held by many as affording a substitute for any other religion. But, in our author's mind, connected with human progress is the belief that along with it will come a stronger and purer faith and hope of realities beyond this world. Of the fact of social progress to revert again to this central topic he finds a striking evidence in the growth, in the England of to-day, of the sentiment of devotion to " the good of the whole." " The good of the whole " that must be the watchword of advancing society : that is the abiding foundation of morality and religion. Glance now at the state of opinion in England, and say if I am fabling, or dealing with some figment of the imagination, when I pronounce that " the good of the whole " has become a 206 WILLIAM SMITH. noble care to very many amongst us. To me, looking abroad amongst my contemporaries, nothing so conspicuously character- izes our age as the number of noble minds you see in it full of the desire to promote the general good. In this habit of think- ing for the good of society, you would say, indeed, that most of us had become philosophers. Modes of thinking which, in the palmy days of Greece, were familiar only to a few men, who might have been packed together under a single portico of one of their own beautiful temples, are as common amongst us as the cries of the market-place. Notice how generally, by rich and poor, by learned and simple, the claim is admitted which society has on each one of us for his contribution to the public good. It is felt that each one of us owes all he has, and all he is, to society, and that he is bound to contribute his best of labour and intelligence to that organized community which is at once result and source of every individual life. That man does not belong to our age who does not manifest an extreme reluctance to be included in the class of idle men. He is not idle! He repu- diates the odious distinction. If he does not work with his hands, he manages, he overlooks, he combines the labours of others. If he has no land or factory, he makes for himself an occupation in some philanthropic scheme. He builds a school, or helps to erect a public bath he collects and distributes judiciously the charitable alms of others he is busy at a Savings Bank he is heart and soul in some Reformatory. If he can do nothing else, he writes a book. Having nothing to give but his ideas, he gives them. And say he has nothing of his own to give even here, he can disseminate amongst the many the truths of the few. By some plea he escapes the stigma of idleness. (Pages 559, 560.) And here is the perpetual incentive to social virtue, and the incentive also to hope : All society must advance, in order that any class may reach its highest possible development. It seems that it never is al- lowed for any one little group or knot of men to rest content with their own isolated position. Such is not nature's plan. Whether we look to the health of a man, or the wisdom of a man, we find that it is not permitted him to be well, or wise, alone. THORNDALE." 207 Our Dives I have sometimes said to myself is no bad man. He is charitable. What if he encloses his mansion and his pleasant grounds within high walls, and thus seems to remove himself entirely from the squalid poverty without, he surely must have quiet and cleanliness, pure air, and freedom from loathsome sights. Those hovels outside his garden walls would be miserable things to look at, and would offend all senses at once. He is distressed that such things should be ; but he can- not rebuild the whole village, and if he did, he must add thereto the remodelling of the habits of the villagers. He must inter- pose between him and them that screen of beautiful trees pre- served by his protection, and which are not preserved for his pleasure only. Even the eloquent preacher who, Sunday by Sunday, collects both rich and poor under the same sacred roof, can suggest no remedy suggests only palliatives charity to the one party, and patience to the other. He sees that to de- stroy altogether the condition of Dives, by calling on him for an unbounded charity to give all he has to the poor would be simply to reduce us all to one barbarous level of poverty and ig- norance. The existing plan must remain we must be content with palliatives. But nature is not content with our palliatives. The rich man may be blameless, and the eloquent and the wise may have done all they could ; nevertheless, nature makes her protest. Out breaks the plague ! It comes from those hovels, and from the stagnant pool that lies amongst them, but it sweeps over the garden wall of the refined patrician ; it traverses those pleasant grounds, enters the chambers of that spacious mansion, and the dear child of the house lies stricken by it. Typhus and other fevers will not always stay in the hovels in which they are bred. Those hovels should have been rebuilt ; that stagnant pool that lies amongst them should have been drained. By whom ? It should have been done ! But who was to do it ? It should have been done ! Such inexorable protest is nature accustomed to make. And as with health of body, so with health of mind. Look narrowly into it. The intellectual Dives would shut himself up in the pleasant garden of his own thoughts pleasant garden, walled round from the turbulent passions, the superstitions, and 208 WILLIAM SMITH. the panic terrors of mankind open only to the calm and glo- rious heavens. All in vain. Those panic terrors leap his walls, and enter every chamber of his house, every chamber of his thoughts. They were bred in that crime, and ignorance, and suffering, that lies weltering there without ; but they do not stay where they are bred they walk abroad through the minds of all men. That swamp of ignorance and vice should have been drained. By whom ? It should have been done. This is the only answer that you get. There is no perfect immunity to any man, from any kind of pestilence, till the whole city is taken care of. (Pages 565-567.) From these broad outlooks we come back to group a few personal utterances : Refine ! refine ! Live only in the higher meditative regions of the soul ! It sounds like good advice. But with the last dross goes the last strength. Your passionless thought leaves you without a thing to cling to or to be ; you are all you are nothing. Mere thinking throws you abroad upon the winds flings you to the stars, if you will but you are homeless and purposeless there as you were upon the earth. (Page 46.) This beautiful external nature, these still waters, these majes- tic hills, I have not been worthy of them. Where was the peace of mind, where the greatness and tranquillity, where the noble, free, useful activity which all nature symbolizes ? Not in me ! not in me ! or only for an instant. On my best hours such lit- tle thoughts, such littles cares intruded. I have flowed weak as water. Any straw could turn me. A jest, a look, a laugh has thrown trouble into my soul ; a pain, a lassitude, a sick and morbid feeling, has changed the current of a whole philosophy. We would be gazing upward and around at some divine spectacle gazing with calm and dilated souls and lo ! there is eveY some thorn in the sandal we must first stoop to extract. (Page 57.) Stand aside from the crowd, and look on have no other business than to look on how mad and preposterous, how pur- poseless and inexplicable, will the whole scene of human life ap- pear ! " How weary, stale, flat, and unprofitable All the uses of this world ! " " THORNDALE." 209 Step down into the crowd ; choose a path, or let accident choose for you ; be one of the jostling multitude ; have wishes and a pursuit ; and how full of meaning and purpose has it all become ! This labyrinth of life is ever a straight path to him who keeps walking. (Page 45.) Last of all, we bring together a few of the book's many words of " religion pure and undefiled." Shall I tell you what religion is in its broadest definition ? It is life cultivated under God, and in the presence of death. Forget death, and there would be little or no religion. Forget life, and religion is an empty spectre a mere terror, best buried in the tomb, which it will then perpetually haunt. (Page 60.) All religion [it is Cyril the monk who speaks] hangs on the belief in God's righteous anger against sin. Once quibble that away, and you may be Deist, Pantheist, Atheist what you will it matters little. (Page 232.) Cyril said another time, " Even Infinite Love and Infinite Compassion must strike a guilty race with terror and remorse. This transgressing world, since the day of its sin, has seen, and could see, nothing so awful as that mild Presence which walked forth from the village of Nazareth. Under that naked footfall the earth trembles still. " It trembles because it is impure. It rejoices as it throws off its impurity. If I told the sinner in his sins that he would one day. and through the intervention of that very Being, be a glorified saint, he could not believe it. The infinite terror of his guilt must come, and pass away, before he could believe it. But," he added, speaking in a lower tone, as if it were some inner doctrine that he ventured to announce, " but I think it has been revealed to me that every soul that God has made shall finally be brought under the dominion of wisdom and of love. This I have at length authoritatively learnt in the stillness of my monastery, and in solitary walks by the seashore. If I were to say that Christ himself had taught it to me, you would smile at my enthusiasm : yet something like this I feel to be the truth." (Page 233.) God never pardons : the laws of his universe are irrevocable. 210 WILLIAM SMITH. God always pardons : sense of condemnation is but another word for penitence, and penitence is already new life. (Pages 279, 280.) Who that has cultivated a high and reflective piety has not recognized that Religion does not first of all consist in hope of a future life, but consists first of all in living well here in a certain felt relationship with God in that happy, grateful, de- voted relationship which springs from knowledge of God's world and of our own humanity ? (Page 144.) I boldly claim for the future generations of mankind that re- ligion which our best and purest have claimed for themselves, when they shall ~be saints in Heaven. In that state they con- fess that Goodness and Piety are their own ends not prepara- tion for any other state of existence. They will become so here. This life will cease to be regarded chiefly as a preparation for another, because it will have become identified with that other. If we are immortal souls, we are immortal here ; death is but our great progression ; let us begin to live as the immortals should. (Page 160.) " Fear first," said the Cistercian, " then Hope, is the impulse of a Christian life. Last of all, the Christian life itself is its own motive. There comes a time when neither Fear nor Hope is necessary to the pious man ; but he loves righteousness for righteousness' sake, and love is all in all. It is not joy at. es- cape from future perdition that he now feels ; nor is it hope for some untold happiness in the future ; it is a present rapture of piety, and resignation, and love ; a present that fills eternity. It asks nothing, it fears nothing ; it loves, and it has no petition to make. God takes back his little child unto himself a little child that has no fear, and is all trust." (Page 234.) In these selections we have sought to " bring into har- mony what seems at first a mere conflict of opinions," and to fairly interpret the real philosophy of the author of " Thorndale." But we have omitted from this epitome some of the elements of personal feeling which give to the book its color and atmosphere. A brief introduction rep- resents the volume as consisting of a manuscript found in the desk of a young Englishman who had died near Na- " THORN DALE: 1 211 pies. This is Charles Thorndale, who throughout the fol- lowing chapters speaks sometimes in the first person and sometimes as reporting his companions. He writes his story in the seclusion to which he has withdrawn from the world to await the termination of a lingering disease. His dwelling looks down on the city and the bay of Naples. Most appropriately is this spot selected, in a region where the loveliness of nature and the mixture and debasement of humanity are brought into the strongest contrast. With death near at hand, he looks on the scenes he is about to leave with a heightened interest, and with a singular absence of personal hope or fear. The problems of exist- ence which have been the strongest interest of his life are reviewed in solitude and in calm. He chances upon Cyril, now the inmate of a neighboring monastery, and converses with him. Clarence, too, he meets again, and Clarence writes out for him a full exposition of his theories. Yet the reader feels Thorndale to be essentially and intensely alone. Cyril and Clarence talk freely with him upon gen- eral subjects, but of personal ministration or personal sympathy he has none and seems to want none. His " good Bernard " valet, cook, and nurse is casually mentioned as the only domestic companion he has or needs. The pathos of this solitude touches the reader the more keenly because it is borne with such unconscious- ness, as if through long familiarity it had ceased to be recognized. As the story of the debates is rehearsed, each speak- er's opinion given as forcibly as if the author were speak- ing his inmost thought, the impression of doubt and perplexity which the reader receives is indicated as the effect also upon Thorndale himself. Certain convictions gain an ascendency in him ; he sets forth the material of an affirmative and strong philosophy. Yet, as he is summed up by the old acquaintance who finds and pub- lishes his manuscript, 212 WILLIAM SMITH. He was one of those who cannot rest a moment in denial, and who yet find preeminently " how difficult it is to keep Heights which the soul is competent to gain." His foothold was forever giving away ; he rose only to fall again but, in falling, his eye was still, and forever, fixed upon the summit. In what conclusion did he finally rest ? What fate did he prophesy to the individual human soul or to congre- gated humanity ? Heaven or Utopia, or both ? Or did he to the last continue to doubt, to hope, to aspire, and then again throw away his aspirations ? say rather give them away to some other and happier mind, and love them there, though he could not retain them for himself ? (Page 9.) One passage in the Introduction, descriptive of Charles Thorndale, gives an inmost self -revelation of William Smith : That noble sorrow which falls occasionally on every sincere inquirer who finds himself baffled in his search for truth had taken up a very constant position in his mind. There was noth- ing to dislodge it. He had no personal ambition, no domestic bonds, no duties, no cares. Life had no interest if philosophy could yield no truth. . . . Perhaps the only strong desire he had was this, of penetrating to certain great truths which seemed to lie just hidden from our sight. He walked like a shadow amongst us. ... It was plain that there was at least vitality enough left in the man to make this absence of all passion or motive, whether of ambition or love, itself a terrible calamity. (Page 5.) These passages give the keynote of a melancholy which pervades the more personal portions of the book, and which strongly affects the reader. In some of its finest utterances " Thorndale " declares that peace of heart comes only through Tightness of con- duct. It lays strong emphasis on social virtue. But as a whole it mirrors the author's separation from the activities of life. Even in its theories, it seems to make too little ac- " THORNDALEr 213 count of the legitimate effect of action upon thought and faith. It makes no direct /appeal to man's personal en- ergy. Its hero does nothing except to think. He listens, ponders, and retires into solitude to meditate and to die. It is the touch of heart with heart that gives the surest sense of one supreme Heart of all. It is in his own most vigorous and noble action that man feels within himself as it were the very pulse of the Divine Energy. And the sadness that lies deepest on Thorndale arises from the seclusion of this sweet and gentle nature from its kind, and from all social activity. It is as if to him Thought and Beauty had to take the place of Action and Love a place they can never fill. Strangely touching it is to see him finding his reassurance and his satisfaction in the advancing good of humanity, and manifesting to the reader so lovable a quality even through the cold medium of the printed page, yet with no single fellow-being at his side. And amid the various play of his thought and feeling, like subtle and fascinating music, hardly once do we hear struck the full rich chord of happiness. He speaks of " the highest enjoyment we possess, the luxury and the triumph of thinking." Is that, O wise philoso- pher, the highest enjoyment you have found ? Then there is a joy you have not tasted, and a light to which your eyes have not opened. Yet this man, isolated from the great company of work- ers and worshippers, is one of the scattered pioneers whose quests and labors are contributing to the nobler temple which is rising for the society of the future. The old dwelling-place can no longer house all its children ; and while some of them abide and enlarge and refit, others must face the wilderness and subdue the New World. To measure the service of the men of William Smith's type, one should look back to the view of the universe in which he was trained as a youth, and which then was gener- ally accepted by the religious community. Contrast with 214 WILLIAM SMITH. Thorndale's view of humanity, doubtful at some points, frankly and humbly waiting for further light, but with lucid exposition of the long past, and grand prediction of society's future, with the recognition of every element in industry, science, art, and society, as well as nature, as threads in a divine plan whose beneficence exceeds our measurement, contrast with this the creed impressed on his childhood, so over-confident and so baseless in its assumption of authority, so fearful of unsparing inquiry, so restricted in its ideals of character, so fantastic in its story of humanity's beginnings, and with a prophecy of futurity mingling with its glories such ghastly terrors. By the difference between these two conceptions, we may partly measure what the higher mind of Europe had gained within a lifetime. Yet this comparison is incom- plete. We should add to the picture another way of thought, a way which to-day claims to dominate the in- telligence of Europe, the view of life from which God has wholly faded out, and which casts aside as childish fancy man's hope of a hereafter. In that contrast we shall best appreciate the service of one who in full face of modern thought, and preferring always sternest truth to kindest delusion, reached not only a noble anticipation for future generations, but also a great faith in God, and a tremulous, reverent hope for the spirit's future. We have dwelt on the loneliness which " Thorndale " shows in its author. Pathetic that solitude is, yet not without a great and lofty cheer. The want of close affec- tion and active occupation casts a heavy shadow ; but in rising out of all personal ambition and solicitude into a habitual consideration of what concerns all mankind, there has come an emancipation of the spirit. This watcher on a mountain height like the seer of old, discerning a promised land not for himself but for his people asks not our compassion for his loneliness. Be that as God wills ! Eagerly he points us to the mighty THORNDA LE." 216 spectacle which spreads before him. The mists are part- ing, darkness is fleeing, and behold, this great human family is not a groping and distracted host : it is an ad- vancing army, divinely ordered, divinely led. PART II. Our best beliefs from best affections spring, And solitude is ignorance. WILLIAM SMITH : Guidone. How do I love thee ? Let me count the ways. I love thee to the depth and breadth and height My soul can reach, when feeling out of sight To the ends of Being and ideal Grace. I love thee to the level of every day's Most quiet need, by sun and candle light. I love thee freely, as men strive for Right; I love thee purely, as they turn from Praise; I love thee with the passion put to use In my old griefs, and with my childhood's faith. I love thee with a love I seemed to lose With my lost saints I love thee with the breath, Smiles, tears, of all my life ! And, if God choose, I shall but love thee better after death. MRS. BROWNING. CHAPTER XVI. MEETING. THE story of the man's life has been told partly in the words of his wife, as she wrote it in the early days of her bereavement, at first for dear friends only, then yield- ing with hesitancy to entreaties that it should be given to a wider circle. And now there lies at hand the fuller story of her own heart in its springtime, a story she wrote out at a later time for her solace. Under what im- pulse it was written is told in its opening words : " My husband, my all, even now, ' despite the dis- tance and the dark,' I have often thought of writing down more fully my happy memories of our blended life. I will begin to-day (March 27, 1875) will take refuge if I may from the unspeakable sorrow of the present in the glad completeness of the past. " I was always fond of looking back even when, with you by my side, the now was better than any then, since you said you loved me ' more and more.' You would point me to the future, to other happy years. But now, I do not think you would blame me for seeking some alleviation for a grief that you pitied 4 infinitely, infi- nitely.' I will weave into my narrative of facts bits of your writings, your letters. If I live to be old, to be blind, some kind soul will read these pages to me. They will help me to bear and to hope. They will quicken the failing life. It may be too that our nieces may find them precious, for surely it is good for all to dwell upon a char- acter like yours, to sympathize with my love of you." And so, in the rare intervals when she was quite alone, 220 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. through the next four years, she lived out, on paper, the time from the first meeting of the two until the wedding- day. Parts of the story she read to one or another inti- mate friend, and the whole of it she left at her death to a beloved niece of her husband's, giving it to her absolute disposal. She was a woman completely retired from pub- licity, without a spark of literary ambition for herself, and never entertaining a thought of self-disclosure except to friends ; but, as to her husband, divided between a sympathy with his own aversion to conspicuousness, and a wish that others might know his worth. In her words above quoted " Surely it is good for all to dwell upon a character like yours, to sympathize with my love for you " may be seen some vague idea that others beside the nieces might possibly hear this fuller story. But, once embarked in the telling, it is plain that all auditors were forgotten the flow of memory took its way as spontane- ous, as unchecked, as the heart beats. In the next three chapters two strands are woven to- gether, one from the Memoir, the other from the Man- uscript. Among the passages omitted from the latter are most of the interspersed expressions which tell of aching loss. That belongs to a later time. Here shall be given, almost unshadowed by after years, the story of love's happy beginning. (From the Memoir.) It was in the August of 1856 that William Smith and his future wife first became acquainted. My beloved mother, at that time a complete invalid, a little niece of mine who then lived with us, and I had been spending the early summer in Borrowdale, and we too, attracted by the new and cheerful row of lodging-houses, now took up our abode at 3 Derwentwater Place. The solitary stu- dent, to whom I confess I not a little grudged the draw- ing-room floor, soon sent to proffer one request that the MEETING. 221 little girl would not practise her scales, etc., during the morning hours. Now and then we used to pass him in our walks, but he evidently never so much as saw us. There was something quite unusual in the rapt abstrac- tion of his air, the floating lightness of his step ; one could not help wondering a little who and what he was, but for several weeks nothing seemed more entirely un- likely than our becoming acquainted. The lodging-place that we all occupied was kept by a mother and two daughters, who had had a reverse of for- tune, and to whom this way of life was new. We were their first tenants. One of the daughters especially was well educated and interesting. To her I gave a copy of Grillparzer's " Sappho," which I had recently translated. I knew she would value it a little for my sake, but it never occurred to me that she would take it to the recluse in the drawing-room. She did so, however. Piles of manuscript on his desk had convinced her that he was " an author," and it amused her to show him the little production of one of the other lodgers ! Perhaps he may have thought that she did this at my request, perhaps his kindliness disposed him to help by a hint or two some humble literary aspirant for always he was kind ; at all events, the very next day he sent down a message pro- posing to call, and on the 21st of August there came a knock at our sitting-room door ; the rapid entrance of a slight figure, some spell of simplicity and candor in voice and manner that at once gave a sense of freedom ; and the give-and-take of easy talk beginning with com- ments on the translation in his hand had already ranged far and wide before he rose, and, lightly bowing, left the room. 1 I thought him absolutely unlike any one 1 One little observation of his clung to my memory, and returns to it very often in my present loneliness is it too trivial to record ? Discussing the building instinct in insect and bird, and their variety of dwellings, he said, " The primary condition of the home is that there should be two" 222 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. I had ever met ; singularly pleasant in all he said ; even more singularly encouraging and gracious in his way of listening. He pointed out a passage in the translated play that had particularly taken his fancy : " Like to the little noiseless garden snail, At once the home and dweller in the home ; Still ready at the very slightest sound Frightened, to draw within itself again ; Still turning tender feelers all around, And slow to venture forth on surface new ; Yet clinging closely if it cling at all, And ne'er its hold relaxing but in death." I have transcribed these lines, because, in after days, he was much given playfully to designate himself " The Snail." At the close of this first call I well remember that my mother, who had been reclining the while in an adjoining room, exclaimed : " What could you find to talk about so long, my dear ? one might have thought you had known each other for years ! " That was it ! To certain natures William Smith, from the first moment of meeting, could never seem a stranger ! The call was soon repeated, and afterwards he came three times in the evening, as then my mother was able to see him. She was at once im- pressed with his charm : " How could you call him plain, my dear ? he has one of the most delightful countenances I have ever seen ! " The dear mother ! herself a sufferer and grievously depressed for two years past, it was not fre- quent at that time to hear her express delight ; but she was delighted with him ! He afterwards told me that just then he was " positively starving for conversation." Hence, perhaps, his effervescence and abandon. On one of these pleasant evenings he read us some of " Sartor Resartus." He gave me a copy of his Dramas, and the day we left Kes- wick (just a fortnight after our first meeting) he took me to see his favorite view of the Lake ; and we talked with the perfect unreserve of those who hold themselves little MEETING. 223 likely ever to meet again. He spoke much of his mother, of his happy home with her, his sense of isolation since he had lost her ; spoke, also, a little of his literary work and religious opinions. I, on my side, told him of my family circumstances, in which, too, there was sadness and strug- gle. He frankly said he was sorry we were leaving ; I did not say to any one, not even to myself, how sorry I was to go ! A short note or two were interchanged, then came a longer letter telling me of the projected departure for Australia of Mr. and Mrs. Weigall and their daugh- ters, of whom he was especially fond, and " whose house afforded him a refuge to which he occasionally fled from this wandering, solitary life." No wonder that he added, " To me this is no little affliction, though they write in good spirits ; " and, " I think you will have a little com- passion for me." From that time the letters grew longer. We planned a meeting at Patterdale in the ensuing spring, and thither he duly went. My mother, however, preferred the prospect of an Irish tour ; and I, whose chief solicitude then was the state of her health, never let her find out till long after the touch of disappointment I could not help feeling at being unable to keep tryst. I will give a few passages from some of these early let- ters which chanced to get preserved when, at his earnest request, I burnt the correspondence of the two years that intervened between our first and second meeting. But the extracts no more show the charm of the letters than pulled-out petals the beauty of a flower. The first gives a glimpse of his lonely life : That other book you alluded to we should agree upon, I am sure. I think there are passages in Charlotte Bronte's letters which beat all the letters I have ever read. And what a pic- ture ! what a family group in the little rectory ! . . . How thoroughly I could sympathize with some of these letters in which she describes her own solitude ! How many hours have I passed in the evening with the candle put in some corner of 224 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. the room, because my eyes could no longer bear the light, pa- cing up and down, and looking out at the clouds if fortunately there were any clouds to be seen ! I have rarely been more in- terested in any book than this. Here is his account of " Thorndale," which was then on the point of publication : The book the libretto, as I modestly style it is being printed, but it goes on very slowly. It will be only one volume, much such a volume as one of the new edition of Professor Wil- son's works. The title is to be " Thorndale," or " Thorndale's Diary," the last title will tell you what sort of work it is. Not a novel. But a diary admits the intermixture of some inci- dents with reflection. It closes with a sort of Confession of Faith, or view of human progress, which is a sort of continuous essay. Some will perhaps read up to this, and then drop the book ; others would be satisfied with reading this last part, and leaving the rest alone. I am not at all sanguine about its suc- cess, I never have succeeded in anything, but one must put forth what there is in one's mind, be it much or little. I was quite in earnest when I said that I should like to have a lady critic at my elbow ; because it is on matters of taste, style, bits of verse, etc., that I should particularly want to consult another. And as to graver matters, although there are some few men whose opinions would be invaluable, they are very few, and quite inaccessible. Even on these I would rather have the im- pressions of an intelligent woman than " the average man," who is not at all impressible, and who is certainly not a whit wiser, or more disciplined or trained to thinking. The following extract I give because the views it ex- presses about India were held by him to the end, and put out in the last article he ever wrote : Yes ! this terrible revolt in India must occupy all thoughts. It occupies mine a good deal, but to very little purpose. I see that the national revenge of England must have its course. But our Indian Empire has never been a great favourite of mine. I always looked at it as leading to much benefit, in one way or the other, to India itself, but as having little to do with the real MEETING. 225 power and prosperity of England. I myself revolt at the scheme, put forth by some writers in the " Times," of governing India entirely by foreign troops, presuming this were possible. If the English power is not really educating Indians so that they will assume one day an independent and permanent position among the nations, I really see no justification whatever for our conquests. It was in the autumn of 1857 that " Thorndale " ap- peared. On my return from the Irish tour, by which my dear mother's health had marvellously benefited, I well re- member going into an Edinburgh library in quest of some other book, and having " Thorndale " recommended me by the librarian as a very remarkable work indeed. Be- fore long the author sent me a copy, but I glanced over it merely ; I did not read it for some months. My way of religious thinking, perhaps I should rather say of feeling, led me to shrink from any disturbing influence. My husband's contributions to " Blackwood's Maga- zine " were suspended from the April of 1856 to the Jan- uary of 1858, when he wrote a notice of a translation I had made of Freytag's " Debit and Credit." His kindly encouragement was a support to me in every little effort of the sort, and during the ensuing spring our letters were very frequent. We told each other all our interests, and also all our discouragements and difficulties. I well recollect his pleasantly contrasting our lives in some such words as these : " You are in a good roomy boat, rowing hard, but with others around you ; whilst I am bobbing up and down on the waves alone, with only a life-belt to trust to." Certainly a habit of confidence had been very firmly established when on the 14th of July, 1858, we met again at Patterdale, and yet neither had quite distinct or correct impressions of the other. William often told me he could never identify the Patterdale companion with the Keswick acquaintance. Nor was I prepared for all I found in him. By this time I had indeed read " Thorndale," and 226 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. had felt its pathos as keenly as its beauty. In the letters I had been accustomed to receive there was almost always an undertone of sadness ; but, to my surprise, their writer was cheerful beyond any one I knew, or, at least, cheerful with a kind of cheerfulness I had never known something akin to morning sunlight, the soaring song of larks, the sportiveness of young woodland creatures. I cannot de- scribe it, but it effaced for me all memories of care and dis- appointment ; it made the whole world new. Neither was he any longer inclined to be solitary. From the day of our first cordial meeting to that of my mother's and my depart- ure we invariably took long walks, morning and evening, let the weather be what it would. When it was fine, we sought out some, exquisite shade of birch-trees on high ground, with peeps of Ulleswater through the branches, or a mossy knoll overhanging a " lake-bend of river," or a sequestered grass walk beside a most joyous brook, and in such scenes as these he would read to me by the hour, 1 or I, in my turn, would repeat poetry to him. When it was wet we would put up with any shelter we could find, or talked and laughed very gayly under our umbrellas. We were not, however, always gay. The burden of loneliness was far more painful to him at this time than when he first resolved to endure it. In one of our early walks I can recall his suddenly bursting out, " I have come to envy any room in which there are two chairs ! " (From the Manuscript.) I must not linger over every walk, though each was a step in advance in the sweet mutual confidence and singu- 1 To those who knew William Smith it is unnecessary to dwell upon the charm of his reading. His voice was singularly flexible, varied, and, above all, pathetic. He himself had an idea that he suc- ceeded best with comic subjects, and many delighted especially in hearing him read Dickens, Sterne, etc. Yet I always grudged tho voice to anything but poetry of a high order. MEETING. 227 lar rapport that made this first fortnight the gladdest I and I may say he too, since he said so had ever known. During it I never suspected that I more than liked my companion. Only I should have admitted that I never had so enjoyed companionship. Everything exhilarated us even the long darn I had to make in the flounce of a muslin gown through which he had inadvertently poked his stick. On the twenty-fourth, we had our second walk to lovely, lovely Deepdale, and he read me bits of Shelley, a few loose pages of which he generally carried in his pocket. That evening, too, though it was wet, we sat on stones un- der trees. He told me much of his early life, and I repeated some of Mrs. Browning's poems to him. Afterward, this repetition of poetry that he liked alternated pretty con- stantly with the exquisite treat of hearing him read. On Sundays we agreed not to meet, I used to go to the church with my beloved mother. On Monday, the twenty- sixth, the evening walk was in the rain, and I recollect the complete insouciance with which I put on an old bat- tered, flapping, and most unbecoming Swiss hat, of five summers' wear. For, as I said, no conscious desire to win more than his cordial liking had as yet interfered with my simple pleasure in the new life, the fresher, lighter, wider range of thought and fancy. We were standing by some rails looking across the lake, I do not know what we were talking of, only, he suddenly kissed the brim of my ugly hat. I do not know what led to this sudden im- pulse, nor whether it proceeded from any consciousness that I was dear to him, but I do know well the wondrous effect. The years rolled off me. Instead of the woman with her acceptance of a colorless life, a girl in soul stood there, beholding earth and sky new created and very good ! How the heart beat with a tumult of possibilities ! If he loved me if! I knew now what he was to me. It was all quite plain. The strange happiness came from a love so different from any I had felt before, it was not strange 228 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. I had not guessed its nature till this flash of transcendent brightness. From that evening the light-hearted enjoy- ment of the moment was over. Every word he spoke was weighted for me with far-reaching significance : " He loves me he loves me not." Then, too, his throat became troublesome the very next day, and I was miserably anx- ious. But he was tractable, he adopted the simple reme- dies I prescribed, he let me minister ; and in a day or two he was well, reading " In Memoriam " to me, I hear the thrilling ring of his voice yet in the lines " Ring out wild bells." He read them under the shade of an old and wide-spreading birch, I wonder if it is still standing. He read me too his articles on White's " Christian Cen- turies," and Gladstone's " Homer," which appeared in the August number of " Black wood." I recollect his telling me with* that childlike openness which was one of his most endearing attributes, what a liberal cheque and kind letter he had had in consequence. At this time earlier than this indeed he constantly exclaimed, " How happily the days of Thalaba go by ! " Another quotation, spoken with a delightful irrelevancy, as he walked backwards, his whole face and figure radiant with joy, was, " How charming is divine Philosophy ! " I cannot, I dare not, realize it any more. But the remembrance will surely quicken my heart and mind even when the dying languor has set in ! From the first I had been rather struck with the em- phasis which Mr. Smith, as I then called him and long after, laid upon the difference three hundred a year might make in a man's destiny. He spoke of it as wealth, and I soon inferred that his own income fell far below that moderate standard. In one of his stories he had spoken of a confessed poverty as an equivalent to the tonsure. Certainly he displayed his tonsure all he could ! And then we forgot all about it in our great gladness, and he allowed the gracious tenderness and caressingness of his nature free play. A friend, Bessie Bennett, came to stay MEETING. 229 with us three weeks after this mutual life had begun, and she saw his wondrous and quite peculiar charm. He was always in high, frolicsome spirits when she was our com- panion, the talk being of course restricted in its range ; but she was so loving a friend of " Divine Philosophy " that she was no check upon his cheerfulness. After Bessie left, there were sometimes alternations on his part. On mine there had been before, but I hid them pretty success- fully. I remember one evening, standing by the bridge I stand on now alone, that he spoke with apprehension of the poverty and loneliness he foresaw in the future, when he could " make bricks " no longer, that is write for "Blackwood." And sometimes I think he would take alarm, how if the tonsure should fain to warn, and the perfection of our companionship leave a want and a sadness in my lot ? At such prudent seasons, the sweet names and tones would cease, and after a walk together, and much intelligent talk on general subjects, I returned inwardly wretched and woke in tears. However, the cautious mood did not last long, a bright morning, the beauty of the hills, the togetherness, banished it utterly. I think he did not quite guess all he was to me. Once I remember him gracefully flung on the grass at my feet, looking search- ingly up into my eyes, and saying, " I wonder if she is laughing at me all the time ! " Another time there was a thrilling whisper, " CM sa se mai ti soverrai de me ! " I have just come across, in one of his manuscript books, a passage almost identical with some observations he made one wet summer day as we sat on the flags under the shel- ter of the veranda of Glen Rhydding House, then un- tenanted. The passage is : " When we speak of the cold- ness of a philosophical Deism, recollect that hitherto woman has not partaken of the creed. The finer sensibil- ities of her nature have not clothed it for us. The Chris- tian religion, which is in the ascendant, draws to itself the womanly heart. If the manly intellect should place 230 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. Deism in the place of Christianity, the womanly heart will follow, and invest it with pathos and feeling." On the occasion I refer to, I see the very look in his eyes, half pleading, half pathetic, he said in reply to my be- wailing the coldness of the simple creed : " Wait, wait, till mothers have taught it to their children." At this time he had a green morocco book of extracts, from which he would often read to me. There were several passages from Southey in it. " Not to the grave, not to the grave, my soul," was one. The book being lent to me, I was pleased to find an extract or two from letters of mine. It was a characteristic of the constant nature of the man in thought and feeling more constant, more con- tinuous, more consistent with his higher self than any I have known to prefer repeating the old delights to seek- ing after new. During the seven weeks spent together the variety of walks was not great. We went often to " Point Perfection " on Glen Rhydding Dod, a mossy pla- teau well sheltered by trees, looking straight down on the lake, and with fine views of Place Fell and the other hills caught through the branches. It was so he liked his views best, always he needed some interposing veil to deepen the colors, to suggest as well as to reveal. " The half is better than the whole " was a frequent utterance, which I secretly found a little sad. Then there was a sweet shaded knoll overhanging a " lake-like bend of river," looking to Hartsop Dod. Oftenest of all we went to " our dear brook " in the grounds of Patterdale Hall. Again there was Deepdale, a somewhat longer walk ; and as I said be- fore, a favorite birch-tree, good for sitting under and hear- ing " In Memoriam. " Our poplars " were often visited, for the sake of the exquisite thrill of their leaves to the lightest summer wind. And there was a walk on the Gras- mere bridle road, with peeps of the rapid brook deep below, where we had a habit of standing long. On moonlight MEETING. 231 nights there was the watching the clouds from the church- yard. And so the happy, happy time fitfully, painfully, yet intensely happy time stole away, and the day of part- ing had to be fixed ; then, by mutual consent, not spoken about till it came. Always inferior to him, I did not then understand his impulse to put away the painful future and to live in the light of the present only. But now I see that this habit of his mind, self-conquest, become a law of his constitution, was one of the secrets of his singular charm. You had the whole man at every successive mo- ment. His joy in nature, in the presence of the human love, to him ever manifestations of something higher, was never clouded by anticipation, or dulled by compari- son with the past. Whatever he said or did was always spontaneous. He never repeated himself or divided him- self. At the age of twenty he had written thus, describ- ing a beautiful character under circumstances that strike as a curious prevision of his own : " He is never looking forward to the future, never resting his happiness on ex- pectation. He enjoys the present moment as though it were to be the only one of his existence, or rather he lives in time as though he were already in eternity." Very near the close of his pure life, the man who had so early discerned the secret of at least making happy said to the dear niece who was his companion in one of the last drives, in reply to her expressed apprehension of rain, said, laying his wasted hand on hers, " It is fine now, dear Vi!" And so, our parting was kept as much as possible out of sight while we were together. But our hearts spoke out more and more fully during those last days. On the twenty-eighth of August a lovely day, and lovely night we stood side by side, leaning against the low wall of the churchyard, watching the moon rise behind Place Fell, herself long unseen. She threw her light on the soft clouds that took warm color of inexpressible beauty. 232 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. I never see those tints without remembering that evening, even through all the happy seeing together of after years. We stood silent, or I cannot remember what was said. Only he whispered, " We shall never forget each other now." Then came the sad words, " But I am as power- less to alter my destiny as to lift that church." That I fully accepted, his love more than sufficed. Two more days of even closer, dearer companionship, evenings spent with him at Quarry Bank in the warm fire- light glow. For my share in them I find recorded, " Oh, too happy." Wednesday, the first of September, was the parting day. We walked for the last time to the sweet spot he called " Point Perfection." He read me again " Ring out, wild bells." As I thought, I said good- by at Quarry Bank. But no, he came to see us off. I had a short, happy walk before the inexorable coach set off. I see his hands delicate " fingers that felt like brain " - resting on the coach door. One more smile a flash of light always and we were no longer together. But I had hope had we not fixed to meet at Rosstrevor ? I " felt more than ever sure of his affection," and I had love, unutterable, unuttered, after all my uttering love which was life, which is so still ! CHAPTER XVII. NEARER AND NEARER. (From the Manuscript.) MY four first letters have the Patterdale postmark. He remained at Quarry Bank three weeks after my mother and I left. Having heard him express a wish to look over a work on physiology, I got my dear father to procure it from an Edinburgh library, and in some way or other contrived to leave with him Dr. Rowland Williams's " Christianity and Hindooism." But the first letter says, " I do not feel disposed to read. It is not easy to go back to books if they are to be made the substitute for a very charming society. Have I not been talking daily with ' Divine Philosophy ' herself ? Was she not sitting but the other evening in this very room ? Oh, this sweet fem- inine personification makes the mere abstractions of the book very wearisome. But to-morrow I will try and at- tack ' Christianity and Hindooism.' One must come back, come down, to the book. There is no help for it." And the second letter says : " Since you left me more than a week has passed, and I can recall nothing except a great deal of rain and long idle reveries in which a hat with fern leaves in it is perpetually coming and going. Think what it must be to be suddenly let down from two walks per diem to just nothing at all. I cannot take to these books. I shall never settle down to read in this place where I have enjoyed so delightful a society. How com- pletely I gave myself up to its enjoyment ! That I should pay some penalty for this great pleasure is nothing, but I 234 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. do hope you will not reproach me for acting, as the astron- omers say, as a ' disturbing force,' a disturbing force on the fair and benign planet. That would grieve me to think." This is my answer to that portion of the letter. " 1 reproach you ! I ever, ever reproach you ! Wild, un- natural, impossible words, that brought those tears to my eyes, that choking pain to my heart, that I sometimes waked with in my little room at Grisedale Bridge, fear- ing that you did not care for me. But the pang is over. Kindest nature, that would not hurt the meanest thing that lives ! " And I go on so, writing cheerfully, for his letter had grown sad at its close. But in the course of my letter (it soothes me to re-write the words he read) I say : " O my friend of friends, my friend in some special sense, how beloved you cannot know, none can but He who reads the hearts he frames, the poor planet yields to the disturbing force without a struggle or without a regret. And always, my sun, must that side be bright and smil- ing which she turns to you. This be sure of, I bless the day I saw you first, I bless every day I ever spent with you. I am a thousand times happier even so hap- pier, nobler, better, than before I knew you. And in- deed, ' What had I done, or what am I, that God Should make me happier than his angels are ! ' " l The proof of the second edition of " Thorndale " now began to arrive. He writes : " How I wished that I could have carried it off to Grisedale Bridge. It would have been a pleasant incident to have happened while you were here. I should have rushed off with it across the field, and swept round the little churchyard with that alacrity of step which often astonished the venerable ex-pastor watch- ing me from his house. He seemed to watch my move- 1 Sir William Crichton. NEARER AND NEARER. 235 ments with some interest. He sees me now pass round that corner with sobriety enough." After three weeks of complete solitude he returned to Keswick. I must make several extracts from this " long, long letter," written in the minutest, delicatest hand. " If I could send you a photograph of all my thoughts, I do not think you would be displeased with the picture not personally. You would not approve, for you would see what large black spots had been wrought by certain mis- erable reflections on my own social status on the wretched isolation which circumstances seem to have brought about for me and on a future which will prob- ably darken as I proceed. But you would see your own image very distinct, and looking quite as beautiful as it did to the mother's eye that other evening you would see it very prettily enshrined amongst the trees of Ulls- water, where it was worshipped something more than the trees, and you know that beautiful trees make me almost an idolater. " But I will begin my letter afresh, and start from Monday morning and proceed chronologically. ' Half-way up Helvellyn ! ' These I think were the last words in my letter from Patterdale. But the half way became the whole way. For I thought to myself, and probably said 1 to myself, ' There never could be a finer day for the ascent clear as autumn, warm as summer and those noble clouds, whose light in the sky and whose shadow on the hills are almost equally beautiful. Why not see if a guide and a pony are to be had ? ' Accordingly I bent my steps to the hotel, and procured guide and pony, and ascended to the glorious summit of Helvellyn. My guide was the very perfection of a guide, for when we had reached the top he drew a pipe from his pocket and sat himself down 1 This is an allusion to a little established jest of ours. When I had first known him I had noticed that long solitude had induced this habit. 236 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. contentedly to smoke, leaving me to my own devices. Nothing interfered with my pleasure except a remorseful feeling that I had not persuaded you to make this expedi- tion. The view was really very, very grand, but at the same time so exquisitely beautiful from the delicate tints and indescribable purples thrown over the whole scene, that one knows not what word to apply to it. But you don't want a description, nor can any mortal man give one of such a view as this. " Tuesday was if possible even a finer day than Mon- day. I spent it paying a farewell visit to all the charm- ing spots between Grisedale Bridge and Glen Coyn, where we had sat and read and recited. I wished a good-by to every birch-tree that was looking into the sky or bending over the lake. But the night of Tuesday was even still more glorious than the day. And you too were enjoying that moonlight ? Was it not superb ? At about eleven o'clock I walked out of my window, and strolled in the direction of that little knoll by the stream, which I sus- pect has found a place in your pocket-book. You re- member that the stream takes a bend here, and is as calm as a little lake would be. You can summon up all the scene I was looking at Hartsop Dod in that ethereal blue which a very bright moon throws upon the moun- tains over the Dod a magnificent array of clouds bril- liant with moonlight, and above them in a perfectly clear sky the moon herself while part of this scene, the not- forgotten trees near at hand, was reflected in the most charming manner imaginable by the little lake-stream at my feet. " Wednesday came, and what a change ! What dire rain ! Yet I persisted, under the umbrella, in paying a last visit to the brook. . . . Just at four o'clock the rain ceased, and I was not condemned to the interior I mounted the box. The dark clouds, now rolling up from the hills, brought out their color, and the last view I had NEARER AND NEARER. 237 of Ullswater from Gowborough Park was worthy of the dear place and the charming reminiscences it will ever bring to me. 1 " Wednesday evening therefore I reached Keswick, and the dark fireless house looked desolate enough. . . . Thank you for this pencil sketch. What an enviable resi- dence must this be of your brother's ! It is quite a man- sion, a palazzo ! I do not envy people who have mansions, but I do envy, with almost a wicked envy, every one who has a home in the country." Then, after alluding to a " big desk " that had taken his fancy at Quarry Bank, he says : " I am perforce writing on my old little one. But I beg to say that I do not keep your letters in this little open desk. I must tell you that I found in my portman- teau, which is never 4 put to rights,' but has all sorts of rubbish squeezed into corners, a pocket-book long ago pur- chased in Belgium, and which has neither been used nor thrown away. Into this I deposit your letters. And what do you think was the learned book that occupied me yesterday evening? It was precisely this pocket-book. I took out the letters, and read every one of them through, every word. May not this go for an answer to something said in your last ? I do not know how to express the tenderness that comes over me as I read them. Fit words won't come not to the pen they might come in speech more readily than wisely. Do you know when I look at that sketch you have sent me of your brother's house, I feel so acutely what a sort of vagabond I am. And you sit up there in the marked window ! Somewhat different from the little room at Grisedale Bridge." How vividly I remember the intense feeling this letter stirred ! His was not only the nature to command my 1 He never saw it again. The first year after our marriage he said we would return to Patterdale after we had been married ten years. The ten years came round, but he was occupied at Newton Place and reluctant to move. 238 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. reverence, but his the circumstances to call out, nay, to create, a tenderness till then unguessed at. Something there was in my nature which might have led to caprice, to momentary antagonisms, which had so led in other relations. A rich, a prosperous man could never have had my worship oh, it was given without stint or cal- culation to this lonely thinker ! I will copy a few words from the letter I wrote, because he liked it. After a burst of ecstasy at the " reading over " of my " four let- ters," I say : " There they all are down-stairs I am so sorry for them all they don't know you! My dear mother does, and she thinks of you very much as I do are you at all aware of that ? My sweet, loving little Mary comes and kisses me constantly, and looks peering into my eyes as though she saw some new image there. Whose is it, say whose is it ? But the other benighted mortals have never seen you. I from my upper chamber shrug my shoulders compassionately, and ' I write ' yes, just what I choose I am not to be daunted. . . . How I delight in knowing where you walk and what you do. I could not follow you up Helvellyn. My twenty-year-ago memory of it is very dim. But I can follow you up Glen Coyn, and to that consecrated knoll. As we stood to- gether there the sky grew bluer, the air softer, the very sun shone brighter through the greener leaves. I must go down to prayers. All my prayer is : ' Father, bless him teach him guide him make my love a bless- ing.' ' (This prayer I dare to believe was fulfilled.) After his answering letter, the next two are very sad at Keswick he had felt " every one standing aloof." The clergyman had met him in the library, and had com- mented in pastor-like strain, but " very courteously," on the " shortcomings " of " Thorndale." How gently he treated of this , just in these words ! " Is it not rather weak for such a man not to see that I do not belong to his camp ? that I am camped out there, not hostilely but NEARER AND NEARER. 239 separately, digging out our entrenchments I and oth- ers as well as we can, on the common earth, under the common sky." Then there were discomforts noisy fellow-lodgers. " It is hard," he says, " to be alone, and not to have quiet ! * Do I ever wish you were here ? ' Does any evening pass without the wish ? I do not think your experience can give you any just idea of what these long solitary evenings sometimes are to me." Who can wonder that the sadness, the solitude, that breathe from these letters made me plead the more earnestly for our meeting again ? [In a previous letter, she had hinted at " a hope the most reasonable, sober-minded, common- sensible hope in the world that he should spend some winter weeks in Edinburgh."] I had seen him for six weeks radiantly joyous ; he had told me he " had never spent so happy a summer," " never met a nature that he liked so well as mine." The next letter, of the tenth of October, was still sadder than its predecessor. Here are the words that wrung my heart : " I would write a cheerful and in- spiring letter if I could, but the long, lonely, gloomy days pass one after the other, and if I can contrive to keep my mind so far occupied as not to sink into any quite morbid condition, it is all I can manage. Day after day, month after month, year after year, has passed of this gloomy uncom- panioned life. Can you wonder that there is little energy left in the man ? little capability of hope or of enterprise ? that he sits down in despondency and says, ' What has been must be, and it will be all over soon ! ' I am glad to have my answer to this before me now. I tried to cheer, I did cheer, for the next letter was brighter far, though it says : " I think all day at intervals of your letters, and lie awake half the night thinking of them. I have had many indecisions, battles with myself, what to do or what I ought to do but few indecisions have given me more anxiety and concern than this about the journey to Edin- burgh. . . . Such terms as pleasurable visit and the like, 240 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. although I might use them, are not applicable. Oh, you were quite right when you say we were en rapport, and we are so still." Then follow life-giving words ! How well I remember walking that, day up a very steep hill in the strength they lent. For I wanted nothing but his love, and sometimes his presence for the sake of both. I must have written back in cheerful strain, and given an account of visits, people (but of that long letter he only kept the postscript ! He too cared most to be told what he knew*). Yet in this letter too there are sad hints. " Oh, you little know what a person like me, with my simple habits, means when he talks of that 4 Shadow feared of men ! ' : Then comes, in letter after letter, in one form or another, the haunting question, " What right have I? " At one time he even tells me he has been tempted to send " arithmetical figures." But I could not surrender my hope. All the letters contained touches of sadness : ." I see no one speak to no one. I often think one word or two of exhilarating conversation would give me some en- ergy and spirit. I am sallow as a ghost." And I knew that I could at least ward off gloom from the present, and I could have bartered for that all my future ! I do not speak of my own yearning for his voice, his smile. Per- sonal feeling might have been sometimes piqued by his irresolution, which I could not then so fully understand. Now I see of course what it was that made the debate. He thought me many years younger than I was, thought too that the " heart and faith union " was imperatively necessary to my happiness. I only love him the more for every scruple that tortured me then ! On the second of December, one of my life's intensest joys was bestowed. I had heard that he was coming. I had found rooms for him. But late that night, walking back with Mary from Mrs. Jones's, I saw the light in his window ! NEARER AND NEARER. 241 (From the Memoir.) In the winter he came to Edinburgh for some weeks came after much irresolution, and with many scruples, such as will easily be imagined in a nature so fastidiously honorable, so purely unselfish as his. On my part there were no scruples. In heart and soul, through life to death, I knew that I was his. Poverty might indeed pre- clude much, but that nothing could alter, and to be the chosen and the dearest friend of such a one as he seemed to me, and, what is more remarkable, seemed to my most fond and partial mother, a high if not altogether a happy destiny. I may here quote a passage from a review by him of Gray's Letters (written four years before the time I am speaking of), because it was verified in the life of both of us : " How grossly do we err, indeed, when we think that youth is the especial or exclusive season of friendship, or even of love ! In the experience of many it has been found that the want of the heart, the thirst for affection, has been felt far more in manhood than in early years." The six weeks spent in Edinburgh were for him social, cheerful weeks. For the first time I saw him in society. In a gathering of strangers he would often sit silent ; and I noticed, with some amusement, how any complimentary allusion to his book would embarrass him, and make him look round for a way of escape. Perhaps this may have led to his being called a shy man. I never thought the epithet descriptive. He chose to retire, was more swift to hear than to speak, preferred learning from others to setting them right, and was very sensitive of social atmos- phere. But when that atmosphere was congenial, he was more completely frank, and more invariably elicited frank- ness from others than sufferers from shyness can. 1 Dur- 1 I recollect Dr. Robert Chambers, at whose house William once dined, observing to me, after some htlmorous lamentations about the 242 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. ing his stay in Edinburgh we were of course much to- gether, and my dear father now learned in a measure to know him. I say " in a measure," for he, alas ! was blind, and could not see the animated face, the smile which was as it were the key to the whole man ; so that to those who never saw it I despair of conveying the secret of his personal influence. (From the Manuscript.) What bright days those winter ones were ! made up of meetings. In the morning, always the walk, the talk, un- fettered and careless as though still in the country he a singular figure, in a very old-fashioned military cloak ; I seeing and caring for none but him, and carrying his frugal luncheon, biscuits and candied apricots, which he would eat in some quiet street or terrace. Then the evening ! Sometimes, but seldom, he dined out, at Mr. Blackwood's. Sometimes we spent some hours together at Mr. Constable's or Mrs. Stirling's, but if so we returned to our own cheery home to talk it all over, and have a supplementary supper. Generally, however, he came for the whole evening read to us, Dickens, Shakespeare, Philip Van Artevelde. Then the happy hours of perfect companionship ! I saw new phases of his character, too. I saw him in society, so shrinking from praise, so expand- ing to cordiality, so sparkling in conversation with some, so simple and real with all. Every one took to him, felt his charm and his rarity. On December thirty-first I note in my pocket-book : " He sat here till one. God bless him ! This year ended very happily." . . . Those remembered fire-lights lighting up the green walls and red curtains of what he called " a charming room " lighting up his slight figure and thoughtful brow, from universality of the name of Smith, that he had " never seen a man whom he could so soon love." Dr. Chambers could not have sus- pected the interest I felt in hearing him say so. NEARER AND NEARER. 243 which in those hours of intense feeling every furrow was smoothed away I at his feet it was my joy to sit there. Oh, only Love ! I cannot bear, except in flashes, to recall those hours ! [They parted early in the new year, " under the stars both very sad," and he went to Brighton.] . . . Writing toward the end of February, he touches upon "Mill's last book on Liberty " (sent him by the author, which he did not say) : " You would really like to look into it, if only for the tender and eulogistic mention that he makes, at the commencement, of his late wife. He, the philosopher par excellence, attributes all that is best in his own writings to her influence. The book itself is not dry many parts are eloquent. You will not agree with it entirely, and I too have my reservations, but there are some profound truths powerfully stated. More es- pecially was I delighted to see him bring forward the value of the energy the spontaneous, God-given energy of the individual man. In one point of view, this seems a mere truism, yet it is a truism, as he himself says, which one hardly ever sees recognized in its full mean- ing." I suppose that I had thought general subjects had occupied too large a space in these last letters that my heart cried out for personal matter that, remembering spoken words, I had quarrelled with the reticence of the pen for he begins the next : " You very dear one, what can I say or do ? I could find it in my heart to cover this paper with expressions of affection very honest, true, humble, genuine, and devotional ! And yet the next moment, I must hold up the threadbare cloak of the poor philosopher, and shake it at you. I must! Not that I have a perverse attachment to threadbare cloaks, or any threadbare mode of existence. I quite agree with the writer in this month's ' Blackwood,' that there is no virtue in emulating the scarecrow but you might as well object to the scarecrow himself as to some 244 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. of us. Such sticks were never designed, in the nature of things, to face the world in any but a scarecrow fashion. The poor philosopher, and his brother who stands there in the centre of the field, cannot possibly help themselves." How this strain must have called out all the passion of my reverence and love, my own heart would tell me, even if I did not find it in his next letter. ... In another letter, he humorously lauds the little shilling photograph he had given me, while he deprecates my insistence on his sending me his bust, which then I had only heard of, not seen, but which was acknowledged to be mine. He pleads : " Bear me witness every stone in Princes Street ! I did constantly protest against any project of transporting it to Edinburgh. . . Besides it is a cheat now, for it was done many years ago when I was young ' ah, woeful when ! ' The photograph is so much better, and I do think that was such a lucky specimen. It seems to me that the sun must have smiled on me that day, and purposely flattered me giving me a certain air of respectability, which I am conscious that the orig- inal does not possess. If had seen this instead of the man himself, he would not have said, 'Just such a fellow as one would take for a sceptic.' But he would have said, ' Ha, now ! That is a respectable country gentleman, who however you see has not been alto- gether idle with his brain respectable and intelligent.' Oh, keep to that photograph ! " The next letter is a little sad. Of " Thorndale " he says : " It 's sinking down into the Eternal Silences. Best perhaps that it should be so. What one has to do is to read on, and think on, and try to get a firmer grasp on certain matters." At this time he was " studying St. Paul with the assist- ance of Jowett," and re-reading Maurice's "Theolog- ical Essays." He writes : " My impression is that no modern divine whom I have ever heard or read gives so faithful an interpretation of the leading ideas of St. Paul. NEARER AND NEARER. 245 Did you ever read this volume ? Maurice is talked of gen- erally as if he were a denier he is viewed only as an op- ponent to certain orthodox notions but he is in fact what people for want of a better word call a mystic." In the course of a few days he sent me the " Theological Essays," putting the L. C. C. and the date in the book. He says of the Essays : " They at all events can do only good. They raise the standard of piety and of morals, while they liberate from some of the harsher dogmas*" The book stands there before me now. Oh, my good angel from first to last, so gently wise, letting in light so softly upon the poor eyes that dreaded it, you would have forgiven me for loving better than the highest teaching these simple words in the same letter : " How could you think of ask- ing such a question as whether the books quite drive out all thoughts of you ? Why, I can read nothing as I ought to read it, for thinking of you. No book lays hold of my attention half firmly enough. Even such peace as poor despondent men attain to, and seem entitled to, has not been mine of late." For me he had excellent advice. During this spring, as before and after, I was trying by humble pen-work translation, notices, or epitomes of books to eke out my own very small family income, and I feared one of these resources was about to fail. He wrote : " Think and read, and beautiful things will grow up under that so ' femi- nine brow ; ' under that pleasant archway fair trains of imagery will be passing. Possess your thoughts in peace let your mind develop itself free as the white cloud that has half the sky to itself." (From the Memoir.) We could not now consent to long separations ; the summers we might at least contrive to spend together, and therefore, breaking through the habit of years, Wil- liam Smith forsook his dear Lake country, and in the 246 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. May of 1859 we met at Dunkeld. During this summer a fervent protest of his against the explanation given by Dr. Mansel of " The Limits of Religious Thought " ap- peared in " Blackwood's Magazine," a and he was occupied in writing a review of Sir William Hamilton's " Lectures on Metaphysics." Our talks now more frequently took an abstract character. He would lead me into his own favorite sphere of philosophical thought, and, untrained as my mind was, any receptivity it had lay in that direc- tion. On other points, too, I could not but be insensibly modified by his companionship. 1 " The true reality, we repeat, for each one of us lies in those di- vine attributes manifested in the very nature of the world and of humanity, and from which we necessarily infer the Divine Being, and not in the scholastics' notions of the Absolute and the Infinite." CHAPTER XVIII. UNITED. (From the Manuscript.) ON the twelfth of May, 1859, the entry in the pocket- book is in his handwriting. " Mr. Smith arrived by the 11.12 train. We walked by the river were out three hours. He came in the evening at six. We walked be- yond Inver. I went to see his room at Mrs. Christie's. Mr. S. returned with me." One flash of his light-hearted- ness that morning I remember. I had been reading "Thorndale," and said something about it to which he replied by a delicious anachronism : " Oh, dear, it 's your book! " I see his very smile in saying this, as we turned into the broad grass walk that then led from Birnam past the great trees sole relics of the ancient woods along the deep rapid flow of the Tay. And now it is difficult to know how much to tell of the next four months. I have only the records in my pocket- book, and the fond memories too sacred for utterance. I was busily occupied just then in translating, compiling, etc., and he was ever ready to help in his own incompa- rable way so simply and spontaneously and as it were unconsciously, that help from him was pure help, could never become obligation, could never weigh on memory. The entries in my journal, however, are seldom unquali- fiedly cheerful. They are full of extremes morning walks all brightness and present joy, but evenings that closed in all gloomy and gray, and told upon the sensitive organism of my " sun spirit, " as I sometimes called him ; 248 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. evenings when the future seemed all isolation and failure ; or else mornings when the talk would run into painful channels, let it begin ever so abstractedly, but evenings of intense, silent joy, that left their deep traces in the con- sciousness of both. . . . We did not much vary our walks at Dunkeld, any more than at Patterdale. The summer was a fine one, we sat out much, and almost always had a book with us, though I think it was less and less read. There was no subject on which he did not talk to me, however unfamiliar to my ignorance. And all his depression, his sad anticipation, his discouragement, he shared with me more and more unreservedly. . . . He brought me Ten- nyson's " Idylls of the King ; " and oh, how beautiful they were when read by him those who heard them often in af- ter years will never forget. So the summer glided by. It had brought us nearer, but no ray of further hope ap- peared. Indeed, when I think of our circumstances as they were then, I cannot well imagine anything more discour- aging. And yet, a new phrase became current toward the end of our mutual life, " There is no saying what may happen," and to both it meant not only possible future meetings, but what was confessedly, demonstrably, the impossible ! Good-by, then, my sweet memories of Dun- keld of our long rests, half buried in heather and ferns, watching the waving of the well-loved birches on the com- mon, watching the great clouds above the Grampians, watching once the delicious gambols of a large family of white goats, who had no suspicion of our presence 1 watching always, dearer and more important to me than all earth and sky, the least change that passed over his face, least shadow overcasting the radiant smile, least hint of sadness in the dark, far-gazing eyes. On the sixteenth of September we had our last walk he went with us to the station, but I would not let him stay till the train moved. I saw him off and the joy that had been, UNITED. 249 words he had said, and the intimate sense that nothing could sever our hearts and minds, supported me ; so that only on the following day the already familiar anguish fastened on me the want of everything. . . . [Soon afterward, he had a slight illness at Keswick. The letters soon told of health improving, but the spirits flagged.] " Yes, yes you know that you hold a place in my mind and affections that no one else holds, and that no one will ever hold again. But you know also what manner of man it is who says this, and from what sort of hopeless environment he says it. This illness would be enough to humble me if I wanted such a lesson. Weak, weak body and mind, body and mind. ' Too late, too late ! Ye cannot enter now ! ' I will not let hope get into my mind, but will just fold my old cloak round me, and walk as quietly and cheerfully as I can down this long lane that has no turning" And then he plunges into other subjects my translations, tales, and the rest, which he revised for me ; financial matters concerning me ; my health, etc. I was not well at this time ; had sudden attacks, of no significance as the sequel proved, but I am sure they helped me. To die seemed sweeter than to live on without him, and if I died I could be of some little use. Accordingly I made my will, and supported my spirits somewhat thereby! [A passing visit was made by Lucy and her mother at Keswick, which yielded a happy fortnight.] But though I tell in my pocket-book of " happiest hours nature and him," there were some sad hours in which I strove against his firm resolve against spending the winter in Edinburgh. That he would not do not, he said, from want of affection ; he loved me " quite enough, too much ; " but for reasons that he did not then give. I think the horror of the observation he would excite, the sense of ut- ter hopelessness, making all comment upon the situation painful, had a good deal to do with it. Yet it was hard 250 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. for the hope to quite die in my heart. A singular little incident comes in here. I had changed a ten-pound note on the morning of our departure, and after paying our little weekly bill put the purse into my pocket. It was a very wet day. At the coach office, settling myself in the wretched vehicle and looking for my purse in order to pay the fare, I discovered that the pocket was empty. Kind Miss Buchan, who was " seeing us off," at once rushed back to our lodging to see whether peradventure it had been left there, and, passing Mr. Smith in a sheltering doorway, " ready to take off his wide-awake in the most graceful manner he could " when the coach should pass, she told him of the disaster. Instantly he was with us, and the contents of his purse poured into my mother's lap no counting, scarce any knowing what he did. A little thing, and yet done in a way his way which my dear mother, herself the most generous of women, pronounced special and never to be forgotten. How earnest the dark eyes were ! " Was there enough ? " " Oh, too much, too much ! " And the coach rolled away. The loss was in- explicable, for we had met no one in the deluged streets. The crier was sent out at once to " cry the purse," and on the Monday following he wrote a few hurried lines to say he had heard something of a purse found he was " so distressed to think of the pretty story " I had earned that ten pounds " going that way." The end of it was that he, the most truthful human being I ever knew, de- liberately concocted a tale which entirely took me in; which never wakened in my mother or myself an instant's surprise ; which was cleverly circumstantial, freeing from suspicion the one around whom my suspicion had flitted ; involving no one but some unknown girl in the fault of having found and kept the money and done away with the purse as a precautionary measure. It was a great relief to me at the time to recover that little sum, and only when we were married, when I could not repay him, did the UNITED. 251 real truth transpire ! Oh, I like to think how brightly he must have smiled to himself over the success of his ruse ! After these matters of finance, repayment, transmission of the supposed balance, had been got through, he sits down a week after our departure to write " a very long letter," after a "dreary, solitary day and no particular task in hand." Most of this letter consists of sympathiz- ing comment upon my family perplexities, which rather overwhelmed me just then. (I thankfully acknowledge they were not too great. How they enhanced but that did not need enhancing how they taught me to measure, to realize, the bliss of the after years !) He says : " Ah me ! what a multitude of things the dear head has to think of ! I don't know whether to congratulate you or not on being so indispensable. Who could take your place ? Yet it is hard that the dear bird, like a bird carved in stone, should be fixed and prisoned because it is the key- stone of the arch. To be of no use to any one or of too much use 4 1 know not which is better, no, not I,' or rather which is worse." . . . [He withstood the proposed Edinburgh visit.] He wrote : " All I know is that I for my own part feel my heart going out toward a certain impossibility, and that cannot be wise that is a sort of insanity. I don't want to be insane I want to keep my head must have a little use and possession of this bit of brain it is all I have for occupation or for pleasure." Again he says : " Be generous, and do not use all your power." But I suffered, and I fear I was not generous in hiding it. He writes : " I have such a heart of lead ! I cannot attempt to describe the pain which your pain gives me and I have my own too. Indeed it will be with a very sad heart that I shall bend next week toward Brighton. I feel something of the same strange pang that I had in parting with you at Edinburgh. I am not 252 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. wood and stone and I know that if a little sunshine of a vulgar prosperity that you often despise had fallen upon me the heart also would have been free to open." It was decided, then ! He says : " I seem to myself to have de- cided rightly, but how wretched I have been while adher- ing to this decision it would be vain and useless and worse than useless to say." He owns that " these long evenings are very trying, but I have been accustomed through many years to live with almost no pleasure ex- cept what a book and a walk can supply." He says too : " You have wrought a revolution in my tastes. I used to say ' Society between the four walls of a house, but my walks alone,' and now I have learnt to like my walk with another with one other." [Two months later, a visit of hers with her dear friend Mrs. Ruck in London allowed some happy days together, and the- opportunity of meeting in Brighton his beloved nieces and their mother.] Mrs. Ruck and he were in- stantly at home with each other related natures. He felt the full charm of her " frank and cordial reception," " did not feel himself a perfect stranger in her house for one moment." At this time he went out pretty frequently in an evening, and his letters contain many bright de- scriptive touches sketches in half a dozen words. " I have been spending an hour at . I found the rooms full, and chiefly with strangers. A certain social ambi- tion naturally accompanies the larger drawing-room. I was not sorry to come away. No, indeed, I never fled from society. I like society dearly, but it is after my own fashion. Hot and crowded rooms I most certainly should avoid, whatever entree I might have to them. As you know, I live only on the crumbs of society, just pick up a grain or two of such pleasure, like some strange fowl who is not recognized as altogether belonging to the poul- try-yard." ... In another letter he writes : " You see I do not fable when I tell you that ' Thorndale ' has had its UNITED. 253 little day. . . . Indeed I am not morbid; I would be hopeful if I could. I sometimes try very hard to be hope- ful, for such happy dreams would follow. You have told me I might dream at least." The third of May, 1860, found him and me and my dear mother comfortably installed as joint tenants, for five months, of Mount Hazel, a farmhouse in Carnar- vonshire, not far from the coast. On the most exquisite May-day imaginable, my beloved mother and I, having slept at Carlisle the night before, left it at ten, and reached Mount Hazel at eleven at night. This long day of travel- ling remains in my mind as one of the happiest I have known a very rapture of anticipation. On our arrival, there was a certain reaction the house looked dreary would he like it ? The next day was spent in arranging the rooms. The next, the third of May, there was a let- ter to him, a line from him he would arrive in the even- ing. I went out in the afternon to gather primroses. I met him unexpectedly. I saw the dear face flush crimson. For me, I read in my pocket-book : " A life's joy in a moment." . . . Dunkeld had been a great advance upon Patter- dale, because the evenings were always spent together. But Mount Hazel improved upon Dunkeld we were in the same house, and he dined with us ! That made the little meal a significant festival. The day's routine was this : He breakfasted alone ; he wrote or read till eleven or twelve, then came for me and the morning walk. We dined at three (his hour) ; then he returned to his own room and had his early tea ; then the second walk, but not always; I sometimes went out with my precious mother. Then supper, chess, and, when my mother feigned to be sleepy and went early to bed, our own hour ! Then but I only know it years later I was allowed to win at chess always one game. I used to wonder at my 254 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. own skill, he fought so skilfully up to defeat ! He saw that I was childish enough to like winning a well-con- tested game, and he liked giving it me. . . . One of our pleasures consisted in standing long by walls with broad grassy top, confining our attention to a space about a foot square, and showing each other all each discovered. No recollection of him is more vivid than this. Short-sighted as he was, the little details generally escaped him, but these walls were conveniently high. Oh, I see the grace- ful, slight figure ; the delicate hand gently, tenderly, ex- ploring the grass and leaves ; the brown eyes lit with pleasure at the discovery of some small fly with rainbow tints in its tiny wings, some burnished beetle, some very long-legged spider with seven-league boots striding over our area and away! What wonders we discovered in familiar things ! He loved and reverenced all life. These were our compensations on dull days, under the umbrella, but a bright morning always tempted us down to the shore. On the thirteenth, he met me coming back from morn- ing service, and we sat long on a stone, and he told me all I had so long wished to know of the early romance a poet's life must have held. I cannot remember what led to his doing so, except that he liked me " to look him through and through." How I cried, from most complex feelings ! He told it all very simply, as he had done in a paper of his called " Wild Oats," published in " Black- wood " in 1840. There was therefore an interval of more than twenty years between that " miserable fortnight " and the bright day when we sat together but how my tears flowed ! An incident which caused me some unexpressed regret was his refusing an offer of Mr. Blackwood's, which would have been advantageous in one sense. Mr. Black- wood wished him to undertake the translation of IVJonta- lembert's " Monks of the West." There were to be six UNITED. 255 volumes, and sixty pounds was offered for each volume. But ho could not entertain the idea. He needed the time for his own thinking even more than his own writing, and he felt that there would have been a " certain insincerity involved " his standpoint and the author's differing so essentially. (From the Memoir.) For some months past William's mind had been oc- cupied with the idea of another book, and on one of these May-days I was called into his study to listen to the in- troductory chapter of " Gravenhurst." But although he only wrote two short papers for the magazine, the book did not get on very fast during the happy times spent, first at Mount Hazel, and then at Llanberis. Our mountain walks were so long, and we were so much together. Noth- ing, indeed, was materially changed in our outward posi- tion, but obstacles weighed less upon our spirits than they had done at Dunkeld ; we succeeded better, at all events, in pushing them out of sight ; and the nearly five months of constant companionship had brought about a still more complete sympathy. For under his influence I could not but grow a little wiser and worthier. Parting was a great pain, but this time I think he felt it even more than I. (From the Manuscript.) I find in my pocket-book that toward the end of my stay he " talked of ways and means." But the entries are very meagre, and monotonously happy, " So happy ! " My precious, perfect mother, enhanced every joy by her sharing. I was not very robust, and certainly overwalked myself that summer. I well remember his anxiety about it, but the spell of the mountains was too strong. Dear Mount Eileo, our favorite hill, so green, so cheerful with its view of the Straits ; dear spurs of Snowdon, whence we looked down on the Pass ! Dear country walks, that I have taken alone, remembering ! 256 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. I was busy at Llanberis, as I had been at Mount Hazel ; translating Victor Hugo's possible poems in the Legendes given me by Mr. Smith, summarizing, writing tales ; making little indeed, but still the small sums were cheer- ing. He wrote some of the conversations in " Graven- hurst," but he was not absorbed in work. I used to pre- sent myself at his window before breakfast, with a few raspberries or a flower, and often in the afternoon I walked with him up and down his long and rather dark room. He was always cheerful, radiant, except indeed when the parting came. This time I was happy even on that day ! the twenty-fifth of September. I felt that our hearts and minds were more inextricably interwoven than ever. I have been reading over letters to Mary written dur- ing these months, and they are full of loving details. I tell her when the end of that happiness had nearly come : " I have been living in such a pure, high moral atmos- phere ! Never a personal topic, never anything censori- ous or small, never a cloud of temper, a touch of selfish- ness. Italian politics have interested us a good deal, of course. It is delightful to talk over the paper with him he is so enthusiastic as well as wise. I think I shall have nothing at all to say to people in general ! They will seem so narrow, so intolerant, so very little ! His is a delightful wholesale way of dealing with such questions. ... The parting will be terrible to ine, and he too will feel it, but I thank God I know such a man, and I am sure that nothing but death will ever break the tie be- tween us." It was this certainty that upheld me. His letter, written the evening of the day we parted, ends, 64 You wished to be missed, you said but you would not wish to be so much missed as you are." Oh, I too was waking to the anguish of the parted life which always got worse and worse. [One of the friends who had visited Mrs. Gumming and UNITED. 257 her daughter at Mount Hazel, "beautiful Eugenie W ," was soon to have a visit from Lucy at her home, Bronywendon, and invited Mr. Smith to come also ; and this invitation he after some hesitation accepted.] On the fourth of October we walked by the shore to Col- wyn, and I showed him the caves, haunts of my child- hood, of which two years before he had written : " Yes ! To visit with you those caves you used to sit in when a child, taking your Bible to read in there all alone that would be very pleasant, more than pleasant." It was more than pleasant! We were both in highest spirits, and had come to talking somewhat less vaguely of the future. The phrase that had sprung up at Dunkeld, " There is no saying what may happen," had by this time expanded into a dream of Switzerland seen together. It seemed, among other impossibilities, impossible that I should leave my parents entirely but how if the sum- mers were his and mine ? Something if not of impos- sibility of extreme difficulty was arraying itself against any repetition of the last three summers. Comment, op- position, had begun would grow. What was to be done ? As he wrote a few weeks later, " I cannot be given up cannot have no more happy summers." But just now we were together, and I can only recall one touch of sadness on the shore one Saturday afternoon when the sun got low and he spoke of his far past, of certain in- congruities between his calling and his tendencies, of his loneliness of thought even among his kindred. Sunday was a blessed day of rambling on breezy downs, the shin- ing sea below it was all present enjoyment a pres- ent so bright it seemed to include and ensure the future. On Monday morning there was a long stroll in the shrub- bery, a parting at the Abergele station that had no sad- ness at least outwardly, and he travelled on to Bath, and I left our sweet and sympathizing hostess and returned to Garthewin. 258 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. . . . During our days at Bronywendon a book to be translated came to me, Madame de Gasparin's " Near and Heavenly Horizons," and it soon appeared that this book was wanted speedily alarmingly so to me, whose life at Garthewin had social interruptions. Ah, how joyously, beloved, you came to the rescue ! " Tell me if you think I can help. Will the hard words be too many for me ? Will you have as much trouble in looking over and re- copying my translation as doing it yourself ? " Looking over! But to his simple unconsciousness that did not seem preposterous as it was. Indeed, I had cause to be grateful for his proffered assistance, for as his next letter shows the task was too heavy. " What you tell me about your eyesight and the pain across the forehead quite alarms me. What are all the translations in the world, and all that ever came of them, to your own precious eyes and precious brain. . . . Yesterday I found my old friend Mrs. Haughton (formerly Julia Day) here, and we talked about various things, and I told how very hap- pily my last two summers had passed away, owing to the society of a dear friend ; and of course she asked the name and many other questions; and I answered all very frankly, and honestly confessed that if and if in truth I disguised nothing that had reference to my own feel- ings. . . . As we used to say, ' Who knows what may happen ! ' I wish I had more of hope in my composition but nothing in my life has educated hope. There have been no successes only respectable failures." He got to Brighton Saturday evening, instantly set about the book, translated " The Hegelian," and on Mon- day morning despatched it to the " dear collaborates," and wrote in the evening : " Certainly I ought to assist, for is it not our journey it is to help pay for ? " Hence- forth the bright dancing letters were very full of this joint work which part he was to undertake, which I. Two of the tales were translated by him, " The Hegelian " and UNITED. 259 " The Sculptor," and a good deal of the first part of the " Heavenly Horizons." Never was he brighter and more endearing than when helping, and these dear letters are full too of valuable literary suggestion, thrown out with his own light, lightest touch. The happy task over, other subjects came up. Whether it were Switzerland or Pat- terdale, must there not be before our journey a " prelim- inary quarter of an hour ? " And then ? Indeed all was so vague that looking back I marvel that we dreamed so boldly. I was much encouraged, however, by the prospect of a little work. Our " Horizons " won us twenty-five pounds a little trumpery story of mine was ordered, 1 and that was to bring in sixty pounds. '* Bravo for the sixty pounds ! " he exclaims though he exhorts me not to write merely for money a thing he never could have done. To me the temptation to try lay solely there ! . . . There are still and no wonder touches in the dear letters, half playful, half sad. He was at what he called " spider's work," about Causation and the like, and there were misgivings as to " what sort of a companion is one who has long indulged in his own thoughts worth- less things, but they have grown as necessary to him as wine or tobacco to other men. A poor old weaver, whose web is not even made to sell ! I cannot think what is to be made of him. If we could put him in a corner of our palace, that might be well. If not are we to go into his little shed ? Seems impossible, and we a natural prin- cess. The weaver would be rich enough but we ? " Then my life sounded so social : " All my difficulty lies in the impossibility there seems of monopolizing such a bird.'* For him, speaking of a singularly successful and social career, he says : " A bright life, that I can very well understand, yet understanding it well, and perhaps not quite incapable of enjoying it, I should infinitely prefer the life of Mount Hazel." 1 " Memoirs of an Unknown Life." It appeared in Good Words. 260 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. I have given several extracts from the twenty-six let- ters that came between the ninth of October and the four- teenth of December. That day put an end to all anxie- ties, misgivings, scruples. Oh, how can there be pessi- mists in a world that holds such joy as mine, that winter morning ! Ah, dear bundle before me as I write fifty letters, in not one of which is there one sad note all serene hope, tender, unutterably precious, confident affec- tion, not from one of these shall an extract be made. Sweet letters that I shall burn some day, when the parted years are nearly over there are one or two of you I will lay apart, and my dead hand shall be folded over them in unutterable thankfulness. The weeks sped away very busily. I had a beloved friend who was in sorrow I saw very much of her. Late in the evening my Mary would bring me a strong cup of coffee, and I would get on with my story, which was just what might have been expected, hasty and trivial, though he said not wholly lacking in spirit. It brought in the promised sixty pounds, however, in the course of the spring. {From the Memoir.) I will give two grave passages from the pile of joyous letters between the 14th of December and our marriage : " And so my dear bird was a little serious, a little sad. We should both be very shallow people if we were not a little serious. I make very serious vows to myself. I do hope that you shall never have cause for any other sadness than what comes inevitably to us all. I will 4 love her, comfort her, and honour her.' I should often repeat to myself those lines ' No more companionless Although he trod the path of high intent,' if I did not feel that there was a certain presumption in my talking of ' the path of high intent.' Yet, although with little success, and very little power, I have always UNITED. 261 put before myself a high aim in my studies and my writ- ings. And I should like to die still striving, though I get no higher than to strive." And this, in answer to words of mine disclaiming any presumptuous wish to change " the nature of my thinker's thoughts : " " Since I wrote, another letter came from Edinburgh, for which I ought to thank you still more. It gave me reassurance that my dear bird and I shall always be en rapport. ' I could not love thee, dear, so much, Loved I not honour more/ so runs some knightly rhyme. I, who am no knight, must substitute the word truth for honour, though it mars the verse." {From the Manuscript.) On the eleventh of February I left Edinburgh and my most kind and partial parents left them laden with their blessings and travelled through the night to my Blanche's home [Mrs. Budworth] . On the sixteenth I reached that of the precious friend from whose house I was to be mar- ried. [Mrs. Ruck " the one, perhaps," says the Memoir, " to whose noble and tender nature the kindred nature of my husband most fully responded."] That evening he came. On the evening of the fourth of March, many of my early friends gathered round me, all welcomed by my sweet hostess. I will give a few extracts from letters of theirs written to my mother on the following day. True, it is mostly of me that they speak, but I was his, I like that kind words should have been spoken of his wife. Mrs. Ruck bears her testimony to the ease and pleas- antness of the gathering. " Mr. Smith went through every trying scene with the utmost cheerfulness, even the inspec- tion of the many friends. I don't even think he would have shrunk from a wedding breakfast, speeches and all. . . . Colonel Yorke told me that he had seen much of the 262 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. world, and considered that he had himself many attached friends, but that nothing he had ever seen equalled the cordial love of Lucy and her friends." Mrs. Cotton says : "I found Mr. Smith so kindly dis- posed to become friends at once that we talked and laughed together as if we had known each other for years. His genial cordiality surprised me, for I expected to find him a shy recluse, instead of which he responded to all our nonsense, and seated himself amongst each knot of old friends as if he could not hear enough of what we were saying." My Blanche my sister for years writes: "Surely a bride never entered the new life more wrapped in the affection of loving friends. It has been such a happy time for us all ! ... The darling had such a radiant look of happiness and confidence in her dear face. Mr. Smith might well look worshipping, and I do from my heart believe that he will make her very happy as it seems such a large, kindly nature. There is something about him that inspires confidence at once. When I had been talk- ing half an hour, I wanted to tell him the history of my life." The same loving band stood round us on the following morning. At St. John's Church, Netting Hill, on Tues- day, the fifth of March, 1861, we were married. (End of the Manuscript.) (From the Memoir.) We spent some weeks at Hastings and at Brighton ; then settled ourselves for the summer at Tent Cottage (near Coniston) a green nest, with tall trees round, that my beloved mother shared with us. There are words of my husband's that often recur to my mind : "It takes so little to make Earth a Heaven." Of worldly goods, so very little ! Were I to name the income that procured for us the ideal of both, I should UNITED. 263 excite in some a smile of incredulity. But it is literally true that from first to last we were never conscious of a privation never perturbed by care. Whatever our income, we always contrived to have it in advance, and it was one of the peculiarities of my husband's character to be equally prudent and generous, a combination that much in my former life had taught me to prize. But indeed all that life now seemed to me requisite training for such "measureless content" as mine. I had had perplexity enough to enhance the rest of reliance on a perfectly sound judgment ; buffeting enough to make me habitually alive to a justice and tenderness that never failed. It was during this summer that he wrote down, on the inside of an old envelope, the following lines an answer, I imagine, to some conventional prompting of which I must have been guilty. They are so characteristic that I give them : Oh vex me not with needless cry Of what the world may think or claim ; Let the sweet life pass sweetly by, The same, the same, and every day the same. Thee, Nature, Thought that burns in me A living and consuming flame These must suffice ; let the life be The same, the same, and evermore the same. Here find I taskwork, here society Thou art my gold, thou art my fame ; Let the sweet life pass sweetly by, The same, the same, and every day the same. The "sweet life" was not disturbed during the re- mainder of the year, but we changed its scene to Keswick to ^he house where we had first met five years before and then to Brighton. During the summer William had written several articles, one for the " British Quarterly" (of which Dr. Vaughan was then editor), on the poems of 264 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. Mrs. Browning poems so dear to us both that her death that summer seemed to bring personal loss and pain. While the winter sped on at Brighton, " Gravenhurst " grew rapidly. William wrote it undisturbed by my pres- ence a great triumph to me I sitting the while at another table writing too. For through the kindness of Mr. Strahan most enterprising and liberal of publishers I had for several years a good deal of translation to do. This was one of the finishing touches to the completeness of our life. Not to speak of my pleasure in contributing to our income, I delighted in compulsory occupation ; and to see me busy over my manuscript gave my husband a more comfortable sense of security from casual remarks than he would have had if I had only been working or reading. Then, when the pen was thrown down, both enjoyed the walk all the more thoroughly, the more child- ishly in both there was much of the child. To Miss Mary Wrench. Tent Cottage, July, 1861. I never even wish not to have to think a little of ways and means. Believe me, it is an element of happiness rather than the reverse calls forth energy, and makes life fuller. I like the feeling of being able to do little things for William. If we were better off, it would not be I who darned and mended, it would be some paid and more practical needle, and then I should have less to do should therefore be less happy. ... I Ve been doing a short story for Mr. Strahan, who tells me to send him two more such by the end of the month, but I cannot think of any wanting to reserve my small stock of ideas for a larger tale. . . . My happy life does not give me much to write about ; one day is blissfully like another. Thank God, William is well perhaps not quite so well as he was at Hastings and Edin- burgh this is not the climate for him. But there never o is a complaint of not being well, never a cloud upon his UNITED. 265 dear forehead, never a moment's depression of spirits. He is always busy, and after his morning's work dashes down to me, playful and bright as I never saw any one else. Keswick, Autumn, 1861. Last night, thinking Wil- liam out long, I wrapped myself in the railway rug, and flew some way up the Ambleside road. I cannot tell you how glorious it was, light as day, and the snow-covered mountains clear and white against the deep blue of the quite cloudless sky. William had gone down to see them reflected in the lake, which was quite calm. Skiddaw stretched out such a mighty form beneath the winding- sheet very weird, and all so still, the mountains so solemn. 'T is a charming country in winter, and our rooms so pleasant ! The three windows have red curtains. Here is the plan of the room very childish of me, but you '11 like to see our fixings. The sweet days are all peace and brightness. I see William clings a good deal to our present comforts, and I don't much fancy we shall be off till the first Tuesday in December. To me it is all the same, so he is well. He expects some letters early in December, and does not want to move you know he never does want to move. I am going now to my work what a blessing compulsory occupation is ! I wish every one had it. It is one of the sweetnesses of small means. Ah, darling, be sure all life's darkest trials are quite com- patible with wealth. Brighton, Jan. 19, 1862. I ought to be getting on with my story, but we are idle this morning, writing let- ters, talking our happy nonsense, and we have had a caller, a Mr. Allen, a clergyman. He wanted William to dine with him, but he won't go. Bless him ! He has got quite settled here in our nice room, and his cheerfulness and brilliancy are indescribable. And now, beloved child, God grant you a very happy New Year many years, each fuller and richer than the last. This life is a blessed inheritance, if we do not mar what God gives. With 266 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. health, occupation, and love, how fraught everything is with pleasure. I find little pleasures spring up every- where. I needs must tremble a little in parting with this dear Old Year, that has crowned all my life for which it all seems to have been education only, only preparation. But our Father knoweth what things we have need of, and corne what may I have been quite happy. CHAPTEE XIX. " GRAVENHURST." " GRAVENHURST, or Thoughts on Good and Evil, by William Smith," appeared in the spring of 1862. This book it is which will best show us what effect has been wrought in him by this mutual experience, in which the woman's share has been told by herself. Into her story it was impossible to break with a word of comment. What a new world she brought into his life, every reader feels. No less clear is it how her energy and concentration sup- plied the need in his irresolution. Every page illustrates how perfectly she supplemented all the wants of his nature. And it should be recognized no less that he had in himself the very qualities to fill out and perfect her life. Especially, his habitual absorption in lofty thoughts gave to him an elevation and serenity which was like a new atmosphere to a woman absorbed as she had been in personal cares. The woman's heart, intensely and tremu- lously alive with personal sympathies, linked in devoted service to burdened lives, all whose burdens it feels, car- ries in itself almost of necessity a habitual agitation. It is such incessant, mother-like solicitudes that prompted Mrs. Browning's line : " And who at once can love and rest ? " From these tender troubles, this anxiety inseparable from a life made up wholly of personal ties, the change to a society in which the great interest is in lofty impersonal themes is like going out of a busy household into the tranquil night under the solemn stars. And when this 268 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. larger outlook, this companionship with things sublime and eternal, was found in a nature of high purity and sweetness ; when too this nature was felt to profoundly need just such care and love as she could give what wonder she was filled and satisfied ? What he found in their union is told best in the verses she repeats, asking only that the " sweet life " be " the same, the same, and evermore the same." It was as nat- ural to him to keep within himself the secret of his bliss, as it was to her to share with her friends all she could impart of the happy story. Dr. Lietch, who had been a friend to him amid his solitude, wrote to her in later years of a single swift glimpse of the new life within. " I remember well seeing you at Derwentwater Place, the year after you were married. He had used to say in a sad tone, ' I shall never marry.' On parting with him at the door, on this occasion, I recollect in grasping his hand I said, ' You 're happy now, Thorn dale ! ' And he said with a flash of joy in his face, ' I am happy I ' and darted suddenly away." It is in his work, in " Gravenhurst " in comparison with " Thorndale," that we most distinctly recognize what the gain to him had been. His love had not withdrawn him from the pursuit and the passion of truth : it had guided that pursuit and given to that passion a fuller fruition. The philosophy of " Gravenhurst "is an application and extension of that which gains the predominance in " Thorn- dale." But the tone has changed from interrogation to affirmation. One recalls that touching sentence in the earlier book : " Did he to the last continue to doubt, to hope, to aspire, and then again throw away his aspira- tions ? say rather give them away to some other and liappier mind, and still see and love them there, though he could not retain them for himself ? " In " Graven- hurst," we seem to find that " other and happier mind," or rather, Thorn dale's own mind, but now by happiness " GRA YEN HURST." 269 so enlarged and strengthened that it grasps with the ardor of a faith the ideas which before were only a plausible but doubtful hypothesis. The change is one which recalls the opening passage of his early poem " Guidone," to which might be well applied the saying of Emerson, that " the soul contains in itself the secret that shall presently befall it." That cold, unreal, shadow-peopled realm To which much meditation wears our world, Where long I walked, oft startling as I trod, As if from dreams, at recollected self, And this substantial being, I have at length escaped : I also live ! Mine, too, this earth whereon I plant my foot ! Mine, too, the sky whereto I lift my gaze ! And the still brighter climes beyond are mine, By the bold faith which man sustains in man ! Our best beliefs from best affections spring, And solitude is ignorance. A firm conviction, and a deep, grave happiness, pervade the pages of " Gravenhurst. Here, as in "Thorndale," the two predominating ideas are, first, that the solution of our difficulties lies in looking at the whole, in seeing the individual in his relations to others and to the sum of being, and in viewing the past, present, and future as completing and interpreting each other ; and, secondly, that there is recognizable a progress of humanity. In " Thorndale," it is the hope of a great future, for the race and the indi- vidual, that chiefly reassures and inspires. But " Graven- hurst," while confirming this hope, yet dwells on the good of this present existence with a heartiness and satisfac- tion not felt in " Thorndale." It is a sober and tempered joy, but over all the landscape near and far lie sweet and sunny hues. " Gravenhurst " is not only a happier book than " Thorndale," but closer to actual existence. Its au- thor is a wiser man. He has made personal acquaintance with a vast province, with which before he had little more 270 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. than hearsay acquaintance. He has not only tasted but drunk deep of " A sacred and home-felt delight, The sober certainty of waking bliss." The author writes of " Gravenhurst " that while " Thorn- dale " was called a conflict of opinions this book might be called a harmony. The volume like its predecessor (of which it is less than half the size) is mainly a series of dialogues ; though in this case the systematic exposition introduces the conversations instead of following them, and is perhaps of greater relative importance. There are two representatives of classes that have no spokesman in " Thorndale," a woman and a Protestant clergyman. The Vicar is the broad-minded pastor of the village church. Ada Newcome is a lovely and thoughtful girl, the victim of a severe and permanent lameness. Ada who, we may say in passing, bears very little personal resemblance to Lucy Smith is attached to the Christian church, glad to rest in some degree on its authority, but little concerned with dogmas and ceremonies. Her uncle, General Mans- field, who is a retired Indian officer, and Sandford, who directly represents the author, complete the little company. It is a quite different society from the strenuous theorists who battle in the pages of " Thorndale." These person- ages represent more of actual experience, more maturity of feeling, more domestic yet more largely human relations. For scenery, too, we exchange the Bay of Naples and the summit of the Bigi for a quiet English village. Some loss there is, compared with " Thorndale," in dramatic con- trast and keen interplay of diverse minds. We miss a little that terrible fellow, Seckendorf. We know that in the presence of the gentle Ada no one will have the heart to speak unreservedly the cruelest side of facts. Yet, upon the whole, we find here not only a more affirmative philosophy, but a riper judgment, and a far more invigor- ating impulse. " Thorndale " leaves the reader looking " GRA VENHURST." 271 fascinated on the vast human scene with all its mystery ; Jiope gathering strength above fear, and glimpses widening of order in what seemed confusion. " Gravenhurst " deep- ens the hope ; extends the view of order into some of the very darkest spots ; and, above all, the reader rises from it nerved for vigorous combat, inspired to be actor as well as spectator. In the chivalrous stories of old, the brave knight who would honor his lady-love goes forth to battle with some creature of evil, some robber or giant or dragon. The knight of our story, vowed from his youth to the service of truth as a religion, blessed now with a love which is both happiness and inspiration, he too, man of peace- fulest outward life though he be, goes on a venturous quest against the fellest monster that through the genera- tions has dismayed the mind of man, the problem of Evil. In most modest guise he goes forth to combat ; no gay colors adorn his arms ; no trumpet-flourish rings. So unassuming and sedate indeed is this essay that the world, though giving to it something of welcome and praise, scarce took due note of its message. That message let the reader judge for himself, so far as that can be judged by extracts which deserves close reading from the first line to the last. Here is the opening scene, and the setting forth of the problem : It was the hour of sunset. As I paused upon the parapet of our little bridge, the distant Welsh hills were glowing in their purple splendour ; the river ran gold at my feet ; every branch of every graceful tree that hung silently in the air received and reflected a new beauty from that entire scene of enchant- ment to which also it brought its own contribution. Such har- mony there is in nature. The whole, which is formed itself of separate parts, gives to each part its meaning and its charm. Yet even here, in this scene of enchantment, I was compelled to recall to my imagination that poor woman whose desolate 272 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. hearth I had lately visited, I was compelled to revive those dis- cordant scenes of war, of carnage, of treachery, of famine, which my friend, an old Indian General, had been dilating upon. No harmony, then, and little peace, in this other world of Humanity. Is there truly some diabolic element amongst us? Does dis- order reign in the highest part of creation ? Has the beneficent harmony which human nature should disclose been invaded, broken up, irrecoverably destroyed by some tyrannous spirit of evil ? It seems so. And yet I reflected within myself since wherever science has penetrated, disorder and confusion disappear, and a harmo- nious whole is presented to us, it may happen that this sense of diabolic confusion in the arena of human life would vanish before the light of a wider and clearer knowledge. We suffer there is no doubt of that and we naturally speak and think under the sharp pang of our present agony ; but the ultimate and overruling judgment which we form of human life should be taken from some calm, impersonal point of view. We should command the widest horizon possible. Of the great whole of humanity we see but little at a time. We pause some- times on the lights only of the picture, sometimes only on the shadows. How very dark those shadows seem ! Yet if we could embrace in our view the whole of the picture, perhaps the very darkest shadows might be recognized as effective, or inevit- able, portions of a grand harmonious whole. (Pages 131, 132. 1 ) Hence, presently, in the quietest fashion, and with a dis- claimer of anything more original than expressing the thought ripening in many minds, the reader is introduced to this general survey, which will bear long pondering. I have no paradox to startle or amuse the reader with. My statements are simply those which must grow up in the scientific age in which we live. The optimism that could boldly declare that this was the best of all possible worlds does not belong to an age which recognizes the limits of its knowledge. He who talks of the best possible of worlds should be able to compare many worlds together. What we, in these times, are saying to 1 These pages refer to the second edition of Gravenhurst, printed in one volume with the Memoir and Knowing and Feeling. GRA VENHURST." 273 ourselves is that this only world we know anything about is es- sentially one, one great scheme, in which the lower, or the simpler, is a necessary condition of the higher or more complex ; and that it is idle to quarrel with this or that part unless you can quarrel with the whole, or unless you can separate that portion which is the object of your criticism from the great laws or pow- ers that constitute the whole. You take up some one part of this great scheme of nature and of man, and you, a sensitive human being, exclaim against it as pain and suffering, and de- nounce it as evil. All this is quite inevitable ; but what you ex- claim against as evil is often the very excitement of our highest energies, and is always found, on examination, to be linked, either as cause or effect, with what you as loudly proclaim to be good. You suffer and you resist, and strive against your calam- ity, and perhaps this strife is the end for which you suffered ; but take away both the suffering and the strife, and you simply destroy the whole web of human existence. Tear this web to pieces, and you have behind it nothing ! nothing for human knowledge. How can I, or any one, venture to assert that this is the best of all possible worlds ? There may be innumerable worlds, and innumerable modes of consciousness, of which we can form no conception whatever. What we can safely assert is this, that our world of nature and of man is one great scheme, and that what we most lament in human life, as well as what most as- tonishes us amongst physical phenomena, is a consequence of some general law essential to the whole. And, furthermore, we can assert that, if not the happiest of all possible worlds, happi- ness, and not misery, is the great end and result, the great out- come of this multifarious scheme. This subordination of evil to good may be proved, not only by enumerating the instances in which good comes out of evil, and comparing them with the instances in which evil comes out of good a process which I should despair of completing but by seizing hold of certain great laws or facts of human life which show that provision is made for happiness of a quite different nature than can be said to be made for misery. There is a susceptibility to pleasure for pleasure's sake, whereas the susceptibility to pain has always the character of means to end, or is the consequence of some 274 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. abnormal condition. There is a universal delight in energy and activity of all kinds, so that there is joy blended with existence itself; for is riot all life activity of some description? Thus pain, when it acts as a stimulant to activity, is lost in the pleas- urable energy it excites. Again, the sentiment of beauty which diffuses so much subtle happiness over all parts of life, and which gives origin to the fine arts, and makes the world we live in a constant source of pleasure to the eye, cannot be said to be balanced or neutralized by the opposite sentiment of ugliness. Hardly a plainer indication could be given that joy, and not grief, is the purpose of our world (I presume that we may speak of the world as having a purpose), than this wide diffusion of the sentiment of beauty. General considerations of this kind are sufficient to demonstrate if this really needed demonstra- tion that happiness preponderates over misery. (Pages 134- 136.) The keynote of the discussion is not a passive acqui- escence in what seems to us evil, but the recognition that in overcoming the evil lies our good. The more we reflect on the great whole of nature and human- ity, the more we are reconciled not to evil as a thing to be patiently endured, wherever it can be remedied ; but to a condi- tion of things where there is the recognized evil, and the vigour to combat with it. This contest with evil is our very progress, is our very life it is one with all our effort and energy. . . . It does not dismay me to discover that our energies are stimu- lated, our pursuits are in part initiated, our enthusiasms are al- ways sustained, by what, when we stand face to face against it, we must call evil. Evil, to him who has to resist or to endure, it undoubtedly is. In this form it inevitably presents itself. But who does not see that human life, regarded as a whole, would be incalculably impoverished if the energy, the emotions, the aims, which originate in the resistance to actual or probable evil were abstracted from it ? (Pages 138, 139.) To give clearly and condensedly the leading thoughts of the book, it is necessary to group various passages, without following the sequence of the original. The pri- mary function of pain is thus tersely given : " GRA VENHURST." 275 . . . Pain and pleasure are the stimulants to that activity which is the source of all our knowledge and all our arts, and which is itself the most universal of pleasures. It is impossible for us to conceive of life being developed without both of these stimulants. Hunger, thirst, bodily uneasiness, are constantly giving movement to the whole animal creation. Pain, that acts as a stimulant to action, blends with or is lost in the sense of effort, or the vigorous muscular exertion it calls forth. Very acute pain paralyzes or subdues ; but the prick and the sting that stimulate to energetic movement are forgot- ten in the energy they produce. In many of our motives it is difficult to say whether pain or pleasure predominates. Hunger having been once gratified, there is a prospect of pleasure, as well as a present pain, in the desire for food. Generally there is in desire the anticipation of some pleasure, and also a direct pain from the absence of that pleasure. If now this important state of mind, which we call desire, be thus a blending of pain and pleasure, we see at once how indispensable a part pain performs in human exist- ence. (Pages 162, 163.) The transition is -obvious to the development of mental and moral action : There is no resistance to our will which may not, in some sense, be pronounced to be evil, and yet the very exercise of power implies the idea of resistance. You could not even wield the stick within your hand unless it presented a resistance to your hand. All moral or mental power is exhibited by con- quering some resistance some error, or some misplaced pas- sion. (Pages 167.) It is suffering which gives occasion, gives birth, we may say, to social virtue : If a personal want initiates the activity of the individual, it is sympathy with each other which lies at the basis of human society ; and sympathy is, in the first instance, chiefly called forth by pain, or dread of some affliction. We sympathize with each other's joys no less than with each other's griefs. But even when we sympathize strongly with each other's joys, it is where 276 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. there is some sense of escape from threatened or probable afflic- tion ; and, generally speaking, this form of the sentiment is of later culture or development. Society, in its early stages, owes more to the sympathy which is calle.d forth by pain, by wounds, by death. That sympathy which enlists the passions of twenty men in the suffering and calamity of one is the rude initiator of criminal justice and moral reprobation. Could I point to any great fact which shows more distinctly how pain and pleasure lie together at the very roots of human existence ? They, in- deed, are twisted together in every fibre, in every leaf, in every blossom and fruit of the great tree of life. (Page 163.) Let us confront, then, the question of moral evil : From pain we are easily led to the dread of pain, to the re- sentment that follows upon pain, to anger, hatred, fear, and all the list of depressing and inflammatory passions dire inmates to the human breast which admits them too readily, or retains them too long. Yet what passion is there which in its due de- gree and place is not serviceable to happiness, or is not a happi- ness itself ? What we call bad passions owe their badness to a defective state of the intelligence, as when emulation becomes envy in narrow minds, or love becomes jealousy. What funda- mental passion is there of the human mind that you would erad- icate ? Not revenge. You know that this is needful to self- preservation ; you know that when it is felt sympathetically, it becomes a noble indignation, summoning defenders round the weak against the strong. But the passion, you urge, that prompted the injury which has to be revenged this might be eradicated, and then all would be peace. What is that assail- ant ? What the passion that commences the strife, and gives the first blow ? It may be any passion that has not learned its limits, and it has to learn its limits by this very retaliation it provokes. It may be cupidity, and cupidity in itself is but the desire for some good. Or it may be the love of power, the desire of governing others, and making them subject to our will. And you will pause long before you eradicate this love of power. Here also there is a passion which has to learn its limits from the resistance it meets, with. (Pages 165, 166.) To this question of moral evil we will return later. But "GRAVENHURST." 977 now, on the broader topic of the function of all evil, there comes the inquiry whether there is not obviously a great excess of suffering beyond any useful purpose. " There is too much evil. Passions are too violent, wants are too agonizing, pains and distresses are too numerous, too persist- ent, too intense." The complaint is natural. Who of us has not made it in the day of his sorrow or his indignation ? But consider this, that it lies in the very nature of pain and suffering that we do, and must, complain of it. Whatever the degree in which it pre- sents itself, it must always seem too much. It is always, from the nature of the case, the element we wish away that stands out against us as repugnant and superfluous. No animal, and certainly not man himself, could be trusted with the modification or reconstruction of his own life. He would at once and forever reject what is repugnant, and in so doing unnerve his whole existence. Every animal that has to seek its food would bargain for a regular supply, and near at hand ; yet with those who have great powers of locomotion the irregularity and uncertainty of supply is connected with the exercise of their peculiar faculties. What would become of all the birds of the air where the glory of their outstretched and untiring pinions if it were not for that seeming precariousness of supply, which doubtless they would themselves complain of, and which even benevolent men have contemplated with some dismay and distress ? We men, for our own parts, are in the habit of saying that it is well for us that we cannot always pre- dict the future that there should be abundant play for hope, and curiosity, and surprise. Nevertheless this uncertainty is a state which each one for himself would constantly remove if he could. He must wish to read the future while he is still in the anxious present. That there is a general feeling of too much evil is not, there- fore, a proof that this element is in excess, viewed as part of the whole ; because, from its nature, it is always that which is felt to be too much. Nevertheless this question of degree is one which may legiti- mately be raised, if only one could grapple with it. A calm and 278 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. all-seeing spectator of human affairs might discuss such a ques- tion. We stand ourselves in this predicament : If our knowl- edge is not sufficient to enable us to pronounce that it is not in excess (an opinion to which, from the general harmony of na- ture, one may be disposed to lean), it is certainly not sufficient to entitle us to assert that it is in excess. How can man, the sufferer, trust himself to form any decision upon the degree in which pain and pleasure should be diffused over the whole world ? How can he know how that passions less violent, wants less painful, distresses less extensive, would have answered the purposes for which passion, want, and distress have been called in ? He knows this, that he should always give his judgment in favour of the something less. I ask no man to be contented with the amount of evil existing at any time, in any age or country. It is the nature of evil to prompt opposition to it. The more intelligence there is in man, the more vigorous and effectual the opposition it will prompt. The greatest of all calamities is the contentment that sits down at peace with a remediable evil. But how can I measure the degree of that stimulant nec- essary to call forth those energies by which we progress? (Pages 168-170.) And now comes that great explaining fact, which man's latest study of the world in its reality has elicited, the fact of a visible upward progress of terrestrial humanity. . . . Strange, indeed, would it be, if all nature manifested an admirable arrangement of parts, and an evident principle of growth, till we arrived at the history of that conscious and rea- soning being whose presence alone gives meaning and purpose to all the rest of nature. The unconscious world has its end, or its complement, in that conscious being in whom it excites pleasure, perception, beauty, truth. Starting from his simplest appetites and passions, all of which have their allotted and ap- parently indispensable office in his further development, we see him rise into higher emotions, into higher and higher truths. Perhaps from the elevated station he finally reaches, he looks down with some displeasure and contempt upon the lower ele- " GRA VEN HURST." 279 ments of his own nature, unwisely, if he does not recognize, at the same time, the enormous debt he owes them does not recognize in those lower elements the very basis of that intellect- ual structure he has reared. The higher may predominate over the lower may even, when once developed, obtain an inde- pendent footing ; and as we shall often have occasion to show, it never could have been, in the first place, developed without aid of the lower. The whole is one. (Page 140.) Very rich is the book in illustrations of this law of progress, and in instances of service wrought by phases of existence which when surmounted looked wholly evil in the retrospect, while yet the higher plane was only reached by their means. One or two only of these illus- trations we reproduce. Progress is brought about by the energy of man, which energy is also his highest felicity. The age which in any way has fought and conquered for its successor would perhaps be con- sidered the more fortunate of the two, if its successor had not also its own strife strife at least to retain what had been thus acquired for it. ... Slavery, war, despotism, religious persecu- tion, are evils which we have already partly outlived. Evils we from our position rightly pronounce them to be, yet each of them had its adaptation to the epoch in which it was found to exist, and each had a function to perform preparatory to a subsequent and happier era. Where they still exist, they still have the like adaptation. One illustration must here suffice. War is already, and has long been, proclaimed to be an evil of the first magnitude, and forward-looking men anticipate a time when the disputes of nations will be decided by a society of nations, represented in some council or congress. Meanwhile we are, as a people, still in that condition when we enjoy the fierce delights of war. Nay, we read lectures to each other on the moral benefits aris- ing out of the bold profession of arms. And, at all events, there is a general persuasion that this great framer of states, this founder of nationalities, has not yet done its work. Wars of conquest and of self-defence have hitherto assisted at the forma- 280 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. tion of every well-knit community. The opposition from with- out has made the elements cohere within. (Pages 184, 185.) There is a toleration for the persecutor we have yet to learn. I was lately reading the " History of Philip II." and the grand revolt of the Netherlands. What indignation I felt against the Spanish tyrant ! And indeed we Protestants must hate this despot. And yet, I asked myself, is it reasonable to lay upon one man, as his crime, the fanaticism of a whole people and the tradition of ages ? A great idea prevailed, it predominated entirely in Spain, it had prevailed generally over European society. It was the idea of a universal church, out of which salvation for the souls of men was impossible. Kings as well as priests, and mobs as well as kings, were possessed with this idea. Scholars, soldiers, magistrates, all held themselves charged to maintain it, to write, to fight, and adjudicate for its support. The error of all is the reproach of none. This Philip II. is pre- eminently the great and pious king of pious Catholics. Pos- sessed of highest power, on him devolves the severest task. The sword is in his hand, and he must strike. This morose and superstitious king is, before all others, the slave to our great idea. But in one part of his dominions this great idea is disputed and dethroned. I see the enlightened and wealthy cities of Holland suffering every calamity that war and famine can in- flict, rather than deny the new truth that has sprung up in them. They will not surrender their convictions. Rather let the sea take back their land, rather let the fires of martyrdom consume their bodies. Return stroke for stroke, you brave Dutchmen ! Bear all, inflict all, rather than surrender! Would that you could bind this monarch and fling him over your dikes, and be free to worship how you will ! But now, when the fight is over, and the combatants numbered with the dead, on whom are we to pass judgment ? Not on the zealot king, not on the zealot citizen. They are gone from be- fore our judgment-seat, with all their antagonistic energies and repugnant duties. They have left only for our contemplation a contest between two great ideas. All that remains for us is to congratulate ourselves on the new views that have become prevalent as to the duty of the state GRA YEN HURST." 281 in the matter of religion. But here we perceive our age may justly congratulate itself, and yet not condemn or affect to pity its predecessor. An enlightened people, a people whose minds are generally active, will put forth a variety of beliefs ; and this very activity of mind becomes a substitute for that state author- ity which it resists. Amongst such people the action of the state is necessarily and wisely limited. Did such mental activity be- come still more general, the action of the state might be alto- gether withdrawn. All this is subject for sincere congratulation. But if I am to look back candidly into some past era, I must see there also a certain harmony in the condition of things a certain social organization which is not unworthy of admiration. An ignorant unreasoning people are bound together, and have their minds guided and enriched by some state-protected faith, which, be its composition what it may, has in it the highest practical wisdom that the thinking few of mankind have hitherto attained. This, also, is not unworthy of an approving recogni- tion. (Pages 186-188.) Nor, in this view, is man in his earlier and lower phase a mere sufferer and a stepping-stone to his happier suc- cessor. In each experience there is a satisfaction of its own. . . . The savage is a very hideous spectacle to you. But he as complete in himself as you or I leads his own life con- tentedly. Nay, if contentment with himself were the sole test of happiness which it is not it is only one amongst many tests we would hold the savage happier than ourselves. He is the most conceited of his species. It is, indeed, a universal kindness of Nature that she compensates ignorance by a most triumphant conceit. (Page 206.) Take, if you prefer it, an illustration from the arts of peace. Follow the miner into the bowels of the earth watch the arti- san at his loom, packed close in the dark alleys of a town ; the circumstances are to us distressing enough. But the man in whom those circumstances have developed the fitting and appro- priate activity is not an unhappy creature. Before you pro- nounce a man miserable, be sure you have the real being before 282 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. you be sure that you are not pronouncing on some imaginary figure, made up half of him and half of yourself his circum- stances and your temper and habits. (Page 154. ) This view is carried in one instance to what must seem to most readers an audacious paradox. It is the old In- dian general who utters it. " This marvellous energy," he continued, " seen in all animal life, but most conspicuously in man, calls forth my ceaseless ad- miration, and affords often a complete answer to men wailing over the destiny of others. So long as I see the man bear up and contend against the hostile circumstance, so long do I know that he is not forsaken by the genius of happiness. I have wit- nessed the horrors of war ; I have shared in the forced march ; I have traversed the field of battle the day after ; but still I do not scruple to say that, merely weighing out its pleasures and its pains, the excitements which attend on war itself add far more to the sum of human happiness than its worst calamities to the sum of human misery. My niece who sits there in the corner so critically attentive to me looks dissent. But I do not ad- vocate war, my dear Ada, or desire its continuance. The ener- gies of man may find a better direction ; but it is still well to see that, whatever direction they take, they can scarcely fail to add to the sum of happiness. So much does our happiness lie in this energy itself." (Pages 153, 154.) But a less extreme illustration will win a more general assent. " You are standing," General Mansfield will say, " in your own pleasant drawing-room, well defended from the weather, and you listen to the storm raging without. The rain dashes violently against that film of glass which yet so securely protects you from its violence. Your thoughts fly to the sea, and you picture to yourself the misery of some hapless voyager, who, drenched to the skin, is holding on by the rigging to save him- self from being carried overboard by the rage of the tempest. You, warm and indolent, project yourself in imagination into such a scene. But the man who is really there is no warm and indolent creature ; he has all the energy the situation itself " GKA VENHURST." 283 has called forth. You congratulate yourself in your easy-chair, your dry and comfortable room : congratulate yourself by all means, and enjoy what the quiet hour brings you. But prob- ably you yourself, at some other time, have been in the very position that seems so dreadful now. You have clung with all your might to the shrouds while the waves washed over you, while the winds seemed resolved to tear you from your hold, and sweep you away into the ocean. But you have clung, you strove gallantly, you drew breath when the waves had passed over you, and prepared, with clenched hands, for the next encounter. You were there at your post, you had no thought of surrender, you were all energy ; the danger was swallowed up in the efforts you were making. Well, call up that hour when, drenched and buffeted by water and by wind, you offered stout resistance to the elements in every strong fibre of your body call it up fairly, fully, and place it beside this hour of fireside enjoyment and security, and tell me which of the two was the higher life ? Which of the two are you most proud to have experienced ? If we wish to form a correct estimate of human existence, we must not dwell upon the loud bluster of the storm, and forget the thrill of power that responds to it in the hidden noiseless nerve of the living man." (Pages 152, 153.) But it is on the most familiar ground that our author walks with firmest foot, in his pilgrimage of hope and cheer. Take this group of scenes, both inanimate and human, from the country village " Gravenhurst," whence the book derives its name. Commonplace ! Look up ! What is that apparition of daz- zling brightness rising softly upon the blue sky from behind those tall and massive elms ? If you saw it for the first time in your life you would say it must be some celestial visitant. Is it light itself from heaven taking shape, and just softened and sub- dued to the endurance of a mortal vision ? It is nothing but a cloud I mere vapour that the unseen wind moves and moulds, and that the sun shines on for a little time. And now it has risen above the massive and lofty tree, and throws light upwards to the sky, and throws its pleasant shadow down upon the earth 284 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. pleasant shadow that paces along the meadows, leaving be- hind a greater brilliancy on tree, and grass, and hedge, and flower, than what, for a moment, it had eclipsed. It is -all commonplace. Light, and shadow, and the river, and the meadow with its clover blossoms, and childish buttercups. Very childish all. Match it ! match them ! match these trees in their meadows, ye restless prophets with your palaces of crystal and walls of sapphire, and pavements of jasper ! . . . All the apocalyptic visions you have ever read cannot rival a meadow in springtime. That simple field, with its buttercups and clover blossoms, outshines the imagination of all the poet-prophets that have ever lived. Thank God, all you who have a spark of ra- tional piety in your hearts, for the glorious commonplace of earth and sky, for this cloud-embosomed planet in which you pass your lives. (Pages 142, 143.) . . . An interesting race, these human beings. As I pass the meadow, I lean upon the gate that opens into it ; I see a little child, almost an infant, toddling alone in the high grass. The tall buttercups have outgrown the child ; they and the ox-eyed daisies shut out from its view that neighbouring cottage which is its home ; the child has lost its way amidst the flowers it had come to gather, knows not where to turn in this jungle of soft grass. I hear a plaintive cry of distress. Another child, some two years older, as I guess, runs to its aid, caresses, calms it ; leads it back to the cottage home of both. How prettily it pro- tects ! how proudly ! seeing that this older one can look above the grass. You perceive that the little fond, and sympa- thetic, and imitative creature has learnt that tender care from their common mother ; you note with a smile the already com- plex sentiment (sense of power mingled with love) revealed in that protection ; you observe how soon the thread of life, and even where it is silken-soft, is spun of pain and pleasure ; you know, moreover, that beneath the thatch of that cottage, to which these children hand-in-hand are walking, there beats some true and tender mother-heart, the source of this love to one another some tender heart whose very anxieties you would hardly dare to diminish. (Pages 143, 144.) ... I need not say, therefore, that our Gravenhurst has its share of miseries, has its wants, its sorrows, its crimes ; per- GRA YEN HURST.' 1 285 haps under some roof, unknown to any of us, a terrible guilt or anguish may lie hid. But that which meets the eye everywhere, or most conspicuously, is labour, work of some kind, performed cheerfully, socially, habitually. There is a stolid content in the countenance of most men you meet ; a more talkative and bus- tling activity distinguishes the women. We, in common with all England and the greater part of Europe, have reached that stage of civilization and of culture in which the necessary labours of life are undertaken with cheerful foresight, and where in- dustry is a steadfast voluntary habit. There is no savage im- pulse of sheer hunger, no savage sloth when the hunger is satis- fied ; and we have long passed that epoch when industry was sustained by the goad of the slave-master. We have learned that health and pleasure lie hid in labour. We know that the toil which ministers to life is itself the best part of life. (Page 145.) Of course we make our outcries against the miseries of life ; and there is real evil and indisputable sorrow amongst us. But we strike down the evil where we can, and we soothe the sorrow where we can. And then this energy with which we strike, and this tenderness with which we soothe I think we should not, after due deliberation, forfeit these for an immunity from pain and sorrow. Some evils, you will say, do not prompt action rouse no energy are simply to be endured. Well, this endur- ance conquers them, wrings a strength and pride out of them. They prompt this energy of fortitude. I go back to the meadow where I saw the children amongst the flowers. Childhood itself shall give me my illustration. Some days afterwards I encoun- tered the eldest one alone ; she did not perceive me ; I could watch her unobserved. There was a very luxuriant crop of nettles growing beside the hedge. I saw her put her little ten- der hand, slowly and deliberately, to the leaf of the stinging nettle. She wanted to try if she could bear the pain. The grave little Spartan ! I asked her if she knew that the nettle stung. " Oh, yes ! she knew it ; " but added, blushing, partly with pain and partly at being observed, " Mother says that un- less we can bear pain we shall be cowards and useless people. I wanted to try it is not so very bad." Ah, little Annie Fos- ter ! there was no need to go in search for the nettle. But you 286 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. bore the trial well, and greater trials, I doubt not, you will bravely bear. Again I draw the inference that there was a brave as well as tender mother bestirring herself under the thatch of that cottage. (Pages 146, 147.) How great become the most trivial cares of existence such as food and clothing when we think for all ! when some great principle of patriotism or duty shines over them. The simplest pleasure when I am concerned that another shall enjoy it how exalted it has become ! " The small, familiar, transitory joy, Seen in the light of an eternal truth The mote the beam!" What transmutations take place in this wondrous life of ours ! The inexorable need of the hunger-driven animal lo ! it is a component part of the sweetest of our Christian charities. (Page 206.) The same law which rules in these sweet simple scenes holds sway in the highest exercises of the philosophic mind. Ada. How could the merely pleasurable awake us into in- tense thought? Or how could intense and anxious thought rank amongst the merely pleasurable ? As well hope to drive the night out of the twenty-four hours, as drive it out of the in- most recesses of our thought. Sandford. One might say that it is this infinite night, which seems to surround our little globe, that throws an undying inter- est on its petty transactions and transitory passions. Ada. Speaking of my own experience, thought has been less happy as my horizon of thought has extended. I suffered from many a nightmare when I was a child, but I have suffered more in later times when the dream was fading away not always into the light of the morning. Sandford. Yet I am sure that you would not contract your horizon. We want some word to express that happiness which is not pleasure. Ada. Music expresses it to me ; I know no other language that does. No ! I would not relinquish on any account what GRA VENHURST." 287 little has been granted me of intellectual vision. Come blind- ness of the eye rather ! I do not envy the placidity of men and women of manifestly contracted understandings. I might as well envy (as I have heard some foolish people say they did) the still more placid lives of our domestic animals. I delight to contemplate I have no wish to imitate the life of any sort of tabby. My cat enjoys her existence in common with me up to a certain point. When in the winter evening I draw the easy-chair towards the fire, she couches before me on the rug. We both enjoy the light, the warmth, the softness, the repose, and for a moment I distinctly congratulate myself on this per- fect cat-like felicity. But this pleasant state of things must be, with me, the condition only for some higher enjoyment. I must converse with a friend, I must read books, I must think my thoughts, I must lose myself in their labyrinth. Puss, on the rug, stops where I begin feels all the peace, the comfort, and the warmth, and stops there perfectly content. I see her close her eyes and open them again, quite satisfied that every- thing about her is as stationary as herself. Well, I will not envy puss. I will take, by sympathy, her little contented life into my own, and so enrich my being with one more kindly senti- ment. This is all that I will do, whether the puss lies at my feet, in her own fur, upon the rug, or whether she sits, in mob- cap or pretty ringlets, upon the chair before me. (Pages 224, 225.) But let us now revert to that stubborn and perplexing theme, that which we call moral evil, the conscious and wilful wrong-doing of man. At this point it becomes im- possible to do justice to our author by fragmentary cita- tions ; his view is so different from the treatment long familiar in theology, that partial quotation can convey it but imperfectly, and the reader must be referred to the book itself. To the statement already cited, this may here be added : That which, amongst animals or idiots, is mere hurt and in- jury, becomes moral evil, becomes crime or sin, to intelligent man occupied with the interests of society or the presumed judg- 288 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. merits of God. Evil, therefore, becomes moral evil how ? by the development of human reason. And a pleasure-giving act becomes moral goodness by the same development of intelli- gence. We have not here to speak of any absolutely new pas- sion ; what has converted evil into moral evil is the elevation of other parts of bur nature. The intentional acts of men become moral evil because they are performed or contemplated by beings capable of moral judgments. Whether you pronounce these judgments to be the result of a special moral faculty, or describe them as the reason judging for the welfare of the whole community, it is still sufficiently plain that evil becomes moral evil by the addition of these judgments. It is the result of this higher or peculiar development of the human mind that to injure another, under certain circumstances, becomes moral evil. We see by this sjmple statement the utter impossibility of ascribing simple pain or evil to the Creator of the world, and moral evil to some other and diabolic agent. The evil being there, the conversion of it into moral evil marked our advance- ment. (Page 174.) What, in the nature of things, is founded on experience, must be preceded by the requisite experience. If a race of thinking beings is to act from a rule of reason or intelligence that is, from generalized experience there must have been a process of thought or experiment carried on, and carried on through several generations. Man injures himself and his fellow-man by his ignorance and passion. From many ill results of these he learns temperance, he learns equity. These virtues are, from their very nature, to be learnt from the experience of good and evil, and will be learnt gradually. Turn the subject how you will, moral good could not exist unless its counterpart of moral evil also existed, or had existed. This truth is self-evi- dent, and yet it seems to be overlooked by those who repeatedly perplex themselves by asking, How could God be the author of moral evil ? The great fact that ought to arrest their attention is that God has been the author of a moral being. He has so arranged the circumstances of life, and the powers and propen- sities of man, that the reason or judgment cultivated in this scene of pain and pleasure produces for us the sentiments of merit and duty. (Page 176.) " GRA VENHURST." 289 With the idea of moral evil is closely connected the question of the punishments inflicted by society, and the punishments attributed to God. Here our author is at his best. And here again we must refer the reader to " Gravenhurst " itself, from which we borrow little more than a fragment. God, then, is the author of moral evil in what way ? By a development of the reason of man He has enabled him to com. pare conduct with conduct, result with result enabled him to approve and condemn. All this is very clear. But why, then, it is asked, does God punish moral evil, if He created it ? There are two theories abroad on the nature of divine punish- ments. If the divine punishments (whether judicial, or consisting of penalties brought out by the operation of the laws already estab- lished) have for their end the guidance of men, and of societies of men, here or hereafter, then these divine punishments are but means to carry on the progressive development of the human species. The whole scheme is still in harmony in all its parts. There is no difficulty in God's both creating and punishing moral evil. He creates it by the additional intelligence He gives to man ; that is, He has raised in man a desire to combat evil. He fosters or enlightens that desire by affixing penalties where man has declined this combat. If, according to another theory, God punishes sin simply be- cause it is sin simply from a supposed repugnance or hostility to moral evil, without any regard to the results of punishment then I admit that it is impossible to reconcile such notions of God's justice with the fact that God % is the Creator of the world. But this last theory of divine punishment is not, I believe, the one generally received. Perhaps in the general mind there is some confused notion of retributive justice, which would be found difficult to reconcile with the faith equally general that God made all mankind, and the whole of our humanity. But the theory that God, from the necessity of his nature, must punish sin as sin, without regard to the beneficent result of the punishment itself, is one which 290 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. would be only formally set forth by a peculiar class of theolo- gians. It matters not, however, whether that class of theologians be large or small ; it is a theory utterly irreconcilable with the belief in one supreme, creative, and beneficent Intelligence. The sentiment of remorse is debated between the Vicar and Sandford. Vicar. There is justice as well as benevolence in the charac- ter of God. It is character as well as happiness for which God creates us. The conscience of each man tells him that he lies open to deserved punishment to punishment which has not necessarily any reference to his own happiness or the happiness of others. No guilty man feels that he ought to be punished for the benefit that will follow from his punishment ; enough, he de- serves it. Sandford. Most certainly a criminal who has broken the laws of God or man, and knows that a grave penalty hangs over him, has quite enough to occupy his attention for the time ; quite enough in this one association between his crime and its punish- ment. That this one association should take instant and full possession of his mind requires no psychological explanation. Let such a man, however, have leisure to grow calm, and let him be told that his punishment can answer no good purpose whatever, and he will be the first to exclaim that it is a needless cruelty to punish him. . . . Vicar. ... I want you to dive into the recesses of a man's conscience to fasten upon his free-will, and on the self-accusa- tion that follows upon a voluntary wrong. A man who has wil- fully broken the law feels that he is a culprit, and if you pardon him, he still feels that he is a culprit, and deserves the punish- ment of one. , Sandford. I do dive so far as I am able into the recesses of the conscience-stricken mind. I find there an emotion of ter- ror that I cannot possibly trace to anything but some threat issued by man, or supposed to be issued from God. This cannot be a feeling springing up in the solitary mind ; the individual mind does not produce the threat and the emotion both. No man fears a punishment from God unless he has been taught something about that punishment : and his fear of man depends on the nature of his relation to his fellow-men. GRA VENHURST." 291 This terror of the conscience, therefore, lies in the strong as- sociation between certain acts and certain threatenings, more or less precise. Nor can we be surprised at the absorbing char- acter of the emotion, since a criminal has brought down upon himself the penalties of the law, the hatred of his neighbours, and the apprehension of the supernatural punishment of God. (Pages 270, 271.) It is obvious how the idea of merit, as well as that of guilt, loses much of its former significance under the philosophy of this school. The charge is brought by its opponents that with this change of view goes a loss of moral energy. But that it may combine a charity of judgment with ardor against vice and humility in virtue, many instances might be given. Let this passage here suffice : We owe all to Heaven even our virtues. I have always felt a certain timidity in dealing out the requisite censures against men who have been led into error by hot, impetuous tempers, who probably thirsted after pleasures and excitements which to me and others were no temptations at all. If, when I was a young man at the university, I led a tranquil, temperate, and studious life, I feel that I should be something of a hypocrite were I to claim any merit for this. Such was the only life I cared to lead. I hated noise. I preferred fresh air to breath- ing tobacco-smoke fresh from the mouths of other men. This alone was enough to keep me much in my own rooms. The wine-party was simply detestable. The morning headache had no charms for me. Bacchus amongst his grapes and his satyrs may be a classic subject of art : out of the canvas he is very much of a beast. I have found men wittier as well as wiser when they were quite sober. Happy those to whom temperate passions have been given ! I have known young men absurdly and even hypocritically boastful of their ungovernable feelings. They, for their part, are all flame ! They are all fool ! What is a man worth unless he is master of himself ? unless reason, and not passion, is sit- ting at the helm ?. And is not temperance the very conservator 292 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. of that youth they prize so much which perhaps, indeed, they have not yet learned to prize half enough ? (Page 286.) To turn to another phase of the subject, our author divides what we know as " evils " into two classes, the remediable, in overcoming which consists human prog- ress ; and the irremediable, as one of which he instances the inexorable limit upon man's knowledge, the hopeless inequality between what he longs to know and what it is possible for him to know. The state of the case, as put by the most desponding thinkers, is this : That while on these great subjects truth is not to be discovered, some men, or perhaps most men, at some period of their lives, believe they have discovered it. It is necessary to assume this, because if all men came to the same conclusion that search was unavailing, then the discrepancy between our wishes and our powers (which is here made the subject of lamentation) would cease, and men would live contented with their ignorance. Attempts " to think the unthinkable " are not incessantly made but on the assumption that some men believe that they succeed where others perceive failure to be inevitable. A mix- ture of doubt and faith in the same society is therefore the final condition of things in which we are landed by those who take the most melancholy view of human knowledge. This mixture of doubt and faith is, at least, favourable to intellectual energy and our highest life. The man who stands before Nature, and earnestly interro- gates her and his own soul as to what they can report of God, is in a most solemn attitude of mind, but not necessarily a pain- ful one. Let the response be uncertain, he still would not re- linquish that attitude of mind under any bribe earth could offer ; he would not relinquish it unless he would prefer to be a beast rather than a man. He is man preeminently when he stands in that attitude. (Pages 193, 194.) Irremediable, inevitable, death at last awaits all. Yet, would we wish to perpetuate this earthly existence ? " GRA VENHURST." 293 How much of life should we lose if we lived perpetually ! How stagnant would have been the condition of man ! . . . I cannot conceive that this middle-aged immortal would ever keenly anticipate the future. Perhaps wonder itself would fade away from the face of things. And that eternity beyond life which death forever points to, though he points to it so silently, would, of course, cease to be the great stimulant of man's sub- limest thoughts and emotions. Nothing could be so fatal to human happiness as a terrestrial immortality. (Pages 189, 190.) Clear knowledge of a future existence is not given to us, but the anticipation of a hereafter is a part of our hu- man constitution. The Vicar. People say of you that while you would teach us admiration of this progressive world, you would shut us up within the limits of a mundane existence, would forbid us to aspire beyond it. Sandford. I would teach that this life is worthy of our love and admiration, and that God through our own efforts that is, of course, through the efforts we are constituted to make, is still rendering it more excellent and more happy. But I have never said that the always imperfect knowledge and happiness of man would confine his aspirations within the circuit of our mortal existence. These aspirations, vague as they may be, I take to be an inextinguishable portion of our humanity. Our earth bends down to itself our rounded sky, makes an ethereal dome for itself out of the infinite space beyond. So it is with our humanity ; it rounds a heaven for itself out of the infinite and the eternal. And just as we know that the sky is, and yet know that the form it takes is due to our earth ; in like manner we may know that the eternal life is, and yet feel that the form it assumes to us is necessarily due to our present humanity. It is a complement to that humanity is conceived by some relation to it. Ada. Take away the earth, and there would be no rounded sky; take away the sky, and earth would be like an under- ground clod which is inhabited by insects. (Pages 279, 280.) It is the very nature of our progress in one direction to lead us to higher aspirations than earth can gratify. 294 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. Mansfield. Death will be always with us, and the loss of those we loved. There will be spirits always to beckon us on- wards to another life. God will be ever with us. And when man has ceased to fear his fellow-man, he will dare to think nobly and rationally of God. Ada. It is my faith that God will raise all his intelligent creatures finally to the knowledge and love of himself. This, and nothing less than this, can I accept as the end and purpose of creation. I must be permitted to think that the distresses of human life have, in part at least, their explanation in this, that they carry the mind onward to another world. After all our generalizations, life is sad to many of us. Glorious things there are in heaven and in earth, but what says our poetess ? " Two little tears suffice to hide them all ; " and age after age men have consoled themselves and each other by the hope of some compensating happiness hereafter. (Pages 325,326.) Ada quotes Tennyson's familiar verses the hope that every winter shall change to spring, though the hope is uttered by " an infant crying in the night ; " and Sand- ford responds : " Let the little children that are crying for the light throw their arms around each other's neck, and nestle the closer for the darkness that surrounds them : so will they best subdue the terrors of the night." Of whatever further state may await us, one charac- teristic we know with perfect assurance. Ada. But if we cannot understand how the criminal is pun- ished in a future world through the natural consequences of his criminality, we can understand how the cultivation of piety of love to God and man will be there, as here, its own exceed- ing great reward. This cultivates us for heaven for the abode of whatever spirits stand nearer than we do to the throne of God. All the physical universe is brought together, as some astron- omer writes, " by the one common element of light ; " and in " GRA VENHURST." 295 like manner all the spiritual universe must be bound together by the one common element of love that love which is also reason. (Pages 278, 279.) As to the tie between a present and future self, this striking thought occurs. Ada. Some recollection of this present terrestrial being must, I suppose, remain, otherwise how recognize our personal iden- tity, or the continuance of our existence ? But I recoil from the idea that we shall be always turning over the pages of our mem- ory, and reading the frivolous, blundering, incoherent entries in it. Strange brain-book! a blotted register, whose leaves turn by some magic of their own, and open too often at the place of least pleasant reading. Most mysterious brain-book ! And we see that here in this life it becomes defaced, and. torn, and stained, and scribbled over, till nothing further can be regis- tered, and the leaves turn slowly, and open only at a few of the earliest pages. Well, would you have this brain-book restored as some expect and ask for every word of it made legible, every page of it opening, in its turn, throughout eternity ? Oh, better far some new brain-book, to be filled with a nobler story ! Who would wish to be reading eternally this old one ? Sandford. Immortality is a great hope, but a dim concep- tion. We only risk our hope when we attempt to render its nar ture distinct. Our ideal acts beneficently upon the actual and present existence, because it is not another complete life that we, in fact, depict to ourselves, but only some isolated sentiment of this life, that we glorify, and project, and follow, we know not how, into eternity. (Pages 228, 229.) And here is the true application of the supreme hope : - Preparation for another life! The idea is grand, none grander, if you have a high and large meaning for this prepara- tion, if every beneficent activity, if every noble joy, if every ex- alted sentiment, is your preparation for eternity. The end of a thousand lives is just this, to live, under God, our highest life, to develop all our capacities for knowledge, happiness, goodness. Preparation for another world, in this sense, cannot be separated from progress or from happiness in this. It is identical with 296 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. our highest enjoyment of life, with our noblest efforts to ad- vance. (Page 326.) Nowhere in " Gravenhurst," nor in any other of our author's writings, is much notice taken of the heaviest and the commonest of human sorrows the sorrow of bereavement. It is said indeed that the fear of our friend's death gives far greater pain than the fear of our own, and a few of the words we have quoted breathe a tender consolation and hope. But the theme is little dwelt upon. The brevity of its treatment is in contrast with the full recognition given to the suffering which flows from the felt limitation of human knowledge. And yet, nowhere does the philosophy of " Gravenhurst " admit of a richer application than here. Of no sorrow is the beneficent effect more traceable than of bereave- ment. No other so inspires the hope of a hereafter; none so softens ; none has such power to deepen and purify affection, to fuse it with moral aspiration, and to widen it into a larger sympathy. " Blessed are they that mourn " true, might our philosopher of " Graven- hurst " say, for the very meaning of comfort is unknown except to those who have mourned. The attitude of our author toward the Christian church may be shown by one or two passages. Mansfield. When I returned to England, nothing struck me more than the increased zeal and earnestness in all parties throughout the domain of religious inquiry. But that which seemed to me most noteworthy was the approximation between a philosophical and critical section of the Christian church and those who avowedly trust themselves to the speculations of human reason. It seemed to me that there was a small party almost prepared to yield the principle of Revelation, if they could be assured that certain great religious truths would be generally acknowledged as founded on human reason. On the other hand, a grave and pious scepticism had arisen amongst us, such as feels its responsibility to God and man, and asks itself anxiously " GRA VENHURST. 1 " 297 how it is to take charge of society, if society should be thrown upon its hands. I could not but observe how much there is of the believer in our modern sceptic, how much of the sceptic in some of our modern believers. (Page 249.) Sandford. If so various a country as England could put for- ward its model, or " representative man," how would you de- scribe him ? He would certainly be a Christian, but a Christian who has a zeal for promoting all the temporal interests of soci- ety whether it is a system of drainage or a system of educa- tion. And astonishing indeed it is to behold the number of charitable, municipal, national undertakings, in which our repre- sentative Christian takes the lead. We do honour to his piety, but we demand that it occupy itself with the good, healthy, happy life of this terraqueous globe. We have very little re- spect for the solitary raptures of saints, looking upward into the skies, if nothing comes of it for this lower world. Such solitary raptures we rather excuse than admire. Vague exultations fol- lowed by vague depressions we leave them undisturbed. But not to saintship of this description does England look for its sal- vation. By all means, let this or that gentle youth sit apart, with books of devotion on his knees sit there in ecstatic, hope- ful, amazed condition of mind, if such to him be the best and most innocent mode of passing his existence. Innocent it is, and therefore let it be undisturbed. But England thinks it has other employment for its youth, and looks for help to another species of piety. (Page 289.) Ada. There was a voice in the wilderness, and it cried, Re- pent ! And there followed another voice, still more divine, and it said, Love ! And the tempest arose, the tempest of wars, invasions, revolutions, and it carried these two voices round the world, and to this moment these divine words are every- where reechoed, Repent and Love. Repent that you may be pure, and capable of loving. To grieve for our failings, and to love each other, this is a teaching worthy of being called divine. Heaven's authority for the preeminence of the sentiment of Love I think much of this. Love is, indeed, the very passion of the reason ; for reason, from its nature, can desire only good. Still there are daring moods, and there are daring reasoners, occasionally exalting Hate and 298 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. Revenge to an almost equal eminence. See how some sweet ser- viceable Christian soul takes upon itself to love all the afflicted all, even the guilty. Wherever there is sickness and distress, or crime, which is a sickness of the soul, the Christian comes if possible to heal, always to soothe and commiserate. You will say no, not either of you, but some stern jurisprudential moralist will say that this universal charity tends to obliterate the dis- tinctions between virtue and vice that it counteracts the moral opinion of society, which demands that love and kindly service be withdrawn from the criminal. But this universal love, re- member, is love with tears in its eyes love that will not cease to weep and protest till the guilty one has turned from his guilt till he too can repent, and can love. Nay, the Christian is the true philosopher ; for shining through all his inevitable cen- sure of the criminal is his deep compassion that the man should be a criminal deep compassion, which he recognizes as a di- vine sentiment, which he hears in the last word God has ut- tered out of eternity to his suffering and bewildered creatures. To love is the great glory, the last culture, the highest hap- piness; to be loved is little in comparison. Amongst our strangely complicated relationships of life, it often seems as if the loved one had all the advantage. To him the service, for him the sacrifice ; from him, perhaps, no return. You pity some deluded mother, impoverishing herself for a reprobate son, who laughs as he spends her little hoard. Do not pity ad- mire rather ; she is happier than a thousand reprobates. She loves. Oh, if One really existed, as I and others believe, who loved all the world, and in some inexplicable way suffered for its salvation, he was a God, at least, in his sublime happiness. Nor should I say that it was a " religion of sorrow " that such a love had inaugurated. (Pages 259, 260.) Where, now, in briefest word, have our philosophizings brought us ? How do we return from them to the view of the actual world and our own business therein ? I think it well to see that it is by overcoming evil, as well moral evil as natural evil, that we rise in the scale of creation. This very fact convinces us that evil was not brought here other- wise than beneficently is, in fact, part of the scheme of a be- " GRA VENHURST." 299 nevolent Creator. This may aid us, too, in supporting manfully the unavoidable, and in combating manfully all remediable evils. He who seeks truth and loves goodness has God upon his side. I think it well to see that the higher needed the lower, that we may learn to respect the whole of our humanity. Even that which we have learnt to dispense with may have been a neces- sary help to our present elevation. I think it well to see that Human Society becomes the mould for the individual man born into it, and to see, also, how this mould itself becomes improved by those stronger minds which can advance upon the education they have received. Such truths as these enlighten each man on the debt, and on the duty, he owes to society. They also show Humanity, as a whole, standing in the presence of a be- neficent Creator, but one whose love exacts our effort, our endurance, under whom pain and terror ofttimes do the offices of love. (Page 324.) All who battle for the good are, in the language of a natural piety, the children of God. They are ranged on the side of goodness, or the production of happiness, and they also receive into their hearts, as their indisputable reward, the highest senti- ments of happiness. (Page 180.) It is a noble life in which this contest is bravely and wisely sustained. Worlds there may be where there is only pleasure, and only goodness, but we can form no conception of such a state of things ; or so far as we can form any conception, it is a languid pleasure and a torpid goodness that rises to our imagi- nation. It is not our supreme wisdom to pass life dreaming of a world where there will be no evil ; it is highest wisdom, individ- ually and socially, to do battle for the good, so that this mingled existence which is alone intelligible to us may put on all the glory it is capable of. From this contest we win our felicity and our progress, and the contest itself is a great and enduring hap- piness, which runs through all the ages of mankind. All that is energetic and noble savours of this contest. Aye, even what is tenderest in human life comes out of some struggle between good and evil. Even our very piety springs from it. (Pages 139, 140.) Do not ask for a world without evil. Seek rather to know and rightly appreciate this our own dark-bright existence, and 300 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. enter, heart and soul, into the old warfare for the Good ! (Page 139.) At the outset of William Smith's life its purpose seemed fitly summed up in Charles Kingsley's phrase, kt Given self, to find God." The deepest finding lay in that fidelity to moral good which he never forsook. But the intellectual quest was long and arduous. The barrier to intellectual peace lay in the seeming contradiction in- volved in the existence of evil in a divinely ordered world. In " Gravenhurst " we have at last an interpretation of evil as the servant of good. It is an interpretation that only became possible when the light of modern knowledge had been thrown on the procedure of the universe. Perplex- ities remain and doubtless always will remain. But great is the advance, glad as morning is the light ! The seeker, " sublimely meek," who entered the clouds and darkness of Sinai, comes back with a prophet's message. CHAPTER XX. SWITZERLAND. (From the Memoir.} IN the May of 1862 " Gravenhurst " was published, and we went to Switzerland for five months, dividing the time between Bex, Zermatt, Sixt, Chamounix, and Unterseen. It was our custom to settle down quietly at one place after another, to get its loveliness by heart, and to be free from that ruffling of equanimity bad weather may entail on the rapid tourist. Our fortnight at Zermatt stands out very prominently in my memory. The keen air and the kind of scenery exhilarated my husband to the utmost. In a manuscript book of his I find, very hastily jotted down : " Two short, long weeks and all my future, such is your share, Zermatt, of my life. Nowhere the torrents so grand, the snow-hills more beautifully set. I cannot de- scribe the scene on the Gorner Grat but I recur to it and keep it alive. All pleasure flowers the English hare-bell looks up from my ankle, the white Pinguicula (as if dropt from the skies upon its stalk, on which it rests rather than grows), shy as the violet and more delicate. You look up from the flower and down into the ravine. I tremble as I look below, one false step and all the beauty is gone forever, gone for me ! And see, the tor- rent-stream is so safe, just here is its low bed scooped in the solid rock ; it is so distant as to seem quite silent. And then the village, and the cows, and the goats, and the church and the bells ; a great deal of the praying here seems done by the bells, and not badly." 302 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. What rapturous memories of our long walks those few words waken ! At Zermatt, too, we made an interesting and enduring friendship. We were there early in June, and the Hotel du Mont Cervin had only two other in- mates, a young husband and wife, and their sweet child of three. The visitors' book gave their names ; they were New-Englanders. We never thought it worth while to record ours, and hence in the course of two or three days Mr. Loomis, who discerned something remarkable about the man, asked William what his was. " The commonest of all English names, William Smith." " Yes, but I like it for the sake of a favourite author." And then I broke in, inquiring, with a strong presentiment as to what the answer would be, which of the numberless Smiths he al- luded to? "The author of ' Thorndale.' " It was a great pleasure to me to say, " This is he." Mr. Loomis had with him the American edition of the book, which my hus- band saw with interest. So began a friendship and corre- spondence that were kept up to the last. We had had some vague idea of spending the winter in Switzerland, but the illness of my dear father recalled us. The winter was spent at Weston-super-Mare, where we knew no one where from the 14th of October to the 17th of February we only spoke to each other ; and never were we more cheerful than under these circumstances. The place itself had not much interest country and sea were alike tame ; but the beautiful sunsets in front of our large window were a constant source of pleasure, and we had Switzerland to remember. But, indeed, however ec- static my husband's enjoyment of Swiss glories, it was far less exceptional than his unfailing delight in the familiar shows of earth and sky. It never was more true than of him that " The poet hath the child's sight in his breast, And sees all new. What oftenest he has viewed, He views with the first glory." S W1TZERLAND. 303 As usual, during these peaceful months William was thoroughly occupied, not only in writing for the magazine, but with psychological subjects. In the manuscript book that at that time lay upon his desk, I find much jotted down under the head of " Knowing and Feeling." But the one thing in him that I regretted was his habit of writing so many of his thoughts illegibly, even to himself. He would often deplore his own way of working, extracts made, line of argument traced out, to be referred to here- after, and when wanted undecipherable ! When a new manuscript book was begun, there would he resolve to do better ; but habit was too strong, the pen flew too fast, the writing (in his letters so delicate and clear) baffled the writer's own patience. To Miss Mary Wrench. ZERMATT, June 18, 1862. This is the place of places ! No mountain that I ever saw equals the Matterhorn in his hold over one's mind. Read about him, I beg, in Murray. How he rears him- self up how when the clouds come round him it takes your breath away every time that he emerges . to find that his head can indeed be there so incredibly high ! . . . On our way here, at Visp, I heard as I believed pouring rain all night, but did not like to get up and verify, fearing to disturb William. At five we were up. It was the river, not the rain, I had heard ; clouds were rising ; guides promised fine weather. We were in our saddles at seven. How you would have enjoyed it ! I soon lost all sense of nervousness, and indeed there is nothing to be the least nervous about. I love precipices, and to stretch out my arms over a gorge with a torrent at the bottom. The nine hours' ride was one ecstasy of enjoyment; the day perfect, the horse an angel the saddle an arm-chair. Murray gives one no idea of the grandeur of the scenery the whole way to Zermatt. What with perpendicular and 304 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. richly colored rocks, hills wooded sometimes to their tops, and overlooked by one white summit aftfcr another, the river roaring far below, the flowers by the wayside, the butterflies that crossed one's path ; what with the gran- deur and the beauty, and all of it " reflected from the eyes that one loves," I may say life culminated that day. And yet the next was I think better, for William was in my room at five, wild with spirits, feeling the air gives him new life, and wanting instantly to be off on another expe- dition. Accordingly off we set to the Schwarzsee (read about it) and oh, the glory of Monte Rosa, cloudless to the summit, and the fairy beauty of the flowers ! Coming down, we got wrapped in clouds. I liked to see them rising like smoke, so rapidly out of the valley, veiling the mountains, then all melting away suddenly. I would not have been without them, though it was very cold. I have got to like the feeling of going up-stairs on horseback. We had one of the sweet fellows who brought us over the day before, and a lovely youth of eighteen as guide. Fuchs (such was the dear horse's name) wriggled so de- lightfully up great slabs of rock ! There was no one in the great hotel but an American Congregational minister and his wife and child he a remarkably handsome young man in delicate health, she healthy and kindly look- ing, with loving eyes, and a quite caressing smile. What walks we had Saturday and Sunday, what snow moun- tains we saw the Twins and the Lyskamm (almost as high as Monte Rosa), towering above the beautiful Gorner Glacier, and a fringe of fir-trees for foreground, and such a sky ! And then think what it is to see William wild with health and mirth, and full of the most bewitching conceptions. We have walked every day in spite of the weather, which broke up on Monday. Tuesday we went to see the river Visp break out of its icy cradle, so weird and grand and desolate, with the mist of rain hanging round. Yesterday I was thinking about other things, and SWITZERLAND. 305 down I went on a slab of rock, not knocking my head, but jarring it terribly. It aches this morning, but I 'm quite well. . . . We talk of going to Sixt, and there spending perhaps a month or six weeks. We must settle some- where where I can get on with my translation, for a letter from Mr. Strahan announces two other books, and also that I may write two other " Photographic Sketches " so one must be a little fixed. VALLEY OF SIXT, July 31, 1862. The hotel at Sixt is an extraordinary old place. It was once a monastery but I have already described it to the dear grandparents, and will only say of it that it is the most haunted looking place I have ever been in, with its low arched windowless corridor of 120 feet, into which the bedrooms open ; and the first evening, when we were the only persons in the house I could not let your uncle Wil- liam leave me for a moment, such was my nervous con- dition. Half the building is utterly dilapidated ; there are underground dark places, and an old crypt communicating with the church which at night seemed to me unutterably gloomy. However, our room was large and charming. Nothing can exceed the loveliness of the scenery loveli- ness and grandeur. Three weeks have passed away very happily. We had once a char-a-banc with an enchanting mule, and a kind one, generally they are vicious, and I cannot express my affectionate admiration for fear of being bit but with that exception we have contented ourselves with long walks, for mules are an expensive luxury. The country people here are a particularly pleasant and con- versable race. I seldom walk alone without a long chat with some one, and a chapter of family history. They go much to raris from this lovely valley in which it is quite difficult to believe in Paris, or any large town with its unrest and turmoil. This is the land of waterfalls. There are six really fine ones within an easy walk. Of 306 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. these three gush out of the ground, fed by some tarn or by the glacier on the mountain top far away. Some days I have sat at home to translate, while my dear one took a ramble alone. Some charming walks we have taken to- gether. Once I went off alone at half -past six to an ele- vation several thousand feet above Sixt. In short, it has been very delightful the weather glorious the loftiest mountains cloudless, seeming to " melt and throb away at the sight of the great sky," and lit up at sunset with intense rare color. ... In this large airy room we have never suffered from excessive temperature. There has been but one drawback the fleas ! sometimes I have been tempted to be quite low about them. I often catch two enemies at the same moment with each hand eight or ten a day is the constant average. Chamounix, /Sunday afternoon. We left Sixt Friday evening in the drollest vehicle you ever saw, like a thing in Hogarth's prints a car for two with a canopy, so : [picture] . It is almost on the ground, but very easy, and we had a darling horse, who went at a famous pace and never seemed at all tired. Our canopy kept out a burn- ing sun. We left Samoens at half past five yesterday, and the beauty of the peaked, bold mountains, all lilac haze in the morning light, and the rich foliage on their slopes, is not to be told. So much for effects of light and shade we had thought that drive rather dull which now kept us speechless with entranced ecstasy. And then the dew on the grass, and on our spirits! So fresh, so happy ! When we got to St. Martin, Mont Blanc was cloudless in his immensity. William lay on the ground the two hours, lost to all sense of fatigue and hunger. I, a lower creature, hunted and slew the last fleas of Sixt, and ate an omelette. We had quite a touching little part- ing at Sixt, Friday evening, the sweet Marie, the maid, so sorry to lose us, and the washerwoman coming out to SWITZERLAND. 307 shake hands and offer an oleander and a most fragrant rose as a " souvenir de Sixt " sweet Sixt ! We left St. Martin at about one o'clock. From Chede the rise was long and steep, and we walked a good deal beneath the most burning of suns, but there was a breeze and often shade, and the scenery the whole way to Servoz was be- yond description. From Servoz a dear mule was taken to assist our famous horse and we walked no more. What the glory was ! But some miles before we reached Cha- mounix I was too tired to feel anything. William, on the contrary, all soul, and all thrilled with the vast, simple, cold, stern grandeur of this valley, as peak after peak seemed to fall into line and range themselves under the white banner of the monarch mountain. There are as many mules here as people, and such immense, sleek, de- lightful fellows. But they are very expensive, and we will see what we can walking. To-day I have been to church. There is a very pretty English church here, and a most earnest, elderly man preached. William has had a day of rapture, on the grass, looking at Mont Blanc. He came in with one of his inspired looks, which so won- drously change the aspect of the man. After all, he thinks nothing we have seen so grand as this. I infinitely pre- fer Zermatt and the marvellous Matterhorn. WESTON-SUPER-MARE, Nov., 1862. My darling, you see your Zia sits down promptly to answer your little note, though it is but a shabby affair. I should have liked it to be an impulse and a pleasure to write to her, but people are not to be persuaded into impulses. However, whatever you might say would be thought by me well worth hearing. Your Zia likes to hear of small details, of letters received and the like, as well as of feelings and thoughts. And for your own dear sake remember that the effort made to write a long letter leaves a sense of cheerfulness behind that a hasty 308 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. note dashed off never does. Your darling godmother writes such pleasant things of you they so thoroughly like you and admire your pretty face. This is not the least likely to make you vain, any vanity you may have being of the pining and rather morbid order that wants to be fed up into health ! Mine was always of the same nature, and partial appreciation always did me immense good. It is only when people rate us a little above our true standard that we can come up to it. Oh, it is so good, therefore, to love and be loved ! I rejoice more than I can say that you should be with two such samples of human nature as General and Mrs. Cotton. I am sure you must feel your spirits rise as you see what a divine thing this earthly life may be made this life which with all its exquisite possibilities lies all before you. You were at Chester, my dear, this day fortnight, when your Gran got a long letter from me, which of course you saw. 1 have just had an excellent account from her. Dear Gran ! She writes in such good spirits and the dear Grandpere has been down, she says, several times, and must be mar- vellously better, for he speaks of being photographed next week. Tell me, my dear one, when you know, your winter plans, but meanwhile give nothing a thought but your happy visit. I rejoice to believe that dear Edith is quite happy with the grandparents. It is pleasant to us all k. feel ourselves of use, and of consequence to the daily lives of others. I thought Edith so improved in every way. It is, I am sure, very good for her to be at Chester all her more helpful qualities are called into play. Did I tell you I mean, did I tell in my last letter to the Gran - what a charming review there had been of " Graveiihurst " in the " Revue des Deux Mondes ? " We lead such a quiet life here, so different, so contrasted in its circum- stances with the social one your sweet godmother leads. We do not know a single person, nor shall we during our months here speak to any one but to each other ! And yet SWITZERLAND. 309 I maintain that we both are very social people. I saw it remarked the other day that the most solitary people are at the same time the most sociable, and it really is a truth though it seems a paradox. I can't say I want anything, for that would imply some sadness or discontent, and every one of my days is brim-full of happiness. But yet if any friend did appear, it would be very charming, too. Sometimes we think, how nice to go to Edinburgh, where we have so many real friends. . . . Oh, those St. Ber- nard dogs ! what precious creatures they must be what delicious cheeks they must have how I should kiss them ! Are they much attached to their master and mis- tress ? There are not many dogs here, not any that I am on speaking terms with. I must needs tell you of my letters, dear, for unless I record what we have had for din- ner the last week, or prose about the books we have been reading, or get upon William's perfections, which I am always in danger of doing what have I to write about ? We are living very economically here. Indeed, we must do so, for we have mainly our work to depend upon, and that is a precarious thing. I have been employing myself in translating one of Victor Hugo's poems, but I dare say I shall not get it taken. CHAPTER XXI. MOTHER AND DAUGHTER. {From the Memoir.) IN the spring of 1863, after a little round of visits a thing unprecedented with us we found ourselves again in the neighborhood of Coniston, attracted thither mainly by friends with whom, during our stay at Tent Cottage, we had entered into cordial relations, and whom we had much enjoyed meeting during our Swiss tour. One of these friends was an especially congenial companion to my husband, and his correspondent to the end. When- ever he had received any new or vivid delight from art or nature, or whenever a political or religious movement had excited in him more than usual interest, I always knew that the sheets of note-paper I saw spread out on the lit- tle desk were destined for Miss Rigbye. She will not, I know, object to my quoting here her earliest impression of him : " I like to recall the first time I saw him, and the feel- ing that his joyous, radiant expression awakened in me something of surprise, and wonder, and pleasure. I re- member distinctly recognizing that it was something I had never seen before." During the course of this summer, there fell upon me an irreparable blow, the death within one week of both beloved parents. But my husband's presence made an- guish (as I now understand the word) impossible. A few days before her sudden seizure, my mother had said to me, " Thank God, my darling, that when I am in my grave MOTHER AND DAUGHTER. 311 you will have one to love you as I do ! " She, better than any one, would have understood how, having all in him, even her loss could not darken life. My joy henceforth lacked the complete reflection it had found from her sym- pathy, but it was " fulness of joy " still. More than ever my company, more than ever tender, my husband seemed resolved that my nature should know no want. Part of the ensuing winter was spent in Edinburgh amid true friends ; the remainder at Brighton. The story of her parents' last days was written in a letter to be circulated among their friends. From the touching story we take two or three passages. August 19, 1863. [She relates how she was summoned to her parents at Chester, her father, for a long time blind and an invalid, having suffered a second stroke of paralysis. She found him unable to speak, though evidently with clear mind.] I believe that he never for a moment expected to recover, though when we told him of good symptoms he would bow a gracious assent. But that was for our sakes. He knew the value of hope to those who attend the sick. Meanwhile, as I found that to speak much to him was to provoke painful efforts to reply, that he seemed indiffer- ent to reading, and that my presence did not soothe him more than that of others, I was less taken up with him than I had been during my two previous visits, and more con- stantly with my own most precious mother. All who know me at all know, I think, how intensely I loved her, how in- tensely we loved each other. But never in my whole life did I appreciate her more than during this last fortnight. Everything was cheery and pleasant. She took a hopeful view of my dear father's case, trusted she might yet see him sitting up a little in his chair, rejoiced in his freedom from bodily pain, and made the best of everything. . . . 312 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. During my stay in Chester, the weather was almost with- out exception bright, joyous, breezy. My mother and I usually took a long walk in the evening. How she en- joyed the air, the sunset sky, the waving of the trees be- fore the house, the flowers in other people's gardens, the noise and laughter of children in the street ! How heav- enly her spirit was ! I remarked to many that she was more perfect than ever the fine gold seemed to have lost all alloy. There were no longer the importunate beg- gars besieging the door who had chafed my less confiding nature on former occasions. She had all her characteris- tic energy of kindness and sympathy, but she had no rest- lessness with it. She would lie on the sofa so placidly, reading some religious book, or knitting the unfinished stocking which is now one of my best treasures. Her ap- petite was good ; she enjoyed her dinner, enjoyed her bed, enjoyed especially the morning service at the Cathe- dral, enjoyed Dr. McNeile's sermon, enjoyed my chat, my jokes, enjoyed the gambols of puss and puppy, enjoyed my letters which were always hers to read, enjoyed every- thing. I think the words " In everything giving thanks " would have been her fittest motto. How we talked ! I fancy that no one estimated her intelligence quite so cor- rectly as I. She had a sweet humility that often kept her silent in society, to herself so often her opinion did not seem worth giving ; but with me she thought aloud, and I was often struck by the breadth and enlightenment of her views, and always by the correctness of her taste. Intui- tively she discerned the best in character, literature, art. I always found her the most attractive of companions. Age had not touched one faculty of her mind. I mourn her (she was seventy-eight) as I should mourn a contem- porary. Yet I thank God that it was so. I would rather part with my treasures when treasured most, than be weaned from them by any diminution of their excellence. I prefer the sharp pang and the perfect memory. Oh, MOTHER AND DAUGHTER. 313 how we talked of life and death, and all connected with death, for the possibilities of my dear father's case intro- duced that theme. The morning I went away (Monday, the third) she said, " How I shall miss you," and for a second her dear face grieved, " but I don't give myself a thought in the matter, and I would not keep you any longer from dear William for five hundred pounds." The precious angel! [The mother's sudden illness re- called the daughter, two days later.] Whether she knew me or not I can never be sure never in this world. The dear eyes would not, could not, meet mine, the dear hand could not return my pressure. There was no evi- dence of suffering, and from time to time the sweetest smiles played over the face. I think she must have heard my voice. One thing she certainly heard I asked dear Maria Barker to repeat to her her favourite hymn, the hymn she knew by heart : " Rock of Ages, cleft for me, Let me hide myself in Thee." There was a radiance then in the eyes and the sweet lips moved, as though joining in that prayer. I think, too, she must have been conscious of my unalterable love and sorrow, but that may have seemed secondary then. More than once she tried to tell us something something cheerful, happy, peaceful; that was plain from the ex- pression of the face. My arm was under her when the long breath, and then the pause, came. Not a struggle, not a contortion, not one physical horror. It seemed meet that she whose life was so sweet, so imbued with con- sideration for others, should even in her dying give no one any pain, any memory that they would wish to lose. ... I left her looking as if my lightest call would waken her from that lifelike and most placid sleep, and went at once to my dear father's room. What he must have suf- fered during that day and night of suspense, when he 314 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. never heard her dear, prompt, helpful step or heard her cheering, comforting voice, God alone knows. He knew that she was ill ; Brownlow had told him so, told him once that she was very ill he feared ; and he must have heard occasional sounds of grief, for between the rooms there was only the closed door. My dear father ! I went to him, kissed him, told him our dearest one was " better now, well now." At once he caught the truth. " God have mercy mercy ! " he exclaimed, lifting the one hand and groaning deeply. That night I sat with him from twelve till half past four, and our hearts were, I felt, united most closely in their love and sorrow. I talked of her, of all her goodness and sweetness, of his value for her. He pressed my hand, and the tears kept flowing from the sightless eyes. From that moment his patience was pre- ternatural. When one thinks of his suffering condition, tied and bound by infirmity, one must indeed admire his patience throughout, but before she went he had, as was inevitable, moments of irritation when we failed to catch the meaning that to him was so obvious, but after her de- parture there was never one. . . . [From the time of the mother's burial, the father failed rapidly.] My father perfectly knew his own condition. During the forty-eight hours that followed he helped us to nurse him. His hear- ing evidently continued acute almost to the end. I thank God that it was so, and that he could catch the words of our unutterable love, tenderness, and gratitude. I laid his hand upon the head of every one of us, his three chil- dren and his three grandchildren, and there it rested in a silent blessing. We were all with him to the last. Till I die I shall remember the scene upon which the dawn of Wednesday broke. The dear girls, who would not leave him, had fallen asleep, one on each side of him, their young flushed faces resting against his head. He lay there asleep too, very often comfortably asleep, looking so grand and calm; such a venerable head, his measured MOTHER AND DAUGHTER. 315 breathing not startling them. They loved him so much they had no fear of seeing him die. Their gentle hero- ism and self-forgetfulness were indeed very remarkable throughout. These were solemn nights and days sol- emn, not terrible. He was spared all acute suffering. I believe the heavy groans that burst from him at times were more of grief for her than because of his own pain. He was not restless. Throughout one felt his love and sympathy and consideration for us all, felt his conscious- ness of our most deep and reverent affection. There was no struggle. The face grew paler and paler the breath- ing slower. It was half past eleven when his spirit passed away. He died one week after her was buried one week after her funeral. It is well. One would not if one could have kept him here, blind, speechless, widowed. But the world seems a changed place to us, and years are crowded into one little fortnight. Nothing ages like the loss of parents. We may well thank God who spared them to us so long, and has given us such blessed recollec- tions of them both. William Smith 1 to Rev. H. Loomis. KESWICK, Oct. 23, 1863. I take up the pen instead of one who uses it much bet- ter than myself, because my dear Lucy has lately under- gone a very severe trial, and she would rather that I told you of her bereavements than that she should have to retell the sad history herself. ... I was very much interested in what you told me of the impression that your great civil war makes on the North, or rather the very little impression it seems to make on some of the States remote from the scene of operations. We, in England, perhaps talk and think as much about this terrible war as the in- habitants of Boston and New York. It is still the great 1 Throughout the volume, letters to which the writer's name is not prefixed are by Lucy Smith. 316 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. topic of the day or rather of the age with us. Pub- lic opinion is of course divided, but I think I am right in saying that the majority of those who have thought at all upon the subject would agree in these three propositions : 1. Peace ! Peace ! Peace ! 2. If it must be war, may the North conquer ! and out of this dreadful conflict (whether as purpose or mere result) may slavery be extinguished ! 3. For England's own conduct, the strictest neutrality. This I think would represent the reflective public opinion. The popular sympathy in favor of the South resolves itself into an admiration of the pluck, the courage, and perseverance of the weaker of the two combatants. If a little boy fights a bigger boy than himself and fights him well, he will enlist the sympathies of all the boys who are looking on. It is thus the South has been undoubtedly popular with the multitude. But no reflective politician can admire the sort of republic the South desired to estab- lish. He could accept it, rather than incur all the evils and all the dangers of this tremendous civil war dangers I mean to your own political constitution. Yet I think on this and other subjects we argue too much in the old track. We do not sufficiently consider that the education and character of the North American is a new element in the calculation. A large standing army may not with such a people become the instrument of a despotism. And as to the financial part of the question, you may give the commercial world of Europe a new lesson on the subject of currency, and show that a return to a metallic currency is not necessary. But, I am wandering, I fear, amongst subjects that must be tedious to you, tedious at least to Mrs. Loomis, whom I forget I am also ad- dressing. How is dear little Daisy ? Well, I will hope and believe. It is odd that though fond of looking at children and listening to them at a safe distance I do not remember that any other little Daisy ever excited in me the wish to have just such a lovable creature for MOTHER AND DAUGHTER. 317 one's own. I almost envy you that sweet possession. I I am charged with I know not what kind messages from Lucy I think I shall fail to express them, so must leave you to put them into words. This is a very poor substitute for her letter but let it help to keep us in your memory. [Postscript by L. C. S.] . . . Her death was sweet and lovely as her life. I have a precious past, but happiness must henceforth be I will not say less, but other than it was. When we lose we women at least our par- ents, our mother, the sense of youth departs. No count- ing of my years, no looking-glass, made me realize how far on in life I was while I was her " darling child." She died in her perfection of nature, with nothing of age but its toleration. (From the Memoir.) The summer of 1864 was memorable to us, as being the first we spent at a house which became almost a home ; I refer to Newton Place, in Borrowdale. It was a house pleasantly planned, with large windows, and rooms lofty in proportion to their size, a house into which breeze and sunlight streamed in from the four quarters ; with the lake and Skiddaw in front, on either side bold wooded crags or soft grassy hills, and between us and the latter green meadows, with a river gliding silently through. It was a pleasant coincidence that this house had been somewhat coveted by me eight years before, when my mother and I occupied it for a few weeks ; and that Wil- liam, calling upon some friends who tenanted it, had said to himself that the drawing-room would make him a de- lightful study. And now we shared it. We were able to secure it for ourselves from April to December, and we had rooms to which we could welcome friends. But I will vary my chronicle of our outwardly unbroken life, by 318 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. an extract from his manuscript book of the year, sug- gested evidently by the quiet stream we so often watched together : THE RIVER. Beauty here does not owe much to utility. Not many ob- jects more beautiful or useful, but the beauty and utility seem distinct. The river to a very thirsty man has lost its beauty ; and the farmer, who thinks more intensely than any of us of irrigation, sees very little of its charm of beauty. This lies in its motion, in its light, in its endless variety, and that curve which displays more of these, and suggests life and choice of movement. All beautiful things grow more beautiful by looking long at them. There is a charm of novelty ; there is also the growing charm of persistency and repetition ; the eye feeds. Indeed, dwell on any object, and the sentiment it is calculated to in- spire augments so long as attention is unfatigued. This gnat upon the surface, it does not seem to me a life, but a fragment of life a joy a motion, nothing more. The river by its inundation obliterates itself; by overflow- ing becomes mere marsh. I pray that my river here will keep its bounds, and not strive to be a lake. How endless are the charms of a river! It has ceaseless motion, yet it suggests repose ; these blurred shadows of the bank and trees are stationary, though the water is ever flowing. Motion and shadow ; life and the dream of life ; and the whence and the whither. The moss just under the stream is kept moist by the water and yet shines in the sun. How resplendent a green ! but where I see nothing but the bare stones, I find the most fasci- nating spectacle. There the river of light is flowing. On the surface the water ripples, ripples in the light ; so light and shadow course each other in mimic flow along the bottom of the MOTHER AND DAUGHTER. 319 stream. I watch that understream that is no stream, and think of what thought may be. This stick half in the water, crooked to the eye, I take it out, it is straight. Delusion that the child detects, and that to the man has become an additional knowledge by his explanation of it. But the man himself, can he take himself out of the ele- ment through which he sees himself ? To Mr. and Mrs. Loomis. NEWTON PLACE, KESWICK, May 22, 1864. . . . Daisy's photograph is thought most charming by all who do not know Daisy herself we consider that it does her scant justice, though the little face looks very sweet, too, when one frames it with the lovely curl, which I have put with the vignette into a new album ; and all who turn over the pages exclaim when they come to that sweet, soft, exquisite hair. Thank you for sending it. We are so interested in hearing of your work resumed and of the pretty parsonage. You will not, I know, sus- pect me of undervaluing your letter, but I tell you frankly I shall never be satisfied till I get one from dear Mrs. Loomis too. Did you not yourself tell me what charming letters she wrote, and she has never sent me one word ! You can't get a satisfactory view of the two lives which are one unless you have it from the two pens, which are sure to mention different features at all events to write from a slightly different point of view. See, it is like the stereoscope you have two pictures nearly but not quite the same, and these blend into one that stands out with a reality, a lifelikeness, that even the accuracy of pho- tography cannot give to one view. When William writes to his sisters in Australia, I always put in a little bit, feel- ing sure that I shall tell something that would not other- wise get told, and yet which is worth telling. I should like to know much more about the house, about the furni- ture a thousand things, in short; and I end where I 320 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. began, I shall never rest till there comes a note from her own dear self as well not instead, mind that but as well. . . . May dear Mrs. Loomis long have her mother spared to her. With regard to the restoration of that love, the " eye of faith is dim " I think most peculiarly. It was its sweet blindness, its tender unreason, its instinc- tive fondness, its unjustified faith, it was all that, that cannot be in a world of higher knowledge, that was so intensely dear. But I am most thankful for the past, and I delight to speak of my beloved parents, and to re- call all their specialties, and to find myself saying some- thing that they might have said, feeling their nature in mine. . . . About the end of November we went to Edin burgh to pay a three weeks' visit to a very dear Roman Catholic friend of ours [Mrs. Jones], at whose house we met some very striking specimens of the Roman Catholic clergy. All the Edinburgh friends were kind and affec- tionate even beyond what I expected; there was not a shadow of disappointment in the return amongst them, and we left with every tie drawn somewhat closer than before. . . . This house stands alone, has a nice little ap- proach lined with firs, but has very little ground to tempt one into the expense that a garden will bring. It is occu- pied by nice country people, an excellent man who is wrapped up in his wife, a sweet woman, with such mother- love in her eyes ; any painter might be glad to have her to help out his idea of the Madonna. She has several children, but there is an under story in which they live, and my dear student hears them very little. For me, I like the notion of the family life down-stairs, far better than of two maids who would be always upon my mind,, either as dull or as seeking some dangerous delassement. I want to be yearly tenants, to have our books, pictures, etc., and to improve the aspect of some of the rooms by other furniture. But we must wait and see how the au MOTHER AND DAUGHTER. 321 tumn rains and floods affect us in this wild Borrowdale before we decide. . . . My dear one has just finished an article on his friend Mr. Lewes's Aristotle, and he is now busy with Victor Hugo's rhapsody of Shakespeare. I don't touch upon politics, nor on books. I am busy with my translation, and much writing leads to little reading. In the winter I had a book of Mme. de Gasparin's, then a story of Swiss life from the German, and now I have two volumes of Vinet, one on religion, the other on philos- ophy and literature. This is an interesting task. Here we have each a room in which to sit and work, and then he comes to challenge me to a walk over these delightful hills (mossy, rocky, heathery), with views of mountains now that my eye has recovered from Switzerland I call them mountains again. W. S. to Mr. Loomis. KESWICK, May 23, 1864. I don't know exactly what my dear wife has been writ- ing, but I take it for granted she has told you all personal news and of our whereabouts and the like. And no doubt she has thanked you for the photograph of Daisy, and the lock of brightest, softest hair that accompanied it. But as I take half those to myself, and am especially jealous of the hair, I must repeat my own thanks. I have to thank you too for a graver kindness, though not a more pleasing one the numbers of the " New Englander " that contained the reviews of " Thorndale " and " Graven- hurst." 1 That the reviewer should have objections to make, and his own points of view to put forth, is always expected, but I did not expect so kind and generous a measure of praise, and coming across the water it was to me peculiarly grateful. I hope by and by when my hands are free from work for the periodical press to put out some philosophical papers, chiefly on certain metaphysical 1 By Professor Noah Porter. 322 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. problems, on which I wish to say a word, though certainly to very little purpose. I read with interest the extract you sent me from one of your sermons, and liked the tone of it very much. It was extremely pleasant to hear that you were settled, for some time at least, in a parish, and to read the account of your housing and furnishing your- selves. We still dream from time to time of settling down in some cottage of our own, but I sometimes doubt whether the dream will ever be realized. We like our mountains too much to settle in the plains, and yet the region of our lakes and mountains is so visited by rains that it hardly seems wise to remain in it for the winter. From the first of May to the end of October is generally our time for the Lakes, and perhaps quite enough. I read with unabated interest all accounts from your country. What a power has democracy put forth ! I watch with as much anxiety for the issue of this tremen- dous conflict as when the war first broke out. It is in vain that Poland and Denmark cross my path and would carry off my attention. I never had any faith in Poland, and Denmark will do very well without the Duchies, or such part of them as are German and not Danish. But with you new nations are in the making, and perhaps forms of government are being decided on for centuries. I hope you do not personally suffer from the state of your cur- rency. I suppose that where a nominal sum had been fixed for the support of a church at the time when pay- ments were made in gold, there is always now an advance in the nominal sum to make up for the depreciation in the currency. Does it not seem at present that of the two objects of the war the abolition of slavery is the one most likely to be accomplished ? . . . I was glad to hear that amongst the furniture of the new parsonage there was so good a piano. I envy you the privilege of sitting over your desk and hearing the sonatas of Beethoven. We, alas, often say that we have not a single accomplishment MOTHER AND DAUGHTER. 323 between us. I think if we settled I would invest the price of a piano in a multitude of musical boxes, and by a tem- perate and judicious use of them, and changing them not too often, we might make them last a long time. To Miss Mary Wrench. NEWTON PLACE, October 6, 1864. . . . Ah, how harsh and common a nature that is too common indeed that chafes at any great love borne by any for any husband, child, friend, dog. How sel- dom it is that an intense affection fails to raise up enmity against both lover and loved. But it is an ugly trait. We should be ready to lend ourselves to all genuine enthusi- asm, to be glad any has the solace of unqualifiedly admir- ing where their hearts are fixed, and to believe in the good they see. But always it is an offence to uncultivated natures that any one should have an intense feeling, they for their part having none. Miss 's face took on a quite wicked look in saying how much her lodgers made of the dog. Well, dear, I have run on long upon this, but I have been led in this direction of thought more par- ticularly by the praises of a doting sister for a moment there rose in my mind just that hideous antagonism which prompts the feeling that the one so praised is overrated. It is nothing but one's own vanity and self-love, which would fill creation if it might. Indeed, it did not last more than a moment before I saw what it was, but many encourage it under the idea that it is their sense of justice which is offended. CHAPTER XXIL ABROAD AND AT HOME. (From the Memoir.) THE winter of 1864-65 was outwardly more varied than was usual with us. It included a stay of two months at Llandudno, in North Wales, a short visit to Bath, where my husband had an old and intimate friend and correspond- ent, and several weeks at Brighton ; and then, after a fort- night in London, we set out early in May for Switzerland, and saw Lucerne and enchanting Engelberg in their fresh beauty, and had pensions to ourselves. Our other happy resting-places were Grindelwald, Unterseen, Champe*ry, Bex, La Comballaz. One week too was given to Chamou- nix, for which William had an especial affection. His deep- est impressions of sublimity had been received there twenty years before and renewed in 1862 ; his constant nature preferred revisiting it to exploring new scenes. Never shall I forget his lying on the ground on our return from the Chapeau one glorious August day, gazing long and silently, absorbed in wonder and worship, at what he had called " the sculpture of landscape," " the great hills built up, from their green base to their snowy summits, with rock, and glacier, and pine forests," " leading be- yond this earth." Then suddenly starting from his trance of rapture he said, " Now I don't want to see that again ! " He had indeed seen it this last time in fullest perfection. We spent five months in Switzerland. They were fraught with delight ; and yet there were days days of reaction after vivid enjoyment when I could plainly see ABROAD AND AT HOME. 325 that my husband missed the steady occupation, the studi- ous routine, of our English summers. Had his life been prolonged, I do not think we should ever have become tourists again. During the ensuing years, remembering his own delight in Italy, and kindly anxious to give me every possible pleasure, he would often ask me whether I really wished very much to go there ; because, if so, the effort would be made. But I had always a doubt as to such a journey being the best thing for him. I dared not wish it. I will transcribe a few of the " Scraps of Verse from a Tourist's Note-book," which were written during our sec- ond Swiss summer, and published in the magazine : The lightest, brightest cloud that floats In the azure can but throw Some kind of shadow, dark or faint. On whatever lies below. For me, thank God ! although I lowly lie, I lie where earth looks straightway to the sky ; On me, remote alike from king and clown, No fellow-atom flings his shadow down. No shadow ? none ? Think, look again I An hour ago that huge and rocky hill Stood bare, unsightly ; all in vain Did mid-day light each rent and chasm fill. It waited for the cloud. The shadow came, Rested or moved upon its brow And, lo ! it softens into beauty now Blooms like a flower. With us 't is much the same, From man to man as the deep shadows roll, Breaks forth the beauty of the human soul. High rise the mountains, higher rise The clouds ; the mimic mountain still, The cloud, the cloud, say what we will, Keeps full possession of our skies. Let cloud be cloud, my friend ; we know the wind Shapes and re-shapes, and floats the glory on ; 326 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. Glory or gloom it floats, but leaves behind The stable mountain, open to the sun. Let cloud be cloud unreal as the space It traverses ; earth can be earth, yet rise Into the region of God's dwelling-place, If light and love are what we call his skies. The stream flows on, it wearies never, Whilst I, who do but watch its flow, I weary oft. ' Ah, not forever ! Soon other eyes ' I know, I know, I too repeat my * Not forever,' And waking to that thought I start, And find my weariness depart. I pluck the flower, one moment to behold Its treasury of purple and of gold ; The blossom, and a nest of buds around, Ruthless I pluck, and fling them on the ground Plucked because fair, then flung to death away ! I might have stooped and looked, and had a blameless joy. Nature's great prodigality, you say E'en for man's wantonness provides. It may be so, but still with me abides A sense of shame that I could so destroy. The stream to the tree I shine, you shade, And so the beauty of the world is made. Our second Swiss tour, like our first, was succeeded by several months of exclusively tete-a-tete life at Weston- super-Mare, and I was soon happily convinced that the spell of the desk had in no way been weakened by our wanderings. William wrote a long " Review of J. S. Mill's Examination of Sir William Hamilton's Philoso- phy," confining himself chiefly to that " central position in which the great question is discussed of the nature and origin of our knowledge of the external world." To those who know his writings it is needless to indicate the side he took in the controversy. He u selected to be totally wrong" (according to Mr. Mill) "with Sir William ABROAD AND AT HOME. 327 Hamilton, rather than exchange our real world of matter and motion, of substance and force, for permanent possi- bilities of sensation attached to nothing at all for mere thoughts of sensations, a dreary and bewildering ideal- ism." My husband's mind was at this time constantly en- gaged with the problems the book in question treats of ; but a remark he made with regard to Sir W. Hamilton " He loved thinking over the book better than thinking over the pen " was just then applicable to himself. The manuscript book grew full, but during our stay at Wes- ton-super-Mare nothing else was written. To Miss Mary Wrench. BRISTOL, Feb. 9, 1865. . . . There is a good deal here of the comfort of wealth, and Mr. G lives within his means, so that altogether it seems a happy home. We shall not stay long enough to get demoralized by the perfection of a tapestried bed- room, and a bed which it is a regret to get out of, and very good eating. We both feel that nothing equals our own life, but I think one might soon get into a habit of mind and body which would make lodgings seem dingy things. But then the joy of being together immeasurably out- weighs all mere comforts, and here I see nothing of Wil- liam, the gentlemen sit so long after dinner, and in the morning are much in the drawing-room. No rich peo- ple can be to each other quite all we are, because of the different rooms and the guests and the ways altogether ; and oh, how from my heart of hearts I thank Heaven that my lot has fallen just how and where it has ! I brought all my smartness here in a bonnet-box, and assure you that my moire and mantilla, etc., make me quite as smart as beseems my years. That dear Lloyd made my old point up into a lovely fall, and I consider that I keep up appearances wonderfully when one thinks that all my stores are comprised within the limits of a bonnet-box. 328 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. I am amused with the things that get said now and then, showing that Mr. G evidently does not guess me so far on in the fifth decade, or I suspect in it at all ! The young girls have sharper eyes, no doubt. To Mr. and Mrs. Loomis. BRIGHTON, March 18, 1865. When your charming letters came to us, they gave us quite a glow of sympathetic delight, and now I have just been re-reading them and renewing the impression. Never did any two lives or rather one life, that is the beauty of it strike me as being more complete, healthy, and every way delicious. We warmly congratulate you on the safe and happy arrival of the little Kuth we find it dif- ficult to believe that she can ever be quite so bewitching as little Daisy, our ideal of sweet childhood, but we admit that the description of her is a most attractive one. And how entirely, too, we enter into the delights of the home, with the garden to work in and watch. I don't know that there is any surer receipt for permanent cheerfulness than the interests and even the anxieties connected with what one has sown, or transplanted, or pruned, or trained. Then in addition to all, or rather as foundation to all, as that to which all other things are added, there is your work, your consciousness of being of use ! Yes, indeed, it does one's heart good to think of you both. . . . How kind of you to send me not only the photograph of Holmes but that of Emerson. They both gave great pleasure, for I sent the one of Holmes to an acquaintance who had long wished for it, admiring his writings as she seldom admires anything, and Emerson's I gave to a beloved Scotch friend of mine, a Mrs. Stirling, who saw a great deal of him when he was in Edinburgh some fifteen years ago, and who felt particularly interested in tracing the resemblance and the difference between his face now and then. . . . For the last fortnight we have been in this glaring, star- ABROAD AND AT HOME. 329 ing Babylon that I never can like but then place is of very little consequence to me so only William be well. Indeed he has been very well, thank God has not had a cold all through this unusually severe winter, and I think I give a false impression of him by my tone about him in this particular, for he never alludes to health and never complains. Only I always feel that he is fragile, and strangers in general by way of a pleasant opening remark observe to me that he looks delicate ! ! We have bright- looking, cheery rooms. Beside William's desk (he is out just now) lies " The Secret of Hegel," which he is reading with interest evidently, for the book is often dropped and the dark eyes are fixed and see nothing in the room. Oh, God grant that we may know the truth ! I have just been reading a novel which has made a deep impression upon my mind ; the writer seems so penetrated with the love of God, raised into a region where all fear is cast out by per- fect trust. I hope the author has not written thus " from without," merely as the artist ; I do not think he can, or it would not thus have gone to the heart of another. There is a good deal about mesmerism, etc., which to me was unintelligible, or which I did not try to understand, but the book has, I think, passages of great beauty. It is "David Elginbrod," by George Macdonald. William was writing a great deal this summer, but nothing was completed, or nearly so only thinking out. He dashed off too some articles for " Blackwood," on Lewes's " Aris- totle," and Max Miiller's second volume, and I think a very pleasant paper on Victor Hugo's " Shakespeare," and one in this March number on Blake, the half-crazy artist, who was a grand creature too, in some ways, espe- cially in his successful way of grasping the nettle, poverty. Victor Hugo I feel more enthusiastic about than ever, now that I know the active benevolence of his life. He de- votes himself to the rescue of forty of the poorest children near him in Guernsey. Some French physiologist having 330 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. established the fact that a good dinner once a month will tell most favorably upon children habitually under-fed, he gives these forty little ones an excellent dinner and a glass of good wine once a fortnight ; and they are waited on by Mme. Hugo and her daughter (a daughter-in-law), their going to school is insisted upon, and on Christmas day they were all gathered to a cha,rmmg fete, from which they went away laden with toys as well as good clothing, etc. ; for he seems determined to brighten their lot with all childhood's innocent pleasures as well as to provide for their necessities. It is charming to know that practice keeps pace with theory in this glowing advocate of all the world's " Miserdbles" (Postscript by W. S.) How interested we both were in the perusal of your letter I cannot say ; and though I valued highly the few intimations you gave us of the state of political opinion in your country, I valued still more highly your account of the home and of the daily life. How delightful the intermixture seemed to me of the gar- den and the family with the study and the sermon-writing. We also passed a most fortunate summer in 1864. The weather, for our climate, was remarkably fine, and we had secured a small house in the most beautiful part of our Lake district. (Generally we are compelled to be content with a lodging.) I used often to say, This is ideal, this is our climax, and as plants that have once blossomed commence thereafter to wither and decay, we must expect (may it be slowly !) to descend henceforth from our palmy state. Not that the outside world would see anything marvellous in our position, but we were both well, both occupied, we had a paradise to walk out in, and were not without friends for short intervals to visit us. But the elements of our content were not so numerous as yours, and you, with Daisy and Alice about you, would have thought our home had a very great blank. This summer we think of Switzerland, but the grander scenery ABROAD AND AT HOME. 331 (except that it stores the memory) is dearly purchased by the worry, the idleness, the dissipation of mind that at- tends on travelling. But my Lucy will have told you all there is to tell, whether of our past or future only I could not but add a word. We here if I may judge of others by myself do not abate the least in the intense interest we take in your great civil war. The interest indeed increases, for it seems as if this next summer would see the battle fought out the North triumphant and slavery extinguished. And then, if peace and union are again established, what a note of congratulation there will be. Pray Heaven that North and South will not celebrate and cement their union by a war with England or France I I do not fear it my- self but I have been always and long ago persuaded that it would be for the benefit both of Canada and Eng- land that the tie between them should be severed. We cannot defend Canada, but our connection with it may be the very cause that brings war down upon it. It is plainly for the interest of Canada to be separate, and I am sure it is for the interest of England. It is only pride that stands in the way. Do not let it be long be- fore we hear from you again. I wish I could send you in return something worth sending. Give my sincere re- membrances to Mrs. Loomis, and a kiss to Daisy. To Miss Mary Wrench. HOTEL BEAU-SITE, UNTERSEEN, SWITZERLAND, Sept. 21, 1865. ... I often think it is wonderful how far a small in- come may go in Switzerland, but then I should not like expatriation, and begin to feel that a cosy English lodg- ing, with a fire and the " Times," will be charming for winter. But take the case of a single woman, with 80 or 90 pounds a year. In England she must have small rooms and simple meals. But here for instance is a 332 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. charming bed-room with a matchless view I must tell you what I see the first thing from my pillow. First, the picturesque rough roof of an old chalet ; behind it a yel- low tree backed by a freshly green clump ; then a wooded hill bright with autumn tints ; then a fir-covered one, blue in the distance ; then a grand, boldly shaped mountain, down which the sun paints streaks of gold upon the greens and purples ; then over all the whole of the Jungfrau supreme, solemn, coldly white, majestic, calm waiting for the sun to change her into a soft aerial loveliness, and to light up the Silberhorn into dazzling brightness. All this view I see without rising from the best of spring- beds ! Then to go on with the comforts to be had here for five francs a day one's good breakfast of coft'ee, rolls, and honey, at any hour one likes (we are hardly ever later than eight) ; dinner at two or at six, at will, and tea ; a pretty new salon full of lamps and luxurious sofas, with a piano and all this for about 75 pounds a year ! And there are much cheaper pensions in the neighborhood of Geneva. I often amuse myself with planning Swiss tours for you three wonderful walkers, and I dare say you will accomplish one before long. Meantime nothing can be more charming than Arran, and all that purple pomp of heather that makes Scotland so beautiful in autumn. I must tell you that Comballaz turned out almost the most charming place we had been at. The inn stands alone, there is no village near, only chalets dotted about in all directions. We looked out upon a hay-field the second hay harvest was perfuming the air during the fortnight we spent there sloping steeply down to a fir-lined ravine through which ran a merry little brook. The fir woods are the finest we have seen, but it is the walks that are so enchanting not road walks, but green paths through fields and woods in every direction. 1 gave myself up to the enjoyment of the lovely spot I did nothing never put pen to paper. We had ABROAD AND AT HOME. 333 an exquisite moon while there, and were really out morn- ing, noon, and night. On the fourth, the most glorious of days, we set off early, I on a nice horse, William walking, to the Dent de Champre", the mountain that rises just op- posite Comballaz. The way thither through a steep wood was very charming, and we came in about two hours and a half to the loveliest of little lakes, with water clear and blue as that of the Lake of Geneva only one very low, long chalet, half -sunk in monk's-hood and fern, with rocks all around throwing their shadows upon the calm surface. There we left the horse, and I took to my feet, and in about an hour or so we were at the summit, and the view took away my breath. The Dent de Champre is very steep on that side, and as we lay on the grass top it shelved away rapidly from beneath us, so that we had for foreground the Dent de in the next valley, a moun- tain purple and gold with heath and faded fern, with fir forests at its base. Then for the next distance the Dent du Midi, facing the Dent de Morcles, very grand in them- selves, and looking quite their 9 and 10,000 feet, but having a clear space between them for Mont Blanc, who towered, soared, one pure crystal, into a soft blue sky, with light streaky white clouds above, but not one dimmed the perfect outline. How vast, how immensely high, the monarch of mountains looked, it is vain to try to tell. There were other beautiful things, the whole Rhone valley, the Lake of Geneva, the glittering summit of Monte Rosa, and hints of the Oberland but Mont Blanc filled our souls. We both felt that we had never seen a more per- fect, if so perfect a picture. We were out about eight hours, William walking the whole way without any fa- tigue, which makes me so happy ! . . . The whole party at Comballaz was English, but we were as usual unso- ciable. I often think many might like to know the author of " Thorndale " but how discover him in that quiet, silent man, in the very shabbiest coat that ever was seen ! 334 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. You may fancy what we have got to in the way of shab- biness my hat for instance worn constantly for four months, for I brought no bonnet. . . . The next evening at our first sight of the Jungf rau, having that vision of Mont Blanc in our mind's eye, we pronounced her small, and thought we had been foolish to leave sweet La Com- ballaz. However, there I could not sit in-doors; while here for the first week I worked away steadily at a trans- lation Mr. Strahan wishes for the beginning of Novem- ber. I walked alone on the 15th, with precious, precious mother in my heart, as God knows she is always. She would have been eighty. . . . The last week we had three charming excursions, alternating with my days of trans- lation. Yesterday's was as pleasant a one as we have had. We set off at half past eight in a nice little ein- spanner to Grindelwald. The beauty of that drive is unspeakable as an approach to Grindelwald it exceeds the Wengern Alp. We spent two hours or more prowl- ing about the lower glacier, and sitting about. As we came back, the old man with the marmot waylaid us but it was not the old marmot, but a beautiful young one, a creature for which I was quite distracted with admiring fondness. The poor old man, however, mourns his old friend, who he said " entendait la langue franqaise" and had been with him ten years. Poor old man he broke his arm, went to a hospice, and while he was there " they let the poor beast die." Fancy what a pang on his re- turn! I wish dear Richard could have seen this sleek darling sit up and eat a bit of roll that we gave it, with hands like an immense squirrel. I kissed its tail while so engaged how muffly it was ! but its temper was allowed to be uncertain, not like " ma vielle bete.''' The poor old man blessed us for a half franc in a most touch- ing way. How charming to have been rich enough to surprise him with a five-franc piece instead of a trumpery fifty centimes ! I could be, I may say, wrapped up in a marmot ! ABROAD AND AT HOME. 335 To Mrs. Cotton. CHAMPEBY, 1865. In short, every one went off, and at last we were the only left, we and a Dutch family a widowed sister and two young girls, and an excellent and (I thought) delight- ful brother, a Mr. Van de W ; a missionary spirit, intent on doing good the highest good if possible, but the very least also. A man more kindly and helpful, as well as earnest and spiritual, I have not seen. Whether you shared his views or not, you must respect and love him. The sister was a good woman too. The brother had no egotism. His motto might have been " Not I, but " one far higher. I don't know why I tell you of them, except that we made so few acquaintances. We are not people who get on in pensions shy, silent, rather shabby-looking. I often thought to myself that many a one might have liked a chat with William if they had known how rich a mind was within their reach ; but what people see is charm and geniality of manner that de- lectable " confidence to please " which is a fairy gift, and that fairy was at neither of our cradles. [From Bex.] This time there happened to be a charm- ing Genevese there, Rodolph Key, who will be better known I am sure by and by (if he lives a little longer) as a writer of history and a wonderfully clear thinker. He seemed intimate with most of the first intellects of France, and he was just the sort of man to get intimate with. I am sure people love him. In character of mind as well as way of thought he seemed to me very like my own dear one, and like him he was very playful, simple, and childlike ; but he was easier to become acquainted with, in that he would talk of himself not the least egotistically, but openly and readily, whereas William shuns himself and his own writings irresistibly. They were both sorry they could not get further over the bar- 336 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. rier of a foreign language. I don't know when I have seen so charming a being as this M. Rey with a great deal of the " beauty of ugliness " which is by no means limited to Skye terriers ! He offered to give us his book of the Renaissance Politique of Italy, where he has lived a good deal, and I said No, because I thought we were going on to Vevay where it could be got ; and we did not go, and I've regretted the lost chance ever since. His next work is to be on the Social Conditions of France, and if I could translate it, what pleasant work it would be. To Mrs. Cotton. Girlhood is not a happy time, I am quite sure of it, though it 's so happy-looking. If we could put old heads on young shoulders, and look as we used, and feel as we do I think that would be quite the prime of life. In- deed, in all respects but just to look at I consider that middle age is the prime of life. . . I Ve been busy, and still am, correcting the proofs of two interesting volumes of Vinet's that I 've translated. Ah, my darling, you in your generous affection, that gilds its objects always as the light and warmth of fine natures will you thought I might write something original, and you have, I know, felt a little disappointed in me. But though I have not power, I have not ambition either, and so am quite content, and so thankful to have this pleasant and paying occupation. I 've something to do for this summer, and my penny-a-lin- ing is a great joy to me, but dreadfully against letter-writ- ing. William is always occupied and always cheerful, and is recreating himself with a large book on Hegelian philo- sophy, not one sentence of which appears to me intelligible. To Mrs. Cotton. UNTERSEEN, 1865. I found quantities of letters joy and sorrow the shot silk of life. Oh, my darling, how much the world is ABROAD AND AT HOME. 337 changed to me since I was in Switzerland last. My par- ents, my Blanche, and sweet Fanny ! My dear husband, however, is my world, but the mother's love lit up that world with her sweet sympathy. I am still very happy, but I have learned to tremble. I had lived so long with- out losing. [Speaking of a girl who had lost her mother :] But it 's only a mother who approves one not only through but for everything or, if she could wish any change, any increase here or abatement there, still " covers our faults with her kisses, and loves us the same." All other affection is too wise, too clear-sighted, too impartial. In short, a girl with or without a mother seems to me to be placed in two quite different positions each having ad- vantages no doubt, but the transition out of the former into the latter is like a new birth, or a dying out of one world into another, where all trials and disappointments and mortifications come closer, and require an armor of the soul that it does not consciously need with the shield of the mother's partiality to ward them off. . . We are all different in the amount and the quality of the sympathy we require. Some stand alone quite contentedly in joy or trial. Others want to call together their friends and neighbors when " the piece of silver is found." "Rejoice with me ! " is their cry. Others, like Irish mourners, al- ways invite their circle of intimates to howl with them at a wake of some dead hope or possession. I myself am terribly prone to wax egotistical about my happiness my silver piece, found when I looked not for any terri- bly liable to dilate upon its value and all its peculiarities. That 's my snare ! To Miss Mary Wrench. 1 BEAUFORT VILLAS, WESTON-SUPER-MARE, December 1, 1865. . . . When William is well [he had a feverish cold] the proposed month in Edinburgh seems delightful, and I 338 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. think it would be good and pleasant too for him to meet clever men. It seems hard to shut up a mind like his with only a woman to reflect its brightness and its depths. He had such a nice note from Mr. Mill the other day does my child know whom I mean ? J. S. Mill who had sent William his book. They used to know each other very well many years ago, and to meet at a de- bating club. Curiously, William had told me he made nothing of speaking at it, and I had believed him, and Mr. Mill in this note refers to his speeches as " some of the best ever delivered there." ... I respect him quite as much as I love him, and oh, I love him fearfully / . . . I am as well as a woman can be who has got so far down life's hill. But indeed were there no looking-glasses, and were my own darling mother alive, I should not feel older than twenty years ago. . . . Last Wednesday week I finished my German story, and thought I should have no more, but on Saturday Mr. Strahan asked me to take up Eugenie de Guerin's Letters. As Christmas draws on, I shall be excited about my cheque. How thankful I am for this occupation, and how pleased I shall be if the cheque exceeds my estimate. I always feel this cruse of oil of translation cannot flow on much longer, but I thor- oughly appreciate it while it lasts. . . . Write and tell me all about the wardrobe. How does it stand just now ? Do you like these silk reps I see everywhere? I am so fond of dresses and cloaks of the same, whatever it be. I had thought of having a new black silk this winter, but have given up the notion, and got my dear Blanche's done up I grudge expense on my own dress very much. I like to hear all about your attire. What are the bonnets to be ? I think little blue velvets would be very pretty, with quiet dove-like dresses and cloaks. . . . Good-by, child of my affections ! CHAPTER XXIII. AMONG FKIENDS. (From the Memoir.) WE left Weston-super-Mare with tender regret, as we always did any place where we had been quite alone left it for an interval of social life in Edinburgh and in the February of 1866 found ourselves once more at New- ton Place. During the eleven months that we spent there we had very frequent guests dear young nieces, dear old friends of mine originally, but now of his, for he adopted them heartily, and not any of them, I know well, have forgotten or will forget the simple cordiality of his welcome. It is true that the prospect of any interruption to our duality was sometimes perturbing to the student, who loved his regular work and his habitual ways ; true that when those even we best loved left and we returned to each other, I heard the words that above all words made my heart leap with joy : " Now I have my ideal of life." But none came to us who were not friends indeed ; we had no surface acquaintance, no conventional sociality, and at the close of every visit we received we found our- selves enriched by pleasant memories and enlarged in- terests. Early in 1867 we made our winter flight to Brighton. To Miss Mary Wrench. NEWTON PLACE, KESWICK, February 22, 1866. I do not like to leave your letter unanswered, or you will not accredit me with the interest I really took in it. I could wish the ball to have been less grotesque, because 340 WILLIAM SMITH. the laughter at people is not so good for us as the laugh- ter with them but you are not satirical, and satire even where it exists is one of the faults we outlive. I ain sure was much admired, and I like her to have had this taste of gayety, so natural and therefore so healthy to youth. I for my part immensely appreciated my taste of society never cared for it so much perhaps was never so well fitted to enjoy it as now, when all shyness is over, and from the habit of living with a mind of William's stamp, I feel more able to cope with minds in general. How loving and dear all our friends were wonderfully so ! Darling Mrs. Jones's hospitality was beyond telling. Mrs. Stirling, Mrs. Lorimer, Mrs. Blackie, were all so much more affectionate than I could have expected. And then my young friends Fanny and Augusta were so dear that sweet Augusta's affection I take as a great compliment. Then, the pleasant new acquaintances we made, and the nice way they all had of wishing we were going to live in Edinburgh! Altogether I don't know that I ever had a more pleasant social experience, and I am very fond of society. My light and black moires quite set me up in the way of evening dress, so I had nothing to get, and felt nicely dressed which even at my time of life is satisfactory, how much more so at yours, my darling ! We dined out five times at Mr. Blackwood's, Mr. Lorimer's, Mrs. Stirling's, the Smiths', and the Constables', and went in the evening to the Blackies', twice to the Simons', to Miss S. Grahame's, and to Mrs. Ferrier's. . . . Sweet Mrs. L is quite an an- gel. Her fearful illness seems to have exalted, sublimed her. The children are all delightful. Spite of her very delicate health she teaches them daily, is their only teacher, and finds time for all her duties. In short, she has made the deepest impression on me. Dear Mrs. B too is in very delicate health. I called three or four times and had nice long chats with her. I took the dear little Lor- AMONG FRIENDS. 341 imers one day to see a diorama, and saw terrible carica- tures of some of our beloved Swiss mountains. Then we went to two concerts ; at one heard Grisi and Mario (oh, how I cried with enjoyment), and at the other, for which Mr. R. Smith sent us tickets, heard Titiens and Joachim. In short, the month was one of unalloyed enjoyment, and my visit to your dear aunt will always be a happy mem- ory. . . . Mrs. is a most saintly woman, and narrow as her Calvinism seems to me, yet hers is a faith that "leads harmonious days." One of our Edinburgh de- lights was William being admirably photographed by the most artistic photographer I have ever come across, a Mr. Rejlander who was staying with the Constables for a fortnight, and doing lovely things of that lovely family. William's head is a great success. 'T is a large photo so thoughtful and really good looking. All others have been such caricatures of him. His beard makes him if anything better looking, though I love and miss the dear large mouth and well-formed chin. . . . The cold when we got here on Saturday was intense, but we have con- quered it by roaring fires, and, thank God, William has not taken cold. Yesterday was the most glorious of days snow on the mountains and a cloudless sky, and the lake mirroring both. KESWICK, October 17, 1866. This will, I hope, reach you on the morning of your birthday, and tell you how lovingly I think of you, and warmly hope (and believe) that there are many, many birthdays in store for you, bright, beautiful, complete ; compared to this birthday (though this is happy) as the full-blown fragrance of the flower to the hard green bud, or the " purple light of noon " to the first faint flush in the east. This I look for and over and beyond this a growth of all that is best and highest in you, an approach to your ideal, which is, I am sure, something more than personal satisfaction, even of the sweetest sort. May you 342 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. be a comfort and help and strength to others, my darling I think you will, ever more and more. I do so like to picture you with your dear Aunt Matilda, writing for her, reading to her, and gaining from her " wonderful bright- ness and cheerfulness " increased confidence in that Infin- ite Mercy that has appointed compensations for all except for the misery of our own foolish, grasping desires and taught us by that very misery to seek to surrender them. Your long letter was very welcome and very pleasant, and it was dear of you to find time to write it to me. This birthday letter, which is all I have to send, shall be a long one in return. I feel my thumb a little sensitive, and therefore hold my pen loosely, which makes my writ- ing very niggling, but I know it will not perplex you. I have been much more free from that radiating sense of cold, and indeed very well, though I hold that no one is free from some uneasy sensation or other for long together. ... I never saw any one so brightened as Miss . Her whole appearance is changed. I feel sure there must be some new light risen on her horizon there is a joy all % over and through her a wonderful change. Poor Mr. is here, and we met him twice. I could but wring his hand and rush away. " Love knows the secret of grief" positively it shatters me to meet one of these half lives, divided personalities. I have asked your mamma to send " Macmillan " to your aunt Matilda, thinking she might like to throw her eye over Annie Clough's plan for improving female education. To-day Annie tells me she sees an opening in Liverpool I shall be anxious to hear more. Mrs. Clough has written such a sweet letter to William, asking him to review her hus- band's Memoir and Poems I hope he will. Yesterday, after an interval of about ten months, Mr. Strahan's hand reappeared I was glad to see it. He sent me the sheets of an unpublished book, to make a paper out of it on the AMONG FRIENDS. 343 state of the Christians in Turkey, and wanted it back to- morrow! The thing was impossible, and indeed I never could have done it at all, but my precious one has most kindly taken the difficult task from me. Eugenie W wants me to do some poetry for a friend of hers who is translating but can't manage the rhymes a dear little German governess who is doing it to give a sister a small allowance. Of course I will do my best. So I have got work, though of the unremunerative order, but perhaps translation will come by and by. It was cheering to see Mr. Strahan's hand. I tell my child the interests of my life. Here we are we two alone together, and William seems to like that we should sit in the same room again. So there he is at the round table again, doing my work, and I at mine, writing to my child, and oh, so thankful and tremblingly happy ! I look at him there, and thinking of what life would have been without him may well say, " Thou who hast given so much to me, give me one thing more a thankful heart." To-mor- row I shall bring in the other sofa, and settle the room to my mind. To Mrs. Cotton. NEWTON PLACE, 1865. . . . You ask me, dear, what books I have translated since " Human Sadness." A great many, but none worth mentioning. I did two very thick volumes, " Outlines of Theology and Philosophy," from the French of the well- known Swiss theologian, Alexander Vinet. Then I trans- lated Eugenie de Guerin's journal and letters, but they were too slight to bear the process well. There is a Ger- man tale, " short and simple annals of the poor," called " Wealth and Welfare," just come out, which I think will very probably be my last translation, for the pub- lisher who for six years has furnished me with this pleas- ant occupation, and sent me such liberal cheques, has now soared into a higher sphere altogether, and is little likely, 344 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. I think, to bring me any more translations. I have had nothing to do the whole summer, and the interval of idle- ness has made me enjoy our guests still more thoroughly. I shall be charmed if any work of the kind comes to me this autumn, but I do not soon expect it. I had a pos- sibility suggested to me by another publisher a few days ago, but I 'm not sanguine as to the books he mentions proving worth the doing, and as he refers the decision to me I am afraid I shall have to tell him so. I do not like the responsibility of deciding. To Mrs. Cotton. NEWTON PLACE, 1866. . . . Do you know, my darling, I suspect that our way of living so out of society and all its restrictions, seeing none but intimate friends, never having (or seldom) to suppress an opinion or put on a conventional semblance, is unfitting me fast for anything else. The very idea of " standing on one's hind-legs," as your delightful Mrs. D said, makes me shudder. Then I have a growing sense of dowdiness and want of savoir faire I Remova- ble I think by millinery in some measure, but then the remedy would be worse than the disease. All merely su- perficial relations, all acquaintance, becomes, I find, so irk- some, and this probably because one has nothing to repay the casual glance. What I mean is that unless I am loved I should never be liked. But don't imagine that I would willingly get odd or wilfully unconventional. On the contrary, in deference to Minma's remonstrances I dis- carded a faithful bonnet, comparatively of the coal-scuttle shape, and adopted a small pretence, a mere figment, un- suited to my years ! . . . We shall see Eugenie I hope at Brighton, for it is there we are going. Just because it 's so little attractive for me I think it is better for me than to go from solitude to solitude, and then, though William kindly assures me he should like Barmouth just as well, it AMONG FRIENDS. 345 is natural that he should take an interest in a place where he has lived so much, so that I am sure it is a judicious move. There is one person whom I shall be truly sorry to leave a dear old woman of ninety-seven, with all her faculties clear and bright, and much enjoyment of life still nay, with a merry spirit and a sense of fun which does not in many survive youth. To-day she was talking to me of her mother, " dear old woman," as she calls her. She says she dreams of her constantly. We are great friends, old Sally Yewdale and I, and if we live to return, we may find her, for she does not seem to have even the germ of any disease, and is full of mental vigour. I was much struck one summer Sunday with a face be- fore me in church. The profile was plain and common- looking, but the full face beautiful with the bright spirit within. When I heard Mr. Trevelyan was staying at Grange, I felt sure this face belonged to him, and so it did ; and I had his photograph lent me and admired it un- speakably ; and when we came across hini in our rambles I always looked at him with interest. And so I came to wanting to read what he had written, and dear Annie Clough sent me his " Cawnpore," which William had al- ways refused to let me have from the London Library. And he was perhaps right it is too painful, but I think the most interesting book I ever read. The first chapters are brilliantly and graphically written ; afterwards one does not think of that, but of the " fruitless valor and un- utterable woe." When the newspapers told the terrible story it did not torture me as this book did. The suffer- ings in the entrenchments one can bear to think of, for there was action, heroism, and sympathy. But that mas- sacre darkens the very sun, and shakes one to the centre. For days I was haunted by it. You must have been far more impressed at the time than even we in England were, and I am sure I don't want any one to feel their heart and faith sink as mine did over this fearfully ab- 346 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. sorting book. I think it is wonderfully written, and after the description of " the Station" felt as if I had been there. . . . Will you not despise us forever when 1 tell you we did not see the meteors I We take a two-days-old " Times," and did not know the full glories to be revealed, else of course we should never have thought of going to bed after looking out too soon. I shall never be quite the same woman in consequence ! To Miss Mary Wrench. KESWICK, Jan. 21, 1867. How I hope you got well to your journey's end, and have not taken cold ! To-morrow will tell. Matthew has just brought in a very long letter from dearest Mrs. Jones five sheets. I send you two were you here, you should have them all, of course, but I don't mean to exceed my one-penny stamp. We are all packed up, and purpose setting off for Brighton to-morrow morning. How beautiful it was yesterday ! When I got back, I tidied the drawing-room, and made it look so comfortable with the two sofas, little table, etc., that I really should have been content to settle down for another week. Then I went to visit William, and he proposed that we should go to Lodore together. I do wish you had seen it it is magical. The monuments William described were strangely impressive and solemn the reclining figure more perfect than I expected ; the icicles hung over like exquisite drapery, and behind them seemed a dark cave. Then the moonlight was so fascinating we could hardly get to bed for watching it. This morning I longed to go and see Sally, but was disinclined to walk so far along the snowy road. And I felt dull and inert, and that perhaps has told upon my beloved, or else it is the inevitable de- pression that attends a move but whatever it is, we are quiet and subdued, both of us. We have ha.c| eleven AMONG FRIENDS. 347 months of such unbroken health and happiness here, and we both feel committing ourselves to the unknown. Clara writes very lovingly. . . . Life seems to me to-night so short as though it were hardly worth while to plan. I hope there will be no sudden thaw to-morrow, but the wind rises in fitful, threatening, wailing gusts. I have done all my packing again all is ready and this room that has known us so long will know us no more. I wish I had some old clothes for the Irish woman, but I have not, as you know. But when we get to Brighton, I will send you some stamps for her. I am afraid, my darling, I shall not be thought to have time to add anything in the morning, but I need not tell you how rejoiced I shall be to have a good account of you all. BRIGHTON, January 24, 1867. Here we are, you see safe, which is a great bless- ing very dejected, absurdly so but I hope and be- lieve we shall yet rally, and smile again ! Ah, how beau- tiful it was on Monday morning, and how affectionately sorry to lose us the nice people were. Who should get out of the carriage we were about to get into at Keswick, but Mrs. Todhunter with her baby in her arms but she feared to let me peep at it, so intense was the cold. She looked very large and very happy, but the meeting was so hurried I feared I might not have seemed genial how can you, with both hands full, and your foot on a railway step ? At Penrith some one reached up to kiss me it was Mrs. Lietch, going back to her house. There was only one lady with us, nice-looking and sweet-voiced. As we rolled away from a station, where we had had a mouth- ful of hot tea at the refreshment room, her countenance fell she had lost her purse. Evidently she was a good deal agitated her ticket was in it, and about five pounds. William at once pulled out Ms purse, and oh, how kind and earnest and real his dear eyes looked as he held it out 348 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. with its bright sovereigns, and begged she would take whatever she might want. However, she expected to be met and finally she found her own purse, which she was sitting upon in a manner worthy of me ! We got to Euston station at eleven o'clock, had our tea, and then a perfect bed with any amount of rest in it. And the next morning (yesterday ! it seems six months ago) we went off to London Bridge station, William calling at the Bank on the way and getting his dividend. Of course we were an hour and a half too soon, and that being the case I did not wish to be relegated to the crowded ladies' wait- ing-room, but said I would wait in the general waiting- room with William. Accordingly our bags, his cloak, and the railway rugs were put on a round table in that general waiting-room, but there the crowd was greater, and Wil- liam advised me to return to the other, and said he would stay there. But the dear one forgot .to keep his eye upon the luggage, and his bag with little in it but documents, the loss of which may be serious my bag, with all its contents, brushes, inkstand, gold pen, account book, etc. and his dear old cloak, were whisked off, never more to be seen by us ! But in this world of calamities I 'm not going to make a misery of that 't is an inconvenience, and a loss of about two pounds (not more, because I shan't dream of replacing the bag), and I shall not get accustomed to it immediately. Still, if it ends there it is nothing. The weather was indescribably wretched yes- terday, and what we thought of the gloom of Brighton ! Oh, how we have fretted, and asked what madness brought us to the haunts of men us, who are so happy in our own life. I am sure Rebecca is as kind as possible, but we cannot be pleasant guests, we are so low. A dreadful day of lodging-hunting every variety of objection dif- fused over a wide range of houses nice rooms too dear, the cheaper too odious, or the women offensive. I have seen two or three most satisfactory ones, but they were AMONG FRIENDS. 349 just let! However, this is Thursday morning, and we are going to gird our loins energetically, choose, and move. Somehow these last two days have deepened my sense of the wretchedness of an itinerant life. I think we shall try to settle at Newton Place. In the prostration of our intellects yesterday, William and I had our hair cut, both in one room, and a droller sight I never saw than our two sorrowful visages sheeted up, with whiskered men manip- ulating us ! My kindest love to all. Dear me, how much I could tell you, but writing is naught. [On the envelope.] We have found charming rooms ! BRIGHTON, February 4, 1867. ... At the Willetts' we met such a young man ! He is a very High Church clergyman, and as you know I have no predilection that way. But all forms of earnest good- ness I do at least heartily admire. This Mr. F W is doing, it seems, a quite wonderful work in his living of West Bromwich, somewhere in the Black Coun- try. No one thinks of dwelling there who can help it, none of the manufacturers, nor did his predecessor. Con- sequently when he first went there he counted seven peo- ple in church besides the officials. Now they go away by fifties because the church can't hold them all. He has three devoted curates, men of his own stamp ; they have service every evening at seven, and a good many of the night workers like to go to that service before they turn in to bed for the day. Of course it is a short service, and there is very beautiful singing. Any one who sees this zealous young priest can understand his influence. He is very powerful and manly, and has the sweetest smile. Then there is such a simplicity and thoroughness about him, and of course his choosing to live in the midst of dirt and smoke and poverty tells immensely in his favor. He seems quite as anxious about their bodies as their souls, and has established a hospital. He is very well off, but 350 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. if he had only eighty pounds a year I should call him a glorious match for any girl who was worthy. Such straight black eyebrows, and deep-set blue eyes ! I am quite faithless to my fair-haired ideal. And then the sweet way in which he played whist with his mother and an old aunt. I was his partner, and we won two rubbers. I beg to say he invited me most kindly for the Birming- ham oratorio, or church congress, or anything else there might be. But my beloved one was naughty that evening, fell into a silent mood, and could not be got away from picture-books his great snare. ... I must return to Thursday, to tell you what greeted me on my return from the Willetts'. Such a box from my beloved Mrs. Jones ! A delightful bag, large and light, really far more pleasant to carry than the fitted-up ones a beauty quite, and in it the gold pen with which I am now writing, destined, I trust, to be as great a comfort as the last was. It runs on delightfully, and will no doubt go on improving. And such a pretty box of dear Mr. Jones's, and such a lovely inkstand to replace dear Annie's ! There never was such a gracious, generous nature as that darling woman's, and she makes all her gifts dearer by saying that whether they answer the purpose or not " the love they come with is all right." Bless her ! I am grateful. In the evening of Saturday your uncle William went to have a chat with Mr. Joshua Williams, and I to Mrs. Woodford's, and he came there for me. Miss Kinglake had with her a singu- larly charming early friend of hers. This lady had be- come a Catholic, but I have no objection to " that sort," as dear old Sally said. I do not know when I have met any one who had the same intense refinement of voice and felicity of expression. Her lips dropped pearls the merest word told of intellect, and I think sweetness, at all events of highest culture. At a little distance she is still so pretty. Miss Kinglake had told me much of her fasci- nation in youth, and I was not disappointed. But there AMONG FRIENDS. 351 was a cross-grained young man there, with his glass screwed tight into his eye, and generally disposed to put people down. I did not enjoy my evening your Zia is soon chilled and cowed. I felt too shivery and good-for- nothing last evening to venture out ; thought indeed I was going to have a violent cold ; but thanks to aconite taken in time, and what the dear grandfather used to call my 44 resiliency," I am sharp enough this evening to contem- plate going to the Phipps's. There are only to be a Mr. and Mrs. Carpenter there. Pray Heaven William may be chatty, for Mr. Carpenter has long wished to see him, and is said to be a very superior man. And to people who know and delight in his books, it must be a disappoint- ment to see him shut himself up in a picture-book. March 3, 1867. ... I have liked Brighton much better this time as regards people. Mr. Carpenter is so charming so emi- nently one of the salt of the earth. Some might say that his religion was philosophy, but it is not cold and abstract the man glows with love to God and man. He was with us hours on Sunday evening, and if we come again he will greet us as friends. Then Mr. Long J I delight in, and the young clergyman. Mr. Phipps, to whom we owe that pleasant new acquaintance, is very taking, and evidently likes William exceedingly comes to take him out walking in a nice, cordial way. To Mrs. Cotton. BRIGHTON, Feb. 8, 1867. Why should I not have a few words with you, even though you should not have time to reply ? I am quite sure you will not think them unwelcome, and I feel in a sort of dreamy, tender, subdued mood retrospective 1 The late Mr. George Long, author of A History of the Roman Republic. 352 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. and perhaps a little sad in which an old friend is the very person one naturally turns to. And what old friends you and I are, darling! Do you, I wonder, remember how at Penhelig we two (surely remarkably intelligent girls of twelve!) used to discuss theological subjects in the dear shrubbery ? I from the decidedly Calvinistic point of view which darling Mrs. Scott found rather ob- jectionable, and which you by* no means shared! And then the talks of our youth the pleasures, the sorrows, the aspirations ! And all that so long ago ! How long has just been brought to my mind by a morning call from Mr. . He looked with ^great interest at my photo- graphs of sweet Louise and you, and felt how gracefully and how generously time had dealt with both. Naturally he did not tell me how lamentable the impression my ap- pearance made, but he looked it. He and I never had much to say to each other, and should probably feel more kindly now through the virtue of old memories, common memories, than we ever did before. But his presence and talk generally has had a wonderful effect in making me realize how long I have sat at Life's feast, and how soon I must rise and make room for others at the richly spread table. To me the best things have come late the} r are still so freshly enjoyed I do not like to think my time must be short. We all, I fancy, take our own notions of ourselves from what others form. When I live with Wil- liam, while I am alone with him, years have done me no wrong. I am what he sees me to be I look at myself through the flattering medium of those kind eyes, partial as my mother's I am bright by reflection I am on easy, affectionate terms with myself ! Oh, " how am I translated " by this interview with Mr. - - ! How el- derly, how ugly, how uninteresting ! You will think me crazy, perhaps, but I 've a notion too that what one human being really feels can hardly be quite unintelligible to any other. Your old and admiring friend Mr. looks AMONG FRIENDS. 353 well, and has a pleasant manner, and though I don't say the effect on me of the effect I made upon him was exhil- arating, still I am glad to have seen him. I do hope we may go to London for a fortnight, or three weeks. Would we could spend some hours together, say at the Zoological Garden my idea of enjoyment ! and thoroughly wake up the dear old friendship which will never die, I am quite sure, but which must needs grow comparatively lethargic and silent for want of the viva voce, the laugh and sigh shared, the agreement or the ar- gument as the case might be. Sweet Mary ! Do girls nowadays admire each other as I admired you? Are there such darlings to be seen ? You combined, and com- bine, so very much. I am longing to know where you will go first when you leave the happy home of five years. There will be so many friends claiming you, you will be torn to pieces, and indeed I shall not be surprised to hear that you run away from them all and go and tour in Swit- zerland. And here are we beginning to think that we should like to pitch a more permanent tent than we have done hitherto not that any years can ever be happier than these last six have been. ... I have been laid up the last two or three days with cold, sick headache, etc., and I think that 's why I think in the minor key, so to speak. Generally my spirits are I would say absurdly high, but that William likes them, and would not, I think, even if he could, barter this " antic and exultant spirit " for stronger intellect or wider cultivation. You know that we had M with us again for a month. She is a dar- ling, and I was more than ever struck with her very re- markable intellectual quickness. She seems to me to have an aptitude for almost everything. ... I am going to put in instead of any more letter some very simple lines something like a little poem of G run's I read and took a great fancy to six years ago but how like I really do not know. 354 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. THE WEDDING RING. I climbed the hill, and looked around The prospect stretched out wide ; Green vales, rich woods, and shining sea Beauty on every side ! So fair, so far, so boundless all ! My spirit was oppressed ; My glance roamed round, now here, now there, And knew not where to rest. Then from my finger, half in play, My wedding ring I drew ; And through that golden circlet small Looked out upon the view. I saw a wreath of cottage smoke, A church spire rising by, A river wind thro' sheltering trees, Above a reach of sky. This little picture I had made Both cheered and calmed my soul ; True, I saw less, but what I saw Was dearer than the whole. More vivid light, more solemn shades, Such limits seemed to bring ; My portion of the world be still Framed in my wedding ring ! Now I Ve written them out they don't seem worth it, but there 's a truth in them. My darling Mary, keep a little corner in your dear heart for your and General Cotton's truly affectionate and appreciating L. C. S. CHAPTER XXIV. PEN PORTRAITS. (From the Memoir.) FOR the summer of 1867 we fixed ourselves at Bar- mouth, in North Wales a place to which my husband had never before been, though he had chosen it for the scene of one of the episodes in " Thorndale." We had a snug little cottage to ourselves, perched just above the es- tuary, on the other side of which rose the range of Cader Idris. The place suited my husband's health, and as usual we were fortunate in a landlady whose kindliness and care for us gave us a sense of comfort and security very precious to both. We should have been, I believe, unduly pained by an opposite experience, but during our married life we never encountered it. My husband's un- varying consideration for the claims and the feelings of all brought into contact with him, as well as his self-help- fulness and punctuality, made him the most popular of lodgers. Looking over my diaries, whatever year I take up seems to have been the happiest ! William was much occupied, I remember, this particular summer, with scien- tific subjects. One of the papers that he wrote for the magazine was a review of a work of Emile Saigey's, treat- ing of the " Unity of Natural Phenomena." I think the closing paragraph will interest some who read these pages : What if the movements of suns and planets, about which so many theories have been devised, should at last be studied in the mpvements of the molecule ? The movements of suns and 356 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. systems may be but results or examples of those two movements of rotation and translation with which we found it necessary to endow every atom from the commencement. Need we add that we have still to ask how atoms came to be endowed with these movements, and were brought into all these rhythms or harmonies ? Need we add that our last and boldest generalizations only make the necessity more glaring to supple- ment the atom and its movement with the great idea of Intelli- gential Power ? God, and the atom, and the soul of man, Something we seem to know of all the three Something and only always of the three. We were seven months at Barmouth. What memories arise of grave and tender talk during sunset strolls along the quiet sands, while the distant Carnarvonshire moun- tains stood out lilac against a " daffodil sky ; " of glad morning rambles, after morning work, over hills gorgeous with furze and heather ; or rapid pacing up and down the bridge, watching the flowing or the ebbing rush of the tide ! We had a good many brief visits from different friends during the summer, but we were much alone too. The winter found us in Edinburgh. During our stay there one of our peculiar interests lay in attending together, every Sunday morning, a rather singular service held by a Mr. Cranbrook in the Hopetoun Rooms. Mr. Cranbrook had been originally, I believe, an Independent minister, but at the time I speak of he had seceded from that body. We never knew his history with exactness, but heard of him as an earnest thinker, following at any cost what he deemed truth. He was then evidently in ill . health, and had the wistful look of one " led by the Spirit " into a desert. His congregation was small, but loving hands always placed flowers on each side of the desk before him. His sermons were generally critical, but in his prayers the emotional nature of the man came out. We found the contrast between the cold PEN PORTRAITS. 357 analytical tone of his preaching and the passionate cry of his heart deeply pathetic, and came away with much to talk over during our Sunday morning walk. To me it was always an unspeakable interest to go with my hus- band to a place of worship. I never saw there a de- meanor quite the same as his, he sat so still, there was such reverent attention in his fixed glance. It was not often that I had this experience ; compromises and con- formity to custom formed no part of his religion ; but he laid down no rules for others ; could understand how in them memories and affections might hold together old habits and changed opinions; never charged their intel- lectual inconsistency with dishonesty. When I returned from church, he liked me to tell him what I had heard there, and if a deepened sense of things unseen and a de- sire to live more in accordance with the highest standard be the best results of religious teaching, then it was his comments that most helped me. I, on my side, rever- enced the law of his higher nature, unflinchingly obeyed, and rewarded openly by a transparent simplicity, a reality in look, and speech, and gesture, that all felt the influence of, and which his venerable friend Dr. Brabant once referred to in these words, " When I am with your husband, I feel in the presence of absolute truth." In the January of 1868 we left Edinburgh for our dear Newton Place, and some of our kind friends thought it an injudicious move. But even in winter we enjoyed it thor- oughly ; perhaps never more than then, when mighty winds swooping down from Sea wf ell tossed and twisted our protecting trees and shook the walls of our dwelling as they passed us by, or when heavy rains had turned our meadow into a lake, and flooded roads shut us most completely in. To the happy, storm is as exhilarating as sunshine, and I used to liken our secluded life to a full glass of champagne, into which drop the merest trifle, it effervesces anew. A book, a magazine, sent by a 358 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. friend, a parcel from the London library, the arrival of proof to correct, etc., still more, any natural spectacle northern lights, frost-work, falling snow anything, ev- erything, was pleasurable excitement. On such winter evenings my husband would often take me from room to room of our dwelling " to show me " the moon, or moon- lit clouds, or the starlight splendor in different parts of the sky. And after standing long in silence together gaz- ing at the silent stars, he would turn from their oppres- sive magnificence with such words as these : u Love must be better than hate in all worlds I " So much was certain. While thus alone, from the first hour of rising when I could hear him " singing, dancing to himself " to the winding up of our evening by some game of chess or cards, all was conscious enjoyment. I cannot convey to those who did not know him, or knew him but slightly, the variety of his playfulness, the delicate humor that gave charm and freshness to " every day's most quiet need by sun and candlelight." I suppose it required a heart like his, " moored to something ineffable, supreme," and an entire absence from personal anxieties, enmities, ambitions. I only know that this "spirit of joy" that he felt and diffused was, as far as my experience goes, unique, and no sketch of his character that did not lay stress upon it could be in any degree complete. This year, 1868, our " Annus Mirabilis," as he some- times called it, was the most social of all our years. For several months we had a succession of dear friends, some of them eminently congenial companions to my hus- band ; and between their coming and going, intervals of our own life. William was well and strong ; the seasons were all unusually fine ; in autumn the hills were one sheet of golden bracken, such as we never saw before or since ; the leaves hung later on his beloved birch -trees, and our mountain walks were longer than usual. PEN PORTRAITS. 359 To Mr. TJwmas Constable. BARMOUTH, June. I have had a great pleasure this last fortnight. Just when I had finished and despatched " Le Secret," and was open to social enjoyment, came a visit of five days from the only sister of that precious Blanche, of whom you have so often heard me speak. Mrs. R a widow, alas ! and the mother of eight wonderfully handsome and clever creatures. Two and twenty years ago this dear Augusta and I were great friends. Then she went to India, married most happily was a " queen of society " at Calcutta for many years. Delightful to say, our very different lives had brought about no estrangement what- ever we found that we suited each other just as we used to do, and actually ended by seeing very little change even in the outward woman ! ! It is curious indeed how to the eye of familiar affection the former young face shows again through the veil of the present old one. To Miss Mary Wrench. BARMOUTH, NORTH WALES, Aug. 9, 1867. I find that I don't get on much with my writing unless I am alone. I regret to feel my capability of abstraction diminished, but my blessed mode of life has the one draw- back of somewhat unfitting me for any other. Tuesday I was so sharp and well off to my old woman, and walked the four and a half miles in no time. She is doing so well. I positively don't know what I am to do with the poor people here the sick poor, I mean, who want nourishment. My poor navvy I am obliged to begin with again he has boils, which require a little good food, I am sure, and till he can work for it he is penniless. The medicines for the old woman are expensive. And the piteous thing is, the people fancy I can do something for their cases, and I tell them in vain that I have no 360 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. medical knowledge. Oh, that I had money for these poor souls ! [Speaking of a spendthrift.] Poor fellow ! Life is a very poor thing when the part believes itself the whole, and a man looks upon heaven and earth as existing to supply him with pleasures and amusements this is what the grossly selfish do. The poorer the intellect, the less the perception that the unit is not the whole. There is a word that expresses briefly the very spirit of Christian teaching altruism. Comte was not a Christian, but every Christian may thank him for the word. Oh, for more altruism more " looking on the things of others," " loving others as ourself ." It is matter of thankfulness to be able to see the beauty of this. But could not, poor fellow, any more than I could be a mathematician. ... I am interested in every word you tell me, though I don't comment, and go on thinking aloud to you just as it happens. February 24, 1868. [She and her husband called on Mr. and Mrs. Lewes.] We found them in, and so cordial ! Her hands were cold as death, and she was not well. She is writing, which al- ways exhausts her. ... In going away, I saw in her dear eyes that I might kiss her, and I can't tell you how kindly she put her arms about me. She is delightful so gentle and tender. To Mr. and Mrs. Loomis. NEWTON PLACE, KESWICK, May 10, 1868. It was a true pleasure to see your handwriting on the 28th of February, and I almost wish I had replied at once ; followed that impulse to write, which if once checked is apt to die down, and hence great gaps of si- lence between those who really care much for each other. I rejoice, we rejoice, to have so good an account of your health, and we take a sincere interest in all you tell us of your family life and your new home. . . . Now I am going to leave all allusions to general subjects, to politics, PEN PORTRAITS. 361 literature, and the great throbs and heavings of opinion in your country and ours, to my dear husband, who will say more in a few words than I in so many pages. I am going as usual to write you a mere woman's chit-chat about persons and private interests. Not that I lack sym- pathy with those other wider subjects, but I have not energy to write about them, and besides, we have not written to each other for so long a time. I want to take a retrospective glance at our quiet life. We so much like hearing your personal history, I am sure you will not be indifferent to ours. On the 2d of April settled ourselves down at a Welsh bathing-place that my dear one has spoken of in "Thorndale," though he had never seen it till last year. It had many attractions a less wet climate than that of Cumberland, lovely mountain and river scen- ery, and fine sands, though not a grand sea too land- locked and calm. There all the country people speak Welsh, but it so happened that I have more to do with them than I have here, where indeed there are no poor. . . . The Established Church is comparatively a dead let- ter in Wales. You should, however, have seen how the Voluntary principle builds and flourishes there ! But what was even more serious, the doctors in the neighbour- hood drank even more than , and here was no Volun- tary principle to come to the rescue ! This led to my having a few patients. My father was a physician, and I have just a little common-sense, simple knowledge. Any- how, I had there the supreme delight of feeling that I had been of some little use in alleviating pain. The Welsh have great faith in an irregular practitioner ! Then we were lodging with such a dear woman, one of the loveliest specimens of human nature, and thoroughly refined, though she could neither read nor write. The Welsh, like the Highlanders and other Celts, have often a native charm of exquisite politeness and tact, a sort of poetic in- sight into the relations of persons and things, which makes 362 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. them very pleasant to deal with. We were with this sweet woman for seven months, and now she keeps up a correspondence with us through the medium of her little ten-year-old daughter's pen, and wonderful the spelling is, but very simple and pretty the idioms. To dwellers in tents such as we are, the finding mental and moral ex- cellence in a landlady is an immense point. That is one reason why we so much like returning here. I thor- oughly appreciate the freedom from care, and above all the never having to train and find fault, which the mis- tress of a small household would inevitably have to do in these transitory days, when servants still exist, but with- out any of the old traditions of duty which used to make the tie between them and their master so strong. The very word master is hardly ever heard, except indeed in Wales. My dear mother remembered that former state of things in all its perfection. In her home the old but- ler, housekeeper, ladies' maids, and the rest lived thirty, forty years lived, in short, all their lives. There was a beauty in it, of course, as there is in every epoch. But progress, that brings so much, must take away too the former things have passed away, and it is vain to look back regretfully let us go on to the cooperative condi- tion, and hope the best ! Meanwhile, we are very happy in our tent life but I must love the people I come in contact with, and I do here love the gentle, admirable woman who has husband and six children in the lower part of the house, entirely apart and out of our way ; at- tends to them faithfully, and yet cooks very nicely for us, while we are waited upon by her eldest daughter, Ruth, a modest, obliging, round-faced English girl, of a very satis- factory type. My great friend is a dear old woman of ninety-eight, who lives all alone in a poor little cottage, and is as regards intelligence and even the power of min- istering to her own small wants, in the prime of life. I am very fond of that uncultured class, with their sincerity PEN PORTRAITS. 363 and reality. From Wales we went on the 5th of Novem- ber to Edinburgh, where we have several very dear and very delightful friends, one of the most intimate a fervent Roman Catholic. At her house we constantly met Jesuit fathers, who are really working their way wonderfully in Presbyterian Scotland. Perhaps not wonderfully for they are exceedingly active, and this is a day of violent reactions. In Edinburgh we were quite sociable, dined out, and met several interesting people, to say nothing of seeing beloved friends constantly and familiarly. You may remember, perhaps, my speaking to you of Mr. Thomas Constable as one whom I should particularly wish you to know if you went to Edinburgh. I must tell you what he did last summer. The Constables were all spend- ing it in Switzerland, and for a time took up their quarters at Pension Crochet, Bex. There they observed a very un- happy, ungenial-looking man, who suffered from his eyes evidently, and spoke to no one. Touched by his appar- ent isolation, Mr. Constable accosted him. The reply was a hand raised to the ear, and the words, " I hear nothing." This only excited Mr. Constable's compassionate feeling further, and his next move was to ask (in writing) the solitary man to drive with him and his large, cheerful family party. This was declined, on the plea that his infirmities made him a miserable companion. Nothing daunted, Mr. Constable begged to be taught the sign- language of which this stranger made use. This done, he could communicate more freely. By and by the poor man's heart melted, and he told Mr. Constable his whole story a wretched one it was. This poor stone-deaf man was an Austrian, of high family and connections, but a bankrupt and an exile. His deafness had greatly inter- fered with his prospects in life, and he represented him- self as always having been wayward and impracticable. However, he had married a very beautiful woman, and might have gone on pretty well, had he not resolved, con- 364 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. trary to the entreaties of his family, to embark all his fortune and his wife's fortune in a speculation which utterly failed. There had been faults, as well as this folly, but only such as are, I suppose, too current in Vien- nese society. However, backed by poverty, these faults looked very grave. The head of the family, a Count , volunteered to support the wife and daughters, provided the bankrupt father left the country ; and finally the family man of business took him to that cheap Swiss pen- sion^ and left him there, saying that should he find that mode of life intolerable, " the lake of Geneva was near at hand." Alone, uncared-for, a hopeless bankrupt and ex- ile, having estranged all his friends and his wife, deaf, en- tirely deaf, and nearly blind this man had stood hours on the bridge of St. Maurice, but had not the nerve to plunge, he said, much as he desired to die. For a month, Mr. Constable did all he could to comfort him ; then, when the family were on the point of leaving for Thun, the poor man burst out : " What shall I do when you are gone!" "Come and stay with us there for a month." This he declined he said that in a life so miserable as his must be it was better not to have such gleams of com- parative light. But evidently he felt the approaching parting. One day, when Mr. Constable had again pressed him to visit them at Thun, with the same result, he said : " Very well, then, come and stay with us altogether ! " "What do you mean?" "Come and stay with us for good and all." " What are you talking about ? I do not understand." "Come and stay with us till you die," said my beloved friend. The count burst into tears. He stood out bravely he was a bad man, he said. " I don't mind," was the reply, "you are unhappy." "He was a Catholic " that Mr. Constable minded much less. " Wife and family would object," Mr. Constable would fetch them, and he would see. (His wife and he are one soul, the children worthy of their parents.) Finally, after PEN PORTRAITS. 365 wintering with them at Nice, this poor man is at this mo- ment a much loved member of their charming Scotch home. He seems quite a changed creature, and his de- voted love to that man who was indeed a " refuge from the storm" is most touching. We hope they will be coming to this neighbourhood by and by. This is a very long story about strangers but I think you will under- stand my temptation to tell it. I thank God for having such a friend as Mr. Constable. Now I must go to bed, and I shall finish to-morrow. I hope you will allow that I am writing more legibly at all events, I have tried. Good-night, dear far-away friends in Minnesota ! May 11. Such a sweet, mild spring morning but rather gray. How I should like to see your brilliant sun- shine. Sometimes William and I amuse ourselves with planning a trip to America, but we know all the while we are only playing with our own fancies. Thank God, he is well bright and cheerful not writing much in " Black- wood," but there will be an article by and by on Lewes' " History of Philosophy," and also on your Motley's two last volumes. We have enjoyed Holmes's "Guardian Angel " very much. Do you in America hold George Eliot the very queen of novelists ? She is just about to publish a long poem, and from the lines that head several of the chapters of " Felix Holt " one knows her to be a true poet. . . . Marriage seems to be becoming more and more rare in England ; there is an unhealthy horror of poverty and " loss of position " which nips many a young hope. Now you will not think will you that it is from want of attentive interest to every part of your letter that I have commented so little upon it. I wish you would write again, rather sooner this time. I wish I had dried an English primrose to send with a kiss on it to Daisy. I wish that you could see our green, peaceful valley, with its lakes and quiet hills the highest only 3000 feet. By the way, I wandered with the Cottons over lonely hills for 366 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. three hours the other day, and was not over-tired. Thank God, I think William is well you know what this is for me. Your life sounds quite perfect, with each other, your darlings, and your definite and lofty work. May you have .health to enjoy it fully. W. S. to Same. It gave us very great pleasure to hear from you again, and especially to hear so charming an account of your new abode. What a climate and what a beautiful country you have lighted on ! Your description kindled a momen- tary desire to see your magnificent river, with its grand bluffs, and its rich and picturesque valleys. But we must content ourselves with our little lakes and miniature mountains. And we have had so exquisite a spring that so far as scenery is concerned we ought to be content. I have never seen our Borrowdale and all its surroundings look more beautiful than through this last month. How cities spring up with you ! We say here, we almost see the trees grow you might say that you almost see cities grow. The political life of the future lies mainly with you. Democracy, with a glorious region of the earth to expand itself in what will it do ? We ask the question, and try to look ahead. But I am afraid we cannot see very distinctly. I feel an unabated interest in your politics, although ours have lately become very exciting. I cannot understand altogether the policy of your great Republican party in its conduct toward the South. Perhaps at this distance, with conflicting facts put before one, it is impossible to get a clear view of the question. This unfortunate Presi- dent Johnson, with all his blundering and foolish obstina- cies, seems to have had a real desire to cement the union between the North and South, while the Republican party seems to be solicitous only for the triumph of its own ideas good no doubt in the main, but pushed on regard* PEN PORTRAITS. 367 less of the feelings of the South, or of the necessity to con- ciliate. But as to the conduct of political parties, we in Eng- land have lately been giving to the world one of the strangest exhibitions. Our conservative party has had one distinguishing tenet dread of democracy. They came into power, and they have pushed us toward democ- racy at a rate which is alarming to old liberals. We are all speculating as to what the new constituencies will do what measures they will clamour for and now before these new constituencies can elect their House of Parlia- ment, the question of the Irish Church has emerged from the region of mere speculation and controversial politics, and presents itself as something to be done. One thing is very noticeable that whereas the speakers in the House of Commons uniformly draw a broad distinction between the English Protestant Church and the Irish, and are loud in asserting their fidelity to the former even when they are most violent against the latter yet out- side the House, and amongst the clergy in particular, there is a disposition to regard the attack upon the Irish as an attack also upon the English Establishment. In spite of Mr. Gladstone's assertions, and the whole body of Whigs, they insist upon it that the real question at issue is that between Establishments and the Voluntary principle. This belongs in part to the ordinary tactics of controversy. Persuade the English people that their own Church is bound up with the fate of the Irish and the Irish Church is safe enough at present. But there is more in it than this. The dissensions in our own Church, the ritualism and the rationalism that have grown up in it, have brought a sense of insecurity to churchmen them- selves. They know that here as elsewhere union is strength and disunion weakness. Their own dissensions will give an opening to the Voluntary principle, and if this principle is deliberately adopted for Ireland, the ex- 368 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. ample may spread. So the cry of " The Church is in danger " is not wholly the mere war-cry of a party, as it has often been, but speaks of a rational solicitude for the future. I myself look upon the Voluntary principle as I look upon Democracy, as the inevitable but I have never been anxious to expedite the coming of either of them. Every year people read more and think more than they did, and I want this kind of quiet progress to go on and at least accompany our organic changes. I am prosing on about matters perhaps as familiar to yourself as they are on this side of the water. You in Minnesota are as much within hearing of London and Paris as we here in Cumberland. I only know that when- ever you touch upon your politics you interest me in- tensely. Do you read the French review, " La Revue des Deux Mondes " ? I gather more of the general politics of the world from that periodical than from any other source. Do you find time to write amongst your many avocations ? or do you feel, as I am sure I should, that your public ad- dresses were quite enough to occupy your time ? I my- self find writing more and more distasteful, more and more laborious, but I am happy to say that I do not en- joy books less than ever, and that I reflect on what I read with perhaps more pertinacity than at any other time of my life. Your letter gave me a delightful impression of an active, bright, cheerful existence, with great duties and many small pleasures. I think I may safely put you and Mrs. Loomis in the category of the happy (pray give my kind regards to her and my love to Daisy) -= and we on our side, we too would write ourselves down in the cate- gory of the happy, or at least of the contented. When we are alone here together I often say that my ideal of life is accomplished books country solitude and society that is compatible with much solitude. To be sure, I do nothing. I am very useless but this is from a lack of power, not from a disposition to fold my arms PEN PORTRAITS. 369 in mere reflective indolence. I hope we shall hear again from you at no very long interval, and that you may con- tinue to have your health, and that we may be both still giving good accounts of our respective conditions. To Miss Mary Wrench. NEWTON PLACE, May, 1868. ... To tell you the loveliness of this country to-day is impossible. We have had dull, misty, blurred kind of days, but yesterday and all last night it rained, and to-day Nature is in an ecstasy. I sit with open window, and the cuckoo's "wandering voice" is wafted in on the softest breezes. ... I returned grave and possibly a little sad. For, oh, my chick, to whom I confide mysteries, there are moods when the spirit of joy will evade joyous circum- stances, and when we are surrounded by all that is pleas- ant the heart in its immense solitude will take to crying, " It is naught," while the lips smile falsely on. You say I am one of the cheerful, and I thank Heaven for that in- estimable gift, animal spirits. But I think I know every phase of discontent, gloom, unreasonableness, aching self- love, and the rest, which make the worst part of our low spirits to say nothing of the burthen of " all the unintelligible world," and the questions to which there is no replying. To Mr. and Mrs. Loomis. NEWTON PLACE, Aug. 23, 1868. . . . Your description of your country and mode of life is most interesting, and I can quite believe that your delight in your handsome horses and all the pleasure and variety they afford you is much enhanced by your entering into such close personal relations with them winning their affections and giving yours for one learns to love what one ministers to. I am sure that many of us in the old country would be happier for having more 370 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. varied labor, and I think I see the dawn of great changes in that direction. . . . We have had visits from some dear Edinburgh friends, among them a charming Mrs. Stirling and her husband. She is large minded and hearted one to whom your Emerson took a great liking when in Edinburgh, and that I consider a feather in any one's cap. How intensely I admired and revelled in his essays and some of his poems in my younger days. I think I should now but they are packed away with all our books, waiting to be arranged in the home we shall, I suspect, never fin$. The sentence looks sad, as all sen- tences perhaps do that include the word "never." But I do not write it with any actual sadness. Our wander- ing mode of life has many advantages. . . . We are alone now, and General and Mrs. Cotton have left the neighbourhood the old loving friendship closer and warmer, thank Heaven, than ever. But William is so happy when alone that is Ms ideal. Something is growing, I think, about his desk but, as I believe I said before, the critic is almost too strong for the author ; and besides, he is dealing with subjects where if you will not assume you end by denying, and to his religious nature that is not easy. Oh, the mystery of it all ! I wonder whether you will take any interest in the proceedings of our British Association, and in Dr. Hooker's inaugural ad- dress. No one can escape some modification of dogmatic theology nowadays. Happy they who retain the spirit and let the letter go most easily ! I have been much in- terested by one of George Macdonald's last books. " Rob- ert Falconer." It must a good deal horrify the stern Calvinist ministers of Scotland ; yet, in the Establishment at all events, convictions are not so rigid nowadays ; it is the Free Church that is still the stronghold of narrow and intense dogmatism. I confess that George Macdonald's position logically does not appear to me tenable but " I would that I were altogether such a one as he is ! " I must PEN PORTRAITS. 371 tell you that dearest Mr. Constable came out for a night one exquisite May day, bringing his Austrian with him. To see the care the tall,"powerful, noble-looking man takes of the poor, stone-deaf, half -blind, helpless exile ! He is like a mother with some child that she believes perfection. For the best part of it is, he has got out of their kindness to love this little count. My dear child is now staying with the Constables at their charming new house near Ed- inburgh, and says that it is indescribably beautiful to see the tenderness with which they all treat their guest. For- tunately for him he has some literary talent, and is now writing a romance. And I am translating it for him. I have no paying work on hand, I 'm rather sorry to say, and it is to me a very great pleasure to be of any possible service to a friend of my beloved Mr. Constable. Besides, I like a task. I think it is an interesting story, but it is very difficult for a translator to judge. You are quite right it would be death to domestic happiness to introduce a stranger into a very small home circle though I really believe Mr. and Mrs. Constable could have done even that out of the intense pitifulness and lovingness of their na- tures. I wonder whether you have read George Eliot's very remarkable poem, " The Spanish Gypsy," and what you have thought of it. It is a marvel of intellect, and full of exquisite passages, but I think there is a but, and that it does not sweep one away as poetry should, as I found " Aurora Leigh " did. I read " The Spanish Gypsy " dry-eyed. W. S. to Same. . . . The last interesting thing amongst us is the ad- dress of the President of the British Association, Dr. Hooker, the great botanist. I dare say it will be in your hands by the time this reaches you. If you read it, you will find that the doings of the prehistoric archaeologist take the prominent place. You will be struck too by the 372 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. bold tone which the man of science now takes on topics where science and the Old Testament are thought to be at variance. I know that this will not distress you it ought not to distress any intelligent man. Perhaps even you will not be in the least surprised by it. Only one who knows England who knows the stolid, unenthusiastic, but dogged prejudice of our well-dressed churchmen and church women, would be aware that there is any courage requisite to say what Hooker has said. Read some of the reports of our Convocation, especially those of the Lower House read them in their eternal battle with Colenso and you will understand where English churchmen are in their course of development. I have nothing to say of myself, or I would willingly say it. I am not idle, in one sense I do the best I can by reading and thinking to get some idea of things in gen- eral physiology and other 'ologies I strive to get some hold of but in the way of writing I do nothing, nor feel that I am capable of doing anything. The brain works, but to no apparent result. You do as well as think, and therefore lead a far more perfect life. May it last long, in its cheerful and wise activity. To Miss Mary Wrench. Oct. 19, 1868. [Anxious about her husband's health.] My fragile only one ! Oh, it is a very fearful thing to have an only one ! Happy are wives who are mothers ! Oct. 1868. Oh, the solemn, the sad, the suffering days that must come ! I was saying to M A that I sometimes feared that these, which are all praise or pleasure, might unfit me for them ; and she said in her gentle, wise way : " It is the tree that has stood in richest soil and brightest sunshine that best bears the frost." God give me now the gift of thankfulness ! CHAPTER XXV. BESIDE THE SEA. THE little book made up in later years by Mrs. Wil- lett, " Lines by L. C. S.," contains these verses, dated " Feb. 24, 1869, Brighton." In the noble band of workers Seems no place for such as I ; They have faith where I have yearning, They can teach where I but sigh ; They can point the road distinctly, Where for me the shadows lie. Lofty purpose, high endeavour, These are not ordained for me ; Wayside flower may strive its utmost, It can ne'er become a tree, Yet a child may laugh to gather, And a sick man smile to see. And I, too, in God's creation, Have my little proper part ; He must mean some service surely For weak hand and timid heart, Transient joys for my diffusing, For my healing, transient smart. Just to fling a ray of comfort O'er life's downcast, dreary ways ! Just to fan a better impulse By a full and ready praise ; Pitying where I may not succour, Loving where I cannot raise ! 374 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. (From the Memoir.) We had debated with ourselves whether to spend the following summer in Derbyshire or Cornwall ; but I had a longing to see the Atlantic break on the Bude shore, having read of the waves rising there to an unusual height ; and my husband, to whose more occupied mind place was less important, allowed my preference to pre- vail. It was a long journey to take to a spot quite un- known to us, where, of course, we should not have a single acquaintance. I think I never set out in a greater ferment of delight than on that bright April day ! But Bude is a place that has its wrong side, " a bare, sandy common, and an ugly canal ; " and my husband's first impression of it, given in a letter to a dear niece, was " that a more dreary region could not be discovered in all England," and that, " had he fallen upon it alone, he should have been off like a shot the next morning." However, a little accident that befell me immediately on my arrival (the falling of a sashless window on my hands) so distressed him as to " make it impossible to growl at the place," and its own peculiar charm soon asserted itself. Later on he writes to the same niece : " These ground-swells of the Atlantic will spoil me for any other seas. On the coast of Sussex and Kent I have seen grand seas, but I was blinded or blown away in the attempt to look at them, and the waves were generally dark and turbid. On this coast I have seen waves as lustrous and clear as the waters of the Lake of Geneva rising in all the grand forms of a storm." Our small abode at Bude was not so quiet as we could have wished, but William at once set about writing on a subject that had long been occupying his mind : " Know- ing and Feeling." The illusion that, as I take up one pocket-book after another, makes the year therein re- corded seem of all our years the best, comes over me BESIDE THE SEA. 375 si?": I dwell on our Bude life. The bold cliffs, where always there was a renovating breeze, short flower- filled turf for our feet, and a glorious semicircle of sea below us, where, as we stood or sat near the edge, great gulls would conie soaring up from the shore, not seeing us till close by, then calmly slant off their wide wings foam-white in the sunshine ; or whence we watched the ravens that had their nests in the rocks below tumble fan- tastically in the air, how these things delighted him ! The peaceful days were all made up of thinking, writing, and of four short rambles on common or shore. He took no long walks, felt no inclination for them ; but we heard that the air of the place often disposed to lassitude, and our landlady struck at first, as indeed strangers usually were, with his look of fragility told me that she and her neighbors noticed a marked improvement as the weeks went on. The summer brought us a dear young niece ; and General and Mrs. Cotton, whose presence in Borrow- dale had been a delight the previous summer, now spent three weeks at Bude. William, very busily engaged with his own thoughts and pen, only joined in one excursion that to Tintagel. In a letter to his niece Clara he says : " I was very glad that I went. It was a kind of scen- ery somewhat novel to me. At Tintagel you stand on a rock 500 feet above the level of the sea which juts out, and enables you to command a magnificent view of both sides of this beautiful coast. What makes the chief charm of the view are the grand, isolated rocks that rise at some little distance from the shore out of the blue sea. These assume various shapes, and all beautiful. But per- haps the greatest novelty at Tintagel was the caves. In one of these the greenest of ferns had grown over the roof in the most delectable way, and the color of the rocks was to me quite surprising all the colors of the richest marbles dark red, green, yellow, but a sort of dull, deep purple being the prevailing tint. In another cave it was 376 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. not the colors one admired, but the admirable proportions, the lofty roof, the form of the whole. In this second cave we saw a spectacle I shall never forget. The cave led through to the ocean. It was the calmest and bright- est of days, but there was a ground swell, and the magnif- icence of the waves as they filled for a moment the whole entrance to the cave, then dashed up the spray to the roof, was something to remember forever." From the 10th of September to the 5th of January we were quite alone, and the little desk was soon permanently installed in the joint sitting-room. As usual, I have no outward events to record. A wonderfully high tide had been predicted for the 6th of October, such as would lay half Bude partially under water ; but there was no wind that night, and we watched the calm sea flow in the vil- lage lights reflected in its perfect stillness flow in and turn, having spread no further than at the September spring-tides. I confess I was disappointed ; but William, who never had any craving for the abnormal, was heartily glad that the low-lying houses should escape the antici- pated discomfort. One day we saw the rocket apparatus used, but only in the way of practice. This was a novel sight to both, and a great interest. The sunsets grew finer as autumn advanced, and we invariably went out to watch them. Even in December we could sit in the shel' ter of the rocks without any fear of chill. The morning and evening hours were occupied by the projected treatise on Psychology ; I used sometimes to doubt whether the critic would ever let the author finish it ! But however intent my husband might be on this or other abstruse sub- jects, he was never rendered absent-minded, never so much as let the fire go out while he was writing, and the moment the pen was laid down the brow was all smooth- ness, the eye all light, and he as ready to listen to any trifle his companion might have to impart as to share his own trains of thought with her. He had indeed a rare BESIDE THE SEA. 877 gift of sympathy. Even trivial things told to him seemed trivial no longer ; while as to the higher aspirations and the perplexities they bring, these spontaneously took, as it were, refuge in hie mind the former to gain strength and support, the latter a tender comprehension that al- ways lightened if it could not always remove. To Miss Mary Wrench. BRIGHTON, January 18, 1869. So glad, child of my affections, to hear of all your en- joyments ! I hope your stay will be prolonged a little, and that you will have a little peaceful stay at the Rec- tory, and return well and strengthened for trouble. May it be nothing worse than change of lodgings but I don't underrate that annoyance, remembering, oh, my darling, oh, so well, the passionate reluctance one had in youth to certain things, the feeling that they were intolerable, and that Heaven and Enrth somehow must avert them, be- cause we could not stand them and so ! But you are calmer and wiser and better than your Zia was at twenty- five. Live in the present, all you can. There may be some bright hour in circumstances quite close at hand. I am always expecting some " fairy prince " for my chick. Yes indeed, power and wealth, rank and state, are all pre- cious possessions it were folly to underrate them. But one thing is certain: to those who have them they are things of course ; to those who have them not they are captivating to the imagination. Remembering, however, the millions who have far less of comfort, graceful appli- ances, pleasantnesses, than ou/selves still more, remem- bering the hundreds of thousands tortured with actual want one comes I think to feel rather a grateful hum- ble wonder that so much should have been bestowed upon one, than a longing for more. One thing is indisputable : the chronic mood of looking longingly at what we have not, or thankfully at what we have, realizes two very dif- 378 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. ferent types of character. And we certainly can encour- age the one or the other. And I know which I want my darling to encourage the one her reason approves. I am re-reading that marvellous book, Carlyle's " French Revolution." Some great change there will be in the structure of our society. The pauperizing of some classes, the starving of others out of their very humanity, cannot go on, if there be a God that ruleth the earth and is evolv- ing the development of man. . . . February 25, 1869. . . . And now, with her nature deepened and expanded by years of beautiful life, and companionship with a high and holy nature, I do believe, dear, that she is a perfect woman, such as it does one good to see, still more to be with. For me, I have always told you how I thank God for my friends' virtues. Very halting will my walk al- ways be, very blurred my good, but I can love goodness, and believe in a standard I can never reach, and take some comfort in thoughts like this : " All I could never be, All men ignored in me, This I was worth to God, whose wheel the pitcher shaped." March 18, 1869. ... I don't know that I ever saw William look brighter or better than this morning, talking to me of the social questions that interest him so intensely. These earthquakes are solemn things, are they not ? How if England should have to suffer as other countries have done? London as Lisbon? I do believe my dear one would be glad to be blown up any day, provided, the great mass of pauperism which so grieves him coming to the same end, society might be inaugurated upon a better basis. BUDE, November 19, 1869. Wednesday. Such a lovely morning brilliant sun. shine a blue satin sea, with very large waves, blue- BESIDE THE SEA. 379 green, and as they break their spray is driven back by a slight land wind, like the hair of a maenad. Beautiful exceedingly ! On such days as this, how I wish poor dear were here. It goes to my heart to think of her as unhappy, but I do not see how it can be otherwise till something arises to give her the same sense of occupa- tion and energy which poor , his constant letters and her constant efforts for him, did. Grief is so complex a thing. He was not certainly the pleasure of her life, but he called her out and now comes a blank. The better trained women of the future will have their sorrows, but half the misery our generation goes through is lack of pursuit, unfitness for any because of the defective mental training we have had. Suppose now there was something for dear to do which no one else did in her circle, and for which they all were dependent upon her do you not feel that she would be a different creature ? Lodging- house life is very unfavourable to us all in this respect. A home, be it ever so tiny, gives occupation. As things are, change of scene is a relief, because it fills up time, and keeps off the consciousness of having nothing to do. So with visiting ; and indeed so with marriage for one case of real sympathy of heart and soul, there are at least five, I should say, where the fuller life is the real attrac- tion. There is a better time coming I shall not see it, but I am glad to have seen its dawn. . . But, my sweet, I don't know why I am prosing on to you now ; you must do as I did all my youth, and indeed you will do better, for your work is skilfully done, and is a more legitimate employment. Still, you must struggle with the same sense of wasted faculties which drove me to seek unworthy excitement till one of two things happens. Oh, I will think only of one, some really happy marriage some- body not too rich to live for, and so to have all your sense and sweetness thoroughly called out and rewarded. I think very highly of you, my child, but I do desire that 380 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. you should cultivate your reason, and read books that de- mand and strengthen thought. However sweet and dear our friends may be, we seldom encounter those who raise us open out new vistas help us to discriminate. I could wish for you the companionship of an intellectual man, not a lover. . . . And while I was running on at full tilt and becoming tedious, in came the post such a good one and having glanced at the four letters, I left them and we two set out for such a delightful ramble along the cliffs. What the beauty of the blue sea with its exquisite surf ! Nothing equals a ground swell. [There follow a score of items from the letters just re- ceived, with sympathetic comments.] . . . Salcombe must be sweet, but there never will be such a sea as Bude can show. If you could hear the thunder of the waves ! It is sad to know that such glories are going on in the middle of the night. We saw such splendors this evening gold in the west, the tenderest pink suffusing the east and the moon rising, and then the sea the serried ranks of waves, incredibly large. And in their foam, and the smooth reflex of the water, such opal, iridescent, unuttera- ble colors ! We have been, I may say, saturated with beauty. ... As I confided to you my aged perplexities about clothing, I may as well tell you that light flashed in with economy. I have a velvet Garibaldi, made of precious mother's cloak, with a bow behind, and an al- paca skirt (black of course) with three small flounces, piped with velvet. That will do quite well, with my black and yellow and for evening, I hope something can be done with moire dyed black. My dear old shag is al- ways respectable. How charmingly warm a sealskin bonnet must be ! Is it very dear ? Tell me how it is trimmed. But, good Heaven ! what matters it what I put on ? Only that a decent bonnet I should like, for dear Mrs. Stirling's drum. . . . Clara is the gayest of the gay, has guests always, I think, and a great many dinner par- BESIDE THE SEA. 381 ties. She writes in such joyous spirits, seems full of energy, and writes with such affection, as if some supreme blessedness must make her heart overflow. How I grieve over dear Mrs. P 's sufferings, and how I admire her courage and self-conquest. I am the poorest of crea- tures ! Though I know and say that it is not worth a thought, rheumatism has been making me restless and good-for-nothing these last days. Better, I think, this even- ing I dare say dear Mrs. P- would never have named or noticed so slight a pain. Give her my kind love, and say how I admire her. Not many days are let- terless. Oh, how fast they pass, these days of unbroken peace arid love ! What it is to live with one who is always sustaining your faculties and your spirits by his ever ten- der over-appreciation that courtesy which always notices your merest trivialities respectfully ! We are what oth- ers think us, in such great measure. Good-night, chick of my heart. The dear Moly sends love to you. BUDE, Dec. 4, . . . What a pleasant letter you wrote me, my darling ; how I enter into what you say about the distastef ulness of gossip. Here is a delightful passage from Carlyle, apro- pos thereof. Nay, what is that wonderful spirit of Interference, were it but manifested as the paltriest scandal and tea-table backbitings, other than inversely a heartfelt, indestructible sympathy of man with man ? . . . The philosopher's wife complained to him that certain two-legged animals without feathers spoke evil of him, spitefully criticised his goings out and comings in ; wherein she too failed not of her share. " Light of my life," answered the philosopher, " it is their love of us, unknown to themselves, and taking a foolish shape ; thank them for it, and do thou love them more wisely. Were we mere steam-engines, working here under this roof-tree, they would scorn to speak of us once in a twelvemonth." 382 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. But so long as women are uneducated (which may co- exist with accomplishments and modern languages), so long as they have never generalized at all, or looked be- yond what is merely personal, so long will they gossip. Generally speaking, men, even average professional men, don't gossip, because they have an apprehension of public interests. When a man gossips, all admit he is degraded. With women as yet it is too much the rule, because they have so little else to talk about, thinking of little else. But the change now going on will be a rapid one. Mean- time, let all who feel the pitiableness of living thus upon others cultivate their minds, were it only by reading books that momentarily lift them out of the concrete into the abstract a book of science, even if they retain but the smallest gleaning. I feel a different being say that some trivial thing has vexed me after reading (just now) LyelTs Geology or whatever else. You, with your stronger memory and clearer head for positive science may do much for yourself ; and if you say " Why should I ? " I would answer, that you may be cheerf uller and therefore make others happier. There is an infinite sad- ness in a mind left fallow. Will you not, to please me, never speak against the blessed movement for the higher education of women ? It is easy to laugh at " strong- minded women," but oh, what an ignorant laugh it is ! I have been guilty of it, and read Mill's admirable book on that subject with a sense of humiliation which I think was wholesome. . . . Mind you tell me all that interests you. I enjoy all your pleasures do you not know I do ? If you see " Good Words " for this month, peep at some lines by your Zia. A GIRL'S FAITH. No two leaves above us waving Are quite like in form and hue, No two flowers in equal measure Hold the blessing of the dew, BESIDE THE SEA. 383 Nothing is on earth repeated, All is special, all is new. So of all the hosts of lovers, Now and in the days of yore, Loving deeply, loving lightly, Loving less, or loving more, None have loved I hold it certain Quite as you and I before ! m Hearts have beat, but not as ours did When this hope upon us broke ; All our former life mere dreaming, Till to consciousness we woke In a world anew created, By a little word each spoke. Not as ours I for that was needed, What belongs to us alone ; Just the years we two have counted, Just the sorrows we have known, Just your strength, and just my weakness Love ! our love is all our own ! Written for C , June, 1869. From " Good Words," December, 1869. A WIFE'S WONDER. If I had never met thee, my beloved, As in this world, where so much waste is seen, OP seeming waste, might easily have been, I wonder what my nature would have proved ! I am so much thy work ; thy thoughts rule mine, Give them direction, lift from what is low ; What grasp or play of mind I have, I owe To the strong happiness of being thine. I catch thy tastes, enjoy what pleases thee, Learn what is beautiful from thy delight, Wait on thy choosing to decide aright ; 'T is but thy shadow, any praise in me. 384 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. To love, to pity, to forgive with ease, In others' hopes and fears to claim a part Are but the o'erflow of a blissful heart, And having thee, how should I fail in these ? If thou shouldst leave me ! in that utter woe I wonder what of life could still be mine ! Would mind be quench'd, and heart grow cold with thine? O God ! forbid that ever I should know ! BODE. From " Good Words," December, 1869. To Mr. Thomas Constable. BUDE [1869]. . . . What a mystery is the intense enjoyment of differ- ent phases of nature to different minds. A golden birch- tree bending against a blue sky will transport William. / like, as uncultivated natures always do, the portentous the storm, the flood, the ground-swell above all ! ... All the Scotch firs at the head of Derwentwater gone ! As the old negress truly observed, " The Lord lets dreffle things happen ! " You can imagine how my heart glows at the thought of Edinburgh. Much solitude with the Einziger intervals of sociality with dearly loved friends some homely intercourse with the few that one can help that would always be my life's ideal. How I shall miss Sally when we return to Newton Place ! But do you know, I suspect there is a wrong side to all this, and that I shrink from general society and acquaintance because a woman of my age is so utterly unattractive there, entirely a nonenity if not a bore ! To Miss Edith Wrench, chiefly from Bude, in 1869. And oh, my Edith, be thankful for what God has given you, and never mind books. They are but written thoughts of living men ; you '11 learn from the men and women themselves. The love of reading is a great re- source, but not the very avenue of wisdom. Live your BESIDE THE SEA. 385 best ; try to shun all extravagance, extravagant wishes as well as expenditure. Try to believe that place does not make so much difference as whether we are busy in the place. I always find you a dear and congenial companion. Economy must be attended to. That 's a fundamental, simple honesty ; scarce a virtue, but soil for virtues to grow in, soil without which none can grow. I prefer the unprosperous. Perhaps this savours of self- ishness, for one can do nothing for those who have all and abound. I am wrong we can rejoice with them. Oh, that I could impart to you my horror and dread of debts of any and every kind ! No one can have every- thing they might fancy ; there must always be an effort to live within one's means or they will be exceeded ; and once exceeded, good-by all comfort, all honour, all affec- tion. Believe me, once in debt and a person would be glad of any one's death, so it might bring a windfall ! Let me tell you what I am looking out upon. A white world (we had a quite deep snow on Saturday night) spark- ling in brilliant sunshine, the sands purely white up to the water's edge, the little river winding along, partially frozen, the vessels slowly stealing out of the harbour, with Christmas nosegays at the masthead, and every sail set they look so dark contrasted with the snow. All about in the little garden charming little birds (we 've been feed- ing them with crumbs, and I've just sent for canary seed), robins with bright waistcoats and fluffy, portly fig- ures, and the most audacious pair of wagtails they were both in the little room yesterday, and I caught one quite easily and kissed it. What a strange love one feels for " a bird in the hand," warm, fluttering, pulsing. One of these wagtails eats up the crumbs at a most astonishing 386 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. rate, and when he can no more walks up and down the little path to the gate, keeping off the Bobuses ! There is no gift so precious as a cheerful temper, and I do believe no one thing that wins so much love. ... It may indeed be more blessed to give than to receive, but when the former luxury is not within one's honest reach, it is blessed too to receive, from those one thoroughly loves, as I do H . If I had life to begin over again, I would learn a little simple surgery. I think everybody should know how to bandage properly. Yesterday there was no stirring. Never was there such wind and such sublime rain, sheets of it, quite exciting to watch, the ground before us covered with water as in a high tide. The day before we had had such a fine wild blow along the cliffs, and I shall never forget the stormy grandeur of the scene. The sea in awful shadow, the black sky rent toward the north, and a broad space of green blue, wondrously pure and ethereal. Near the horizon a range of cloud peaks catching the sunlight that we could not see, and across this space of light and colour such columns of dark rain driving along. Words are poor things but it was very glorious. The rain caught us, and there we sheltered, so cheery and glowing, under a wall with ragged gorse top, and how the wind shook our gorse tent ! And even there, on the Widemouth road, great foam flakes whirled along with the wild rain. In the afternoon I went to the breakwater, and was there long, not crossing, the foam and wind daunting me, but watching the great rollers. BESIDE THE SEA. 387 To Mrs. Cotton. BUDE, Nov. 29, This is the dullest of wet mornings, and it occurs to me that there is no better way of brightening it up than writing to you. So I put by my darning, and place your photograph so that you look at me calmly with hand sus- pended as if in excellent listening mood. Can I bring you back in thought to Bude to-day will you come though it is at its worst ? Saturday was furious, rain dash- ing at the panes, blurring them so that one could scarce see the red river of mud that swelled up to its banks, spreading over much of the sand and staining the whole of the bay. Really Saturday was almost sublimely wild. This morning it is only dull persistent rain. Sitting at the window I watch the carts crawl along the sand, the pa- tient horses having hard work with their heavy loads; near at hand the building of new houses, the going up and down the ladders of active, intelligent-looking workmen, with straight profiles and tufty heads, who get on rapidly let the weather be what it may. And rapidly coming in, tossing about the bleak rocks, are rows of white waves, asking only a ray of light to be beautiful. To think that it is rather more than a month since I heard from you, more since I wrote to you ! You have been moving about so much (of course this is only the vainest excuse, but anything will do in the matter of letter-writing) and do you know, taking it for granted that you are now at , I feel rather shy of you there, in an atmosphere so essen- tially unlike that in which I have my being, and with a friend excellent and admirable I well believe in many and many a point where I should prove mere failure, but so different a type that from her point of view I must be reprehensible in most things and unintelligible in the rest. Ah, my dear one, do not even open this letter down-stairs ! Wait till bedtime, and let me feel I am having a chat 388 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. with you and the beloved General, and then I can breathe. The very retrospect of the powdered footmen and the ri- gidity of Miss 's moral sense was beginning to make me feel quite formal. Those words, " rigidity," etc., be- tray me into a bit of lowest gossip. Well ! There was a certain stone-breaker I had encountered in my solitary springtime walks, and taken a fancy to, he was so cheerful in spite of rheumatism, and so quaint in his way of expressing himself. And he appreciated a little to- bacco. However, I had not come across him for some time when one early day in November it occurred to me that I would go to his cottage with my humble offering. The door was opened by a respectable woman with handker- chief up to her face. I thought my friend was dead. No, he had been ill and was well again, but she, the wife, was suffering sadly, and there to be sure was a fearful boil on the upper lip; the inflamed, tightly stretched skin ex- posed to the air, and nothing to mitigate the pain. You see at once what an opening for my medical skill, and like all quacks I pique myself a good deal. Never was a patient that responded more kindly to wet lint and oil silk, and she was such a pleasant, countrified, Welsh kind of woman, and gave me such a fee of apples (I had to take it too), and did not turn up her nose at Liebig, and in short our relations were most satisfactory when an unwelcome ray of light is thrown upon the case. She is the mother of Mrs. 's husband, the mother too of five other sons, all entitled simply to the mother's name, and brothers only on the mother's side. I positively stag- gered. One must draw a line, and become rigid some- where. Ah no rigid nowhere but you can under- stand that my pleasure is spoiled. The worst of these departures from the right is that they entail subterfuge and deceit. Mrs. , with her first baby, has just gone to her husband's house. Poor young man ! Naturally too the young wife may not like to keep up more than can be BESIDE THE SEA. 389 helped of that relationship. I must end my gossip by say- ing that the stone-breaker is really the husband, and speaks with a touching tenderness of his " old woman." I fear she is getting into thoroughly bad health, but here where doctors are sober I dare not practise extensively. And the dampness of the cottage by the canal would nul- lify quinine, I fear. And so it ends like most cases with a mere sigh, " The pity of it, the pity of it ! " . . . Mr. gives a frightful picture of the open re- bellion of feeling and language at Cork. Indeed, the state of Ireland is enough to make anyone grave, and those who viewed in a disestablished Church and a prom- ised Land Bill merely sops to Cerberus will no doubt loudly proclaim that they have failed to conciliate him. Never- theless, " Fais ce que dois, advienne que pourra ! " Things that have gone wrong so long won't come right at once. Our " Times " brings us in plenty of excitement. Is not dear General Cotton glad about Dr. Livingstone, and in- terested about these strange underground people, the Rua ? And the unexpected result of these late Deep Sea dredg- ings, too ! How can any one ever be dull in such a won- drous world any one, that is, who is heart-happy and in health ! We have had a new book parcel, with charming numbers of the " Revue des Deux Mondes." I should like you to read Mr. M. Arnold's two papers in the " Cornhill " on St. Paul. We 've got Browning's " Ring and Book" too, hard reading rather, crabbed, con- torted ; full of rough power and beauty, no doubt, further on. I Ve read your beautiful Spectrum book with atten- tion and delight, and shall read it again. I have come to believing that all books of that nature should be read twice. The days are very short, though. A little reading after breakfast of some improving book ; then comes the post, and the abstract gives way to the personal ; then, when it is fine, we get a good walk to Widemouth not unfrequently, and passing the cottage I remember how 390 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. pleasant it was to rest there on the way to Nuthook ; and often, dear one, I improve localities by associating them with you. William and I live now all day long together, and almost always walk together ; and though variety is es- sential for us all, and this is too spoiling, too petting, too flattering a life, and it will do me good no doubt to have a little friction and a little sense of being seen through in- different eyes yet I do emphatically record it best and sweetest of all lives, and wish for all who are one that they could be cast on a desert island, say for seven months out of the twelve ! By the way, my little lines which I repeated to you are in the new " Good Words." So slight, it must be out of good nature Mr. Strahan put them in ; but still, being from the heart, some heart may echo them. These are the " little lines." MOODS. Lord, in Thy sky of blue, No stain of cloud appears ; Gone all my faithless fears, Only Thy Love seems true. Help me to thank Thee, then, I pray, Walk in the. light and cheerfully obey ! Lord, when I look on high, Clouds only meet my sight ; Fears deepen with the night ; But yet it is Thy sky. Help me to trust Thee, then, I pray, Wait in the dark and tearfully obey. CHAPTEK XXVI. RIPENING YEARS. i (From the Memoir.) WE left Bude, as I have said, early in January, left it for Bath, and there spent three weeks under the roof of my husband's old and true friend, Mrs. Haughton. In my pocket-book for this year he wrote, " A new decade ; the old wish : May it be a repetition of the last ! " There had been several entries of the kind : " May we have no new years, only the old ones back again ; " " May the new year be happy as the old," etc. As we purposed spending the following spring and summer in the north, at our dear Newton Place, we fixed upon Edinburgh for the few intervening winter weeks. I was greatly occu- pied with a dearly-loved invalid friend, and spent all my evenings with her. March found us once more at Newton Place, where we were welcomed and ministered to with an affection that we returned. . . . This year my husband published in the " Contemporary " two articles on " Knowing and Feel- ing," and wrote two papers for " Blackwood's Magazine." One of these was upon Dr. Noah Porter's work on the "Human Intellect," for which he had, and expressed, high appreciation, and which generally lay upon his writ- ing-table. I need hardly say that he also read much. What and how he read shall be described in words of his own, written long years before, and true to the end : " The books of a speculative man lie open quite tran- quilly before him, the page turns slowly they are the 392 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. things that set his own thoughts in motion, and with those thoughts, whether the books lie there or not, he is chiefly engaged. What he reads is all along so mingled with and modified by his own reflections, that at the end of his la- bours he can scarcely tell what was his own and what the author's. The written words on the page have been like music to a thoughtful man, which prompts and accom- panies his long reverie, but itself is little heeded. Even when heeded most, and carefully weighed and scrutinized, the words he reads are still the mere utterance of a thought that has thus been carried to him ; they are not the utterance of this or that man, and bear on them noth- ing of motive or character. Whilst the historian, in pro- portion as he prosecutes his labours, recalls and reani- mates some scene of past experience, and adds detail to detail till it almost appears to be again a portion of the living world, the philosophic or metaphysic labourer, who is in search of first principles, and is exploring with this purpose the furthest recesses of the human mind, departs at every step more completely from all detail and every familiar object, and gains as the result of his toil some ab- stract truth, if truth it be, which after all no man seems to care for but himself. Like the celebrated traveller whose ambition it was to detect the source of the Nile, he leaves behind him the broad stream with its fertile and populous banks, whereon city and temple have been built he bends his devoted course to where the river of life grows more and more narrow, more and more silent as he pro- ceeds and at length stands alone, in brief and troubled rapture over a discovery which may still be dubious, and in which no one participates." I think I may as well sum up our summer in an ex- tract from an irregularly-kept diary of mine : " July the 28th, 1870. . . . Here we have been for more than four months, for half our appointed time. And hitherto it is passing sweetly, as former summers have passed in this RIPENING YEARS. 393 almost home. Visits from different friends have been much enjoyed by me, because I have had my conditions of enjoyment: William has been well, and occupied thor- oughly and energetically. . . . The days are all too short. And as they fly by, they bring an ever-deepening con- sciousness of the peerless treasure of living with one so entirely beloved and lovable, with so large an intellect, so gracious a nature ! 1 Never does word of detraction or spite cross his dear lips ; never is he hasty, unjust, uncan- did, unwise in thought or word. He ought to be an elevat- ing influence. I ought to be better. We have been all surrounded by hay the last fragrant cartful from the meadows will now be soon carried off, and of late we have had exquisite summer. The one apparent cloud over our little lives is that which darkens millions this horrible, appalling war. Sometimes one feels it almost wrong to be so happy.'* W. S. to Mr. Loomis. NEWTON PLACE, March 29, 1870. I must thank you myself although my wife will do it in the letter she is going to write for sending us those two lectures on Comtism. My first impression was that you were the author as well as the sender of them, but I came upon passages which I do not think your religious convic- tions would have allowed you to write, and I afterward observed the name of Fiske, put among the contents of the lectures, but in such a way as to indicate, I suppose, that these were a series of two of Mr. Fiske's lectures. I read them with great interest. The author has studied Herbert Spencer and appears in the main to agree with him. He is evidently marching in the foremost rank of the thinkers of our day, perhaps a step or two in advance of either you or me. At least, I suspect we should both pause before we admitted the Spencerian idea of the ob- 1 It may be asked, "What were the faults, the drawbacks? " I answer now, as I should have done then, " / do not know them." 394 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. jeet of religious worship (which I cannot distinguish from Spinoza's). However difficult it may be to form an idea of the personality of God, it seems to me that if we erase this conception entirely and pronounce against personal- ity, we may as well erase this sacred name at once from our vocabulary. Pantheism gives us only wonder, and the conception of the whole as in some way emanating from one source. We may come to this, but if we do the old names of God and religion will be little more than signs of certain past ways of thinking and feeling. It seemed to me very creditable to your newspaper press that so cheap a paper as this [the New York " World "] can give so much space to lectures of this pro- found character or rather, it is creditable to the read- ers of such papers. I doubt if any London journal would do the like. . . . We lead a contented, but I am ashamed to say (for my own part) a very idle life. " Good Words " for September, 1870, contained these lines by L. C. S. : NOT ALONE. Companions fair had I while, as a child, I danced along the smooth ascent to youth, Light-footed Joy, brave Hope, and Fancy wild, With wondrous fairy tales, all told for truth. Love, too, was near, and came at every call, Flung kisses and fond words to great and small ; But of Love's nature than I scarce took note at all. Companions these, along youth's level way, Hope, now the dearest, never left my side But Joy and Fancy would not always stay. And Love, drawn closer, proved with pain allied : No longer gave she freely as of yore, But set a price upon her priceless store, And, e'en when best repaid, in secret pined for more- RIPENING YEAiiS. 395 Companions still are these, although I .find The path grow narrow as my steps descend ; Joy, Hope, and Fancy sometimes lag behind ; Let them ! so Love keep by me to the end ! Love changed and chasten'd careless grown of sway, Careless how any prize her or repay ; Caring for this alone to give herself away ! To Miss Mary Wrench. NEWTON PLACE, Oct. 17, 1870. You know that my heart, always full of love and hope for you, must especially overflow on the eve of a birthday. But it shall overflow speechlessly. How do I know what is best and happiest for you ? All this present distress and perplexity may be preparing some brightness, some peace, some fulness, that I can't guess at. To me to be twenty, even with a few added years, seems of course to be very young indeed ! But I vividly recollect the time when it did not seem so and when, having as you know lived through much of keen joy and bitter disappointment, I did most truly believe life in the only sense of the term I much cared for was entirely over; and the matronly airs and premature abnegations I displayed, if ridiculous, were at least sincere. Therefore I can imagine that my dear child will feel a twinge of sadness, but I want her to view her age from the point of view of the community at large. It is only girls of seventeen who think an added decade so momentous it is not even youth, to whom the woman is generally more attractive than the girl. In the power of pleasing in society, power of helping by sympa- thy and intelligence, power of winning and returning love, power of thinking, power of doing seven and twenty is far beyond seventeen. Oh, do not darken your perfect youth by bewailing wilfully your immature youth ! Do not let the rose that has opened out to its " dainty core " hang its head because it cannot " close and be a bud again ! " So we may go through life, helpless, hopeless 396 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. mourners for the past with heads reverted and eyes blind to all glory in the future. But there is no folly like anticipated wisdom. There is deep sadness for us all in this remorseless course of the years first because they carry us away from our prime, or that we fancied so ; next because they carry us on to decay, loss, or death. Deep sadness a deep all of waves and storms, so long as we passively yield to it. But the moment we put our hand to any work, the " going forward," which is the law of our existence, is a cheerful march too. And that is why I have been so anxious, oh, my darling, that your ex- cellent faculties should be called out by strenuous study. You will always be loved, will always have much friends and social interests and much besides ; but what we are is more than any having, and there does come a greater amount of energy and satisfaction from mental work than any variety of pleasure. And so it was I desired very ardently for you an Edinburgh winter and a leading pur- suit. ... I sit here and ask myself whether I am " inter- fering " as says. I dare say my character has that tendency, but I don't think I take the initiative. When any one confides in me, and I seem to see the remedy for the sorrow confided, the clue to the way out into the open, so plainly I can't help pointing it out, pressing its adoption. I am very glad your birthday finds you at Bur- ton Agnes, with such dear loving friends. I 'm uneasy about your cold, though, and terribly afraid you '11 bring it all back by attending that tiresome exhuming. I pic- ture to myself your standing long on damp ground, seeing a few broken bits of pottery turned out, and at last a doubled-up skeleton ! I know damp, icy feet and then a lay-up must come of it, and I wish Canon Greenwell and his barrow were miles away! . . . We are having the wildest weather water, water everywhere. Yesterday I caught Lodore finer than I had ever seen it, and scram- bled about alone like an ancient jat ! I was out a long RIPENING YEARS. 397 time, and saw such beautiful things sun-gleams and rain-columns. Oh, for peace ! Oh, to be and do right ! That after all is Heaven. William is such an angel to me. I am glad you all approved his letter. He is very fond of my chick. . . . Perhaps you may yet manage Edinburgh. Anyhow, the winter may have more pleas- ures. My sweet child, your aunt Lucy has many things in her heart. And I have a great power of " living in your experience," and understand by my own feelings how precious Granny craved to see me happy. May all true blessedness be yours ! May you and Edith be ever more and more one in your tender affection to your mother, and your loyalty to each other. I believe Edith would put her hand into the fire to save you pain. To Mr. and Mrs. Loomis. NEWTON PLACE, Oct. 18, 1870. . . . You send us a delightful description of your holi- day month. How the dear little girls must have enjoyed it ! The grandmother's home is the children's heaven upon earth, generally speaking, and when it is near the sea it must be the seventh heaven ! Though to be sure time is not standing still with the sweet Daisy, and her delights on the beach are no longer those of a child. What an exquisite summer home you described, and how charming yours at Poughkeepsie must be. William and I often talk of crossing the Atlantic, and our dream always includes a peep at you. But I am too afraid of the passage the illness, and the dread of drowning which would alternate with the physical suffering. It is more probable that we shall meet again in this Lake coun- try, for when the girls are a little older you will wish to show them Europe. One summer day of more than usual beauty, as Mary and I were strolling before the house, we noticed two strangers, and felt sure that they were a very superior pair and an American pair. The gentleman very 398 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. tall and thin, with a wonderful hat, intended to protect against a fiercer sun than ours, and with a large white umbrella besides. The lady flung herself down on the grass of the field in the shade one of the trees of our garden cast, and gazed at the soft hills, misty and there- fore loftier than reality, in the afternoon sun that was get- ting behind them ; the gentleman seemed mainly inter- ested in the configuration of the nearer rocks. You can't think how I longed to speak to them over the hedge, to ask them to come in and have a cup of afternoon tea ! I am sociable enough to long to do things of the kind not to do them! For that I have not courage not that blessed " certainty to please " which beauty, talents, and even youth are authorized to give or that still more blessed spontaneous geniality which acts without any reflex action, any questioning about the impression it produces. The clergyman to whom William lent your kind gift [ u Boston Lectures on Christianity and Scepticism "] and his wife have that geniality. They are really a remarka- ble pair, with an unusual amount of the " enthusiasm of humanity " about them. Mr. Borthwick looked in yester- day morning, and again carried off the essays. He is re- markably musical, and has given me a beautiful Hymn and Tune Book to me mere tantalization, for we no- mads have no piano, but I should like to send it to you. ... A most exquisite season it has been, and the hideous war now raging has seemed impossible under such a sky. When last I wrote to you how little any one foresaw it ! A.nd now one cannot realize it cannot realize the sud- den and fearful reverses France has undergone. I don't know whether you ever see the " Contemporary Review." William has had two psychological papers in it, and oth- ers will follow. But what made me think of it just then was Mr. Ludlow's very interesting paper about the war. I so entirely feel with him that although at first one's sympathy was with Germany the aggressed, it turns away RIPENING YEARS. 399 from Germany the implacable annexer and humbler of France. ... I know your friendly feelings will be glad to know that the summer. has passed very happily with us. I had my sweet niece Mary, my almost child, here for more than three months. One other niece, Clara (can you recall a very tall girl at Brighton ?), now happily married, came with her first baby to the hotel near us and stayed there a month. She has developed into a delight- ful woman. This morning I have had a loving letter from her, with a photograph of her little son, three months old, and a fine chubby fellow, already developing a most marked individuality, according to the happy mother's be- lief! And so it is, I dare say, for always Love sees truest ! Indeed Love only knows. How should Indiffer- ence, or still less Dislike, gauge character? I firmly accept all that loving hearts tell ine about those they love. I may not see the person as they do but that 's because my eyes lack the anointing, and they are right. We have had also visits from other friends, one of them the sister of Arthur Clough, who is, I think, as well known with you as with us. And now we are alone, and that is the best of all though variety is of course pleasant, and all friends (and we see none but friends) are dearly wel- come. I think the death of Dickens has been my sharp- est sorrow this summer, and I do feel it as a source of per- sonal happiness closed. We have had Emerson's last book, full of beauty and wisdom. I have read some of the essays the fourth attentively. On this great sub- ject I cannot enter it is too great, and " clouds and darkness " are about it. Only one thing I do feel sure of, " Love is of God." My dear one has written a longer note than usual. I am thankful to believe that he looks well and is well his step elastic and light, always going up two steps at a time, his spirits so evenly bright and playful. . . . Nearly eight years since we last met but we are not forgetting each other, nor do I think we shall. 400 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. Much love to you both, and persuade Daisy that she re- members me ! I hope you got the Dramas. W. S. to Same. . . . Talking of books, my Lucy despatched to you by post a little volume of poems dramas written as the date will show long, long ago. She did it in spite of my protest. I know they are dead that they never in fact lived and I am quite reconciled to their fate. I assure you it is one of the last things I should do to invite any one to their perusal. I have buried them long ago. The terrible war and the state of France engrosses us here, and I suppose is the great topic of interest with you. How to get nations to behave with justice to each other, and then how to get the several classes of which a nation is composed to live equitably together these problems were never brought before me more terribly than now. There was no rational cause for this most awful war nothing but senseless rivalry who is strongest? And France in her agony is now disclosing what ? The hos- tility between class and class, between rich and poor, capi- talist and workman. We have not got farther than this in our progress of civilization ! What is reported of the state of Lyons is even more ominous than the condition of Paris. We in England, cooped up in our little island, with a great population of the poor and discontented, have causes for alarm that you have not. So perhaps the anarchy which threatens France is looked on by us not with sympathy only for France, but with terror for our- selves. Extracts from Letters to Mr. Thomas Constable. (Borrowdale, undated.) As for dear Sally, she was in highest force yesterday, and her ruffled dignity when poor Dinah introduced herself into the party was really amus- ing. Ah, so touchingly sweet to my heart! dear old RIPENING YEARS. 401 Robert has left me a pretty stone, with a fossil of some kind or other, something, he had found and kept as a curi- osity. Why is it that we value the love of those we call the poor with so much tenderer a value than that of those who have our kind of culture ? (Undated.) Do you know what I have been doing the last three days ? Living in another world a world of grace, piety, and love, exquisiteness of all kinds which I think has done me some little good. I hope to be less censorious, since certainly I find less difference between myself and those I think most meanly of than between myself and the angels of which this book, " Le Recit d'une Soeur," by Madame Augustus Craven, gives the sacred and touching history. I charge you to get that book at once, if you have not already read it. The mother's char- acter in its humility and self-forgetf ulness reminds me not a little of my precious mother. The book is full of ex- quisite thoughts, and the characters depicted have a love- liness, an attractiveness, a perfection of grace, refinement, spontaneity, which certainly I have never met with before in any biography whatever. You won't mind their being- Catholics. (Undated.) Miss seems to have lived such a pale life. I doubt if she has ever come into contact with any- thing but " decencies forever " no passion, no agony, no deep feeling, no strenuous effort to rise. In the long run I should prefer the society of a convict. (Undated.) I send you 's last address. Printing is a disease, I think, with him, but he is so nice and taking in so many ways, and " I 'm no pairfect mysel'," nor I suppose is William so, though / find him so, and cannot conceive living happily I mean / with any other hu- man creature. One is so free with him, so safe thought may beat its wings in sustaining, never restricting, air. All other companionship is a cage, more or less wide. In all others the very pleasure of it wearies in his enjoy- 402 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. ment is also rest. Such is your happy experience you two peculiarly blessed ones. Well, now I hurry on, for the postman conies for letters now at two o'clock. The other day Miss called, and having talked of Switzer- land all the time (I liked that), just said as she was going away, " I hoped you liked my dear Mr. Constable ! " Not the remotest idea that I had ever seen you before, nor has she by this time the remotest idea of it, spite of all I said. Miss ignores one's existence so totally. There is discourtesy in her blandest tones, therefore, because the first element of courtesy is to make another feel that they are recognized as entities at least, as something, even if a disagreeable thing. Miss is both insolent, virtu- ally so, and insincere. Yet I don't hate her, but I do think her hateful. (Undated.) It is all mystery but surely love never dieth. At Bath we met some charming people, excellent people in all the affairs of life, mild, indulgent in temper and judgment, and they are quite enthusiastic about their faith of the negative kind no God conceivable, and de- cidedly no immortality ! I felt with them as one may on a glacier beautiful to the eye, sunlit like the rest, but deadly cold to touch. Then I saw a good deal of a dear good meek soul, who after agonies of inward conflict, and a night spent on the floor alone with God crying out of its depths for guidance, believed itself guided to the Church of Rome. And finally I had long talks with a fervent semi-Swedenborgian. But all these were earnest, unworldly, superior either intellectually or morally or both. (1870?) And so there is another of those absurd absurd only they are so melancholy persecutions going on among the U. P.'s, as well as elsewhere. Who can, who does, hold to that extract from the Westminster standards? It seems as though the human mind was undergoing some organic change, and not only could not RIPENING YEARS. 403 believe, but could not conceive of as believable, many and many a doctrine taught me in my childhood, unhesita- tingly subscribed to by me till of later years, nay, never questioned in words by that blessed mother of mine, who was all tenderness, as you know, and would not have hurt a fly, yet who was never consciously delivered from the bondage of a terrific creed. Not, sweet soul, that, save perhaps for herself, it ever did terrify her. Good hearts are driven to bad logic in such cases. But oh, the diffi- culty of the whole question the difficulty of retaining I That is, I believe, the great trial of the present time to all those on whom is laid the necessity of thinking, and it is just the purest and best who realize the pang. A nature like mine is too frivolous, too much at the call of trivial interests, to feel it save in flashes ; and as regards conduct there is no difficulty in knowing the right at all events. (1870.) The sorrow the death of Charles Dickens has given me I cannot put into words. All England must mourn, and would have better missed, I think, any other man. I feel that a source of personal happiness is closed to me. Perhaps no one but a person living out of society and without personal cares could so look forward to those green numbers as I did. No other writer can give the vivid delight this true genius gave. CHAPTER XXVII. THINKER AND LOVER. OF this so joyful double life a part at least of the se- cret is an open one. No endowment and no propitious circumstance can open the gates of this Eden save to the pure in heart and the disciplined in life. How absent from these two are all rivalry, ambition, jealousy ! Not one pursuit or passion here that brings collision with an- other's good. And they are free, too, from that which so commonly mars life's joy, anxiety about material things. Most of mankind are forever troubled about food and raiment. This pair seem as care-free and as joyous as the sparrows and lilies. But they earn the freedom with a double price, which is gladly paid. They limit their wants, and they husband their resources. An utmost modesty of desire and a scrupulous economy win for them exemption from the fear and care that haunt so many households. How womanly and delight- ful are the touches in the wife's letters of just an oc- casional subdued regret for daintiness and prettiness which they must forego ! Those very light and transient regrets are all it costs them to give up the luxury and elegance which are to so many the end and aim of life. Luxury? Have they not love, thought, each other? Elegance ? This whole glorious world of beauty is theirs, this world of humanity too, by the tenure of reverence and sympathy. Little does it reck them of fine clothes, houses, equipages ! But there is in them no fancied su- periority to responsibilities of pounds, shillings, and pence ; down to a postage stamp, every expense is care- THINKER AND LOVER. 405 fully measured. So they honestly pay the price of their liberty : moderate wants, strict economy, and hence, nights and days undisturbed by care. Their paradise secludes them in a way from the rest of the world ; yet the wife we see preserves active and sympathetic relations with a wide circle of friends, makes kindly ties in every new lodging-house wherever their transient home is made, becomes a gracious helper among the poor. But the husband, save for her society, appears almost as much as ever a recluse. That innate bent to solitude, or the second nature wrought in the long years, does not yield even to the spell of her influence. He lives in her and in his thoughts. So interior is his life, so little has it of outward action even in little things, that not even her letters often show him to us in any distinct picture. The finest camera cannot take photographs from a life that is all thought and no action. The reader may sometimes wish that of the actors in this drama of two the man's figure stood out more distinctly. To read the wife's story is like looking at a religious pic- ture, where the face of the adoring saint glows on the can- vas, but of what the saint sees only a hint is disclosed. Nor can we much supply the want from other sources. Those who met William Smith felt a rare charm in him, but it was something so subtle, so little embodied in defi- nite acts, that small record of it could be made. One or two glimpses of him we may here borrow, from a friendly and impartial observer, who shows him to us doubtless as he appeared to those who were not of his inner circle. Mr. Alexander Strahan, so often mentioned by Lucy Smith, contributed to the "Day of Rest" for August, 1881, as one number of " Twenty Years of a Publisher's Life," a sketch of William Smith ; and from it we quote the most descriptive passages. Tt was either late in 1861 or in the beginning of 1862 that one forenoon Mrs. Smith called at my office. As I went for- 40G WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. ward to meet her, I noticed, a step or two behind her, a slightly- built gentleman, somewhat below the middle height, and no longer young, though at the same time not showing age much. He had stopped in following Mrs. Smith, and was, in fact, look- ing disturbed, and as if, on the whole, he would rather be on the other side of the door. I scarcely needed telling that I at length saw the author of " Thorndale." The shyness which he showed was shyness of a very peculiar kind. After the first minute, it did not pain an observer to witness it. Hardly could it be said that as you talked on it passed away ; it, in some de- gree, stayed, but you came not to take it into account. A smile of perfect graciousness began to flit over his face, and the bright dark eyes met yours fully, in no way shrinking from looking into your mind, and quite ready to be looked into. But for the eyes, the face scarcely could be called impressive, though it grew more and more interesting as you gazed. The forehead was not high, but was well-formed. I afterwards found that he might fairly be described as a brilliant talker, when he was once roused. At this earliest meeting, however, in spite of some un- concealed encouragement from Mrs. Smith, the remarks he made were very brief, though always prompt and given with a smile. The shyness, meanwhile, went a little, came back again, and afresh faded, but towards the close of the talk it was rein- stated in nearly full force on my venturing to allude to his writ- ings. I found that the diffidence could become an actual em- barrassment if one did not restrain the natural impulse to offer words of praise. But the instant the conversation turned away from himself, Mr. Smith's mind quieted again. Taken alto- gether, there was, as I now try to recall that first interview, something nearly boyish in Mr. Smith's bearing, a touch of old-fashionedness, as though he had strayed for a minute into this world out of another ; but it was another world which, if not so bustling as this, was kinder, and in which everybody was very sincere. Only in some such way can I try to explain to myself the readiness with which you felt at full ease with one who was so shy constitutionally. Mr. and Mrs. Smith were at this time living at Brighton, and I very willingly accepted a kind invitation that I should visit them there. Some months passed before an opportunity for the visit of- THINKER AND LOVER. 407 fered, and when it did, and I was shown into the pleasant lodg- ings they occupied, I was for a moment a good deal puzzled. The gentleman who hastily rose from a writing-desk to welcome me, eager to be prompt in his kind greeting, and yet a little shrinking from having to offer it, was Mr. Smith, and yet scarcely so. A second's gazing, helped by a smile which made the white teeth flash out in the centre of a heavy beard, ren- dered it all plain ; when I previously saw the author of " Thorn- dale," he wore only very short whiskers on the upper part of the cheek. A beard does not greatly alter some faces, but there are others which it nearly transforms, and William Smith's vis- age belonged to the latter class. During that too short visit I first learned what a radiant gayety could be shed out of his strangely shy heart upon all around him. I should not be jus- tified in trying to picture the idyllic scene which their hearth then, as always, presented to the visitor. But the remembrance of it is very pleasant to those who ever witnessed it. Many people, who had not thought out its likelihood beforehand, would have been surprised to find that an acute ethical thinker and recondite metaphysician could be so merry in a large part of his talk. True, it alternated. In the midst of the light wit some very serious reflection would from time to time peep out ; even though, in the fashion of its utterer, it hurried to hide itself again. The general impression produced upon you was that you were in the society of a perfectly original man ; one who valued at very little most of the honours and the possessions prized by people in general, but who had deliberately stepped aside from the ordinary ambitions, to give himself up to think- ing everything out for himself, and living in his own self- prompted way, undisturbed. ... It may have the trivial interest which belongs to even the peculiarities of notable men to set down among these brief memories of Mr. Smith that, on our reaching home, he, and not Mrs. Smith, at once proceeded to concoct tea. I hardly think that word too elaborate for the occasion, since the process itself was laborious, careful, minute. It was throughout accompanied by a half -jocose running commentary on his part, but this make- believe at fun was not allowed to interfere in the least with the serious proceeding. Nobody but himself, he semi-pathetically 408 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. said, would take the pains to make tea properly. Then came some solemn explanations as to the rules which were necessary to be rightly observed ; these, I think I can remember, involved a preliminary warming of the pot, a catching the water for the infusing at just a particular state of ebullition, the allowing the herb to " draw " for only a given number of minutes, or perhaps it was seconds ; and I know not what other critical ceremonies. The result, I may state, was very satisfactory ; and Mr. Smith evidently enjoyed it as much as Dr. Johnson himself could have done, though a smaller number of cups satisfied him. . . . From this time I usually saw Mr. Smith whenever he came to London, and some matters of financial business brought him up to town at fixed periods. On one of these occasions, I, though not without a little trouble, got him to accept an invita- tion to spend an evening with me at my home in Bayswater, to meet some friends of my own. These included, among others, Dr. Norman Macleod, who had expressed to me a strong wish to make the acquaintance of William Smith. It was curious, and I may perhaps be allowed to say a little amusing, to note the author of " Thorndale's " shy demeanour among the group of admirers he found himself surrounded by. There was, I should say, not one present who did not feel intellectually in- debted to him, and it was not very unnatural that they should wish to acknowledge this to him, and to offer him their thanks. But a compliment always alarmed William Smith. I saw him, in a flutter of mental distress, turn his looks away from first one and then another, who had only inflicted on him the injury of offering him praise. I went to his help, and tried to protect him against this paying of compliments, which most men would have given much to receive. As I now think of him, William Smith stands out a very dis- tinct figure in the circle of that evening. There were men there well known in literature, some more conspicuously public than he ; but none of the others so differed from each other as he did from them all. I should suppose that, so far as mere money rewards went, he had been the least successful of that group of writers. But every one of them showed him a kind of defer- ence. I fancy they all felt that this slight, dark-eyed man, who was as diffident as he was able, and to whom neither achieve- THINKER AND LOVER. 409 ment nor age brought self-confidence, had made more personal sacrifices for letters than any other there, and in a certain sense had done their common vocation most honour, by pursuing liter- ature more completely for her own sake. Dr. Macleod, after some talk with him, took occasion to whisper to me, " Smith has more brains than all the lot of us, and a heart as pure as a woman's. I wish I could meet the man every day." Some such opinion, and some such wish as this, William Smith inspired in all who were brought into contact with him ; and this without seeking it, or even desiring it, anxious only that people would not talk of him, or think of him, but pass him by. It was not possible to lend yourself so entirely to his shyness. Some words, despite his silence and shrinking, were sure to fall from him, which sounded like things spoken from a higher plane of living, and you recognized in his simplicity a wise originality which witnessed to you that you were communicating with a stu- dent of the most perfect ideal type, who was dealing with the facts of experience at first hand, and so was able to dispense with conventionality. In his letters to Mr. Loomis, there are occasional touches of regret at his being, as he says, an " idler." The wish that he might have had more of active occu- pation, a freer mingling with men and women as his wife mingled with them, can hardly fail to occur to the reader. Whether his extreme seclusion was an innate necessity of his nature, it is in vain to ask. Nature, or circumstance, with how large an influence from voluntary acquiescence no one can say, had set him in a solitude of spirit, apart from his kind. Across the gulf his wife came to him like an angel, and made almost a heaven for him. She went freely to and fro, always closely compan- ioning him, but one also with her kind. But he, save for loving ties with some who were near of blood, had his only society in her. To the end, as at first, it was with him, " Thee, Nature, Thought that burns in me A living and consuming flame." 410 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. And in that element of thought lay his real communion with mankind at large. Whatever treasures he found there, he was eager to share. In action, in lineament in flesh and blood, so to speak he is somewhat shadowy to us, but in his books we feel the throb and thrill of the currents of his heart and brain. He completed no book after " Gravenhurst." Possibly he might have done so had he had the stimulus of a more marked success for that book and for "Thorndale." They found many admirers, lovers not a few, but hardly the unmistakable award of a genuine and great success. The wife's letters of later years tell that her husband had some feeling of discouragement from their want of suc- cess, and that once he said, " with such a light leaping up in the brown eyes," " They will reprint them when I am dead ! " Shyly as he shrank from open praise, he needed the encouragement of recognition. Every man who writes for the public needs and needs all the more if he be truly modest a fair measure of success, to cer- tify to him that his work is worth doing. This disappoint- ment, like earlier ones, was borne with equanimity ; even to the partner of his inuiost thoughts there was scarcely a complaint but it perhaps had an effect in preventing further attempts. Thenceforth, his principal work was a continuation of the reviews in " Blackwood." But he was always thinking, pondering, fascinated by the problems of existence and with occasional purpose of embodying the results. The nearest approach to such an embodiment was the three essays on " Knowing and Feeling." To these, after his death, his wife added a fourth, from his manuscript, and they are published as a treatise by them- selves in the volume which also contains u Gravenhurst " and the " Memoir." A severe task it is to read this " Knowing and Feel- ing: a Contribution to Psychology;" yet to the serious student a richly repaying task. The style is lucid, but the THINKER AND LOVER. 411 lines run along the abstrusest provinces of thought. It is an essay in psychology by the introspective method. The standpoint is that of the Evolutionist. Our author's ex- position begins at the dawn of human consciousness, and leaving on one side man's " poor relations," and perhaps his ancestors, he studies the progress of man as the development of twin faculties, knowing and feeling. Both sensation and cognition are present, he maintains, in the earliest rudimentary consciousness of man : along this double line he grows. Sensation flowers into pas- sion ; cognition at first the mere perception of a resist- ing substance encountered through the muscular move- ment of the body passes up through various forms of sense-perception into ever fuller knowledge of surround- ing objects. Passion and knowledge act and react on each other ; the original simple passions of love and hate, becoming objects of reflection, are discerned as of differ- ent worth; love is thereby encouraged, and hate is restricted. Revenge is slowly modified into justice, and justice rises into higher forms. Out of pleasure in the approbation of others, and suffering in their disapproval (a judgment and a feeling blended, both in those who exercise the approval or disapproval and in those who receive it), grows a sense of accountability, of moral re- sponsibility. While thought educates and purifies emo- tion, emotion renders back an equal service by stimula- ting thought. So there is a perpetual, orderly growth. The order is universal not even to the human will be- longs arbitrariness or caprice ; the action of the will is swayed by the antecedent conditions of the individual; and the compatibility of this view with a system of re- wards and punishments, and with moral development, is ingeniously and effectively set forth. This is a rough and imperfect hint of the main lines of thought. It is a treatise requiring such close study that we cannot to advantage illustrate it by large quota- 412 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. tion, as was practicable with " Thorndale " and " Graven- hurst." Its views are in line with modern knowledge, in sympathy with much that is current in modern spec- ulation, yet so independent and at points so divergent from the now prevalent philosophies that it cannot be classed under any of them. The author ranks himself neither with the sensational nor the intuitional school of psychology. As against the. former he maintains that an element of real knowledge coexists with sensation even in the earliest stages of human consciousness. As against the intuitional school, with its assertion that the mind is endowed from the first with certain highest truths, he holds that it is not in the earlier but in the later stages of human development that we must look for the most authoritative principles. The treatise, of about a hundred pages, shows in the last chapter, on " Our Passions " (supplied by the wife from the husband's manuscript), that the writer had in view a continuation into broader fields. The chapter be- gins, " Before we approach the problems of Sociology, we should frame for ourselves some distinct ideas of man as a social being ; " and it ends thus : " Having thus seen the elasticity and growth of human passion following, in short, human knowledge and change of outward circum- stance we are somewhat better prepared to enter on a survey of the past with some hope of dimly foreseeing the future." The frustration of this purpose is peculiarly tantalizing, because both in " Thorndale " and " Graven- hurst" the passages dealing with psychological analysis fall far short, in interest for the general reader, of what may be called the sociological chapters. There is much in the treatise, which, if assimilated and familiarized, yields very fruitful applications both to social administration and personal conduct. But the abstruse- ness of its fundamental lines, the remoteness from the familiar and homely interests of men, accords well with THINKER AND LOVER. 413 those moods of rapt absorption in which we see that our thinker passed much of his life, moods which he has portrayed graphically in the passage which his wife cites in the preceding chapter. At a single point we detach from the closely-wrought structure of the essays certain passages which touch a question of great practical moment. They occur in the discussion of the Will. The author's analysis of the Will beyond its primitive significance of " the relation be- tween the psychical and physical properties of man " resolves it into a combination of desire and knowledge. " A mere mental resolve to perform a certain action at a future time can be nothing but thought and desire, some combination of our old familiar elements of judgment and feeling." But that he recognizes a substantial reality un- der what is generally called free-will is made very clear. If the advocates of free-will only demand the acknowledg- ment of an intellectual energy which none of us can sound or fathom, and which is the last gift from the hand of God, I for one have no controversy with them ; that such energy must at each stage receive the conditions on which it works is also a truth which they, perhaps, on their side would feel bound to acknowledge. (Page 437.) But unquestionably modern knowledge does greatly limit that freedom of the will which was claimed when men knew less of the interdependence of body and mind. And it is of the highest interest to see how the new esti- mate can be adjusted to the moral necessities of the indi- vidual and the society. It is on this head that we cite some passages, whose large wisdom may be felt without committing ourselves to any theory on the nature of the Will. Though we assign to him to each individual man the in- divisible soul we are all in imagination so familiar with, is not this new entity itself reacted on by the material instruments it is 414 WILLIAM AND MARY SMITH. compelled to employ ? These nerves, this brain, are its slaves, and its tyrants also. They receive impressions or modifications from the very work they are engaged in, they grow this way or that by their very activity (growth which we call habit), and will at length perform work only of one kind. So the past comes to determine the present. In this, or some other way, man finds out that there is within his own little kingdom of mind, or self, an evolution, in which what has been determines what will be ; determines it to us, to our apprehension, who see only the growth, and cannot dive down to the grower, whether of the plant or the mind. If this be so, the startling reflection occurs, What becomes of our moral responsibility ? Do we not punish this or that scoun- drel in the firm faith that it depended on himself, at every mo- ment of his life, whether he would be a scoundrel or not ? How can I continue to punish him, or to punish him with the same sense of justice, if I am to believe that he grew into a scoundrel by the laws of nature laws somewhat more complicate, but of the same kind, that grow a tiger or a domestic dog ? And, moreover, if I myself am the person punished, in what spirit am I to receive my punishment? Good for the whole, you say. A necessity is imposed on society to punish, and it is a necessity for me to submit. Perhaps I may profit by it. But what of this sentiment of remorse of self-reproof ? If crime was a misfortune or a misery in some other man, it was but a misfor- tune and a misery in me. (Pages 373, 374.) Presuming we have arrived at the conclusion that mind and matter, psychical as well as physical qualities, are all parts of one stupendous scheme, parts of that harmonious whole we ascribe to the Infinite Power, which again manifests itself to us in that whole presuming that some such philosophical doctrine were generally accepted, what would be its influence on our moral sentiments ? I can well understand that a man with very vague notions about desert and punishment might, on first becoming acquainted with such a philosophy, be disposed to extract from it an excuse for self-indulgence. He has offended some one, who threatens punishment, and he pleads the necessity of the case, that "he could not help it " that, in short, his passions were too strong THINKER AND LOVER. 415 to be controlled. Some such colloquy as the following might take place : "But you could help it," the offended man might retort. " You had the two courses of conduct placed before you, and you chose this" *' Very true ; I chose. But then, as you know, I had certain habits and tastes, and but a certain amount of knowledge. I could not choose otherwise." " It was your duty not to let such habits and tastes, as you call them, become predominant. It is the first purpose of every intelligent man to form his own character ; you had the power to watch over yourself, and to check your* self-indulgences." " True again ; but you know as well as I do that I could not exercise a supervision over my own habits and tastes, with a view to the formation of my own character, unless I had this very purpose of forming a character. My power here is simply an acting or thinking under the influence of such a purpose. Now no such purpose has ever grown up in me, or it has been a plant of an extremely feeble description. I have been chiefly occupied with such chance pleasures they have been few enough that came within my reach. You, I believe, have had this solemn purpose of forming a character ; I congratulate you upon it ; in me it has not been evolved." Here the offended man will probably break off the colloquy. " All I can say is this," he will ultimately reply, " that if you do it again I will so punish you that you will choose better for the future." And if this is an earnest threat it will very likely be effectual, and lead to some better choice on the next occasion. It may also lead our tyro in philosophy to some reflection on the nature of punishment. Based on the past deed, its operation is really prospective. It stands between the past and the future. It is, in short, an instrument of education ; a coarse instrument, but indispensable. Moreover, even the offended man, when his anger has sub- sided, may gather something from such a colloquy. He, too, will be led to reflect on the nature of vice and its punishment. He knows that in some extreme cases society can think only of self-defence. It either exterminates the criminal or incarcer- 416 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. ates him, just as we are compelled to shoot a tiger or shut it in a cage. But these cases excepted, he too will note that punish- ment is in its nature a mode of education, and a mode not to be resorted to while there are other blander or more effectual modes within reach. What gain could it be to an individual to relieve him from punishment on the plea that passion and habit were too strong for him, and that he " could not help it ? " The more need that society should come to his aid and help him " to help it." What are any of us without the control of society ? Look into the village school. Here is an idle boy who lounges, and sulks, and slumbers over his book. In fact, he is fat, and lethargic in his temperament. A physiologist will sug- gest good reasons for his indolence. He cannot help it. Left to himself he cannot. But the schoolmaster comes to his assist- ance, applies reproof, shames him in the eyes of his fellow- pupils ; if need be, applies the cane. The boy struggles through his task. Thus stimulated, he becomes intelligent of something beyond marbles and peg-top. Would it have been kindness, would it have been well, for him or the community, if the plea *' he could not help it " had been listened to, and the lethargic temperament left in undisputed predominance ? It was pre- dominant, and for that reason, doubtless much to his regret, the schoolmaster was compelled to administer the sharp stimulant of the cane. (Pages 377-380.) Public punishments, such as are administered by the laws, are administered by the whole society, by the whole community, for its own interest and self-preservation. I have heard it asked, Why should a man be punished as an example for others why should he be sacrificed to the good of society ? And there- upon I have heard the querist endeavour to satisfy himself by some eternal fitness between punishment and crime. The cul- prit deserved, and therefore he was punished. The culprit de- serves no punishment at all, unless you can prove, first, that he committed the crime ; and, in the second place, that the pun- ishment of it is for the good of society. It is precisely this very element of the good of all that makes the punishment a right- eous punishment, that makes it deserved, that makes it justice, THINKER AND LOVER. 417 and not mere revenge. The man punished is one of the all. Would he renounce this solidarity? (Page 381.) As in punishing a criminal we put ourselves between the past and the future, punish the deed done to secure a better doing for the future, so we must desire the criminal also to put himself between the past and the future, to reproach himself for the deed done, and at the same moment resolve on better life for the future. We have no desire that he should inflict misery on him- self ; that leads to no good result. If it were possible for him to rest wholly in his remorse for the past, the sentiment would be of no avail. Penitence that leads to better life is the noblest of sentiments ; but it is noble in proportion as the sad penitent directs his steps to wiser courses. A remorse that shuts a man up for self-torture does not commend itself to us. " You have done wrong ; you know it and you feel it ; go now and do right ; show your sorrow in your better life." That is the language we expect to hear from the lips of intelligent men. Remorse that contemplates any other expiation than the better life for the future leads to superstitious practices. Again and again has society witnessed this spectacle : men and women have had re- morse, have expiated their vices by some self-torture, some ret- ributive punishment self-inflicted, and gone back into society ready to reproduce the same vices. There is no expiation for an old crime but a new virtue. (Page 382.) With maturer intellect he comes to understand how individu- als grow each in his own environment ; he becomes more toler- ant of the criminal, less tolerant of the crime; he wants to attack this last in every way imaginable stifle it,- if possible, in its birth. Morality takes the shape of a great desire desire of excellence in others and in himself desire of a completed society to be obtained only by the cooperation of each member of it. For such is the nature of the human hive. It forms the individual, yet itself is only an assemblage of individuals, each leading his own intelligent and passionate existence. Add, too, that such desire is sustained by the knowledge that it is shared with other minds around him, who will esteem and love him in proportion as he possesses and acts upon it ; sus- tained also by the knowledge that it is one with the laws of God. 418 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. Surely, to believe that God has created a world which pro- gresses in part through the progressive purposes of man will not check the growth of such purposes. (Page 383.) Our thinker is as he is, and cannot be made otherwise. If he urges unrestingly the intellectual probe, plies perpet- ually his tools of analysis, to do so seems a necessity laid upon his spirit. And beautiful is it to see how his separation and helplessness amid the ordinary world of men wakes in the wife's heart a special tenderness, like a mother's for a child. She has told us that a successful and. prosperous man could scarcely have won the unre- served homage of her nature, but she gave it all to this lonely thinker. Her admiration for him, and delight in his society, blends subtly with her perception of his utter need of her care-taking. His incapacity to fit himself to the actual world is perfectly illustrated by one incident which she tells to his honor : how, while poverty seemed an insuperable barrier to the union for which they both longed, he was offered employment in translation, at a compensation of three hundred and sixty pounds, wealth, for such modest wants as theirs. But, " he needed the time for his own thinking," and he felt u a certain in- sincerity " in translating an author whose opinions differed from his own ; so there is no sign of even considering the offer ! A sort of celestial child this, straying quite help- lessly among the paths of earth. But he is not forgotten of Heaven, which sends him for his guardian angel one who shall be as it were both wife and mother. A divine impulse it is which urges her to make good to him every lack. He starves for society she will be to him society ! To his thoughts the world does not greatly care to listen her ear welcomes every whisper. " Thou art my gold, thou art my fame ! " those words are her passport to the woman's heaven. At the outset she does indeed at- tempt some gentle urgency she speaks of it as " some conventional prompting," but surely a most wifely im- THINKER AND LOVER. 419 pulse it was to draw him into a more active world. But he makes characteristic reply, and she loyally accepts thenceforth his mode of life, not only as his necessity, but as fit and best. Nay, so perfectly does her nature mould itself to his, and so absolute is the satisfaction he yields to her, as if heaven had decreed that to her soul alone should be fully opened all that spiritual beauty in him which expressed itself to others only in bright transient glimpses, so complete is this union of two in one that she finds their dual solitude the supremely happy condi- tion. " The gift of God," and His lovely miracle ! The intensity of her love for him is apparent in every word she utters, but its nobility is appreciated only when we see how sweetly she accepts the fact that his deepest interest is fastened on the unseen realities. There is something in their union that recalls Milton's line : " He for God only, she for God in him." To be in that sense second in his thoughts, while he is first in hers, breeds no dissatisfaction in her. The quality in him which inspired her homage is illus- trated to us by nothing better than his unvarying tone of sweetness and reverence toward that world of humanity in which he could never play an active part. Over-fine he seems for this world, but never a word do we catch of complaint against it as rough or harsh or coarse. If he finds small place for visible usefulness, he takes blame only to himself. He lives in a surging and troubled time: faiths and doubts, nationalities and classes, are clashing and jostling ; on that sublime strife his eyes and heart are fixed. His voice is not much listened to, what matters that ? To see that the movement of man- kind is forward, and God-led that absorbs him, that is enough for him. " Well roars the storm to them that hear A deeper voice across the storm." 420 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. Yet we can see that even in his estate of happiness he feels in some degree the shadowing presence of life's un- answered questions. Her letters show that there are hours when she too feels the shadow's presence, the intense, the even painful longing for a clearer knowledge of the truth. We recognize that her transition, under her hus- band's guidance, from old beliefs to new ones, is not certainly in its immediate results an entire gain. In the creed of her youth, as she held it, the elements of cruelty and terror were practically ignored, or received only some dim theoretical assent. What Christianity essentially means, to such natures as her mother and her- self, is an unselfish rule of life, the sense of a fatherly care (" our Father knoweth what things we have need of"), and the soul's absolute safety in a Divine lover and Saviour the " Rock of Ages cleft for me." We miss, in the ways of thought into which she followed her hus- band, the nearness and tenderness of that personal trust. The outlook is wider: whatever of beneficent destiny is discerned is for the whole of mankind, instead of a frac- tion of it; "there is no outside to our Father's house." But, that word " Father " no longer rises spontaneous toward the supreme Power. It is revered, studied, obeyed, but can it be loved? Is there longer possible that " perfect love which casteth out fear ? " Such doubts, we see, send sometimes a deep shiver even through the peace of this happy pair. Doubts they should be called, not denials. Nor does the relinquishment of the old creed necessarily involve the permanent loss of that temper which accompanied and glorified it. The filial spirit in man toward his Creator is not the exclusive pos- session of any theology. How much that is filial mani- fests itself in this thinker what reverence, obedience, submission ! But there is a certain glad confidence, a trust which is joyful where submission is only humble and this " faith " is at the heart of the New Testament, THINKER AND LOVER. 421 breaking out there, in such words as " Beloved, now are we the sons of God ! " " And if children, then heirs, heirs of God, joint-heirs with Christ ! " May we not say that such faith as this is a rightful possession of humanity, which, once acquired by the race, may be sometimes ob- scured, but always victoriously reasserts itself, deepens, and through the passing chill of changing thought emerges at last into warmer radiance ? Is it not this faith at the heart of the Christian Church, and even of Catholicism, which gives a vitality that no errors can quench ? And of this pious and beautiful thinker may we not surmise that it is an incompleteness and disproportion of life that hinders this confident gladness, this joyful trust ? Faith is nourished and exercised by Love and Action ; love he has found, but from action his life-long habit still bars him. The uplift in the universe, the present sustain- ing Divinity in man, is scarcely felt except by the soul that plies its energies as the strong swimmer breasts the waves. Service, hardihood, valor these win the great prize. " The Kingdom of Heaven is conquered and the stout-hearted make it their own ! " The shadow of the husband's uncertainties touches sometimes the wife on what thoughtful mind does not that shadow sometimes fall? But she is wrapped close and warm in a great love, a great happiness. " Love is of God ! " that always stands a rock beneath their feet. For the present need it suffices. It is perhaps not the completed and systematic treatise which best displays the personal lineaments of the author. These we seem to catch more truly, more distinctly, in the passing thoughts jotted down as they occur, and nearest resembling the spoken word, the every-day phrase and in- tonation. A few such thoughts taken from a collection copied by his wife from a note-book which she thinks be- longs to 1863 or 1864 may give us one more glimpse of this pure and delicate spirit. The passages are headed 422 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. Cornelius Winter loquitur. (The wife's handwriting is ordinarily a difficult one to read, but all of this note-book is copied with the clearness of copperplate.) POVERTY IN CITIES. The poor ragged woman, at night in the cold damp streets, is singing the same sweet air I heard at the Opera singing it after her fashion. She begs her bread by these strains, devoted to pleasure and love. She makes the most refined of melodies the wail of her own hunger and dis- tress. I know no wail of distress so utterly miserable as this. OPINION. There is no fetter like the golden opinion of soci- ety, no restraint more wholesome. Yet he who would be a prophet or a teacher must be able to throw this gold, like other gold, away. COURTIER AND VALET. The silent, deferential manner of a well-bred servant, valet, or butler, in the establishment of a no- bleman, is much the same thing as the manner of the nobleman himself when he figures as a courtier in the palace. Both are proud of playing their part well. In both there is a self-respect in their disciplined humility. In both the deference has as much of pride as humility. ASCETICISM. Asceticism is self control gone mad. The mor- alist repudiates the lower for the sake of the higher. The as- cetic thinks there is virtue in simple repudiation. Self-sacrifice is properly the choice of the highest, accompanied necessarily by a sacrifice of the lower. The ascetic separates what should be one act of choice, and finds a virtue in the self-renunciation alone. CONTENT. O children of men, he would say, is there not a heaven of beauty, by day and night, arched over you ! Can you not read herein the presence of your God ? How know you that in other regions his presence is otherwise made known ? He is visible always in his works can He be visible in any other way ? Aspire ! But you will aspire only to other skies. Aspire, but be happy under these, or under what other skies are you sure of happiness ? " The kingdom of heaven is within you." You live always in the Infinite as well as in the Finite. SNOWDON. You see the mountain, from the necessity of the THINKER AND LOVER. 423 case, must separate himself a little from the rest of the earth. Our Snowdon as he rises gets his shoulder out of the crowd. MORAL RULES. Here is an instance of their growth, though on a limited subject. In England it is a rule of commercial morality that the tradesman should have one price for all cus- tomers. No such rule is established in an Eastern bazaar. Each transaction is a separate bargain ; the morality of the market sanctions the best price that can be got; and the stranger must suffer from his ignorance. THE CULTUS. You may read in Prescott's History how the ancient Mexicans used to congregate in a public square, decked out in all their feathers, to greet the sun at his rising. They shouted as he rose. I prefer to open my casement silently, and to look out alone. HYPOCRISY. On the greatest subjects on which human be- ings can think, there ought not to be an habitual systematic hypocrisy. Nor is there amongst the multitude. But in our educated classes there is. But this is not to be wondered at. A free-thinker who does not see an absolute gain to society by the substitution of his own faith or opinion for the popular faith can have no motive for sincerity. There will be this hypocrisy till the moment comes when a new and simpler faith brings in some new enthusiasm on the side of virtue. TERROR. How have we been tortured into goodness. What a tragedy has here purified us by tears ! PROGRESS. I no more wish you to be eternally occupied with progress than forever occupied with your immortal state. Live your best do your best progress and immortality will take care of themselves. INDUSTRY. During the French Revolution a mob of men had somehow persuaded themselves that food and clothing were to be got out of Liberty and Fraternity. Liberty and Frater- nity may be excellent things, but they will not do the work of Industry. Food and clothing are not to be got out of political enthusiasm, however exalted. HEREDITARY SIN. I have read a statistical account which shows that two thirds of our criminal population were born of parents who themselves were more or less criminal belonged to the race of vagabonds and thieves. Apply your doctrine of 424 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. compensation here ! Who could demand it better than these criminals? The very ill temper, the hateful passion which made them criminals, are part and parcel of their miserable lot. NOBLESSE OBLIGE. They who see must get out of the way of the blind. The blind cannot take care of them. EPITAPH engraved under the image of a lute : Placet, Tacet, Jacet. It speaks, however, of regret only and the past. At the boun- dary between this world and the next, two conflicting streams of sentiment meet; combine they do not, but they possess the mind in turn. Our friend is dead our friend is living ; he is lost he has but gone before ; we weep, we rejoice ; we believe at the same time in death and immortality. Two PRAYERS. The weak in their despair at the injustice of the strong called upon the gods to help them. And the gods heard their prayer. They sent a fear upon all human hearts, and one that crushed the wicked in his pride of strength. The time has come when the violence of wicked men is sub- dued and strength lies with the many and peaceful. Mean- while this fear haunts the gentle and the meek. They pray to the gods to relieve them from it. And this prayer also the gods I think will hear. DOUBT. Doubt is distressing, I admit. One says, Revelation has removed the distress. It has increased it. Still more dis- tracting doubts arise about this revelation. But even augmented thus, better the doubt and the free career of reason, than a truth and a command subjecting the reason. THE YOUNG LEAF. Our fruit-trees generally send forth their blossoms first, before the leaf, apparently that these may have the full benefit of the sun. An apple orchard is one cloud of pink and white blossoms a dazzling picture. But I like better the more ordinary procedure when the young leaf comes out alone upon the bough, and in its uncertain tint of gold or green itself seems half blossom and half leaf. And see, when you approach and look closer into it, how the young leaf rests partly coiled up in some sheath like the young of living creatures, gathering I know not what of tenderness out of its very imperfection. It was fortunate for him that the gentle Brahmin who first made it religion not to destroy an insect did not carry his amiable THINKER AND LOVER. 425 disposition one step further and feel that he could not hurt the young budding leaf. I feel myself something of the same re- luctance to crush a bud as to kill an insect. FROM THE GERMAN OF UHLAND. She came she went a fleeting guest, And trackless in our busy land. Whither ? and whence ? From rest to rest, Out of God's hand into God's hand. CHAPTER XXVIII. PARTING. (From the Memoir.) IN the early autumn of 1870 my husband was for a time less uniformly well than usual teased with nettle- rash, less up to long walks. Yet there seemed nothing to alarm though I remember his saying one day when we were talking over our Swiss rambles of five years before, " I could not do those things now. La Sante is going down." And then in his tender pity he instantly added, " Let us hope only very gradually." I cannot retrace the slow and stealthy course of his illness. / cannot I did so more than a year ago, and that account, with a few additions, shall be repeated here. [In October her husband had one night a shivering fit, which was followed in the succeeding months by several others. They were at first attributed to the flooded con- dition of the meadows ; but when they recurred during a stay at Aberdovey and then at Brighton, they caused some alarm.] I may mention that the tenth anniversary of our mar- riage (the 5th of March, 1871) found us at Brighton. I had been spending three or four days with a dear friend in London, but returned on the Saturday, in spite of a great possible treat on the Sunday (luncheon with Mr. and Mrs. Lewes), because that Sunday was our dear an- niversary, and I could not have borne it to find us sepa- rated. This time its return made us low. Ten years! There was something solemn about the closing of that PARTING. 427 term. My own depression during several of those March days was quite unusual, and I remember his saying to me, " Ten years ! I used to think if I could have ten happy years ! And I have had them." And in the January of 1871 he had put in my pocket-book, where he always wrote my name, " One happy decade over will another, will half of another, be granted?" Till then these inscrip- tions had been so joyous. To Miss Mary Wrench. BRIGHTON, April 11, 1871. . . . The s are close to us, but 1 shall not attempt to see much of them. I know what the young who are in society think of an ill-dressed relative of the name of Smith. I remember my own youth, and while I blush in my soul at some of its wants of moral courage and shrink- ing from incongruity, I at least draw a lesson from it. They may look in some afternoon, and I shall call there in the evening, and have a pleasant chat I dare say. . . . We go this evening to Clara's. Oh dear, how glad T was I did not go with the party to sit on end in the Stand. Your uncle William and I saw everything so charmingly vilely dressed, both of us, and not knowing a soul, we were like two creatures out of the body, and entirely given up to impressions from without. We were on our legs four good hours, and much amused. Prince Arthur has a very nice face. I had my little glass, and I inspected him leisurely, just as your granny would have done. In youth, how many enjoyments I can recall spoilt by reflex action, so to speak self coming in either that one was dissatisfied with one's appearance, or something. We two see things now very comfortably. BRIGHTON, April 17, 1871. . . .'1 've no doubt M. is radiantly happy, and there is something very sweet and maidenly and unegotistical in 428 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. not dwelling upon it but I know I am a dweller my- self ! However, I can admire other types fully. I really cannot tell you what Constance R. is, and how gloriously Polly R sings. Their collie dog Laddie, black and tan with just a white shirt frill, human eyes, and manner of high distinction, is equally inexpressible. . . . This evening William goes in there with me how I hope he will un- derstand my enthusiasm. . . . Of course we are all bet- tering or worsening, and I can understand dear Mrs. is not in the happiest phase just now. Trying to get too much out of an income is destructive to character. BRIGHTON, May 5, 1871. ... A fortnight ago I was walking back from Clara's when I passed a blind man. Now there are such numbers of them here one's heart gets hardened, and I never like to have money about me lest I should be betrayed into the very great sin for so I believe it to be of giving it to tramps or otherwise frittering it away. But there was a dejection about this blind man's attitude that sent a thrill through one, and I looked back, and then there was nothing for it but going to speak to him. He was a navvy who had lost his sight a year and a half ago when working for a Mr. , a great London contractor, in one of the great drains. He was very straightforward in his tale, and seemed to think that if only Mr. could be got at, and he be interceded for, something would be done for him. Mr. had been staying in Brighton, but was gone. Well this was on a Friday ; on Saturday I got Mr. 's London address from a house agent, and on Monday went off to the poor man, but could not find him looked for him three times in vain. A week later I was driving with Clara when I discerned him in quite another part of the town. He wished me to write for him to Mr. , and I did so. I had several talks with him, and got to know his history, and all about the clothes in PARTING. 429 pawn, and what he wanted. He is a stalwart man of forty-seven ; a hard-working, well-paid, independent, well- off, active man, a year and a half ago ; now a poor waif and stray, shivering in the cold sea air, moved on from pillar to post by the police, with a placard on his broad chest setting forth his case, utterly lonely in the great crowd, with no one to care for him, obliged to shelter in a low lodging-house, with nothing to look to but a gradual wasting away and deepening misery here below. Poor dear John Matthews ! He is a Devonshire man, and I am sure a truthful as well as a more than ordinarily intelli- gent one. Yesterday Mr. 's answer came, and alas, he considers that he has done enough. He gave some- thing in the winter, and it was owing to his insistency that he got a twelve shillings a week allowance for weeks and weeks, then six shillings. John M. has been in hospital after hospital, under all manner of doctors, trying all manner of treatment the result, perfect blindness ! You may imagine how it went to my heart to read him the cold, stern denial. In his darkness, help from Mr. appeared to have become a fixed idea with him that, and to go to his own parish. At first he bore up manfully tried to put it away but the disappointment was too great, and the once strong frame heaved, and the sightless eyes overflowed, and he broke down utterly, and oh, my child ! if you had heard his exceeding bitter cry, " My punishment is greater than I can bear," you would have felt your heart torn as mine was. I could have taken him in my arms, but for the people. That 's so wretched I do go when everybody is at luncheon, but there are always children or somebody about. All his anguish made its way, and oh, the unspeakable pathos of it ! Well William says he shall have a sovereign (so kind of him, when he has not seen the man) and I am much mis- taken if Clara does not send another and I Ve got half a crown from Miss (I declare I did it more for her 430 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. sake than his), and we shall get his poor, good clothes (the evidence of his past honourable because hard-working pros- perity) out of pawn, and he shall go off to his Devonshire parish to the workhouse, alas ! but he thinks they '11 give him out-door relief, and perhaps he can board with one of his brothers anyhow he wishes this. To-day I must go and see him I think he 's got to feel me a friend and to-morrow I shall hear from Clara, and something final will be done. My own is gone to-day to the Acad- emy, and wanted me to go with him. But I had had my treat at the Old Masters, and I could not. I would rather give that poor fellow an hour's glow at the heart if indeed such a blessing could be granted me than see all the pictures that were ever painted. 1 How glad I shall be to have my owTiest back again! Now you and my darling Edith are not for a moment to fancy I want a penny for the poor fellow. I only mention it because it has been uppermost in my mind. I only wish I had seen him before I rigged myself out. It may be satisfactory to you to know I have spent ten pounds upon my gar- ments, and feel rather remarkably well dressed ! [In May they went to Ilkley in Yorkshire, to try the effect of a more bracing climate.] (From the Memoir.) He seemed well, but not peculiarly well there. Never shall I forget one misty, gray evening when we stood watching the sun set behind the low hills, and he, his dear eyes fixed wistfully on the west, said, as though thinking aloud, "The summers will be few." I think, however, this was less the language of definite apprehension than of that vague yearning melancholy we all know. When the die was cast, the charm of the moors began a little to gain upon us ; but we could not have secured a house to his 1 Her friendly help accomplished more than she hoped ; in a hos- pital the man's sight was partially restored. PARTING. 431 taste, and he was even more pleased than I to find himself again in the old home at Newton Place, the favourite study. Eleven days of intense enjoyment succeeded. He at once sat down to the little desk in the old corner, and rapidly wrote the last article of his that ever appeared in " Blackwood's Magazine " one on the " Coming Race." I remember his saying one day as he laid down the book, " I should not wonder if it was written by Bulwer." I occupied myself meanwhile with giving to the little room where I sat during his busy morning hours more of a home look than heretofore (indeed, we planned making Newton Place more of a permanent home, and collecting there all our small and scattered possessions), and so I sent for books long left in Edinburgh, for William's bust, etc. We had blissful walks to see all his favourite haunts in their fresh beauty ; we were never more gayly, light- heartedly happy. On the evening of the 5th of June, I walked into Keswick, and on the way back I met him. He was coming along so very quickly, looked so boyish, I may say, in figure and tread, I could hardly believe at a distance it was he ; but soon I saw the white teeth shine out saw the radiant smile that always greeted me, and never more fully realized the old ever-new joy of putting my arm through his, and hearing and telling all that an interval of three hours (a long interval to my conscious- ness) had brought to each. He had had a visit from his friend Dr. Lietch. " Did Dr. Lietch think him looking well ? " " Yes ; he had noticed that he seemed in very good health." That verdict was another delight. There was nothing to disquiet me that summer evening ! In the night a very protracted shivering-fit came on. The fol- lowing day he was really ill. And now began a period of restless wretchedness, upon which I hardly know how to dwell restless wretchedness of my own only ; for while fever-fit followed fever-fit, and began visibly to sap his strength, he never admitted that there was any necessity 432 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. for alarm, and strenuously resisted advice or change of place. To Miss Mary Wrench. NEWTON PLACE, June 27, 1871. ... I say to myself, " What am 1 that I should not suffer ? " I think of the suffering of others try to think of it and the good I have received at the hand it may be decrees me sorrow. Oh, I pray to bear well, that he may not be saddened. It is easy to be loving and kindly when we are happy. Sorrow isolates draws an icy shroud about our hearts and it is hard to love any- thing but the one who suffers. I can but cry "I have no language but a cry " for patience and meekness. But I do see just a something to-day that makes tears come easier to me, and anguish less bitter. He has no pain that is a blessing. He says " we shall smile again," in his own dear way. (July 5.) He looks so sorry for me looks at me, and says to the old and faded woman, " Sweet, sweet Lucy ! " He is fading away from before me. [A change of place was thought desirable for the inva- lid, by his wife and Dr. Lietch, and with Mr. Constable's help the arrangements had been made for a removal.] To Miss Mary Wrench. NEWTON PLACE, July 27, 1871. Yesterday when I came down to breakfast, he reported himself much better, and I saw that irresolution about a move was setting in ! I will not enlarge upon it, but it was a dreadful trial. . . . My dear one went off by the omni- bus for a drive, and oh, how I wrestled with the irritation as well as the anguish of his resolve to stay on here so as to go and meet him with a smile. For after all, as that great writer says, " Love is of no value, without a larger power of living in the experience of others." And his point of view is not unreasonable. He thinks less of PARTING. 433 change of air than I do, and more values the comforts this house gives him the freedom, the quiet, the nice cook- ing, the punctuality. Oh, my chick, it is hard to get rid of self ! It is / who suffer by remaining, but perhaps there are advantages for him. Be that as it may, I will not struggle any more. I feel to-day quite quiet per- haps through exhaustion from fruitless efforts, but also I think from something of a well-grounded hope that he may recover here. . . . He is so all in all to me, and not only my happiness, but my shelter and my moral support. What dearest Mrs. Jones says in her last letter of Mrs. is so true : 4% The want of the large mans mind in the house is so felt ; subjects of irritation that he would never have allowed grow so prominent." With him to sustain me by his wiser, better, higher nature, I cannot degrade, as without him I feel I might. I dare not con- template the awful desolation. (From the Memoir.) At the end of September came two shivering-fits, but they were not succeeded by illness, and October passed over us, bringing, as it seemed, still further amendment. His mental energy was unimpaired, his power of writing, 1 1 It was during this happy respite that William wrote his last article on Mr. Greg's Political Essays. Originally intended for the Magazine, with the views of which, however, it was not found quite in accord it appeared in the Contemporary of June, 1872. I give its closing paragraphs, a fitting last utterance for one al- ways so reverent of labor, and so interested in the progress of the labouring classes : " No one doubts, we presume, that, in spite of fluctuating or oscil- lating movements, or long- stationary periods, there is observable through the past ages a progress of humanity. And since this prog- ress, speaking broadly, is one with the enlarged scope and increased activity of the human mind, and especially with that activity which increases actual knowledge of nature and ourselves, and since this mental activity cannot be expected to come suddenly to an end, since the increase of knowledge, especially of external nature, seems 434 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. his spirits, had entirely returned ; the most marked differ- ence was that he did not run up-stairs two steps at a time, as till this summer he had invariably done. at this hour to be advancing with accelerated speed, we may surely predict that there is yet a course of progressive development lying before us. Of what precise nature, it would be indeed hazardous to predict. The knowledge yet to be acquired, the additional inven- tions and expedients of a future age, its modified passions, its new sentiments, cannot be known to us now. But we know that scientific knowledge, as a general rule, leads to improvements in industrial art, and thus multiplies those products which render life agreeable and civilized. A larger number enjoying all those advantages of temper- ate pleasure and healthful occupation, of amenity of manners and culture of mind, which only a minority enjoys at present this alone would be an immense progress, and this we may venture to proph- esy. " It is as if the student of botany and vegetable physiology had the growth of a plant exhibited before him up to a certain point, and had to predict how it would grow on. Something he has gathered of the laws of vegetable growth, and he doubts not that it will grow higher and put forth fresh leaves like those which it has already pro- duced. But let us say this plant has not yet blossomed, how is he to foretell what the blossom will be, or what the fruit will be ? The student of humanity is in some such position. He has half the growth before him ; how is he to predict the other half ? Precisely he can- not. But he, too, knows something of the laws or method of human growth. Like the botanist he can say of this plant that it will grow higher, and expand its branches, and multiply its leaves. What if there is a blossom and fruitage yet to come ? Of that he can say nothing. An evolution still in the future cannot enter into science, since it does not enter into knowledge at all. " Even this superficial and rapid survey of what may be acquired by studying man in history may indicate how such acquisitions may aid, or guide, or console us, when we are involved in certain of our social and political problems. We find the artisan and the labourer urging their claim to be admitted within the inner circle of civilized life. They urge it rudely, perhaps prematurely ; they occasion alarm and con- sternation by their clamour and their threats. Nevertheless that they do urge their claim is a good augury. It is the right desire, and in- dicates that some step has been already made towards its fulfilment. And that general progress of society in art and knowledge, on which we can most securely calculate, is of such a nature as to guarantee PARTING. 436 Early in November William caught cold. It did not threaten to be even a severe cold ; but just when I was rejoicing over its passing away, on the night of the ninth a terrible shivering-fit came on. From this time his illness I can see now steadily advanced. But while what is the irrevocable past was still the fluctuating present, there were gleams of hope. Oh, how many hopes I was called upon to surrender ! He now began to lay more stress upon this persistent fever than he had ever before con- sented to do, and to notice the decline of his strength. He consented to leave Borrowdale for Brighton on the first of December ; sea-air we thought might be of use, and there further advice was to be had. . . . However, since change of place -did not work improvement, he <}id consent to see a medical friend, one who knew his con- stitution, and took the kindliest interest in his case. Here was the rising of another hope ! Tonics, opiates these he had made no trial of perhaps his system would re- spond to these ! The year ended with just a ray of light ; yet it was some time about its close that he one day said suddenly to me : " Oh, Lucy, we will go off together to the country, have done with medicines and doctors, and there we will calmly and quietly await the inevitable end, and we will love each other to the last." (I wonder now how I bore the agonizing terror of those days, as I should have wondered then how days of solitude and vain yearn- ing such at these could be borne !) And in my pocket- book for 1872, his last entry of my name is accompanied by these ominous words : " The new year has less of hope, its future fulfilment. The movement is one not to be absolutely and resolutely opposed, but the stateman's task is to moderate, guide, and render it safe. Task hard enough, it must be admitted. Much tur- moil and many terrors will probably attend the movement. But if ultimately what is most refined and enjoyable in human life should be participated in by the - hand-worker as well as the head- worker, this would not only be the extension of culture and happiness, but it would put our civilization on a broader and safer basis." 436 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. but more of love and gratitude, than any of its predeces- sors." [Little by little he grew worse.] But those anxious nights were not all unhappy ; he used to be not merely cheerful, but playful, during those sleepless hours. Noth- ing provoked a gesture or tone of impatience, still less a complaint ; but it was always the alleviations on which he dwelt : how comfortable the bed, the room, the firelight ! how delicious the beaten-up egg and sherry ; how pleasant to have the candle lit and placed beside him ; how pleas- ant to be warmly wrapped up, and to have book or news- paper given him to read for an hour or so ! It was about th? middle of January that he began to find the walks he ha$l persistently taken " do him more harm than good," tire him overmuch, and he now gladly consented to the drives his dear niece Clara was only too happy to offer him. In the days of health he preferred his own light, rapid walking to the most luxurious of carriages ; now the daily drive with the sweet, affectionate companion tender to him as a daughter, with whom he had all the ease of a father, could speak or be silent at will this became the greatest refreshment and pleasure. Oh, I thankfully record everything that made his last illness easier to him! In our happy days we had all, and abounded ; now, when we might for the first time have discovered that we were poor, loving hearts made their wealth minister to his comfort. How he used to watch for " the dear gray horses ! " In this way he got the fresh air, and saw the sea and the clouds. And when he came in, and had taken his luncheon, there was always an interval of comparative strength, and a short walk could still be enjoyed. ... I besought him to try at least what homoeopathy might avail in a case evidently not calculated for other treatment Dr. Allen, the kind friend who had hitherto attended him, gladly consenting. He, it appeared, had had no hope from the first. In his opinion the lungs PARTING. 437 were obscurely affected. Dr. Hilbers, the homoeopathic physician, thought the defective action of the heart was the chief danger. One thing was certain I see it now daily he wasted. The afternoons were the best part of the day the afternoons and the evenings. And dur- ing these he had frequently visits from congenial friends. One was a Mr. Carpenter, a remarkable man, philosopher and philanthropist, a man of most active benevolence and most fervent piety (not of the dogmatic kind), who had valued my husband's works before he came to know and still more highly value him. Mr. Carpenter's visits were always a pleasure ; and the two would discuss poli- tics and general questions with quite eager earnest. One day in February, Professor Maurice, an early friend of William's, not met for many years, made him a long call. During these winter months my husband had not only constant visits from two loved nieces, but he saw some- thing of three of his favorite nephews, and much enjoyed getting them to talk of their own lives. Never did he dwell upon himself never in health, never in illness ! He was self-forgetting to a degree I have not seen nor shall see equalled. It was the childlike attitude of lis- tener that bright intelligence usually chose to occupy. Yet sometimes, through all the weakness, there would be bursts of energy on some general subject a kindling of the old fervor against some social wrong or political blunder. Oh, how hard it was to realize that so much light was so soon to be quenched ! To Miss Mary Wrench. BRIGHTON, Feb. 4, 1872. I went to Dr. Hilbers' on Friday morning, dear kind Rebecca, a true sister, with me. I wish I could describe Dr. Hilbers to you. He is very tall I don't know how tall he would be but for a stoop with a curious awkward figure which doubles in two when he sits down. I take 438 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. him to be much the same man that Abraham Lincoln was ; very plain and unconventional, abrupt too, yet with some- thing singularly kind. I could get very fond of him. He has large, light, penetrating eyes, that seem to look into and through you, but with no sharpness that you dread rather such perfect understanding as " makes allowance for us all." His voice is gurgling, slow, and rather mel- ancholy. He comes and goes with no time wasted in cus- tomary greetings. A most real man, and I imagine and my own has just indorsed the suggestion very like one's idea of the murdered President. There is such an unconventionality about him that you would not mind anything would let room, person, or mind, be in disha- bille before him, with less embarrassment than any one al- most I ever saw. He is a man of large private fortune as well as in very large practice, and attends quantities of people gratis. The first time he came I think I told you how reluctantly he took a fee. The last time he was here he would not have it. But as I see no occasion, thank God, to go to him in forma pauperis, I said to William, " Give it me, and I '11 'warstle ' with him." When I went into the room, without rising out of his doubled position, " Well, how is he ? " he gurgled. I reported the good night, and the most rapid and effectual influence of the aconite. But I got no information except the inference that it is the watery condition of the blood, or in other words the tendency to dropsy, which is the great thing to dread. . . . Then I shook the fee into his great hand, and there was such a droll contest. He started up, held both my hands, and said "Look here, literary men are seldom rich are you well off ? " " Certainly," I said, " very we owe no man anything." " Is it important to you ? " " Not at all, at present." " Will you promise you will tell me when it becomes so?" "I will." And then with a look of disgust at my bit of white paper with its conventional coin, " / hate it" he said. And I, " I PARTING. 439 know you do, but you must confer the additional kind- ness of taking it. We are perfect strangers, and have no claim upon your time." " Look here I shall take better care of your husband if you don't give me fees. And come again come every day if you like you do like, don't you ? People always like a croak with the doctor." BRIGHTON, March 3, 1872. ... It was on Wednesday I posted a note to your dear mother, who was then ailing, but is, I hope and trust, bet- ter now. That afternoon Dr. Hilbers called, felt Wil- liam's pulse, and pronounced it better. And never shall I forget what I must call the divine benignity of the im- mense man's rugged face when he said this to me. I caught his great hand in both mine, and had such an im- pulse to kneel to him ! No, I never saw such a smile. Some one was telling Rebecca he had the largest body (he is six feet four), largest head, and largest heart in Brighton. I am sure his heart is exquisitely kind. I wish you could see him unconventional, with hat on his head and his hands in his pockets (I believe that this at- titude has become habitual through customary avoidance of fees he told me on Monday if I ever alluded to one again he would poison my husband !). Well, my darlings, he came again to-day. I stood at the door of the room and just saw him as he lounged off. But he did seem satisfied, does seem to think William a shade better did not tell me to go to him, but I think I shall to-morrow, just to know whether he seemed encouraged or was so. . . There are now so many little things that I can do for my cherished one, and he lets me go out with him, and I think likes me with him more constantly. Yesterday morning he said, " When I woke I was thinking what a comfort to have you there." My precious one ! He is as pleased to have me sleep, and as reluctant to wake me, as darling Granny herself. He was so delighted with Mr. Carpeu- 440 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. ter this evening and it came over me like a revelation how awful it would be to part with him. I am mercifully preserved from often realizing this. Dear Mr. Carpenter is so fond of him. On Friday I had him to myself for a little (William was up-stairs) and that is always such a relief, because with him I can cry. " My dear," he said to me, "how much you have to be thankful for in the beauty of his character, the bravery of him, the sweet- (From t/ie Memoir.) There were some signs of improvement during the month of February. . . I do not think, however, that I ever had any hope of actual recovery. I think I knew " by the love that was in my heart " what the end would be, but not how near. We had many dreams of another summer talking of Ilf racombe, Aberystwith ; once of Nairn ; nay, once of Men tone ! I am glad he had those floating thoughts, very thankful that the knowledge of how ill he was was mercifully kept back, or at least was not abid- ingly present to him. Certainly he grew more, rather than less, hopeful. But then I cannot distinguish be- tween what he spontaneously felt and what he wished to feel out of his tender compassion for me. On the 19th of February we went to London together ; he to receive his yearly dividends at the bank. The little trip entailed no fatigue; and though it often flashed across me that it might be our last, I think we were both rather cheered by it. That evening we counted up our income for the year to come, and he said " that everything was pleasant done together." I never knew in any man quite so felicitous a blending of generosity and prudence. " The only use of money is not to have to think about it," was one of his axioms. Eminently liberal in his repayment of all ser- vice rendered to him, giving whenever he could give with a childlike pleasure at the moment, and then an absolute PARTING. 441 forgetfulness, personal economy was, I believe, not dis- tasteful to him. " Plain living and high thinking." would have been his choice, as it was his destiny. In his play- fulness he would tell me that when we came into our for- tune (an imaginary 3000 a year that we used to argue about the disposal of), I should see how reformed a char- acter he would become in the matter of dress ; but I feel sure the old coat, old hat, old slippers, would have been equally clung to, and that our life could not have been rendered more completely satisfying by any increase of means. On the fifth of March, the eleventh anniversary of our marriage, we walked together on the West Pier walked briskly to and fro in the breeze and sunshine, and in shel- tered corners stood to watch the waves. That evening there came to Brighton General and Mrs. Cotton, two of the friends in whom he most thoroughly delighted* Gen- eral Cotton' s conversation he always spoke of as one of the greatest enjoyments procurable, and her brightness and charm now seemed peculiarly to refresh him. On the 13th, while preparing for his morning's drive, he said : " I am weaker than ever. It is vain to kick against the pricks." And then, with most pathetic playfulness, and calling himself by one of the myriad pet names I used in our happier days to invent for him, he declared he could be quite sorry for himself, could pity himself. I could not help saying, " And me I " And oh, the unuttera- ble compassion of his voice, the deep tenderness that rung out in his reply, " Infinitely ! infinitely ! " Then in a few moments he very solemnly and earnestly went on, " There is a power stronger than all our wishes and regrets, we must not let any angry or impatient feel- ings creep into our hearts, we must quietly and patiently yield." On the same day we took our last walk ; sat out, and looked together at sea and sky for the last time. On Fri- 442 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. day we moved to the house of his kind sister-in-law on the other side of the square. . . . When once the change was accomplished it was very affecting to notice his enjoyment of it. Sometimes, dur- ing the last few weeks, he had expressed his longing for a home, and now, one familiar to him for twenty years, and having only pleasant associations, was eagerly thrown open to him. All its comfortable arrangements gave him pleasure. In the cheerful bedroom we occupied, pictures of his kindred hung upon the walls ; and thinking of the peculiarly tender love between him and his mother, one is glad that the last chair he ever sat in should have been his mother's arm-chair. He seemed better that first evening at No. 1, and when General and Mrs. Cotton came as usual to spend it with him, told them he " felt himself in paradise since his move." Yet in the night, while I lay silently there hoping he was asleep, he suddenly said, " Your love supports me," and something in the almost solemn tone of the voice struck terror to my heart. The next day he had his breakfast in bed for the first time. But he enjoyed his drive, talked with animation to his companion, and insisted upon walking down to the din- ing-room for dinner. This too he did on the Sunday, but for the last time. For now the bodily strength ebbed rapidly. The last drive was on Tuesday the 19th, when he noticed with pleasure some beautiful streaks of light in the afternoon sky. I do not here enumerate the remedies tried. It is enough to say that nothing had the least effect in checking those paroxysms of trembling and breathlessness with sense of internal chill. Pain there was none. He would entreat me not to move, to fold him closely in my arms ; and so, with perfect cheeriness and hopefulness, thinking more of my alarm than any danger to himself, he bore one fever-fit after another till they had wasted him to a shadow. On Wednesday evening he looked sad as the PARTING. 443 familiar shudder came on at a new hour. " This dashes our hopes," he said. Yet he took the greatest pleasure that very evening in Mrs. Cotton's music. Music had been one of the passions of his earlier days. Of late he had got weaned from it, having a wife who did not play ; and, indeed, even when the opportunity arose of gratify- ing the dormant taste, he had seemed almost reluctant to do so. But now that he was getting too weak for much sustained conversation, the " refreshment " of the sweet, slow, flowing music the only kind he wished for was keenly felt ; and this enjoyment he had for several even- ings. It now became my privilege to wait upon him daily more and more. Little by little the singularly inde- pendent and self-helpful man came to permit his wife to do everything for him. But so perfect the sweetness of his nature, and so exquisite its courtesy, he never showed the least annoyance at this necessity ; he even made it a pleasure. The washing and dressing all gone through in bed now were got over in the cheerf ulest acknowledg- ment of every attempt to serve. On one of these morn- ings some sudden impulse made me say: "William, such love as mine for you cannot be the result of mere mechanical or vital forces, can it ? " And he replied, in a tone of conviction from which in my darkest hours I gain some support, " OA, no f It has a far higher source." It was still impossible not to feel- happy in his presence, and I knew I had the rest of my life for sorrow. Yet when I look back to myself at that time, I almost shudder to think that I could seem cheerful ! But he had more than once said to me that my cheerfulness was his greatest boon and delight ; and for weeks I had one wish only to soothe the path for him. I never spoke to him but with smiles, with almost gayety, to which he in- variably responded. His sensitive nature was peculiarly susceptible to gloomy looks, and besides, he had not given up all hope of recovery. On this point he seemed to have, 444 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. so to speak, a double consciousness. His knowledge of physiology must have told him of imminent danger ; and, indeed, many expressions of his showed that he under- stood his own case perfectly. Yet at other times there was the hopefulness that characterizes consumption. To Miss Mary Wrench. BRIGHTON, March 19, 1872. . . . He is all tenderness, thankfulness, serenity but oh, the end is drawing near ! He will meet it, thank God, with courage, but he would gladly recover. We were so happy, and no pain has come to wean, and he has great pity on my desolation. If it had been God's will ! But the cup that comes to all is at our lips now, and will not pass away. I try to bear I always can with him there is support and sweetness in our dear love even now. Whenever I go near him, it is to meet the sweetest smile and some loving word. (From the Memoir.) He continued to see friends to the last. Indeed, his nature seemed to grow more and more genial and gracious, more demonstrative of affection. The smile of welcome was warmer and as bright as ever. The dear nieces never had so many sweet and loving words to garner up in their hearts as during this last winter. For me he had a bound- less tenderness and pity. I have memories of love and blessing too sacred to my sorrow to be recorded here. I had thought I might give more of his gracious sayings. But I could not give the look, the tone ; it is best, as he once wrote of words of mine, to let them " just sink into the silence of one's heart." Yet those who value him as he deserved will be glad to know that even his exceeding humility did not prevent his realizing that he was, and had long been, the object of an exceptional affection. On one of our last days he said to me, " Yours is a great love. PARTING. 445 I do not believe there ever was such another." And an- other saying of his will prove that however inferior to him, his constant companion was still sufficing. During one of the last nights, fixing the large dark eyes always beautiful, but never so beautiful as now very earnestly on mine, he said, " I think you and I should make a happy world if we were the only two in it." On the morning of Tuesday the 26th, Mr. Carpenter saw him. They talked politics, discussed the " Budget," and my husband's mind was clear and keen as ever. Mr. Carpenter did not think he was bidding him good-by for the last time, though he blessed him, rejoicing, as he said, to see " so bright a face." Evj3n on Wednesday, William rose at the usual hour, walked resolutely down-stairs, finished the third number of " Middlemarch," which he had read during the last few days with steady determination, listened to a " beautifully written " and very kind note from the author, saw his dear niece Clara and both doctors for now Dr. Allen came as an invaluable friend, and for the last two even- ings helped to carry him up-stairs. . . . The following morning, Thursday the 28th, he told me he did not mean to attempt to rise. I cannot retrace the hours of this last day. It seemed as though he who hitherto had retained some enjoyment and hope of life now all at once knew that he was to die, and equally acquiesced in it ! His per- fect calm, his habitual manner, were not for one moment disturbed. It was of others he still thought throughout. He alluded to the "melancholy of it" for "poor Re- becca " (his sister-in-law) in the half -playful manner he might have had on any other day. Throughout these hours of the last weariness he used some of our words for different things, for we had a language of our own, as I said before. But for me he had tones of tender pity. For me he "grieved deeply r , deeply. He could have wished to live for my sake more than for his own." And 446 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. then in some connection that has escaped me, though I strain my memory often to recall it, but I think in answer to some cry of anguish, and with a wish to give me still something to live for, with a thrilling earnestness of voice and far-off gaze I shall surely remember till I die : " And if there be a further sphere for us, it must be our part to prepare ourselves for it." For Violetta, his u sweetest of hostesses," as he called her, he had the most gracious so- licitude. " Was she quite well ? were we eating enough ? " The mind was unclouded throughout. He listened to let- ters, talked of dictating a reply to one. The voice grew indistinct and the sentences broken ; but I do not believe there was the least confusion of mind. I add a few sen- tences jotted down while the blow still stunned, and the agony was less felt : " Throughout the day he kept tell- ing me he ' was doing well,' ' was doing very well,' and once I heard the words, ' Quite normal,' as though he were watching himself die. Once I saw the hands clasped as in a speechless communion with the Unseen, and twice I caught the solemn word God, uttered not in a tone of appeal or entreaty, but as if the supreme contemplation which had been his very life meant more, revealed more, than ever. When I said to him, ' Oh, what a grace of patience God has given you ! ' he shook his head in gentle deprecation. . . . " Dear Vi was of course necessarily called out of the room to provide for his wants, and thus I had the privi- lege of never leaving him. God bless her for it. ... It was not far from the end when opening his eyes and seeing Vi and me beside him, he had quite in cheerful tone said, ' There they are, the two dear creatures.' Later as I bent over him he opened his eyes, and with the same smile as in health and happiness, bright, inexpressibly tender, he took my face into his hand twice did so. This old familiar caress was the farewell. " After his last spoonful of turtle, which Vi gave while PARTING. 447 I raised him, the peculiar sound in the throat came on, but it had no horror, no intensity about it, and did not to either of us convey the fact that he was about to go. After that the laboured breathing changed its character. Violetta was called away. I was quite alone with my love. I got on the bed behind him, the better to prop him in what seemed an easy sleep the hands and feet still warm. His head passed gradually from the pillow to my breast, and there the cherished head rested firmly ; the breathing grew gentler and gentler. Never shall I forget the great awe, the brooding presence, with which the room was filled. My heart leapt wildly with a new sensation, but it was not fear. Only it would have seemed profane to utter even my illimitable love, or to call upon his name. This must have lasted, Vi thinks, not more than ten minutes. The head grew damp and very heavy ; my arms were under him. Then the sleep grew quite quiet, and as the church clock began to strike ten, I caught a little, little sigh, such as a new-born infant might give in waking not a tremor, not a thrill of the frame ; and then Vi came back with Clara's nurse (who having a peculiar love and admiration for him I had said might come up). I told them he was gone, and I thanked God for the perfect peace in which he passed away." He was buried in the Brighton Cemetery, in a spot at present still secluded, and over which the larks sing joy- ously. There a plain gray granite headstone rises " to his pure and cherished memory," with just his name and two dates, and this one line, long associated with him in my mind, and which all who knew him have felt to be appro- priate " His soul was like a star, and dwelt apart." Only four went to his funeral viz., Clara's husband, General Cotton, Mr. Carpenter (whom he had taken pleasure in introducing to each other as " two of the no- blest men he knew "), and Dr. Allen, his kind friend of 448 WILLIAM AND LUCY SMITH. years. There were no mourning trappings peculiarly discordant with the idea of him only the carriage with " the dear gray horses " followed, and in it hearts that valued him. A clergyman who had known him, not long but well, in our Borrowdale home, asked whether he might come and read the Service. This will show the feelings my husband inspired in those whose thoughts were not his. Indeed, I never knew a high moral nature that did not at once recognize the purity, righteousness, and holiness of his. In the case of all such the sense of differing opinions melted away under the influence of his character. To men of negative views, the possibility of a future life seemed to acquire a deeper interest now that he had passed away; to those whose faith in immortality was firmest, the conception of spiritual enjoyment became all the clearer for having known one so spiritually- minded, so purely searching after the truth. I might multiply testimonies to this effect, but they are not needed here. If, however, the appreciation of the cultivated and thoughtful seem a mere matter of course, it was yet not more marked or more unfailing than the love he, shy and silent towards them, won from all the simple and unedu- cated who were brought into frequent contact with him. Something in his courtesy elevated them, something in his brightness cheered. I do not think any person who ever spoke to him half-a-dozen times was quite indifferent to him. No man sought love less, or was less careful about the impression he made on others. But love unsought came largely to him, and during his last illness I think he discovered, with something of sweet and tender sur- prise, how very dear he was to many ! It was, I dare to believe, a gentle, a cheerful last illness ! Of him every memory is sweet and elevating ; and I record here that a lifelong anguish such as defies words is yet not too high a price to pay for the privilege of having loved him and belonged to him. PARTING. 449 These last pages were written, as I have said, more than a year ago, and there is nothing to add. I might indeed cite the testimony of relations and friends to some ineffable charm in his nature, ineffable tenderness in their regret ; but I prefer closing this brief memoir with words of his and the passage I am about to quote contains, I believe, the very secret of his pure life and the ground of his serenity in death : " There comes a time when neither Fear nor Hope are necessary to the pious man ; but he loves righteousness for righteousness' sake, and love is all in all. It is not joy at escape from future perdition that he now feels ; nor is it hope for some untold happiness in the future : it is a pres- ent rapture of piety, and resignation, and love a pres- ent that fills eternity. It asks nothing, it fears nothing ; it loves and it has no petition to make. God takes back his little child unto Himself a little child that has no fear, and is all trust." October, 1873. (End of the Memoir.) PAKT III. Sometimes I could deem I heard his voice, loved voice that guides me, say, " The earth we loved must never trivial seem Although our joy has passed from earth away. " Go down, at my behest, The smallest, humblest, kindly task to do ; / see the thorn-prints ; hide them from the rest ; Because thou lov'st me so, love others too." L. C. S. Here we have to wait Not so long neither ! Could we by a wish Have what we will and get the future now, Would we wish aught done undone in the past ? So let him wait God's instant men call years ; Meantime hold hard by truth and his great soul, Do but the duty ! Through such souls alone God stooping shows sufficient of his light For us in the dark to rise by. ROBERT BROWNING. CHAPTER XXIX. BEREAVED. " AFTER her husband's death," writes the niece Mary, " I was with her for a month at Brighton. Her calmness and power of living out of herself were amazing. She was then so filled with the sense of the nearness of the time when she had him that she did not seem to suffer as she did later on. She used to say sometimes she was stunned. And then she had learned strong self-control from the long habit of keeping cheerful and bright before him when her heart was breaking. Later on the agony was keener. I can remember the look in her beautiful eyes as of some one in torture. How she suffered, with the whole capa- city of her nature! Everything seemed an additional pain. Ah, and how she struggled not to sadden others ! how to devise little pleasures and expeditions for me or any friend staying with her. How infinitely sweet and brave she was ! We went together to Coniston, to a pretty cottage called How Head, quite near to the Tent Cottage where she had been so happy. The evening we got there, she found a letter saying that her dear friend Mrs. Jones was very ill in Edinburgh, had been ill for some little time, but did not wish Aunt Lucy to be told. The next morning after getting the news, tired as she was, and overpowered with the thought of being back at Coniston, she started for Edinburgh, alone ; and was in time to see her friend and be with her at the last. Mrs. Jones said, 'You have never failed me.' My husband remembers so well seeing her at that time. She was stay- ing for two or three days at her beloved friend Mrs. Stir- 454 LUCY SMITH. ling's, and he went to see her. She was in bed, but asked for him to go and see her. It was the first time they had met since her loss, and she could not speak, but when he came near she just opened her arms and folded them round him. She came back in a few days to Coniston, after seeing that all was arranged as Mrs. Jones would have wished, and writing to her friends and her many de- voted priests. I was with her some weeks, and then, first of all, Vi, and then her beloved Hessie H , came to stay with her. I went to Ireland to see my father, and came back to her in the autumn, and soon she and I went to Edinburgh for some weeks. She had many friends there, loving and tender, but I remember her saying one day she was like a person with a dreadful wound, which the tenderest, lightest touch made still worse ; only A seemed always like a soothing dressing of pure cold water.'* To Lady Eastlake. CONISTON, June 6, 1872. Dear, kind Lady Eastlake, in your full life to make time for thoughts of me ! I thank our loved one [Mrs. Jones, who had been their common friend] for your let- ters as well as you. I had seen your little book on her table in London, and she confided to me that it was writ- ten by you. I took it up and dropped it with a sharp pang. I could not have read it. I could not then dare to realize this suffering. Now I have read it again and again, and thanked it for many tears. You know that I cannot go along with all but oh ! I don't want to argue, only to be quite truthful. It is a wonderful anal- ysis of this complicated sorrow a sorrow for each and all of us special having incommunicable phases, ten- dernesses, yearnings, heart-piercings for which indeed there are no words. 'I can hardly understand what is commonly called rebellion against the decree that took BEREA VED. 455 away, or question why. My loved one warned me against letting " angry or impatient feelings creep in." I can believe, too, that the time for him was the best time, as certainly the manner was most merciful. I see abundant cause for thankfulness in the past. And, as you say, " We are to suffer," and in what is natural, inevitable, there cannot be sin. When I said sorrow was not good for us I was thinking of the many spontaneous pleasant- nesses and kindnesses it kills in us, as surely as the frost does the tender plants of sunny climes. The evil may bring forth fruit by and by but much that others loved in us, as it seems to me, must vanish forever. That does not matter I used to care a good deal about being loved a tenacious need, but this scotches it. The great danger seems to me the caring for nothing. To Mr. and Mrs. Loomis. CONISTON, AMBLESIDE, July 3, 1872. Dear, kind friends, how much I thank you for your letter, and how touched I am by the feeling that led you to make the effort ! I grieve to think that dictation is attended by pain, and that writing is still impossible. Oh, I grieve over dear Mrs. Loomis's anxiety even more than for the privation to yourself ! If you knew how often I have read your letter, and what soothing tears have fallen over it, you would be glad you sent it. I am so deeply thankful for tears, and some kind words go straight to the heart and a little lighten it. It is the unshed tears that torture. But you know what life with him was, what life without him must be. I am only going to write a few lines, because with this you will receive a printed letter. There were many that I wanted to tell something to, of his exquisite patience and serenity something, very lit- tle and I could not go over the agonizing weeks and months again and again. There may be almost nothing in the letter that you do not know, but I wrote it once for 456 LUCY SMITH. all, and dear Mr. Constable put it in print for me, and I like to believe that besides your own dear selves there may be some, who loved his writings, who will feel inter- ested in knowing something of the man. It is a poor, meagre, and perhaps very trivial record meant only for kind eyes. I have long wanted to write, but I waited to send this. A few days ago a delightful article by Dr. Porter reached me. It is so true, so discriminating! You will judge best whether he will care to read my other letter. Sometimes my heart feels dead and dull, and I have nothing to say, and hardly feel. Then the agony wakes. Indeed I try to bear it as he would have me do. I know how much I have to be thankful for. And it may be but oh, my hope is dim and feeble ! The difficulties so crushing ! I can only cry for more faith in God's truth, and for power to think of others. I won't talk of my wretched self. I shall indeed long to hear that you are better. I would that a voyage to England were prescribed. I did get the letter, and the picture of the little early gathered flower. May you be long spared to each other ! It seems to me that there can come no crushing sorrow to two. Will you let me know how you are ? Will you tell Dr. Porter that his article was very precious to me? I would he and William had met. I would he had heard the welcome that dear one's peculiarly touching and varied voice would have given him. I dare not recall his voice. Dear friends, don't think me selfish. I am truly inter- ested in all that concerns you. In the July "Contemporary," William's last article appears. He wrote it last autumn when he seemed to be recovering. He was superhuman in his sweetness all through his illness and on his dying day. Never more serene. I forget now all I have said or not said in that printed letter. His tenderest words are not there. Oh, BEREA VED. 457 do you indeed believe that in some ineffable way individ- ual love is undying? I cannot write this evening, and will not put off any longer. My kind, true love. Your poor desolate friend, L. C. S. To Miss Mary Wrench. CONISTON, July 22, 1872. . . . Archie read to us last night some of Browning, and I must copy two verses out of one of the poems they stir something like hope, and give blessed tears. Think, when our one soul understands The great Word which makes all things new, When earth breaks up and heaven expands, How will the change strike me and you In the house not made with hands ? Oh, I must feel your brain prompt mine, Your heart anticipate my heart, You must be just before, in fine, See and make me see, for your part, New depths of the Divine ! CONISTON, August 28, 1872. . . . Lady Eichardson, who called the other day, sent me a blessed book of that saint, Mr. Erskine of Linla- then, and it seemed to open some light and hope. It is the only alternative to blank unbelief, and that is too fearful misery. Mr. Erskine rejects the idea of this life being a trial, after which comes eternal bliss or eternal misery he is sure God means in time (his time, to which a day and a thousand years are alike) to educate all his moral creatures to a participation in the divine nature. I do indeed believe my beloved one's earthly education was complete. Every virtue seemed to have had its perfect work. And if I could lay hold on this faith, I should suffer more meekly, believing that when my education too 458 LUCY SMITH. was finished I should be taken too and surely the love and trust that existed between us will survive if our con- sciousness survive and I think it does. Oh, my child, what a difference between a faith taught you and one you learn for yourself in anguish and darkness and desolation a faith you have to struggle for, for more than life. I have had flashes of light, but again and again the dark- ness and the agony must return. . . . My lonely sorrow is dear to me. Mary, I suffer, but I would not change with any. To Lady Eastlake. CONISTON, 1872. Mr. Stopford Brooke's last volume of sermons has four on Immortality, which I have read and re-read. The sub- ject is, I may truly say, the only one which has my inter- est. This life can be nothing more to me ; except, indeed, as I pray and sometimes hope, discipline. The view of God's education of his moral creatures commends itself far more to my mind than that of probation. I think it is far more than a verbal difference. But I find that con- tinuous argument on this one absorbing subject sometimes defeats itself. Even Stopford Brooke's sermons suggested difficulties. It must remain " a great hope but a dim con- ception." Sometimes a blessed instinct wakes in me. I do not quite hold with you that faith in immortality and faith in God necessarily stand or fall together. God ruled before my poor little individuality was developed, and it would be to me even more terrible to forego a be- lief in an Infinite Wisdom than in my continuous life (which has only one meaning for me). I have said a bold, and perhaps not quite true thing. But I think it ought to be more dreadful. I remember we were so struck with the deep devotion of George Long's preface to his " Marcus Aurelius," and I admired the perfect resignation with which he could surrender all personal wishes as to BEliEA VED. 4.VJ immortality to the Supreme Will. But then we were to- gether, and infinitely happy ; and now ! In this anguish which you, dear Lady Eastlake, know so well, my whole soul has but one cry, and though intellectually I can divide between these solemn truths, practically I feel them one. How could one love a God unless one hoped his love for his creatures involved, as you say, a correlative of reunion for this awfulness of parting, and how could one care to believe in a God for whom one's nature could have no re- sponse even of gratitude ? And indeed I do deeply feel, and more and more, that without this hope one would sink to apathy, lovelessness, moral death, and that it never glows within us without purifying. I desire so to grow better, while I feel that this betterness will fit me to be more with one who was here on earth immeasurably above me. I find his dear words sustain me often. There are passages in " Gravenhurst " that greatly stimulate my trust in a further sphere. The writer of that very tender and true notice of my loved one [ in " Blackwood " ] dwells rather too much on the negative side of his think- ing. It had its positive side, which was light and guid- ance for life and death. I often shed tears that are warm with hope over pas- sages of Browning. In short, helps come from quarters where one did not expect them. You have been very good and kind to ine. You know how I suffer what it is, to have had all and abounded to have had Heaven and now to be only alive to pain you know that there is no exaggerating the difference this loss makes in everything. That blessed peace you speak of has made me rejoice for you. Do you know, I have had a momentary sense of what it might be. 460 LUCY SMITH. To Miss Violetta Smith. Oct. 1872. When God sends darkness, let it be dark. 'T is so vain to think we can light it up with candles, or make it any- thing but dark. It may be because of the darkness we shall see some new beauty in the stars. Indeed I live in him still not the old love, of joy, and playfulness of " antic spirits," and eager enjoyment ; but a grave life, and yearning and seeking; a life into which through God's goodness the patience of hope may come. We must all seek and find if we do find for ourselves. " Early in 1873," writes the niece Mary, " she and I went back to Coniston, not to How Head, but to a pretty farmhouse called Low Bank Ground, belonging to Miss Rigbye, who urged her to return there. There she spent a year, having always some one with her my sister Edith, Violetta, or other friends. For several months from this time on she and I were much together, and when we were apart she wrote comparatively little, as she was suffering sadly from her eyes." To Mr. and Mrs. Loomis. CONISTON, April 2, 1873. . . . Over none of the letters that I have received have I shed more tears than over the first that Mr. Loomis dic- tated and you, dear friend, wrote out. He speaks of " the mingled sense of loss and possession." Yes, indeed I am still his, and that imposes upon me self-control. Only just let me say that a year is nothing, nothing, in the way of assuagement by habit of life without him. It is not life. I love him more day by day. I know him better. As the earthly bliss recedes, I see the angel in him even more clearly. And no shyness now prevents my speaking of him as he was. And now I will not speak of him any more. BEREA VED. 461 I did get your November letter, and it was exceedingly welcome, for I had been, as you know, anxious. It was a comfort to see that you were able to use your pencil for so long a time together, but you said the letter was written at intervals, and I fear from the fact of this last letter being in dear Mrs. Loomis's handwriting that your head still interferes with some of your pursuits. Indeed, I was interested in the new house, and I am glad there is no danger of the pretty view being interfered with. And I was deeply interested in hearing of the removal of the dear mother to your present home. How a venerable old age completes, sanctifies a family ! How precious to chil- dren the special indulgence, the boundless toleration, of the grandmother. You must tell me more of her and the children when you write again. I was in Edinburgh for nine winter weeks ; I, and a dear niece who is to me like a child. I think she .enjoyed Edinburgh, and I could like to see her enjoyment, and besides we have friends there whom I could never bear to relinquish one especially, a good deal older than myself, and the nearest approach to motherliness that the world holds for me. Early in Jan- uary Mary and I came here ; came to a farmhouse, pret- tily situated, in which I have taken rooms for a year. My dear child liked giving it a comfortable look, hanging pictures, arranging books, and I have my husband's bust in one corner, and though the low ceiling is far too near it, still it seems to elevate and refine the whole place. I send you a copy of it. . . .1 think it is very like " the author of Thorndale." But it is sad, and my husband had what does not appear in his photographs and his writings, such a fountain of joyous, playful life, making his companion- ship such pure bliss. He had all that shows in the baby face which I send to Daisy. The little miniature must have been taken when he was between two and three. It has yellow hair, but with that exception is very faithfully reproduced. Looking at this bright child you will under- 462 LUCY SMITH. stand how he, the youngest child of a large family, was the " especial pet " of both parents. Or perhaps and yet I think that is not likely you may not admire it. All there is in this face innocence, joy, wonder, wistful- ness, simplicity all was in the man to the last. And because of that ineffableness which made my dear Mr. Constable say he " never saw him without longing to take him into his arms ; " which made his niece Clara, on the eve of a happy marriage, write to him, " But nobody can be to me what you are ; " makes his eldest sister (a widow who has lost children) tell me, " I can never think of dear William without tears it is not so with others ; " be- cause of the nameless something, made up of pathos and sweetness, I who loved him so and was so closely and solely his companion, suffer, suffer ! Oh, I hope many are not so utterly and irremediably bereaved. I am glad you are reading that marvellous "Middle- march." Everything pains now, and that pains. Rosa- mond's unworthiness threw a shadow of dread over me. This great genius makes one so aware of the " solidarity of the human race." None of her characters are unnat- ural. One feels guilty at least I did as I read of much unsuspected selfishness. And I have heard others, in whom I saw no flaw, speak of the book as charged with the prophet's power of " bringing sin to remembrance." The writer is very, very kind to me, and sends me sweet, tender notes. I could like you to see the last. But she cannot help me. For she has given up the hope of contin- ued life, in which alone I can live. If I did not how- ever weakly and waveringly believe that we are crea- tures of a loving God, training here for some solution by and by ; that this anguish may be killing in me some faults which would hinder our complete togetherness there life would be so hideous I would not lead it. She is braver and better, and besides she has the love which is happiness and seems religion. But the poorest and weak- HERE A VED. 463 est soul that holds some instinctive conviction of a " fur- ther sphere," taught perhaps by sorrow ; holding it really, not only having been brought up to say it helps me more than that glorious woman can. Mr. Lewes's book, just advertised, will create a good deal of interest. He sent a sketch of it to my husband, last February year. I shall not read it. My cry to heaven and earth is, " Help my unbelief ! " I dare not hear arguments to eliminate God from the universe. But neither can I return to the old Orthodoxy in which I grew up. Channing's " Per- fect Life," Martineau's " Sermons," and " Le Recit d'une Soeur," have been precious and soothing. And often my husband's books throw a slanting ray of light, and so the days go on, and one year is over. Will you convey to President Porter my gratitude for the pamphlets he sent me, still more for his letter. What an exquisite character Professor Hadley's ! One thinks such cannot end when they die. But there is a position of his I nevermore could occupy. I can believe in no dis- location of our nature only in its ordered growth, and in no help from the Divine but according to and by means of a Divine Purpose, which cannot be interfered with and needs not rectification. To Miss Mary Wrench. CONISTON, April 5, 1873. . . . Channing's " Perfect Life " is very beautiful. I have to fight daily for some faith in which to suffer sanely not make others suffer. " The Everlasting Yea " is what we must seek after, or miss our fullest development. Perhaps we shall word our seeking and our finding differ- ently, but oh, so we seek and find ! . . . I copy out a bit from Greg's " Enigmas of Life." May you know one day all its truth. Who that has truly tasted and fathomed human love in its dawning and its crowning joys has not thanked God for a feli- 464 LUCY SMITH. city which indeed " passeth understanding " ! If we had set our fancy to picture a Creator occupied solely in devising delight for children whom He loved, we could not conceive one single ele- ment of bliss that is not here. We might retrench casualties ; we might superadd duration and extension ; we might make that which is partial, occasional, and transient, universal and endur- ing; but we need not and we could not introduce one new ingredient of joy. How I set my seal to that ! I have lived eternities in some moments of quite unbounded joy. I used to say to him, " If I might die now ! " and he would reply, " How cruel to me ! " but that was the feeling. It is wonder- ful to think what the presence of one human being can do for another change everything in the world. ... I have wonderfully beautiful sermons .of Martineau's. Some God sends transparent into this world, and leaves us nothing to gather and infer. Goodness, truth, acquired by oth- ers, are original to them. . . . Such beings live to express them- selves, to stand between heaven and earth and mediate for our dull hearts. With fewer outward objects than others, or at least with a less limited practical mission devoting them to a fixed task, their life is a soliloquy of love and aspiration. Usually they do not less, but rather more than others ; only under some- what sorrowful conditions, having spirits prepared for what is more than human, and being obliged to move within limits that are human. The worth of such a life depends little on its quan- tity, it is an affair of quality alone. These highest ends of ex- istence have but slight relation to time. Years cannot mellow the love already ripe, or purify the perceptions already clear, or lift the aspiration that already enters heaven. CONISTON, April 9, 1873. . . . Two days ago a sweet letter from M. A. R., tell- ing her purpose of coming on the nineteenth. Oh, how I cried over it ! I did not think much wish for anything survived, but I do feel a singular emotion at the idea of seeing her. . . . But I must not think overmuch of it BEREA VED. 465 she may not be able. Mrs. A is noble, I am sure, a heroine of endurance. People are so noble ! The poor young washerwoman who by the way tears up my cuffs and frills in a wonderfully rapid way, so that I find my- self almost without any, spite of your stock, you dear child has been, it seems, sleeping for months in an in- fected atmosphere. There was an old cousin, distant cousin, of her father's, a woman with several children, but not one of them came forward to save her from the workhouse ; and this good man said she should never go there so long as he could work. So in their tiny cottage she has lived and suffered three years. I never knew of her existence till it was over. She died last Monday of cancer. And this young girl nursed her and slept in her room, and now frets, fearing she did not do enough ! Well might she tear my cuffs, poor dear she had her hands full. You may remember that I told you of an old hawker of tea with whom Fanny and I walked some short time ago, and with whose cheerfulness I was struck. Three days ago I discerned him coming along the field, and darted out with my little offering. It was touching to see that I seemed to surprise him. But perhaps he heard some- thing in my voice that made him pity me ; anyhow, his heart was poured out, and I do not know that anything ever struck me as more sublime than his experience. He was a parish 'prentice, as he said, " fatherless, motherless, sisterless, brotherless, auntless, and uncleless." Quite alone, used to hardship in youth, then maimed and al- most blinded in the mines ; now seventy-two, long a pauper, hawking about tea, and getting a mere pittance, as you can believe. Yet with all this, and without the sweet training of human love, he is quite happy " just leans on God " has an abiding sense of the Divine Love ordering all, and of all being right, which makes him not merely patient, but very cheerful. I never heard a more 466 LUCY SMITH. remarkable utterance, it was so simple and evidently hon- est, ending as he did, " but these things are not for talk- ing about, only it is so with me." To Mrs. Ruck. CONISTON, 1873. . . . Ah, my dear one, we might safely have kept you half a day longer ; but you would have been just as surely gone now, and your little stay would have been a tender, touching, sweet dream from which however one wakes strengthened. . . . Thank you for copying dear Mrs. Forde's good true words. Tell her I feel, through all the pain, thankfulness for the fond close union which raised me into higher moral life as no other influence ever did. And oh, I share her hope to me the only hope that can avail to keep one loving, to purify, to exalt. A hope to be influential must be hope that is, strong desire be- lieving future attainment probable. In me there can be only one strong desire. It may never be realized but so long as my consciousness endures, the only appeal to the principle of hope within me must be in conformity with the laws of my consciousness. A dog cannot be lured by a bank-note, but by a penny-bun a child will prefer the story-book with pictures to the philosophical treatise. It may be that hereafter we shall rise to the general in some sense transcending our present faculties even to conceive of. Meanwhile I, who have known a love so immeasur- ably superior to any other feeling in intensity as to de- serve by contrast to be called infinite, can only be sus- tained by hope in that love meaning something for me not only here but elsewhere. To Miss Mary Wrench. CONISTON, April, 1873. You are my own dear child, and friend of many years, and I can rouse myself out of the perpetual sorrow which BEREA VED. 467 makes up my life, to wish for you the things I hold good things ; a deep, intense love for one higher and stronger than yourself, or that peace and joy which come, one sees, to some elect natures who have got rid of the achings and yearnings of self, and live in the life of others. That is hardest, but divinest no doubt. That is what I must strain and strive after for the rest of my days, on pain of moral decomposition. But for you I am still tied and bound by such fond memories of earthly bliss, I must wish and look for that ; and in the mean time there is your dear, bright little self to go on educating more and more. And so I like to know that you have assimilated " Sartor Kesartus." . . . Mr. was much disappointed in the Vienna Exhibition but then it was not at its best, half the things undisplayed and said the expense of Vienna was frightful. Did you notice what the " Times " corre- spondent said on that head, that the saying u See Naples and die " might be parodied by " See Vienna and become bankrupt"? And Mr. has no doubt learned prac- tically during his year's sojourn abroad that change of place does little or nothing, or worse than nothing, for a rooted sorrow. If there be a truth beyond disputation, it is this : I may not hope from outward things to win The passion and the life whose fount is from within. For myself I should not care not now of course should never have cared to see anything unless I was happily companioned. But there are tastes of all kinds, and it takes a good deal of learning to know assuredly that " the eye is not filled with seeing, neither the ear with hearing," and that the one help for any of us lies in doing and being oh, my darling, how hard to learn it, I know ! . . . has been seeing some pictures. How her drawing has elevated, steadied her life, kept her always growing, aspiring, alive to nature and art, and so by making her happy made her beneficent and helpful. One 468 LUCY SMITH. has dark moods of questioning the use of it all ; but, im- material as it may seem if we fix our eyes upon the great sum of human effort, yet, the universal being made up of the particular, it does matter that individuals should be as healthily developed as possible, that they may radiate healthy influence ; and therefore it is good to have a pur- suit, even if we do not attain excellence. To Rev. Allan Menzies. CONISTON, June 1, 1873. . . . But you must have enough of theology certainly mine would be superfluous. I cannot even define what it is. It is only a clinging and a cry a thankfulness that would fain be trust a human agony that would throw itself on some Divine Pity, and grow into some Tightness. CONISTON, July 28, 1873. . . . Your letters interest me, but to see and speak with you would be a still deeper interest. The old pleasure in writing is so over and gone. Writing should be just the overflow of life. With me now life is low, and thought all concentrated, made up of many memories and one hope. When I am with others the habit and instinct of sympathy makes me an attentive, sometimes an eager lis- tener. When the pen is in my hand it is an effort to turn away from that ever-growing sorrow which is my life. But indeed I do not depress others. I follow the career of such men as Mr. Knight, Mr. Stevenson, and yourself with deep and genuine interest. There is no resisting the law of evolution in thought, any more than elsewhere. The great fundamental concep- tions must be differently expressed. Happy are they who are quite sure of one or two truths. ... I want to know whether you are acquainted with the writings of the Rev. G. D'Oyly Snow, There is in the " Contemporary " a paper of his on " Natural Theology " by which I have been BEREA VED. 469 exceedingly struck. The views are much akin to those put forth in " Gravenhurst ; " the only views, as it ap- pears to me, that is now possible to hold on that long vexed question of moral evil. I think Mr. Snow one of the clearest and most suggestive (one is sick of that term, rather) writers I have come across. But indeed these last numbers of the " Contemporary " are full of interest. Herbert Spencer's papers on Sociology I have not read through, but the last, on " The Theological Bias," is the very essence of justice, candor, reasonableness. . . . Tell me about your life. " Great faith in spiritual powers," you say. Do you mean love, sympathy, strong belief, strong desire removing mountains, always mould- ing, creating one might say the individual and society ; or do you mean anything more ? In a letter to Mr. and Mrs. Loomis, of Nov. 5, 1873, after speaking with warm pleasure of a photograph of President Porter, she continues: "His and your letters have done me good, and I have followed your suggestion and written a short sketch of my husband's life. But I feel it will be no history of his thinking, and sometimes I fear it will be mere failure that he will not show through. I have no one to consult, and it is only for friends." This was the "Memoir," which, privately printed at first, was at a later time, yielding to the urgency of friends, published in the same volume with " Graven- hurst " and " Knowing and Feeling." The impression her letters give of her needs one addi- tion. When she writes, the sorrow of her heart always finds expression. But as she mingled with her friends, she so threw herself into their interests that in them she seemed to live. They were conscious principally not of any suffering in her, but of an element of exquisite sym- pathy, cheer, and tender radiance, which she brought into their lives. In such intercourse too she showed, as indeed 470 LUCY SMITH. might well be guessed from her letters, a vivid interest in the passing events of the hour, a keen observation of char- acter, and a charming playful humor. As compared with the pictures of her that live in her friends' memories, the impression given by her letters is a too sombre one. Noth- ing can supply to it the lighter touches, the grace and charm and play, of which not even her bereavement robbed her. Writes a friend : " We shall never laugh again as she used to make us laugh with her humorous descriptions and quaint conceits." Speaking of a visit near the end of her life, Mrs. B writes : " I said something to her of how impossible I felt it to select from the catalogue of my ailments any one that was not to my- self most hateful. She looked at me with a very bright arch light in her face, and said, 4 Oh, my dear, I love my ailments ! I find them quite to my mind ! ' Mrs. Bishop (Miss Isabella Bird), writing after her death, expresses what all felt : " I miss her more than I can say. It seemed so natural to turn to her swift com- prehension and ready sympathy in everything of special interest, never to be disappointed. She was so unique and wonderful, so developed on every side. While her rare gifts made one feel small beside her, her sympathy seemed to make one at one's best while with her listening to her wonderful words about things small and great, and looking at her face and eyes, so much fuller of soul than any other's. She was so encouraging ! and she saw things that no one else saw, and made one see them ; saw beauty and goodness where only the commonplace was evident to others, and so intensely loved and glorified those she loved, till one saw them in a halo too. She lived and thought and felt so keenly, and put all unworthy things and thoughts so utterly outside her ken, that an hour with her seemed an hour of illumination. I never saw any one more absolutely free from egotism, and yet she communi- cated more of herself than any one." BEREA VED. 471 A workingman, who was led to write to her by his ad- miration of " Thorndale," says of her letters to him : " I never opened one that did not afford me means of grace for many a day afterward. I am not irreverent in thought when I think of her as always manifesting (to me it seems so) the constancy of God changeless in all sorrow and joy. We have an impulse toward all good in the very thought of her as she lived and wrote and spoke. Times there must have been when the grossness and uncouth- ness through which I have had to struggle all my life long must have manifested their influence to her ; but ah ! not a word of this pain to her sensitive spirit escaped the pen. And this is only one of those intimations of her royal nature which showed themselves in her letters, and for which I am and ever shall be her debtor." " I have a strange feeling," wrote another friend after her death, " that I never again shall be worth so much, as when her loving sight seemed to elevate me into something above myself." Each friend instinctively gave to her the worthiest of his thought, the finest of his feelings ; and, by imparting so much of this as was permissible to her other friends, she interpreted them all to one another through their noblest traits. " How privileged you are," writes one of them to her in returning another's letter, " to have com- forted by a word a spirit like that ! There is a spell about, you, for even I am conscious of having grown better under your influence. I have kept back words, when I thought of you, that would have poisoned my life if I had uttered them, though I thought I was only feeling a righteous indignation." " It is difficult," says one, " to give an idea of her bril- liant playfulness, her lightness of touch, the little inde- scribably dainty and droll descriptions and this while the aching sorrow and faithful love were always there. She was like sunshine in her cheerfulness, and radiance 472 LUCY SMITH. and like the tender dew in her intense pity and gentle un- speakable helpfulness, and like a reviving breeze in her strong, clear, decided opinions, and instant perceptions of what was the right thing to do or say." CHAPTER XXX. READJUSTMENT. SHE passed the winter of 1873-74 at Cambridge, and the lonely season, apart from all familiar and be- loved surroundings, tried her brave spirit sorely. When in the spring she went to Dunkeld in Perthshire, the place where she had spent happy weeks in 1859, and among the scenes that had such power over her, one sees in her words a revival of the heart. The winter of 1874- 75 was passed in Edinburgh, near her beloved Archie and Mary, 1 and in all the after winters her home was under the same roof with them; while most of her summers were henceforth passed at Patterdale. Of her other jour- neyings, the letters themselves will for the most part suf- ficiently tell the story. To Mrs. Larimer. CAMBRIDGE, Jan. 17, 1874. I am thinking, how beautiful your view must be looking this clear, keen day, and I trust all is as well and bright within the happy home as when I saw it last that wild evening when my coming disturbed all the young ones grouped around the dear mother-bird, who looked one of the youngest of the party. I have been reading an interest- ing, thought-rousing paper of Miss Cobbe's on " Hetero- pathy, Aversion, and Sympathy." Were the latter but more perfect ! But it is growing in the race,-and one's own aching heart at least recognizes it to be its legitimate aim. I must, however, always believe happiness a vantage-ground 1 Married in 1874. 474 LUCY SMITH. for the exercise of all virtues. One of the books that I read just now most persistently is lent me by our beloved Mrs. Stirling. It is a very large volume, on " The His- tory of the Doctrine of a Future State." That is for me "the ocean to the river of all thought." I should like you to read Miss Cobbe's paper it is in the " National Review." She seems to think sympathy with joy comes before sympathy with pain, and makes out her case well with regard to animal, savage, and childish life. But I have always noticed that the ruder, the less cultured na- tures one knows nowadays are far more capable of being sorry for you than glad with you. You will wonder, however, what sets me off on these topics, and why I don't tell something of the whereabouts, etc. Dear, there is so little to tell. If I described the house, the squalid street, you would think I was complain- ing, and I do not even feel much difference. And though the street is very squalid, and I have seen faces as brutal- ized as in the Old Town of beautiful Edinburgh, this abode stands back from it in a nursery garden, and is quiet and airy as to situation, with about two acres of garden ground in front of it. Very mean and dingy the the little house is, but then, so marvellously cheap. It is really better than I expected, not worse ; and the good woman is sensible and obliging, very fond of discoursing to me. She has been married more than forty years, yet her hair is still black, while her good husband's is white as snow. She lost two children in infancy, and had no others. Her husband is everything to her now. " Lord, mum, I often says to myself, what ever should I do if I lost him ! I don't feel as if I could get on at all ! " And then she rambles off about the nieces and nephews that -have fallen to their share, that they have had "a terrible hand with," or else helped on to some successful industry. My one friend, dear Annie Clough, is away just now, READJUSTMENT. 475 and when she returns she is too busy with her household to have leisure for companionship. But I am attached to her by happy associations, and the sound of her voice reminds me of the days of life. New voices I shall never care to hear. Letters are really a boon here, linking one with happier lives. Tell me of all your darlings. Now I have seen them, I can realize all you say. Good-by, my dear and very sweet Hannah. Are you sure I did not alienate you by disliking over-much the lecture you so kindly took me to ? I don't feel now as if I ever should be vehement again about anything. I believe that this period of silence will be good for me. Oh, if I could grow like what I love so absolutely ! Never was he vehement against anything that interested others. To President Porter. DUNKELD, Aug. 13, 1874. ... I know that you will expect me to write of my husband, for whose sake alone you are so kind to me. Those lines you so much admire (" There is a sweetness in the world's despair ") made a great impression upon Mr. and Mrs. Lewes. She writes : " I think I never read a more exquisite little poem than the one called 4 Christian Resignation,' and Mr. Lewes when I read it aloud at once exclaimed, ' How very fine ! Read it again.' ' To them, apart from its melodiousness, the charm probably lay in the renunciation of a future bliss, the acceptance of love and sorrow here. You know they are Positivists. Oh, Dr. Porter ! You wonder how / can have a doubt of immortality ! The very intensity of my desire, my craving to believe that he, my so inexpress- ibly loved one, lives, as you say, " an intensely real and personal life," defeats itself, I do believe. The over- strained eye loses the power of vision. 1 I was never hope- 1 Dr. Holmes says, in Elsie Venner : " All wonderful things soon grow doubtful in our own minds, as do even common events, if great interests prove suddenly to attach to their truth or falsehood." 476 LUCY SMITH. f ul nor was he though we were so strangely joyous together. Temperament must colour all things, our faith as well as the rest. I strive, I pray, I die to believe what you do, even more and more. I could not let Mrs. Lewes suppose for a moment I thought as she did. Her gentle hand would not put out any light, however irrational she may hold that intermittent ray which yet is my all. She says in reply : " All that goes to my heart of hearts. It is what I think of almost daily. For death seems to me now a close, real experience, like the approach of autumn or winter, and I am gfad to find that advancing life brings this power of imagining the nearness of death I never had till late years." Then again, after alluding to nieces of mine who have been and are with me : " You can feel some sympathy in their cheerfulness, even though sorrow is always your only private good can you not, dear friend ? And the time is short at the utmost. The blessed re-union, if it may come, must be patiently waited for, and such good as you can do to others by loving looks and words must seem to you like a closer companionship with the gentleness and benignity which you justly wor- shipped while it was visibly present, and still more per- haps now it is veiled and is a memory stronger than vis- ion of outward things." I know you will feel an interest in reading her words. I do not forgive me (but you will say truth needs not to be forgiven) /do not think your view of my husband's position as a religious thinker is quite the correct one. If ."the mind that was in Christ," the moral perfectness, the " sweet reasonable- ness," the soul athirst for God, the utter indifference to the outward things which the bulk of human beings seek after if justice, gentleness, purity, if these make a man a Christian, then indeed he was one. But the " per- petual unrest of thought " you allude to was excited by other subjects, and I think far more vital subjects, than any connected with " positive and historical Christian READJUSTMENT. 477 faith," There his position had been long denned to him- self. He held, you * know, of the most eminent teachers that they were " raised up by God I do not say mirac- ulously because in my conception all his works are equally miraculous." I have read your sermon with deep atten- tion, and I hope some little profit. But I cannot return to my early conception of Christianity. ... I have read your letter so often I think indeed much of those words, " Be over-solicitous for nothing." And sometimes I have felt that if my mind could like his be more utterly resigned to be or be not immortal, according as Infinite Wisdom should decide, I should have more abiding hope. But I suffer greatly God only knows how I loved and love that sweet spirit given to me by Him, Dear thought of God, that God will stQl think on. That line came one day into my head and haunts me often. To Miss Lyon. CAMBRIDGE, 1874. ... I wish such joy and quick throbbing life of course to all the young. And yet I am pretty sure (and you know mine was a youth with plenty of variety and excite- ment) that youth is not the happiest period in any happy life. ... I read much and with intense interest in some directions. The good of a little home is that it affords greater variety of occupations. Your garden is a pleas- ure, and a most healthy one I am sure. How your dear mother loved her garden ! How odd it seems to the young that elderly people should have anything worth calling pleasure ! As we go on, our life includes that of the young. They can hardly understand ours, any more than we can understand the conditions of that other life, to the hope of which we cling, but we know every throb of theirs. I fancy I retain with peculiar vividness my in- tellectual sympathy with the young. 478 LUCY SMITH. To Mrs. Larimer: CAMBRIDGE, 1874 Yes, dear, I was in church that is, I was in chapel in an Independent chapel, on Sunday morning ; and though the tears did rain, as they must to the end not here will they be wiped away yet they were not so bit- ter. I was listening to a good, true man, who, daring to tell his hearers how very little he is sure of or even cares to be sure of, has the firmer hold on their minds when he speaks of those things on which he has attained as full a conviction as of his own existence. He has won that great and fundamental faith in God which leads him to have faith also in the instincts of his own God-created nature, and one of the strongest of these he finds to be prayer. Many things grew a little clearer to me as I lis- tened to this Dr. Robertson (a Scotchman plainly), and I should rather like to know him. I do not tell you I can accept all his conclusions, and probably were he not fet- tered, he might think on. But the one important matter is not so much the how people formularize their trust in God, as that they should have it. I was reading your book on Sunday evening, and appropriating from it what I could hold, and feeling strongly that in the holding it lay all the hope of growth. There was great need of elimination, but yet a broad strong light seemed flashed in on my consciousness, and if I did not believe (feebly as yet) that God's purpose is to educate us out of evil, I do not know how I should bear the amount of wrongness I see in myself. Dear, one should not say these things. Friends think it is humility that speaks. Not so ! But then, just as society gets on by that which was not evil at one stage (slavery, for instance) becoming conscious evil at another, and thus being renounced even so in our- selves, these new discoveries of wrongness must involve a higher conception of Tightness. And if the " Power that READJUSTMENT. 479 makes for righteousness " be and He must be on the side or rather at the very bottom of these strivings, there is hope. Oh, I have much to overcome ! I lived in and on love the love of one who was myself, my goodness, my wisdom ! There was no seeming need of conflict now it must be all conflict and renouncement. To Miss Mary Wrench. DUNKELD, June 18, 1874. . . . Last evening I was out till ten, gazing at his cot- tage at ours counting the steps between the two ; thinking, thinking ; loving him so absolutely, as he was then, was ever, and surely as he is now ; "a part of all the loveliness he once did make more lovely " to me, whose supreme good he was, and is, and may be even when you speak of us both as passed away. I feel lulled in the strangest trance, as if sorrow had taken some opiate. I am not frightened at the thought of solitude, though I can hardly tell yet. As yet I sit and do nothing half the day. It is all so wonderful ! So much joy, so much grief, and the body's life going on through it all. To Mrs. Cotton. DUNKELD, 1874. ... I went again one evening to see Mrs. , and I see that she is a far more interesting person than I sup- posed. I don't know that I have ever erred in over- rating in under-rating, often. As I write the sentence the thought of - and Miss occurs. But I could not over-rate what Miss was while she liked me, what she would always be to those she approved. I think per- haps she lacks indulgence, and that my character requires it especially. I always appropriate the lines And you must love me, ere to you I shall seem worthy of your love. And I am sure - has the fine and noble qualities I ac- credited her with. 480 LUCY SMITH. To the Rev. Allan Menzies. NURSERY GARDEN, DUNKELD, July 7, 1874. . . . Nothing gives me the same throb of warm, vivid feeling that used to be so natural, that always now comes as a surprise as to find that my husband's char- acter has been duly appreciated, and that his works are in- fluencing younger minds. Since a notice of the " Essays " appeared in the " Scotsman," I have had some very grati- fying proofs of the deep interest he excited. One of the letters I allude to is from a Dundee man ; judging from the handwriting I should say one of the artisan class ; and the enthusiasm with which he writes of the "mental regeneration " he underwent through the study of " Thorn- dale " gratifies me even more than the tribute paid by a Yorkshire clergyman ; though that is peculiarly precious because it tells of an interview with my husband many years ago, when he was solitary, and / could no more guess what fulness of life lay before me than I can now what may be in store for us in that " further sphere " toward which my whole being must henceforth yearn. . . . I find these words of his in a manuscript book, he has been treating of the rude elementary conception of an angry God : Higher thought shall correct this also. You have seen, felt, enjoyed, a thousand times the great gifts of Life. Some day you see the Giver in the gifts. Happiest revelation ! Did any veil lift itself from the sky ? No, but the glory of the sky be- came as it were the glory of God. The light and beauty are to us his glory. I always noticed in the upturned and kindling eye that gazed at tree or mountain or cloud, not so much admira- tion as adoration. Only one thing exceeds the loss the love. That lives on, affording me such new experiences as make me understand the growth of a religion better than ever before. Do you know (you will not think me READJUSTMENT. 481 blasphemous) that no words so express my consciousness as some of St. Paul's : " I live, yet not I he lives in me." The adored ideal by filling modifies our heart and mind, so that our personality seems merged in another. But this will not be spoken, still less written. I was ten days here alone, re-living the summer of 1859. And they were the most living days I have had since he left me. The constant pain seemed to have something under and beyond it. . . . When will you come and see me ? You will be truly welcome. I do take interest in these church ques- tions, and shall understand them better when I have heard you speak of them. Only, all these questions seem so merely provisional, so evidently secondary, questions of taste, questions of to-day. The one thing that does mat- ter appears to me : what conception the human race in its development retains or frames of God, and whether its hope of another life strengthens while it changes. To Miss Violetta, Smith. [1874.] I think it so much better not to write than to swell the flood of merely commonplace productions ; and it should be understood that every educated man and woman can rhyme, but that poetry is and always will be rare. No doubt there are times when the thoughts within us can only be uttered so, but one need not want stran- gers to listen. To me the duty in this age of the world of not writing comes out very strongly A thoroughly healthy organization is as rare as genius is. Most of us, when we come to think of it, have an ache or a discomfort located somewhere in our uncomfortable bodies. That is why excitement does us good, it makes us forget our lower range of sensations. Love of some other is the best cure, and mental effort. [Christmas Day, 1874.] Mazzini's "Life" came, by which I was deeply interested, and supported somewhat. 482 LUCY SMITH. I had felt so desolate I was obliged to go in quest of one as desolate a poor Irish woman, whom I had seen sitting on a doorstep in thick-falling snow. She lived in one of the worst parts of the Old Town. Oh, my Vi, how the poor suffer ! But the dear old soul, the goodness of whose coun- tenance there was no mistaking, was quite cheerful, and full of God's goodness to her. She says she is eighty- eight, but I think it must be seventy-eight ; anyhow she is a wonder and a lesson, and I shall go again for a lesson in courage and patience. She makes patchwork counter- panes ; rags are given to her which she works up, and if she can't sell them she pawns them, and the work " amuses " her. She is kept alive by a son, a laborer who supports wife, six children, sick father-in-law, and aged mother. That is my idea of a good man ! The old woman has the good breeding of her country, and saw me down-stairs with dignified courtesy. When I asked if she were pretty warm in bed she said, " Well, reasonable yes, reasonable " in a tone that will I hope often recur to me as I sit and shiver with all appliances, and a great folding-screen from dear Mr. Constable. To Mrs. Cotton. PLAS COCH, 1874. . . . My Mary, it is a wonderful thing to be capable of intense happiness, and then to live entirely without it save indeed in memory. Two nights ago I dreamed of William, as I seldom do, and the restored joy so natural, so warm, so all-pervading gave me a still fuller con- sciousness of the strange unnatural chill and isolated con- ditions under which I exist with some phosphorescent kind of cheerfulness, that for others lightens the darkness, and with certainly a true if not deep interest in all that is going on for others. I do not say this, dear, complain- ingly, nor even is it a cry of irrepressible anguish, but the wonderfulness of our nature's range has so come home to RE A DJUSTMENT. 488 me. I shall never in this life fully know how unhappy I am. The return of joy would reveal as it removed. Only then could one bear to fathom the abyss, when delivered from it forever. To Mrs. Cotton. EDINBURGH, 1874. If you have time for reading, there is a book of Ha- merton's on Animals that is quite amazing. I suppose you too have fogs in London, perhaps even yellower and thicker than ours. I 've been a very poor creature, and have looked startlingly cadaverous. But I have I do be- lieve a strong constitution, and I get round again to the old level. And the time is going on. May '75 be very happy to you both ! Did I tell you I wonder of Mr. meeting the B s at dinner and speaking to Lizzie much of me in connection with his " dear wife " send- ing me messages of remembrance, and on going away saying, " I hope we shall meet again, Mrs. B , for your connection with Mrs. Smith brings you very near to me." This touched me. He used to dislike me very much, but that was only a jealousy of an intimate friend. Now that loved one has become a reason for liking me ! Many of our faults are deciduous. Different sides of a character come out to different people you and dear General Cotton always evoke the best. THE WAITING ROOM. How well within the reach of all Life's precious things indeed ! The kindly word, the offering small, The slight, spontaneous deed. What " New Year gift " could leave behind A sweeter trace than this A sudden impulse, good and kind, A country-woman's kiss ? The words exchanged were very few, Mere simple talk, no more ; 484 LUCY SMITH. But each one's heart the other knew, A common garb we wore. Her train came first, she took my hand, Held fast, and, saying this " We '11 meet no more on earth," she gave A widow- woman's kiss ! To Mr. Menzies. 1874. ... I hardly know why, putting down the " Times," in which I have for the second time read Tyndall's address, I should at once turn to talk in this poor way to you. It is all so wonderful ! Here are people thanking him for his very interesting lecture, accepting apparently his con- clusions as the last word in our present state of knowl- edge, and yet I dare say they '11 be in church next Sun- day all the same. Why, I feel my hands grow quite cold with the excitement of the train of thought, the issues seem to me so tremendous. I should wonder how any one can ponder any other subject, did I not know the law of mental perspective, and that some ephemeral matter, matter of the present hour's strong feeling, hides those far mysteries from the gaze ; that some dear presence, and the gladness it brings, may seem to solve them ; or some agony of parting dissipate their importance. But there is one parting, one sorrow, to which this subject must ever be vital above all others. Oh, how I agree with the one who said, " This life without faith in a supreme intelli- gence would be intolerable." Can that deep personal need be only the result of hereditary influence, the teach- ing of countless generations ? Has it been intensified in ages of persecution, so that it still endures, but is it doomed to die out as men are less and less driven by suf- fering to refer all chance of satisfaction to some other world ? I feel that train of thought torturing, but it must come and go. ... Does it not seem to you as if the human mind always grew by exclusively and alternately READJUSTMENT. 485 laying stress upon one aspect of a duality ; then suddenly a few see that it is a unity ; that the contrast was but ap- parent ? With the words " natural " and " supernatural " what real difference do we indicate ? Only that between the common and the rare ; for even between the normal and the abnormal there can only be the division between a familiarly known law and one less familiar. I should like to know how you have felt this address of Tyndall's. But you, engaged in teaching, in the effort to " lift the life," which he does and all other sound intel- lects must allow to be the noblest result of all our " know- ing and feeling " you cannot torture yourself with the mere intellectual problem. Do you know these words of Victor Hugo, " Celui qui ne pense pas est aveugle, Celui qui pense est dans 1'obscurite', Nous ii'avons que le choix du noir." And yet how different the attitude, and how that which thinks and yearns and loves, and strains with wide-opened faculties toward the light its very efforts and defeats pre- sage ; how that call it soul, " mentalized matter," what you will how it must sometimes believe that what we know not now we shall know hereafter ! The other day, looking over my husband's manuscript books, I came upon a passage written some twelve years ago, which I take in connection with a clause in Tyndall's speech toward the close : " If, still unsatisfied, the human mind, with the yearning of a pilgrim for his distant home, will turn to the Mystery from which it has emerged, seek- ing so to fashion it as to give unity to thought and faith," etc. This is what my husband has jotted down you can understand with what reverence I turn for help to him : " There may be a normal development of the human mind, according to which certain ideas or truths are gen- erated and become universal faiths. These truths are not presented to us at once in the forms they are destined to 486 LUCY SMITH. reach, in the full and perfect form ; but they may have a determined growth, and finally take a form as truth recog- nized by all. Such seems to me the grand idea of God. I do not venture to pronounce that the idea present to my mind is that final idea which will prevail, but it is final to me ; and there will probably come a time when all men sufficiently cultivated will rest in some final idea." I like and find help in this thought God developing humanity into ever higher conceptions of his nature, thus raising theirs (for here there must be constant interac- tion) ; at last perhaps some grand perception of Unity, our personality not lost, yet God all in all. CHAPTEE XXXI. To Mr. and Mrs. Loomis. EDINBURGH, February 9, 1875. . . . Indeed, indeed, if I were with you, you would not find me grown egotistical. I can listen with I think deep- ened interest to all that concerns the lives of others. But when I write (I who have no life any longer) I must re- vert to the one in whom I lived, and for whose sake alone I have any value. . . . You know the one subject that is forever in my mind. That " to be or not to be " is the only question for those whose soul has left them. I have more hope I have but hope. Some profess intuitive certainty. Here is a passage from a little book, D'Oyly Snow's, that helps me much : What saves me from a weak uncertain faith, that would be scarcely better than atheism, is the conviction that tidings of God and immortality do not depend on hearsay, or on the cor- rectness of a certain version of ancient history, but that they are by a natural process made gradually to stamp their impression on the mind of the creature as it advances in consciotcsness ; in fact, that it is not by the violation of the universal creative method, but by the working of that method in its ordinary way, that man comes at the hope that is " full of immortality." [Extracts from letters to Miss Edith Wrench at different times. ^ Every effort made turns into strength. All we haye and are is pure gift. 488 LUCY SMITH. Enjoying each other's good is Heaven begun. [Speaking of a bit of work done.] It teaches me to en- ter into the pleasure the artistic must have in designing their own patterns. That is the advantage of any even mediocre performance, that it enables you to enter more sympathetically into the higher attainments of others. I wish I had discerned this truth earlier in life, instead of throwing up drawing, etc., because I could not excel. Even in the matter of weeding this small plot, and watch- ing the plants grow, the success will be small indeed, but I enter more fully into the delight of a garden for others. And the extension of our own personality by sympathy is just another word for progress, such as is pos- sible to us in this world, such as we hope for in another and brighter sphere. Only supporting supports. Oh, to be always as good as one's word, unless there be some grave deliberate reason for rescinding a project! How melancholy it is that people should so habitually neglect their promises ! The value, the imperativeness, of the spoken word, would be the first thing I should im- press upon a child if I had one to educate. There is nothing so terrible as ingratitude. That is why it is so dreadful when those who have been kind to one change ; one so fears one has been ungrateful. [DuNKELD.] I got on the rough ground above the road, covered with Trientalis, and a lovely little shrub with waxy pink bells, and I saw a scene of glory I shall never forget. The day had been cloudy and showery, but as he got low the sun broke out, and there was a trans- formation indeed. The mountains seen through golden "LOVE OTHERS TOO. 11 489 i mist might have been Alps in height, and the distant trees were very dark, while the birches in front of me were all interpenetrated with light, and stood bending as in worship before the great glory. Every leaf was quite still, and glistened with rain. How the birds sang ! The cuckoo prattled about it, but some of the thrushes seemed to have caught the very secret of the scene, and to sing it out in a rapture of praise. Ah, my Edith, no world surely can be fairer than this ! Every-day life must be lived on the level of cheerful contentment. Looking back through my varied years I can remember with regret how dull I used to find home after some exciting visit ; and I thankfully call up the re- membrance that later my precious mother spoke of my habitual cheerfulness as something priceless to her. To the young I would whisper that life cannot be all conscious vivid enjoyment. I sometimes think I might have done better in my early days if I had known this. Of course our health seems better (because we are too much oc- cupied with other things to notice ups and downs) when we are in new scenes and places ; and I fancy we are never acting more in conformity with the highest guid- ance than when we try to counterbalance the quiet routine by some employment. I was three hours in the woods yesterday, alone, but not alone, and oh, my Edith, how beautiful this stillness was, with gleams of slanting sun- light on moss and stones, and red fir trunks, and such squirrels ! Struan hunted terribly, for I was afraid he never could get out of the thick tangle of rhododendrons ; and afterward in the fern he did catch a rabbit, but I took it from him he did not know how to kill it. The sweet creature was in a swoon of terror, but as I carried it it revived, and its eye brightened, and when the little sportsman was off in another direction I put it into a covert of fern, and believe it will recover. 490 LUCY SMITH. DUNKELD, May 10, 1875. . . . My dear Edith's letters are always very inter- esting, and give the impression of not having been written in great haste. Whenever you feel hurry in a letter the charm is gone. But during a visit no one can give or ought to give much time to absent friends, and it was very sweet of my chick to write at all, and my generalization has no personal application. You will say that my eyes must be better, seeing my return to my small niggling hand. Well, they are better and worse. Yesterday was a very bad day of doing nothing but nurse Struan and disen- tangle his lovely coat. I fear I shall never have strong eyes again. I have great varieties of discomfort, but oh, I should be thankful to see to have my angel's thought- ful face before me, and the exquisite world in which he loved to help me to realize our Creator's love. I cannot describe the beauty of Dunkeld ; of a new walk Yi and I took on Friday evening, in glades between the Crieff road and river. The cones are wonderful under great firs, quite fresh and smooth as in autumn. They always remind me of my Archie and Mary, and I trust October will find them here again, to pick more and ramble through the woods. I had seven letters yesterday, and expect more to-day. I send you Mrs. Blackie's; is she not kind and generous ? Return her note, I shall keep it for days of dark discouragement, such as come to us all. ... I am feeling very doubtful as to the publication of the Memoir. He was so retiring, and his rest is to me so sacred. Yes- terday I wrote to Mrs. Lewes, and by her judgment I shall abide. [Mrs. Lewes's answer was favorable to publication.] "LOVE OTHERS TOO." 491 To Mrs. Archibald Constable. 1 DUNKELD, May, 1875. This is a good day with the eyes, and oh, so beautiful ! I think of you all travelling, and perhaps meeting at sunny Aberdovey. I set out with dear Vi this morning to go to the Spanish chestnuts, but the wind turned me back. Struan, after a little indecision, went on with Vi. He is very fond of her. I make too much of him, and never did win much canine devotion. The loveliness was indescribable. My whole soul is expressed in Tennyson's two lines : Though mixed with God and Nature thou, I seem to love thee more and more. And how this love and sorrow fill and exalt life ! To me they are better than anything but the old joy, fulness of joy in his presence. I cannot tell you what new light seems to break on my soul. To President Porter. DUNKELD, July 14, 1875. How good you are to me ! And for this and all I thank my husband. I was much interested in those records of good and happy lives happy in spite of suffering so peaceful and holy in their close. Most deeply do I feel with you a sadness and a regret that any should be driven by some inexorable logic to relinquish that hope of a fur- ther growth in knowledge and in harmony with the Supreme Will, which gives all their meaning and beauty to such lives. I know indeed that one with Mrs. Lewes's high moral sense would point me to their influence on others ; but if there be no reality corresponding to their own dearest convictions, the whole universe to my think- ing is chaos, for then delusion is stronger for good than recognition of fact. Oh, I cling with unspeakable te- 1 Formerly Miss Mary Wrench. 492 LUCY SMITH. iiacity to the trust in love outliving this life. I cannot transmute this trust into joy, as more sanguine spirits do, only it is my all. I can indeed see that there is a sort of sublimity in that loose hold upon personality, that con- tentment in subserving the progress of others, which dis- tinguish that gifted woman but those views appall me. And though a few natures are rare enough to dispense with what to others is intuition, instinct, yet they are abnormal, I think at all events they cannot help the suffering. If she lost her all, could she bear the absolute separation? I think not. One has heard and read so much condemnation of Mr. Mill's posthumous Essays, but what struck me most was the admission in the last that in the hope of a future life (which to some can only be thought of as further love) there was nothing contrary to reason. What a step that was for him to take, after the long mutilation of his childhood and his youth. His poor father robbed him of childhood indeed. I wonder whether a book entitled " The Unseen Universe " has been at all cared for in America. It has interested me, but less than a little work, " A Theologico-Political Treatise r> by George D'Oyly Snow, whose line of thought is much the same as the Duke of Argyll's in the " Contemporary " for this month. In that article on Animal Instinct there are many passages which have brought a blessed thrill of hope and trust. You see that to me nothing else signi- fies. Lines dated Dunkeld, September 20, 1875 : As men born blind must ponder upon light, Deaf men on sound, though pondering seems vain ; Since only seeing tells the joy of sight, And hearing only music can explain ; So I, Beloved, must needs my spirit strain Long as endures life's dark and silent night Some image of a future bliss to gain. "LOVE OTHERS TOO." 493 Knowledge will widen, that must mean, for thee, God clearer seen in all his power has wrought ; And oh, my thinker ! still more bold and free The range and energy of ceaseless thought. High hopes are these ; but yet, for one like me, A simple image, with past rapture fraught, Seems best to shadow forth what Heaven may be. Our life had days and years most glad and fair, Yet one joy thrills me still all joys above, Because it rose on an almost despair We two were parted ; should we meet ? Oh, Love f I did not dare expect you, You. were there! That says it all ; and dying may but prove A like surprise, and give me strength to bear. To Miss Violetta Smith. [1875.] I am to go to the Infirmary once or twice a week. I was there yesterday and saw a sweet young nurse, who will let me know what day suits. I heard a visitor reading in a loud quick hard voice to seven women, one very weak after a severe operation, a commonplace tract, telling them they might die any moment, and ask- ing them what would become of them. " Which should it be, Heaven or Hell ? Now is the time for choice." I told the nurse that style of ministration was horrible to me ; that if I went, I went as a fellow-creature, certainly inferior in power of bearing pain, lacking that consecra- tion as regarded bodily pain ; went not to teach, but if it might be to give a few moments' variety, and perhaps render some small friendly service, take a message, write a letter, supply some trivial want. The young wo- man plainly understood me. The Saturday visit to the Infirmary has much interest in it. The men are so glad of a paper, and there was a quite lovely Highland woman for whom one could do some small service. Yesterday I went again, taking all my 494 LUCY Christmas cards for them to look at, and some for the Highland woman to send to her children in Ross-shire, and I have little commissions for some of them, and must return on Christmas day. I sent to Mrs. Dixon for holly from dear Borrowdale, and last evening it came, and Archie went off with it at once, and the nice nurse was " awfully pleased to get it," for they had only box, and were all full of dressing the wards. Lines dated Edinburgh, December 6, 1875 : WHAT WAS. Only a burst of sunlight, To shine through a budding tree, Only leaf-stars on the noontide blue, Yet a thrill of ecstasy ! And this is the spell works such wonders, Beloved J T is the eyes of two that see. Only the fire-light flicker On our plain green walls at play ; And we, well shut in by storm without, At close of our third wet day. " Can comfort, can cheeriness, go beyond this ? " So two happy voices say. Only the same sweet life Nothing startling, strange, and new ; But we find fresh meaning and delight In the smallest thing we do ; And the secret of this we have long agreed Is that everything 's done by two. WHAT IS. One lonely creature dragging thro' her life, Weeks long as months, and months stretched out to years, Waging with sorrow an unending strife, Counting for sweetest solace, unchecked tears ; All impulse, energy, and motive gone, Nothing on earth to call or feel her own, Nothing worth doing, since 't is done alone. "I0FE OTHERS TOO." 495 This is the lot of one of that glad two ! The other's lot but hope grows voiceless here, Though ever straining for some nearer view Of his high being in that " further sphere ; " And pressing to her heart, thro* sharpest pain, The thought that he for all his present gain, Waits for the hour will make them two again. My sorrow is my throne! It lifts me from the dust of earthly care ; 'T is calm and peaceful, though so cold and lone And wider prospects stretch before me there. My sorrow is my crown ! A glory round the worn and aching brow ; I would not lay its thorny circlet down For any flowers earth has to offer now. Yet sometimes I could deem I heard his voice, loved voice that guides me, say, " The earth we loved must never trivial seem, Although our joy has passed from earth away. " Go down, at my behest, The smallest, humblest, kindly task to do ; / see the thorn-prints ; hide them from the rest ; Because thou lov'st me so, love others too." CHAPTEE XXXII. NOT AS WITHOUT HOPE. To Lady Eastlake. 137 GEORGE STREET, EDINBURGH, February 23, 1876. I HAVE just laid down your delightful paper on the " Two Amperes," dearest Lady Eastlake, and I want so much to talk with you about it. It brings me into such a new world opens out such fresh vistas of what life may be to the rarer spirits whose full development has been fostered by circumstances. I long to know more about Ballanche, that tender faithful soul content to give it- self away, " hoping for nothing again." I am so struck with all you say about the " Salon," and its necessary con- ditions, which indeed can never be found here, where for the most part speech seems an effort, a struggle seldom an impulse where the talk is known to be dull ac- cepted as such where indeed no one speaks, as the birds sing, from some sweet constraint of joy or sorrow where remark after remark, like a damp match, amounts to a momentary friction hardly a spark, and lights nothing. I remember indeed in the living days long talks with my husband when his bright thought poured out freely and gave me a new sense, and I shall never forget a conver- sation between him and Mrs. Lewes but for the most part I have never lived with talkers. Our loved friend [Mrs. Jones] used to take such delight in conversation, for which she had herself every requisite. But I don't think it ever occurred to me that it was a thing that could be cultivated. No doubt Madame Molil is right, and something should be done early in life. One sentence in NOT AS WITHOUT HOPE. 497 your charming paper went straight to my heart : " Strength of conviction, not so much intended to be the present sup- port as the final fruit of intense mental anguish." It is a wise and profound remark. The winter is over. It has been as peaceful and pleas- ant as may now be. These dear ones are all one could wish, and friends very kind. I have recovered the power of using my eyes very freely, and have read much. Theodore Parker I often find helpful. Sometimes Past and Future seem bright at all events the trembling hope is felt as the most precious, the only precious thing. To the Rev. Allan Menzies. EDINBURGH, 1876. I wonder whether you know Clodd's little books for children, "The Childhood of the World" and "of Reli- gions." I read them with great interest, and feel perfect conviction that they embody the truth, the real facts, as to the manner of growth of the great ideas in the minds of men. Then comes that aching question : Is this, the last word of the highest knowledge and most earnest thought of the present day is this to be outgrown too, like those earlier conceptions ? How different an attitude the most religious minds of the day (if at all intelligent) must take from that of a St. Bernard, in whose mind the idea of progress of the race had never dawned : or even of the worthy divines of thirty years ago, who believed in an immutable form of spiritual life. Now, we suspect that much that we cling to still may be left behind. The good side of it is the toleration. And one does, at least I do, feel quite positive as to what has become to me simply unthinkable ; and however vague one's ideas may be, I am sure it is right to be true, and not to pretend to enter- tain what one has really left behind. Archie bought that book of Theodore Parker that I saw at Abernyte. I read it with as much agreement as is 498 LUCY SMITH. possible. But his was a remarkably spiritual nature. His soul was attuned for the highest and holiest. Still, it is only the more highly gifted that help the lesser, and the poorest of us is God's creature. I like to hear of your teaching. I sometimes wish I could betake myself to some sick ward of a hospital, and try to make a ten minutes easier for any. But I dread moving in any matter. If the work came to me, I would thankfully do what I could, being indeed " free of the guild of woe ; " but the work would come if I were better fitted for it. I think with Emerson that what belongs to us "gravitates toward us." I am so glad you have Hobab. That dumb affection is often a great comfort. To Miss Violetta Smith, [1876.] How conversant I am with that sense of the futility of one's efforts to do a little good! I do so un- derstand your feeling when the poor soul went to sleep ! However, if we make others familiar with us, a time comes when we are of such use as for the most part one human being can be to the unrelated lives outside our deepest love. I shall have plenty of the same experience, now that I have undertaken to go to the Infirmary. It struck me as such a pity to live on without trying to give afflicted ones such slight variety as a visit from a fellow- creature not wanting to preach might give. I shall take the day's paper and a few grapes, and though I don't ex- pect to feel my visits of any use or even conscious comfort to any of the sufferers, I shall try to go on. Most assuredly I know well what you mean by absence of growth in many excellent people. I have indeed been accustomed to define certain acquaintances as young, at whatever age, because growing. Some people cease grow- ing quite early, have no power of liking a new fact, NOT AS WITHOUT HOPE. 499 scarcely a new book. When people see nothing as beau- tiful as they saw in their early days for instance, it is a sign that they are no longer impressionable, have set for once and all into a definite shape, will never grow from within a little perhaps from accretion. For the matter of a perfect sincerity, I must always think it of great moment to be truthful, and never to seem to like much what we in point of fact like little. But then if we can do any good turn to any one, we do like them for that very reason ; and there are relations where friendliness is perhaps Imperative. In theory we might debate the case long ; practically, I don't think there is much difficulty. But if a person be markedly distasteful to me, I think it most probable the same want of rapport affects that person in the same way, and I do not feel I am depriving such a one of any pleasure by keeping aloof. But I think one likes almost everybody with some amount of sincere liking, whether admiration or compassion or sympathy prevails. So many suffer and pity is closely akin to love. It is only untruthful people that I feel any shrinking from. And one's benevolence grows in propor- tion as one expects and even wishes no return, " hoping for nothing again." PLAS COCH, LIANBEKIS, WALES, April 4, 1876. . . . The house is quite unchanged, and we are in the quiet country. Deep snow yesterday, and inexpressibly cold. When I think of the blessedness I have known here, and how all that I loved and love, in the one abso- lute unqualified sense, lived and thought his high thoughts in this room, I still feel a glow of intense feeling almost like happiness I I am sure, dear one, I don't know when I did write, but I think my letter to Archie must have told of my first interview with dearest Mr. Carpenter. I was of course a good deal with my Clara, spent Monday 500 LUCY SMITH. with her and great part of Tuesday. Tuesday evening I saw Dr. Allen, and I think I told Archie how he " under- stood." I was minded to send " Gravenhurst " to Dr. Hil- bers, whose kindness I shall never forget, and I 'm glad 1 did. Wednesday brought George and Effie they are a dear pair. The Aquarium, enchanting but ill-ventilated place, where we spent two hours ; and then the agitation of witnessing Mr. Carpenter's anguish and resignation ; and a long, late walk all together were too much. Thursday I could hardly look up. Friday was divided between Augusta and Clara ; Saturday the same, Augusta going with me to our Aome, and oh, the 'tender grace with which she knelt and laid her offering of lily-of-the-valley and forget-me-not there ! I can't tell how lovingly I admire her. She is all and more than her early promise, and her life a romance. How she is admired and deferred to by men of all ages, and women are equally devoted. People are so very, very kind to me ! Sunday brought dear An- nie Clough in the morning ; George and Clara dined ; then Augusta came and walked with me to Mr. Carpen- ter's, waiting for me. The blessed old man gave me the enclosed. Must not his son have been a noble compound ? His sailor son is with the Challenger, and saved a life very nobly some time ago. I went to St. Paul's with Au- gusta, and the day was a busy one. Monday such frantic wind and rain I did not go out. Spite of the weather, Clara came in the morning ; then Augusta, to sing to me ; and while she was there Miss Thackeray called with Eugenie's dear little nieces. Au- gusta, with her sweet tact, took possession of the chil- dren, and Miss Thackeray and I spoke out of our hearts to each other. She is very dear, and simple and sweet as gifted people are. I felt it an interest to hear her speak of her father, and her love, intense love, for him. What with letters and people that day was full ; I wrote to several, too. We came off on Tuesday, I taking a most NOT AS WITHOUT HOPE. 501 beautiful homeless tabby to Miina. How well he trav- elled, purring when the train stopped, and never moving till we got to Chester. George and Clara travelled with us to Victoria. Dear Amy G met me at the station I fear our last meeting and parting. She lifted up her voice, and what she called me ! all that his wife ought to be. Dearest Mr. Cotton too was there, all love and kind- ness. Dear Sophy too came, and when we departed I thought there were three friends who would tvfrn to each other and say gracious things of the poor " mutilated life " once so blessed. Altogether, dear, I felt the last three weeks helpful. It was such an atmosphere of glowing warmth and tenderness. Augusta's caring for me touches me, her life is so full. Rebecca was all true sisterliness, and did many a sweet little turn. You know how warm a welcome Hessie gave. The dear puss was much appre- ciated. It was a good thing for him I went to Brighton. Yesterday Vi and I were off early, meaning to walk to dear Betty's, but there was kind Jane Browne with her vehicle, and we got driven there. Poor Jane had much to tell me of her husband's beautiful death. . . . She was very affectionate, and had such a box of new-laid eggs for me. It was most kind of her to give us that lift to and fro. . . . Nine children in this house, and the hus- band smokes inveterately bad tobacco ! I don't mind, though, and dear Vi will, I trust, be well here. To the Rev. Allan Menzies. BRIGHTON, April, 1876. I think of you this bright April morning, and am glad that I can see your church, with its attentive congrega- tion, and you in the pulpit, and even the long-ladled boxes for the collection, all so clearly in my mind's eye. I have often thought of you since we last met, but the impulse to write grows I fear feebler. I do not, however, mean to resign myself passively to this. I notice as years go on 502 LUCY SMITH. people have a very general tendency to leave off letter writing. This must show a little deadening and narrow- ing of sympathy, and tends to increase it. One must fight it tooth and nail. To me throughout life it has been a great interest to receive letters, and that 's not to be had without writing them. And even now they help me much, and when some heart has poured itself out to me thus, I am stronger all the day through. ... I am sending you a paper thkt has interested me, but probably to you the train of thought may have no novelty. I remember that during the last winter my husband was looking over Feuerbach, and one day said, " It prompts a reaction." The suffering of animals does weigh terribly on many minds, but perhaps there is necessity in existence of any kind to include pain, and one ventures to hope that in them pleasure far exceeds. Of course I dissent strongly from the clause at the end of page 14. I need no " dia- bolic essence " to quicken conscience. I can believe in evil as the element which is always being revealed by higher knowledge, and the resisting of which is growth and life. But it is all very interesting and ingenious. Did you ever see Ruskin's " Fors Clavigera " ? The humour and the madness and the wisdom make them a unique compound. PLAS COCH, LLANBERIS, May 6, 1876. ... It came across me the other night, driving by moonlight through this grand and solemn Pass, that one might read those words, " Sorrow not even as others that have no hope," in an inverse sense to the generally re- ceived. " Sorrow not less, but more ! You who have hope need not fear to fathom the unfathomableness of your earthly loss. You who have hope need never seek to get rid of your sacred Sorrow. You may safely receive her, a life-long inmate of your inmost heart. There she will dwell, suffering nothing low or worldly to dwell with her. Sorrow greatly, abidingly, consciously, thankfully you who have hope ! " NOT AS WITHOUT HOPE. 503 PLAS COCH, LIANBEBIS, May 20, 1876. I write to you, dear Mr. Menzies, less for any definite reason, such as thanking you for your very valuable de- scription of Seathwaite might afford, than from a restless misery which has oppressed me ever since I received the enclosed note yesterday. It brought back the very worst phases of the sorrow which of late has been growing gen- tler and more lit up by hope. Mr. M is I am sure a man of fine intellect and tenderly affectionate nature, and the renunciation of the great idea of continued life gives him pain. But he is renouncing it. Is it some " cowardly shrinking " on my own part from a growing conviction that makes me suffer so acutely ? If my own convictions were firmer, should I be thus vulnerable ? I have read that article in the " Contemporary," but it does not shake my belief in a Power manifesting itself in Humanity, but even to the consciousness of Humanity manifesting itself in many other ways. The instinctive tendency to worship can never, to my mind, find its ade- quate object in the progressive race of which each one of us is a fraction. I feel that these words of my husband are reasonable : " Religion undoubtedly means more than a belief in God, but it means this first of all. Our cate^ chism tells us that it includes love to our neighbour, and philosophers tell us that it binds society together ; but it binds society together and cultivates our social affec- tions by the aid of those sentiments that spring from the relation between the creature and the Creator." On that head I cannot understand Positivism being irresistible. Humanity has been evolved into fuller perception of the beauties of this little world, of the glories and laws of the starry heavens, but it has not itself to thank for the deli- cate beauty of the tiniest moss, and something in its na- ture " claims kinship with the stars." We must adore something that embraces Humanity and muck more. Define we cannot. Is your life too busy a one for any 504 LUCY SMITH. anguish of this vain endeavour? And why should Pos- itivism be found " irresistible " on that other subject of continuity of life? The more we think and know, the greater our perception of our individual life as part of a whole ; that was never I think more constantly put out than by my own teacher and guide. Do you remember that passage in " Thorndale," chapter 3 : " But in thy hands, O Rhadamanthus, judge of the dead, what is this solitary soul ? " 1 one passage amongst many. The very word " solidarity " is but a recently adopted one among us, but the fact had been very early dwelt on by him. It seems to me that man as he progresses is less under the tyranny of this solidarity, no longer liable to that conta- gion of the imagination that rendered possible many of the epidemics of the Middle Ages. Such phenomena as the dancing madness, etc., are hardly possible in our civiliza- tion ; though indeed Irvingism and speaking with tongues, to say nothing of Moody-and-Sankeyism, should make us hesitate in saying this. However, on the whole, the indi- vidual does seem in proportion to his scientific knowledge to be, so to speak, more self-contained, practically more individual, while he realizes increasingly his dependence upon the past for all that he is now, and that he has no life except as part of an " organic whole." But this only enlarges our sense of personality. There is no contradic- tion between the two facts, as we apprehend them now. Why may not this dualism, so to say, of knowing our- selves as a part, and feeling ourselves " rounded to a sep- arate soul," endure ? I cannot think the instincts of the race have deceived it up to this present time, and that man is to grow satisfied with the perception of one of these truths. But I do think this Religion of Humanity is a great reaction from the mere Theology that has been so long taught, and that the renunciation by so many men of high intelligence of the thought of immortality is a violent 1 See page 198. NOT AS WITHOUT HOPE. 505 protest against the hideous dogma of eternally tortured beings. I suffer so ! All these subjects are for me steeped in my heart's blood. You see it was, it is, no ordinary love that bears this doom of separation. He in- spired a quite different feeling, even in his nieces, even in people who knew him but little. If I did not believe hope think abidingly that he lives in God, as we live in God, my own life would be utterly hideous and un- bearable to me. My love for him grows and grows. You see I owe to him such a vivid life, vivid joy. His very presence was fulness of joy. During those years I crossed the room on the most trivial errand with something of the freedom and ecstasy of flight. All things were intensi- fied, had boundless meaning, fragrance, were outlets " into infinity." I have said to him, not knowing what I said, on my Mount Tabor, " This is Eternity ! " If I have hope (I do not need to define our reunion, any more than the nature of God) the love strengthens me to try and purify myself even as he is pure. If not ! This letter is just a cry. If you have any strong conviction, strong need to hope, tell me anything sustaining. Is Mr. Stevenson an on-looker, or satisfied with just our present knowing in part? I cannot go for my faith to the Bible, and indeed on this subject it holds very little ; but the divinest char- acter we know of had this assumption of higher life, un- derlying all the morality he taught. To-day I cannot turn to any other subject. PLAS COCH, June. 18, 1876. It was good and kind of you, dear Mr. Menzies, to think about me and to write to me again. Your letters are al- ways very welcome. The intolerable pressure of hopeless- ness which I seemed rather to foresee than to feel, but its cold shadow withers up the life did not last long. I will not to-day touch upon the subject from the stand- point of thought. I have been thinking intensely, as the solitary can, all the morning, and turn to my letters for 506 LUCY SMITH. the relief that society gives. But I will just write down lines that gushed from my heart the other evening, and which will tell you how it has been with me of late. On one of the spurs of Snowdon : June 2. My angel out of sight, how could I bear The sunset glory of this summer eve, When all the hills their purplest shadows wear, And all the clouds their rosiest hues receive, How could I bear it, did I not believe Thy present sphere is yet more perfect and more fair. Oh, but that deep down in my secret heart Such trust all fear and doubting underlies, Glories like these, in which thou hast no part, What could they be but torture to my eyes ? Better the dreariest scene, the darkest skies, Better no more to be if thou no longer art. But since, Beloved, while I sit and gaze Upon the pageant of the earth and sky, My heart still throbs with thankfulness and praise, For what thou lovedst in our days gone by, I know thou must be living life more high, Seeing and serving God in nearer, nobler ways. And so it is. My love grows ever more and more, is all my personal life. How could I live did I not hope ? But he would say, " Turn to other subjects." I am glad you saw my ideal of young womanhood, Augusta S , and wish you had had more talk with her. Her face is fraught with intellect and feeling ; and every movement is so graceful it makes one say what Florimel said to Perdita which I might misquote, and which you know, so I won't get up for my Shakespeare. She and I had not met for ten years till we met last March, and the interval we found had but drawn us nearer. NOT AS WITHOUT HOPE. 507 To a Friend. It is my hope that you will make in new and con- genial friends. You must learn to take the initiative. You are a very bright darling, and if you would only give yourself the rein, many that you think dry and unsympa- thetic would be far more genial and pleased than you suppose. It is no one's fault it is the merest trifles that seem to isolate. If you were stronger in health, you would not feel these chills. Augusta has quoted such an excel- lent saying of mine (! !) that I must give you the benefit of it. It seems that when she went to Edinburgh, I, in- troducing her to some friends, said, " You must mix up a good deal of yourself with them, and then you will thor- oughly like them ! " Oh, my dear one, act upon that ! To Mr. Thomas Constable. PLAS COCH, May 29, 1876. ... I think you know that I am going to stay here for the summer. I hope in one way or other to be able to do this, even if the Khedive be finally ruined by the stock- jobbing crew the worst offenders of our modern days, " spreading ruin and scattering ban," for the poor return of personal wealth. However, they have their functions no doubt, like vultures and other ravagers, and they must have a hard time of it too, and lose much that is " free to the poorest comer." ... I wish I had seen that notice in the " Guardian " of " Gravenhurst," from which I see a pleasant passage extracted. That " step so light yet firm " was characteristic of the man as well as the author. The personality touched one as lightly as does a sunbeam, but it colored all one's world and raised the spirit's tem- perature. The majority have a heavy, opaque personality, mere resistance to another self. . . . These mountains are better than most things and how the birds sing! Archie has lent me helpful, thoughtful books not that I 508 LUCY SMITH. can go far with them, but they give one strength to reach a point where if the ways fork one sees 't is to meet again at the end. To Mrs. A. Constable. PLAS COCH, July 20, 1876. . . . Now I must tell you of the past week. Do you know, I can quite believe that solitude might grow to be one's consciously best time? Only one would want a wider range of books. Every evening I wandered in lovely places. On the fourteenth, the day William came to Patterdale, I sat long on a green hill we loved, saw the shining sea on one hand, Snowdon on the other, glowing like molten iron in the sunset, near me the peaceful sheep, overhead plovers all so peaceful, so like the past. And there I sat, and read his letters, and thanked God for my creation. No companionship can ever give me such in- tense feeling as these lonely hours. But variety is no doubt good for one ; prevents one's getting, as one easily might, exclusive ; and that very intensity of agony and rapture requires to be rested from. Indeed I feel, con- trasting myself as I am with others and as I am there, alone with him, that with very little exaggeration I might say " whether in the body or out of the body I cannot tell." Looking back through the empty years, a few such evenings of sunset glow, in the sky and in my soul, stand out as the only intervals of life in the old sense. But then, there are the dark hours, and the weary eyes, and the eating in of the un uttered thoughts ; and I am thankful for the intervals of human fellowship, and quite sure, my darlings, that it will be far better for me to winter with you than anywhere else ; though I would not have your plans inconveniently modified, the more so that I feel I shall be 110 advantage in a pecuniary sense, or enable you to have better rooms this winter. This summer I have .45 less than usual, but then I am spending less only NOT AS WITHOUT HOPE. 509 twenty-five shillings for the rooms, and very little for eat- ing. Every week that comes round, I have to put some- thing in Mrs. Williams's bill, and this little fight, in which I always prevail, keeps up a delusion of being rather rich than otherwise. She is a nice little woman, so obliging and kindly ; and as to a little moulding of facts to make them fit in, that does not offend me. The girl Elizabeth is so pretty that I quite overlook her want of head, and she is such a gentle, timid creature that one can say anything. I have had a feeling of their being fond of me, if you will excuse my saying so, and was therefore glad to be told by Miss D that Mrs. Williams said " I was an angel " ! I wonder why, considering that the only notice I ever take of her eight children is to beg to have them silenced. Miss D called on Saturday. She is singularly kind, with that generous kindness that likes to dwell upon the possessions of others. She seems to take a positive pleas- ure in dwelling upon the bliss that was mine, and that she firmly believes will be again. I think her an admirable woman. I know few who are so easy and satisfactory to talk with, " quick at the uptak',' ' and with a courtesy that is flattering. On Saturday afternoon I had a telegram from the dear sailor, and he came by the ten train, but went first to the hotel to shake off his dustiness and order his room. He was in such good looks. The beautiful white teeth light up his grave and rather reluctant smile. I could fancy his having had some singular experiences. He sees so much of reckless, desperate life on the coast of Peru, lives so much where you must carry your revolver and are likely enough to witness an assassination, that he must take a wider view of human nature than those who live in decencies forever. Yet one would stake something worthier than one's life upon his uprightness and purity. He is a man you could go with anywhere, sure of his cool courage. You remember how years ago I was supported by his sitting upon the gunwale of the boat that tossed us 510 LUCY SMITH. a mile from shore to the packet. He is a good listener^ and if the sentiment chances to be one he feels but could not express, endorses it emphatically. I felt we were en rapport, but he is not a talker ; considers it probably very immaterial what he thinks or does not think, an acci- dent not affecting in any perceptible degree the course of events. He thinks marriage such a fearful risk ; said, half to himself, " Now there was my uncle ; I don't suppose one woman in a million would have suited him." He has evidently a deep feeling about his uncle. As I sat with him in the sweetest nooks of a brook on Sunday, and showed him the English wild flowers, unfamiliar to his eyes (he has been at sea since the age of fifteen), oh, how I wished for him the joy I felt, we felt, together ! He is affectionate to his own family, and adored by them, and tenderly devoted to his father. We were out all the morn- ing, despite the heat ; and in the evening I took him a drive, and we walked to the lakes below Snowdon ; and when he went away I had an odd feeling of having been cdive, such as I often have after dreams. I have a strange affection for him, a little fear of tiring him, a sense that there is in him much that is unfathomed, and a feeling that his uncle likes our being together. He talks of send- ing me a chinchilla. Think what a darling! He de- scribed the feel of it as of a " handful of smoke." It is quite gentle and tame. I have scruples about taking it, they are so seldom brought alive to this country. It would be a great responsibility. Of course it likes warmth, and in Edinburgh it would have to live always near the fire. It has a cage, but would gladly come out and run about, only it nibbles, like a squirrel. I am sure Archie would like it. I don't know whether it will come or not, and don't know what to wish. It must be an exquisite creature. There is no trouble with it ; it eats any green thing or any fruit, apple or apple-paring. Tell me how you will feel if I announce that I have got it. NOT AS WITHOUT HOPE. 511 The Miss D referred to in this letter writes of her friend as follows : " My idea and remembrance of her is contained in one short sentence the noblest, most thoroughly noble woman I ever knew, and the most humble and sympathiz- ing utterly unselfish. I mean by humble the uncon- sciousness she showed of her own gifts and attainments, in her intercourse with the less gifted. And she had that rare and sacred gift, the power to wake the best in every one, and send them away feeling old energies revived, old hopes quickened, the world not all dry and desolate since it still held so gracious a presence, so full a sympathy. Of her great mental gifts others are better fitted to speak, but to me it was the heart, the spirit, the tone, which blessed five years only of my life, but changed it, and is now a part of it, though she has been lost to us outwardly for six years. You know something of what she was to me, but only I know the depth and extent of her influ- ence and help, or how entirely she was a ' light in a star- less night ' to me. Well I remember the first meeting coming out of the little Welsh church one evening, and seeing her sitting in the porch, listening to 4 the sweet Welsh hymn,' as she said when I held the door open (thinking she was going in to hear the sermon, not know- ing who she was I was leaving before the sermon, as it was the Welsh service that evening). Then she rose and walked in my direction, and even in that short walk I began to know what she was. A day or two after she came to see me, and then, until she left, I saw her only seven times altogether. Then the dear letters and then, the end. "Two of these meetings espBcially remain as pictures in my memory. Once, she was sitting on a grassy slope near the church, looking toward the Lake and Snowdon, with such a look in the beautiful dark eyes not suffer- ing exactly, the word ' pathetic ' suits it better and 512 LUCY SMITH. her smile that evening I can see now. The other vision of her is yet more vivid. She and Edith had been at Mount Hazel by the seashore, where she and her husband once lived ; and in the twilight she came in on her way home to give me a white pebble and seaweed from the beach. Her dear eyes were full of light, and her cheek flushed, and her black veil had the dew of the autumn evening upon it ; and she spoke a few sweet words about the old life there, and of still knowing he was near her 4 my dearest out of sight.' " Was ever sorrow so unselfish as hers ! It never closed her heart to that of others, who, if I may judge by my own feeling, looked upon her as one guarded, set apart, by her sacred grief, from intrusion of theirs. But she drew it out by her magic sympathy, and then came the flow of wise, helping, raising encouragement. Many more than will ever be fully known in this world owe the restoration of life and hope to her, in her own widowhood and loss of personal happiness if indeed that is a true description of the dear heart which felt as its own the joy of those she loved. And then the thought for her friends the exquisite work she would adorn their houses with ! Even during a few day's stay in London, she would find time for copying a beautiful design in needle- work for a country cottage. Oh, to be more like her, not only to admire and reverence ! " To Mrs. Lorimer. PLAS COCH, LLANBERIS, July 31, 1876. ... I have a very early friend with me, have had for a fortnight, Sophy L . Her sister, one of the loved band out of sight now, was especially dear to me, but this is a precious friendship so old and so familiar. She was a shy child of twelve and a half, I a girl of fifteen, when we first knew each other, and though we have not been much together of late years there is a perfect ease and NOT AS WITHOUT HOPE. 513 confidence between us, not the necessity for any effort or restraint. Dear Sophy is a very sweet, gentle, high- minded woman, a beauty for her age, and so graceful I like to watch her. She paid us three visits in the days of my life, and William liked and admired her very much, and then she had a most beautiful voice. . . . This day week she and I walked up Snowdon and back, taking- it quietly and seeing glorious views of far and near, the Wicklow mountains being indigo blue over a bright blue sea, till we arrived at the hut at the top. A high wind suddenly sprang up, and gravel and dust flew blindingly about, and then white clouds came up rapidly from the north, and swept the lower hills, and rose till they swal- lowed us up, and we really thought we should have to sleep there. A tourist with an excellent countenance said, " This is the very time for a sing" and as we all cowered around the fire and the wind rattled our shelter- ing hut, he took Moody and Sankey's little volume of hymns out of his pocket, and struck up spirited airs, " Hold the Fort," and many others, all new to me ; not so, however, to some of the guides, who chimed in and though one would no longer have put one's deepest hopes into the same words, still there was a power and sweet- ness too in the hymns ; and I felt my enmity to those evangelists greatly modified. When the wind lulled, Sophy and I marched off into the mist, for the path was good, and there was light enough for the next step, and we got back at ten, not overdone, and drawn the closer by the experience. I cannot tell you how the old life seems to reanimate me on the mountains, when seeing the splendours seen and loved by him, when he looked at the earth and sky, and I saw their beauty best in his de- light. I liked Lord Shaftesbury's speech on the Eastern ques- tion, and his declaration that he would rather have the Russians than the Turks at Constantinople. I think pub- 514 LUCY SMITH. lie opinion will grow strong in that direction, and shake off the ally of the past with horror ; not because he is Mohammedan, but because driven to such cruel warfare, and guilty of incapacity to control the savage hordes that eke out his army. To Mr. Archibald Constable. PLAS COCH, Sept. 17, 1876. I know my kind Archie will like to know that Fiske came at the very moment I wanted just that sort of read- ing. I was so worn out I staid in bed for breakfast, and rested myself with those grand attainments to scientific facts with which we blend, which give us the energy and the impulse to blend, high hopes and the sweet trust- fulness of " infants crying in the night," " knowing a father near." I want my darling Mary to have some of this excitement. I do believe that just the effort, the up- ward gazing after those who soar, is more favourable to health than any drug. Bromide is the fashionable mis- chief just now, and I believe very deleterious. It 's all guess-work as yet, and doctors have not got beyond sub- stituting one complaint, one abnormal condition, for an- other. Such is my firm belief. THE MORE EXCELLENT WAY. " To love is the great glory, the last culture, the highest happiness ; to be loved is little in comparison." WILLIAM SMITH, Gravenhurst. Yes, the love that we get is a joy and a power 'T is as rain to the deep-thirsting root ; As the sun-light to open and colour the flower ; As the sun- warmth to ripen the fruit. We will hail it and prize it so long as we live ; But the life of the soul is the love that we give. If the root underground be worm-stricken and dry, If the flower have all withered away NOT AS WITHOUT HOPE. 515 What avails that the soft rain still falls from the sky Or bright sunbeams be still at their play ? But from darkness and drought we may suffer, yet live ; For the life of the soul is the love that we give. CHAPTER XXXIII. LED ONWARD. " I CAN vividly recall the feeling," writes Mrs. Emily Pfeiffer, " with which in the summer of the year 1875 I read the letter in a then unknown hand which now lies be- fore me, telling of the sympathy and trust which rny writ- ings had won for me from a soul ' too stricken for com- fort ' but whom my ' words had helped to suffer.' The letter of this stranger expressed a wish that I should be- come acquainted with a memoir, printed at that date for private circulation only, ' a faithful record ' by herself of her ' husband's life and death.' This letter was from Lucy C. Smith ; the precious deposit which quickly fol- lowed it was a volume containing the printed works 'of William Smith (who had at that time been dead about three years), and the memoir above mentioned. " Letters and sonnets were exchanged at intervals after this, but no meeting took place or was so much as thought of, indeed my correspondent gave me to understand that there were reasons for which she did not wish it, until in the autumn of 1876 my husband and myself found ourselves at Bettws-y-Coed. She had told me that she could express herself more fully to me with the idea that we were not to meet in the flesh, for that she desired no new pleasures, not even that of acquaintanceship, nothing but what had some part in the memory in which she lived. The fact therefore which I learned incidentally that we should be her neighbours for a few days at the Llanberis Hotel gave me 110 expectations of meeting her. LED ONWARD. 517 " Our arrival, however, was greeted by a note from Mrs. Smith, delivered by a friend who was then staying with her. The note invited us to tea that same evening. We readily found the house indicated, a pretty cottage shut off from the road by a garden, and all overrun with jas- mine and China roses. The dear inmate was waiting to receive us. I think at this time the facing of every new incident in life cost her an effort, and I am very sure that to the end each revived sense of pleasure was accompanied by the pang with which she realized her loneliness in it. 44 The presence of Lucy Smith, the wife and widow of the memoir, was every whit as gracious as we had hoped to find it. She must at that time have been over fifty, but looked I think much younger. A pale face, large hazel eyes rather far apart, a singular earnestness and presentness of expression, as of one whose thoughts and feelings were overflowing, from, an ever-living spring. Her voice, soft and musical, sounded as somewhat bur- thened by feeling. Withal there was no sense of strain in her companionship ; she was too wholly true for that ; rather one was inclined to share with her in the repose re- sulting from the detachment of the spirit from all earthly strivings. Since others were present, my husband and I were each enabled to hold some conversation with her almost, as the Germans say, unter vier augen. 44 4 1 was shy of seeing you,' she said, 4 not only that I seek for nothing that has not its root in the past, but I am sensitive for him, tender as he was to me and blind to my shortcomings, and could wish for something better to show as his wife.' 44 She had a deep love of, and understanding sympathy with, nature. Mountains were her recreation grounds, and there were some among them, notably Snowdon and Hel- vellyn, that she seemed to have endowed almost with a human personality. During her frequent sojourns in their neighbourhood she lived quite on familiar terms with 518 LUCY SMITH. them, and was perhaps even more given than was good for her to measuring her strength against the giants. The devastation of their flora at the untender hands of tourists was a constant source of vexation to her. For her own part she was content to do homage to their rarer ferns and mosses on their own ground ; it was not often that she carried even a frond or a blossom away with her. " ' The sense of loss is keen, and at times overwhelming ; and yet the next best thing in life to a great joy is a great sorrow.' Such were her words ; and they were true. She was lifted above all sordid ambitions, all selfish greed ; readily recipient of impressions from the beautiful and the true, in art as well as nature ; judging all things not by the vain breath of fashion but tried at the touch- stone of her own sincerity ; capable of the truest sympathy as well in the joys as the sorrows of others, and where need was, of generous devotion. Much of this was made clear to our understanding in our first interview with her, but at this distance of time I cannot tell how much of it was gathered, or how much divined. Upon another evening we were again, at her bidding, sitting in the Welsh cot- tage, discoursing with her and her friends of things new and old. The heart that was so open to human sympathy was not closed to the animal creation. At this time much affectionate regard was given to the droll behaviour and altogether foreign ways of a little chinchilla. It struck me that a dog might have made a fuller return, but I be- lieve that some feeling on the part of him whose lightest word had become part of the unwritten law of her life prevented her from seeking the degree of solace she might have found in such companionship. " And this leads me to the statement of an impression which was gradually deepening as my intercourse with Mrs. Smith in this short first period became closer. The love which as a pure and spiritual flame maintained its place in her life, undiminished in the absence of sight and LED ONWARD. 519 sense, seemed not to have conquered for her the hope which is the supreme triumph of love over death. No wonder if at this time the flame that had no such issue was wearing away the flesh. I had had many opportunities of observing the work of love upon the human conscious- ness, and had seen, sometimes from spoken, sometimes from written words, how the hardest and most imper- vious intelligence, melted by hope and longing, became as it were an illuminated medium. I know all that can be said to throw discredit upon such light as a divine rev- elation, but I still thank God that great and pure love has the power to generate such light in its season of earthly eclipse, for though it were no better than a divine mad- ness, it has done, as I trust it has yet to do, more for the progress of the race than could ever be accomplished by the unaided toil of reason. It is love, as our poet-painter Watts has shown us in his great picture of " Love leading Life up the stair of human progress," that is the human- izing influence our race has unconsciously obeyed. How long would love at its noblest endure if, tied hand and foot, it knew itself the prisoner of time ? The human heart I think would decline to embark itself upon a hope- less venture ; there would be no more grand passions - or if there were, their tragedy would alone remain, their grandeur would have departed. I knew something of all this at that time ; since then, continued observation of life has taught me much more. But here was a love great enough for the loftiest hope that has ever been born of such, and yet it seemed to me that an invisible drag was upon it, forbidding it to enter upon its heritage. With further knowledge of the workings of this devoted spirit, it became clear that an effort to maintain the atti- tude and keep herself at the point reached at the time of his death by the reasonable and candid mind of William Smith reacted upon as I inferred by a temperament which was not rich in hope was the influence which 520 LUCY SMITH. was retarding love's perfect work in the loyal soul of his widow. The moon was flooding with clear white light the spaces of the little garden between the shrubs when we parted at the gate. Neither my husband nor I shall ever forget her face and her voice : ' I am a ghost,' she said, ' I only seem to be here, I am a ghost.' Her large eyes shone upon us out of her pale face, which was the only point of light in her person, her black dress mingling with the shadows. She looked at us a moment, and when she turned away, it was as if she had vanished. " I was deeply impressed with this abiding sorrow, amounting at times to keenest anguish with the sight of this ' patience ' which was yet not doing its ' perfect work.' " If life be continued after death, as love affirms ; if love, which is spiritual nearness, still holds the souls of those who have truly loved to their allegiance, nothing could be more competent to disturb the harmony of the relationship than a maintenance on the part of the one left of a mental attitude from which the other had de- parted. It is not by restraining the spirit from develop- ing under the pressure of new circumstances, by adhering to the letter of the creed which was that of the beloved in the days of his darkness, that we can hope to keep step with a soul that has entered upon a new revelation. " During the next nearly seven years which intervened I saw Mrs. William Smith from time to time as circum- stances permitted, and ever with increasing pleasure. The correspondence that was kept up in the intervals was mostly with my husband, between whom and Mrs. Smith there was an understanding sympathy, but it kept me informed of all her movements, and of much that went forward within her. We gathered from the correspond- ence and these meetings, that although the beloved mem- ory was cherished, jealously cherished as the most sa- cred of religions, the hope without which love can LED ONWARD. 521 hardly continue to exist was constantly gaining strength, and her healthy vitality was renewing its hold upon her surrounding conditions. The change was visible in her ap- pearance, no less than in her words and manner ; she was no longer 4 a ghost.' And yet the action in which she most often recurs to my remembrance is one in which some protest was made against the seeming singleness of heart with which she occasionally entered into the merriment of others. More than once when she has contributed the best thing said to a lively conversation, she has abruptly turned her back upon the company, and looked at me with eyes that had such a seeking, hungry yearning in them that they seemed to sweep me away with her into some silent region where soul communed with soul with- out the aid of words. "There was a delightful impression of unity about Lucy Smith ; the accidental seemed to have less place in her constitution than in that of most others. She did not give you the notion of a stream made up of arbitrarily re- lated parts, whose action shaped by circumstances it was impossible to predict ; on the contrary you felt that here you had to do with a definite organization, with a being whom it was possible to know. To me the note of her character, that which constituted her a personality apart from that of other noble women with whom I have been in relation, was the width no less than the depth of her affections. She was rich in feeling not only by concentra- tion, but by extension ; her sympathies were wide as well as deep. ... I have hinted at the consolations which the widow of William Smith derived from friendship ; never have I known a woman who had so many and such true hearts in her service, never any one who was able to make so full a return for the precious gifts received. Always ready to mourn with those who mourned, to rejoice with those who rejoiced, the possessions of others seemed to gladden her as if poured into her own lap ; even the sight 522 LUCY SMITH. of the enjoyment by another of the love which she es- teemed the highest good was not embittered by any re- turn upon her own loss ; it was not in her to feel the poorer for others' wealth. " I feel my tribute of remembrance to Lucy Smith to be very faint, all the more so perhaps for lacking the touches of shadow, which had I put them in must have been false, as I could not have taken them from the life. My association with her only gave to view the high lights of character. " William Smith has written of 4 Knowing and Feeling ; ' I have been contemplating his widow only from the side of 4 feeling,' since it was the depth and truth of her emo- tions which more than all else, as it seemed to me, set her as a being apart. I have known others whose culture was as wide ; some perhaps, but if so few, very few, whose judgment was as independent ; but none who while capable of love so deep had sympathies so far - reaching. For this she will occupy a unique place in the memory and the affections of all who knew her." Another friend writes : " I have wondered that a nature so sublimely endowed with love as Lucy Smith's did not sometimes find, even in the time of her bereavement, a joy unmixed with anguish, and a perfect assurance of continued union. Such an ex- perience comes I know to some men and women. It is not constant with them, but there are hours when it fills and satisfies the soul. Hope does not adequately describe it, for it does not look to the future ; it is the sense of a pres- ent love, as blessed and perfect as ever the bodily pres- ence gave. One is lifted above all doubt and fear ; past, present, and future are invested in one serene radiance of joy and love. Such hours pass ; we come down from them to the ordinary plane of living ; but so much of their light remains as to be strength unspeakable. A supreme affection seems to carry in itself the consciousness of a tie LED ONWARD. 523 which no outward event, not even death, can break. Something resembling or approaching this must I am sure have been felt by this woman, who I think in her genius for loving exceeded all whom I have known. But in my acquaintance with her I never recognized that she had tasted the fulness of this consciousness, or that any hour had been quite free from an anguished longing." But it would seem that in just this direction lay the wonderful education of these later years. It was like the gradual development of a new faculty in the soul, this power to rise above the absence of the visible symbol, and feel the reality of a pure spiritual communion. For a na- ture so tender, so fond, so clinging as hers, how could the process be other than slow ? And her whole previous life had been spent in close society with those she loved best. Two years after her husband's death, in writing to a friend of a proposed brief stay by herself in the country, she says she has never in her life been alone. For ten years she had been used, for every need of her heart and mind, to rest absolutely on the hand now vanished, the voice now still. An adaptation to such changed conditions was like the transfer from one world to another. Doubtless* too, she was under special influences from the character of her husband's thinking, and from her at- titude toward his memory. That attitude was one of worship. A part of her worship was to seek to follow his thoughts, his ideals, and no others ; to mould herself wholly on him. But may we not believe that he would have gently reminded her for it was one of his most characteristic thoughts that to every nature, to every organization, there is assigned its own law, its own de- velopment, for which no other can be substituted, not even that of the most revered and beloved ? Whoever saw these two together in life, and appreciated their perfect union, must have realized that its very perfection lay partly in those differences which made them supplements 524 LUCY SMITH. to each other. Of no pair was it ever truer than of them, that " Woman is not undeveloped man, But diverse ; could we make her as the man, Sweet love were slain ; his dearest bond is this, Not like to like, but like in difference." When he was taken from her, she tried to follow in his footsteps, as everywhere else, so especially on the one sub- ject that engaged her heart the thought of a future life. But in regard to that theme the difference between his nature and her nature, between his experience and her ex- perience, required and even compelled a different attitude in her from what his had been. The favorite realm of his life was thought, inquiry, speculation. His virtue was to test each belief inexorably and fearlessly by the stand- ard not of desire but of truth ; to keep reason on the judg- ment-seat, sovereign over the feelings which thronged and pressed like tumultuous suitors. And thereby he disci- plined himself in self-control, and made large advances in those provinces of knowledge which are to be mastered by study and reflection. But " no man can escape the limitation of his own qual- ities." And the habit of incessantly subjecting all ideas and emotions to a rigorous scrutiny imposes an undue limitation on some noble faculties. A lawyer's cross-ex- amination often sifts truth out of falsehood, but a per- petual cross-examination may rob the true story of its impressive and convincing quality. Nor does the atmos- phere of perpetual meditation serve best to generate the great insights and assurances which belong to a complete humanity. Some highest knowledge comes only through action. It is only when the young bird trusts itself to flight that it learns how buoyant the air is to its wing. Meditation was to this soul the nest whence it could never bring itself to fly. It would seem that its full liberation could come only with the release from earthly conditions. LED ONWARD. 525 " When the scanty shores are full With Thought's perilous, whirling pool ; When frail Nature can no more Then the Spirit strikes the hour ; My servant Death with solving rite Pours finite into infinite." 1 The realm of her life was love; and love recognizes other elements than the pure intellect affords ; recognizes them as truly as the painter recognizes color, which the mathematician may ignore. And the life into which per- sonal love enters largely is a more complete life than one given over to abstraction, just as the man who to the mathematician's sense of form and number adds the sense of color enters thereby into a completer world. His method of approach to truth was mainly by reflection and analysis. But the highest realities to which man attains are far beyond man's power to analyze. Take that simple fact signified when one soul says to another / love you. Not one word of the three can you analyze or define, O wise psychologist ! The " I," the "you," the "love " each is indefinable, inexplicable, belonging to a realm in which the writ of science does not run yet nothing is more real. And out of these unf athomed deeps of the human spirit, out of the heart's experience in active commerce with its fellows out of anguish, rapture, endurance, faithfulness grow wonderful aspirations, premonitions, assurances. They rarely shape themselves in exact and articulate form, but express themselves rather as peace and hope and joy. Some promise, too large to be understood, not to be fully compassed even by the fulfilment of the most cherished wish, breathes a celestial air upon the soul. This was the path upon which this woman was being led by gentlest unseen hands. And while she looked weeping back to the irrecoverable past, her feet were 1 Emerson, Threnody. 526 LUCY SMITH. bearing her forward to some diviner future. In her dark- est hour, she always felt and followed the guiding hand of Duty. Slowly it grew upon her that the hand was that of Love. In her nature, underlying all her brilliant gifts, was a deep timidity and self-distrust. She gained self-confi- dence only as she saw herself reflected in her husband's eyes, and in her thinking she leaned absolutely upon the guidance of his mind. When she no longer had his visi- ble companionship, it was past her belief that she was still of value, she seemed to herself a dead and worthless thing. That feeling is expressed in her letters with a fre- quency and force which we have mostly spared the reader ; choosing in our selections to show him the reality rather than the delusion that instead of being dead she was more keenly alive than ever ; instead of being worthless she was growing more precious year by year. And, in keep- ing with this self-disparagement, it was her impulse to look back to her husband's words, and to think forward in lines akin only to his thoughts on the one absorbing ques- tion. But her husband once said to her, " You and I al- ways see things alike only she goes further" And now indeed, little as she guessed it, she was " going further " for what the guidance of his thoughts could not do was done for her by the inspiration of their mutual love. There is a tendency not uncommon in the serious thought of our day, to seek a satisfactory solution of the problem of life without pressing too closely the question of a personal hereafter. The mediaeval theology treated the future state as the one supreme fact by which this mundane existence was to be interpreted. From this theology a great reaction has been going on for centuries, a reaction whose vital principle is the ever widening discovery of a value and significance in this present sphere the worth of the Here and Now. And this tendency at present ex- tends in many minds even to the dismissal of any belief or LED ONWARD. 527 expectation of a Hereafter. To such a dismissal three im- pulses contribute : the weakening of the traditional argu- ment for immortality from the bodily resurrection of Jesus, the disposition to regard man's spiritual faculties as functions of the transient physical organism, and the new object offered to moral enthusiasm in the progres- sive development of the race. No student of William Smith's writings need be told that he was very far from relinquishing the hope of a hereafter, and that he consid- ered that there were sober intellectual grounds for cher- ishing that hope. Still, his philosophy seldom emphasizes the idea ; is engaged more with the progress of the race than the future of the individual ; and aims at a temper of thankful acquiescence in the present, without dwelling much on the possibilities of the personal future. It is an attitude which seems practicable to the thinker, absorbed in impersonal thought. It may seem practicable to those whose present is filled with happiness. But, confront it with the noblest human trait, under the one inevitable emergency, confront it with Love in the presence of Death, and it fails utterly. There can then be no in- difference, no dismissal of the topic as unessential it presses home upon the heart. So, where the Thinker was content to pause, the Lover must press on. The woman-nature the feminine element, be it in man or woman here takes the lead. The masculine intellect may learn of the Ewigweibliche, may accept the final word of Faust :"- " The Woman-Soul leadeth us upward and on." This woman's letters show how intensely and continu- ously she reverted to reading and to speculative inquiry on the great problem. But they show too how she was gaining life and strength and hope through other re- sources than those of the intellect. Light and peace came slowly to her through love itself, the one supreme 528 LUCY SMITH. love, having at its heart the supreme hope ; and that love for " others too " which welled irrepressibly within her. As her old nurse said of her as a child, " you can get so near to Miss Lucy," so always she gets near to every- thing she meets. For every friend, for every stranger in whom some trait attracts her eye, for every animal, and even for the mountain for Helvellyn or Suowdon or the Matterhorn she has a regard in which for the mo- ment her whole nature seems to concentrate itself ; even in her written words about each beloved object, one feels a caress. When from these affections the conscious joy has been stricken out by her great grief, still there is al- ways the impulse to help, to serve. It is by this perpet- ual loving touch with humanity and nature that her spirit is strengthened and restored. And no less strong than her affection is her fidelity to duty in its homeliest forms. She is as faithful in her economy, that least sentimental of the virtues, as in the most gracious and tender of personal ministries. The law of her life is the thorough, prompt, inevitable performance of the nearest duty. There is a curious contrast between her husband's habit- ual withdrawal from the shocks of actual existence, and all its cark and care, into the lonely, lovely world of his own thoughts, and her habit of coming always to close grip with the hard, visible present, and mastering it. It is by such daily battle, by such perpetual iiiterweaval with other lives in sympathy and service, by the influences flowing in upon her from mountain and sunset, and by the one love blent with all. it is by these, more than by utmost strain of the questioning mind, that she rises to- ward the height where fear is left behind, and love, hope, and trust are all in all. Touching and wonderful it is to see her life shaping itself to greater issues than she herself suspects, issues which in her passionate concentration and idolatry she would sometimes even deny. In many of her letters the LED ONWARD. 529 cry rings again and again that she is dea J, that life is over for her ; yet even at that moment what intense life beats in her, and communicates its intensity to him who reads the words ! Over and again she declares that she desires no interests, no friendships even, in which her hus- band had not had a part ; yet what new interests do come in, blending always with the old, but drawing her into wider activities, and blessing others with her. Singular is it, in a nature so generous as hers, to see in the early, awful years of her bereavement how she draws the line between her personal interests and the interests of others ; as when repeatedly she uses such expressions as this, in speaking of a great happiness that has come to dear friends : " But I can no more rejoice, except through sym- pathy, than I could see, were my eyes put out, the beauty I might yet like to have described." Yet, unconfessedly, unconsciously, her sense of the joys of others does glad- den her personal life ; does slowly, sweetly, restore to her more and more of tranquillity and happiness. And that to the last there mingles in her life a great sorrow, a great longing, an intense looking forward to something unattained, who, be it reverently said, would wish it otherwise ? It is these very yearnings that prompt and sustain the most sacred hope of mankind. If her worship of her husband had in it as assuredly he would have told her some touch of idolatry ; if her effort to wholly adopt and satisfy herself with his ways of thought was impracticable ; yet most truly did her life derive guidance and impulse from what was deepest and most characteristic in him. It belonged to her rather than to him to develop into strength the hope of immor- tality. But by his influence she was perpetually rein- forced in the qualities which are more vital even than the immortal hope the aspiration and effort toward a per- fect Tightness of character, and a trust which seeks to commit each personal wish to a holier will and larger 530 LUCY SMITH. knowledge than ours. More is it to the impetuous heart to learn these lessons than to receive the certain assurance it craves ; and these were the very lessons, fidelity, as- piration, trust, which her husband embodied to her, and every hour impressed on her. These were what he really signified to her ; this it was in him which won her love ; this made her love sacramental, and drew her by its whole force ever nearer to God, and nearer to all God's creatures. To be faithful in darkness that is the supreme test to which the human spirit is subjected. It came in early years to William Smith, when knowledge of God seemed lost. It came in later years to his wife, when parted from her husband. Each walks the path alone, unshaken in loyalty and in love. And upon the way of each we see a tender light brightening like the coming of the day. CHAPTER XXXIV. "HE RESTORETH MY SOUL." To the Rev. Allan Menzies. PATTEBDALE, April 9, 1877. . . . MARY, Chin, and I came here last Tuesday, and I fancy that the change is doing Mary some good. Archie tells her that you were preaching at North Esk, and he would have gone to hear you but that he had promised to read to dear Mrs. S on Sunday mornings. That was my office during my Edinburgh stay. Some of the last sermons that we thus shared, and liked especially, were those of Mr. Service. My dear aged friend and I have much in common difficulties and perplexities enough, but, I think, a deepening trust and a keener desire for betterness. To me it appears that her fine, strong, ster- ling, generous nature is growing meeker and more spirit- ual, taking some ineffable grace and tenderness from the unspeakable sorrow, and the dim and timid hope which saves. How loving she is to me I cannot say, nor how many tears she shed over my departure. If you are in Edinburgh will you try to go and see her ? I am sure she would like it. Archie's Sunday reading would seem very startling to some. It was Kenan's article on Spinoza, which I had translated and Mrs. S wished to hear. You cannot think how much time Mary and I spend, I will not say waste, in watching Chinchilla, who is most lovely after baths of red sand, very fine and cleansing, rubbing off all the town smoke, and making his dear little waistcoat and shirt-front purely white. Mary has been 532 LUCY SMITH. very kind to him, and I do think he knows her. We are hoping that Archie may come over at the end of this week, and I suppose I shall be losing my dear child before the end of this month. Then early in May my dear Vi comes to me. She will come in for the primroses, not one of which has yet appeared. . . . There must be this variety of type, and if we judge by usefulness, I hardly know which to say is best. For we owe our virtues to the faults of others, and we prac- tise their patience and perfect them by the friction of our rough surface. Ah, but we do know very well in what direction the ideal lies ! I read Dean Stanley with a glow of the heart. How rapidly the Church of the Fu- ture seems gathering together. A great influx of light has come into the world these last years. I have Stan- ley's " Jewish Church," and Ewald's " Isaiah," and shall read both. To the Rev. Allan Menzies. PATTERDALE, June 22, 1877. This day week Violetta and I returned from Edin- burgh, where kind Mr. Constable was good enough to har- bour us for three nights. There had been much indecision as to going or not going to see my beloved Mrs. S . She had vehemently wished it at one time. [Friends dis- approved.] So I waited, till at length I plainly saw that there was no improvement actual or probable, and deter- mined for my own satisfaction to go. But during the two or three days that intervened between my decision and my journey there was a marked change for the worse. I was too late to be of any comfort. She did indeed know me, as she said, " perfectly." She had still loving words for me. Once while was expressing very pessimistic views indeed, the dear sufferer looked uncomfortable, and bore her testimony, " Goodness is everything ! " I talked to her on the one subject, the undying love that makes one "HE RESTORETH MY SOUL." 533 so strongly hope its object lives. She said, " I hope so yes I think so ; " and the dim eyes turned to the pic- ture of her life-companion, " He will press me to his bosom again ! " One thought of Browning's lines : " O thou soul of my soul ! I shall clasp thee again, And with God be the rest." The last morning, this day week, probably the final parting, she said in reply to my words of earnest affection, " I love you always." But there was no strong feeling, and I left knowing she would neither miss nor mourn me. I receive somewhat improved accounts from the dear niece, whose affection is of a sanguine nature. To linger on a little, not, I am thankful, suffering much, to be further and further isolated by the failure of the senses and the torpor of the brain, that seems the only prospect here. You can easily imagine the sadness of it, and the perplexity that always attends such a case. Where is the personality that we hope lives on ? It is gone even now. At what instant would we seize and render it permanent ? Oh, the pain of it all ! It seems easier when the mind in its fulness is with us to the last ; but it is all clouds and thick darkness. She leaves a precious memory. For me a great love has passed away. Hardly my mother was more partial in her estimates, and she had a mother's anx- iety about me in all ways. Bless her ! When Vi and I got back, Patterdale was a fairyland indeed. It seemed wonderful that the hawthorns could stand erect under their burthen of "summer snow." I never saw such profuseness. Little Chin was so well, so lively, so engaging. I could not be quite sad when I had him to watch. That was not to be long. He was dull on Sunday, but then in the day-time it was his way to be a little dull. And I was so interested in Stanley's " Jewish Church," and in letter-writing, and after evening service Vi and I took so long a walk, that, though Chin was not 534 LUCY SMITH. neglected, and had all his little wants supplied, and his cage-door open, I was less taken up with him than usual. I had heard from my Mary of Chins living five years, and I had grown confident. The next morning I went as usual to his cage the first thing. He was plainly very ill he was dying. He stretched himself out and gave a sharp little cry and that sweet mystery of his engaging ways, the charm of activity, suddenness, the overflow of life in that sweet fur that was over. It is not for me to speak of this as a sorrow. Still, Chin had brought to my life a revival now and then of play, of the old delight in animals. I could laugh over Chin. To Mrs. Constable. GRISEDALE BRIDGE, Aug. 30, 1877. . . . Hessie and I set out to explore Dovedale. The farmer was working in his fields, and when we went up to him to inform ourselves of the whereabouts of the bull, we found ourselves face to face with one of the noblest specimens of manhood we ever saw. What a grand ani- mal man is at the best ! and in the open, handsome face there was the perfect good nature of an unquestioned, un- baffled strength. I never saw human nature seem fresher from the Maker's hand. Most of us early betray some defect or other. . . . Hessie and I had a glorious walk and view from the top of Place Fell on Friday. Such splendours of golden mist, and sheaves of sun-rays over Helvellyn ; the mountains so high, the lighted-up spots in the valleys so vividly green, as beauty moved with the beam now here now there, as joy does in human life, visit- ing us all or nearly all, but permanent with none. Postal-card to Mr. and Mrs. Loomis. PATTERDALE, Sept. 5, 1877. Many thanks for the " Independent," containing Dr. Porter's interesting address, and a story which, though it "HE RESTORETH MY SOUL." 535 seemed to me lacking in that subtle element of refined taste, had touches of real power. I might perhaps have been tempted to dwell on certain points of divergence be- tween the thinking of the sermon and that wrought into my being. But last night after the dear familiar friend who is staying with me had gone to bed, I looked over a remarkable book by a certain Edith Simcox on " Natural Law." She is a Positivist, or perhaps she would prefer to say a " Naturalist." I cannot indeed but notice a cer- tain " release of power " in some of these Agnostics who throw into their relations with humanity the passion and tenderness of religion. I do not shudder at them, but to me those views are torture. My trust in the Unseen Love and Wisdom, v which I can only think as personal, though at the saine time feeling the impossibility of defini- tion, and my hope in continued consciousness and growth, which to this lady seem the mere surplusage an untutored mind has not strength to throw off, yet to me they are simply life. I desire therefore to be increasingly rever- ent with regard to faiths more complex than my own. 1 I desire mainly to be moulded more and more by that high- est teaching which in some sense or other we must all name divine. You too will bear with me, whose faith you think defective. " Ich Jcann nicht anders." To Miss Violetta Smith. [1877.] I entirely agree with Mr. Menzies about the influence of that great Ideal. What future ages may feel, we cannot tell ; but to us, where we stand and with our religious training, that name must be above every name, I think, in its moral authority and its attractive power. But oh, my Vi, I cannot distinguish. The one 1 To another correspondent : " I desire more deeply to reverence faiths I do not share, faiths more complex and cumbrous as it seems to me, just as to Miss S. my trust in an Unseen Wisdom and hope of continued existence would seem mere surplusage." 536 LUCY SMITH. given to me to call out all my energy of love, all my ten- derness, all my reverence, my angel, is so " blent with God and nature," so one with the highest influence, that I often seem to rest there. But I repeat his words in craving a fellowship in Christ's u deep love," and a willing accept- ance of his sufferings. Oh, there is no practical difficulty ! Just a few watchwords suffice: "Hoping for nothing again ; " " Whether it were / or they ; " " If ye love them only that love you, what thank have ye ? " Self -surrender aimed at will bring by and by its high reward, self-forget- fulness attained. And if our eye be single, if we are con- tent to be quite insignificant parts of the great whole, the beauty of the harmony of the whole will flow into us, and we shall be filled with the fulness of God. [1877.] There come times perhaps when people are tempted to intermit exchanging letters, when it seems hardly worth while ; but oh, I so feel the necessity of keeping up human relationships that are dear and sacred, and that have the significance of habit stamped upon them. I do not think it wise to leave our doings to casual impulse, as you say, to " the spirit moving." I would go on with what I had begun, even if the initiatory glow were over. " But tasks in hours of insight willed Can be through hours of gloom fulfilled." Now, my Vi, this is a generalization for my own be- hoof, and not at all a preachment for you. To Mrs. Cotton. EDINBURGH, 1877. I read the " Times " with great interest, and think of what my husband's interest in the events and their ten- dency would have been he whose abstraction from him- self gave an insight not common, for few in any age can "HE RESTORETH MY SOUL." 537 live so abstracted. And those few see God, and are there- fore " necessarily optimists." And so I strive to keep calm in view of the absurd Free Church attitude just now, re- membering that they too are playing a prearranged, an ordered, and therefore a useful part. " Tolerating the in- tolerant " I see was a mark of Tightness laid down in one of the oldest Vedas, and we should learn it from a later teaching. But to some of us imperfect ones it will come hard to the end. ... I think nothing can give you such an idea of the leisure of my life as the fact that I am reading Dante got through three cantos of the " Pur- gatorio " this wet day with great interest. To Mrs. Henry Hemans. VENTNOR, March 24, 1878. . . . These extreme cases are useful as warnings, and I cannot look upon them as guilty, only as objects of our deepest compassion. But in the fulness of things, when all wills are one with the Infinite Power and Purpose that works through all for good, I can understand that one might be quite reconciled to having been of use, if only as a warning to having been a discord, so only that through our jar harmony be prized more deeply. To Mrs. A. Constable. KENSINGTON, April 24, 1878. ... I have been up long, have breakfasted and packed (only I must take off my satin gown after the ceremony), and have been sitting with the sweet A , who was quite calm, and capable of all interests ; very glad to hear a better account of you ; putting her Honiton lace on her wedding dress, which is lovely, as I hope you will see ; she was sewing it in so deftly. In a quarter of an hour I go to see her dress. She is the most taking creature, and indeed he is sweet. In appearance, so English ; in movement " of the sweet South," evidently. But I hope, 538 LUCY SMITH. my dear one, you will see him. Yesterday a charming youth called for me, Frank L , my husband's great- nephew. The perfection of an English schoolboy; tall, fair, strong, pure, modest; with a distinction of repose and ease that surprised me; it was exceptional. Con- voyed by the dear fellow, as soon as I saw his mother my enthusiasm found expression. How she hugged me ! " You were very nice before, but now ! " She says he is the sweetest fellow, but she does not expect people to find it out at once. I came back alone just in time to see Mr. and Mrs. Pfeiffer. They came just at the one hour I limited them to, and their kindness is wonderful. (Back from the marriage.) She looked sweet and graceful in her soft gray dress ; he so nice, his dress quite perfect ; so finished, graceful, and easy ; speaking his vow so distinctly ; and so did she, and oh, what a heavenly look ! Earthly love seeing the divine came into her eyes, a beauty of soul quite mysterious. If a painter could have caught her then for an Annunciation ! The service was cut short, and beautifully read by Mr. Gordon. Sophy and I followed them to the vestry. An impulse came over me to kiss him too. Oh, the affectionateness of his dear nature ! As they left he threw himself into my arms again, and said " Mother" in so thrilling a tone ! Bless- ings go with them ! A happier pair, more earnest-hearted, more entirely loving, never knelt to take their eternal vow. To Mrs. Haughton. June 18, 1878. . . . Now that I am alone I turn to a sacred task begun three years ago, but I cannot continue it unless I am alone. It is a fuller record of our life. The few who have read it say it is intensely interesting. How should it not be with him for its subject ? But it is incompatible with other writing. This refers to the manuscript of which a part is given "HE RESTORETH MY SOUL." 539 in chapters XVI.-XVIII. In the original, the writer sometimes reverts for a moment from the story of the past to the emotions of the present, as in this passage (Oc- tober 11, 1877). " Oh, my one and only love, to whom I owe all of true happiness I have ever known a joy that was peace, a gladness that was rest as well as intensity, a fulness and completeness of life that seemed immortal ! Words can- not express it, and always I think it is rare, because you who inspired it were rare, were unique. But a few nights since I dreamed that I was with you, and again knew that unutterable rapture was caught up into that seventh heaven which cannot be communicated, which shows one the strange absence of happiness in the life that now is reveals, and reconciles ! " To Mrs. A. Constable. PATTERDALE, June 20, 1878. I am living as it were what he called when we were to- gether, " a trance-life." I am not here nor alone. I can- not express the double consciousness, the sense of oneness. Last evening I went on a high hill where I had never been before ; saw High Street and the west glow red in the sunset, and the range of Fairfield so purple. I could have gone down into Deepdale, but kept that for your compan- ionship. My tooth ached to be sure all the time, but even that did not interfere with the one thought. And yet I feel that it only enlarges my interest in others. In short, it is life ; and given life, it may be variously used. The fellow lodgers are innocuous, though I do hear more of childish prattle than I care for. There is a little lad at Mrs. Varty's who has plainly a passionate friendship for the older and undemonstrative urchin here. I met them last evening in the lane. Little one, with a very red, emo- tional face : " I did not know you before, did I ? " (No 540 LUCY SMITH. answer.) " I was not long picking up your acquaintance, was I ? " And so forth ; and I dare say the elder one was a little ashamed or at least shy over it, though in- wardly pleased. The father smokes, and has laid his fish- ing trousers to dry on the earth just in my sight, so I need not expatiate on his class. But he is good-hearted, and I liked him for going into the water after his boy's ball. " Punch " is delightful. Oh, if would take it and give up " The Rock ! " Surely " The Record " Is enough of that most unchristian of all things, religious controversy. To Mrs. Henry Hemans. PATTEBDALE, July 5, 1878. ... As to happiness, dear, that died with him, and can never in any sense return. But I should not call myself unhappy. I have too infinite a love in my heart for that. I am so thankful for the blessed past. And I throw my- self sufficiently into the life of others to forget to ask my- self often whether I am happy or not. I am very, very thankful for the six years over and gone which really leave no trace. I never find them recurring to mind ex- cept indeed with some reference to others. Once I left my angel for a week, and he said : " The Friday you re- turn will be virtually the afternoon of the Friday on which you left. The weekly bill may be brought in by Miss under the impression that such an interval has existed, but to me it is mere blank." I feel in the same way about these parted years. My conscious life must be taken up again from the moment of parting. . . . With the interests or amusements of this world personally I have done. I think of public matters, notice the course of events as he would have me do, try not to let my mind grow dull, try to keep worthy of his companionship. I put in for you little simple lines that welled out from my heart that I cried aloud the other evening on the lonely mountain side. That tells all of myself that there is to tell. "HE RESTORETH MY SOUL." 541 THE PRAYER OF MY HEART. All I would wish from my loved one to hide, Take Thou away, Lord, take Thou away ; Meanness of jealousy, madness of pride, Take Thou away ! All I would be in that cherished one's sight, Make me to be, Lord, make me to be ; Faithful and loving, and true to the light, Make me to be ! Just as he lived, free from blame before all, Grant me to live, Lord, grant me to live ; Loyal to duty, whatever befall, Grant me to live ! Just as he died, on the heart he held dear, Give me to die, Lord, give me to die ; Meek, patient, calm without shadow of fear, Give me to die ! To Mrs. A. Constable. PATTERDALE, August 6, 1878. . . . Archie's telegram came, and Emily delighted in going ; she had had a latent desire to see Edinburgh, and loves a, frisk. And though it poured as we stood in our lane, waiting for the postman's wagonette, it soon cleared, and we had a pleasant drive, and our third-class was most comfortable and nearly empty, and when we arrived every- thing was so pleasant fire, food, and dear Archie, who had been with Birnam to the train he expected us by. Next morning I was up and ready to hear Robert Collyer, though in for a cold and poorly enough, Archie had or- dered a cab, and we were in excellent time. But the chapel was so empty ; no one cared or knew anything about this great preacher certainly the greatest I have heard, and Archie will I think have told you the same. The man is one of those rarely perfect organizations so sel- 542 LUCY SMITH. dom seen that one notices them instantly. As he walked into the church, little Emily irreverently asked herself, " Are there such men in this country ? " I am sure there are not many in the States, Collyer is so very Saxon in type the ideal of a Yorkshireman. I knew him at once from a glance at the pulpit, for there is a poor likeness of him affixed to the volume of sermons. He has all the qualifications of the orator : the robust voice, never loud, though one knows he could " shout for the battle " with the best ; the most varied expression, and speaking frame, though with little gesture. As for his smile, and the sweet, pure benignity of the finely cut face (no whiskers or beard) no words can tell them. It was the highest treat I could have had, and more not less than I who love his sermons expected. Archie will have told you the sub- ject. But for my hand I must I think have written down what I remember of the sermon, which was on Progress : Terah setting out from Ur to Canaan, the impulse in the old man which led him just one day's journey to Haran becoming in the son " inspiration," the overrul- ing purpose they called " God speaking to Abraham," who did reach Canaan. At the end of a discourse that none of us will ever forget, such a burst of immortal hope ! I begged Archie to go and speak to him. He had been at Patterdale, or through it, but had had no time to call. I had a few words with him. He said to me : " Your hus- band's works were of great service to me several years ago." Is that not interesting ? The lonely thinker in si- lence striking out the electric spark that helped to kindle this and many a torch borne by strong hands through crowds, and lighting the steps of many who have turned from the old guidance. Collyer was so reverent, so ten- der, to those who get no further than Haran ; so thankful they got there ! As soon as we left the chapel we went to see Mrs. C , who has had a kind of fit, but was never more coherent or agreeable. She had not expected "HE RESTORETH MY SOUL: 1 543 to see me again till " Novimber." I did not tell her how doubtful that was. She asked much for you, paid her usual tribute to Archie, and gave me a summary of her faith, which is much my own ; and it was an affectionate and satisfactory last parting, should it prove such. . . . To Miss Violetta Smith. [1878.] However people may express their religious convictions, if they have arrived at the grace of self-sur- render it is well with them. And this wisdom, this " sweet reasonableness," is attained by persons of very various ways of thinking. The worst of it is that so many of us (it was so with me) seem to consider happi- ness, enjoyment, satisfaction, a right ; and to such as are much indulged in childhood and youth, life has some very hard lessons to teach. The sweet simple readiness with which has given up the London rooms and all her activities there to nurse this sick cousin strikes me as really beautiful. Not the doing the thing, but the doing it without hint of self-sacrifice. To Miss Edith Wrench. [1879.] Yesterday was to me a very solemn day, the beginning of a new and very probably the last decade. Life so nearly over that is not a sad thought, a grave one and a tender not sad, often very sweet. Joy is I suppose our native element, yet sorrow too is borne in the same wonderful way. This is a gift indeed, the work of your own hands, the only gift that is wholly pleasant. One's work and one's love, these are precious not so the money-bought offer- ing, though love makes that sweet. Ithel dined here to-day, and I wrote to Dr. Peddie to 544 LUCY SMITH. request the favour of his unequalled dog's company for half an hour, and Ithel did appreciate him. All dogs seem poor and contemptible in comparison with him. He followed Archie at once, and was quite reluctant to go away, so pleased was he with biscuits and attention here. Dear little Birnam was madly jealous, but Dandy's tem- per and magnanimity made a quarrel impossible. A.'s gifts are precious things. M.'s gift of rejoicing in them without any drawback of personal dissatisfaction is higher and more precious still. At the Cathedral the other day, when the lovely 142d and 145th Psalms were being sung to a sweet minor chant, that verse, " Bring my soul out of prison that I may give thanks to thy name," came home to me with such vivid- ness that I preached myself a sermon on it forthwith. Out of the prison of selfishness, of any and every kind so only can I be free enough for the spirit of thankful- ness. Liberty comes only from the surrender of personal desire. Out of the prison of embarrassment no liberty while we owe any man anything. Oh, the prison of self, and thought pacing to and fro within those narrow limits ! Well, selfishness has many disguises, and long after we have surmounted the want of having, we may be en- thralled by the want of doing. So that the right thing be done, " whether it be they or I, no matter ! " I really think, my Edith, you and I are as fortunately constituted as any two I know. So little real pain, so much power of admiring and even enjoying. In short, we have all the facilities for forgetting self, which no one can do in bodily distress. Your snowdrops make a lovely little mound, in plate and tumbler, on the table, and yesterday I brought in a "HE RESTORETH MY SOUL: 1 545 pot of jonquil, which breathes exquisite fragrance into my face. . . . How little the majority of us know of this fair world, how narrow our circle necessarily. But we have still much to enjoy, as my Edith with her happy na- ture knows ; and for me / have had all and abounded, and been blessed up to my fullest capacities of receiving blessedness. I know that when we are ailing and all-overish it is very difficult not to give way. But that is the very worst thing in the world for us, and those are our best helpers who brace us against this. Convalescence is a very trying time, there is so much danger of our becoming exacting and self -occupied. I have heard many say that illness is not so difficult, and I can quite understand it. I should like to know, dear one, that you are continuing to give as little trouble as possi- ble. You know when I was with you I wanted a table by the bedside, that you might reach whatever you could ; and this for your own sake, because I seemed to divine that your danger now would be want of effort. It has been your unselfishness, your thought for others, that has so endeared you to many. I am sure, dear, you will not think these hints unkind. I should exhort myself in the same manner were I in your condition. I should be so afraid of giving way. I am so afraid of it ! All my life is an effort now. To get up at all is hard work. I would rather lie in bed and think my one loved thought. It is all hard work, but one must try to throw one's self out of self or one would not continue sane. That is what we all have to strive after to be and keep sane, in other words not self-concentrated. It is very sweet to bear well a hint about one's hair. In the days of my youth, almost every friend I had wanted 546 LUCY SMITH. some change in mine, and it always made me savage to them ! Well do I remember one day when I was young and had plaited coronals of which I thought rather well, and in place of the visitor I expected in came your dear Aunt M. and said, " How very ill you look, Lucy ! I don't mean in health ! " So you see I can understand the unpleasantness of these hints. Ah, dear, in my fer- vid, impetuous youth I used to have a touch of that Amer- ican "John P. Robinson, he Thought the world would go right if he hollered out Gee ! " CHAPTER XXXV. THE MOUNTAIN RILL. A CHARACTERISTIC picture of LucySinith is given in a private letter written not long after her death, by her husband's niece Clara Mrs. George Willett. "How can I make you understand what that double g rave f or I cannot separate them, my perfect pair has taken from my life ? I seem now to have lost him afresh, for while I had her, my " legacy " as she loved to call herself to me, I always felt I had a large part of him left. His last message, spoken by her to me with a so- lemnity I can never forget, 4 Give her my great love ' was a precious gift indeed. And you will let me say that no word of praise she ever wrote of this remarkable man was in the least exaggerated ; he was in every respect as singularly rare and refined a character as herself. Here there was a bond of sympathy between herself and me greater perhaps than with any other, for he and I were deeply attached, and she delighted in my enthusiastic girlish devotion to him. How she loved to call herself his ' reflection,' and how we, knowing her own intense in- dividuality, used to smile, and let her say it ! u She was a woman remarkably free from all the little- ness of women. There was a breadth and grandeur about her view of things, as refreshing as a mountain breeze. She would generally put any topic one brought before her for counsel in an entirely new light ; for instance, once when I told her with some distress my three-year old boy had stolen a piece of sugar, she at once replied, 'Of course, the child requires sweet things you must see 648 LUCY SMITH. that he has them.' And at another time when I told her of some one who had taken a district for the purpose of 4 self -denial,' how eloquent she was in disapprobation ! How clearly she proved to me the *wrongness' of the whole idea from the beginning, and ended with : ' If you don't feel drawn to go and see the poor woman from sim- ple love and interest, don' t go. It is an insult to visit a poor woman for the sake of self-denial to yourself ! ' " My dear aunt Lucy possessed a something in addition to that keen sympathetic insight on which I need not en- large to you. It was a power peculiarly her own of put- ting one in a good humour with one's self. Hers was the tact of bringing to the front one's best and brightest ; and I fully believe that many others will share with me the odd and depressing, perhaps very foolish but none the less real feeling, that I shall never be quite so 4 nice ' again, deprived of her sweet and blessing encouragement, and radiant mantle of all-covering love. " She had the gift of putting into the choicest and often most original and piquant language exactly what she meant to say. How often we would exclaim, ' Nobody could have said that but you ! ' Both she and her hus- band were great coiners of words, and had quite a little vocabulary of their own for the little things of every-day use things hallowed by their blessed touch, and by the utter unworldliness of everything they said and did. " Hers were strong prejudices ; as a young woman, I believe, very strong ones. She told me that he used to say to her, ' Lucy, you are too exacting.' It was curious to observe during her recent years of widowhood how any tendency to intolerance in her grew less and less. This she attributed to the influence of his teaching. During her rare and precious visits to our house, I did my best, as you may suppose, to weed away all comers that might be uncongenial to her ; and during her last visit she spoke of this gradual change in herself, and apropos of one THE MOUNTAIN RILL. 549 guest said, 4 When I met him before he did not please me, but now, do you know, I rather like him ! ' " She could detect with unerring fidelity the true from the false, and when she said with her peculiar nod, ' Ah, my dear, I have diagnosed him ! ' we knew it was useless to ask her to reconsider the verdict." Mrs. Ruck writes of " a quality which I think one of the most uncommon of her gifts a transparent openness of nature which let her share every thought with those she loved, and an absence of suspicion which banished keys and let letters lie about. I shall never forget the way in which she spoke most confidentially to me during a drive, in utter disregard of the old man on the box, who she said was deaf! And often in omnibuses people have gazed at her whilst she, rapt in a subject in which she was deeply interested, expounded it to me, in utter obliv- ion of those around her, or entire confidence in their friendliness ! " To Mrs. Lorimer. WORSLEY VILLA, VENTNOR, March 9, 1879. It seems long, very dear one, since I had your little note with its happy tidings. When, or i/*, there comes a disengaged half-hour and the inclination, you will send me a few lines. But I know well how more and more the inclination so to employ leisure does not come. There is more rest in some book, and when we want rest, there is not the impulse to give out but the need to absorb, imbibe some great thought, some words of " more life and fuller life." I am becoming very inert as to letter-writing, and I am not one of the busy who have any claim to rest. However, this evening after a good strong cup of tea I like to tell you how soothingly the waves break under the window here, and that beautiful colors have just faded out of the sky. This house is about a hundred feet above the sea, and as I sit at the writing-table just out of the pl< 550 LUCY SMITH. ant large window projecting but not a bow I seem hanging over the quiet misty waters, which are blending with the gray evening sky. It has been a lovely day, and Mary and I had a sweet walk along the cliff to lovely Bonchurch, where the old church and churchyard, both un- used for thirty years, are exquisitely situated very near the waves, and with great trees that " stretch forth their branches to the sea." I have not yet been in the church- yard, where I want to go to stand by John Sterling's grave to me notable as that of the man my husband thought so eminently lovable. I expect you all much to admire Miss . When I saw her she was a little girl, with grand calm brow and eyes, very like her mother William thought, and the father felt the likeness would help him to live on " till the morning of the resurrection." It was in the early days, early years, of loss that he said this. How well I remember it ! the sunny Brighton es- planade, on which he walked with his little girl, and his upward glance ; and I, who had my husband with me, could so well believe that such loss was irremediable. Well I am sure that " women cannot judge for men," and that some minds do continue loyally to harmonize two paramount loves. I am growing so creaky and rheumatic, and feel so very like the large sea crayfish in one of the melancholy tanks of (I must say) the very melancholy Edinburgh Aqua- rium ! If you go there, watch him moving his stiff joints, and give me a sigh ! Unless these symptoms depart as suddenly as they came on, I fear I shall never reach a mountain-side any more. I am planning a week in Lon- don in April, and then to return with my brother to Garthewin and spend the rest of the month there. And then from Wales it is possible that Hessie Howard and I may go to Ireland for a short stay at Bundoran. The al- ternative, which I should like quite as well, but judge less pleasant and beneficial for her, would be going together to "THE MOUNTAIN RILL. 551 Patterdale quite early in May. I am reading sermons of Pic ton's that would interest you I know. Good-by, my dear one. I seldom now write as long a letter as this. Mary , who is fortunate enough to be reading " Lorna Doone " for the first time, sends her love, and give mine to the dear Netty. To Mrs. A. Constable. PATTERDALE, June 11, 1879. . . . Think of the poor dear man I was sitting with last night. At the age of fifty-five, he told me, he " was as good a man as ever he was in his life, and as up to a hard day's work." Then to be driven over by . There's a trial for you. "I could have wished," he said, " to have gone on working, for we were so comfortable ; and it soon goes, does the money, when you can't work." All the little honest savings melted away, to say nothing of health ruined and incessant pain. And his poor good wife has two dreadful fingers, and if they have not to be taken off it will be a mercy. Having been the clerk, this worthy has contracted a habit of using sonorous language, and enjoys talking. I was so glad I went in ! He was very fine on selfishness. " When a man loses conscience, you see, he comes to think nowt except about himself, and when a man thinks of nowt but himself, what is he but an animal?" "Oh, much worse !" I pleaded, for with sweet Pup beside me I felt an animal was a pure delight ; and he conceded the point they were worse. It would have been a pleasure to leave an offering of respect, but I may screw it out of another week. This afternoon I must take five shillings to Grisedale. I had a feeling that the blind man felt empty-handed visitors took an im- perfect view of the case. Do you know I believe myself to have become as if porous to the consciousness of oth- ers*? I am pretty sure I feel how they are feeling, and often get verifications long afterward. 552 LUCY SMITH. SEEKEST THOU GREAT THINGS ? SEEK THEM NOT." Little rill of the mountain side, cushioned with moss, Little rill that a baby's step safely might cross ; If I sit down beside you and listen for long, I can just catch a gurgle, a tinkle, a song, Grow distinct tho' so fairy faint almost 'twould seem Like an echo of music once heard in a dream. Little rill, not far from you a stronger stream falls Sheer down to the valley through steep rocky walls ; With a rapture of sound and a splendour of foam, It bids its farewell to its lone early home ; And you, if you only could reach it, might blend With its triumph, its daring, its course, and its end. But I think, little rill, you will scarce get so far, For the mosses half choke you up here where you are ; And beyond I can see that the rushes grow high, With their roots in a marsh and their stems stiff and dry. They will need and exhaust you, you poor little rill, You will end there unnoticed, your song will be still. Never mind, little rill, moss and rushes will grow All the greener and stronger because of your flow ; And your cool, quiet current, tho' mostly unheard, May yield draughts of fresh strength to some wing-weary bird ; And, whene'er for a brief space unshadowed you run, You can catch and give back the warm glints of the sun. And the strong stream you hear tho' it cannot hear you Is born just as you are from rainfall and dew ; And, for all its importance, its foam, and its roar, You are closely akin 't is not other, but more. Nay is there indeed any great, any small, In the sight of the INFINITE SOURCE of us all ? To Mr. A. Constable. ... I have been very busy over my " Critical Ideal- ism," and have sat all the morning over it in the little room. The end of it went off to-day, and the proof of THE MOUNTAIN RILL. 553 the first part may come to-morrow. I must tell you of an angel of beauty I saw in Patterdale church last even- ing. It had been a day of frantic showers, but in the evening it cleared, and Sophy and I sallied forth. I think some magnetic influence must have warned me, for I don't often turn round, but when I did, two pews off there was a young man, not very young, I should say over thirty, whose magnificent beauty I have no words for. Much over six feet, and broad in proportion, but it was not that, it was an air of supreme distinction, and the perfection of manly beauty and strength. His hand, with a very handsome ring on the little finger, was whiter than any woman's that I know, and very plump, which gener- ally I do not like, yet you felt that he could have felled a bull. His face had perhaps rather too full a jaw ; utterly straight dark eyebrows, fine features but I return to the distinction ; you felt as if centuries of high breeding must have been required to produce this patrician. Per- fectly formed head, clipped as closely as scissors could clip, and such a splendid bass voice. Under pretext of getting the light on my hymn-book, I was obliged to turn and listen, and also catch glimpses of his splendour, which moved me like some military music the march in " Eli." Sophy indorses all I say. To Miss Violetta, Smith. [1879.] Oh, Vi dear, how I love and prize these sol- itary days ! I know I could not be always alone, but it is my best. He is so near. I commune with him. I feel he loves me best alone ! Sunday was one of his days. I read so intently, feeling "the footsteps of his life it? mine." In the evening I went to church, and Mr. preached so well on growth in grace. Is it not indeed all that we have to do, all that is worth doing, and does it not redeem all lives from tedium and emptiness, this desire, this resolve, to grow ? I think I never realized more that 554 LUCY SMITH. it is the one thing needful, without any ulterior conse- quences ; but I still think dogmatic denial of a further life would be fatal to the Ideal. We need, as your sweet friend says, to believe that it will be reached. It is those who help us and whom we help upward that we give our best love to. To the Rev. Allan Menzies. EDINBURGH, 1879. I have been wishing to write to you, dear Mr. Meuzies, ever since I heard Mr. McFarlan preach on Sunday last, and your note has quickened the impulse. Archie, Mary, and I went in the afternoon, because I had a desire to hear a lecture on Giordano Bruno, and Archie took my place and read one of Martineau's sermons to Mrs. Stir- ling. I was deeply interested in Mr. McFarlan's sermon, almost from the first ; but before long I found that his treatment of the subject, the drinking of the cup Christ drank of, brought my husband's verses to my mind. And with him in my thought, my whole being, judge what it was to hear the speaker quote two verses of his ; repeat them so earnestly, so feelingly! This strangely sweet and solemn music rang through the church, and must I .think have impressed all who were gathered there. On me the effect was almost overwhelming. It seemed like an instant's rending of the veil, so thin, so inexorably im- pervious ; seemed an utter surprise, and yet what I was waiting for ! I think this contradictory feeling be- longs to all deep emotion. The whole sermon was full of noblest teaching ; " salvation not a matter of crowns or thrones, but of fellowship with Christ's self -surrender," I think those very words occurred ; that was the spirit of the whole, and, one felt, the spirit of the man who spoke so fervently and so modestly. I was obliged to write a few lines to your dear sister at once. But when Mr. McFarlan called in the evening, I could not see him ; I THE MOUNTAIN RILL. 555 had felt too deeply. Mary wrote too to your sister, and she has had a most delightful reply. I wish that they were nearer to each other, and that the friendship could be a frequent source of strength and cheer to this dear delicate plant. But after all, what we really need does " gravitate to us." That I believe, in spite of the contra- dictory regrets now and then at the divided growth of some natures because of the adverse winds in youth or the want of sun. I have ceased blaming in the old angry way, as though it was their own personal perversity that led people astray. How it touches me to hear that standing by our grave you thought of him as not there, but risen and living. How glad I am you like the nieces in whom he took so true an interest, the kind sister-in-law for whom he had so true a regard. Your visit was more to them than you could easily realize. For it is the very condition of moral influence that it should be quite unconscious. Still, as it is a fact, you must be a little glad to know that you have helped us all, and will help. The inclosed note from Mr. M came to-day after a long silence. For after that May letter that brought me darkness, instead of light, I had not spirits to write again for months, and I had to wait too for months. I am sure from all I hear of young M that he is delightful. Perhaps you may see him one of these days. I quite under- stand what his father says of Mr. Martineau's new volume, but his noble essays on Modern Materialism show that he is abreast with all the schools of modern thinking. Only his emotions yearn ever to the same Ideal, yearn perhaps increasingly. But I have wondered rather at his treating certain of the miracles reported as though perhaps they did happen, and at all events we might make them mean this or that spiritual lesson, exemplify some moral law. In all this he does give an uncertain sound ; does not help some who need to hold very firmly some very simple 556 LUCY SMITH. creed, and cannot take as historical fact what it was quite easy to accept as such not so many years ago. Turning for instance to Roden Noel's paper in the January " The- ological," after reading Martineau's sermons, one feels as though looking through a glass darkly still, but one of wider range, sweeping a far vaster f each of the illimitable. But is not that a kind of verbal contradiction ? Never mind ; we must use our own words, even when we know they do not and cannot express what is. But Mr. M 's letter is very interesting. I feel as if the prayer that seems to concentrate in itself all the agonies of the ages "If it be possible " went straighter to the mark than any even of David's cries ; and that the image of divine mercy given in the Prodigal Son were still and for each the sweetest source of hope. I think having so long contemplated mystery and supernatural- ness has hindered for many, who can't do that, the full perception of the tenderness and brotherhood. I 've al- ways thought it strange that in his long list of men to revere and worship Comte fails to give Christ. To Mrs. Haughton. Nov. 17, 1879. This sorrow that you used to think excessive, dear friend, is the root of all that any love in me, the source of all aspiration, the stimulus to all good. It is the love, undying till I die, and perhaps, perhaps ! To Miss Edith Wrench. 1879. Mary thinks I wrote to you a fortnight ago, and if so the goats had not arrived. 1 Jane's has been brought here 1 She had been much impressed by the difficulty experienced by the inhabitants about Patterdale (as in many country districts in England) in getting a proper supply of milk. She therefore, through her brother in Wales, where goats are commonly kept, imported several, more than once. THE MOUNTAIN RILL. 557 this evening for her and Mrs. Dobson's inspection, and the dear creature came up-stairs, and ate bread from our hands, and looked about her with utmost discretion. Jane said, " How Miss W. would have liked to see her ! " In- deed she is a perfect beauty, very like a deer, with a broad black stripe down the brown back, and a quite black head and face, with beautiful horns. You can im- agine how Jane's young brother doats upon her, and in- deed all Glen Rhydding visits her, pets and feeds. Billy lives at Quarry Bank, and I saw him this morning. The beauty of Place Fell's snowy top against the cloudless blue attracted me so that I set out at half past ten. I found Birnarn sitting or rather lying in the field next but one to Quarry Bank. What takes him there no one knows. Ap- parently he was only enjoying the view ; however, he was delighted to join me, and soon the four dogs ran to meet me my Rap, in an ecstacy ; and then Billy came run- ning up too, for he is a most familiar goat, and expects bread given him, indeed knocks at the door with his horns when he wants it specially. Well, dear, excited by Burn- aby, who cannot endure goats, the other dogs barked as he did, and the goat butted and bleated, and the hubbub was such that I was glad to rush into Quarry Bank, and there the dear little woman had much to tell me. There is something or other to do daily, and this might grow beyond my resources. I walked bravely to the top of the hill, but where the path ends the frozen snow began and was far too slippery for me. Nothing for it but coming back, but I was high enough to see Helvellyn looking glo- rious in his white mantle, and oh, how I " thanked God for the mountains." Sweet Rap would come with nie, so dined here. He is quite well now, and I am very fond of him, with his gentle loving gaze, and bright smile for my Edith knows it is quite a smile that shows the perfect teeth. 558 LUCY SMITH. To Miss Edith Wrench 1880. I was much taken up last year with the conception of a room in the school-house here being made into a reading- room for the men of the township, who have no meeting- place except the public-house. And drunkenness is the scourge of the place. Of course if they do go to the pub- lic house they will drink. I had spoken to the policeman before I left, and told him to see what could be done, but when on my return he referred me to , I gave up the idea, feeling I was too poor and powerless to carry it out. However on Saturday the idea revived, and A. R. and I are going to make a round and see whether a sufficient number take to the notion and are ready to subscribe three pence a week, to make it at all hopeful to move further. About ten shillings a week would I think cover the expenses, and surely Mr. would help on the plan if the trustees of the school consented. I promised five pounds last winter towards books,, etc., and really it is wonderful how I scramble on, though never pays or will, and the reading-room subscription would be annual, so long as one lives and has anything to live on. To Mrs. Haughton. [Dec. 20, 1879. After speaking of a sermon.] I write also on the other side of the page thoughts that it sug- gested as I walked up a lonely mountain valley this after- noon, walked in deep shadow and bitter frost, while the opposite side glowed in the rosy haze of a winter sunset. From the still sphere where dwells my highest hope, Stand off, I pray you, nor disturb the air ! Lest, while you boast it living, it should die, And I lose all, whose all is centred there. THE MOUNTAIN RILL. 559 Bring me no arguments, no reasoned proof ; How if their weakness cloud that sacred trust ? Leave it to God alone to mark its growth And keep it deathless till I turn to dust. Nor is this all though more I dare not say, Words would but marshal thoughts to endless strife; Enough, if, cherished in my being's core, The silent hope may mould the lowly life. CHAPTER XXXVI. THIS FRIENDLY WORLD. To Lady Eastlake. 23 MELVILLE STREET, EDINBURGH, January 28, 1880. WHAT a picture of endurance and defiance of all bodily ills these letters of Charles Dickens give. There may perhaps be too many of them given. It is scarce reverent to preserve the mere clippings and parings of any mind ; but I, who am not critical, and who always felt Dickens a benefactor such delight did those monthly numbers of his bring into many years of my rest- less life I love the man from first to last with a glow which is the best enjoyment one can have. I think that is, of all gifts that genius includes, the best that power of awakening intense affection in the hearts of many it is good for the many ! I really lived in Dickens's letters, and I think they helped my recovery from a bad cough and cold. All our ailments come from low vitality at least such as those and other minor evils, and if we could be quickened by any intense emotion they would mostly be conquered. Perhaps electricity, better understood, will ere long do directly what feelings of admiration and delight do in a roundabout way, and in the measure per- mitted by temperament even more than circumstance. " More life and fuller life we want." On Sunday last I got some very satisfactory stimulus of the kind from a volume of " Scotch Sermons " now going through the press, to be published by Macmillan. I should like you to read them, dear Lady Eastlake. To me they appear far in advance of Farrar's " Eternal Hope." But then I THIS FRIENDLY WORLD. 561 so dislike Farrar's turgid elaborate style, and his position seems to me that of a popularizer of other men's labours, without any acknowledgment of the fact that to break up the fallow ground and to sow alone, and with a conscious- ness of the censure and repugnance of even good men, was a far more arduous task than that of coming in to reap, nay, rather to glean. Farrar's restricted and arbi- trary liberality of view (I am thinking of his St. Paul) is, however, the thin, very thin end of the wedge, and so that light comes in through the smallest chink we should be glad. But in the " Scotch Sermons " the attitude of the best men is quite bold and simple, and there is a reality about them, and a facing things as they are to the intel- lect of our day, in full faith that if we are true to our light we need not have any fear for the consequences, tho' we may be quite unable to foresee them. Oh, dear Lady Eastlake, to one who has loved and lost as you and I have, unutterably, there really can be no interests worth speak- ing or except those of the whence and the whither. To Mrs. A. Constable. CHISTLETON (CHESTER), March 3, 1880. . . . Birnam's portrait excites rapturous applause. Fanny Newcome sees in him her ideal dog, and all delight in his dear phiz. Hessie was struck with my face as it passed her in the railway carriage ; " something differ- ent" which she attributes to my freedom from cares, " a peace and light " which, if it ever shine save in her kindly partial eyes, comes from " the flame Which burns the brighter that it burns unfed," And I have had so sheltered a winter with you and my dear, dear Archie I 562 LUCY SMITH. To Miss Lyon. GARTHEWIN, April 1, 1880. The third letter must be written to my very dear Sophy, my kind hostess, my pleasant companion for so full and busy a fortnight. How wonderfully tranquil this place is, and how lovely ! To me, so fraught with all memories, I feel as if in a trance. But through all moods there runs the thread of the one dominant feeling, and so I know that " I am I," which else might seem doubtful. My hus- band has been with me in this pleasant room whence I look down into a soft valley, brimful of misty sunshine, and see the busy rooks, with glossy backs turned white by the light, fly to and fro to their nests in the fine old Scotch firs. No sound but their cawing, rather a part of the silence than a noise, and the wild cry of the pea-fowl, who have I hope certain knowledge of their own of rain measurably near, and of some softening of the tempera- ture. Brownlow says "black frost last night." He is very pleasant certainly, and we had much talk driving here yesterday. And S is all welcome and daughter- liness, and her light figure trips up and down stairs so easily one has no scruples. . . . Pity is affection if not of the admiring, never of the contemptuous kind. So little makes us to differ ! Some evil germ in us might have developed into those proportions, instead of getting, through some combination to one's self unknown, encysted in the moral nature comparatively harmless unless there be some subtle change in the medium. . . . To- morrow I must get up earlier and overtake more arrears of letter-writing, but this morning I could indeed lie in bed and look out of the window and find the occupations of the rooks enough for me, without any of my own. The first effect of this place for dreaminess is inexpressible. THIS FRIENDLY WORLD. 563 To Mrs. A. Constable. GARTHEWIN, April 5, 1880. How I hope this soft, bright day, with grand clouds, intense sunbursts, and sudden, short-lived glooms, finds you bright and well, with only happy, trustful, thankful thoughts ; the " seamy side," which will turn up now and then, quite out of view. There are the dark days, when everything seems to go wrong, but perhaps they are teach- ing us something. I try to think of them so when they come, which is not often, because of that steady light from the blessed past, and the great, infinite hope, too great for grasping. . . . You said, dear Archie, that you wished to know my im- pression of Count Mamiani's " Religione dell' Avvenire." It is full of interest as the final result of the hard thinking throughout a long life of a man of noble intellect and noble moral character, and seems to me a valuable con- tribution in aid of the growth and open acknowledgment of that simpler faith which in all countries is occupying the best minds. I do not suppose it would be thought convincing by materialists ; but it deals candidly and carefully with their arguments, while firmly adhering to the dualistic view, and basing the belief in immortality thereon. I think its chief interest lies in its analysis of the religious element as progressive and ordered ; holding (to quote words of my husband's) that " there may be a normal development of the human mind, according to which certain ideas or truths are generated and become universal faiths." There are frequent references made to the author's previous work, and certain passages are more applicable to Catholic than Protestant errors. I think the book would bear compression. The publisher Fratelli Treves, Milan would have to be communi- cated with by any English firm entertaining the idea of having it translated. How gladly and for how small a 564 LUCY SMITH. sum I would undertake the task, you know. This is hardly the time for anticipating a hearing for a book of this abstract kind, but if you can further my interests, either with regard to it or to Lotze's " Microcosmos," which Dr. Noah Porter of Yale College strongly recommends to me for translation, I know you will. Dr. Porter is so anxious to have this last one translated that he says if I fail in meeting with a publisher he will have it done on " the other side." You may tell any one you apply to that I have done a good deal of this kind of work. I have rather understated the philosophical charm, the calm and elevation, that Mamiani's book appears to me emi- nently to possess. LLANBERIS, April 28, 1880. . . . The inclemency is greater than it was in the win- ter, but the sun shines and the mountains are quite clear and very glorious. I am much struck with them, far grander than anything dear Patterdale has to show. On Monday after an early dinner we were off by train to the second station, and walked back over high ground ; Snowdon facing us, head and shoulders white ; the silver sea sparkling behind, and a most exulting sky of blue, and snowy clouds ; all full of a joy such as only the lark's song knows the secret of. It is curious to me to hear the laughter of this dear one, and my own ! Ah, not because we do not know sorrow ; rather, out of its depths does this singular light-heartedness spring ! . . . A morning of M. A.'s reading aloud (she reads perfectly) while I got on with my tidy, which will soon be with you now for fring- ing ; and Mrs. , a kindly friend, called and brought lovely tea cakes. . . . There is something affecting to me in the life that and lead. Nothing varied in their life ; no sense of, not to say power of expressing, differ- entiation. They can characterize nothing, probably from not having had any conscious experience. If a stone could speak, it would not tell us much, neither dislike the dust THIS FRIENDLY WORLD. 565 nor bless the dew. Poor dear thinks she ought to have left , where they have no ties, no pleasures, where they remained through a kind of agglutination of habit, just as a snail might glue himself too strongly to a wall, and die in the recesses of his shell. Now she be- wails, but energy is gone. She thinks they yet might move, if the others wanted it, but they have not vitality enough to wish ; they have no imagination to construct a change for the better. Ah, it was affecting to me. . . . When with , I feel as if I were stirring a green pool and letting in reaches of reflected view. But the conf ervae, one knows, will close in again, and the water be stagnant and unlighted. Really this is no exaggeration. The moral of it is, I think, the necessity of mental occupation. I shall be so glad to have my own child with me again. Her af- fection is surely my best thing left, with its roots so deep down in the past. To Lady Eastlake. PATTERDALE, May 20, 1880. I find it more and more difficult to distinguish between exceeding unamiability and unqualified unselfishness, and cerebral disease. I really suppose those poor afflicted ones cannot help it, and illogical though it may be, I do not find that this exemption of some from responsibility lessens one's own earnest desire to keep down the fault one is conscious of, or one's sense of power of choice be- tween the evil and the good in other words, " to keep a little sane." I see " Dr. Bigby's Letters " advertised ["Dr. Rigby's Letters from France," 1789], and I shall read them with the undimmed interest that attaches to everything connected with the Great Revolution. I often think we are nearing a very serious social crisis in our own country. The old sanctions of religious fear and hope are weakening, and the land question will involve much necessary change, and, in its course, suffering. The same 566 LUCY SMITH. causes seem at work in all countries, though on a very different scale. Still, the old order is evidently " passing," and I fear that in our large cities there is class-hatred, and sense of unjust inequality of lots. As I translated the two first chapters of Taine, for the " Contemporary Review," it seemed to me that there were alarming analo- gies between the state of England now, and that of France in 1785. Still, I think there are strong drags on the wheels of the national chariot, and that it will go down the hill with comparative safety down the hill which pre- cedes another ascent. I have many Conservative friends, whose present language amounts positively to pessimism. But I marvel how any believer in God, i. e. Supreme Wis- dom, which must be Love, fails to reach the conclusion of the grand old Psalmist, " Therefore we will not fear." To Mrs. Haughton. PATTERDALE, June 4, 1880. This is not the first time that you have believed your- self on the point of what we call death, and higher beings perhaps recognize as birth, birth into a condition of fuller knowledge and therefore greater love and greater joy. ... I think nothing can help us more than the feeling that loved ones have trodden that unknown way it makes it seem familiar. They felt these strange sensa- tions, unfelt by us before, and that gives interest and takes away terror. What has not the death of an unseen, unheard Christ been to millions and millions ! And the death of one of his brethren whom we have intimately known and unspeakably loved h,elps us in proportion to the closeness of the union between the one left and the one "gone before." Oh, I think indeed, and often be- lieve, dear friend, that the best is yet to come for us all (though to some of us this earth has become so dear, not till we leave it can we cease to feel it best) ; that our vague aspirations after holiness, perfection, will all be ful- THIS FRIENDLY WORLD. 567 filled ; that Love never dieth. . . . Some of us cannot at- tain to certainty. William has said, " God fashions some in one way, some in another," and " God will not take away our immortality because we have but little enjoyed the hope of it." " Saved by hope" hope suffices, and the sense that comes to us at our best that love can never die. To Miss Violetta Smith. Dr. Lietch spoke too of my story, "The Professor's Wife," and said, " You put your heart into that," I was not aware he had ever read it, but most surely I did, and I should like you and Clara to read it in " Chainbers's Journal " for May, 1860 ; only I suppose it would be im- possible or nearly so to get at. The tints are becoming lovely, some young birches all gold filigree and the ferns all shades from cream color to rich brown. This morning our Rap came over, out of his own dear head, and shared the walk. It began with a visit to the poor blind man, who is oh, so poor ! So one can do a little there, and that suffices to make one like him. Birnam hunted to his heart's con- tent and is the cheeriest of little dogs, but also the most easily depressed when not quite well, and rheumatism I think is the reason why one paw is held up and so piteous an expression put on. Never was anything prettier than his ecstacy when his dear master arrived on Saturday night. His little face got quite solemn as he leaned up beside his recovered beloved one, nor gave a glance to any other. It made me think of what is ever in my heart, latently if not consciously what all nature seems made to illus- trate the great hope of a love that deepens as the years slide on so swiftly, I was indeed interested in ail you say about " Theophrastus Such," Some of the essays are grand, others I think a little cruel. The petty vanity of small authorship is a subject that from her eminence she ought hardly I think to have treated. But are there not numerous revelations to ourselves of weak points we hope 568 LUCY SMITH. (vainly !) our friends may not have discovered ? I won- der how any one can bear thus to criticise this great mor- alist without an acknowledgment of this kind. PATTERDALE, June 11, 1880. ... I was off to Mrs. H., and found her wonderfully better. On my way I met a woman who coughed osten- tatiously, as it were, and wore a fur about her neck. She meant me to stop, and I did, and all her symptoms were unfolded, and commented upon by your Zia with such sagacity that she said, " Why, I do believe you '11 be as good as Dr. ! " and invited me to call. I do believe I shall be a formidable rival practitioner, advice gratis and medicine given. Mrs. H., was "cracking" with little " the kindest creatur." I was much affected with this proof of the divinity of kindness, ser- viceableness. Here is this little half-witted woman a blessing. And they tell me that she enters into such curi- ously close relations with animals ; has names for all the sheep under her care, and they know her. If you see a quite cheap red or blue collar, such as might decorate a cat, you might send it to me. I would go as far as a shil- ling. She is so obliged when her cats are asked for. I may tell you that I have made a friend of the smith for life by telling him he had the prettiest little girl in the district, and so she is. And now I must tell you of my perfect walk on an ineffable afternoon. The hills drew me, and I went up through those trees you wot of ; first birches and gnarled hollies, and at my feet exquisite flowers I never saw the flowers so profuse here as they are this year. And oh, the blues of Fairfield, the gran- deur of Sunday Crag, the frolic lights and shades on Hartsop Dodd and the other mountains ; and then a rain- bow like an order across the sturdy green breast of the Dodd ! The beauty was great indeed, and the exquisite solitude. A pair of ravens croaked and flew about as THIS FRIENDLY WORLD. 569 though they had a nest not far off. I went far enough to see that with the day before me I might make out the lower crest of Fairfield. No words can say how such a ramble lifts me into his dear companionship who loved the mountains, and to whom Nature revealed herself as she never can to me, because he was more, and it is in proportion of course to what we are that we have. And when once this is intellectually apprehended, the language of discontent will be less seldom heard, because it will be known what it implies. And by and by the higher wis- dom will come in, and the joy in the higher life of others. To Mrs. A. Constable. PATTERDALE, July 19, 1880. ... I have nothing the matter with me that I know of, as precious mother added invariably. You will blend many a thought of her, my darling, with your enjoyment of the " Messiah." What she used to feel at the very thought of its sublimity ! I go over it through you. Was there ever a lovelier melody than that of " Comfort ye " ? When I am going to hear " That her warfare is accom- plished " I feel as if I could not bear its unutterable ten- derness. One can't help wishing Handel could hear how they render him now. He may, you know ! If I live an- other three years I will try to hear this marvel once more. If gifted people hear, as they must, more in this music than I, how do they survive it ! I Ve been reading " The Ethics of Sophocles " with much interest, my Archie, in bed in the front room ; with the brook purling its sweet accompaniment to the great questions put by those old Greeks as they are put now ; the putting of them consti- tuting us men ; the answer, if it come, proving us im- mortals. 570 LUCY SMITH. To Mrs. Ruck. PATTERDALE, July 26, 1880. I have been silent longer than usual, for I felt that although did I claim them your kind thoughts would be given to me, it was really better not to write just now, when every day is full to overflowing. But you know that I think of you with delight, with all your darlings, and their darlings who are also yours, gathered about you. Not a//, yet perhaps the sweet one who is absent is nearer than any, and in your heart I know mingles with every joy. It must be touching to see her little boy playing with her loved brother's little girl. What an ecstasy the sands and the great sea, when in weather like this " it seems the gentlest of created things," do bestow on chil- dren. No such playfellows as those little waves ! I see the chicks and their elders, all so happy, and surrounded with an outer sphere of kindliness and variety. All you tell me is delightful, and I trust this gathering may be a long one that Dr. Darwin may be able to remain with you a while and that it may be often repeated. Your dear healthy nature is so alive to all the good and pleas- urable, and throws off the other elements of life. I am a poor creature indeed, too easily and too deeply ruffled. Last evening I beheld one of the company of quite uncultivated but as it is called well-to-do people now staying at the next door, busily engaged in uprooting a few common but most graceful ferns that bent over the other side of the brook, and often delighted me as they dipped into the water when it was quietly full and were swayed by it in the flood. Their beauty was one of posi- tion, was that of the trees and the stream as well as the fern. That of course was hidden from this coarse nature, who only saw in any given thing a something to have and to carry away. But he might have known that he had no right to jump over a fence into inclosed grounds. Well, THIS FRIENDLY WORLD. 571 my darling, this made me so indignant that there was not a pulse or nerve that did not quiver. And I woke from iny first sleep with numb arms and such sensations in the head as were new to me and amounted to a changed iden- tity a terrible sense of dissolution and nothingness, and fear that I could neither remember nor speak. I recalled one bit of rhyme after another I tried to stay myself upon the " Power not ourselves " and by and by could return to bed and fall asleep. You know that not to wake would seem to me very sweet. This morning my head racks. I am saddened to feel how at the mercy of circumstances I am. This baring of the whole country this destruction of all flowers and ferns was very forci- bly brought forward in the " Standard " some three weeks or a month ago, and the statistics of spoliation given. It is a fact that here little but nettles and plantain is left. Wherever a fern spread so as to attract the eye it has been taken. With me the disgust at the offensive and dishonest covetousness that cannot see without appropriat- ing is perhaps the thing that most rouses my anger, and anger would soon kill it rends me. It is very sad, for I can never hope for a Swiss tour with any dear friend ! To see the gentians and anemones carried away would be more than I could bear. It will take a longer time to strip Switzerland than this Lake district, but 't is but an affair of time. Before the higher culture that can wor- ship without wanting to have becomes general, centuries I suppose must pass. My life will close in the worst mo- ment of the transition from indifference to flowers and ferns, to the eventual reverence for them which will leave them amid their own beautiful surroundings to gladden the eyes of others. But by that time they will only be to be found in botanical gardens. Well, my dear one, you will wonder why I cannot change the subject I will. 572 LUCY SMITH. To the Rev. Allan Menzies. PATTERDALE, July 27, 1880. I have had a delightful morning over Principal Caird's book, more especially the chapter on " The Moral Life," and as I lay it down I feel an impulse to write a few words to you. This is rather a shyer thing than it used to be in your solitary days, not only because the completer life so far from wanting may consider letters rather troublesome superfluities, but because spontaneity is a little checked by the knowledge that four eyes read the pages. For I take it for granted that with you, as it was with us, every- thing is shared. I dare say I was often a hampering thought to some that wrote to my husband. But indeed it is one personality, after all, and I am not going even to remember that it is more complex, possibly more critical, or anything except that I want to tell you the intense in- terest the book excites in me. Is it its Hegelianism which gives it a certain novel charm ? . . . My husband had never read, that is never been a student of Hegel. How- ever, names are nothing. At a certain elevation thought is necessarily one. And though its gains are to my think- ing more precious and even sacred when I think of them as the result rather of God in man, the gift implied in man's nature, than as special utterances of God to man, in certain places and at certain times ; yet one does not wonder that the wondrously comprehensive sayings in our Bible stood and still stand for specially divine revelations. How they dilate before the mind, when one goes back to them from reading this chapter and sees they hold it all ! I can now better understand Mr. P S 's feeling of indifference to the difference between the standards of the church and his. Still, those standards do not to the common mind mean this grand Unity that reconciles all things, and, could we but remain on the Mount of Vision would almost conquer sorrow and self. They rep- THIS FRIENDLY WORLD. 573 resent a quite other tendency, which has recently found hideous manifestation in the Free Church Assembly ; and I therefore hope they will be modified, not only through enlightened men contravening them, but brave men de- manding that what is capable of such widely different in- terpretation should undergo change, compression, excision. I don't feel satisfied with a kind of esoteric conviction that nobody nowadays can mean this by that. Well, it will all be right, and that volume of sermons [" Scotch Sermons "] will help on the better day, u the Christ that is to be." Twenty years ago, here in this sweet Patter- dale, my Holy Land of joy and grief, my husband read me out that noble strain of hope, and the line I quote hurt my then narrowness of mind. He gently suggested its meaning, but left out the verse when he read it next, with that exquisite " compassion for the weak, and for those out of the way," that "gentle leading," which belongs to all true guides that get the flock on to greener pastures and waters of more comfort. . . . There that is enough about books. I hear a splashing in the brook which re- minds me of a really interesting friendship between the two cows on whom we depend for our one luxury. One of these dear milky mothers has had an illness, and has looked pathetically ludicrous walking about with a blanket bound round her for fear of catching cold. And how dis- dainfully she has mumbled an odd blade of grass here and there, with all the caprice of a fine lady ! This morning she betook herself to a saunter up the river, and the other ran wildly to the gate of the field to announce the risk her friend was running, and then stood watching her return, but when that seemed to be delayed too long went into the river herself to fetch her back. With these cows there is reciprocity no doubt, but the love of one is more passive. I was stroking her silky white coat the other day, when up ran the brown lady and pushed me away, and then fell to licking the recipient of my caresses, as 574 LUCY SMITH. though they had left some discredit that needed removal. I have not got the dear Birnam. Archie and Mary brought him with them on the 22d of May, meaning to leave him here, but the game-keeper, fussy about his set- ting pheasants, sent a savage message, and so Archie had to come over at once and take him back. They went off on the 5th, and I had a week of intenser life, alone on the hills or over my books, than often visits me now. Now I am what old-fashioned Scotch people call " in my usuals," and dear Violetta has come to me for I hope several weeks. She has just returned from the Ober-Ammergau, and felt an intense interest in the Passion-play. Archie and Mary have been enjoying the Handel Festival, and many other things, but that I think will be the most abid- ing impression. You will easily imagine how entirely liked they are by the country people here. It is amusing to hear the various epithets used, but for Mary there is an unvarying one, whatever may be added : " She is so feeling." . To Mrs. A. Constable. PENBITH, July 30, 1880. I must write a few lines to tell my dear ones of an inter- esting visit yesterday from that sweet creature Mrs. R R , who has c6me to this neighbourhood for two nights. She brought her lovely little girl, one of the handsomest, most high-bred, well-behaved gentlewomen of her age. She is the counterpart of her splendid looking father, who when he stalked in made the room shrink to a nutshell, and, having nothing to say, said nothing, with the aplomb of some great mastiff who turns a deaf ear to idle human talk. Really the sweet woman's bliss is heart-warming, and when the child rubbed her fair head on her knee I felt and even saw the restrained impulse to " eat her up," the agony of mother-love and said, " Is n't it wonder, ful how you live through such bliss ? " And she said it THIS FRIENDLY WORLD. 575 was, and if there were not sometimes little colds and alarms she did not think she could bear her happiness. They are off to-day, and she drives here to exhibit the baby. Strange, how I feel the contagion of her joy. I was very poorly before she came, but my headache went off. One is so glad of gladness, and she is one of the highly organized and expressive. To Mr. and Mrs. Loomis. PATTEBDALE, Aug. 7, 1880. . . . You have given an attractive name to the charm- ing house, of which I am glad to have a photograph. In the " Contemporary " of this month there is a very lamen- table picture of our " Dishorned " condition. I can well un- derstand the different amount of motive and interest felt by those who aspire to a home that shall as it were be or- ganically related to their taste and temperament, and that open to those whose aspirations never go beyond cutting themselves down and fitting themselves into a house that is like a thousand others, and probably represents no one's preference, only the builder's convenience. It made me sad that my husband had not a home, for he would have loved it. But I think he was content with his little desk, and the companion to whom his presence made any spot a heart's home indeed. And naturally I never wish for any outward thing now, which is fortunate, for such wishes could not be indulged. " Shelter Eaves " led me to this train of thought, and indeed the article in question has a very solemn amount of truth in it, though the writer is, I hope, rather a one-idea man, and even a rented abode may become endeared and ennobled by true and loving lives being led within its walls. However, the land question is one widely put nowadays, and spite of the high-handed way in which the Lords have just rejected an Irish devel- opment of it, it is a question that will have to be answered, not silenced. But I trust social changes may be carried 576 LUCY SMITH. 011 more gradually, more bloodlessly, here than is the case in France, or perhaps may be the case in Germany. Here there is a comparative fusion of classes, and a very growing sense of the solidarity of the human race. I have got just now a book I find helpful, Principal Caird's " Philosophy of Religion." They say it is fraught with Hegelianism. But the one important thing is to feel raised toward a high standard, liberated for a while from the limitations of self. How some writers affect one thus others leave one cold or even carping. In these mat- ters we may I think be pretty safely guided by personal results, and without disparaging teachers whose voice does not draw us, who do not know our natures by name, we may turn to others. I often wonder how it is we feel the personality so plainly through the printed page. I do not know your Boston preacher, Phillips Brooks. The Established Church of Scotland has just produced a vol- ume of very thrilling sermons, published by Macmillan. I should like you to see them. They show a very remark- able freedom of thought, and the Presbyteries are satisfied ! What changes we see ! I was brought up by the sweet- est and tenderest of mothers, who would not herself have hurt a fly, or the feeling of the poorest and most ignorant, to shudder at Pope's line, " He can't be wrong whose action 's in the right." Her immense awe and humility made this seem arro- gant, impious. And yet is it not tantamount to " The tree is known by its fruits ? " I think we now shall all agree in supremely desiring "the mind that was in Christ," and, so that " sweet reasonableness " obtain in any character, love it, and thank God for it, whatever the opinions. Words distort, and it is so difficult to get at definitions. ... Is not all real genius akin ? I think the highest thought must speak the same moral truths, just as musicians must deal with the same notes, and the primary THIS FRIENDLY WORLD. 577 colors are few. I was so pleased with your appreciation of Mrs. Pfeiffer's poem that I at once read it over again, and admired it more than before. She is a most lovely woman, and her husband adores her. I copied out that part of your letter for him, knowing the pleasure it would give. And I don't think 1 am doing any harm in sending you one of his. His warm heart, overflowing with happi- ness, is sorry for me, and therefore as you see very kindly. It may interest you to have this peep into the home life of the poet you admire. You, who love music, would have liked to hear her accompany her husband's singing. She plays charmingly, and her flower-painting is the most beautiful I have seen. This reminds me of Mrs. Loomis's painting on china. She too has the artistic temperament, with its high enjoyments. And she must never give up playing, even to the daughters. I doubt that even their music will please you like hers ! Some five or six weeks ago I had a half -hour's call from friends of President Porter's, on their way from Patter- dale to Keswick. It was a pleasure to hear them speak of him. I asked Miss Hillhouse if she knew you, but she did not. There is something a little sad in these glimpses of those we shall never see again. Will you not some of these days re-cross the Atlantic ? My feeling for you roots in my blessed past, and so lives. It is but a shad- owy regard I can give to those who never knew my hus- band. Fortunately for me all my oldest and truest friends had that in their nature which enabled them to reverence his. Just now I have a dear old friend of girlhood with me. One of her nobly handsome sons married, three years ago, Miss Thackeray. . . . She was here the other day with her lovely little girl, telling of the perfection of her baby boy, and radiant with love and joy. I am not much alone. Nieces, old friends, come into retreat here, and are good in saying that the quiet refreshes them. When I am at my best I enjoy solitude, but it is best as an alter- 578 LUCY SMITH. native. Do i* jt be silent very long but never write me a line that tires you. To Mrs. Haughton. [Patterdale, Oct. 30, 1880.] This whole poem of Whittier's is beautiful. Oh, how often have I repeated it to my husband at night when he could not sleep ! The last verse of it he liked, and once repeated the two clos- ing lines : " And Thou, O Lord, by whom are seen Thy creatures as they be, Forgive me if too close I lean My human heart on thee." To Mrs. Cotton. EDINBURGH, 1880. On this sweet, sunny day my thoughts turn to you, you bright one, and I will at least begin a letter. I have been absorbed for several days in the contemplation of wonderful personalities, Isabella Bird having kindly lent all her long letters to her sister from the Malay Peninsula the most interesting I think that she has yet written. I am not sure whether you have read her " Rocky Moun- tains." They are full of marvels. An Edinburgh clergy- man who travelled rapidly over the same ground and had not duly taken in the fact of " eyes and no eyes," or at least of different ranges of mental vision, rashly protested that he did not believe a word in Miss Bird's book. This came to her ears, and when they met at a dinner party she in her clear, gentlest tones (she is singularly gentle and courteous) was heard by her dismayed hostess, who knew and had felt the awkwardness of the position, to say, " I hear, Mr. - -, that you consider my book inaccurate ; would you give me some instances ? Perhaps I might explain them." The embarrassment was great, and he could adduce none in particular, but, however, it ended in THIS FRIENDLY WORLD. 579 the two talking all the evening, and in his going off en- tirely persuaded of her truthfulness. She is one of those singular, magnetic people to whom adventures gravitate. She has the most remarkable experiences, being herself re- markable. There are few things that would interest me more than your reading one especially of these letters from a place called , familiar I dare say to you, dar- ling geographer, botanist, and generally well-informed woman, but to me, like the rest of the places, utterly unknown before. When she got there, the Resident was absent, and for three days she had no other and wanted no other companionship than that of apes 1 On the February of last year she writes thence, " One might just as well live in a menagerie. I wondered on arriving to find three plates set for dinner, knowing that there was no one here, and as soon as I sat down the magnificent Sikh butler brought in one large ape, and the Malay ser- vant brought in another small one, and a Spahi brought in a great retriever and tied it to my chair, and the apes had their chutney and pineapple and eggs and bananas handed to them on Minton's china, and the small ape sat on the table and constantly helped himself from my plate." These apes must have been bewitching ! The next morn- ing she " breakfasted with them " but these things will one day be written in a book. Suffice it to say that she is delightful enough to be quite worthy of this great social privilege, as I consider it. Mima N., to whom I sent the bare facts, pronounces the episode " heavenly " man's inadequate sense of his loving duty to animals being her great stumbling-block and burden. . . . The other won- derful being who has been possessing me is one never seen, " Sister Dora." Have you read that book ? It is engrossing, as the presentation of a rare personality al- ways is, and I think in proportion to one's own conscious and constitutional lack of the gifts one worships. But there must be people of all kinds, and there is a sweetness 580 LUCY SMITH. in a sense of inferiority -that intensifies reverence. In that way one may " glory in one's infirmities." The memoir of " So3ur Rosalie " inspires the same feelings, and perhaps even more love. I see that the " Life of Mary Aikenhead," another sister of that blessed order of St. Vincent de Paul, is another book of the life-giving sort. I shall miss many things when I leave Edinburgh, which I do this day week. Dear Archie is so good in providing me with books, so good in all ways, and Mary is so inva- riably pleasant to me, and we are such " familiar friends." To Mrs. Ruck. EDINBURGH, Dec. 28, 1880. I find it impossible to write without uttering the thoughts that must occupy all minds ; without beginning with the shock and sorrow that all share this sudden departure of that great soul [George Eliot]. From Thursday even- ing, when Archie brought in a little paper with the bare fact, till now, it is the one recurring sense of strangeness and sadness. I find myself inwardly repeating again and again " And all that mighty heart is lying still ! " . . . This death is a rising again in my heart of Mrs. Lewes, and an immense regret since she was so happy that she had to go away. To Miss Violetta Smith. [1880.] I wish I could send you a concise definition of the difference between the Deism of the last century and the Theism of the present. The words are the same of course, but the Deist was less religious, had less sense of union with God than the Theist has. He would have admitted that " God created the heaven and the earth," but the Theist at his best realizes with loving trust that " He is not far from any one of us ; " that " in Him we live and move and have our being." To the Deist God seemed I think more of an abstraction ; to the Theist he is u all THIS FRIENDLY WORLD. 581 in all." Your uncle was a most devout Theist, and so are all the writers of the " Scotch Sermons," though perhaps they would take the name of Christians in preference. And why not call themselves by the name of the Ideal they worship, the Master whose cause, the cause of good, they live to promote ? [1880.] I am glad my Vi is full of interest in the "Scotch Sermons." Principal Caird's are full of elevat- ing power, and I long to re-read them. No doubt he is right in saying that in proportion as we gain in virtue, struggle ceases. We should think it a poor compliment to an honourable man to suppose he told the truth by dint of effort. It is the law of his nature, and he is in no danger of thinking it a merit. The customary religious teaching has rather a tendency to make the struggle ap- pear a fine thing in itself. Certainly it is better than un- conscious evil action ; it shows that the mind has waked to the perception of two courses, and that the reason ap- proves the better. I think Mr. Vaughan's definition, our " natural will " and " God's will," would be more practi- cally effective if it were called the " tendency to be selfish " which lies at the root of our consciousness (necessarily), and the higher nature that comes in and aims at consider- ing, till at length it instinctively considers, others equally and sometimes first. Without entering into the question of Christ's divinity an unthinkable doctrine as Ortho- doxy teaches it, no other can ever in this scientific age so impress the religious imagination, nor have we any record of such union with God as he was conscious of. Generally, as we have seen it in later ages, this sense has been united with some abnormal qualities, severing the man from the sympathies of other men. We stand so far from the exquisite Ideal that united the highest God-con- sciousness with the " sweetest reasonableness " that details are veiled ; butybr us that example and teaching remain a permanent power and attraction ; for us there is no other such name. 582 LUCY SMITH. ECHOES. " Deep streams run still, and why ? Not because there are no obstruc- tions, but because they altogether overflow those stones or rocks round which the shallow stream has to make its noisy way ; 'tis the full life that saves us from the little noisy troubles of life." W. S. Deep the stream and silent Scarce I hear its flow What a noise its current Made few days ago ! Round the stones it fretted On its shallow way Babbling in vexation Over each delay. Came the heavy rainfall, Swelled the river's might Now its stony troubles Are unheeded quite. So, when our complaining Tells of constant strife With some moveless hindrance In our path of life ; What we need is only Fulness of our own If the current deepen, Never mind the stone ! Let the fuller nature Flow its mass above, Cover it with pity, Cover it with love. CHAPTER XXXVI. THE RELIGION OF TO-DAY. THE wife has told us that when in early days she once lamented the coldness of that view of religion which in her friend's mind had superseded the supernatural faith, he answered her, with a look " half pleading, half pa- thetic," "Wait, wait till mothers have taught it to their children ! " That view of his, that conception of the universe which in our generation has so largely ripened, she came to fully accept; it assimilated with her deepest life ; it took on new emphases and nobler in- terpretations from a woman's character under a woman's typical experiences. And no one could better illustrate than she does that in the best development there is no hostility between the old faith and the new. The best of the old is carried forward and assimilated with the new. The transition may not always be free from shock and temporary dislocation, but in the ultimate result the pres- ent is the inheritor of the past. It will be noticed with what fondness and fitness the wife often appropriates the old familiar language of the Bible to the modern forms of thought. She enjoyed this advantage over her husband, that he had in early, unaided youth been thrown into in- tellectual antagonism with the whole system of Chris- tianity as it was then taught, whereas she was guided by a hand so gentle that she exchanged the old for the new thought at the cost of hardly more than an occasional passing shiver. It was not that change which gave poign- ancy to the questionings of her later years, it was the confrontal with those tremendous realities of death and 584 LUCY SMITH. bereavement, whose advent presses home upon the soul the problem of its destiny. Her character and her be- liefs, as we see them at the last, suggest a glance at the present tendencies of religion among the thoughtful peo- ple of the English-speaking race. On the surface there are stubborn contradictions. We must look below the surface ; we must seek the significance of each movement, not in the loudest voices, not in the votes of majorities, but in its deep under-current. Three words sum up the highest results of modern thought. The word spoken by the church is Christ. The word of science is Evolution. The word of humanity is the Soul. All the vitality in Christian theology has concentrated itself in the idea of Christ. Christ, from an actor in a mediatorial drama, has come to be regarded as a direct manifestation of the Divine Nature in the form of perfect humanity. Christ, as Incarnate Love, is viewed as the revelation of God to men. This conception shifts into an- other, that Christ is the ideal of humanity. Viewed as a historic and purely human character, he exemplifies that spirit of fidelity and love and trust and hope which is the true law of human life. When accepted as such an ideal, it matters little though the supernatural features of the story fade away ; it matters little that the personality of Jesus may have been enriched by the creative imagina- tion of eighteen hundred years. The conception is reached that the religious life is not dependent on any interpre- tation of the New Testament story, but that the essence of religion is aspiration and effort toward those traits of character, that moral ideal, which is familiarly and vividly associated with the name of Christ. And further, as any noble and beloved human being impressively suggests some divine source and original, so Christ, as the supreme type of humanity, is felt to be the symbol and pledge of God. Not in a dogmatic, but in a natural sense, the Son THE RELIGION OF TO-DAY. 585 reveals the Father : all highest humanity mirrors Deity. This Christ-ideal involves a filial attitude toward God, an expectant attitude toward a world beyond this. Are those attitudes justified in the light of our present knowledge ? The broadest result of man's study of the world and its inhabitants is his discovery of an ordered and upward growth through uncounted ages which we name Evo- lution. That discovery, made within our own generation, is working a revolution in thought and sentiment, of which we cannot yet predict the limits. It has given the central clue which guides a thousand special lines of in- vestigation. It has touched the mind with a strange blending of awe, hope, exultation, and depression. Fill- ing the imagination with its stupendous drama of the past and future of the world, it has often operated to becloud if not to deny those hopes and fears of the individual which are touched with the greatness of eternity. It brings a new significance to man's individual character and deeds as one element in a mighty whole, but it sug- gests that the individual himself is transient. It dispels the vagary of a chance world, not less than it displaces the notion of a world regulated by occasional divine inter- ference. It reveals universal Order but what of uni- versal Goodness ? It sets man in a vast and endless brotherhood but is it a brotherhood in which each member is but a vanishing atom ? From Evolution, the process, the inquiring mind re- verts to the Soul, the result. It ponders afresh those experiences of consciousness which have somehow been generated in man as we see him the latest term in the long series of progress. Evolution, studied as a history, does not adequately explain Man as he is. We must study the existing Man, and in the highest phases of his being, if we would understand what the slow creative pro- cess means. Darwin essays to explain the evolution of the eye. But the fundamental fact is that man does see. 586 LUCY SMITH. He not only has visual sensation, but he receives through it the invincible assurance of external reality. Trace if you can, man of science, the growth of the seeing organ, and the seeing faculty but, giving to that history its whole significance, is the present fact that man sees. And so, more fundamental than any exposition of the process by which man came to be what he is, is the fact of what he is. He is, in his highest aspect, a being who thinks, acts, obeys, loves, trusts, hopes. It is in these relations that we give to his nature its name of Soul. By various attraction, which we call Love, man is united to his fellow-beings. At first he is drawn to one who gives him pleasure then he is won to reciprocate that pleasure. And at last he reaches the height where Jesus says, " Love them that hate you ! " His nature ex- pands toward friend, neighbor, enemy even ; and at last toward all his kind, in a sentiment whose new birth our age hails under new titles, " the solidarity of the race," " the enthusiasm of humanity." And together with this broadening, the special tie of one individual soul to another, the union of friend with friend, of husband with wife, rises to greater intensity, takes on a profounder sig- nificance, and kindles a light which no shadows of fear and the unknown can subdue. Man trusts some power above himself. That Trust is deeper than any reasons he can give for it, and stronger than any reasons which can be urged against it. His trust when at its best is purely filial it is a blending of obedience with confidence. It is this element of obedi- ence, the actual submission of the will to the highest law it can discern, which gives the inmost reality to trust, and which can never be adequately expressed in intellect- ual terms. Beauty and music cannot be fully conveyed in words, can only be hinted at ; and so is it with the " peace which passeth understanding," whose springs are not in thought but in life. It is the saint's secret. And THE RELIGION OF TO-DAY. 587 while the forms of religious thought and speech may change as does the fashion of garments, that joy and peace which belong to the saintly character are as little likely to be lost by the advancing race as poetry or music or eye- sight. Trust is purified by growing knowledge ; we no longer look for pestilence to spare the good man ; and neither do we limit our trust to the ultimate welfare of the good man it embraces the bad man too, it includes the race. And with it blend such instincts and emotions as we name Aspiration, Adoration, Gratitude. These take on purer and richer forms as humanity advances. The sense of a sacramental significance in nature's beauty, the thrill of reverential awe before sea and mountain and sunset, which has found its fullest expression in this century of Words- worth and Emerson, is as marvellous an acquisition of ad- vancing man as is the development of one physical sense after another. Here too we trace growth, from an early stage ; we are children of the Hebrew whose psalm voiced his gladness in the works of the Lord, and of the Greek whose pulse quickened at the coming of " divine Dawn " but we see and feel more than they did. And Hope, too, like Love and Trust, survives all changes, and from all fluctuations and ebbings emerges purer and stronger. It ceases to lean on stories of the resurrection of the body. It listens reverently for the gravest, weightiest word that Knowledge can speak to find at last neither clear affirmation nor denial. Beside the grave, the last word of Knowledge is " a great Per- haps." And still man hopes hopes for himself and for his fellows some further, nobler existence, some survival of what is dearest and most essential, under what condi- tions he is content not to know. This reverent expect- ance blends with the noblest qualities in him. It sustains moral aspiration with the instinct that beyond all passing defeats lies victory at last. It gives to love its full 588 LUCY SMITH. grandeur. It is one aspect of that reliance on a higher power, of which the other aspect is reverent acquiescence in an unknown but perfect Will : in one type of natures the acquiescence predominates, and in another type the personal hope is vivid. That Hope may be hushed amid the din of contending thought ; it is almost lost in the glare of noonday activities ; but in the supreme exigencies of life, in the lonely hour of utmost need, or by the grave of the beloved, Hope rises again and shines serene, sacred, quenchless. Christ the noblest ideal of manhood ; Evolution the observed and actual course of mankind in its upward emergence ; the Soul man in the attitude of obedience, love, trust, and hope : these three witnesses are not dis- cordant. Here to come back to our personal story here in this mixed and troublous present is one life, a woman's life, lived out in full experience of joy and anguish, and in full presence of all the thoughts and doubts of this thinking and doubting age. Do we not see in her the finest graces that flowered under the old faith? Charity in act, thought, feeling ; humility, trust, hope, how all these shine in her ! From her hope indeed there is absent that absolute assurance which Christianity professes. But the value and beauty of hope, as a trait of character, in no wise depends on the certainty of its expectation. Kather, in its essential nature hope differs from knowl- edge ; its bloom, its tenderness, its trust, lie in the projec- tion of its look into the realm of mystery where knowledge cannot penetrate. " Hope that is seen^ says the apostle, " is not hope, for what a man seeth why doth he yet hope for ? " A future absolutely known would leave no room for that noble faculty. " But if we hope for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it." Yes, with pa- tience, that grandest patience which not only accepts post- ponemeut in time, but submits tho final event itself to the THE RELIGION OF TO-DAY. 589 Perfect Will. And so this ardent yet unsure hope, this great patience, have their roots in the profoundest trust. It is a trust that can rest in the simplest of affirma- tions. " If we knew all, we should be satisfied," that thought occurs in Lucy Smith's letters ; it was a rock to her feet when all else seemed to fluctuate. It is the same thought which in " Thorndale " shines out at the last : " He who has doubted here [as to the existence of God], and then regained his faith, will feel so singular a gladness that he will be thenceforth almost indifferent as to what else is doubtful. . . . Light broke through ; the sun was again in the heavens ; the whole world beamed forth with reason and with love, and I found myself walking humbly and confidently in the presence of God." The old religion was very earnest in affirming " the ex- ceeding sinfulness of sin." It painted man's guilt in hid- eous colors, and measured its enormity by the award of an everlasting torment. Modern thought attributes moral evil very largely to causes beyond the individual's respon- sibility. It minimizes the good or ill desert of man. But it recognizes the miserable reality, the miserable con- sequences, of a low moral state ; the beautiful reality, the blessed consequences, of a high moral state. It addresses to whatever utmost power of improvement lies in man the motives not of a fictitious hell, but of facts which he dis- cerns and feels. The best fruit of the old idea of human sinfulness was seen in that lovely humility which developed in the saintly character. The value of humility is in the impulse it gives to aspiration and effort. But this humility does not disappear from the world when man ceases to believe himself a hell-deserving creature, saved only by a divine sacrifice. The truth which that dogma crudely embodied is discerned in sober but not less effective form by the pure and aspiring heart to-day. This trait of humility, was it ever more sweetly shown than in the woman portrayed in 590 LUCY SMITH. these letters ? By her sensitiveness to goodness, by the loftiness of her ideal, by the reverent upward look toward all spiritual beauty and greatness, she is kept always hum- ble, is drawn always toward nobler heights. The withdrawal from the moral judgment of the ele- ment of unqualified reprobation permits an interpretation of human lives which wonderfully expands the sympa- thies. Nothing is more marked in the development of Lucy Smith's later years than the charity of judgment a charity born as much of true discernment as of generous feeling. It links her closely with all mankind. In almost every one she finds some trait of nobility, or if she finds none, the perception or the presumption of the causes that have thwarted growth waken in her a pity that is in itself a tie. Man can propound to himself no more interesting question than that of a hereafter. And yet, there is something more essential than a confident affirmation upon that question. To know is less than to be. This yearning woman does not find certainty, but, we reverently say, something better is wrought in her. For her all turns to blessing. Even that uncertainty as to the future which sometimes oppresses her in the bearing of it she grows more patient ; the denied desire turns to strength. Her affection for her husband loses nothing of its intensity, but by some divine chemistry, while keeping all its per- sonal quality, it becomes moral aspiration and tender sym- pathy. More and more she learns the lesson expressed in her husband's earliest writings to live in the present. God has placed her here, whatever unspeakable bliss the future may bring, her part is to fill full the present ; and she so fills it that to each friend she is the most satisfying of human beings. No sorrow in the past, no beckoning hope in the future, can diminish or pale that full life she throws into the needs, joys, sorrows, of all about her. THE RELIGION OF TO-DAY. 591 If before the beauty of earth one stands awed, and wor- shipping the Creative Power, how much more before a soul like this ! That husbandry by which the plant was tended, that joy which shone upon it, that anguish which watered it how divine is this ordering care ! " The Lord is my shepherd ; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures ; he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul ; he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for thou art with me ; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me." Her last verses are dated "St. Mary's, Edinburgh, Christinas Day, 1880." It is the Roman Catholic chapel, where the candles are lighted one by one as the service proceeds. DIVERSELY IN MANY WAYS." Light the candles one by one, God's great work is but begun ; Some were lighted long ago, Caught at once the sacred glow ; Others still unlighted stand, Out of reach of mortal hand ; Faculties undreamt of still, Vaster knowledge, purer will. These our faith may surely deem Meant to catch the heavenly beam ; When these kindle on their height, Wide indeed the spread of light ! In the glory then displayed Lights now prized may seem to fade ; Let not this our hearts dismay, One the source and one the ray. " Diverse," but in place and name, One the purpose of each flame ; Light the candles, one by one, God shall end what God begun. CHAPTER XXXVIII. SUNSET LIGHTS. " SHE was in the fulness of her beauty and wisdom," writes Mrs. Ruck ; " never was she tenderer or wiser than in the last year of her sweet life. There was such a wonderful strain of rejoicing in these last days that even the undercurrent of sadness seemed lost. It was an ex- quisite acquiescence in all around her. She was like an instrument perfectly in tune with nature and the circum- stances which surrounded her." To Mrs. A. Constable. BRIGHTON, March 4, 1881. ... After our early dinner, dear R. and I went to the dancing school, to me a quite exhilarating sight. I don't know why I, who am passing out of life, and have no grandchildren, should look with such tenderness at the little lads and lassies at their steps, with their honest en- deavours to point their toes, and eyes fixed on the wonder- fully lively and springy mistress. Then I turned in to Miss R , the marvellous old lady of eighty-six, whose activity, and rapidity of mind, and fluency are all re- markable, though sometimes, like her juniors, she mis- takes or miscalls a name. Very admirable in conduct, I am sure, unworldly, generous, tolerant, she is the most thorough sceptic I have ever met ; calls everything in question, and is a pessimist as to the prospect of humanity, though herself so brave and cheerful, and an element of happiness to others. SUNSET LIGHTS. 593 LONDON, March 18, 1881. . . . When you come to London you will go and see the Millais Exhibition, and oh, you will not fail to doat on the bull terrier who is consoling the child. Perhaps you have seen it. The tender roll of the dear creature's projecting and plain eyes seems to me the most marvel- lous achievement of this wonderful painter, who paints eyes I think as no other does. At the Miss R.'s we saw such work, my Mary, as I do not expect to see at the School of Art. The cleverness of people amazes me more and more. . . . Sunday will be a busy day. I lure Sophy to the Greek Church, where there is to be a solemn re- quiem for the poor Czar. In the afternoon Westminster Abbey, and tea with Ethel, and probably I shall go to the Carmelites in the evening. Monday dear General Cotton takes me to see the Deaf Mutes in the morning, and in the afternoon I hope to reach Blackheath with dear Mrs. Sowton. And the other days are all full. Indeed I should enjoy going about with you, my pretty one ! I often wonder how it is there is this life and vivid interest in me. " God hath made me so," nor would my only loved, in the deep centre of my personality, blame me, I know. GARTHEWIN, April 2, 1881. . . . This morning I have been reading the " Times " aloud to S. while she knitted, and she said she much liked being read to. To myself I read a letter of Lord Pembroke, which seemed to me that of a very superior, thoughtful man, having the historical sense. He is ad- verse to what he expects the coming Land Bill to be, and indeed, I dare say it will be a mere treating of symptoms, palliations instead of attempts at a radical cure. But when a country is managed by Government and Opposi- tion, how ensure time for the slower process? Politics and doctoring are alike empirical. But the larger wisdom that belongs to a few will spread, and meanwhile there 594 LUCY SMITH. must be dissatisfaction, or there would be no ideal and life would stagnate altogether. But these fundamen- tal truths are mere offence to nine out of ten, who talk their newspapers the best they can, and enjoy the excite- ment of a vague belief in everything going to the dogs ; much as rustics like a funeral, or strongly denounced dam- nation ! GAKTHEWLN, April 20, 1881. What a glorious day it is, though the north wind is high and keen. Just the day that my angel loved, and he has been with me every step of the way. Oh, the agony of love and hope ! How blessed life and death seemed ! The view from what is known as Mary's Ter- race was quite perfect, but I went high, and sat sheltered by a gorse bush, and saw Snowdon emerge from cloudi- ness into sharp outline. The colour, the light, the joy of the rooks, the shining hollies, the silver-sheathed buds of the sycamores, the thankfulness for what has been ! Snap follows so closely and even deigns to sit, while I read, and live in memory. Nature is to me an ecstasy on days like this. To Miss Violetta Smith. There never was a lovelier spring day than yesterday, and I had a longing for a mountain walk, so S. and I set off for the top of a nice manageable hill of about 1000 feet, from which there is a glorious view of the whole Snowdon range and also of the sea. We passed a cottage high on the hill, and the poor woman came out, and though she did not speak English nor I Welsh, I made out that she had a sick son. Alas, dying of consumption, wasting away it was most pathetic. There was no pov- erty, but of course the little delicacies one would like for all sick people could not be procured. Brownlow said at once when he heard of the youth that he would send, and so he has this evening ; but I could not resist going again SUNSET LIGHTS. 595 myself this afternoon, and it was worth a longer climb to see the poor dying youth smile over the sweet tea roses, and say that what I put into his mouth was nice. Oh, my Vi, how thankful the heart is for any power of render- ing the smallest service ! Their talk was too much of the dark side of village life to help on my spirits. Oh, more and more I feel that we only " live by admiration, hope, and love." The dark side is there, like the daily processes of physical deteriora- tion and dying of the effete and used-up, which form part of our hourly experience of these bodies of ours; but they are not to be dwelt upon, it is not they which make up the outward and visible personality, but rather the light in the eye, the tenderness in the smile. I am not blaming these dear ones, who are better than I, and more energetic in their efforts to do good, but explaining how it is that the evening rather lowered my vitality. To Mrs. Lorimer. GABTHEWIN, April 26, 1881. To think that during the last two months we have never exchanged one word ! Oh, I hope and trust that on this glorious day you are quite happy about Mr. Lorimer, that he has quite shaken off the attack I was sorry to hear of two days ago. This is one of those days when joy seems the law of this life. Does sunshine thus exhilarate those accustomed to it ? To me this is a day that brings back all the blessedness of that past, " more actual than any present," in which alone I can be said to live. And I am so unspeakably relieved by Archie's letter of this morning about his precious father. ... I wish you had been with me just now, sitting on dryest, softest moss, and tolerably sheltered by a furze bush, looking over treetops, silver-budded sycamores, shining hollies, red- branched birches, across a soft landscape of undulating 596 LUCY SMITH. and wooded ground, over which clouds were sweeping their blue shadows to the glorious Snowdon range. Oh, such a sky ! Such cohorts of snowy clouds marching out of the northwest ! I did not get high enough to see the sea. But this is a most sweet country, preferable to dear Patterdale because here one can walk for hours where tourist never was seen. Now that you have that perfect country home, I feel I shall never have a chance of you for one of these quiet walks, with more in the point of companionship than months of such meetings as towns al- low. I might as well wish for any other unattainability. But I do not leave off feeling how delightful it would be to have your dear society in some solitude, for the little, little space of time you with all your tendrils could endure it. ... My brother has been delightfully energetic and well these last days. Tenants, well-wishers, and neigh- bours have got up a " Testimonial to his public and pri- vate worth and usefulness." The subscription has reached 400 ; but while some insist on a portrait and engraving from it, others wish the sum devoted to a more practical and permanent purpose. So there must be a compromise. His are very variable looks a plain face into which al- most beauty comes every now and then. Perhaps we all think this of the faces we know best, and perhaps it is so, the divine showing through at times. To President Porter. PATTERDALE, May 8, 1881. I have much to thank you for, dear Dr. Porter your photograph but it does not replace the smaller one I unaccountably lost. I am sure it does you less justice, and that Mrs. Porter is not satisfied. Understand that I am very glad to have it, but instinctively know it to be less successful, less characteristic, than the one I regret. Then it is to you that I gratefully owe the friendship of Mr. . I can use no slighter word in the case of one SUNSET LIGHTS. 597 who has sent me such letters as he has done. The first reached me during the last days of March last days of our life, which closed nine years ago. How long, how short those years ! I know not which to call them. If reunion came, they would seem but a moment, the twink- ling of an eye. And I thankfully acknowledge that they have been fraught with much quiet interest and even sweetness, and that he who was the best and highest / have known has in some deep unutterable sense been with me through them all. On this exquisite spring morning I have been reading over George Eliot's letters to me. Each a gem so tender, so finished in the lovely hand- writing of one incapable of slurring over or doing the slightest thing otherwise than perfectly. That acquaint- anceship (but she gave it a warmer name), like all else in my life of highest interest, came to me from my husband. I think some day I must write down what I remember of our three or four meetings, they are so vividly remem- bered. I was much interested in the paper you wrote, and in that glimpse of her, silent and tearful. There was another article written by a woman, full of generous en- thusiasm, and showing perhaps somewhat closer agree- ment with George Eliot's views. Sad views, yet how much grander than the hideous theological conceptions in which (oh, anomaly !) I was sedulously trained by the sweetest mother by one whose gentle spirit would have harmed no living creature, would have helped and deliv- ered and forgiven and loved to the utmost views my next of kin still hold. With Mr. 's articles I feel in closest agreement, and it is by that rule I desire to live ever more and more closely. That is essential Christianity but though this one name must be to us, from hereditary influence and early association, above every name, yet the law of love was owned and pro- mulgated in sundry times and various ways, and I can- not limit the divine working to any one mode. Happy 598 LUCY SMITH. some of us who have had the noblest and best to live with familiarly, to love with all our souls in this life's sweetest fondness, and then to worship as an ideal, and seek to fol- low after. There comes this rising again to our beloved dead. Dear Dr. Porter, can you bear with so much heresy? Believe that I try I am not one of heroic type, and capable of much, but I do try to expel from my spirit all elements that are unworthy of this life at its highest, how then of life continued on a nobler plane ! and to cherish and foster the love that " seeketh not its own," and is conceivable as " abiding." I suppose you have been saddened by the indiscretion that has made it so easy for us all to cavil at and seek to degrade our great Carlyle. His will and his niece's letter amply justify him from the desire to make public what in his great loneliness and darkness he perhaps unwittingly wrote. Oh, I trust Froude's lamentable error may be forgotten, after the critics have done their worst, and that the indulgence that Carlyle's constitutional sufferings seem always to have demanded may be found compatible with the old reverence his gifts and his great unworldly career surely deserved. Two months ago I stood before his house so dingy, so neglected-looking. He who had lost his " light of life " never can have cared to brighten up his dwelling since. I stood too before George Eliot's recent home so fresh, ornate, cheerful outwardly I felt it the sadder of the two. A.nd now I have returned to sweet Patterdale. It has now its Reading-room and its Lending Library. 1 There is little intellectual stir here, and the public-houses are too much frequented. But I like to feel that these small ad- vantages are the consequence of my husband's having loved these hills and trees three-and-twenty years ago. The two following letters were written to one who says : 1 Both established by her. SUNSET LIGHTS. 599 u I owe my acquaintance with Mrs. Smith to a common friend who sent to her a newspaper containing an article of mine on George Eliot, written at the time of her death ; and an allusion on her part to this article led him to show her letter to me. I had never heard of her before, and scarcely known of her husband. But the tone in which she alluded to him who had been outwardly parted from her for many years moved me greatly. Under that impulse I wrote to her with a freedom such as one would ordina- rily use only to an intimate friend. I think this power to instantly unlock the heart was characteristic of her. She was like pure spirit, all barrier, all disguise, seemed to fall away in listening to her. I shall never forget how her answer stirred my heart. We corresponded for one short year some four letters on each side and then, from relatives who seemed to share something of her own lovely kindness, came the news of her death and I felt that one of my most treasured friends was gone." April 9, 1881. DEAR SIR : Your letter reached me this day fortnight, forwarded from Edinburgh to Brighton, whither I had gone to spend the last days of March. The twenty-eighth was the anniversary of the parting, and when I tell you that on that day I took your letter to re-read beside our grave, you will know, more fully than I can tell you in any other way, what that letter was to me. I thanked God for it, for as you truly say, all our best things come to us as gifts, with a singular suddenness and unex- pectedness, and yet some sense of familiarity too, as though they had belonged to us while we knew it not. Your experience is very sacred to me, and very sustain- ing. Such love is not of the dead but of the living. It is a blessed experience, and to know of it will I think help me always. I dare not say I fully share it. I suffered so unspeakably, the agony of loss seemed to kill the power of 600 LUCY SMITH. any hoping. Yet that hope was all I had, and I clung to it desperately as to some priceless treasure that had life in it and might strengthen and grow. And at the worst it was more the hope of eternal present life for the loved one more his joy, his being (which even here included joy) that I craved yes, even more than our reunion ! I thank you very reverently for telling me of your per- fect union. I know all it means incommunicable in its sweetness, but recognized as absolute by such souls as have once known. I have now been alone nine years. An old constitutional cheerfulness has revived, but personal joy went with the one. Yet such love as lives and grows and absorbs all one's nature into itself has a joy. It is one's personality, and brings with it a deep contentment. The Creator could not have done more for his creature than he has done for it, Now remains memory, and quiet and patient waiting. I have read all your papers with intimate agreement. ... It is of the letter on Eternal Life I think especially when I speak of an intimate and intense agreement. Your teaching is that of my husband, who, at the age of twenty, wrote in " The Athenaeum " of the main point for us being to "live like immortals here." (I think it is only such as do this who inspire immortal love.) I should much like to have all those papers of yours. You have kindly sent me two. They will be republished, I cannot doubt, and I should value them in a more durable form, for the light they shed is one that one wants to diffuse. So many torches loudly proffered have more smoke than light, and the light is only glare. I am venturing to send you by post a book of my hus- band's. " Thorndale " is better known, but to " Graven- hurst" there is prefixed a brief and very inadequate sketch of the author. But I want you to know even thus much of him. You have described his quiet life, " creat- ing about it an atmosphere of trust and peace." His SUNSET LIGHTS. 601 own works reveal him best. But the little memoir may serve like a poor photograph, to give an idea of the man light, color, all wanting still, one says of a photo- graph " better than nothing, and, as far as it goes, true." That he is still guidance, strength, motive, I need not say to you. When I am saddest and worst, it is that he seems so far and hopelessly out of reach. When life has its divine meaning, even for one so obscure as I, he draws near. I often borrow St. Paul's words; "Not I he lives in me." And those lines of Tennyson, once heard from the one voice, are said broken and tearfully ever since that voice was hushed in many and many a lovely place, beneath cloudy or quiet blue skies : " Though blent with God and Nature thou, I seem to love thee more and more" I have written out a sonnet of Emily Pfeiffer, because it says what your letter says. Those who have loved en- tirely do seem to have the witness in themselves, in. some invincible sense. Do you know her poems ? I ask as though it were likely you would make time to write to me again. Perhaps you may and therefore I subjoin my most permanent address, though I am not there now Grisedale Bridge, Patterdale, Penrith, Cumberland. I like to think that you will know what that address means for me. MRS. PFEIFFER'S SONNET. O Love, on thee a burden has been laid, Now in these later days of doubt and dread. Be pure, that thou be strong, and unafraid To meet the hosts with which thou art bestead. Thou only champion of the soul blasphemed By arrogant young Science show thine eyes Immortal, and thy pledges unredeemed, Then challenge them to shut thee from the skies I O Love, with thee we fall, by thee we rise ! Be pure, that thou be strong, in Death's despite, 602 LUCY SMITH. Then creeds may wax and wane 'mid tears and sighs. But never shall the world be lost in night : Thine is the one evangel, through all forms Of change surviving, riding out all storms. PATTERDALE, May 22, 1881. Your letter reached me nearly three weeks ago. The impulse was to answer it at once. I hardly know why, but one gets the habit I think of refusing one's self such indulgences. Then came gloomy days of our habitual rain. I waited to writj to you in the sunshine, as I do this morning, when the inmates are at church, and the cottage is quite still. And through the open window the birds sing of present joy, and the brook ripples of some- thing more permanent has past and future in it. You know now (I am so glad you do !) why Patterdale is dear to me. That day you waited in the little town of Pen- rith, you were but fifteen miles off. That my letter should have proved solacing to you is one of those blessed facts one can never understand, ex- cept through a glow of thankfulness. Yours has been read and re-read with an ever deepening emotion. I am so glad to know the name by which your angel was called. Never, never have I read so exquisite a last utter- ance as that of hers. Well may it be your gospel ever since ! Her love had become divine even here self so utterly forgotten, she could spare you to others. To feebler and poorer natures it is such an agony to give up the exclusive hold on the heart if not the hand. But her deep sense of the oneness that was indissoluble en- abled her to do this so sublimely, that I think all who ever heard those words of hers must by the glow of admiration they cause be quickened into some wish of following afar off. I do not wonder that you have had a period of renewed suffering. I think the absolute Love exacts, at one time or other, suffering only less than itself, but incommuni- SUNSET LIGHTS. 603 cable in intensity. I do not believe that while we remain here we ever cease to be liable to moods of such desola- tion as are only conceivable to those who have had perfect fulfilment of all their being's wants. But the woman has not, as you truly say, the outward excitements. Be sure your darling has been saved from very terrible pain ; Perhaps that helps best of all that bearing instead. My husband once said to me : " What should I do with- out you ? I could not live, cut in half." Well I have borne it in his place. One or other must. If there be an ordering Love working through and in all, it must work in individual cases, and I trust that these sunderiugs of soul and spirit are merciful in their selection. But though I admit, thankfully, even joyfully, that we do rise again some third day (of varying length) I am not sure that looking back on my own case, or the case of other mourn- ers, I always desire the " recovery swifter." [Some such phrase as this her correspondent had used, in wishing that in Tennyson's " In Memoriam " the clouds of grief gave way sooner.] After all, sorrow is a form of love, and in a world where those out of sight are so quickly out of mind, one blesses those who prove that they have the power of sorrowing. In 1876, when I had been alone only four years, that sweet woman Mrs. , after leav- ing me wrote me a sweet, sweet letter, but it only pained. She wanted me to do indeed I scarce know what but she wanted " the recovery swifter." Taught by that pang that came from a well-meant attempt to quicken the re- turn to life (always painful, even after the body's swoon), I think I should not fear for any one what has been called " selfishness of grief." If they have loved a noble soul (and only such are loved in your and my sense of the word), that influence will surely raise them into sympathy in time. It will be sooner in some cases than others, but it will be for love is life, and bereaved ones have no personal life any more nothing to wish for themselves 604 LUCY SMITH. they cannot choose but turn to the lives of others. It is one of the most benignant laws of this world of ours. But the sorrow should have its perfect work. And I can- not grudge the darkened years in Tennyson's or any other's life. Nor do you only you are stronger and hold forth the noble rule, while I plead for the pathetic exception, which has its teaching too. But to show how much in unison with yours my husband's guidance is, I enclose lines that welled out of my early days of anguish, as the date shows. [" My sorrow is my throne."] You and I shall never meet on earth, and hence we can be more open to each other than it is often possible to be, face to face. If there ever comes to you an impulse to tell me more of that sweetest one, and the inexhaustible treasures of such years both the waiting and the pos- sessing do not check the impulse ! I shall understand, for I loved and love. It thrills me to hear you say that you feel my husband live in those poor pages. When you wrote, I do not think you had read of the parting. Perhaps you will say I dwelt on that too long. I could not abridge or alter. And life and death were one the long twilight of the sweet day had such exquisite lights and shades the playfulness to the last ! ... If we have not a thunder storm this afternoon, I shall walk with the book you sent me to the cottage of ' a blind man, and try to read out the last chapter, and one that addresses the young the cottage is full of children. I say try, because my experience of the uneducated classes is that the real pleasure they derive is in talking themselves. I often wonder how people get the Bible, or anything else, read ! Fortunately I don't esteem it so vital a matter as most of those who go to see I don't like to say " the poor," 't is so vague a term, but you know what I mean. But I should enjoy reading this book, if my blind man permits. I am here for the summer not SUNSET LIGHTS. 605 alone, for the niece whom we loved (the little girl who played her scales at Keswick I speak you see as though you knew all about us !), and who has been from childhood my familiar friend, is with me. Her equally dear hus- band is watching beside the sick I fear the dying bed of one my husband never spoke of save as " dear Con- stable" -one of those men who leave numbers poorer, chillier, less protected. How much I could say but you are too much occu- pied for such careless talk. That oneness of humanity how it fills my mind too and henceforth I shall find I hope more practical lessons in the great truth. I have known Emerson from my quite young days. The " Thren- ody " has been often read. But we cling to the concep- tion of personality, though even now and here it is hard to define inconceivable hereafter, except as expanded beyond the limits of present thought. Still, I cannot sur- render it yet, as Emerson does. [On the back of the verses.] One o'clock in the night. I have been looking at the stars. An owl is hooting in its pleasant fashion, as owls hooted around Newton Place. You will not I hope suppose I send you these lines out of any mistaken idea that they are worth it, except as illus- trating the influence the thought of my husband has over me. But now I shall appropriate those comforting words, and more consciously seek to render little services " to him." It is very dear to my heart to feel that you now know him a little. Yet his books reveal him more than a little. I never knew a man more of a piece. And this from early, earliest days. At the age of twenty he wrote some papers in the " Athenaeum," in which I find the key- note of " Thorndale," " Gravenhurst," and his daily life. He would say this was an egotistic addition of mine. I shall indeed welcome your promised book. I did read the chapters to my blind man, who listened eagerly. 606 LUCY SMITH. To Mrs. Cotton. PATTERDALE, Spring of 1881. . . . Oh, what a new lesson of caution Fronde has taught to all who need ! To give pain with words of the dead seems to me the unpardonable sin, for they are pow- erless to explain, to smile away the impression. I feel the exposure of Carlyle's fractious moods most pathetic, and love Mr. Spedding for his tender perception that the greatly gifted, greatly suffering man " always needed the indulgence we all of us need in a violent attack of tooth- ache." Professor TyndalPs letter was I thought very beautiful. But I do not think you ever cared much for Carlyle, so I need not prose on about him. When I was twenty, Mr. Warburton lent me his " Miscellaneous Es- says," and he has been one of the teachers of my irregular and indolent mind ever since. My husband, however, though an earnest admirer of much, was never a worship- per of the whole man, and the other evening I was read- ing out to Mary an essay of his on the Cromwell, which I think a triumph of wise, all-round-seeing, and impartial criticism. I wish you had read it to us for that is I think the form in which you best like books, and I have a delightful piece of work going on, and should much enjoy listening. My piece of work is just this : a piece of blue satin cretonne price, one shilling three years ago. It had got dirty, and when Mary washed it for me, out came all the blue in deep chocolate brown guise ! Great are the mysteries of dyeing, but this was amazing. However, a cream-colored back-ground remained, with the pattern distinct, and over this I am working in filoselle, with I think a most antique and a3sthetic result. I expect some one to say of my banner screen, " Where did you get that old bit of embroidery?" . . . Oh, my Mary, how exquis- ite my walk last evening to Glen Coyne ! I had been there on Monday, having heard from Mr. Pattison of a SUNSET LIGHTS. 607 dread case of suffering ; and the change the two days had made was magical. The birches are all out, but the leaves so small and tremulous; the beech branches are rich brown with bursting buds ; the hills were deep blue, the lake glass. I never felt the beauty more, and as he once wrote to and of me he " was with me every step of the way." " Love never dieth " we learn this as a promise ; we get, after such suffering as involves as it were a new birth and other faculties, to know it as ex- perience. I have had another and longer letter from Mr. . Since then he has sent me an excellent little book. But on these points you and I, my darling, have at least a difference of expression. With this stranger, whom I shall never see, whom I do not even wish to see, I feel in as complete unison as is possible in harmony. How dull a world it would be but for our differences, and how un- wise even to wish the rich variety lessened. But the thrill of agreement when it does come is sweet as the closing chord of some tumultuous overture. To Mrs. A. Constable. PATTERDALE, June 8, 1881. ... I must just tell you of my call upon the good N 's. She was the only one at home, and her simple heart was opened about her happiness and her character. I was telling her I had had my husband's nephew with me, and how fond I was of him. " Well, I 'm that way. When Robert's brother comes home, I do not know how to do enough for him, I do not really. Robert has an honest heart, and I 've an honest heart, d' you see I'm not bad, but I 'm sometimes not so easy to do with I 'm fidgy that 's a failing, you know." I said I was sure her husband was good-tempered. " And so he is, and we settled it be- fore we married that we were never to be cross at once that would never do." Many inquiries for you and Archie. It was a relief to the kind soul to know I had been on 608 LUCY SMITH. Place Fell on Sunday. She had heard my voice, and yet could not see me. She had not liked to mention it, as " people did say hearing people's voices when they were not within hearing was not a good sign ! " You see she is still in that condition where there is no recognition of law laws of acoustics or any other, therefore no such idea as infraction of law. What is called a miracle would not perplex her, would hardly require so much tes- timony as an every-day incident. It would interest more, and be more readily received. However she was really glad that it was my own actual and every-day voice. And you should have seen D run to shake hands with me. Such a greeting I do not often get. I am sure D believes me an affectionate friend. And the rap- ture of M the precocious at having his young uncle back, and the complacency of the father ! Altogether, I went out feeling arid, went with an effort because disin- clined, and returned feeling " kindly with my kind." PATTEBDALE, June 10, 1881. [She writes of a visit from Mrs. Ruck, whose daughter had married Mr. Frank Darwin, a son of Charles Darwin, and died at the birth of a child, Bernard, who was now at Patterdale with the Darwin grandparents.] I found it a little difficult to keep my attention close to 's narrative of the unreasonableness of the servants, etc., but she spared me no detail, and only left when the wheels were heard. And then there was that grand, beaming noble face, and the clasp of those dear arms ! As usual, her journey had been full of interest. She had stopped for tea at Troutbeck, and driven on with a cham- pion wrestler, Hutton Warwick by name, who told her of all his prizes and conflicts, and for a wonder asked her many questions about the family. She was full of his pleasant ways, and indeed I never saw a more good-na- tured face the good humour of strength. Just as 1 was SUNSET LIGHTS. 609 unpacking her hamper, in came Mr. Horace D , who is quite a son to her a charming young man, with that voice of finished culture, that ease and naturalness, -which come of much best society. . . . Oh, I trust, I tremblingly think, I am getting less " exclusive," want less for myself. If life does not teach this, it has taught nothing worth, nothing immortal. ... I have been all the morning talk- ing and rearranging flowers. Mr. Darwin has just been here. He is delightful, and I have begged him to give Crosthwaite an order for mats. I do exceedingly admire Mr. Darwin, and could ask nothing pleasanter than to hear him talk. I do not much wonder at the worship of intellect, for it means generally goodness. Yesterday, Bernard and Miss Darwin lunched here, and M. A. had gone off for him to-day, but instead of bringing him back appeared with the illustrious grandfather. How at home and easy one is with men and women who are so im- mensely above one. One has the ease of the lower ani- mals. The summer's letters are full of tender allusions to the death, in the month of May, of Thomas Constable, loved and honored through so many years. PATTERDALE, Aug. 18, 1881. Oh, my Archie, thatjfozs^, aad then the terrible reality ! I feel it all ; and feel how you must sometimes need time to stand still, and all else to keep silence, so that for a while you might have the one thought, unbroken by any other. Even I have that wish. I want just to talk and think of the beloved friend with some of you, were it but for an hour to think of nothing else. His dear face looks on me daily by the side of my One. Your dear mother, how often I think of her, and how sorry I am to be so out of reach that I cannot see letters and the like. I have never seen those of the young and far-away sons, 610 LUCY SMITH. on whom the great and peculiar bereavement for he was the very personification of all-embracing and all-for- giving tenderness of love must have fallen so sud- denly. . . . And now I have a pleasant experience to share with you. Last afternoon was fine, so we two (I am jealous of the word " we " it is always " we two " now) were off early, and walked to Dovedale. When I got as far as the farmhouse, I felt I was actually sinking for a cup of tea, and went in to solicit one, meaning to remunerate of course. A girl first appeared ; then the mother, then the farmer himself, to whom T had only spoken once, three years ago, as he stood looking (Hessie and I thought) quite nobly handsome, hay-making with his men. The fervor of his handshake, and his familiarity with my name, amazed me. He wondered why I had not been to see them ; they " feared I was affronted " and I did not know they were aware of my existence ! The wife told me I was much changed, and she would not have known me ; and we were led in to such a beautiful parlor, large, low, with arched windows (it is a very old house, with massive walls, and a " hide-hole," which " his Lordship " who has recently been over means to have opened out) and lovely views. There a first-rate tea was brought us, and I revived, and we " cracked," and the farmer was de- lightful. If some underrate us, as dear Mrs. Jones al- ways said, some overrate, and we always get more than our due ! Really I was quite mortified that Mrs. Sowton could not hear the good man's cordiality ! He said he " did believe I was the great support of Patterdale " (why ? He had never even heard of the Library), and that " the people wanted me to stay the winter " (why again ?). Something led me to say I was short-sighted : " Well, now, I would never have believed that. I was just admiring your eyes they are good ones " (the room was dark!). Then the wife said I "looked so much SUNSET LIGHTS. 611 younger-like what had I done ? perhaps 't was the dress." And I had the most cordial invitation to spend a fortnight with them, and was told, when I said how fond I was of Patterdale, " fatter dale is very fond of you ; " and in short, never was any obscure creature more made of by almost strangers. I am planning such pleasant Christmas votives for it was impossible to acknowledge the good tea, except by cordial gratitude. In the strength of it we two jogged off cheerily. The weather darkened, a flash of sunshine just brought out Dove Crag and the beauty of the perfect valley then stillness and gloom, and mists began to wind stealthily in and out of the peaks, and still it was impossible not to go on. Perhaps Mary will send these sheets to Edith, for I can't write it all again, and she has been in Dovedale with the dear C., and I want her to know I went the other side of the val- ley, and that it is quite exquisite. On and on we went till we got to a narrow dingle down which a little water- fall comes, and oh, the loveliness of the ground ! The carpet, and the strawberries with their crimson fruit and scarlet leaves. Brothers' Water lay far behind us, and I should have scrambled further still but that there came rain. At first we thought it might be a shower, and sheltered under a rowan, but no blackness overhead and pelting rain. Nothing for it but returning. I was wet to the skin, but dear Mrs. S had a woollen shawl. Oh, the cold of my arms and shoulders, and the fear of ruining my sateen ! I was full of pain by the time we got back (at half past seven), but am none the worse, and so thankful for the kindness of people ! PATTEKDALE, Oct. 16, 1881. My darling, I must write you, while your (and my) beloved Archie is sitting in this room. His presence as you know is always pleasant, gives an increased sense of peace, well-being, security. I have combed Birnam into 612 LUCY SMITH. great beauty, and tugged at some incipient tags in a man- ner he would never have allowed if he had not been very sleepy indeed. This morning was extraordinarily beauti- ful, not a cloud in the tender blue, not one breath of air, a slight white. frost making everything crisp. Nature seemed to have waked in an ecstasy after the tremendous storm and conflict undergone. Archie and I were off at ten, Birnam full of conceit leading the way, and frightful little Patch running behind him. She dearly likes a walk, and one never has to give her a thought, which in- deed she would hardly be worth. The walk was perfect, brilliant sunshine, brilliant tints, but of course the storm has bared many trees. We went to the end of the lovely valley [Dovedale], and Archie scrambled a little up the watercourse for I will not call it a waterfall, only a succession of pretty little leaps. Patch would not go on with him, and Birnam had scrambled into my lap and kept me warm as I sat among the ferns. It was per- fectly still, and Archie and I had another sit and a pipe in a blaze of sunshine that made my fur cloak feel too much of a wrap. Birnam had three charming dips in Brothers' Water, and quickly dried. A more lovely walk on a lovelier day could hardly have been taken. You know how I like Archie's dear society, and how glad I always am to feel his supporting arm and the " perpet- ual comfort of his face." Monday, half past five : Dear Archie is just off warm and comfortable, and having made a tidy breakfast. Birnam has been very tenderly yet reasonably unhappy, and is now bearing up the better because of a mutton bone that I have indulged him with before the fire. His dear wistful eyes when it dawned on him that " dear Master " was to made me think of that line of DobelFs about O the forsaken dog who " seeks what he knows to be, yet knows not where." Well, barriers do not annihilate the SUNSET LIGHTS. 613 loved one, only divide and very soon for the left the barrier will fall. How the cock crew at half past three, at four, and now again ! It hardly seems worth while to go back to bed. How much good I wish you for to-mor- row and all to-morrows, I need not say happy years in the home, with the precious husband's love the only equal, only perfect love, that has the same standpoint in time, the same interest, the entire confidence, to build up and secure the other sacredness and sweetness of what alone is union. Bless you, and may the birthdays be ever brightening from within, long after I have passed away. " Way will open," dear, but it " runs up hill all the way " for the majority. You will see, dear one, things will brighten. We must trus'en, as Dolly says. Have you anything pleasant to read? Aimless talking is deadly. If evils are remedi- able action ! If not silence ! [Brighton.] I never thought this dear C so de- lightful every way. She seems to me perfect in every relation, and there is such an increasing repose. G was very interesting after dinner yesterday, as all human beings are who share their deeper feelings their strain- ing towards the light. Good man of business though he be, he evidently thinks much of the great encompassing mystery the home of our being. I more and more ad- mire C . It is not too much to say that when ani- mated and speaking from her soul she is occasionally beautiful has moments of positive inspiration which show that for these last years she has been growing. And she has a more mellow and attuned grace, with no loss of her native fervour either, so that really I do not wonder at any enthusiasm she excites in Mrs. Taylor, or any one else. 614 LUCY SMITH. Mildred is as I have told you an ineffably sweet child. She adds another to my list of enchanting children (not merely pretty or promising ones), which even with this ad- dition only runs up to three. You see that all is going right with . It is so true of a character like hers if it fall it is sure to rise again, " the Lord holding the right hand." A beautiful metaphor, and a sermon in itself. The divine habit of right will prevail over the passing mood, the law of the controlled and aspiring nature will conquer the accidental. Everything so far as moral truth goes may be expressed in those consecrated words. The beloved Mr. Constable's spirit will be with you all the spirit of gracious and expressed affection. Ah, let no one shrink from expressing it. The heart has strange abysses of gloom, and often yearns for just one word of love to help. And it is just when the manner may be drier and less genial than usual that the need may be greatest ! To Mrs. Henry Hemans. The best that can happen is a deepened sense of the un- seen, a firmer trust. Life's terrible aspects sometimes shake that faith, and all seems chaotic and dark. But when faith revives and one seems to get glimpses behind the vail, seasons are ours of great peace, and reliance on infinite love, from whence we derive our own. These, whether alone or not, are the best hours. The dearest friends cannot always help us to these. They rise and set by laws we cannot certainly trace. To Mr. Archibald Constable. (Undated.) Dear Vi and I walked in the gloaming, and I met " Peggy," who allowed her lovely gray cheeks to be caressed to one's heart's content. What a pleasant SUNSET LIGHTS. 615 idea that of understanding the language of animals ! I do prefer them to an evolved (?) type, that is to say to the average man and woman. If Allan were here I should like to show him what seems to me a fallacy in the " Spectator's " review of "Supernatural Religion." Mr. H does seem to me strangely confused. I wonder people don't come to see that, given a God, none of his dealings can be otherwise than divine, and that this idea of Super-His-order, by which one might define supernat- ural, is mere confusion. We may see that relatively to our perceptions or our condition certain laws are higher, more important, than others, but they must all alike be according to his will, ordered and sure in the nature of things, not afterthoughts or makeshifts. To Mrs. Cotton. PATTEBDALE, Summer of 1881. My much loved Mary, how I do want to talk to you ! First and foremost to say how I rejoice in dear General Cotton's restored health and return to his " own heart's home." I thought of you indeed on Wednesday afternoon, and earnestly wished your happiness a long continuance. And I enter deeply into your longing for a country home, where you may be more completely together than your unselfishness now allows you to be. Only it must be in some remote neighbourhood, or social claims will crowd around you, and probably be less interesting than those that now render your life so over-full. I do not at all like to think of your sitting up so late, even to write to me, welcome indeed as your letter was, and sweet as I thought it of you to send me all these details of the be- loved Amy. ... I am glad poured out his heart to you. But, though I do not try to forecast ' what years may bring, I cannot desire a new love so much as that the old may suffice for guidance, stimulus, and that min- gled rapture and anguish which if not happiness in the usual sense of the word is energy and intense life " bind- 616 LUCY SMITH. ing one," as my American friend says, " to the best work." I have had two other letters from him, most precious to my heart. It is strange how for perfect rapport one may turn to one unseen. Such a relation of thought and feel- ing renders one more able to understand, or to conceive of, an enlarged independence of these senses of ours. It is a kind of " seeing the invisible." In this way we make up a totality of sympathy and affection. Some dear old ties suffice in themselves, and one does not demand any other union than the long years and well-tried affections and indefinable fondness for the personal presence have brought about. With others there is the thrill of intel- lectual agreement. I know no one to whom it would be so easy to " pour out my full heart " as to this young man whom I shall never meet, nor even wish to meet. But I don't write to him 'his last letter remains unanswered, while the pen wobbles almost daily to my Mary alas, she is so often breathless and ailing. . . . 'T is sweet of you to give my hand a thought. 'T is no longer the thumb, but some weakness in the palm of the hand. However it is better to-day, only fatal to letter-writing, because one wants to squeeze all one has to say into a few words. I 'm so glad you liked the curtain but I only learned from M. A. R., and did n't do the work half as well as she. I seem to myself one of the incapable, but as my dear one used to say, flinging his arms round my neck, " You and I have no talent only a little bit of mind ! " Well, mine was a little bit, but I thankfully be- lieve of the same cast, and therefore complete union was possible. And now I am half a pair of scissors the loneliest and incapablest of work. Now a capable per- son is this dear and delightful Mima. To see her on her arrival Saturday, grubbing in the bit of garden, plant- ing and transplanting, pegging down a petunia with hair- pins, and washing a rose with a shaving brush ! She is the very good fairy of order and efficiency, and the pleas- aiitest and most cheering of companions. CHAPTER XXXIX. REUNITED. " SHE and I," writes Mrs. Constable, " spent the greater part of September, 1881, together in London. She was fairly well and very energetic, and full of interest in all the details of the furniture of our new house which she helped me to choose ; going in to every particular with her own peculiar lively interest, which she brought to bear upon the choosing of the pattern of a cretonne with the same sweet intensity as if it had been a thing of far more moment. She and I went to see several of her dear friends, and had very pleasant days together. Anything seen or done with her had a charm it can never have again. How she en- joyed things ! The pretty things in the shops, the lights reflected in the river as we crossed Westminster Bridge at night, the good looks of some of the young faces we saw in the streets or in the train everything touched her. The Sundays were delightful, and she enjoyed the variety and the music delighted in the music at the Carmelites, the service at the Foundling Hospital, Canon Duckworth's sermon in the Abbey after the president's death, and our last service together at St. George's, Southwark, where we heard Rossini's " Stabat Mater " gloriously given. It was music she specially delighted in, and those exquisite airs thrilled her with delight. But she said some weeks afterwards to her friend Mrs. Ruck : ' It is curious how I now never wish a pleasure repeated. Much as I enjoyed my visit to Mr. Herkomer, and all the interesting places we went to, I have no wish to see them again. I liked Mary to have the pleasure of that pleasant time, and enjoyed it 618 LUCY SMITH. with her.' We came back together to Chester, where she spent two days with her dear Hessie Howard, going over one day to Rhyl to spend a few hours with my dear mother. Then I went to my mother, and my sister went back to Patterdale with Aunt Lucy, and was with her for over three weeks. On the thirty-first of October Edith came away, and as she left the station she leant her head out of the window for a last look at the dear one, who was stand- ing on the platform, and who on seeing her pointed with her hand to the sky above. " She returned that evening to Patterdale, and was alone for the next few days ; a very rare event with her, as she generally had some loved friend with her and how her friends valued those quiet peaceful times with her in that lovely country ! Quiet as the life there was, it was full of interests, for she had many friends among the cottagers sick and blind people who claimed her advice and had great faith in her readiness to help them. And then what letters came to her ! " At this time she was busily working at some curtains she intended for a Christmas gift to an Edinburgh friend. They were a marvellous piece of work, and had been an amusement for her for about three months. In the bor- ders she had worked different flowers, and a great many of Esop's fables, which she had carried out with wonderful spirit and expression. In one of her letters she said she had been working the fable of the Wolf and the Lamb, and 4 quite made her heart ache over the pleading expression of the lamb ! ' In another letter at this time she says to me, ' I sit over my curtains because they must be done, and shall probably go out to please the dear fellow,' - my dog, who was having a happy time with her, 4 but I should like to be in bed.' " REUNITED. 619 To Mr. and Mrs. Loomis. PATTERDALE, Oct. 23, 1881. The line that separates the normal from the abnormal is very fine, almost indefinable, and men of the most spir- itual type, men who have inaugurated or stimulated great religious movements, have always been unlike the major- ity in the intensity of incommunicable personal feelings. This sense of being " if beside ourselves, beside ourselves to God," must differentiate one human being from the usual run in a manner that they of course can have no conception of. ... For me the curtain has never been withdrawn. I suppose I am not imaginative. But I have loved, I do love. Time does not change one feeling con- nected with the one out of sight, who called out in me a new nature and filled it. This morning I was reading one of his manuscript books, with all the old yearning for the perfect companionship the voice, the smile, my incom- municable experience of fulness of joy ! It will be ten years in March since I have been alone. I am much interested in the effort you are making to rescue young girls, and can well believe time and thought are completely filled up, and that mere letter-writing be- comes wearisome. If only the fresh tide of young lives could be prevented from flowing in to fill the place the rescued ones have left empty ! For this we must be con- tent to wait, and trust to heredity and progress. Mean- while, what a joy to work as you are working the work of the present, which is preparing I must believe a better future. I wonder if the industrial hamlet will be found practicable. I should have more hope from detached homes, where there is the public opinion of a varied society to live up to. How the " Power that worketh in us " is lead- ing men and women ever more and more to grapple with misery, and vice which is the worst misery. I am struck with the increase of philanthropic effort everywhere. 620 LUCY SMITH. Whatever religious views are held, all seem at work in some good cause. It has indeed become one may say a fashion, and has its absurd developments, but still what progress this fact marks. I have been away from Patter- dale for a month, in London and elsewhere. I was in West- minster Abbey when a tribute of loving reverence was paid to your noble president. The funeral sermon (how I dislike the words!) was worthy of its theme. The grand old Abbey was filled with silent, breathless crowds, who poured slowly forth, to the sound of Handel's and Bee- thoven's wailing, exulting dead marches. How intense a feeling of love and grief has been fusing our nationalities into one ! I shall soon be moving to Edinburgh, and if during the winter an impulse comes to tell me of the prog- ress of your undertaking, the old address, 11 Thistle Street, will always find me. You ask if I can read your writing. Yes, always, and I think you will admit that I have written legibly this time. You are still, are you not, in the charming house of which you sent me the photo- graph ? It was a detached house, and you talk of a new name to your street, which puzzles me. I wonder whether Mrs. Loomis keeps up her music, and should like to hear more of her and the dear daughters than I ever shall. I head my letter by a graceful wood-flower I will not say weed. To Mr. . PATTERDALE, SUNDAY, Nov. 6, 1881. How welcome your letter was, dear friend strangely welcome when one remembers that this time last year we did not know of the existence of each other. I began to fear you had not got my letter, sometimes feared I had said a something that jarred quite unreasonably, for you had sent me papers, but it is a vice of my nature to distrust myself and think I may have said or done or written something that chilled or pained. This is not hu- mility I know, but I suppose a sort of morbid timidity. I REUNITED. 621 told you, I think, I was but a poor weak creature, and therefore adored the stronger, finer organizations, in which some indwelling grace casts out fear. I am now alone, and all this Sunday has been spent in the past, arranging old letters, which led to reading them, and making ar- rangements for my approaching departure. These peri- odical flittings are rehearsals for the greater change which cannot be very distant and which is frequently in my mind of late. The declining health of an only sister, and the valetudinarian apprehensions of an only brother, and certain pains of my own, lead me to think we shall not any of us live to be really old, as our dear parents did. 1 I am sure I hardly know why this should have run out of my pen a disagreeable, scratching, whining steel pen my gold pen, unluckily broken, never would have got on such dull topics. However, one result of the arrange- ment of old letters is that I send you two of George Eli- ot's, taken somewhat at random, but showing two phases of life. Pray do not show them to any one (I make ex- ception in favour of Mrs. ), and return them to me. I have no definite clue to her second marriage. But she was alone, as genius must necessarily be. In a later note she tells me that "constant female society would be intol- erable to her ; " and I suppose she needed to be loved, needed it imperiously, for those who saw her during the last few months of her life spoke of her as very happy. No doubt the convictions of her mind had much to do with it. To some of us the other self is living, though under conditions we do not seek to define living in some sense more intensely than ever, since the object of an ever growing love. That must make an immeasura- ble difference ; but also, I suppose, loving is the great es- sential to some human beings, being loved to others. Mr. Cross had long worshipped her genius, and when she was ill, the autumn before her death, she wrote of " having 1 Within six months the three had passed away. 622 LUCY SMITH. been nursed as a wife nurses her husband." ... I re- member only how great, how kind, she was. Some day I will, I think, write out my recollections of the hours spent with these gifted beings. I have promised my Mary to do this, and if you like you shall see the page or two. But I have a horror of exaggerating the amount of inter- course or kindly relation between one's self and one's in- tellectual superiors. And my husband's reticence in these matters was exceptional. Oh, those words of Emerson they are the best description of him I know : " The soul that ascend eth to worship the great God is plain and true ; has no rose colors, no fine friends, no chivalry, no adven- tures ; does not want admiration ; dwells in the hour that now is, in the earnest experience of the common day." Deliberately I say it, were I restricted to six lines, they are these by which I would characterize his rare and ex- quisite personality. Were it not for the misleading por- trait, I would send you the whole paper by Mr. Strahan, there are such faithful touches in it. The first impression, had you seen him, would have been his utter unlikeness to any one else. Ten days ago the dear mother and daughter who worked and waited upon us (at Newton Place) came over to see me. The latter is now a happy wife and mother. I went out for a few moments with her into the starlight. Looking up she said, " Eh ! Mr. Smith was fond of the stars how he did go from one room to another to look at them." " You will never forget him, dear Ruth ? " " No, 1 never shall ; he was quite different from everybody." That men of his own stamp should have appreciated him was natural, but simple country girls in country lodgings, to whom he hardly spoke any but the simplest words, were unerring in their perception. Oh, I am egotistical this evening ! Curious I had re- frained from asking for your photograph, from some sense that you might express a wish to see mine. I have only one, which has lain in my husband's desk so many years REUNITED. 623 that it would give you no idea of what I am now. And it was a wretched little affair, done by an amateur, a tyro in the art. And to be quite candid, I like better that you should not see me photographed, and I never mean to be again. My husband used to say sometimes, " If I could have her painted just as she is now but it must be by a first-rate artist." I should not like you to think that the face he liked was always as plain as in a photograph you would see it to be. And now I have been ten years alone, without the transfiguration of an immense joy. But your likeness it would interest me to see. . . . When in London with Mary, she and I went to hear the " Stabat Mater " at St. George's Cathedral, Southwark, and walking back over the bridge we heard the Abbey chimes. It moves me much to think of you two listening to their singularly thrilling tones. Oh, surely, surely, there is some conscious reunion in the life in God on which we enter when we die ! I will not think our yearning for it merely provi- sional. My day has not all gone in setting desks and cabinets to rights. I have read a great deal of a book I never take up without a stirring of the deepest thoughts. It is a book little known I should like to send it to you if you will post it back 'T is a " Theologico-Political Trea- tise," by G. D'Oyly Snow. I wonder if I shall live to return to Patterdale. Or, if I do, whether my dear old landlady will. She is suf- fering from her eyes, so I have been reading to her a chapter of the book you sent me. She thought it beauti- ful, and has taken the book down to her husband. I am leaving on Saturday next, and joining Archie and Mary in Edinburgh. I must ask you to direct to 11 Thistle St. in future, or until I return if I do return to my loved mountains. See, I send you one of their fairest flowers - I dare say it grows four times as large with you we call it Grass of Parnassus. I said I was alone, but I was 624 LUCY SMITH. disrespectfully forgetting my niece's beautiful Skye ter- rier, who is better than any but the best as far as com- panionship goes. I could send you a photograph of him, now, that would really equal any of Landseer's human dogs. I do send you the cottage where I am now, where I was twenty-three years ago. It had not these ugly bow windows then, was more simply a mere cottage. But up the little stairs my husband has often sprung ; and the brook " the same sound is in my ears that in those days I heard." I cannot enter upon the sad Irish question. We are reaping the bitter harvest of oppression and injustice sown, and I fear there is an antagonism of race to con- tend with as well. But like many an ill-assorted union, divorce would if possible be worse for both sides. You will not think my hand much better, judging from my scrawl, but the pen has much to do with it. To Mrs. A. Constable. PATTERDALB, Nov. 7, 1881. My pretty one will be sorry to hear that the pain be- came so continuous and severe that I sent for the doctor and a very nice young man he is, and lent an ear. He finds no symptoms of cardiac disease, such as he suggested, and considers me " wonderfully preserved " for my years. But : the two pulses are he says singularly discrepant, and he cheerfully referred to " aneurism " ! I knew the significance of the symptom from Dr. J. Bell's note to you. However, to-morrow he comes again, armed with a stethoscope, and of course 1 shall be thankful if he do not verify his theory, but comes to the conclusion that it is only " neuralgia of the walls of the chest." He says that would be affected by fear or anxiety. So I dare say 't is only that. Aneurism would mean, I suppose, terrible suf- fering but as far as shortened life goes, that seems strangely sweet- I should like, dear ones, to leave you REUNITED. 625 " at my best." I read those lovely lines, 1 so descriptive of dearest Mr. Constable, to Mrs. Dobson last night, but find speaking brings on the spasm, and oh, it was bad while I read but 't is worse to-day. During the inter- vals I feel quite well, and have worked strenuously, but fear I must give up the hope of finishing. If I can't fin- ish, I know my chick will. Your blackberries look so pretty ! I have only two fables to do. Perhaps I may get them done. You see, my darling, if this is only neu- ralgia, I must try to bear it patiently. Think of sweet Louise ! And how your dear mother has suffered. If it is something organic, it will be hard upon you but I believe Archie and you would not wish me elsewhere. Perhaps I ought to stay, however, till you get into the flat. I shall know more when the night and the morning visit is over. There was no help for it, 'the pain is so bad, and ether and sal volatile doing nothing, one must appeal to this young man's nostrums. I am quite unhappy about sweet Birnam. He does so resent his chain, and this evening would not walk with Jane in that ignominious way. And to-morrow they shoot about here, and alas, he escapes out of the garden though the gate be closed I think Patch has shown him the way. He is at this mo- ment lying on my skirt, profoundly depressed. He is so bent on a rabbit-hole Jane brought him back from it this morning. He was 50 lovely, but is thwarted and out of sorts in his dear spirits. Oh, how delightful intervals of ease are ! I am so glad your mother had a good night and better day. I like Brownlow's speech much, and es- pecially the closing sentence. Dear fellow ! May we all be taught wisdom, which is love ! I hear of Wesleyan ministers so touched with my angel's book. Oh, no way should be hard that leads to the life he lives. Perhaps, " when the sun sets " the light may shine out. Do not 1 Lines by Whittier in the Atlantic Monthly for July, entitled " In Memory,' ' beginning " As a guest who may not stay." 626 LUCY SMITH. suppose, my darling, I am taking this seriously, as yet, and don't let your dear heart be anxious. I am afraid, if I am able to move, Archie must come for me. I can do nothing. It is a sudden change. Now good-night, my pretty one, and I dare say to-morrow I shall tell you it 's only neuralgia. To Miss H. E. Howard. PATTERDALE, Nov. 15, 1881. VEKY DEAR FRIENDS, How sweet of you to care so much whether the end comes now or later ! I really am doing as well as possible. Were you here, you would see me sitting in an arm-chair, purring with comfort, thankful to be here and to see the mist on the hills and hear the brook ; and every one is kindness itself ; and is it not lovely to think that all. over the world there is this sacred sympathy shedding over sick beds not to say dying the lustre of a tenderness that blots out as a cloud trans- gressions, and makes each commonplace creature seem precious and fair. This came home to me strongly in the night this perpetual transfiguration. I hear my Hessie say, " Come to the point." Well, then, the doctor has just been here, and says the pulse is getting normal, and he is not coming back this evening. And do you know, my dears, I, so little disposed to faith in doctors, thoroughly like this young man, and were this illness to change its character, should not have a wish for a second opinion. And then the immense comfort of Archie and Mary. To Miss Dudley. PATTERDALE, Nov. 20, 1881. Have you noticed the length of my silence, dear Miss Dudley, or heard its cause ? I have been pretty sharply ill, pleurodynia, and great disturbance of the liver. I do not know when I wrote, whether before or after I saw dear Edith off from the Keswick station on the 31st REUNITED. 627 of October, and went on to see poor Mrs. Lietch. The old scenes, the emotion they caused, and the intense cold of the drive back (though in a close carriage) may have had something to do with it but on the Friday following a familiar pain in the walls of the chest, associated for the last three years with quickened pace, and always subsid- ing when I rested began to become very frequent, in the house and without any unusual effort. On Monday week it became so severe as to force me to call in the local doctor a young man just come here, of whom I knew nothing. He came suspected heart disease, found none, and was summoned away to Edinburgh on the Wednesday believing me convalescent. But my Mary, who had only reached Edinburgh the Saturday before, felt a little anx- ious about me, and on that Wednesday afternoon she ap- peared, to pack me up, and, as we thought, travel together to Edinburgh on Saturday. However after being bet- ter on Thursday, and writing many letters (was one to you?), the mere exertion of preparing for bed brought on anguish. All through those dark hours my little love held me in her strong and tender grasp. The pain was severer than I had ever known, the sickness violent and exhausting no remedies in the house, and no doctor pro- curable. 1 It must have been hard for Mary. She sent to Penrith (fifteen miles off), and about twelve the next morning, when the pain was quieting down, the doctor presented himself, and after a careful examination pro- nounced the heart sound, and gave the attack its name. Friday brought Archie, and no creature can have been more tenderly nursed. And the local doctor returned that 1 " She was very brave," writes Mrs. Constable, " and her own dear self all through ; not the least frightened, and able to give her mind to things outside herself. She said in the night she was owing nothing except one little bill of one shilling two pence to a wool shop in Edinburgh for some crewels." 628 LUCY SMITH. evening, and has been attentive and intelligent. 1 But the serious thing was that all the furniture from London had arrived, and there was the new house at a complete stand- still, and Mary positively refused to leave me alone, nor indeed was I fit to be left. But my noble, invaluable Mrs. Ruck, who had with her Dr. Darwin and the little grandson, her eldest son and his wife and two children, and her married daughter, Mrs. Stuart and her husband, who had all these gathered round her and depending on her, said at once that she was ready to come at a word. And on Wednesday 2 last, Archie and Mary left, and are busy settling down in the nest, and if all be well my darling friend and I travel together on Friday next to Edinburgh, and she returns thence to her Welsh home. Is it not a blessing that there should be souls of this gen- erous type ? I love and trust her so much, I accept the sacrifice without a scruple. I have felt very happy, dear Miss Dudley, a great peace, trust, and almost vi- sion of the merciful " Power that worketh in us." Every- thing seemed so sweetly right. But this was a very short experience of illness, though it left me weak, and I do not expect to regain my former level of health and strength. ... I shall be glad to be with Archie and Mary but 1 " How I can see her now," says Mrs. Constable, " as she dis- cussed her symptoms with him so pleasantly, with her own inimitable charm and brightness ! . . . The next afternoon she sent Archie a round of visits to some of the cottages, with a pound of tea to be given at each, on which she had written the name of the recipient, and a different kind message to each. The day before, when she was in that intense pain, she wrote a card to my mother, and one to a friend." 2 " On Monday," so writes Mrs. Constable, "the doctor thought her decidedly better, though still very weak. It was a very sweet, mild day, and she enjoyed having the window open, and listening to the ripple of the brook which ran past the house. She asked me to place the looking-glass so that she could see the hills reflected in it, and said that if she must be ill she could not wish it to be elsewhere than at her beloved Patterdale." REUNITED. 629 have liked to see the trees wave and the mists creep over the mountains, and hear the brook murmur that we heard twenty-three years ago. Dear friend, I know how brave you must be to keep a sense of loneliness at bay. But hearts so kind and sympa- thizing are never really lonely. [Mr. and Mrs. Constable left her at Patterdale, No- vember 16, and Mrs. Ruck arrived there that evening, going from the Penrith station in the carriage which car- ried them to it.] To Mrs. A. Constable. PATTEBDALB, November 17, 1881. My pretty one, how glad I was to hear of the meeting at Penrith ! This darling was so struck with the beauty of you both, and with the look of health. You may won- der but Birnam she never saw ! This does not prevent my feeling sure he was in the arms of one or other. How well she looks. She sits there in the window, writing her Hong Kong letter, and radiates health. Your Zia felt a great drop in her vitality when you three departed. The night was well good. I had my bromide of potas- sium and all my comforts beside me, and this darling read me to sleep and I woke as it struck what ? one two three better and better ! but it went on to twelve ! I felt like a broken egg, so prone and sprawly. I think when I wake the pulse is .very low, and the line occurs : " To cease upon the midnight with no pain." I woke at six, refreshed and probably better, and a little after eight Jane was off to the wedding. I think she is far above the average, and really she was interest- ing in all she told me while making the fire. She would have liked, things being otherwise, to be " Mr. and Mrs. 630 LUCY SMITH. Constable's servant." This dear one is full of pleasant talk I wish I could transfer it of the grandson. Darling, I had meant to say more, but will try to nap a little. Well, here I am, moved to the sitting-room, which is a blaze of sun after a hail-storm which I fear means sever- ity with you. How I can see you in your chaos, and how much I hope you are to have a good luncheon there ! Is not H. pleasant about you? No letters for you. Not much in reading mood. All organization has departed with my chick, but oh, the blessing of this large, lenient, loving presence ! She is writing sheaves of home letters, and after dinner will I know read to me. I am as much in Edinburgh as here so anxious about the parlour maid, Quantrell's, above all your feeling well. PATTBRDALE, November 19, 1881. How I am with you, unpacking and " warstling " with the Powers of Evil in the North! The aggravation is enough to drive you over the borders of sanity. I am thankful not to be there. M. A. says in Wales they do a little bit of six different things and finish nothing. So only you don't catch cold! I find it hard to forgive Mrs. [some one who had failed Mrs. Constable in an emergency]. The spoken word should take precedence of personal convenience else where are we ? Here it pours again, and the river runs rapidly, clear green. Yesterday was a day qf activity, and I could invent noth- ing to complain of. Last night I woke myself out of the crisis of a horrible dream, and energy is low this morning. I have come to the sitting-room, so to speak, en bloc, and shall soon remove the bundle back to bed, and fall asleep, I dare say, for I can sleep on my side now, and am only stupid, my darling, as I fear I often shall be but surely, sufficient to the day is the dul- ness thereof. Thank you much for Brand so kind a REUNITED. 631 thought! Mary Gumming shall be written to. I love you fondly, and you suit me " down to the ground," if that 's any praise ! " On the 25th of November," writes Mrs. Constable, "the dear one and Mrs. Ruck reached us in our new abode. The long stair was a great effort for her, but when she reached the top her only thought was of the pleasure of seeing us settled in our new home, and her dear face looked so bright and animated as she went from one room to another with her unfailing energy. How thankful I was to have her under our roof, and how I hoped it was for long ! She was very much pleased with her large airy bedroom, and said she thought she would spend a week in her comfortable little bed, and then be quite set up. Dear Mrs. Ruck spent three days with us, and left, thinking our dear one would soon regain her strength. But she did not gain much ground, having al- ternations of good and bad days. On some days her cough would be very troublesome, or she would have some other discomfort, and there was often great breathlessness after any exertion, which had also a tendency to bring back the pain in her chest to some extent. So she was a good deal in her own room, either in the bed or on the sofa. She saw her friends, and would read with great interest, taking great delight in Dean Stanley's, ' Memo- rials of Canterbury ' and several times at night asking for a volume of Shakespeare. " On the 7th of December, a cold windy day, she felt a great longing to go out, and had a cab for an hour, tak- ing the pretty little housemaid Christina with her. She came back greatly pleased with her little outing, and came to my room (I was in bed with a bad cold) to show me the Christmas cards she had chosen. They were al- ways a great amusement to her, and she would laugh and say she was really quite childish about them." 632 LUCY SMITH. In a letter written on the llth of December, to one of several who were friends though they had never seen her and only knew her through her letters, she says, speaking of her sharp attack at Patterdale, " I often felt strangely happy, with the conviction 4 1 see the end, and know it good ' " adding further on, " There remains an earnest trust that ' Life and death His mercy underlies.' " ' On Tuesday, the 13th, she got up and dressed soon after breakfast, feeling better than she had done for days. She sat at her work all the morning, and in the afternoon she began tracing scallops on the pretty pink flannel, to be worked in white silk for her friend H. H. She got out her packet of Christmas cards, and planned the des- tination of many a work of some little time, for she had to see there were no inappropriate words no wish- ing of a 4 Merry Christmas ' to a sorrowful heart. Her dear friend Mrs. Lorirner joined us as we were having our afternoon coffee, and was told she was feeling ' quite sharp ' so much better than the days before. As I had had a wretched night from a bad cold, she would have me go to bed before dinner, and came herself to my room with a soft warm shawl of her own for me to put on, and came again more than once, bringing me books to read, and looking after me in her own dear, intensely tender way. 44 After dinner she came and told me she must go and lie down, for the pain in her back was so bad, and when Archie came in he found her in her room reading the paper and delighted with a speech of Sir Wilfrid Law- son's. About ten she came to wish me good-night, and said then that she had strange discomfort as if heart and lungs were not working harmoniously. She had men- tioned something of this feeling before, but this time when we implored her to have advice she half promised 4 we might send for the Faculty the next day if we could prom- ise her a doctor should only come once.' Christina went REUNITED. 633 to help her to undress, and told me afterward ' she seemed so happy and comfortable,' and was 'so nice, 7 thanking Christina for her help, and hoping she would have a good night. At eleven Archie went to wish her good-night. She was then in bed and reading, and on my sending him in again with the shawl she had lent me, he came back saying she sent her kindest love, and he was to tell me she was quite comfortable." At four o'clock the next morning it was the 14th of December, 1881 her Archie and Mary were awaked by hearing cries. They rushed out, to find their aunt sunk down on a chair in the lobby outside her door, in acute distress. She gasped, " It 's the end " instantly adding, " Love to all." It was in all probability angina. Alleviatives were tried, and in a few minutes a doctor was present. Speaking with great difficulty, and at intervals, she said repeatedly, " It 's the end," and added, " I did not think it would have come so soon." To the niece kissing her hands, and saying, " Do you not know I can- not live without you ? " she tried to smile and more than once she said, " Love to all." She was wheeled in an easy chair into her room, and laid upon her little bed. " By this time she was becoming unconscious, and when Archie said to her, 4 You are going to join your beloved one,' the dear beautiful eyes had no recognition in them. There was no look of pain on the dear face, no shadow of fear, though the agony had been so great. Through all she was as natural as she ever was in her life. She lay very still, drawing a deep breath a few times then there was the silence. Our best and brightest one had left us." Some time in that night she had begun a letter to a friend in Australia, breaking off by saying that she must stop, for she was writing in the middle of the night. Be- side her bed was a book, " Twilight Hours," by " Sadie," in which was found a skein of cotton as a mark, the poem which was thus pointed out was too familiar to need 634 LUCY SMITH. any such designation for herself, and it seemed as if she meant it as a message. The poem is called " After ; " one of its lines which she was fond of quoting was " Some one with wings where I had weary feet." It begins, " Wait for a moment, Death, I pray you wait, I have been waiting years, O friend, for you." And it ends, " Let it be so one day we all shall meet." The beloved form was tenderly dressed in the grave- clothes that had been kept ready for many years, and wrapped in the white dressing-gown she was wearing the night her husband passed away ; the white lace cap she wore that day again covered her head, and over the face, very calm and beautiful, was spread the white lace veil she had worn in the hour that made her the happiest of wives. Fresh white blossoms, from many who had loved her, covered the figure from face to feet. It was laid in the grave at Brighton, of which she had said that she thought even her dust would thrill with delight at being so near that of her husband. The memorial card bore this inscription : " Love is of God." " And this commandment have we from him, that he who loveth God love his brother also." " The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffer- ing, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance." " The path of the just is as the shining light, that shin- eth more and more unto the perfect day." " I thank my God upon every remembrance of you." " The last text," wrote Miss Dudley, " brought the first relieving tears since Dec. 18th. Every remembrance of REUNITED. 635 her indeed is cause for thankfulness. Yes, her spiritual, tender joy was the rarest gift." " I can think of nothing else," wrote another friend, " till I have readjusted iny life, as it were, to her absence. For many years everything which interested me I have shared with her, and have seldom done or thought any- thing without asking myself what her judgment in the matter would be. I never remember her failing to catch instantly the meaning of anything I said or did. No other friend was to me quite so congenial and delightful no other friendship quite so loving and so full of in- sight." Mrs. Cotton's letter to Mrs. Constable recognizes the intellectual power which went along with her genius for love. " It will be a very great interest for you to make a selection from her priceless letters, if they be sufficiently divested from the purely personal elements, and I am very sure that no more exquisite contribution to womanly thought and culture could be given to this generation. 4 Who taught you to think ? ' said Eliot Warburton to her in her beautiful youth. That made the difference be- twixt her and her contemporaries her power of thought, which became her greatest solace in her widowhood. . . . There is yet one other text, besides those you so admira- bly chose, that rises to my mind at every thought of her, ' Be pitiful, be courteous.' The large-minded sympathy that saw a possible sufferer in every one she met influ- enced in so marked a degree her courteous pity toward the poor and lowly, her reverent attitude toward all who needed her capacity of understanding individual wants and sorrows. I could well understand Mrs. R.'s feeling on the receipt of her son's letter this morning, 4 all radi- ant in the light accepted love imparts ' that she cried anew over the loss of the beloved friend to whom she would first have turned, with the confidence that her Lucy would have liked to read this happy letter." 636 LUCY SMITH. From the volume of such tributes only one more shall be cited, it is from the Contessa B., the " Augusta " at whose marriage Lucy Smith played the part of mother : " What you say is what I think all her friends will feel, that after the husband or mother or child who may be the nearest, she comes next, separate from all other friends, in a special place of her own. All of us who love and admire her must henceforth be bound together more closely than before our loss. And she is happy now. Oh yes, my dear Vi, that was my first thought, as my first pang was to think that she, so quick to tell what would give pleasure, could not tell us how great her blessedness is. But I always see her dear face now wearing a radiant smile, with all the yearning anguish passed." The stone inscribed with her husband's name bears an added inscription, which she had dictated : TO THE MEMORY ALSO OF " HIS DEAR WIFE LUCY " WHO REJOINED HIM HERE IN HOPE, DEC. 14,1881. "LOVE IS OF GOD." APPENDIX. NOTE TO PAGE 68. Movements of Thought in the English-American People. THE group of names associated with William Smith's early years naturally suggests a glance at the principal intellectual forces in the English-speaking world of that time. Some survey of these forces is desirable for a just appreciation of the course taken by his thought. As an appropriate background to his intellectual history, and one which if occurring in the midst of the narrative might be felt as an interruption, a brief and imperfect survey of this field is here ventured. It relates mainly to what may be called the mid-period of this century ; subse- quent to the time of its early Evangelicalism, of Scott and Byron and the Lake poets, and anterior to these later years in which the names of Darwin and Spencer, Mat- thew Arnold and George Eliot, hold prominence. It may be seen in " Thorndale "and " Gravenhurst " how closely William Smith's later writings are related to the philosophy of Evolution, which at present fills so large a place. But to summarize even briefly the thought and thinkers of our own generation is beyond the scope of this volume. The conspicuous factors of the present sit- uation are glanced at in its later chapters ; and we are still so near to the days of Mill and Maurice and their contemporaries that in describing them we are largely characterizing our own time. We have to consider, first, an immense extension of 638 APPENDIX. knowledge in the direction of the physical sciences. The influence of this class of studies upon the higher problems of man and society has been various and vast. It has made great addition to the store of facts with which the philosopher or theologian must reckon. Physical science, too, has deeply affected the general movement of the human mind, by the circumstance that all the knowledge which it acquires has the distinction of being verifiable. It affirms no discovery as certain until it can be submitted to tests which are beyond question, tests ultimately based on the physical senses. This solid, impregnable character of physical science is impressive and captivating to the mind ; and, taken in connection with the immense extent of its recent acquisitions, it fosters the habit of ex- pecting and insisting on the same note of certitude in all beliefs that are to be regarded as valuable. " Prove, or abandon," is its attitude. Around physical science are grouped a cluster of other sciences, relating to subjects which do not admit of equally exact methods of verifica- tion, such subjects as history, language, and social ad- ministration. What is common to all study that may properly be called science is the method of close and pa- tient observation, wide comparison, and constant and careful test of general conclusions. The effort of all science is to obtain knowledge which is exact, and which is capable of definite proof. At this point there naturally arises the question whether there are general laws of the human mind which must be followed in all sound thinking upon whatever subject. The effort to establish such laws makes a large part of the history of philosophy. A clear and vigorous restatement of one of the two great historic schools a statement en- tirely in sympathy with the current attention to external phenomena was made by John Stuart Mill in his " Logic." He found his strongest opponent, and the lead- ing champion of the opposite school, in Sir William Ham- MOVEMENTS OF THOUGHT. 639 ilton. Mill represented too the movement, called " Utili- tarianism," toward shaping institutions, laws, and usages, upon principles broad yet definite, for *' the greatest good of the greatest number." It was a movement which in its practicality and also in its moderation was character- istic of the English intellect. Among the philosophic thinkers, Mill was the most conspicuous champion of the special measures of governmental reform and popular lib- erty in his day. His personal character embodied the robust and manly virtues of courage, justice, and magnan- imity. He made abstract themes vital by " one ruddy drop of manly blood." In an abstruse discussion upon the possibility and nature of human knowledge of the di- vine, he struck a note to which the common heart re- sponded, when he declared that if he was told there existed a God whose morality was essentially different from hu- man morality he would answer : " He shall not compel me to worship him. I will call no Being good who is not what I mean when I apply that epithet to my fellow-crea- tures ; and if such a Being can sentence me to Hell for not so calling him, to Hell I will go." For the worshipping, the tender, the feminine side of man's nature, Mill had little to offer. The world seemed to him to show no evidence that it was under any divine control ; it was full of injustice and imperfection ; the only thing for us to do was to make it better. He had a very warm heart, which found its nourishment and sup- port in elements which his philosophy scarcely took at all into its survey. In his youth he was helped out of a des- perate mood of despondency by Wordsworth's poetry, poetry inspired by beliefs wholly remote from the sensa- tional philosophy. The happiness of his life, he tells us, was in his relation with the woman whom he married. Such love of man and woman, like all noble friendships, lies in a realm of life which logic and philosophy such as his have absolutely no power to interpret. In his last 640 APPENDIX. days he was driven by the stress of love and sorrow to study those very problems of God and immortality which he had been wont to discard. His posthumous essays dis- cuss these themes with entire candor and courage, and without attaining any clear and certain conclusion. The earlier habits of his mind scarcely qualified him for the most effective dealing with a question, of which it may perhaps be said that the older form was " Whether God is," and the later form " What God is." But, beyond the interest attaching to so free, fearless, and serious a treatment of the subject, the book is significant as an in- stance of how the stoutest soul, after rigorously confining itself to the questions of Time, may be driven by love and loss to ponder the questions of Eternity. The progress of scientific knowledge has in many ways impressed the fact that what we call the spiritual life of man is closely affected by physical conditions. There have been discovered physical antecedents for many phe- nomena of thought, feeling, and will, which were formerly referred solely to the spiritual entity assumed to be in- cased within the human body. To' these physical antece- dents it is impossible to deny in many instances a force of causation. The suggestion is advanced, and with growing weight : Has not every mental act its physical antecedent or concomitant in the brain ? And then comes the ques- tion : Is not a physical antecedent always the determining cause of the mental act ? It is at least sure that the sphere of free will is far more limited than was once sup- posed. The supposition finds wide favor, that all the phe- nomena of mind are the products or functions of the bod- ily organism. Man in this view is not twofold, spirit and body, but single, and as an individuality is terminated altogether by the termination of the body. Against this pure materialism stands the fact, unaffected by all the new knowledge, that what we call mental phenomena are sim- ply untranslatable into terms of matter ; that an impassa- MOVEMENTS OF THOUGHT. 641 ble gulf of difference lies between phenomena of motion and phenomena of consciousness. But yet, it is urged, though there be a mysterious aspect of man's activities, a something which we cannot interpret or fathom, yet we know these spiritual activities solely as appearing in con- nection with a physical organism and in close dependence on it ; and of any separate spiritual entity, or any persist- ence of the spiritual functions of the individual after the physical organism perishes, we do and can know nothing whatever. As of the individual, it is said, so of the uni- verse : as to any ultimate cause back of its outward man- ifestations, we can neither assert nor deny nor define. And this, in place of materialism, is agnosticism. Of the new thinking of our time, a considerable part has been done on the assumption, express or tacit, that subjects like God and immortality, and everything relating to su- perhuman being, are a mere waste of the intellect. The most conspicuous expression of this assumption was given by Comte, who formulated the whole field of human knowl- edge and thought, after discarding theology and meta- physics as delusions incident to the childish stages of the human mind. Of this " Positive " philosophy, Lewes was a prominent representative in England. The temper of the English Positivists is essentially this : " Let us have done with make-believe : let us away with superstitions of con- solation as well as superstitions of horror ; let us get out of the lumber-room where theology and metaphysics have for ages been piled mountain-high without establishing one verifiable certainty, and betake ourselves altogether to the fields of real knowledge and helpful human activi- ties." A temper like this has spread far wider than the avowed Positivists, and is capable of blending with gener- ous and ardent human sympathies. When united with strong moral purpose, there issues the " religion of hu- manity " ; a religion whose creed is the service of man- kind, and the attainment through mutual effort of the 642 APPENDIX. noblest practicable ideals of character, without expectation of help from any source higher than man, or of prolon- gation of individual existence beyond the earthly scene. This is the religion of which the most effective exponent in our day has been George Eliot. We have here considered tendencies of thought which in their free expression might be dated as belonging rather to the later than the earlier years of William Smith. But in the earlier years, these tendencies min- gled with the thoughts and appeared at least in the con- versation of men such as were among his associates. The more open and obvious currents of opinion in those days related to the Church. At the opposite pole to the Positivists stand the High Churchmen. Essentially, we may say, the founders of the modern High Church party in England were men who were bent on preserving and extending the old type of Christian piety. What Newman and Keble and Pusey and their associates had most at heart was that themselves and their fellow-men should be rich in faith and hope and charity. They dearly prized those ideals which the old Church has especially nourished, humility in the pres- ence of God ; communion with glorified spirits and with God himself ; a life rooted in the unseen and eternal, against the seductions of base pleasure and ambition ; a life athirst for perfection, and assured of an immortal destiny. The maintenance of this type of character has been rendered increasingly difficult by many of the circum- stances of modern life. The High Churchmen looked for aid to the apparatus which the Church had provided, and sought to give to that apparatus a new efficiency. The Church had gradually during the ages provided a great system of appliances, a priesthood for spiritual direction, liturgies, fasts and feasts, rules and precepts, a literature of devotion and of learning, the seclusion of cloisters and MOVEMENTS OF THOUGHT. 643 retreats, activities of preaching and labor ; presenting meanwhile, with infinite variety of appeal to the imag- ination, a universe alive with spiritual presences, the saintly souls of all ages, a world of angelic beings, the di- vine-human Mediator, and the God and Father of all. This conception of the spiritual world was made vivid and familiar by a whole cultus of rites and observances. Such, in Its ideal and aim, was the medieval Church ; such might and should be the Church of England, was the purpose that ripened in a little company at Oxford. An element in their conception was an insistency upon the paramount authority of the Church over the conduct arid thought of the individual. In dealing with the Church of England as it actually existed, they were obliged to urge upon that body the exercise of functions which it had long- laid aside or had never exercised, and they found the larger number of their fellow-churchmen strenuously op- posed to them. As a consequence, the most logical and thorough-going of their number passed over to the Church of Rome. To the only type of mind that is now suscep- tible to any claim of human infallibility the Roman Church appeals with incomparably more power than any other. That church, too, does actually undertake in some measure that full and definite provision for the direction of the lives of its members which has in all Protestant bodies dwindled into a fragment or a tradition. John Henry Newman went slow but straight to his natural and proper home in the bosom of that church. Only a handful of his countrymen followed him there. Their proposition that a certain body of men are the author- itative custodians and expounders of religious truth is diametrically hostile to the modern spirit. Newman holds that the reason shares the depravation of human nature wrought by Adam's fall. He asks (" Apologia," Part VII.): "What must be the face-to-face antagonist by which to withstand and baffle the fierce energy of pas- 644 APPENDIX. sion, and the all-corroding, all-dissolving skepticism of the intellect in religious matters ? . . . I am not speak- ing of right reason, but of reason as it acts in fact and concretely in fallen man. ... I know that even the un- aided reason, when correctly exercised, leads to a belief in God, in the immortality of the soul, and in future ret- ribution ; but I am considering it actually and histori- cally, and in this point of view I do not think I am wrong in saying that its tendency is towards a simple unbelief in matters of religion. No truth, however sacred, can stand against it in the long run." He finds the only ad- equate resource in an authoritative revelation, interpreted by an infallible church. It is this absolute distrust of the human intellect except as it follows with docility the pronouncements of the minds congregated at Nicrea, at Trent, and at the Vatican which marks the most radical of all existing divisions in the mind of Europe. But, while making little permanent impression on the general course of thought, Newman and his close follow- ers, as well as Keble, Pusey, and their successors, have made a distinct and notable contribution to the higher life of England. They have embodied in life and in lit- erature illustrations of some of the finest and fairest of human qualities. The founders of the school gave a pow- erful moral impulse, which displayed itself originally in the development of the devout and contemplative virtues, but at a later period allied itself energetically with a more active benevolence, so that the most honorable an- nals of the High Church and Ritualist party are written not in the cloisters of Oxford, but in the slums of the great cities. And of the Catholic secession, a Protestant may count it the highest service that the example of their leader has done much to keep the saintly character a liv- ing reality to the mind of modern England. The strongest element in the Church of England and also in the Dissenters at the beginning of this century had MOVEMENTS OF THOUGHT. 645 been the Evangelical or Low Church party. It was the theological representative of Calvinism, Puritanism, and the religious revivals of the eighteenth century. But this type of religion, though still retaining a strong hold on the popular feeling, and in the field of philanthropy represented by such illustrious examples as Shaftesbury, and still capable of very aggressive and successful activ- ity, as in the case of Mr. Spurgeon and the American " evangelists," is hardly to be reckoned with longer as an intellectual force. In contrast with the effort of the new High Church party to maintain piety by the exclusion of innovating thought was that movement in which Maurice is one of the central figures, the movement to associate the tra- ditional and ecclesiastical Christianity in a friendly alli- ance with the new knowledge. We may distinguish here two cooperating forces, of which Dr. Arnold and Coleridge may be taken as the respective representatives : modern scholarship, at once modifying and vivifying the historical interpretation of Christianity ; and a spiritual philosophy, seeking the inspiration and sanction of religious belief in the soul itself, while finding in the creeds and dogmas of Christianity a substantiation of the solitary individual faith in the general affirmations of enlightened mankind. The Broad Church movement was an attempt to blend harmoniously within the Christian church the ethical, the devotional, and the intellectual elements in religion. On the ethical side, it recognized the wide and enlarging rela- tions into which man is brought by the complex develop- ment of modern society. Where the High Churchman sought to preserve the best virtues of the old society, the Broad Churchman labored to develop the virtues which the new order demands to promote civic virtue, to guide so- cial reorganization, and to assimilate new truth. Arnold of Rugby was its early representative, with his manly character, his devotion to education in its fullest sense, and 646 APPENDIX. his intense interest in the political life of England. In the next generation, Maurice carried an equally earnest and lofty spirit into the social struggles and problems which were coming to the front ; and in him too with this practical bent there blended a pure and devout spirit of piety. There was a similar union in Kobertson, advocate of the poor, friend of the workingman, and wise in that deepest wis- dom which guides the heart in its effort for the perfect life. Kingsley was another type, with his sympathetic, susceptible temperament, his love for outdoor life, and his flashes of poetry. On its intellectual side, the Broad Church school had a sympathy with all liberal study, and especially with the survey of mankind in its historical as- pects ; a spirit of which there is no better example than Dean Stanley's u History of the Jewish Church." The Broad Churchmen were engaged in a gradual modifica- tion of traditional dogma, and at the same time in a de- fence of Christian dogma in its large interpretation as an expression of the essential truths of religion. In their essays at modification, they were greatly embarrassed by the established formularies of the Church of England, in which they were driven (as had been the High Church- men) to discover an astonishing degree of elasticity ; while even to such elasticity there were limits which it might become extremely difficult to reconcile with the principles of free investigation which the Broad Church- men professed. So, too, while the appeal to " Christian consciousness," as Schleiermacher phrased it, to the soul's natural or acquired instinct of love and worship of a being higher than itself, while this appeal, uttered by such voices as Coleridge and Maurice and Robertson, found a wide and deep response ; and while such emo- tion might find expression in the familiar language of Christian worship ; yet there was a growing difficulty in satisfying thorough and strenuous minds that the proposi- tions embodied in the dogmatic system of supernatural MOVEMENTS OF THOUGHT. 647 Christianity were the legitimate and necessary counter- part of these experiences of the soul. Certainly that phraseology of belief and worship which was moulded by piety blended with mediaeval philosophy hardly affords the most suitable expression to the piety nurtured under modern thought. In a word, the Broad Churchmen after a time found themselves engaged to an embarrassing de- gree in putting new wine into old bottles. All that has been said of them, as one school in the Church of Eng- land, applies in a measure to the most thoughtful ele- ment in all Protestant bodies ; except that most of these denominations, and notably the various Independent churches, have been less hampered by inherited creeds, be- cause governed by constitutions which admit more easily of change. In America, the broadening and enriching of the old creed has gone on under the eloquent leadership of such men as Beecher, Bushnell, Brooks, Abbott, and Munger, until that element diffused throughout the Evan- gelical churches under the name of the New Orthodoxy is practically relinquishing all of the old dogmatic scheme, save for a new and enthusiastic emphasis on the divinity of Christ. A more radical departure from the old creed, a more direct employment of intellectual inquiry in the service of ethical purpose and spiritual feeling, has been made in the Unitarian bodies of Great Britain and America. Their isolated position among other sects has been a disad- vantage, and the growing pressure of radical problems has heightened in their clergy the tendency to abstract specu- lation ; and these circumstances, together with the diffi- culty of combining perfect intellectual freedom with strong organization, have operated to greatly limit their influ- ence as a popular force. But in both countries they have made important contributions to the national life. In England the foremost representative of philosophic theism is Martineau ; while in America, where the overshadowing 648 APPENDIX. presence of an established church is not felt, the Unita- rian influence, though in its ecclesiastical form reaching but a small number, has played a foremost part in the leadership of the country in literature and moral progress. The American Unitarians, slowly yielding to the influences represented by Emerson and Parker, have as a body tended to divest the affirmation of a theistic faith from any reliance upon a supernatural revelation. In a more direct and unhampered way than any other sect, they have essayed to blend the spirit of piety with the new forms of thought. Their movement has not yet showed that ardor and volume of spiritual force which can waken a multi- tude to new life, and create agencies for the employment of that life. But toward such a result they have made a distinct contribution, in exemplifying the courageous and clear treatment of intellectual problems, such a treat- ment as can alone save the " Church of the Future," if such there is to be, from superstition and fanaticism. The three foremost names in American church history are Channing, Parker, and Beecher. In Channing the slowly ripening dissent of the best intelligence of New England from Calvinism found clear expression, that Calvinism which in the previous century Edwards had formulated and proclaimed anew. In Channing that dis- sent became an affirmation. The emphasis of Calvinism was on human depravity ; he asserted the dignity of hu- manity. It was the religious expression of a sentiment which had given one of the impulses of the French Rev- olution ; but Channing's ideal man was a very different figure from Rousseau's. The recognition of human nobil- ity led to a recasting of theology. An atonement to reconcile God and man no longer appeared necessary. Channing relinquished not only the predestination of Cal- vin, but the doctrine of the Trinity, as Priestley before him had done. His theology was Christianity, less the atonement and the Trinity, but with an emphatic super. MOVEMENTS OF THOUGHT. 649 naturalism and a superhuman Christ. He was a man of pure and lofty piety, and refined, scholarly, impressive character. Under the voluntary system, the ostracism of himself and his ministerial associates by the Orthodox body resulted simply in a new sect, composed, however, of a large group of the old churches, whicli suffered no break of historical continuity, and showed no very salient con- trast with their former associates. The highly intellect- ual tastes of their ministry, together with the social ad- vantages of their lay constituency, constituted a strong conservative force. On their rolls were many of the fore- most names in American literature ; in their ranks social reform found numerous recruits ; their clergy exemplified the best traditions of the clerical character. But an orig- inal thinker like Emerson found their decorous ecclesias- ticism too narrow for him ; the mass of the people were little affected by their unemotional tone ; and the devout felt a depressing influence in the relinquishment of one doc- trine after another, like the chill from rapid evaporation. In this grave, sincere, placid company, rose Theodore Parker, a " son of thunder." He had scarcely a great mind, but he had a great heart, ample learning, an intrepid intellect, and the fullest courage of his convictions. For supernatural Christianity he substituted a simple and positive theism. The " Christ " of the church and of Chan- ning became to Parker simply " Jesus " first of men, but human and fallible. He sent home the ideas of the fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of men with words of fire. He carried his gospel into the market-place and the senate-house ; he struck like a Hebrew prophet at commercial greed, at slavery, at ceremonialism, at every popular and fashionable sin. He scared the Unitarians as they had scared the Orthodox ; they put him under ban in vain. In the next generation they were his disciples. He had the fervor of Augustine, the courage of Luther, the rough honesty of Knox, the democracy of Lincoln, 650 APPENDIX. and the tenderness of a woman. The man was greater than his visible work. His learning was in the direction of philosophy and criticism ; and the absence of scientific ideas may be a limit on his permanent influence. Per- haps his most abiding contribution to literature will be his few recorded prayers, unsurpassed in fervor, ten- derness, gratitude, and aspiration. The ardor of his work consumed him prematurely ; he died in what should have been mid-life, leaving the influence of a heroic personality one of the greatest figures in American history. Henry Ward Beecher the son of Channing's fore- most opponent transformed more deeply than Chan- iiing the spirit of Orthodoxy, yet never broke with its ecclesiastical fellowship. He had a great imaginative genius, a tropical temperament and splendor of oratory, a sublimity of moral conceptions. He was the complete reverse of Puritan asceticism. His sympathetic interpre- tation of the familiar and homely phases of humanity, his humor, his delight in all the joyful and beautiful aspects of life, won for his message the gladdest acceptance. He stood amidst the rushing throng of the great city, and gave to its restless activities, to the scenes of the home, to the solitudes of Nature, an interpretation so lofty and inspiring that his hearers were thrilled and uplifted. He was more entertaining than any theatre. Like an organ- ist on his instrument he played on his great audiences, drawing smiles, laughter, tears, at will ; moving them to pity, to mirth, to wrath, to resolve, to worship, to rapture. No voice could open the fountains of consolation like his. Beside a grave his words came like light from Heaven. He was a champion of liberty and democracy. Feeling rather than thought moulded his creed. He dropped the harsher elements of Orthodoxy, but only to magnify what- ever in that system was most comforting to the heart and inspiring to the imagination. He gave fresh emphasis to the deity of Christ, and in his sermons the place of God MOVEMENTS OF THOUGHT. G31 is almost exclusively filled by that glorified figure. He never pressed home the question, Is it true ? against any idea that was morally pleasing. His weakness lay in the excessive sway over his mind of the pleasurable. He depicts the distortions and the tyranny of conscience ; he appreciates that " inflammation of the moral sense," from which New England is said to have suffered ; but he fails in emphasis on duty as the law of life. Even in his pres- entation of love as the central element in humanity and divinity, the impression is sometimes left that the love here viewed is the most delightful of emotions rather than that charity which suffereth long and seeketh not her own. In speech sometimes, in character often, the heroic note was lacking. He was shy of unpopular causes. Be- yond any other man he undermined the doctrine of eter- nal punishment, but he never expressly disavowed it until disavowal had ceased to be perilous. He faced a Liver- pool mob like a lion at bay ; he underwent a far worse ordeal with unblenching resolution yet the final impres- sion he gave was of a greatness intellectual rather than moral. His personality was more complex than any dramatist ever portrayed ; his service is best summed up in the eulogy, " He did more than any man in America to convert religion from a fear into a hope." Thomas Carlyle stands as a representative of spiritual revolution. To sum up the man himself in a paragraph is as impossible as to express a soul by an algebraic for- mula, amazing compound that he was of genius, sensi- bility, power, humor, scorn, tenderness, gloom, purpose, petulance, whim, and dyspepsia. But what he most dis- tinctly represents in the life of the age is a fresh awaken- ing of moral energy and aspiration, which finds all existing creeds and institutions inadequate, and which acts as a quickening, uplifting force in the heavy mass of society. Carlyle is like the revived soul of old Calvinism, disem- bodied from its creed, roaming unhoused through the new 652 APPENDIX. world, and shaming by its lofty port all baseness and pre- tence. He shows the best of Scotch Calvinism, its atti- tude toward life as a moral warfare, its uncompromising veracity, its awe in the presence of Deity, He has some of its worse traits something of its fierceness, its bigotry, the severity of the Old Testament almost unsoftened by the sweetness of the New. He represents a larger knowl- edge than Calvinism possessed, and he throws off its crude theology as his ancestors threw off the yoke of Rome. The source of his revolt, we may say, is his recog- nition of far wider and more complex realities than the old formula covered. Calvinistic theology ignored not only the new knowledge which science was already bring- ing in : it was blind to the infinite varieties in human na- ture ; it fixed its gaze resolutely on moral good and evil, on God and the devil, the sinner and the saint, and out of these elements built its universe. Carlyle's perceptions are alive to everything in man. He catches details with the accuracy of a photograph. He feels the majesty of the whole with perpetual wonder and awe. His sense of humor unlocks a realm to which the dogmatist is blind. It is perhaps his greatest service that he brings us in close touch with the realities of existence. He does not explain the world, he vivifies it, the scales of use and dulness fall from our eyes, and we move among forms of beauty and grandeur and terror and tenderness. His early voice rang out like a trumpet-call, arousing, enraging, de- lighting. It was a voice that boded ill to the existing order, and in young and ardent spirits waked high hopes of a better day. But when Carlyle had led his followers out of Egypt into the wilderness, his leadership ended he had no Promised Land to guide them to. He gives us little consciousness of an ordered universe, and little help toward an ordered society. His main idea of social order is that of an able man dominating the crowd. He has small appreciation of the slow, patient, compromising MOVEMENTS OF THOUGHT. 653 methods by which English self-government has been built up. He has no recognition that the humble investigations of physical science may ultimately throw light on the higher problems, and that the new knowledge may blend with the old faith to reconceive and reanimate for man the spiritual order of the universe. We feel in him a want of that receptive, patient attitude of the intellect, which scientific study has developed almost as a new virtue in mankind, and we feel too a personal lack of that pa- tience and self-command which mark the highest charac- ters. Yet on the whole, it may be repeated, Carlyle im- presses us like the soul of the old religion, disembodied, and finding as yet no corporeal home but keeping alive always the flame of aspiration and heroic effort. He is a revolutionist, but he foretokens a nobler order than that which is perishing. His special message can hardly be better indicated than by two passages from his letters to Sterling : You say finally, as the key to the whole mystery, that Teu- felsdrockh does not believe in a " personal God." It is frankly said, with a friendly honesty for which I love you. A grave charge, nevertheless, an awful charge, to which, if I mis- take not, the Professor, laying his hand on his heart, will reply with some gesture expressing the solemnest denial. In gesture rather than in speech, for the Highest cannot be spoken of hi words. Personal ! Impersonal ! One ! Three ! What mean- ing can any mortal (after all) attach to them in reference to such an object ? Wer darf Ihn nennen ? I dare not and do not. . . . By God's blessing, one has got two eyes to look with, also a mind capable of knowing, of believing. That is all the creed I will at this time insist on. You announce that you are rather quitting philosophy and theology I predict that you will quit them more and more. I give it you as my decided prognosis that the two provinces in question are become theorem, brain-web, and shadow, wherein no earnest soul can find solidity for itself. Shadow I say ; yet the shadow projected from an everlasting reality within our- selves. Quit the shadow, seek the reality. 654 APPENDIX. The one important contribution of America to the world's highest thought is found in Emerson. If he may be characterized by a single trait, it is perhaps this : he is so sensitive to the ethical and spiritual element that he sees it everywhere. His emphasis is not on conflict but on harmony. There is no moral indifference in him, al- ways there is a high note of duty. But in his pages, and in his personality, duty seems so naturally the law of life that it prevails almost without a struggle. The personal victory is so early and completely won that the mind, not centred on internal combat, looks freely forth on the world, and, seeing everywhere congenial traits of goodness and intelligence, interprets the world as divine indeed. Our own consciousness, he teaches, has its value to us in that it too reflects a ray from the sun which is the life of all. He sometimes impresses the sympathetic reader as possessing a faculty of the soul which is like an added sense ; he seems to discern as if by immediate vision the presence throughout the entire universe of divine intelli- gence, beauty, and love. He speaks of spiritual being with a tranquil familiarity, a perfect assurance, and at the same time with a clear recognition of all the homely facts in which the majesty of existence is clothed. It is true that the sort of superterrestrial serenity in which Emerson abides somewhat incapacitates him from meet- ing the wants of mundane men. From sorrow and care he dwells remote. , The dilemmas of the intellect, and the contradiction between the ideal and actual worlds, he seems in no way anxious to solve, he calmly looks over the head of every difficulty. But even the man of more scientific and logical mind, who cannot discern in the facts of existence a sufficient ground for this exultant confidence, yet, if there be in him any loftiness of nature, leaves Emerson's pages with a sense of drawing deeper breath, and with new inspiration alike to labor and to enjoy. To- ward forms of thought and belief other than his own, MOVEMENTS OF THOUGHT. 655 Emerson is as sympathetic as Carlyle is scornful. Him- self a transcendentalist, he rejoices in every discovery of the man of science, in every stroke of good work done by the positivist. There is no circle of sincere thinkers or manly toilers but welcomes him to its fellowship. Hardly any other intellect has so harmoniously blended ideality with common sense. Emerson is unique among the men of his time, yet his full significance is seen only by con- sidering the soil whence he sprung and where he flourished. He was cradled in a little community which then perhaps beyond any other combined an ordered freedom, a gen- eral and temperate prosperity, and a serious moral tem- per. It was the fruit of two centuries' cultivation of a choice stock under conditions austere and pure. For a few decades the theological soil had been mellowing. The impulse of a new national life was felt in full force. A great mind, born into such circumstances, leaped for- ward with a swift splendor like one of America's bril- liant days out of the old dogmas into the recognition of all-encompassing divinity. If social progress be indeed the law of humanity, it may happen in later ages that con- ditions of general freedom, order, and morality, akin to those which generated an interpretation of the world so inspiring and benign, may afford a like benignity and cheer as the natural inheritance of earth's children. Yet not even the Bostonian will claim that his town was ever an exact prototype of the Millenium, and in Emerson we occasionally feel a somewhat bloodless quality, natural to one born in a society bare of art and amusement. He is distinctly averse to laughter, and he never moves our tears. If we cannot always stay with him on the heights, there is some compensation in the ruddier life of the val- leys. But in Emerson we get the inspiration not only of inspiring thought, but of a heroic personality. He rose victorious over troubles, ill health, perplexities, bereave- ments, isolation, uncongenial employment, flattery and 656 APPENDIX. crude imitation. Always he was steadfast and gracious, and in his society as in his writings men felt that the life of the spirit was a reality. The humblest felt his charm, and every baby in Concord stretched out its hands to him. Emerson is single among his countrymen in the height of his genius and in the realm of his thought. But he may be viewed as the central figure in a group which marks the flowering into literature of a national life that had found in its earlier channels in politics, ecclesiastical religion, and material labors. The most distinct contribu- tion of America to the world has been the development of a well-ordered federal democracy ; its early great men were statesmen ; the core of its history in the present cen- tury has been the political struggle involving union and slavery ; and it was the political field which displayed the personality of Abraham Lincoln perhaps the grandest individual product of modern democracy. The early re- ligion of America was essentially of the Puritan type with its intensity of moral purpose, its seriousness often exaggerated into morbidness, and the growing inadequacy of its creeds and ideals. How Puritanism was modified within the churches, by revolt and by reform, has been hinted. But in the mid-period of this century came an emergence of the best intelligence into a richer and more various region of thought and life, exemplified after the transition in Cooper and Irving from English models by such authors as Emerson, Hawthorne, Long- fellow, Lowell, Holmes, Whittier, and Mrs. Stowe. Viewed in relation to moral ideas, the common mark of this group is the movement from Calvinism into a more humane and rational religion. In Hawthorne, indeed, the ghosts of the old terror still haunt the imagination, still tinge with gloom a mind that disowns the old creed. No moral atmosphere can be more depressing than where, as in " The Scarlet Letter," Guilt and Retribution appall the soul while Redemption has faded out. The transfer to MOVEMENTS OF THOUGHT. 657 the modern conception is suggested in "The Marble Faun," where even guilt has an office in raising man out of the innocent, sportive animal into something graver and higher, though amid an encompassment of mystery and dread. Mrs. Stowe produced her greatest effect by that picture of slavery which hastened its downfall, but she is on her native soil in sympathetic interpretation of the old religion and society of New England an interpretation more genial than the reality, because already the grim ness is softened by distance. Whittier brings the Quaker mildness and " inner light," together with the modern thought, to transform the traditional creed into a sweet gospel of humanity, still taught and led by Christ. Holmes a modern Horace in wit, sense, and lyric charm, with an inspiration from wider knowledge and a richer civilization assails directly and sharply the sys- tem of Calvin and Edwards ; while he suggests a new treatment of moral problems, in the light of physiology and its kindred sciences. Of Lowell and Longfellow, the general tone is harmonious with these their compeers ; but they write more as in the atmosphere of the library. Long- fellow's picturesque and pleasing verse shows little direct influence of modern currents of thought ; while Lowell gives both satiric and heroic utterances to the sentiments of freedom and of union, and his later poems yield glimpses of the grave ponderings of our time. At the other pole from these, away from books and from Euro- pean culture, is Whitman, the rough, ardent, mighty voice of a new society. His strongest sentiment is com- radeship the mutual good-will of a brotherhood of homely toilers. Nature, too, he loves ; much of the old religious trust and hope is in him. but, along with the wideness of his sympathy with all power, all reality, there is some obscuration of man's choice between moral good and evil ; there is a strange renunciation of that decency which is the garb and guardian of the priceless conquest 658 APPENDIX. mankind is slowly gaining the subordination of animal passion to the moral sense. But Whitman belongs to a later period than the group of the mid-century ; indeed, he gives perhaps the only highly original feature to the succeeding and present pe- riod. A new epoch in American literature dates from the Civil War; new phases of society and of thought are de- picted in it. But to religious and philosophical ideas there has been little important addition, apart from Euro- pean importations. In that earlier group, which still is largely representative of the nation's highest intelligence, as well as in the parallel group of leaders within the church, this is to be noticed : the change of belief and of temper is mainly toward greater cheer and hope ; there is far less recognition than among contemporary English and Continental writers of those un settlings and recast- ings of the foundations of religion which lay on mind and heart their heaviest task. This easier assumption by the American mind of the fundamental sources of faith is perhaps partly due to more favorable social conditions, which are destined to spread, and to carry with them an atmosphere which naturally generates trust. It may be also in a degree due to optimism rising from a temporary prosperity, the passing incident of a people not yet crowded for room. And partly, no doubt, this compara- tive rarity of the deeper questioning indicates a society where high culture and the leisure for thought are less common, a society which is more immature and follows at some distance in the wake of the more educated commu- nity. In wealth of intellectual production, America still compares with England as the province with the metrop- olis, and for the masters of thought and passion the daughter must still for the most part look to the mother. The change of half a century in England can hardly be better realized than by comparing the tone of Walter Scott with that respectively of Thackeray and of Dickens. MOVEMENTS OF THOUGHT. 659 All three are rich in genius and in noble feeling. But they represent different attitudes toward the social order. Scott idealizes and defends the traditional system. His genius is sympathetic and not critical. The past charms his imagination, the present is full of that which he loves, and toward innovation and revolution he has only hostil- ity. Historically he must be viewed in relation to the Napoleonic wars of conquest. That is the concrete form which revolution takes to his mind. He is blind to the new forces of beneficence which are rising ; he is as indif- ferent to social and political reform, and to advance of re- ligious thought, as Shakespeare is indifferent to Puritan- ism and constitutional liberty. Neither man discerned the master forces of the dawning age. We all remember Carlyle's pronouncement on Scott's emptiness of spiritual message : " The sick heart will find no healing there," etc. But this means only that Scott had no healing for the es- pecial sickness of Caiiyle and Carlyle's day. Like Shake- speare, Scott speaks to that in humanity which is perma- nent. So long as manhood and modesty and honor and good cheer are esteemed, will men draw health as well as pleasure from Walter Scott. The change of temper when we pass from Scott to Thackeray is due partly to personal temperament and char- acter, but partly, also, to change in the time. How great Thackeray is in creative imagination, in humor, in kind- ness, need not be dwelt on, but his distinctive quality is truthfulness. It appears everywhere, in his close fidel- ity to nature, in the purity of his style, and in that sad sin- cerity which is the characteristic atmosphere of his work. It is no longer possible to believe in the old world as Scott believed in it. Even Scott's faith is a little wavering ; he really cannot give credit to ghosts and fairies ; he must needs own that the Stuarts were not a heroic race, but he can still cast a glamour over feudalism and chivalry and monarchy ; can even idealize a George the Fourth. 660 APPENDIX. " Dear old make - believes ! " Thackeray seems to say, " would that we could accept them." And he plays some- times with that fairy-land, in mixture of love and derision, as when he writes " Rebecca and Rowena." He likes to get into the children's company, where the make-believe is still kindlier, as in " The Rose and the Ring." With the near past he is in friendly touch ; he is at home in company with the wits and beaux and fine ladies of Queen Anne's day. But he is essentially a man of his own time. He calls himself a preacher and what gospel does he preach ? " Vanity of vanities," of all Ijomilies the sad- dest ! As a preacher he scarcely wins converts, scarcely expects converts ; conversion in any sense hardly has place in his view of life, though there are exquisite exceptions, as when he shows Ethel Newcome " purified by terror and by pity " out of her worldliness. He holds a high ideal of truth, honor, and gentleness, but no strong faith and no resolute purpose. He reveres the purity and piety of women, he sympathizes with all courage and gen- erosity in men, but he kindles in his reader no ardor of virtue. Life is a disappointment that is his perpetual refrain. It is when he forgets his own haunting sense of frustration, and portrays life with as little thought of a moral as Shakespeare or Scott when he gives us Raw- don Crawley parting with Becky before Waterloo, or Clive Newcome arm-in-arm with the Colonel it is then that he is at his best. That his sincere and searching gaze not only finds in the world so large an element of pretence and unworthiness, but so fails to find anywhere a full fruition or an ideal nobility, this seems surely due in part to some idiosyncrasy, some inwrought sombre strain or disheartening experience. But partly, also, it is be- cause " the times are out of joint." Better no gods than idols better no worship than worship of a George the Fourth. That section of society with which he is most familiar is intensely worldly better satirize it than MOVEMENTS OF THOUGHT. 661 glorify it. With a spirit most reverent as to religion, he finds piety as an active force hardly anywhere but in the lives of a few good women he does almost silent hom- age to it there ; but a religion that satisfies and possesses a manly nature, he scarcely seems to know. Nothing is more unjust than to call Thackeray a cynic, but he lacks the note of victory. We miss in him the high faith and the resolute purpose which alone can exalt life into a heroic scene. He sees the world as Vanity Fair ; he pic- tures with keenest observation the traffickers and the rogues, the mountebanks and jugglers, the honest and simple folk, but he does not see Christian and Faithful, with faces firm set toward the Celestial city. The men whom he paints most sympathetically, like Henry Esmond and Pendennis's Warrington, are by some great disap- pointment thrown out of the arena of action, and look on grave, pitiful, passive. As we read, we sometimes ask, Is this an age that has lost its faith, or only a man that has lost hope ? There is no finer or more typical scene in Thackeray than that where Esmond breaks his sword. His love proves a soulless coquette, his sovereign an un- grateful libertine but in the very moment when that gloom encompasses him, honor shines bright. No, Thack- eray is as little a cynic as Cervantes, and the ideal of a knightly gentleman is revived and perpetuated in Colonel Newcome as in Don Quixote. The same searching truth- fulness which, as we read, casts a judgment-day light on our foibles, reveals some traits of good where we least looked for them. Who but Thackeray could win our interest and even sympathy for a scoundrel like Barry Lyndon ? If he finds in the saint a touch of the sinner, he sees in each sinner some undeveloped germ of the saint. He strengthens the tie of our common humanity. Here and there throughout his work are passages expressing a genuine and natural piety, the more impressive for the 662 APPENDIX. humility and awe that restrain from diffuse utterance ; ! and that kindly light which touches all his pictures with frequent gleams shines out steadily at the last in " Denis Duval," like a peaceful sunset after a day of mingled sun- shine and cloud. With an equal genius, an opposite temperament, and a different experience, Dickens brings us in contact with the most vital and active forces of the time. As the distinctive note of Thackeray is truth, so that of Dickens is ardor. He is brimful of emotion and energy. The world was never fuller of passion, sympathy, struggle, hope, and heartiness, than we find it in his pages. In his society we never question whether life is worth living. His genius has a richness, an elation, a, satisfaction, like Nature's own. Here, too, we must lay much to the account of the per- sonal endowment, but there is something more. Dick- ens belongs to the common people. He stands among the rising forces. That middle and lower class of England 1 As in this passage, at the opening of From Cornhill to Cairo the scene is on a ship's deck after midnight. " There are a set of emotions about which a man had best be shy of talking lightly, and the feelings excited by this vast, magnificent, harmonious Nature are among these. The view of it inspires a delight and ecstasy which is not only hard to describe, but which has something secret in it that a man should not utter loudly. Hope, memory, humility, tender yearn- ings towards dear friends, and an inexpressible love and reverence towards the Power which created the infinite universe blazing above eternally, and the vast ocean shining and rolling around fill the heart with a solemn, humble happiness, that a person dwelling in a city has rarely occasion to enjoy. They are coming away from Lon- don parties at this time ; the dear little eyes are closed in sleep under mother's wing. How far off city cares and pleasures appear to be ! how small and mean they seem, dwindled out of sight before this magnificent brightness of Nature ! But the best thoughts only grow and strengthen under it. Heaven shines above, and the hum- bled spirit looks up reverently towards that boundless aspect of wis- dom and beauty. You are at home, and with all at rest there, how- ever far they may be ; and through the distance the heart broods over them, bright and wakeful like yonder peaceful stars overhead." MOVEMENTS OF THOUGHT. 663 which the fastidious observer finds so dreary and Philis- tine, Dickens reveals as palpitating with human interests, with tragedy and comedy. He is as strenuous a champion of the poor as Victor Hugo. His rich and riotous humor is untainted and wholesome. He cares nothing for politi- cal parties, he is contemptuous toward the professional philanthropist, but wherever he sees a concrete wrong or stupidity poor-law abuse, debtor's prison, circumlocution office he flashes out in denunciation and ridicule. He is a man of the common people too in that he lives far more by feeling than by reason. He not seldom falls into exaggeration, for the sake of immediate effect, unre- strained by that accuracy of sight and speech which is the austere virtue of the intellect. A " self-made " man, he has gained energy in the making, but has missed culture. When he reverts to past ages, it is oftenest with a hearty hatred for their cruelty and bigotry. With creeds he has little concern ; as to the intellectual foundations of Chris- tianity he takes small thought ; but he warmly appropri- ates all the elements of love and trust and hope which shelter under the old creed. He gives to the New Testa- ment story and to its central figure a sympathetic human interpretation. He is the minstrel of Christmas ; and the words of Christian faith "I am the Resurrection and the Life " give an undertone to his noblest passage, the death of Sidney Carton. Neither Dickens nor Thackeray shows perceptibly any direct influence of the scientific spirit. But that influence tells in full force upon the two greatest of their poetical contemporaries, Tennyson and Browning. Common to both poets are an imaginative genius, a serious morality, and a high culture, sensitively open to all the complex in- tellectual forces of their time. In Browning we see those forces in their diversity and tumult; in Tennyson they are held tributary to a self -controlled mind. Browning is not neuter in the struggle ; the note of faith and courage 664 APPENDIX. predominates in him. But his aim is dramatic ; he gives full exhibition to saint and sinner, to sceptic and devotee, to passion of sense and passion of spirit. He has some- times been compared to Shakespeare, and as to the wide range of his sympathies the comparison is not unapt. He portrays a wider world than Shakespeare, for in the inter- vening centuries that structure of religious belief, to which Shakespeare pays at least a passive respect, has broken up, a host of new forces have entered society, and the ele- mental war in man has taken on new depth. But Brown- ing has not Shakespeare's impersonality, nor his variety of atmosphere ; he visibly mixes himself with each one of his characters. And his peculiarity is to be always seeking the intensest phases of thought and emotion. There is in him much of the temper of the Elizabethan dramatists the quest through earth and heaven and hell for emotional and intellectual excitement. To him energy is the one thing needful ; the moral of " The Statue and the Bust " is characteristic better vigorous sinning than no vigor at all. Perhaps his main significance is this: in an age in which materialistic and sceptical tendencies are strong, we see in him the poetic spirit shining out in its fullest in- tensity. In him we see the soul turning the very forces which seem to threaten its noblest life into ministers to that life. He is one of those who go far to justify the fine exaggeration of Elizabeth Browning, when she speaks of poets as "The only truth-tellers now left to God." He is the reverse of Wordsworth in this, that while the earlier poet intersperses long tracts of dulness between his grand passages, Browning on the other hand gives us no intermission from the strain of thought and feeling. Al- ways we are in a tempest, buffeted by waves of ecstasy and agony, until we are ready to cry out with Gonzalo, " Now would I give a thousand furlongs of sea for an acre MOVEMENTS OF THOUGHT. 665 of barren ground ; long heath, brown furze, anything ! " Like Wordsworth, but for the opposite reason, Browning is perhaps best appreciated in judicious excerpts. In his noblest words, he thrills us with heroism and tenderness. He shows us the soul facing all situations and exigencies, of love, and combat, and fear ; old age, as in " Rabbi Ben Ezra ; " the blackest frown of destiny, as in " Childe Roland ; " death, as in " Prospice," and everywhere victorious. Tennyson's early poems display a dainty fancy amusing itself with subtleties and caprices, but with a more se- rious strain getting the ascendency, as in " Locksley Hall ; " until, between " The Princess " and " In Memoriam," there comes a great change. " The Princess," with all its beauties, is indeed " a medley," but " In Memoriam " stands " Like a statue, solid-set, And moulded in colossal calm." Thenceforth Tennyson is always nobly serious. He has the consistency not of a creed but of a temper. We see in him the spiritual elements of Christianity harmoni- ously blending with modern types of thought and society. The old so fuses with the new that the dividing line can- not be traced. A most English trait is this, that con- tinuity of past and present which adds a charm to every English landscape, and transmits an ever broadening her- itage of ordered freedom. Tennyson is in close touch with the political life of his people. He has the temper generated in that highest of social arts, the self-govern- ment of a nation, which is but a supreme manifesta- tion of self-government in the individual. He borrows the legends of an early age, with no pretence at reality, but as a fit pictorial setting for the Christian graces of Honor, Purity, Service, and Faith. Among all poems, " In Memoriam " stands unique. It shows us the educated modern mind, face to face through a long period with the APPENDIX. supreme problems, with the desire for truth intensified by the loss of a beloved and revered companion spirit. There is the recognition of some spiritual sovereignty in Christ ; there is equally the recognition of the evolution- ary view, both in its hopes and its discouragements. We follow the exploring thought in varying quest, but in the general movement of the poem we see the successive stages of a spiritual development. It is the slow and perfect victory of Love over Death and over Doubt. What we see at last is the persistence of the personal affection, its assured hold on some great future, and its widening into sympathy with all of nature and humanity. In the stanza which concludes the body of the poem, we have the epitome of the poet's philosophy. Let us trust, he says, "With faith that comes of self-control, The truths that never can be proved Until we close with all we loved, And all we flow from, soul in soul." Years pass, and then comes a conclusion, of which the climax sums up the faith and aspiration of our age. The occasion is the bridal of a friend. There is a picture of the happy scene, a perfect sympathy with the wedded lov- ers' joy, a prevision of its sacred fruitage, and the suc- ceeding higher race of men : " Whereof the man that with me trod This planet, was a noble type, Appearing ere the times were ripe, That friend of mine who lives in God, " That God which ever lives and loves, One God, one law, one element, And one far-off divine event, To which the whole creation moves." 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