Closet
 
 -
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET
 
 OF CALIF. LIBRABY, LOS MGBLES 
 
 THE KEY 
 
 OF 
 THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 BY 
 W. ROBERTSON NICOLL 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 DODD, MEAD & COMPANY 
 1906
 
 Stack 
 Annex 
 
 FT5 
 
 5"llO 
 
 TO 
 JANE T. STODDART 
 
 2137344
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 I. ONE LIGHTS A CANDLE CALLED PATIENCE ... 1 
 
 II. " NEVER WEAR A BROWN HAT IN FRIESLAND " 10 
 
 III. THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 18 
 
 IV. THE GOODMAN'S CROFT 27 
 
 V. DR. ROBERT A. NEIL 38 
 
 VI. " NEVER CHEW YOUR PILLS " SO 
 
 VII. THE ONE FACT MORE 59 
 
 VIII. "B.A., D.J." 68 
 
 IX. CONCERNING EELS 78 
 
 X. SWELLED HEAD 85 
 
 XI. THE VALUE or A MARGIN 95 
 
 XII. SAILING AGAINST THE WIND 105 
 
 XIII. " OBSERVE THE FLIGHT OF YONDER SOLITARY 
 
 CROW" 112 
 
 XIV. DRIVING A HOOP: A SUGGESTION FOR CHRISTMAS 121 
 XV. THE HOUSE OF 130 
 
 XVI. POTATOES or CABBAGE ? 139 
 
 XVII. THE MAN WITH A COLD 147 
 
 XVIII. THE DUAL LIFE : CHARLOTTE BRONTE, GEORGE 
 
 ELIOT, AND JANE AUSTEN 156 
 
 XIX. IN THE WORLD OF JANE AUSTEN 166 
 
 XX. "THERE MUST BE MANY A PAIK or FRIENDS" 177 
 
 XXI. DR. ALEXANDER BAIN 187 
 
 XXII. CONCERNING SPECTACLES 199 
 
 XXIII. THE ART OF PACKING 208 
 
 XXIV. "WORK -DRUNKENNESS" 215 
 
 XXV. " MELTED DOWN FOR THE TALLOW TRADE" . . . 224 
 
 XXVI. "EHEU EVELINA" 233 
 
 XXVII. THE TRAGEDY OF FIRST NUMBERS 243 
 
 XXVIII. MR. R. H. HUTTON OF THE " SPECTATOR" ... 251 
 
 XXIX. JAMES PAYN 271 
 
 XXX. DR. GEORGE MACDOXALD 284
 
 The Key of the Blue Closet 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 ONE LIGHTS A CANDLE CALLED PATIENCE 
 
 " WHAT does one end by doing when all the best is 
 taken away from one, when life has grown trivial, 
 stunted, and narrow; when the sun of one's happi- 
 ness is set? " This is the question put by Lucas 
 Malet's heroine in the Wages of Sin to her uncle, 
 and he answers : " After a time, Polly, not at once 
 that would be asking too much of poor human 
 nature but after a time, my dear, one lights a 
 candle called Patience, and guides one's footsteps 
 by that." She asks whether he speaks of his own 
 experience, and he tells her the story of a courtship 
 which had gone forward and ended over thirty years 
 before. "To the best of my ability I lighted that 
 candle the day your mother told me which of the two 
 brothers who loved her she loved best. It burnt very 
 badly at first, Polly, did my candle guttered, had 
 thieves in the wick ; and meanwhile I stumbled pretty 
 freely. But, by God's grace, it has burnt brighter 
 as time has gone by burns brightly enough now, as
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 I humbly trust, to light me down the long hill of old 
 age without any very discreditable tumbles." He 
 drew a little faded miniature from its hiding-place. 
 " There is my romance," he said. " This is like her ; 
 but you are more like. And so you are very dear to 
 me for sake's sake, as well as for your own. Try to 
 light your candle of Patience, my Polly, in faith; 
 remembering that you are not alone. More than 
 half the noblest men and women you meet carry such 
 candles likewise." 
 
 The ordinary troubles and worries of life are not 
 in question, but to most of us, sooner or later, there 
 comes a heavy blow. We realise at once that this 
 stroke is other than the rest, that we are not going 
 to get over it easily, that we may never get over it 
 at all. It may be the appearance of some incurable 
 disease. We have been uneasy for a long time, and 
 have said little. One day we muster strength to go 
 to a great specialist and come out trying to smile 
 with white lips. Or it may be, as in Lucas Malet's 
 story, that we fail conclusively in love, fail to attain 
 our heart's desire, knowing all the while with a sure 
 knowledge that there is no reparation, that the heart 
 will ache with longing to the end. Or perhaps in the 
 business of our life we may meet with some overthrow 
 so great, so conclusive, that there is no chance of 
 setting right what has gone wrong. Or perhaps it 
 may suddenly become clear to us that we are prison- 
 ers for life. The circumstances in which we are set 
 have been very uncongenial, but we have always
 
 A CANDLE CALLED PATIENCE 
 
 fancied either that we could open the door when we 
 pleased, or at least that some day the door would be 
 opened for us, and we should enter on happier, more 
 hopeful years. I know men who have been doing 
 their life-work with hardly one ray of encourage- 
 ment. They have done their best; but things have 
 been against them. They have been working, let us 
 say, in a dying town, from which there has been a 
 constant exodus of the more hopeful and progressive 
 elements. Increase in any form cheers the heart. 
 Decrease, when it is continuous, dulls it in an 
 extraordinary way. Well, they have believed up 
 to a certain point that they could go like the rest, 
 and one day they find out that nobody wants them, 
 that there is no other place for them, that there they 
 must remain to the end, that their lips can never be 
 touched with the potent wine of triumphant joy. Or 
 perhaps some sudden bereavement makes all things 
 different, and covers the land with mist. 
 
 What is to be done in these circumstances? 
 Surely the best thing to do is to light a candle 
 called Patience. How can we light that candle, and 
 keep it burning all the way to the end? 
 
 In the first place, we must be very quiet. 
 " Patience," says Bunyan, " was very quiet." It 
 will not serve us to indulge in idle rage or yeasty 
 fury. It will not serve us to be fretful, querulous, 
 feeble. Raving and grumbling are alike absolutely 
 forbidden. Better face the fact that we have to 
 suffer solely, to suffer long, perhaps to suffer for 
 
 3
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 all the rest of life. This Is so, and nothing can 
 change it. We shall make it worse if we kick against 
 the pricks. We must first of all be quiet. 
 
 Then we must try to keep alive some spark of 
 hope. The first thing I should say to anyone in the 
 dust of a sudden blow is, Hope on. This is not a 
 religious letter, and so I do not propose to speak of 
 the consolations of Christianity. I am content to 
 say that we should resolve to wait and see what time 
 will do for us. Of course in a certain sense time does 
 nothing at all. It is what takes place in time that 
 helps us, that soothes the pain, that heals the wound. 
 Time is full of surprises, and some of them are 
 joyful. A merciful mist hangs over the future. 
 But no future is wholly darkened. All the time the 
 healing forces of nature and of society are at work 
 upon us. If we will not fall into utter despair we 
 shall find, after, it may be, many days and months, 
 that it is not with us as it once was. A man may go 
 on for years slowly counting the hours, longing that 
 they might pass quickly and bring with them their 
 balm. 
 
 I have known men who in their misery have 
 looked daily at the calendar, and counted the leaden 
 weeks, saying in their hearts, " When I have lived 
 through such and such a period I shall begin to be 
 better." Sometimes the relief is delayed till the 
 heart fairly sinks ; but if the candle called Patience 
 is kept burning, the day will come, not perhaps of 
 full cure, but of alleviation. On some morning we 
 
 4
 
 A CANDLE CALLED PATIENCE 
 
 shall find that the pain is less sharp. It has not 
 gone, but it does not burn and sting as it used to do. 
 There will be a revival, however faint, of interest in 
 passing things. There may even be for once, and 
 that is most hopeful, the forgetting of some dreadful 
 anniversary. Yes, it may be true for the worst 
 sufferers that the joys of their life are yet to come. 
 However slow recovery may be, let it once begin, and 
 it will go on. It will begin, I think, when the time 
 passes a little more quickly, when one ceases to say 
 each morning, " How am I to get through this long 
 day? " The sorrow may remain. It may be impos- 
 sible to forget it, but sometimes it may be put far 
 from us, and of tener it may be contemplated through 
 the softening medium of thoughts that blend sorrow 
 with hope. Many a bitter memory is recalled at last 
 without its bitterness. To believe this is to light a 
 candle called Patience, for there is no true patience 
 which does not involve an element of hope. 
 
 Once more, it is necessary to do something. To 
 do nothing is to throw up the arms and yield. The 
 heart turns upon itself in morbid contemplation, eats 
 itself away. It is best to go on with our regular 
 work as soon as possible, as steadfastly as may be, 
 even when it is mere weariness and burden, without 
 interest of any kind. By and by it will be wise to 
 ask, " Ls it possible to change my circumstances ? " 
 If that question has to be answered, as so often it 
 has to be answered, in the negative, then one must 
 ask, " How can I conquer my circumstances ? " It 
 
 5
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 is the clear duty of one in adverse circumstances to 
 escape from them if he can, or at least to recast or 
 renovate them, to mould them so far as they can be 
 moulded. Thus the invalid should accept the verdict 
 of no doctor, but do his utmost to recover health. 
 The man who has met with a terrible reverse in his 
 work or business ought not to give up until he is 
 quite certain that the reverse is irretrievable. I am 
 convinced that multitudes have yielded too soon. In 
 the lives of great men we may read that the tide often 
 turned just when they were on the point of despair. 
 I call to mind Carlyle, Napoleon, Cromwell, and 
 many others. In the same way, the surroundings 
 which are hostile to the life and peace of the spirit 
 may be escaped from, and if the door can be forced 
 open they ought to be escaped from. We are all of 
 us, when the candle called Patience goes out, apt to 
 give over hoping, and to think effort is of no use. It 
 is not true that steady and well-directed labour will 
 achieve anything, but it is true that wise and sus- 
 tained effort may work wonders. 
 
 Still, it has to be admitted that for some things 
 there is no remedy but patience. There are diseases 
 that will only tighten their grasp till life yields. 
 Many of us have to accept pain as our lifelong com- 
 panion ; many of us have to be content with poverty. 
 Many of us have to live in a moral and spiritual 
 atmosphere which is as a bitter east wind. The 
 sun never shines upon our appointed place, never 
 will shine. What then? We must call forth the 
 
 6
 
 A CANDLE CALLED PATIENCE 
 
 resources of our spirits. We must respond in the 
 right way to circumstance, that the soul may develop 
 virtue and forbearance. It may develop much more 
 than that, even a far-reaching human sympathy and 
 helpfulness. Two of the most beautiful lives I have 
 ever witnessed, lives which turned houses into homes, 
 were lives of bitter and almost unremitting physical 
 pain. Often when the fight with circumstance is 
 bravely continued, the enemy suddenly yields, and 
 gladness of the heart comes out of discouragement 
 and deprivation. There is a story by the German 
 novelist Raabe called Abu Telfan. Abu Telfan is a 
 negro village, where a German wanderer is kept in 
 slavery for ten years. He worked endlessly in 
 insufferable heat, he suffered incessantly from the 
 whip. At the end of ten years he was bought out of 
 captivity by a German dealer in beasts for menage- 
 ries, and sent home. In the utter misery of his toil, 
 misery where the whole nature seemed to be thwarted 
 and crushed and dwarfed, his soul gathered strength 
 and colour. It touched the reality of things ; by 
 endurance there came a certain manliness and wis- 
 dom. His misery brought him such a sense of the 
 truth of tilings that he was not deceived. He 
 mastered the essential principle of all stoicism, which 
 is that the externals are nothing, and that the inner 
 self is all. There is no plight in which the human 
 spirit can find itself where it may not obtain some 
 mastery of circumstance. This can be achieved by 
 hope and by steady labour. Whenever effort is 
 
 7
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 abandoned there are the sad refuges of drink and 
 drugs and suicide. 
 
 So I say that to light a candle called Patience we 
 must first of all be quiet, and then we must cherish 
 some hope, and then we must go on with our work, 
 either for the change of circumstance or for the over- 
 coming of circumstance. 
 
 We have great resources. There is a power of 
 endurance in human nature which we know only when 
 it is tested. I have read that nature has given us 
 much more than the capacity for ordinary hearing. 
 I have been told that you may lose half your power 
 of hearing, and be practically unconscious of your 
 loss. There was so much to spare. It is when you 
 have lost a little more than half your power of hear- 
 ing that you begin to be aware of your deficiency. 
 Whether that be so or not, no man knows what he 
 can bear till he is called upon to bear the worst. We 
 were born to suffer as well as to work, and the better 
 we work the better we shall suffer. 
 
 This candle called Patience will often go out ; but 
 it may be re-lighted, and at last it will shine very 
 cheerily. Will the old happiness come back? You 
 may as well ask whether the exuberant delight of 
 childhood, and the boundless hope of youth will come 
 back. They will not return. But something may come 
 in their room which is just as good. A man need not 
 mourn overmuch; but he will never be the same 
 again. Many faults of the old days may well dis- 
 appear, many new virtues take their room. Will the 
 
 8
 
 A CANDLE CALLED PATIENCE 
 
 wounds ever be quite healed? They may be healed, 
 but the scar will remain; and the sword-like pain 
 when we least expect it will again traverse the heart. 
 I have not touched upon religion; but what if this 
 life is our Exile and Captivity, and Death our 
 Return? 
 
 9
 
 CHAPTER H 
 
 " NEVER WEAR A BROWN HAT IN FRIESLAND " 
 
 AN Englishman who travelled in North Holland some 
 fifty years ago brought back from his wanderings 
 this valuable precept, " Never wear a brown hat in 
 Friesland." 
 
 He had taken for his journey a brown felt hat, a 
 hat that had every possible recommendation but one. 
 It was a hat with no headaches in it. It might be 
 bumped, it might be packed, you might sit on it, you 
 might sleep in it, and it was still the same, kindly, 
 comforting, unobtrusive. It was a hat indeed that a 
 man might be buried in. And yet it was not a hat to 
 be worn with impunity in Friesland, for there the 
 natives had strange tastes in headgear. Women wore 
 on their heads a knitted cap, a gilt metal cap, a lace 
 cap, and a straw bonnet surmounting all. The men 
 were scarcely less wonderful to behold, and they were 
 not only proud of their ways, but intolerant of the 
 ways of others. Wherever this traveller went a jeer- 
 ing mob surrounded him. He was laughed at with a 
 most disconcerting and noisy sincerity. It was with 
 great relief that he escaped with his brown hat from 
 Friesland into England. 
 
 There is an obvious moral in the precept, " Never 
 10
 
 "NEVER WEAR A BROWN HAT" 
 
 wear a brown hat in Friesland." It enforces the 
 great value of tact to all who desire to get peaceably, 
 usefully, and happily through the world. Those who 
 are without tact think that all nations can be dealt 
 with in the same way, and all individuals. The tact- 
 ful man is the man who knows better. John Bull is 
 honestly puzzled to understand the intense hostility 
 with which he is regarded in most countries. He 
 means well, and knows that he means well. The fact 
 is that John Bull has persisted, through all his 
 career, in wearing a brown hat in Friesland. The 
 luxury has cost him many millions I dare not say 
 how many. 
 
 But I propose to deal with tact in the treatment of 
 individuals. We begin by saying that tact means 
 touch. It is, as a lexicographer says, fineness of dis- 
 cernment as to action and conduct, especially a fine 
 sense of how to avoid giving offence, an ability to 
 say and do what is best for the intended end. Two 
 things are necessary for tact a kind heart and 
 common sense. Perhaps I should say that for the 
 very finest tact we need both qualities in the super- 
 lative degree. We need love, and we need the highest 
 form of intellectual discernment. We need deliver- 
 ance from the prison-house of self. For the truest 
 tact there must be the widening and falling away of 
 the personal horizon, so that the interests of others 
 replace one's own. 
 
 " And she by tact of love was well aware 
 That Lancelot knew that she was looking at him." 
 11
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 It is love that brings human beings into spiritual 
 alliance, and yet love by itself is not sufficient. Mark 
 Rutherford describes a common tragedy in his unerr- 
 ing way : " His wife was an honest, good little 
 woman, but so much attached to him and so depend- 
 ent on him that she was his mere echo. She had no 
 opinions which were not his, and whenever he said 
 anything which went beyond the ordinary affairs of 
 the house she listened with curious effort, and gen- 
 erally responded by a weakened repetition of M'Kay's 
 own observations. He perpetually, therefore, had 
 before him an enfeebled reflection of himself, and this 
 irritated him, notwithstanding his love for her; for 
 who could help loving a woman who, without the least 
 hesitation, would have opened her veins at his com- 
 mand, and have given up every drop of blood in her 
 body for him? Over and over again I have heard 
 him offer some criticism on a person or event, and the 
 customary chime of approval would ensue, provoking 
 him to such a degree that he would instantly contra- 
 dict himself with much bitterness, leaving poor Mrs. 
 M'Kay in much perplexity. Such a shot as this gen- 
 erally reduced her to timid silence." Lord Chesterfield 
 was wont to say that those who really desired to please 
 were almost sure to please, but there is much virtue 
 in the " almost." When we say that a man is " well- 
 meaning " we usually mean that he is tactless. 
 
 For tact, we need the power of cool reflection, the 
 memory of individual traits, precision of judgment, 
 and practical skill. The tactful man is the man who 
 
 12
 
 "NEVER WEAR A BROWN HAT' 
 
 does not desire to show his own cleverness, who does 
 not delight in his own finesse. There should be no 
 trace of vanity in him, and he ought to be sympa- 
 thetic where sympathy is even tolerated. Have you 
 ever seen the searching looks of a great physician? 
 He fixes his eyes of calm sympathy and regard on 
 his patient ; he listens with that look of helpful atten- 
 tion which is peculiar to the faces of those who have 
 known what suffering is. He will let his eyelids fall 
 and lift them again as he probes once more for the 
 secret which he must read for himself. Before the 
 interview is over, he has found it. There is no tact 
 like the tact needed in dealing with great sufferers. 
 Those who are most skilful in that divine art become 
 by long practice able to read clearly the wants and 
 the weaknesses, and know how to lay their fingers 
 healingly on the sore places. Often, however, in this 
 world we have to study dangerous creatures, and 
 master their natural history. The late Lord Ampthill 
 was considered by good judges one of our very best 
 diplomatists. He was the greatest possible contrast 
 to his relative, Lord John Russell, one of the least 
 tactful of human beings. It is told of Lord Ampthill 
 that during his misssion to Rome he possessed a great 
 boa constrictor, the habits of which he delighted to> 
 study. The creature once escaped when he supposed 
 it to be asleep, wound itself round him, and began 
 gradually to tighten its coils. Lord Ampthill saved 
 himself by remembering that there was a bone in its 
 throat which he could find and break. He very coolly 
 
 13
 
 THE KEY OF. THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 (discovered it, and got rid of Ms dangerous pet. In 
 the same way he studied natures more or less unintelli- 
 gible to him, not to compliment himself on his own 
 acuteness, but to fit himself for his duties. He was 
 perfectly simple; he avoided the snare of being too 
 wily, too strategic, but he could see and hear and 
 think, and he watched others with patient, specula- 
 tive eyes that asked their question again and again, 
 rejecting imperfect answers, till the true answer 
 came. This, it seems to me, was a magnificent exam- 
 ple of tact, and it had its triumph, though Ampthill 
 was never widely known. Vanity, which is one of the 
 great solvents of reticence, was not his. He had the 
 desire for knowledge without the desire to communi- 
 cate it. He used it as the opportunity presented 
 itself, not to magnify himself, but to guide him in 
 wise action. 
 
 This was the tact of a diplomatist, but in every 
 sphere of life, in the home, and in the office, and in 
 society tact is priceless. In some ways perhaps there 
 is an improvement in our manners. You do not meet 
 many of the disagreeable people described in the 
 essays of our ancestors. Your acquaintances do not 
 
 begin sentences with, " What a fool you were to " 
 
 They do not say, " This will blow over, as other 
 follies of yours have blown over." They do not 
 single you out of a company where you are sitting 
 dull and dispirited, and ask why you look so wretched. 
 It seldom happens that even the silliest people tell at 
 table a succession of stories about Mr. Somebody, 
 
 14
 
 "NEVER WEAR A BROWN HAT" 
 
 when Mr. Somebody's daughter is opposite. One 
 lady does not say to another in company, " Pardon 
 me, your false hair is coming down." Nor do we bru- 
 tally remind the old of their frailty. " You must be 
 very tired ; you have been ageing very much of late." 
 Neither are brusqueness and repartee much in fash- 
 ion. I was told by an old friend of Douglas Jerrold 
 that a sensitive man, on being introduced to him, said, 
 " Now, Mr. Jerrold, you must not make a butt of 
 me." " Then why do you bring your hog's head 
 here ? " was the immediate reply. Nowadays if any 
 one made such an answer he would be promptly and 
 deservedly kicked. We have found out the sham of 
 the rough diamond and the rough husk business, and 
 it is highly discredited. As has been said, by the 
 time one has broken one's teeth on a rough husk the 
 tenderness of the kernel has become illusory or value- 
 less. Archbishop Temple was, it may be hoped, the 
 last of the brusque. Nevertheless, tact means much 
 more than the abstinence from brutality. People 
 still say things that they would rather not have said. 
 " I like your book," said a lady to a popular novelist, 
 " and Mr. - - likes it." " I am glad he likes it," 
 was the reply. And still there are people who delight 
 in explanations. There are some things, I am con- 
 vinced, which are better left unexplained. I do not 
 wish that everything should be made clear to me. I 
 hope many sleeping dogs will be allowed to lie. 
 
 The true tact means insight and kindness. Those 
 who have to direct others, employers and teachers, 
 
 15
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 for example, know very well that to get the best from 
 those under them they must carefully study individ- 
 ual characteristics. There are many who never do 
 their best work unless a strong hand is upon them. 
 They have to be taught obedience to rule. When 
 they learn that they are happy and go well. Others, 
 again, answer best to appeals to their reason. If 
 they understand why they should take a certain way, 
 they will take it, but they are never happy in the 
 dark. Others again and these are the finest natures 
 will do anything and everything for love. 
 
 One of the best examples of the lower form of tact 
 was that of Sidney Godolphin, who plays so large a 
 part in Macaulay's History. I know that historians 
 do not judge his character very favourably, though 
 there is some difference of opinion. But he held his 
 position as few have held it through the stormiest 
 times, and he received from Charles n. a very fine 
 compliment. That monarch praised him as a man 
 who was " never in the way and never out of the way." 
 I venture to think that Sir Leslie Stephen under- 
 values this commendation. Those who are never in 
 the way and never out of the way are not easily 
 found, and they are not easily parted with. Sidney 
 Godolphin was born in. 1645. He entered Parlia- 
 ment in 1668, and he left office finally in 1710, dying 
 in 1712. When his relations to James, to Mary of 
 Modena, to William, to Marlborough and his Duch- 
 ess, and to Queen Anne, are considered, we may be 
 sure that Godolphin, whatever his weaknesses, was a 
 
 16
 
 "NEVER WEAR A BROWN HAT" 
 
 man of the most exquisite tact. He must have been 
 something more than a diplomatist. He must have 
 made himself agreeable and necessary to men and 
 women of the most varied types. But the true tact, 
 I repeat, is the tact of love, the tact of those men and 
 women who are always doing some good, relieving the 
 burdened, and holding up the stumblers. The lives 
 of their fellows are surer in their brightness and 
 braver in their shadows because such hearts have 
 touched them. 
 
 17
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE KEY OP THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 IN the Mill on the Floss, Mrs. Pullet gloomily reflects 
 as to the incapacity of her husband to unravel the 
 mystery of her keys in case of her decease. 
 
 " * I don't know what you mean to do, sister Glegg, 
 but I mean to give him (Tom) a tablecloth of all my 
 three biggest sizes but one, besides sheets. I don't 
 say what more I shall do ; but that I shall do, and if 
 I should die to-morrow, Mr. Pullet, you'll bear it in 
 mind though you'll be blundering with the keys, 
 and never remember as that on the third shelf of the 
 left-hand wardrobe, behind the nightcaps with the 
 broad ties not the narrow frilled uns is the key o' 
 the drawer in the Blue Room, where the key o' the 
 Blue Closet is. You '11 make a mistake, and I shall 
 never be worthy to know it. You 've a memory for 
 my pills and draughts wonderful, I '11 always say that 
 of you; but you're lost among the keys.' This 
 gloomy prospect of the confusion that would ensue 
 on her decease was very affecting to Mrs. Pullet." 
 
 Why do we miss so much those who have gone 
 beyond our reach in this world? Is it not because 
 they have taken with them a key? It may be the key 
 to vast and glorious and richly stored halls and 
 
 18
 
 chambers full of music and beauty and inspiration. 
 Or it may be the key to a little bare room no more 
 than a closet but the warmth of love was in it, and 
 it was good to be there. The doors remain, and we 
 are always coming up against them, always wishing 
 to pass through them. But these doors are fast. 
 When Coleridge died, Charles Lamb could not get 
 the thought of him out of his mind. He never fairly 
 recovered. His mind ran on the theme till he joined 
 his friend, with a constant turning and reference. 
 " He interrupted himself and his friends, almost 
 every incident, with some play of affected wonder or 
 astonishment or humorous melancholy on the words 
 Coleridge is dead. Nothing could divert him from 
 that, for the thought of it never left him." He said 
 himself : " His great and dear spirit haunts me 
 he was my fifty years' old friend without a 
 dissension. Never saw I his likeness, nor probably 
 the world can see again. I seem to love the house he 
 died at more passionately than when he lived. I love 
 the faithful Gilmans more than while they exercised 
 their virtues towards him living. What was his man- 
 sion is consecrated to me a chapel." When Byron 
 died Alfred Tennyson, who was a boy of fourteen, 
 carved on a rock the words, " Byron is dead." It 
 was, he said afterwards, " a day when the whole 
 world seemed to be darkened for me." When Dryden 
 died, as Macaulay says, his secret was buried in his 
 grave. Many felt the same thing about Tennyson, 
 especially when they read the last lines beginning 
 
 19
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 "When the dumb Hour, clothed in black, 
 Brings the Dreams about my bed." 
 
 They are as simple as simple can be, and yet no one 
 before Tennyson could ever have written them. Nor 
 is it likely that any one capable of the same achieve- 
 ment will ever be born again. There were many, both 
 of those who loved Mr. Gladstone and those who did 
 not, who felt with a thrill of conviction when they 
 heard of his passing, that for good or for evil, such 
 an assemblage of qualities would never be incarnated 
 in a human form again. 
 
 These are instances which every one can readily 
 add to from his own experiences. What we are more 
 apt to forget unless bereavement touches us very 
 closely, is that the small in this world are as unique 
 as the great. Nothing is more untrue than the saying 
 that most people are as much alike as coins of the 
 realm, and might almost have been struck out like 
 coins from the same die. It seems so when we pass a 
 judgment on those of whom we know little or nothing. 
 Those whom we really know, with whom we have 
 entered into intimacies of relation, assure us of their 
 uniqueness. The mould was broken after the first 
 impression had been cast. Perhaps it is the unique- 
 ness of single qualities, more than the uniqueness of 
 their combination, that attracts human beings one to 
 the other. When the end comes there is in a little 
 circle of humble people the same feeling as is stirred 
 in a wider world when a great man falls like a tower. 
 A door is closed, the key is gone with the vanished 
 
 20
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 hand. This may mean comparatively little. There 
 was one with whom at intervals of years we held such 
 talk as we never had with any other. There was one 
 theme on which we could speak, and no two besides. 
 But though it was pleasant to enter this blue closet 
 and feel that we could enter it when we pleased, the 
 experience did not count for very much in the com- 
 plexity of life, and we have forgotten it now. It may 
 mean ever so much, and yet life may be possible and 
 even sweet in spite of the loss. Other keys may be 
 found opening to other chambers. 
 
 Mr. Henry James speaks with his usual sugges- 
 tiveness about Robert Browning, and the amazing 
 contrast between the comparatively idyllic Italian 
 time spent with his wife, and the rich and ample 
 period, full of felicities and prosperities, which fol- 
 lowed it. It was not that the passion and the romance 
 of that wonderful love had vanished. One might 
 think so, sometimes, in seeing the later Browning in 
 London society, genial, accomplished, and to all 
 seeming perfectly content. Mr. James says : " The 
 poet and the member of society were, in a word, dis- 
 sociated in him as they can rarely elsewhere have 
 been ; so that, for the observer impressed with this 
 oddity, the image I began by using quite of necessity 
 completed itself : the wall that built out the idyll (as 
 we call it for convenience), of which memory and 
 imagination were virtually composed for him, stood 
 there behind him solidly enough, but subject to his 
 privilege of living almost equally on both sides of it. 
 
 21
 
 It contained an invisible door through which, work- 
 ing the lock at will, he could softly pass, and of 
 which he kept the golden key, carrying the same 
 about with him even in the pocket of his dinner waist- 
 coat, yet even in his most splendid expansions show- 
 ing it, happy man, to none. Such, at least, was the 
 appearance he could repeatedly conjure up to a deep 
 and mystified admirer." This may not be the exact 
 truth, but it shows a subtle insight. There are, 
 again, instances where the departing take all the 
 keys with them, and the survivor dies indeed. In 
 the lower planes of life this is true. Most unions, 
 whether for business or for Ipve, leave the two who 
 unite quite distinct. They are influenced one by the 
 other, but the individuality is retained. There are 
 cases, however, where to combine is to form a new 
 substance. Many years ago a great and apparently 
 prosperous business was built up in London. The 
 head seemed to be carrying everything before him in 
 his own line. After a certain point there were cracks 
 here and there in the great structure, and in the end 
 there came total collapse. One man closely convers- 
 ant with the facts told me that the tide turned when 
 the confidential clerk of the head partner died. His 
 master was accustomed to consult him about every- 
 thing, and he knew how to advise. I think it is much 
 more likely that the head and the clerk were what 
 they were only because of their union, and that if 
 either had been taken the failure would have come 
 just as it did. There have been journals which have
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 gone on very prosperously for a time. Two men have 
 been credited with the success. One of these men 
 leaves, and the particular flavour of the paper is 
 gone, and its prosperity steadily declines. People 
 say, interpreting roughly, that the man who remains 
 was very much overrated, and that the brains and the 
 ideas were with the other. But if the other had 
 remained and his friend had gone, he would have 
 taken the life out of the journal in the same way. 
 Neither could do much standing alone, but when they 
 came together there was that in their union which 
 achieved triumph. Happy marriages are very com- 
 mon, but the perfect marriage of union is very rare. 
 A recent writer has quoted from Gogol's Dead Souls 
 the story of a married couple with an unpronounce- 
 able name. They were neither young nor specially 
 moral. " They were ordinary sinners, inefficient, 
 careless, selfish, slothful. Their house was badly 
 managed, even dirty, and they were not too rich, and 
 they had been married many years. Both were 
 rather despicable, but they had a way of breaking 
 off suddenly in the midst of their occupations and 
 diversions and exchanging a long, long kiss. They 
 did not know why they did this ; something myste- 
 rious urged them to do it, and they called each other 
 by pet names, and in short," says Gogol, " they were 
 what is called happy." To such people nothing 
 matters so long as they are together, neither mis- 
 fortunes nor faults. They realise permanently the 
 sufficiency of one soul to another, but to them sever-
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 ance means the collapse and death of the one who 
 goes second. 
 
 When John Keble's wife at Bournemouth heard of 
 her husband's death, she asked them to keep his grave 
 open till she should be ready to join him, and I think 
 she only lived a week. The author of Sandford and 
 Merton strangely accomplished a perfect marriage. 
 Thomas Day was peculiar to the last degree, and his 
 notions about matrimony were such that he could 
 hardly expect to find the helpmeet he desired. He 
 specified as his requirements a combination of the 
 spirit of a Roman matron with the simplicity and 
 physical health of a Highland mountaineer, and the 
 culture of a London blue-stocking. He demanded in 
 addition that the lady should be tall, strong, and 
 healthy, and should possess white and large arms. 
 He further insisted that his wife should join him in 
 retiring into the country, in abandoning luxuries, 
 pleasures, and society, and dividing everything 
 beyond what was necessary for the ordinary comforts 
 of life to the poor. Strange to say, he found a lady 
 to agree to these terms, and stranger still, Mrs. Day 
 remained a devoted wife to the day of her husband's 
 death, and when he died was inconsolable for his loss. 
 Though a bad horseman Day insisted on riding an 
 unbroken colt. The colt shied during the journey, 
 and Day was thrown on his head, receiving such inju- 
 ries that he died within an hour. His wife never 
 afterward saw the sun. " She lay in bed, into the 
 curtain of which no light was admitted during the
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 day ; and only rose to stray alone through her garden 
 when night gave her sorrows congenial gloom. She 
 survived her adored husband only two years, and 
 then died broken-hearted for his loss." In one of Dr. 
 Weir Mitchell's stories, that novelist, who is even 
 more famous as a physician than as a novelist, 
 describes with wonderful suggestiveness a union of 
 this kind. When it ends, all things came to an end 
 for this world. 
 
 I shall not attempt to point the moral other than 
 very briefly. There is a key left to most of us that 
 takes us into the chamber of memory, and that key 
 should be oftener used. 
 
 "Thou a postern-door canst ope 
 To humble chambers of the self-same palace, 
 Where Memory lodges and her sister Hope." 
 
 As for the great dead, they have left us the treasure 
 of their works and lives, and we are poor indeed 
 unless we enter into the heritage of the past. Mr. 
 Newbolt's noble lines may be quoted: 
 
 "Drake he's in his hammock an' a thousand mile away, 
 
 (Capten, art tha sleepin' there below?) 
 Swung atween the round shot in Nombre Dios Bay, 
 
 An' dreamin' arl the time o' Plymouth Hoe. 
 Yarnder lumes the Island, yarnder lie the ships, 
 
 Wi' sailor lads a-dancin' heel-an'-toe, 
 An' the shore-lights flashin' an' the night-tide dashin', 
 
 He sees et arl so plainly as he saw et long ago. 
 
 "Drake, he was a Devon man, an' rilled the Devon seas, 
 
 (Capten, art tha sleepin' there below?) 
 Rovin' tho' his death fell, he went wi' heart at ease, 
 An' dreamin' arl the time o' Plymouth Hoe. 
 
 25
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 'Take my drum to England, hang et by the shore, 
 Strike et when your powder's runnin' low: 
 
 If the Dons sight Devon, I'll quit the port o' Heaven, 
 An' drum them up the Channel as we drummed them 
 long ago.' 
 
 "Drake he's in his hammock till the great Armadas come, 
 
 (Capten, art tha sleepin' there below?) 
 Slung atween the round shot, listenin' for the drum, 
 
 An' dreamin' arl the time o' Plymouth Hoe. 
 Call him on the deep sea, call him up the Sound, 
 
 Call him when ye sail to meet the foe; 
 Where the old trade's plyin' an' the old flag flyin' 
 
 They shall find him ware an' wakin' as they found him 
 long ago ! " 
 
 To those who have lived much in the life of the 
 affections there comes a time when the memory of loss 
 is little more than a promise of more perfect gain.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE GOODMAN'S CROFT 
 
 THAT excellent chronicler, Robert Chambers, tells us 
 that about two hundred and fifty years ago there 
 still lingered in Scotland some traces of an ancient 
 and curious superstition. It was a practice to keep 
 a certain field out of those constituting a farm, con- 
 secrated to " the Goodman," by whom was designated 
 the potentate of the lower regions. This field was 
 called the Goodman's Croft a term evidently used 
 to soothe and propitiate an evil and formidable 
 power which men felt it was difficult to combat. The 
 Goodman's Croft might be the best piece of land in 
 the district, but it remained untilled and unreaped. 
 It was in eternal fallow, and covered thick with weeds, 
 a blot and a nuisance among the useful fields around 
 it. Synods fulminated against it; clergymen used 
 particular persuasives to get the practice abol- 
 ished, but the Goodman's Croft was nevertheless 
 maintained in many places till the time of the Civil 
 War. 
 
 The superstition has a real vindication in human 
 nature, and illustrations of its existence lie close to 
 hand, and are of daily experience. Thus in its most 
 
 27
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 terrific form it shows itself as a double life. The 
 Bishop of London has declared that he knew men who 
 made a great profession and were assiduous support- 
 ers of the Church, who had a secret evil life which 
 they managed to screen from the world. Nobody 
 can live long in London 'and know much of what is 
 passing without being painfully aware of this. I 
 could mention two or three men whose names would 
 be recognised by every reader, who turned out when 
 they died to have followed courses of action which for 
 their wickedness and for their daring seemed simply 
 incredible. These men were famous in Church and in 
 State; they were respected and beloved in their own 
 legitimate households ; but the breath was hardly out 
 of their bodies when it became known that they had 
 been wearing a mask. I will not dwell on this painful 
 fact. 
 
 Let us turn to others more familiar and more 
 endurable. How often does it happen that a man 
 who is shrewd and judicious in his own pursuit 
 strains away towards another in which he is practi- 
 cally insane. There is no particular harm when a 
 man who is an expert in business sets up privately as 
 a poet. He can perhaps afford the time to write and 
 the money to publish his verses. One of the very 
 ablest and most distinguished business men I have 
 ever known imagined that he had a great turn for 
 theological and Biblical criticism, and continued to 
 the end of his life sending me articles on subjects of 
 which he did not understand the very alphabet. 
 
 28
 
 THE GOODMAN'S CROFT 
 
 Often the Goodman's Croft is more costly. A man is 
 engaged in a good sound business, which will flourish 
 if he attends to it. He is not satisfied, however, and 
 starts a business of another kind with the result that 
 he loses the old and fails in the new. The tendency 
 to speculation on the part of men otherwise prudent 
 is a familiar fact. It is said that this tendency to 
 establish a Goodman's Croft is particularly strong 
 in men of the artistic temperament. A great novelist 
 fancies that he has a turn for writing verse, and 
 goes on writing them till his reputation disappears. 
 The legitimate task has little of the finer force of his 
 mind, and he does not care for its success. A 
 clever lawyer will take it into his head that his busi- 
 ness is to refute Darwin, and the result may be 
 foreseen. 
 
 However, I propose to give the matter another 
 turn. It goes without saying, that we have all our 
 faults and limitations. There is an uncultivated field 
 in every one's mind, but this does not become a Good- 
 man's Croft until we boast of it. When we do that 
 we hand it over to the devil and help him to extend it, 
 for the area of life that is deliberately surrendered 
 to evil tends to widen and widen. Our limitations 
 may never be got rid of. We may be compelled to 
 acquiesce in them resignedly, and to confess them 
 humbly. Against our faults we must wage a con- 
 stant fight, though in this life we can never com- 
 pletely triumph over them. But to boast of the 
 waste space, to abandon it over to nettles, hen- 
 
 29
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 bane, and deadly nightshade, is a form of devil 
 worship. 
 
 How often do we hear people actually boasting of 
 their temper ! " As you know me I am very quiet, 
 but wait till my temper is roused, and you will see 
 the roof blown off." " My temper was up, and I gave 
 it him hot." It is certain that temperless people are 
 of small use in the world, but temper needs to be kept 
 under perfect control. It is right sometimes to be 
 stern, to speak resolutely and decisively, to rebuke 
 folly, and carelessness, and wickedness. But even 
 then there should be a measure. If there is no meas- 
 ure the result is devastation. People who habitually 
 lose their tempers on small provocation may be feared 
 in their households and offices. There are advan- 
 tages, as has been said, in being a cantankerous 
 fool. 
 
 But such people are never loved. They never get 
 the best service of any one. The indulgence of tem- 
 per is responsible perhaps for more heart-wreck and 
 home-wreck than almost anything else in the world. 
 This is a Croft that most surely tends to enlarge. 
 The end of the man of temper is generally a very 
 lonely, loveless, and remorseful death. 
 
 Closely akin to this is the practice of rudeness, the 
 use of strong language on all occasion. That admir- 
 able observer Dickens has given us many examples. 
 There was Cholloy. 
 
 " Our fellow-countryman is a model of a man, quite fresh 
 from Nature's mould," said Pogram, with enthusiasm. " He 
 
 30
 
 THE GOODMAN'S CROFT 
 
 is a true-born child of this free hemisphere verdant as the 
 mountains of our country; bright and flowing as our mineral 
 Licks; unspiled by withering conventionalities as air our broad 
 and boundless Perearers! Rough he may be: so air our Barrs. 
 Wild he may be; so air our Buffaloes. But he is a child of 
 Natur', and a child of Freedom; and his boastful answer to 
 the Despot and the Tyrant is, that his bright home is in the 
 Settin' Sun." 
 
 J. B. in Dombey and Son is another. 
 
 *' But when my friend Dombey, sir," added the major, " talks 
 to you of Major Bagstock, I must crave leave to set him and 
 you right. He means plain Joe, sir Joey B. Josh Bag- 
 stock Joseph rough and tumble. Old J., sir. At your 
 service." 
 
 Mr. Carker's excessively friendly inclinations towards the 
 major, and Mr. Carker's admiration of his roughness, tough- 
 ness, and plainness, gleamed out of every tooth in Mr. Carker's 
 head. 
 
 People of this type are perhaps not quite so numer- 
 ous as they once were, but there are too many. " I 
 never speak sponges," " I always say what I think," 
 " I am a blunt, plain fellow " this kind of thing 
 almost invariably means that the speaker is a rude, 
 unfeeling, overbearing boor. He has escaped in some 
 way the ordinary discipline, and has actually become 
 proud of his own insolence. There are few traits 
 more objectionable. In our complex modern life tact 
 and courtesy have become supreme virtues. They 
 alleviate the troubles of existence to an incredible 
 extent. They further the true ends of life more than 
 can easily be believed. As for strong language, there 
 
 31
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 is a place for it, but for rude language, for idle, dis- 
 proportionate vehemence, for furious epithets used 
 at random, there is no place at all. If there has to be 
 a choice between the two it is infinitely better to be 
 dull than to be exaggerated. A scrupulous sense of 
 justice and the faintest touch of kindness would 
 make much that passes for plain speaking quite 
 impossible. I cannot help thinking, however, that on 
 this side there is an improvement. The slasher used 
 to occupy quite a recognised place in journalism, 
 but he has fallen on evil days. 
 
 Another way of assigning a Croft to the Goodman 
 is to excuse the neglect of one department of duty by 
 attention to another. There is no function in life 
 that has not various sides. In whatever occupation 
 you are your work is more or less diversified. It is 
 impossible to be equally successful in all the depart- 
 ments of one's work, but an honest effort should be 
 made. 
 
 Reading over the chronicles of the South African 
 war, one can see that the source of most failures 
 was here. One General, for example, had cour- 
 age, but he had no tactics. Another was an excellent 
 disciplinarian, but he did not attend to scouting. 
 Another managed to feed his men, but he could not 
 lead them. I once heard a minister say : " I detest 
 visiting, and do not attempt it; the pulpit is my 
 throne." He was in no way distinguished as a 
 preacher. Very probably he was better adapted for 
 preaching than for visiting, but it was his business 
 
 32
 
 THE GOODMAN'S CROFT 
 
 to do the best he could in both departments. He was 
 a lost man when he actually bragged of his deficiency. 
 He had assigned his Croft. That accomplished 
 scholar, the late Roundell Palmer, was plucked at the 
 University in his entrance examination. He had not 
 paid attention to mathematics, and was floored by a 
 proposition in Euclid. Characteristically he resolved 
 to go in for honours in mathematics, and his brilliant 
 University career prepared the way for his forensic 
 triumphs. 
 
 I have never heard in my life any one boast of 
 being a miser, and perhaps there are not many misers 
 in these days, though meanness is still quite common. 
 But men will boast about being good-hearted, free 
 with their money, extravagant. They will tell you 
 that they never could save. " I could never be both- 
 ered with accounts." They do not know what their 
 income is or what their expenditure is. Such people 
 are often very popular for their day ; they are lavish 
 in their hospitality, and they get the credit of being 
 kind-hearted, though I doubt whether they are. How 
 many men who are throwing away money which does 
 not belong to them in the fashionable restaurants of 
 London do anything for the poor? When they 
 become bankrupt, those who suffer are hard-working, 
 honest tradesmen, who as a rule earn their money 
 with difficulty. It is they who pay for these ban- 
 quets. One of the cruellest things in the world is 
 to see industrious, conscientious, faithful workers 
 ruined by these scoundrels who have passed for good- 
 
 33
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 hearted, and who have boasted of their inability to 
 add up figures. 
 
 There are many who are heavily handicapped all 
 their days by physical weakness or by positive ill- 
 health, and they need to have a care in this connec- 
 tion. " When I last saw you," said Emerson in his 
 incisive way to a man, " you were bragging of your 
 ill-health." There are many who do the like. Dick- 
 ens has given us the classical example in Mrs. 
 Wititterly, who had an air of sweet insipidity, and a 
 face of engaging paleness. There was a faded look 
 about her, and about the furniture, and about the 
 house. " Your soul is much too large for your body," 
 said Mr. Wititterly. " Your intellect wears you out ; 
 all the medical men say so you know that there is 
 not a physician who is not proud of being called in 
 to you. What is their unanimous declaration ? ' My 
 dear doctor,' said I to Sir Tumley Sniffim in this very 
 room, the very last time he came * My dear doctor, 
 what is my wife's complaint? Tell me all, I can bear 
 it. Is it nerves ? ' * My dear fellow,' he said, * be 
 proud of that woman make much of her; she is an 
 ornament to the fashionable world and to you. Her 
 complaint is soul. It swells, expands, dilates the 
 blood fires, the pulse quickens, the excitement in- 
 creases whew ! ' " Mrs. Wititterly proved to Kate 
 Nickleby a very vulgar tyrant. The less sickly 
 people say about their health the better. Hazlitt, 
 who was not a cruel man by nature, said he detested 
 sick people so much that he wished he could kill them. 
 
 34
 
 THE GOODMAN'S CROFT 
 
 I have no doubt that he was referring to those who 
 bragged about their sickness. It is almost worse to 
 make ill-health an excuse for neglected duty. A man 
 should undertake no more than he can do. Bad 
 health is a capital excuse for a dispensation from 
 laborious pleasures. The invalid must stay at home 
 and learn if possible to enjoy the quietude. It is also 
 an excellent reason for declining outside engage- 
 ments. But when it is flaunted in one's face as a 
 reason for this transgression and that, it becomes so 
 odious that one enters into a deep fellowship with 
 Hazlitt. Chronic ill-health is undoubtedly the Good- 
 man's Croft of many people. It is excuse for every 
 kind of lapse, and a more irritating excuse it would 
 be very hard to find. 
 
 " I never read anything," said a clergyman the 
 other day ; " I have no time for books." Said another 
 man : " I could never read Scott, I was never able to 
 get beyond the first chapter of any of his books." 
 Well, I can conceive these statements being made 
 humbly, honestly, and inoffensively. It is quite true 
 that there are worthy people who can see nothing in 
 Scott. They are much to be pitied, and they ought 
 to pity themselves, as their failure to appreciate 
 Scott means a strange mental incapacity. They 
 would act wisely in saying little about it. There are 
 very good excuses at certain periods of life for not 
 reading books. I have just been reading Madame 
 Roland's letters to her husband, written in the first 
 months of her marriage from Amiens. She was in
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 the full tide of a young wife's happiness, and the 
 epistles are delightful, full of details about her 
 housekeeping and her marketing. She was quite 
 unable to conceive how her husband could care for 
 such things as politics and the American war ! When 
 one thinks of the part she played in the suc- 
 ceeding years all this reads very strangely. But 
 it records what was perhaps the most delightful 
 and joyous period of her tragical, passionate his- 
 tory. 
 
 But what would Madame Roland have been if she 
 had never read at all? What is the use of any 
 preacher who never reads? He may go on for a 
 time on the stores he has accumulated or with a fresh 
 experience, but in the end he must store his mind or 
 starve. What companionship or comradeship could 
 there be in the woman who never opens a book ? There 
 is another familiar phrase : " I am not a scholar, 
 
 but " This usually means that some grossly 
 
 illiterate person is dogmatically settling a question 
 which can be judged only by the educated. 
 
 The last example I shall give is very familiar. 
 Who has not heard the expression, " I do not pretend 
 to be a saint " ? It is usually an ominous phrase. If 
 a man pretends to be a saint he is as a rule an odious 
 hypocrite. To profess the lack of sainthood and to 
 deplore it may be legitimate enough, but to say in a 
 boast, " I do not pretend to be a saint," generally 
 means that a man is allowing himself liberty to do 
 
 36
 
 THE GOODMAN'S CROFT 
 
 wrong, and that is to hand over the Croft to the 
 Goodman. 
 
 To sum up, if you watch for the characteristic you 
 must often claim for yourself, you will generally dis- 
 cover your chief point of danger.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 DR. ROBERT A. NEIL 
 
 I HAVE seldom had a greater shock than I experi- 
 enced on opening the Times of Thursday, June 20th, 
 1901. It contained the announcement of the un- 
 expected and almost sudden death of Dr. Robert A. 
 Neil, Fellow and Senior Tutor of Pembroke College, 
 Cambridge. Dr. Neil was the most intimate friend 
 and companion of my college days. If ever a man 
 seemed to be marked out for a long life it was he. I 
 do not remember his ever having a day's illness, but 
 he caught a chill, peritonitis supervened, and in a 
 very short time his useful and honoured life was pre- 
 maturely ended. So we are from time to time made 
 to realise that the ground beneath us which seems so 
 solid and substantial is as unstable as any gossamer. 
 Dr. Neil was unique in his way, even from the first. 
 His father, the Rev. Robert Neil, parish minister of 
 Glengairn, near Ballater, and my father were at col- 
 lege and long after like very brothers, and there is 
 still in existence much of their voluminous corre- 
 spondence. They differed vehemently on the ques- 
 tion which divided the Scottish Church at the Dis- 
 ruption; but though their intimacy ended, their 
 friendship was maintained to the last, and so when I 
 met young Robert Neil at the Grammar School of 
 
 38
 
 DR. ROBERT A. NEIL 
 
 Aberdeen, we were prepared to associate, and we did 
 so with a vengeance. He and I were, if I am not 
 mistaken, the two youngest students in the class when 
 he entered the University. He had not completed 
 his fourteenth year; at any rate, if he had, he had 
 only just completed it. He came to the Grammar 
 School six months before, after being trained by his 
 father at home. He was not at that time strong in 
 Greek, nor particularly strong in Latin. We were 
 beside each other on the Bursary list, he one step 
 higher than I; but no sooner had he entered 
 the Greek class, under Professor Geddes, than his 
 extraordinary and special gift manifested itself. 
 His verbal memory was like nothing I have ever seen 
 in this world. He was a born linguist. He would 
 take Liddell and Scott's dictionary, and with his feet 
 on the fender read over a page, and then hand over 
 the book to me. I would find that he could give prac- 
 tically the English word for every Greek word just 
 by means of the one reading. The teaching of 
 Geddes, who was a scholar of the old type with the 
 scholar's passion, particularly stimulated him, and 
 from his first hour in the class he was deeply inter- 
 ested. The deficiencies of his previous teaching 
 counted for nothing with a man so gifted. I doubt 
 whether his rapid and wonderful progress was known 
 to the class generally, but every one knew it at the 
 end of the session. Never shall I forget seeing him 
 called up to receive the first prize in the Greek class. 
 He looked such a child, with the shy, wistful, inno- 
 
 39
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 cent look of the child, when he went up amid the 
 enthusiastic cheers of his fellow-students to receive 
 it, and I need not say that it was presented very 
 graciously. From that time onward his position was 
 secured, though one very able student, happily still 
 with us, disputed it even in classics. Wherever the 
 gift of a verbal memory came in he was supreme. In 
 the Natural History class he took nearly the highest 
 place; not that he was particularly interested in 
 Natural History, but because the long classifications 
 which others toiled and sweated over fixed themselves 
 in his mind at once. He was able to write them out 
 on paper after giving them the attention of five 
 minutes. 
 
 I know that many people have a poor opinion of 
 the linguistic faculty. Charles Lever, in that reper- 
 tory of wit and wisdom which he wrote under the 
 signature of Cornelius O'Dowd, speaks with wither- 
 ing contempt of the linguist, and of the man who can 
 play games. He asks whether a great linguist has 
 ever shown any powers of mind, whether an expert in 
 chess has made his mark in anything else, and re- 
 serves his sharpest stings for the man who is an 
 accomplished pianist. He makes a reservation in 
 favour of the skilful whist player. No doubt Lever 
 had a good deal to say for his case, but Neil was a 
 great linguist, and something more. From the very 
 first his mind worked incessantly on the questions of 
 the day. He was brought up in the atmosphere of 
 Conservatism, and he was always a Conservative in 
 
 40
 
 DR. ROBERT A. NEIL 
 
 politics. Being on the other side I had many boyish 
 debates with him. He was discouraged by the ten- 
 dencies of the time, but comforted himself in the 
 prospect of a Conservative reaction. This he never 
 ceased to predict most confidently, and in his later 
 years he saw a more triumphant fulfilment of his 
 dreams than he could ever have anticipated. Though 
 very ardent in the advocacy of his own convictions, 
 he was good-tempered in argument. There was a 
 touch of fire in him as boy and man ; he was of the 
 true Scottish breed, earnest, persevering, very self- 
 reliant, warm-hearted to his friends, with just a leaf 
 of the thistle in his bonnet. 
 
 Notwithstanding his great devotion to his studies, 
 he was keenly interested in literature and journalism, 
 and was a constant frequenter of the news-room. He 
 used to say that he would not mind where his lot in 
 life was cast if there was a good news-room within 
 twenty minutes' walk of him. But his great charac- 
 teristic was his unceasing flow of humour. He was 
 a true humourist, able to put everything in a quaint 
 light. As a correspondent I do not think I ever knew 
 his equal. For years after we separated, each to take 
 up his own work in life, we corresponded continually, 
 and I possess somewhere many of his letters. I shall 
 be thought guilty of extravagance when I say that 
 these letters reminded me more of Charles Lamb's 
 letters than any others I have seen either in manu- 
 script or in print. 
 
 When he triumphantly took his degree at Aber- 
 41
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 ideen University, he was for some time undecided 
 about his future. He thought of being a doctor, and 
 attended medical classes for a certain period. There, 
 too, his memory and general keenness came in, and he 
 was a prize-winner in chemistry at least, if not in 
 other subjects. The excellent professor of chemistry 
 at that time had a rather quaint way of speaking. 
 He was wont to pause frequently with the view of 
 giving intensity to his observations. When he gave 
 Neil the prize, he remarked, " And I must say Mr. 
 Neil that you RICHLY DESERVE IT." Neil was also 
 occupied in the University Library, but I do not 
 think he was ever quite happy or settled in the study 
 of medicine. We met very often, and both of us took 
 part in the University Literary Society. He found 
 his true place in life when he finally decided on going 
 up to Cambridge. 
 
 It was recognised in Cambridge from the begin- 
 ning that a scholar of no ordinary type had come 
 upon the scene. After many preliminary successes 
 he came out as Second Classic and Craven Scholar. 
 He used to say himself I do not know with what 
 truth, for he was the most modest of men that there 
 were many to surpass him in Greek composition, but 
 that he could hold his own in translation. However 
 that may be, he obtained such honours as were within 
 the reach of a Cambridge Don. He became Fellow 
 and Tutor of Pembroke College, and the beautiful 
 rooms which in the minds of many will be perma- 
 nently associated with his name were just over the 
 
 42
 
 DR. ROBERT A. NEIL 
 
 archway. There he settled down and remained to 
 the end of his life. The rooms were exquisitely fur- 
 nished and enriched with the spoils of his travel, with 
 Persian rugs and carpets of high value, and with 
 many precious and richly bound books. The space 
 he had for books was limited, and the result was that 
 his store was more and more carefully sifted each 
 year. I found among them up to the last visit 
 I paid him the volume I gave him at our parting in 
 Aberdeen. It was a copy of Andrew Lang's Ballads 
 and Lyrics of Old France, the best book, in my 
 humble judgment, Mr. Lang has ever written. He 
 presented me with a copy of Poems and Romances, 
 by George Augustus Simcox, always valued by me, 
 and now more valued than ever. Others who know 
 can speak, and have spoken, of the great position 
 which Neil took in the University of Cambridge, a 
 position which grew more and more with every pass- 
 ing year. He was one of those men who are born for 
 influence and do not need to seek it. Loyal to the 
 heart's core, he threw himself with ardour into all the 
 concerns of the University, and his own special work 
 was done as well as he knew how to do it. He fol- 
 lowed with eagerness the progress of classical re- 
 search on the Continent and in America, and never 
 allowed himself to fall behind. His pupils had the 
 benefit of his unsparing devotion, and of his kind 
 consideration, for he was essentially kind and cour- 
 teous. He disliked everything in the nature of acri- 
 mony, never, so far as I know, allowed himself to be- 
 
 43
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 come angry in controversy, and carefully respected 
 the feelings of the humblest. He was a staunch 
 friend, and had among his intimates some of the best 
 men in Cambridge. In particular, he entered into 
 the closest relations with Robertson Smith when that 
 distinguished scholar went to Cambridge, and fre- 
 quently travelled with him in Europe and the East. 
 There is no harm now in saying that the article on 
 Robertson Smith which appeared at the time of his 
 death in the Bookman was written by Neil. It was 
 a careful summary of the main facts in Robertson 
 Smith's career, and Neil characteristically dwelt on 
 the fact that Robertson Smith was essentially moder- 
 ate in his views. They came together in politics 
 at the time of the Home Rule split, when Robertson 
 Smith, who had been an ardent Liberal, separated 
 himself from the main body of his party. He also 
 mentioned in that article the interesting fact that 
 Robertson Smith thought there was more religion in 
 England than in Scotland. 
 
 This leads me to say that Neil's powers did not 
 appear at their best in writing, I mean, in writing 
 for publication. No one could dash off a more scin- 
 tillating letter, but when he took his pen in hand to 
 address the public he became constrained and stiff. 
 This he knew well, and editors found him most difficult 
 to persuade. In early years he occasionally helped 
 me with reviews in the Aberdeen Journal, and he con- 
 tributed now and then to the Cambridge Review, 
 though the only article I can call to mind was one on 
 
 44
 
 DR. ROBERT A. NEIL 
 
 Omar Khayyam. He was a subject on which Neil 
 was eminently qualified to write, for he had made 
 himself a great Sanskrit scholar, and was closely 
 associated with E. B. Cowell, the real instigator of 
 Fitz-Gerald's translation. But somehow the paper 
 missed fire. One felt that the writer could have said 
 a great deal, but something hindered him. But if 
 he did not write himself he was very helpful to others 
 who did, was ready to read proofs and make valuable 
 suggestions. This, of course, was mainly in editions 
 of the classics, but there was one exception at least. 
 He was very proud of Thomas Gray's connection 
 with Pembroke College, and assisted Mr. Gosse in 
 his valuable labours on that poet. The books he 
 published in his lifetime are both in the department 
 of Sanskrit, and offer nothing except to specialists. 
 But for many years of his life he was engaged on 
 an edition of Aristophanes. He did not live to pub- 
 lish it. He was very fastidious; he would wait for 
 the next German edition ; and so the work was post- 
 poned and postponed. A man who was at once so 
 diligent in his own business and so responsive to social 
 claims had little time to spare. Since his death his 
 work has appeared, and has been warmly received 
 both at home and abroad. 
 
 Dr. Neil continued his interest in literature at least 
 for many years after he left Aberdeen, and at one 
 time was a member of the Savile Club. I think, how- 
 ever, that for the last few years he was more at home 
 with his Cambridge friends than with London literary 
 
 45
 
 THE KEY OF. THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 men. He studied Robert Louis Stevenson with some- 
 thing of the care and thoroughness which he would 
 give to a classic. In connection with this, one in- 
 teresting incident comes back to my memory. One 
 of Stevenson's books, written in collaboration with 
 Lloyd Osbourne, had just been published. I was in 
 Cambridge, and Neil spoke to me about the novel, 
 and said that he was confident he could point out 
 Stevenson's part in the book. Shortly after he came 
 to see me, and I arranged that he should meet the 
 man who had the handling of the story, and knew 
 exactly the manner in which it had been composed. 
 They compared notes, and it turned out that Neil 
 was wrong in nearly every point. He was very much 
 impressed by this, and referred to it again and again. 
 Though he condemned strongly the action of the 
 Free Church in removing Robertson Smith from his 
 Chair, he was not certain that the results of criticism 
 would stand. In connection with this he would talk 
 of the history of the Homeric controversy, and read 
 out impressions of certainty as to the analysis of the 
 poems which subsequent research had not sustained. 
 Once on a visit to Oxford, he heard two famous 
 Broad Churchmen preach. One of them was Jowett. 
 Neil's comment was that the sermon recognised no 
 higher power in the universe than the Master of 
 Balliol. The other, who is still living, preached on 
 the Higher Criticism. " How thankful we should 
 be," said he, " that when we get rid of the myth of 
 the Resurrection and the legends of miracle, we are 
 
 46
 
 DR. ROBERT A. NEIL 
 
 able to grasp more firmly than ever the great central 
 verities of religion." Neil was in his nature averse 
 to violence and dogmatism, and ready to give a re- 
 spectful hearing to the other side. Yet when his 
 mind was made up, I don't believe that he changed 
 it. 
 
 Above all, he was full of old loyalties and pieties. 
 What he brought with him from the Glengairn manse, 
 that he kept to the end. He had a passionate love 
 for the Aberdeenshire hills and heather, and spent 
 part, and often a good part, of every year among 
 them. He has been laid to rest in the churchyard 
 at Glengairn, not so very far away from the burying- 
 place of his friend Robertson Smith, who, though in 
 many respects different, was yet like him in that 
 outstanding characteristic of loyalty to the early 
 friends and days. Neil built himself a pretty house 
 in Ballater, some five miles from Glengairn, which his 
 mother and his sisters occupied till his mother's death. 
 Of his devoted affection for his kindred I need not 
 speak. The Conservatism which he learned at Glen- 
 gairn he maintained through evil report and good, 
 though I am told that in University politics he was 
 Liberal. Long ago, the first time I visited him at 
 Cambridge, he struck me very much by his gloomy 
 view of the prospects of this country under a Liberal 
 Government. He said that with him it was not so 
 much a question of Liberalism and Conservatism, but 
 a question of Empire or no Empire. He dreaded and 
 disliked the Liberals because he thought that they 
 
 47
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 had lost the spirit of the Elizabethan days, and cared 
 nothing whether the Colonies should be kept or not. 
 He was afraid that if Radical views prevailed this 
 country would become another Holland, richer, of 
 course, and more largely populated, but still com- 
 paratively insignificant in its influence on the world. 
 He anticipated with great dread the accession of Mr. 
 Chamberlain to supreme power, for he regarded 
 Mr. Chamberlain as an enemy to the Empire. This 
 was, I am ashamed to say, the first time I had ever 
 seriously thought of Imperialism, and it is strange to 
 remember what he said in the light of what has passed 
 since. In religion he used to glory in being called 
 a Moderate. I do not know what he would have 
 said in these last years, but I think it would have been 
 the same. His was essentially the view of the old 
 Moderates of Scotland, the view too, of Shakespeare 
 and Scott. In its baser forms it is contemptible 
 enough, but in its highest manifestations it has a 
 great deal to say for it, and those who have seen 
 cause deliberately to reject it in every form must 
 acknowledge that it has done justice to elements in 
 Christianity dangerously ignored by the majority 
 of the older evangelicals. In short, he was a man 
 who took his own way and chose his own circle, but 
 he was ever accessible and kind to all with whom he 
 came in contact, and I should doubt very much 
 whether he ever made an enemy. The most reckless 
 slanderer would find it hard to say anything in dis- 
 paragement of Robert Neil. From end to end of his 
 
 48
 
 DR. ROBERT A. NEIL 
 
 life I verily believe he was true to his own convictions 
 and his own ideal. I can think of nothing in his 
 career to be regretted or palliated; every memory is 
 a pleasant memory. The thought of him will always 
 be part of my treasure. 
 
 49
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 " NEVER CHEW YOUR PILLS " 
 
 THIS, I believe, is a proverb of Mr. Spurgeon's, and 
 it was more significant a generation ago than it is 
 now, when chemists have surpassed themselves in 
 making medicines palatable. Still it means a great 
 deal. 
 
 It is not directed against rumination. " Chewing 
 the cud of sweet and bitter fancies " is an occupation 
 sometimes only too beguiling. It is a great thing 
 in a world like this to be able to call back through 
 life something of the delight of the supremely delight- 
 ful moment. Lady Margaret Bellenden, in Old 
 Mortality, lived through a strange and shaken time, 
 but the fact that Charles n. once breakfasted at her 
 house was a solace through all and to the end. '* I 
 Remember his sacred Majesty King Charles, when he 
 took his disjune at Tillietudlem, was particular in 
 
 inquiring " When the storm was over, and 
 
 Edith married Morton, Lady Margaret consoled her- 
 self with the recollection that marrrage went by des- 
 tiny, " as was observed to her," she said, " by his 
 most sacred Majesty Charles n., of happy memory," 
 when she showed him the portrait of her grandfather, 
 Fergus, third Earl of Torwood, the handsomest man 
 
 50
 
 "NEVER CHEW YOUR PILLS" 
 
 of his time, and that of Countess Jane, his second 
 lady, who had a hump back and only one eye. 
 " This was his Majesty's observation," she said, " on 
 one remarkable morning when he deigned to take 
 
 his disjune " All know how a pleasant phrase 
 
 in a letter will be lived upon for days. I heard last 
 night of a writer who turns a very bold front to the 
 world, and is generally supposed to be self-sufficient. 
 In a moment of confidence he showed a friend of mine 
 a review which he carried about with him in his 
 pocketbook. " I have my low moments like other 
 people," said he, " though I do not show them, and 
 when I have this gives me comfort." Yes, we may 
 recall our pleasures, but we must not analyse them. 
 Mr. W. H. Hudson has pointed out very acutely 
 that Herbert Spencer lost the enjoyment of life 
 through the excessive development of the critical 
 faculty. He could never get into simple, uncritical 
 relation with things. He philosophised over pleas- 
 ure, and so analysed every emotion that unsophisti- 
 cated enjoyment of the world was impossible. The 
 world was to him rather a world of abstract principles 
 than of flesh and blood, and the result was that his 
 affections were never called out. 
 
 When we are speaking of pills, the reference is to 
 the mortifications, the disappointments, and the irk- 
 some tasks of life, and not to its graver and grander 
 sorrows. To be able to make this distinction marks 
 a noble nature ; to be able to apply it thoroughly and 
 consistently is the highest reach of wisdom. Charles 
 
 51
 
 Grandet was not worthy of Eugenie, but the Inci- 
 dent that first gave her a deep and serious interest in 
 his destiny was certainly to his credit. He received 
 the news that his father, being unable to meet his 
 engagements, owing four million francs and being 
 able to pay no more than one million, had escaped 
 from his shame by suicide. To Charles Grandet' s 
 uncle the really serious misfortune was the bank- 
 ruptcy, and the subsequent poverty which it entailed 
 upon the youth. Charles, however, was wiser. He 
 had not then been corrupted, and so he took his two 
 misfortunes very differently. He lamented his father 
 with passionate tears, while he bore the ruin with the 
 lightness of youth. 
 
 Never chew your pills, that is, the best way to 
 deal with anything disagreeable is to have it ended 
 as soon as may be, and then leave it. The chewing 
 of imaginary pills is the worst error of all, and goes 
 further to weaken and impoverish life than almost 
 any other habit. In St. Teresa's Book of the 
 Foundations, she tells us how she went to found her 
 convent at Salamanca. The first night was spent 
 in a half-ruined house, out of which some students 
 had been turned. The nun who was with the saint 
 was very nervous, and said in the night, " I am think- 
 ing, Mother if I should die here, what you would do 
 alone? " It was the night before All Souls', and the 
 bells of the University city were ringing. This 
 sound increased the fear of the nun, but St. Teresa 
 boldly answered, "When this event happens, Sister, 
 
 52
 
 "NEVER CHEW YOUR PILLS" 
 
 I will think what I ought to do. For the present, 
 let me sleep." 
 
 Never chew the pill of a disagreeable duty. The 
 tasks that can be accomplished in five minutes are 
 often those from which we shrink in the most reluc- 
 tant fear. There is a very fateful letter to be writ- 
 ten. How is it to be phrased? There is a painful 
 interview to be faced, an interview which will soon be 
 ended, but will in its course touch the sorest places 
 of the heart. Since the thing has to be done, it is 
 the best to get it over. By postponement the imagi- 
 nation magnifies and multiplies the suffering until it 
 becomes intolerable. No rehearsals of the scene 
 make that scene any easier when it comes. The 
 rehearsals simply unnerve the weak heart that has to 
 go through it somehow. So in the choosing and ar- 
 ranging of our daily tasks it is best to get through 
 the hardest first. That accomplished, the others may 
 be enjoyed. So long as the shadow and the poison 
 of the apprehended effort pass into the rest they, 
 too, carry with them the seal of pain. 
 
 Never chew the pill of a laborious and uncongenial 
 task. Men who are easy in circumstances are emi- 
 nently wise in choosing early some great work on 
 which to expend their energies. In the absence 
 of compulsion the task may never be fulfilled, but 
 even so it is pleasant to think about it, and pleas- 
 ant to talk about it. There are those who win a 
 reputation on the score of a huge addition they 
 were to make some day to the literature of the 
 
 53
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 world. George Ticknor was a fortunate American 
 fortunate in many things but never more 
 fortunate than in his conception and execution of 
 his history of Spanish literature. That work gave 
 his life agreeableness and dignity. It brought 
 him into the best company of the world; it gave 
 him an unchallenged superiority to all the rest of 
 his countrymen in one important field of knowl- 
 edge. It is easy to see how it sweetened his whole 
 existence. Even Prescott, in the face of his severe 
 physical disabilities, found endless solace in the 
 preparation of his histories. But when the task is 
 irksome, and when it has to be accomplished in a 
 given time, it is very necessary not to chew it. By 
 this I mean that a man should give the due number 
 of hours to the work each day, and then make the best 
 of what time may remain. He should turn his 
 thoughts and energies into other fields. If he fails 
 to do this, if he eats, drinks, sleeps, talks, and walks 
 his work, that work will not only become intolerable 
 to himself, but will in all probability lack freshness 
 and life, and reflect only too plainly the weariness 
 of its creator. What signs of weariness there are in 
 Sir Walter Scott's Life of Napoleon! Yet he toiled 
 at it doggedly ; he did his best ; he turned over con- 
 scientiously the volumes of the Moniteur, which are 
 the saddest sights in Abbotsford, " the great French 
 guns' that laid the prince of Scotsmen low." What 
 a change from the free, unhoused conditions in which 
 he had wrought before! Carlyle made life terrible 
 
 54
 
 "NEVER CHEW YOUR PILLS" 
 
 for himself and other people, while he sojourned in 
 the valley of the shadow of Frederick. He insisted 
 on those who lived with him descending its dark 
 defiles, and living there with him. Still Carlyle, 
 though he chewed his pill, did swallow it at last. In 
 one of his lately published epistles he says that the 
 stupider he happened to be, the more necessary he 
 found it to get to work at once. So never chew your 
 pills while work is waiting, lest you end like the twins 
 in the Golden Butterfly, who were always putting off 
 trying their work of genius, and ended by doing 
 nothing at all. 
 
 Never try to evade the acceptance of painful 
 facts. Once you see them to be facts receive them, 
 and by that I mean act upon them. Recognise that 
 the world is for you what these facts make it. Even 
 so it may be a tolerable world. Yes, even if you have 
 to recognise that certain misfortunes are irremedi- 
 able that the chance once lost will never recur, that 
 the disablement, the impoverishment will endure 
 then do not fight vainly, but see how a reconciliation 
 can be effected which will once more put you in tune 
 with circumstance. After certain incidents it is 
 necessary that life, to be bearable, should be reor- 
 ganised, lived on another scale and in other circum- 
 stances. Many people die in protesting against this, 
 and many wjio do not die are shipwrecked. 
 
 The worst unwisdom is the unwisdom of those who 
 chew their pills to the last without swallowing them. 
 
 55
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 Sometimes, and perhaps often, a very little thing will 
 separate and darken two lives ; some wretched morti- 
 fication may be brooded over till it turns a sweet 
 nature into a sour. It becomes incorporate with life, 
 and in sleepless, dark hours every little circumstance 
 is recalled with torturing minuteness. Mortifica- 
 tions are the inevitable experience, and it is to be 
 observed that they never leave a nature where they 
 found it. They exalt it or they lower it. There is a 
 way of training memory so that it shall cast out 
 much at least of what is little and what is unclean. 
 Alas! when we think of all that memory loses, so 
 much of the flower of thought and wit, so many 
 words, sweet, solemn, and nobly ordered that have 
 passed away, while they were still ringing in our 
 ears, and when we think of the poor dregs it holds 
 against our will we may well bemoan ourselves. 
 But the true tragedy is to allow hard experiences to 
 root themselves in our souls, and put forth evil fruit 
 till a troublous and, in a sense, degraded course is 
 run. 
 
 I select two examples, one from biography, and 
 the other from fiction. The posthumous memoirs of 
 Mark Pattison, Rector of Lincoln, suggested the 
 proposal that a new form of death-duty, on a pro- 
 hibitive scale, should be applied to check the produc- 
 tion of autobiographies. It was, to tell the truth, a 
 thoroughly ill-tempered book, and there is reason to 
 fear that it reflected the writer, and that in spite 
 of his high qualities. He missed, early in life and 
 
 56
 
 "NEVER CHEW YOUR PILLS" 
 
 for several years, the Rectorship of Lincoln, a posi- 
 tion on which he had set his heart. Though the 
 place came to him ultimately, and with it much 
 honour, the grievance remained, and became bit- 
 terer with time. Many years after he described his 
 chief opponent as " my Satan." The successful 
 candidate was " a ruffian " and " a satyr." One of 
 the opposition was " a wretched cretin." The 
 ferocity that marks these epithets gave a morose 
 aspect to his whole view of the universe. It pre- 
 vented happiness, and to a very gre.at extent it 
 prevented achievement. It had consequences which 
 I must not fully indicate. 
 
 Equally true and still more impressive is Balzac's 
 picture of Monsieur de Mortsauf. M. de Mortsauf 
 was born to be rich and influential, but he was on the 
 Legitimist side, and he never achieved his hopes. 
 Still, he had his compensations. He recovered some 
 of his property, and made a very fortunate mar- 
 riage. Nothing availed, however, for he never 
 ceased thinking of what might have been. He cher- 
 ished a gloomy and bitter spirit until he reduced 
 the life of his wife and children to a perpetual exer- 
 cise of patience. Once he took a walk with a guest 
 on some heights in the neighbourhood of his home, 
 and they arrived on a moor where nothing could 
 grow. The earth was stony, dried up, without any 
 covering of fertile soil ; nevertheless there were a few 
 oaks and bushes, but instead of grass there was a 
 carpet of wild mosses on which the feet slipped. M. 
 
 57
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 de Mortsauf struck this desolate unproductive 
 earth with his cane, and turning round suddenly 
 said to his guest with horrible emphasis, " Volla ma 
 vie! " 
 
 We must swallow our pills and make the best of 
 life, make the best of it even at those periods when 
 things look dark enough. I have a kindness for that 
 Scotsman who, when proposing to maintain in argu- 
 ment the superiority of Scotch over English grapes, 
 began, " I maun premeese that I like grapes sour ! " 
 
 58
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE ONE FACT MORE 
 
 ONCE upon a time a young man was on a visit to a 
 country house. He had left the University after a 
 distinguished career; but somehow he had failed to 
 find his place in life, and was anxiously looking for 
 a situation. He received a letter from London urg- 
 ing him to come up immediately as a position was 
 vacant, an ideal position which he might probably, 
 obtain by personal application. The young man did 
 not go. He wrote that he would come up in two 
 days. It turned out that he was too late, and he lost 
 his chance. Every one wondered at his procrastina- 
 tion, but by and by the mystery was explained. He 
 had fallen in love with a girl, and intended to pro- 
 pose to her on the day when he should have gone to 
 London. So you see the knowledge of one fact more 
 explained everything. 
 
 I have long been puzzled at certain episodes in the 
 history of the Lake poets, but two of them have been 
 fully cleared. It is very difficult to understand from 
 the printed materials the estrangement between De 
 Quincey and Wordsworth. De Quincey's chapter on 
 Wordsworth is one of his best pieces, but there is 
 a vein of malice in it which it is hard to comprehend. 
 But when one knows the circumstances of De Quin- 
 
 59
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 cey's marriage, and Wordsworth's share in them, he 
 has found the key to that lock. Similarly the rela- 
 tions of Southey and Wordsworth to Coleridge are 
 at certain points perplexing, but there is an explana- 
 tion most honourable to Southey and Wordsworth. 
 Whether these elucidations will ever be published I 
 do not know. Perhaps it is best to leave the matters 
 in obscurity. But they illustrate my contention that 
 we are often hopelessly lost and misguided in life for 
 want of the one fact more. 
 
 I have a friend who is hesitating between two posi- 
 tions that have been offered to him. All who know 
 him agree that in one of these he is likely to succeed, 
 and in the other almost certain to fail. He knows 
 all that we know, but he hesitates. Doubtless there 
 is one fact more known to him, and that one 
 fact makes all the difference. Why do men some- 
 times refuse to move when everything seems to call 
 them away? Why do they move when everything 
 seems to say that they should remain where 
 they are? Is it mere impulse? In some cases it 
 may be. There was a man in the Bible who would 
 not remain in the place where he seemed to have 
 everything. When he was asked what he lacked, he 
 replied, " Nothing ; howbeit let me go in anywise." 
 But for the most part it is not impulse that prompts 
 the flight. It is the one fact more. 
 
 This must be the reason why in so many cases 
 advice is useless. The wisest counsellor can only 
 give his opinion on the materials laid before him. A 
 
 60
 
 THE ONE FACT MORE 
 
 single fact might completely change his view, and 
 that fact is hidden from him. Necessarily, then, he 
 goes wrong. A doctor or a lawyer will tell you 
 when you go to them that you must keep back noth- 
 ing. So it ought to be in all affairs of counsel. Un- 
 solicited advice is generally more wide of the mark 
 even than the advice which is sought for. On two 
 occasions in my life I went against my own judg- 
 ment in deference to older and wiser men, and in 
 both cases they were wrong. I knew something that 
 they did not know, though I could not very well dis- 
 close it. What seems desirable to the majority may 
 not seem desirable to the individual, and if his tastes 
 do not lie in that way, it is no comfort to him that 
 the majority think he has done well, and even covet 
 his place. 
 
 I need hardly say that it is the one fact more that 
 makes the difficulty of judgment. There is a French 
 saying, " To know all is to forgive all." Taken as 
 it stands, the aphorism is as false and as mischievous 
 as it can be. It involves a complete denial of moral 
 responsibility. No doubt some sins are not less but 
 more heinous than they seem. If we knew the cir- 
 cumstances in which they were committed, we should 
 condemn the transgressor more gravely than we do. 
 But oftener it is the other way, and when the one 
 fact more leaps to light we almost say to ourselves 
 that to judge any one we ought to know everything. 
 
 "What's done we partly may compute, 
 But know not what's resisted." 
 
 61
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 That is one part of it, but it is by no means the 
 whole. The knowledge of a single fact, a glance of 
 one moment might completely alter our whole con- 
 ception of a situation. 
 
 About three weeks before Emily Bronte's death, 
 and only a short time before Anne Bronte's health 
 finally failed, their sister Charlotte read to them an 
 article on their books from the North American Re~ 
 'view. " What a bad set the Bells must be," says 
 Charlotte, mocking at their critic. " What appall- 
 ing books they write? To-day, as Emily appeared 
 a little easier, I thought the Review would amuse 
 her, so I read it aloud to her and Anne. As I sat 
 between them at our quiet, but now somewhat melan- 
 choly fireside, I studied the two ferocious authors. 
 Ellis, the ' man of uncommon talents, but dogged, 
 brutal, and morose,' sat leaning back in his easy 
 chair, drawing his impeded breath as he best could, 
 and looking, alas ! piteously pale and wasted ; it is not 
 his wont to laugh, but he smiled, half amused, and 
 half in scorn, as he listened. Acton was sewing; no 
 emotion ever stirs him to loquacity; so he only 
 smiled too, dropping at the same time a single word 
 of calm amazement to hear his character so darkly 
 portrayed. I wonder what the reviewer would have 
 thought of his own sagacity could he have beheld the 
 pair as I did? " The best of all the Bronte critics, 
 as I venture to think, a writer in the Christian Re- 
 membrancer, made a noble confession after Char- 
 lotte Bronte's death. He had spoken of her in her 
 
 62
 
 THE ONE FACT MORE 
 
 lifetime as " an alien, it might seem, from society, 
 and amenable to none of its laws." The cruel words 
 drew forth the only reply Charlotte Bronte ever 
 made to a critic. When she was dead and the re- 
 viewer read her life, he confessed that he had re- 
 ceived a lesson. " Such revelations as this book 
 gives us are a lesson to weigh words. We should 
 never forget that the unknown author has a known 
 side, that he is not an abstraction. . . . We believe 
 that all the critics thought they had a tolerably 
 tough nature to deal with, that there was no need 
 to sugar the bittered draught in this instance, and 
 when a woman assumed a masculine tone, wrote as 
 well as, or better than, any man amongst them, and 
 showed herself afraid of nothing, that gallantry 
 and patronising tenderness which is commonly be- 
 stowed upon woman was changed to gall. And now 
 the administrators of the portion have to reflect 
 on the private, most feminine sorrows, of this 
 Amazon; of a patient life of monotonous duty; of 
 the passionate hold the purest domestic affections 
 had on her character; and which amongst them, 
 if he could rewrite his criticism, would not now and 
 then erase an epithet, spare a sarcasm, modify a 
 sweeping condemnation? We own it wounds our 
 tenderest feelings to know her sensitiveness to such 
 attacks; and when she sheds tears over the Times 
 critique of all things in the world to weep over 
 our heart bleeds indeed." Are considerations like 
 these to forbid all criticism? No, but they ought
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 to forbid cruel personalities. They ought also to 
 make us tolerant of what seems eccentricity, caprice, 
 and error. If we knew the one fact more, we should 
 see that there is very little caprice indeed in this 
 world. People have a reason for what they do, 
 though they may not choose to tell it, and we may 
 never be able to find it out. 
 
 Once I discussed with a friend the melancholy of 
 a certain author. My friend argued that the said 
 author had no right to be melancholy. He had 
 passed his years of struggle, and acquired an envi- 
 able fame while he was yet young. I knew more 
 about the history of the author than my friend did, 
 and to me there was no perplexity. If a man has 
 fought his way through terrible experiences, and 
 darkened years, success and sunshine will not alter 
 his temperament. He will never get rid of haunting 
 memories and presaging fears, and I apply my doc- 
 trine of the one fact more. A great disappointment 
 or a great sorrow may permanently disable the 
 heart. We cannot explain men. 
 
 " Why is it you shrink from all life-work you with such a 
 
 head 
 
 Of hope and will of sweet composed energy, whose shirk 
 From action never could we see in earlier days long dead?" 
 
 The man himself knows, but he will never tell us, 
 and our guesses are almost certainly wide of the 
 mark. I knew a public man, who though he lived 
 many years after the death of a cherished daughter, 
 never really recovered himself. Something had gone 
 
 64
 
 THE ONE FACT MORE 
 
 for ever lift, buoyancy, inspiration, hope. Max 
 Miiller says that till his daughter died he had an 
 endless delight in life, and would fain have gone on 
 working for two hundred years. But when she van- 
 ished she took the spring with her. New loves may 
 come, but they do not make the old loves cold, and 
 they do not end the weary, silent sufferings of the 
 soul. On the other hand, there are men whose 
 amazing courage and brightness under the heavy 
 pressure of adverse circumstances is a standing 
 miracle to their friends. Who knows from what 
 secret springs of peace and strength they draw their 
 fortitude? 
 
 The doctrine of the one fact more applies to the 
 future, and is a legitimate ground for hope. 
 
 I have found that many who have given up their 
 religious belief have surrendered it under the weight 
 of hard and heavy trials. They have ceased to be- 
 lieve in prayer, because prayers which they offered 
 with the whole urgency of their spirits were denied. 
 They had ceased to believe in Divine love because 
 life has not been kind to them. It is of very little 
 use to discuss the evidence of Christianity with such 
 sufferers. You cannot answer an experience. There 
 must be a new experience, or at least another inter- 
 pretation of the old experience, before faith can be 
 recovered. That experience may be near at hand. 
 One fact more, when we know it, unties the knot. 
 One of our greatest writers was miserably distressed 
 by the death of his son. He could not get over his 
 
 65
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 grief. One day his physician said to him boldly, 
 " If you knew what I know, you would be very thank- 
 ful that he died." " How can that be? " " If he 
 had lived he would certainly have become hopelessly 
 insane, and in a very short time." But that experi- 
 ence, that argument, may come only with the passing 
 of the years. We must travel our weary way to 
 the interpreting fact. Why have I taken this trou- 
 blesome rough road? Is it never to end? Well, it 
 sometimes happens, even in this world, that there is 
 a sudden turn in the road. Or to change the figure, 
 the road leads us to a goal which makes up for all its 
 hardnesses. The path of dust and dead leaves 
 brings us to the fountain. The slow and painful 
 ascent ends at the summit of the hill, and as we look 
 out on the wide landscape we do not grudge one diffi- 
 cult step. Some may read these lines who keep won- 
 dering all the time why they ever took up the work 
 they are doing, why they ever came to live where 
 they are living. If they had chosen another way, 
 the whole world would have been different. Let such 
 take heart. To-morrow they may meet the friend 
 whose friendship will be the best blessing of the 
 years, the friend whom they never could have met 
 on any other path. Some are faithfully drudging 
 in poorly requited toil with hardly a hope beyond it. 
 To-morrow they may discover that keen eyes have 
 been watching them, and silently marking their 
 fidelity and patience. They may be suddenly raised 
 beyond their utmost dreams. It is well to cherish no 
 
 66
 
 THE ONE FACT MORE 
 
 illusions, to go on diligently with the appointed task, 
 making the best of what comes, and with the full 
 resolution not to flinch, though no sudden brightness 
 fall upon the life. But a reasonable hope ought to 
 be cherished. There is no period of life at which 
 we ought to say that there are no more glad sur- 
 prises for us in the future. Life is hard enough, but 
 not so hard as some would make it, and its rewards 
 come to those who have worked for them more often 
 than many would have us believe. When they come 
 then the one fact more illumines the darkest pass. 
 We say, " Rough and steep though the path may 
 have been, it was the right path, since it led us to 
 this." To the believer the one fact more is 
 heaven. 
 
 67
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 " B. A., D. J." 
 
 IN one of the racy prefaces which appear in Crock- 
 ford's Directory, there was once a story about a 
 gentleman who returned himself as B.A., d.j. of a 
 certain University. On being asked for an explana- 
 tion, he wrote back that by d.j. he meant de jure, 
 by right. " By the letters d.j. I meant that I ought 
 to have the B.A., and should have had it if I had 
 been treated fairly, but I demurred to or at least 
 inquired what the teacher of logic meant by an asser- 
 tion he made at one of his lectures, namely, that 
 ' sugar and melting are the same thing.' Because I 
 did not see the truth of this expression at once, but 
 ventured to ask for an explanation, my degree was 
 refused me." It is not every one who is so frank as 
 this gentleman or as another who signed himself 
 F.S.I., and when asked of what Society or Institute 
 he was a Fellow, replied, " I am not a Fellow of any 
 Society or Institute; F.S.I, is an honorary degree 
 which I conferred on myself for my own use and 
 benefit." 
 
 I do not propose to touch on the large question 
 whether we get our deserts in life from the Supreme 
 Power, but the relations of human beings are more 
 easily discussed. Do we get what we deserve from 
 
 68
 
 "B. A., D. J." 
 
 our fellow-creatures? Very few are so frank as the 
 clergyman who styled himself B.A., d.j., and yet if 
 the deepest thought were spoken, it might be found 
 that many are laureated in the same way. They 
 think they have a right to some title or distinction 
 which has never been conferred upon them. I have 
 been told by those who know about examinations that 
 many candidates are convinced that it is the unfair- 
 ness of the examiners which prevents them getting 
 through. They are like Mr. Barrie's student who 
 came home without a prize. Gradually it leaked out 
 that the professors had a spite against him. I 
 imagine that whenever the Birthday List of Honours 
 is published or the roll of Honorary Degrees at the 
 Universities, there are many searchings of heart. 
 Also there are those who are unable to console their 
 disappointment at missing a professional prize. It 
 is not unkind nor untrue, for example, to say of the 
 late Sir William Harcourt that he styled himself 
 Prime Minister d.j. Let any reader ask himself 
 candidly where he thinks he ought to stand in the 
 business or profession he pursues. I venture to 
 say that not a few will find themselves linked in 
 sympathy to the candid gentleman pilloried by 
 Crockford. 
 
 Nor is it to be denied that the apportionment of 
 honours and preferments is often unjust. Men of 
 real eminence, who have done true service in science 
 or in literature, go undecorated to the grave, while 
 pushers, as A.K.H.B. called them, not infrequently 
 
 69
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 get a great deal more than they deserve. It is not 
 wonderful that there is much jealousy in human life. 
 Thus where you meet a company of lawyers you will 
 hear their candid criticisms of the judges. I have 
 even heard popular preachers marked in plain and 
 low figures by their brethren. It has been admitted 
 that among literary men there is something of the 
 same spirit manifested at times. It may be done 
 quite innocently and without serious malice. It is 
 not wonderful if the old are slightly irritated by the 
 sudden promotion of the young. Sir Walter Scott, 
 who had such a keen eye for the facts of human life, 
 frequently refers to this one. Thus in the Abbot 
 honest Adam Woodcock slightly resents the advance 
 of Roland, after experiencing the weight of his arm. 
 Roland, however, did not forget to drop a few gold 
 pieces, and to make a signal of kind recollection and 
 enduring friendship as he departed at full gallop 
 to overtake the Queen. " It is not fairy money," 
 said honest Adam, weighing and handling the gold. 
 *' And it was Master Roland himself, that is a cer- 
 tain thing the same open hand, and by Our Lady " 
 (shrugging his shoulders) "the same ready fist! 
 My Lady will hear of this gladly, for she mourns 
 for him as if he were her son. And to see how gay 
 he is ! But these light lads are sure to be uppermost 
 as the froth to be on the top of the quart pot. Your 
 man of solid parts remains ever a falconer." I have 
 put the last sentence in italics, for it is golden. It 
 goes right to the truth of human feeling, and sug- 
 
 70
 
 "B. A., D. J." 
 
 gests the consolation wherewith the stolid unsuccess- 
 ful man tries to make himself comfortable. By the 
 way, the name Adam suggests Adam Bede, who ex- 
 perienced something like Roland when he was told 
 by Captain Donnithorne that he was to dine up- 
 stairs with the large tenants. Mr. Casson, the but- 
 ler who " was not butler for fifteen years without 
 learning the rights and wrongs about dinner," was 
 naturally offended. He considered Adam " rather 
 lifted up and peppery like " : he thought the gentry 
 made more fuss about this young carpenter than 
 was necessary; they made no fuss about Mr. Casson, 
 although he had been an excellent butler for 
 fifteen years. 
 
 It will be remembered that in Quentin Durward 
 Le Balafre, his uncle, is hurt by his nephew's happy 
 fortune. Even Crawford is surprised, though 
 pleased. " Thou art a singular youth," said Craw- 
 ford, stroking the head of the young Durward, as a 
 grandsire might do that of his descendant ; " certes, 
 you have had as meikle good fortune as if you had 
 been born with a lucky hood on your head." " All 
 this comes of his gaining an archer's place at such 
 early years," said Le Balafre; " I never was so much 
 talked of, fair nephew, because I was five-and-twenty 
 years old before I was Tiors de page" " And an 
 ill-looking mountainous monster of a page thou wert, 
 Ludovic," said the old commander, " with a beard 
 like a baker's shool, and a back like old Wallace 
 Wight." The triumphs of these heroes had justifi- 
 
 .71
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 cation, and were modestly borne, but there are tri- 
 umphs of another kind. 
 
 Why do men fail to get their deserts? Partly 
 through causes which are not within their control 
 and partly through their own fault. There is a 
 large element of what we call luck in human life. An 
 important place falls to a man because he is on the 
 spot, because he has been able to do some little service 
 to a powerful personage, because he makes his appli- 
 cation at the propitious moment. Proximity is an 
 influential factor in the disposition of affairs. The 
 patron appoints to a vacancy some man whom he 
 personally knows and likes. Even in examinations 
 luck plays its part. When Lord Kelvin was a stu- 
 dent at Cambridge he was universally held to be a 
 mathematical genius of the first order. But when 
 the examination for the Tripos came on, it was 
 noticed that another candidate was writing with ex- 
 traordinary celerity and precision. It turned out 
 that this candidate had a singular power of solving 
 problems quickly and accurately. He cleared paper 
 after paper, and came out Senior Wrangler several 
 hundred marks above his rival if I recollect well. He 
 took an honourable place at the University, and was 
 a man of mark, but for one who recognises the name 
 of Stephen Parkinson there are a thousand who are 
 familiar with that of Lord Kelvin. I do not wonder 
 that some people are superstitious about luck. There 
 are those who have almost every virtue. They are 
 patient, persevering, and constant. Yet somehow 
 
 72
 
 B. A., D. J." 
 
 nothing goes well with them. They fail through the 
 fault of others. I have known such men in business, 
 men who have been afraid because they had gained 
 the reputation of being unlucky ; others again pros- 
 pering everything they touch. Sir Walter Scott 
 said once, very pathetically, that no one flourished 
 under his shadow. There are those whose shadow 
 seems to carry fortune with it. They may not be 
 particularly successful themselves, but every one 
 who is associated with them profits by the associa- 
 tion. Such things cannot be explained. I am con- 
 vinced that about a great many comparative failures 
 in life we can only say that somehow things have 
 always been against them. 
 
 While admitting this to the full, I am neverthe- 
 less of opinion that in some cases we do get our de- 
 serts, and are often treated far better than we 
 deserve, this even though we protest in silence or in 
 speech. Authors are apt to lay the blame of their 
 failure on the blindness and perversity of critics. 
 They are very apt to fancy that there is a conspir- 
 acy against them. Sydney Dobell was by no means 
 a vindictive or suspicious man, but he went to his 
 grave believing that Balder would yet be reckoned 
 among the great poems of the language, and the 
 serenity with which he held to this fact is affecting. 
 Rossetti fancied that a league of conspirators was 
 busy in destroying his reputation. The late Profes- 
 sor Nichol, of Glasgow, a man of excellent parts, 
 held that the London critics were prejudiced against 
 
 73
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 him because he was a Scotsman, and never rendered 
 him even a modicum of justice. But as a matter of 
 fact, each had his just reward; not all the praise nor 
 all the blame was true, but taken together they made 
 the truth. No man was ever written down save by 
 himself, and it is equally true that no man was ever 
 written up save by himself. What is true about 
 authors is true about the rest. But apart from the 
 question of ability there are certain moral causes 
 that frequently account for failure. It has to be 
 remembered that a man's qualities must be taken to- 
 gether. He may have certain qualities of extraor- 
 dinary worth, but he has others which neutralise 
 them. The sources of failure are, I think, mainly 
 timidity, temper, vanity, indolence, and want of 
 adaptability, and these are so subtly intermingled 
 that it is often difficult to distinguish between them. 
 Timidity accounts for many failures of worthy 
 people. There comes to a youth his one great 
 chance, and he misses it. He distrusts himself and 
 disobeys the call, thinking it will be repeated when 
 he is better prepared to answer it. That call never 
 comes again. I knew in his old age a preacher who 
 in his youth was famous far beyond the bounds of 
 the little country town where he fulfilled his ministry. 
 He was called to London when in the springtide of 
 his early promise. He decided to wait, and he was 
 left alone working honourably, but becoming by de- 
 grees the shadow of his early self. Another I think 
 of was offered at twenty-five an important journal- 
 
 74
 
 "B. A., D. J." 
 
 istic appointment In the colonies, but he hesitated 
 to leave home; he thought another chance would ar- 
 rive, and he remained to the day of his death a 
 humble clerk. Generally speaking, the call to wider 
 work should be bravely answered. Archbishop Til- 
 lotson, who seems to have been really unwilling to 
 accept the Archbishopric of Canterbury, wrote: 
 " There may perhaps be as much ambition in de- 
 clining greatness as in courting it." 
 
 Temper is one of the most potent causes of 
 failure. Temper when controlled is a singular force 
 no man perhaps ever climbed high without it; 
 uncontrolled it is devastating. The man who in cir- 
 cumstances of provocation can demean himself with 
 calmness and dignity is the man who conquers. To 
 indulge in temper is to inflict on oneself a much 
 graver injury than is inflicted on any enemy. Some 
 men can refrain from furious outbursts, but their 
 temper finds vent in querulousness, which is almost 
 worse. The querulous man is the most intolerable 
 of associates. We see men of very moderate abilities 
 rising to great places in the Church and State. 
 They do not obtain their promotion without a rea- 
 son. They had no single quality of emphatic dis- 
 tinction, but they had a happy union of serviceable 
 qualities. They could be trusted to do nothing in- 
 discreet and nothing violent. One eminent writer 
 of the Church of England whom I knew destroyed 
 his career by his fretfulness. Intellectually he was 
 far above others who became Bishops, but he was 
 
 75
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 repeatedly passed over because men felt that they 
 could not trust his temper and his tact. Of political 
 careers wrecked by temper it might be cruel to give 
 instances. 
 
 Vanity, laziness, and want of adaptability go to- 
 gether. We are all lazy by nature. It is only by 
 severe exercise of the will that most of us work at 
 all. We should be less lazy if we were less vain. The 
 indulgent critic writes, " Mr. B. might safely rest 
 his reputation on this poem alone," and Mr. B. be- 
 lieves him and comes to nothing. The vain man says 
 of his work, " It will do," and leaves it, and earns a 
 just condemnation. In spite of all the talk about 
 the strenuous life there are very few people who live 
 it very few who day by day and year by year go 
 on with resolute hard work. Vanity also often leads 
 men to disdain lowly beginnings, and to eat their 
 hearts out in vain ambition. Want of adaptability 
 may be traced in many cases to vanity, but in many 
 others it means simply a certain stiffness and dim- 
 ness of vision. There are multitudes who persist in 
 adhering to the old methods which once succeeded, 
 and shut their eyes to the facts that glare around 
 them. They will not see that all things are in pro- 
 cess of change, and that those who cannot change 
 with the changed times must perish. 
 
 In the end it is wisest for us frankly to accept the 
 judgment of our fellows. Most of us happily do 
 so. We are quite contented and even very thankful. 
 We see that life has been kinder to us than it might 
 
 76
 
 "B. A., D. J." 
 
 have been. We may sometimes confer degrees upon 
 ourselves, but we have the sense to do so in the very 
 depth of silence. We do not challenge the verdict 
 of the judges ; we are glad in our hearts that it has 
 not been sterner. " I hope you will not allow your- 
 self," wrote the wise Master of Balliol, " to become 
 the most miserable and contemptible of all charac- 
 ters, a disappointed man." 
 
 77
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 CONCERNING EELS 
 
 IT is an ancient fancy that every type in the lower 
 kingdoms of life is represented in humanity. It may 
 be admitted that eels are not distinguished for back- 
 bone, and sometimes we are forced to recognise that 
 this is true of a certain number among men. 
 
 It is fair to say that eels have their qualities in 
 spite of this. I do not think many of us would join 
 in the raptures of a French naturalist who speaks of 
 their slender form, " their delicate proportions, their 
 elegant colours, their gracious flexions, their easy 
 gyrations, their rapid springs, their superior swim- 
 ming, their industry, their instinct, and their socia- 
 bility." But they were admired in old times. The 
 Egyptians paid the eel so great a compliment as to 
 enrol it among their gods, and the Greeks invoked 
 the eel as the goddess of pleasure. Even so amongst 
 human beings who have no backbone, there are many 
 amiable and admirable qualities. Their weakness 
 would never be found out except in a time of strain 
 and purging. So long as things go quietly and 
 smoothly, they do well, and even distinguish them- 
 selves. A day comes when manhood is put to the 
 
 78
 
 CONCERNING EELS 
 
 proof, and It is found they have none. It is a dis- 
 agreeable discovery, and they like it as little as Peter 
 in the story liked the loss of his shadow. 
 
 Let us, however, be exceedingly careful before we 
 call any one destitute of backbone. It is a grave 
 accusation, and it is often made on plausible 
 grounds, and yet quite falsely. There are those who 
 come very slowly to a conclusion, and are yet the 
 most immovable and staunch of all once they have 
 reached it. They are inaccessible to sneers and 
 threats. They are not touched by blandishment. 
 They may even be somewhat dull in the apprehen- 
 sion of argument. But they seek to know their duty, 
 and once they know it they do it at all costs. 
 Nunc demum redit animus. They pass into the 
 safest of all forms of enthusiasm, the enthusiasm 
 that reposes on underlying sanity and moderation. 
 They say to themselves with Hamlet, that in the 
 very torrent, tempest, and whirlwind of their passion 
 they must acquire and beget a temperance, for only 
 thus can perfect and enduring deeds be done. Some- 
 times men of apparently warm zeal and simple pur- 
 pose are the first to join the ranks, and alas the first 
 also to turn their backs. Others who come in late, 
 after sore perplexities and not unreasonable hesita- 
 tion, have left behind them a ring of true heroism 
 of which the echo in the corridors of time will never 
 quite die. Even when the years wax, their courage 
 does not wane. They can face declared enemies and 
 lukewarm friends and long delay, and still be firm. 
 
 79
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 Let us be careful, then, not to make confusions. 
 There will be time enough to test us all. 
 
 Yet there are eels, and I will briefly note some of 
 their characteristics. The naturalists say that " the 
 best time for catching large eels is after heavy 
 storms and floods." When the wind blows, and the 
 tempest rises, and the floods break forth, then we 
 discover the sad secret that in a time of fair weather 
 might have been kept. The sausage-seller in Aristo- 
 phanes addresses Cleon : " Yes, for it is with you as 
 with eel-catchers, when the lake is still they take 
 nothing, but if they stir up the mud they have good 
 sport; so have you when you disturb the State." 
 But the hardest thing for those who disturb the 
 State is not the opposition of foes ; that is in the 
 day's work. It is in the revelation of eels. It is the 
 discovery that many who could do all that was needed 
 in a quiet time, who knew the history of the past and 
 the deeds of great men, and the reasons of their sacri- 
 fice, and could set them forth with the most moving 
 eloquence in speech and print, had none of their cour- 
 age, and could themselves encounter no real hazard. 
 Yes, it is not a pleasant discovery, but there are com- 
 pensations. We find out what iron there is in the blood 
 of many who were contented to remain quiet and 
 obscure till they saw that their help was needed. 
 How often even on this earth the first are shown to 
 be the last, and the last first. 
 
 The most unpleasant thing about eels, and that 
 which has most prejudiced people against them, is 
 
 80
 
 CONCERNING EELS 
 
 their serpentine quality, their dreadful way of wrig- 
 gling and writhing. It is well known that the eel 
 has very great powers of defence. The difficulty of 
 holding an eel is proverbial. It has been quaintly 
 said, " Every one knows that to hold an eel with the 
 naked hand is as abortive an attempt as detaining 
 a pig by the tail, after it has been well soaped, or, 
 in morals, to hold a knave to his word." There is 
 a Latin proverb, " He's an eel and is off." John 
 Leech has a drawing of the bursting of an aquarium. 
 He renders inimitably the vain efforts of an old lady 
 to pick up her favourite eel with a pair of tongs. 
 For a man who has no backbone and does not dis- 
 guise it, some sympathy may be felt. But the wrig- 
 gling is repulsive. In every crisis we should have 
 plain speech. You may say, " I have not made up 
 my mind, and I must have time to think it over " ; 
 or you may say, "I have made up my mind, and I 
 will face the fight " ; or you may say, " I have made 
 up my mind, and I am not going to fight." But to 
 leave people in a perplexity that is not good, that 
 is not worthy. I have listened to speeches where the 
 orator went on and on till it seemed as if there could 
 be but one conclusion to his words. One sentence 
 seemed inevitable, one sentence would have crowned 
 the rest and given hope and heart to all. That sen- 
 tence was not spoken, and the audience went home 
 confused and miserable. 
 
 The eel, however, has always a great deal to say 
 for himself. He has extraordinary ingenuity and 
 
 81
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 resource in defence. You say, " He cannot possibly 
 get over that. This new development must force him 
 into decisive action." But you are mistaken. The 
 eel can surmount obstacles which would at first sight 
 appear to present unconquerable difficulties. I have 
 read of young eels ascending the upright posts and 
 gates of the waterworks at Norwich until they came 
 into the dam above. Dr. Davy, a brother of Sir 
 Humphry Davy, tells us that at Ballyshannon the 
 eels ascended perpendicular rocks. Here is a part 
 of his dialogue. 
 
 AMICUS: "This is indeed a curious sight. Here 
 are some eels wriggling up a perpendicular rock. 
 How is it they accomplish this? " 
 
 PISCATOE : " I believe they are able to accom- 
 plish it chiefly owing to two circumstances their 
 mucous, glutinous surface favouring adhesion, and 
 their form small and slender. None of these eels, 
 you perceive, are more than two or three inches long, 
 and slender in proportion. Watch one that is now 
 in progress ascending that perpendicular rock. See 
 how it makes its tail a support, adhering by that 
 whilst it projects itself upwards; and this done, now 
 adhering by its trunk, it draws its tail after it. These 
 are its steps, and the asperities of the surface of the 
 rock are its stairs favouring its exertions." 
 
 There is one other characteristic of eels in all 
 kingdoms, and that is the intensity of their objection 
 to be skinned. Their skin was held to be particu- 
 larly valuable, and the ancient Romans are said to 
 
 82
 
 CONCERNING EELS 
 
 have used it to whip naughty boys. All the same the 
 eels do not like to part with it, and to take it from 
 them is a matter of no common difficulty. I think 
 perhaps that we should not attempt to skin them. 
 We need not reason much with them, nor reproach 
 them, nor hold them up to scorn. Everything 
 teaches the wisdom of charity and patience. Per- 
 haps some of us who think we have courage will our- 
 selves turn out eels, and do infinitely more harm to 
 the causes we have espoused than we could if we had 
 never touched them. There are only a few men 
 who can speak of their services, and these men are 
 the last to boast. It is bitter to see desertion and 
 cowardice and apathy when zeal would have made 
 all the difference. But it has ever been so, and it is 
 wisest and kindest to think of those who fail as 
 " God's own unaccountables." A commentator on 
 Shakespeare says well that the poet, while drawing a 
 clear line between good and evil, does not fly into a 
 passion with stupidity, or ignorance, or pretension, 
 or even meanness. He knows that these are repre- 
 sented in Parliament, and by fathers of families and 
 respectable householders. He looks on many things 
 which put the little ardent folk out of temper with 
 his calm, slow, wise smile as though he would say, 
 " If God can put up with all these creatures and 
 ignoramuses, and simulations of human beings in 
 His scheme of creation, there is no reason why I 
 should fume and fret or denounce or argue with 
 them. He finds room for them all in His plan; I'll 
 
 83
 
 make a place for them in mine." After all there are 
 true soldiers left, and there is no need to think 
 that treason has eaten into the heart-core of the 
 commonwealth, and that men are willing to be 
 slaves.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 SWELLED HEAD 
 
 SWELLED HEAD is certainly one of the maladies of 
 youth. It is the consequence of a sudden success, 
 great or small. It is not to be confounded with con- 
 ceit and cocksureness. These qualities are often to 
 be observed where no success has been won. The tone 
 of certainty, assurance, and arrogance in a young 
 man may be a sign of weakness or the sign of great 
 power. Time will show. I remember the days when 
 Lord Randolph Churchill was considered a mere 
 mountebank, impertinent, ignorant, and foolish. But 
 as he went on the nation began to discover that he had 
 qualities. I recall his coming to Edinburgh and mak- 
 ing some speeches which I read. Replying to the 
 taunt that he was a young man, he said that if this 
 was an evil, it was an evil that was steadily being 
 cured. " By the mere process of survival we shall 
 reach at last the summit of the way." After that I 
 went on reading him. It was not wonderful that he 
 had his way with the Conservative party, and became 
 Chancellor of the Exchequer and leader of the House 
 of Commons. Doubtless his last days were sad, but 
 this was due largely to physical reasons. His work 
 endures, for he was the most powerful agent in bring- 
 ing Conservatism into harmony with the ideas of the 
 
 85
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 populace. A far greater man, Lord Beaconsfield, 
 had to climb his way. He failed in his first House of 
 Commons speech, and was compelled to sit down amid 
 roars of laughter, but he closed with the defiant as- 
 sertion that the time would come when the House of 
 Commons would hear him, and the time did come. It 
 was perhaps a foolish thing to say, but it did not 
 prove him to be a fool. Two of the best judges in 
 the House, Mr. Sheil and Sir Robert Peel, saw in his 
 speech the germs of future excellence, and Sheil was 
 kind enough to give him wise counsel by which he 
 profited. 
 
 Neither is Swelled Head a malady which follows 
 on a very gradual success. Many people come to 
 what they have by a slow ascent. They are not con- 
 scious one year of being better off than they were the 
 year before. They have to take a period of years 
 ere they can be sure that they have made any pro- 
 gress. Their success creeps on them, and they are 
 hardly aware of it, and therefore show no conscious- 
 ness of superiority. Nor is Swelled Head to be con- 
 fused with the settled complacency, rising sometimes 
 to pomposity, of prosperous people, the kind of 
 people who are called Sir Joseph or Sir Robert, 
 types so familiar that a caricaturist could almost 
 draw them in his sleep. For this kind of egotism 
 there is no cure, and it has its comic and pleasing 
 side. In that little-known but ever-refreshing book, 
 Canning's Literary Remains, there is an admirable 
 sketch of Erskine. He is made to perorate as fol- 
 
 86
 
 SWELLED HEAD 
 
 lows at a meeting of the Friends of Freedom : " Mr. 
 Erskine concluded by recapitulating, in a strain of 
 agonising and impressive eloquence, the several more 
 prominent heads of his speech: He had been a 
 soldier and a sailor, and had a son at Winchester 
 School he had been called by special retainers, dur- 
 ing the summer, into many different and distant 
 parts of the country travelling chiefly in post- 
 chaises he felt himself called upon to declare that 
 his poor faculties were at the service of his country 
 of the free and enlightened part of it at least 
 he stood here as a man he stood in the eye, indeed 
 in the hand, of God to whom (in the presence of the 
 company and waiters) he solemnly appealed he was 
 of noble, perhaps Royal Blood he had a house at 
 Hampstead was convinced of the necessity of a 
 thorough and radical Reform his pamphlet had 
 gone through thirty editions, skipping alternately 
 the odd and even numbers he loved the Constitution, 
 to which he would cling and grapple and he was 
 clothed with the infirmities of man's nature he 
 would apply to the present French rulers (particu- 
 larly Barras and Rubel) the words of the poet 
 
 "Be to their faults a little blind, 
 Be to their virtues very kind; 
 Let all their ways be unconfined, 
 And clap the padlock on their mind ! " 
 
 And for these reasons, thanking the gentlemen who 
 had done him the honour to drink his health, he should 
 
 87
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 propose * Merlin, the late Minister of Justice, and 
 Trial by Jury ! ' " 
 
 I may also note that the self-esteem common among 
 people of small gifts and less performance should 
 not be too rashly disturbed. It is the armour in 
 which they fight the world. It protects them from 
 the blows of fate. The breaking down of vanity may 
 often mean the breaking down of the whole person- 
 ality. It is not strong enough to meet the world 
 unclothed, unarmed. 
 
 Nor should it be thought for a moment that 
 Swelled Head is the invariable result of even great 
 success. I have witnessed repeatedly and near at 
 hand the fortunes of young men who became famous 
 almost as suddenly as Byron did. It might well 
 raise one's whole estimate of human nature to wit- 
 ness the genuine modesty, simplicity, humility, and 
 kindness which were carried unaltered through the 
 novel and testing strain. I have seen such success 
 make men more humble and more anxious to do the 
 best that ever they could. But I ha,ve seen and 
 heard of instances where the result was different. 
 Let it be remembered that a very small success in- 
 toxicates just as much as a great victory. In the 
 land of the Liliputians, to which most of us belong, 
 the difference of the breadth of a nail in stature 
 crowns a man king. 
 
 How does Swelled Head show itself? 
 
 Sometimes in extreme forms. Men have been 
 known to go mad after a succession of fever fits. 
 
 88
 
 SWELLED HEAD 
 
 Men have also been known to become ashamed of their 
 own fathers and mothers, to deny their source as a 
 quadroon denies his blood. They have even become 
 ashamed of their toiling, faithful wives. But I do 
 not say that such manifestations are of everyday oc- 
 currence. 
 
 The disease of Swelled Head may show itself either 
 in the ungenial or in the genial way. Sudden suc- 
 cess will make one man seclude himself from the 
 vulgar herd. He becomes cold, proud, inaccessible. 
 He shuns the haunts of his fellow- workers. He re- 
 pels what he takes to be their rude familiarities. I 
 have known famous young men who were only to be 
 approached through a series of rooms. You have 
 to deal with somebody in the hall, and then with 
 somebody in another room, and still perhaps with 
 another. And if you pass all your trials you might 
 be ushered into the august presence. This has been 
 told to me: it is not an experience of my own. No 
 human being ever lived for whom I should face such 
 perils. This ungenial form of Swelled Head shows 
 itself also in censoriousness. This is particularly 
 the case when the successful man has for long had a 
 very poor opinion of his kind, and was hardly in 
 circumstances to utter it. From his little temporary 
 eminence he launches his darts right and left. Most 
 of the savage and reckless things said in this world 
 are the result of Swelled Head. When people are 
 struggling they cannot afford to say them. When 
 they find their true place they neither think them nor 
 
 89
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 say them, but are disposed to judge their companions 
 in the hard battle very charitably. Another un- 
 genial symptom of the Swelled Head is imperious- 
 ness. This is a world where wills are crossed and 
 thwarted. We get used to it most of us, and come 
 to see that it is good for us. But a young man con- 
 scious of great powers suffers in the process. When 
 he mounts his throne he becomes an Oriental despot. 
 One of our authors some years ago had a dangerous 
 illness, during which he received surprising proofs 
 of the impression he had made upon the world. As 
 soon as he recovered he commenced a number of law- 
 suits. The instance is quite typical. Last among 
 the signs of this form of Swelled Head is pose, what 
 is called side. You meet your friend after his 
 triumph, and he does not cut you. In fact he is 
 quite willing to converse with you, but there is an 
 unwonted majesty in his accent, a weight of respon- 
 sibility on his brow, a high dignity in his manner, 
 and oracular and even Orphic style in his utterance, 
 and generally a very strong reminder that the rela- 
 tions between him and you cannot be what they once 
 were. You may be invited to his house, but if so you 
 must sleep in a garret, and you must not expect that 
 his equals shall be asked to meet you. Very likely 
 you will note about this time that your old corre- 
 spondent has altered the form of his signature. The 
 letters of his name are larger, and there are more 
 twirls and flourishes. 
 
 There are genial symptoms also, so genial occa- 
 90
 
 SWELLED HEAD 
 
 sionally that they make a distinct addition to the 
 gaiety of life. A good many years ago I was wont 
 to dine once a week with two or three friends. A 
 man known to all of us had leapt into an immense 
 popularity. He was a most companionable being, 
 and we saw more of him after his success than before 
 it. But his behaviour furnished us with tales, which 
 if it were fair to write them down, would give some 
 amusement to the reader. They helped me very 
 much in getting through a winter of exceptionally 
 bitter east winds. The genial form of Swelled Head 
 shows itself in bragging, sheer, unadulterated, una- 
 bashed, endless bragging. A man will talk about 
 the compliments paid to him, about the wonder of his 
 achievements, about the magic of his conquests, about 
 the magnetic force by which he attracts and subdues, 
 and he will talk about nothing else. If he reads the 
 newspapers, it is only to find allusions to his per- 
 formances. If he ever listens to you, which is very 
 unlikely, as you are not a great person, it is to sniff 
 up incense. He is entertaining for a time, and it 
 gives one contentment to see a human being in a 
 world like this so perfectly satisfied with his fate. 
 Sometimes Swelled Head shows itself in a tendency 
 to over-advise. One of my oldest and shrewdest 
 friends thinks that this is the surest of all symptoms. 
 The victim conveys an underlying suggestion of 
 potentiality in all his assertions " If I were you I 
 would " " Had I been consulted." If he had been 
 present at the incubation of the eggs of the common 
 
 91
 
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 goose these eggs would have yielded cygnets. If the 
 patient has been successful in any one thing he will 
 advise you in everything. Ignorance never causes 
 him to falter. Theodore Hook, on meeting such a man 
 accosted him with the words : " Excuse me, sir, but are 
 you anybody in particular ? " Whenever a man takes 
 to teaching the art of ovisuction you may be sure of 
 his case. All is meant very kindly. The success 
 puts the man on better terms with humanity, but as 
 he visibly condescends, it does not put humanity on 
 better terms with him. Extravagance is an occa- 
 sional symptom of Swelled Head. By a stroke of 
 good fortune a man makes a large income, and all his 
 ideas expand. He takes it for granted that the in- 
 come will continue and even increase. So he launches 
 out in every direction, with the result of making his 
 whole life a burden to himself. He is often very 
 hospitable and very generous, but there are base 
 folks who will take what he can give them, and laugh 
 at him all the time. Sensitiveness is another sign. 
 Anything like criticism rouses extreme irritation. 
 Even to express a difference of opinion is an offence. 
 I have kept to the last the most dangerous form 
 perhaps in which Swelled Head exhibits itself. The 
 exalted being imagines himself above rules. He is 
 emancipated. If he is an author he takes it for 
 granted that anything from his pen is of value. He 
 does not need to strive and toil. He has a right to 
 special treatment from his publishers. If he chooses 
 to rewrite his proofs, and thus double the cost of 
 
 92
 
 SWELLED HEAD 
 
 production, the publisher must make no complaint. 
 Engagements he may repudiate at will. There is no 
 worse sign of any man than this. If he is in business 
 he does not need to keep hours in the mechanical and 
 slavish fashion of the past. Holidays he is free to 
 take whenever he pleases, and no one must take of- 
 fence if he forgets or breaks a promise. What he 
 would not tolerate for a moment from any of his own 
 servants he thinks he has a right to do without chal- 
 lenge. The truth is, of course, that any success in 
 business, if it is to continue, implies a more sedulous 
 diligence and a more determined industry. Noblesse 
 oblige. 
 
 The prognosis in this malady, to use the phrase of 
 the medical dictionaries, is very favourable. It is 
 almost always curable. This is because there are 
 so many able and willing physicians who are eager 
 to deal with it gratuitously. This is an extraordi- 
 nary fact. A young man may take to vice or to drink- 
 ing, and hardly anybody will say a word to arrest 
 his descent. Even very kindly people will accelerate 
 the downfall of a tippler by their mistaken hospi- 
 tality. How few have the courage and the goodness 
 to speak frankly to a young man who is going wrong. 
 It may be said that they refrain because they do 
 not wish to give offence. I am afraid the excuse 
 is insufficient. When any one has Swelled Head 
 there is no reluctance to offend him. On all 
 sides men take up the cudgels and strike as hard as 
 
 93
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 they can. George Meredith, in The Shaving of 
 Shagpat, has expounded for us the value of the 
 thwackings. 
 
 "Lo! of hundreds who aspire, 
 
 Eighties perish nineties tire! 
 They who bear up in spite of wrecks and wracks, 
 Were seasoned by celestial hail of thwacks. 
 
 'Tis the thwacking in this den 
 
 Maketh lions of true men! 
 So we are nerved to break the clinging mesh 
 Which tames the noblest efforts of poor flesh." 
 
 But that is the ordinary discipline of life, to which 
 we must submit manfully. The other is special, very 
 painful, and should not be needed. Doubtless it is 
 administered often from envy, but that does not make 
 it more easy. Men are drawn very much to those 
 who remained unspoiled, uncorrupted after shining 
 triumphs. On the other hand, the punishment of 
 Swelled Head may be lifelong. Ground is lost which 
 can never be recovered; acts of recklessness are re- 
 membered when brave and fine deeds are forgotten; 
 gulfs open between friends over which no bridge is 
 thrown.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE VALUE OF A MARGIN 
 
 THE Swiss tradition of William Tell is now said to 
 be without historic foundation, but it makes a good 
 story all the same. Gessler, the Steward of the Duke 
 of Austria, perpetrated atrocious cruelties on the in- 
 habitants of the Forest Cantons in his master's name. 
 He put the Ducal hat of Austria on a pole in the 
 market-place of Altdorf, and threatened with mer- 
 ciless punishment any one who passed it without un- 
 covering. William Tell failed to do reverence to the 
 hat, and was sentenced to be put to death unless he 
 could hit an apple placed on his son's head. He did 
 it. " What," asked Gessler, " would you have done 
 with the second arrow in your bow? " " Shot you 
 if I had killed my child." It was because Tell had 
 a second arrow that he was able to send the first 
 straight to its mark. In other words, the second 
 arrow is the margin, and his feat shows the value of 
 a margin. 
 
 There ought to be a margin in the matter of 
 money. People should live within their incomes. 
 Hackneyed though the quotation is, I cannot pass 
 over Mr. Micawber's famous saying. He solemnly 
 conjured David Copperfield to take warning by his 
 fate, and to observe that if a man had 20 a year for 
 
 95
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 his income, and spent 19, 19s. 6d. he would be happy, 
 but that if he spent 20, Is. he would be miserable. 
 Mr. Micawber was a man of unquenchable spirits, 
 and rose easily to the height of earthly bliss when his 
 troubles were removed. But even he was sometimes 
 in the depths. By the way, a friend of mine com- 
 plained the other day that Dickens had made Micaw- 
 ber successful in the Colonies. He thought that 
 Micawber could never have been successful anywhere. 
 I doubt it. There is nothing so precious in a new 
 country as an unbounded hopefulness. In Martin 
 Chuzzlewit Dickens catches splendidly the indomita- 
 ble confidence and assurance of the emigrants to 
 Eden when in their worst plight. They were in rags 
 and in hunger, and yet they talked about the finest 
 country in the world and the decadence of poor old 
 England. It is a spirit like this that conquers a new 
 country, so I have always believed that Mr. Micaw- 
 ber did fairly well in Port Middlebay, that he did 
 become a magistrate, and that the cheering with 
 which Mr. Micawber was received defied description. 
 Again and again it rose and fell like the waves of 
 ocean, and a tear sprang into the manliest eye of the 
 ninety-four eyes present when Mr. Micawber warned 
 the younger portion of his audience from the shoals 
 of ever incurring pecuniary liabilities which they were 
 unable to liquidate. However, we are not all so 
 buoyant as Mr. Micawber, and I am pretty sure that 
 much of the misery in life comes from people living 
 beyond their incomes, and suffering constantly from 
 
 96
 
 THE VALUE OF A MARGIN 
 
 the resulting anxieties and humiliations. A shrewd 
 business man told me not long ago that he was con- 
 vinced the practice was increasing, that men with 
 moderate incomes, dependent on their exertion, were 
 more and more given to spending the last penny 
 and had rarely a 5 note to spare. The literary 
 classes are blamed especially for this kind of dis- 
 turbing extravagance, whether justly or not I can- 
 not say. In any case, Mrs. Oliphant, by her own 
 confession, through all her active career, lived be- 
 yond her income. She had magnificent health and 
 courage and industry, and yet it told upon her. She 
 could not make an effort after self-control and econ- 
 omy. She never knew quite at the beginning of the 
 year how the ends would come together at Christmas. 
 There were always troubles and debts and forestall- 
 ing of money earned. She had generally eaten up 
 the price of a book before it was printed. " I ought 
 to have been worn out by work and crushed by care 
 half a hundred times by all rules, but I never was so. 
 Good day and ill day have balanced with each other, 
 and I got through year after year. It was in its way 
 an immoral, or at least an unmoral mode of life, 
 dashing forward in the face of all obstacles, and 
 taking up all burdens with a kind of levity, as if my 
 strength and resource could never fail. If they had 
 failed I should have been left in the direst bank- 
 ruptcy, and I had no right to reckon upon being 
 always delivered at the critical moment. I should 
 think any one who did so blamable now." She had 
 
 97
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 nothing of the grace of thrift. She could not deny 
 herself. She must always have the best for her sons 
 and for herself. She would travel first-class in the 
 most expensive trains ; she would live in the best 
 hotels; and she would educate her sons at Eton and 
 Oxford in spite of all warnings. She got through 
 wonderfully, and left, if I remember rightly, a few 
 hundred pounds. But it is impossible not to see that 
 her life and work were greatly marred by this reck- 
 lessness. She professed to care nothing that her 
 work was spoiled. " What is the reputation of a 
 circulating library to me? Nothing, and less than 
 nothing a thing the thought of which now makes 
 me angry that any one should for a moment imagine 
 I cared for that, or that it made up for any loss. . . 
 In the meantime, it was good to have kept the pot 
 boiling, and maintained the cheerful household fire 
 so long, though it is smouldering in darkness now." 
 Much more grave was the effect on her sons. They 
 made her last days miserable, and she came to see 
 that she herself had spoiled them. She had accus- 
 tomed them to the easy going on of all things, never 
 letting them see her anxieties, or know that there was 
 a difficulty about anything, till their minds were 
 formed to that habit, and all thought of labour and 
 necessity was taken away. " It was a kind of for- 
 lorn pleasure to me that they had never wanted any- 
 thing, but this turns it into a remorse." Very few 
 people have the amazing courage of Mrs. Oliphant, 
 and even if a man who lives extravagantly keeps an 
 
 98
 
 THE VALUE OF A MARGIN 
 
 easy mind there are others whose happiness he is re- 
 sponsible for, who suffer very deeply sooner or later. 
 It is one of the mysteries of life that people should 
 try to keep up false appearances, that they live in a 
 style which their earnings do not justify. In this 
 way they incur the contemptuous astonishment of 
 outsiders ; they grieve their own friends ; they mort- 
 gage the peace of the future, for none of us should 
 live as if we were always to be as prosperous as we 
 are now. The clouds are coming up. There will 
 be less room for us by and by, and by a little careful- 
 ness and a little self-denial we may brighten im- 
 measurably the close of life for ourselves and for our 
 own. One can see in the lives of Dickens and Thack- 
 eray how very bitter carking care about money was 
 to them, how the whole spirit of Dickens rose fiercely 
 against it. Did Thackeray ever recover the pecuni- 
 ary misfortunes of his early years? The iron went 
 deep into his soul. No doubt the secret of living 
 within one's income is mainly to be found in the wise 
 choice of a house, for according to a man's house so 
 will his expenses be, do what he may. 
 
 There ought also to be as far as possible a margin 
 of time for work. That is, if you know that some- 
 thing has to be done at a certain time, you cannot 
 begin the preparation too soon. I remember a coun- 
 try minister who rendered some words remarkably. 
 He said, " I like to find the text of my Sunday ser- 
 mon on Monday, and keep it simpering up and down 
 in my mind all the week." I suspect he meant sim- 
 
 99
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 mering. There is no doubt that the longer a sub- 
 ject is thought over the more adequately it is treated 
 when the time comes for treatment. There are 
 apparent exceptions. Sometimes a man will write 
 his best on the spur of the moment on a theme which 
 has suggested itself five minutes before he began. 
 But that is because his mind was unconsciously 
 trained to deal with that topic. If you choose a 
 subject and settle the main line of treatment, all you 
 have to do is to read and think. Read what? Read 
 anything, anything that is not utterly trivial. Once 
 fix any subject in your mind, and allusions to it will 
 leap out from the most unexpected quarters. I 
 read some days ago an essay on Ticonderoga, by 
 Pierre Loti. Never having read anything about the 
 place before, I was fascinated with the freshness 
 and the delicate beauty of Loti's descriptions, and 
 thought I should like to know more of it. That even- 
 ing I took up De Morgan's Budget of Paradoxes, a 
 book which never fails me, one of those books that 
 you can never open without learning something. At 
 the page I opened there was a story of Ticonderoga. 
 I mention this simply as one of innumerable experi- 
 ences. How often one reads and hears essays which 
 have a germ of goodness. There is a thought in 
 them ; there are perhaps gleams in them. But they 
 are thoroughly underworked ; they are destroyed for 
 want of adequate meditation. 
 
 For there ought to be a margin of knowledge as 
 well as a margin of time for work. One literary man 
 
 100
 
 THE VALUE OF A MARGIN 
 
 said to another that he had to go through a great 
 deal of reading for his new book; so much matter 
 that seemed likely at first had in the end to be re- 
 jected. "Yes," replied his friend, "you can only 
 walk on the width of your feet, and yet you want 
 more to walk on." It would be very uncomfortable 
 to walk sixty feet on a narrow plank. Yet this is 
 what many people are doing. There is no margin 
 in their knowledge. There are men who one evening 
 get an introduction to Hegel by reading a chapter 
 of Dr. Hutchison Stirling. The next day they 
 manage to work into print their confused impression, 
 and talk about Hegel as if he had been their master 
 for a quarter of a century. The trick is rarely suc- 
 cessful. Those who write in that way are sure to 
 be caught. It is not possible to mistake what is 
 written from a ripe fulness of knowledge from the 
 mere quackery of hasty, superficial, pretentious ig- 
 norance. For a good article or a good book the 
 author should have twice as much material gathered 
 as is ultimately worked in. I saw it said the other 
 day that the future of any boy passionately fond of 
 reading was assured, and I can well believe it. The 
 day comes when we read too much for a purpose 
 for an examination, for an article, for a book. It is 
 well to spend much time in youth reading the best 
 with no ulterior view. All comes to its use in the 
 end. 
 
 We should give ourselves a margin of time, that 
 we may not waste energy in hurry and flurry. It 
 
 101
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 is proverbial that the men who do least think them- 
 selves busiest. If you want a bit of work done well 
 and done promptly you go to a man who seems over- 
 occupied. Fussy people, people who undertake more 
 than they can carry through, people who work by 
 spurts and fits and starts, are apt to spoil their lives. 
 They may do splendidly for a time, but they break 
 down, and the tortoise comes in before the hare. I 
 cannot bear people who are hurried, who have no 
 leisure for a chat, who puff and steam and shriek all 
 the time they are working. The noisiest engines I 
 know of are those of the very worst railway in this 
 country. 
 
 Archbishop Tait was a tremendous worker, quite 
 as great a worker as Bishop Wilberforce. The 
 absence of fussiness was one of his peculiar charac- 
 teristics. It was the rarest possible thing to see him 
 in a hurry about anything. " This total absence of 
 fuss and flurry used to deceive his guests in the odd- 
 est way. I remember an American ecclesiastic who 
 was staying at Lambeth at a very busy time asking 
 me on the second or third morning if the Archbishop 
 was holiday-making. He seemed to have nothing 
 particularly to do, and was constantly walking in 
 the garden. The doctor who knew him best ascribed 
 to this steady calmness of manner and movement the 
 fact that he was able to resist so long the dangers 
 attaching to an enfeebled heart. But he did not 
 adopt his manner for that purpose. It was as a 
 protest against the excited restlessness that is so com- 
 
 102
 
 THE VALUE OF A MARGIN 
 
 raon, the idea that a busy man must be a man in a 
 chronic state of perspiration. 
 
 There ought in every life to be a margin of leisure, 
 not merely for rest, but for the possessing of one's 
 soul. The busiest man ought to be able to spend 
 part of the day alone, frequently without doing any- 
 thing. He should be able to mix with pleasure in 
 quiet society. He should find some part of the day 
 to give to those at home. I knew a business man in 
 an American town who was so absorbed in his busi- 
 ness that he could not keep away from it. He had 
 a charming family, and he came back to dine with 
 them every evening at seven. After dinner he used 
 to go back to his office and work till eleven, return- 
 ing about midnight thoroughly weary. And so life 
 went on. But as the golden sentence has it, " Life 
 is not for learning, neither is life for working, but 
 learning and working are for life." 
 
 It ought perhaps to be said that there must not 
 be too much margin about life. Wastefulness in 
 money matters is very bad, but miserliness is infinitely 
 worse. A man may be very careless and yet keep 
 his soul, but if he is too careful he will lose his soul. 
 You cannot make a friend of a miser. A miser must 
 live and die without love. You cannot gain the 
 whole world and keep your own soul. Life should 
 have a margin, but there are lives which are nearly 
 all margin, from which every living line and letter 
 have passed away. Neither is it good to have too 
 
 103
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 much leisure and too much money. Again and again 
 I have met friends of the late James Cotter Morison, 
 and they agree that none of his writings give the 
 faintest impression of his real and extraordinary 
 powers. They account for this by saying that his 
 circumstances were too easy. He had no external 
 pressure. He had unlimited time on his hands, and 
 was excessively fastidious in style. In conversation 
 he showed himself the master of almost any company, 
 and he was not at all indolent. Neither did he at- 
 tempt too many subjects. What he did has its 
 merits, and was not entirely without result, but it 
 was very little in comparison with the power and 
 culture of his mind. Not too much margin, then, 
 but some margin is what we should seek. 
 
 104
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 SAILING AGAINST THE WIND 
 
 THE late Mr. P. G. Hamerton, as many will remem- 
 ber, was much addicted to sailing on French rivers, 
 and here and there liked to dwell upon the analogies 
 between sailing and human life. Every one, or at 
 least every preacher, has more or less used nautical 
 similes. He has spoken of the tossing on the rough 
 ocean, which is life, and the haven of rest, which is 
 death. He has compared the fair wind and rippling 
 sea to prosperity, and the tempest to adversity. I 
 wish to write something about beating against the 
 wind, which is so familiar an experience in navi- 
 gation. Every properly conducted vessel, so the 
 authorities tell us, can sail against the wind. Going 
 against the wind by the power of a machine is oppos- 
 ing one force by another, but to beat to windward in 
 a sailing vessel is a test of skill. It means that the 
 wind is not resisted, but employed. The opposing 
 force continues, but the opposition is called into aid. 
 Now, this is a parable of life, and I may expatiate 
 upon it for a little. 
 
 Let me take, for example, solitude. One of the 
 chief aggravations of reverse is that it often throws 
 a man out of congenial company, and dooms him to 
 loneliness. But if he is wise he will take the loneliness 
 
 105
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 and make it serve him use it so that it shall bring 
 him into better company than any that he has lost. 
 I met the other day an old college companion whom I 
 had not seen for many years. He used to be a coun- 
 try minister, but has long preached in Melbourne. 
 We talked about the difference between the country 
 and the city, and the desire of many men to get away 
 from the one into the other. I remarked that the 
 isolation of the country, the want of congenial fellow- 
 ship, was deeply felt by many who had been used to 
 the most perfect of friendships those between fel- 
 low-students. He replied that he had never experi- 
 enced this. In his country charge there were two men 
 who satisfied his desire for society. One was the 
 miller and one was the schoolmaster. Both were 
 gifted and educated men, and the miller especially 
 had a mind and a way in which Carlyle would have 
 delighted. It is the old story. We crane our necks 
 and look to the ends of the earth for that which is 
 beside us. In nearly every place perhaps by a little 
 trouble one may turn strangers into helpful friends. 
 Even if it were not so, even if there were exceptions, 
 most of us might, and ought to, find in our own 
 households much more than we look for. It is neces- 
 sary for those who would live happily together that 
 they should try to show their best to one another. 
 They should try to show the best of their minds. All 
 things should be in common. Every pleasant expe- 
 rience, whether it be of books or of life, ought to be 
 shared. I am confident that existence is maintained 
 
 106
 
 SAILING AGAINST THE WIND 
 
 at a much lower level of happiness than it should be, 
 simply because those who are bound by the closest 
 natural ties do not know how to make each other 
 happy grudge the time that should be given to the 
 arraying of the soul. Then consider how many pre- 
 cious hours are wasted by merely idle talk. Go into 
 a club and see men aimlessly gossiping through long 
 afternoons. Solitude is the mother country of the 
 strong. It gives time for reading, for study, and for 
 labour. If it is used in these ways, then we can sail 
 against the wind. Of course, it is often used differ- 
 ently, just as a man ignorant of sailing is helpless in 
 the midst of a sea agitated by a steady breeze, and 
 drifts to leeward, the unintelligent victim of the 
 great natural forces. 
 
 Another way in which we can sail against the wind 
 is making good use of bad health. Every one has 
 observed the amazing way in which invalids survive 
 and strong men go down. I took up this evening the 
 first volume of Sydney Dobell's life, and read again 
 the pathetic story of his early married life. His 
 wife, always delicate, became a complete invalid, and 
 seemed on the verge of the grave. Many pages detail 
 the hopes and fears of her anxious husband. As it 
 turned out, Sydney Dobell died at fifty, and his wife 
 vsurvived him for many years, dying, I think, when 
 she was nearer eighty than seventy. I knew long 
 ago a lady so delicate that every time one parted 
 from her it seemed like a final leave-taking, but, so 
 far as I know, she is alive to-day. On the other hand, 
 
 107
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 I call to mind the two strongest and healthiest men I 
 have ever known. One of them was a novelist, the 
 other a college don. Neither of them ever knew what 
 illness was till they were close upon the end. The 
 novelist over-exerted himself, transgressed every law 
 of health, and was struck down by a mysterious dis- 
 ease, to which he succumbed. The college don could 
 never be induced to take care of himself or adapt his 
 clothing to the weather. One day, when very slightly 
 clad, he went to a boat-race in an east wind, and it 
 killed him. I have read of a physician whose health 
 broke down so completely that his life was in danger. 
 He took himself in hand with the same care as he was 
 wont to give to his patients, and with perfect success. 
 He took care in small things, observed the rules of 
 health, even the least of them, avoided dangers, and 
 became well. The great physicians nowadays insist 
 upon the scrupulous observance of small rules. No 
 law is violated with impunity, no law is obeyed with- 
 out reward. And what is true in the physical sphere 
 is true in the moral and spiritual spheres. By care 
 and management invalids can accomplish much good 
 work. They must not work too long, but if they 
 work regularly and concentrate while they are work- 
 ing, they will make no contemptible show at the end. 
 Again, there are compensating elements for cruel 
 deprivations if we will look for them. I knew an 
 ardent and voracious reader whose eyes became weak. 
 He was allowed to read two hours a day, and he told 
 me that he was no worse off than in days when he 
 
 108
 
 SAILING AGAINST THE WIND 
 
 could go on for eight hours. The limitation made 
 him select his reading. Great readers, if they will 
 think of it, will discover that much of the time they 
 spend in reading is practically wasted. They read 
 rubbish or they read inattentively, and straightway 
 forget. 
 
 The same law holds in cases of discouragement. 
 Moralists, so far as I remember, have hardly studied 
 sufficiently the effect of prolonged discouragement on 
 the human spirit. It acts upon some natures like 
 poison. To go on doing one's best year after year 
 without a single sign of prosperity may sap the 
 whole strength of life, leave the nature without hope, 
 without courage, without buoyancy, without the 
 power of recovery. Many years ago I heard a 
 preacher say that success was a very good thing. " I 
 wish," he said, " I had had more of it. I should have 
 been a better man." Few things can develop well 
 without sunshine. Growth in the dark is apt to be 
 distorted. A man who had worked for nearly twenty 
 years under the most cruel, oppressive, and dis- 
 couraging circumstances at last obtained relief. He 
 told me that long years after his change to happier 
 circumstances, he used to be visited by dreams in 
 which he was taken back to his past and yoked to the 
 old weary task. He wakened with horror and relief 
 to find himself a comparatively free man. Yet with- 
 out difficulty, without discouragement, a nature never 
 becomes strong. Sailing against the wind is an essen- 
 tial part of education. Without it the faculties are 
 
 109
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 never exercised, the man never becomes strong. We 
 all know people who cannot bear to be in a minority. 
 They must have behind them some gust of popular 
 feeling before they can develop enthusiasm. But 
 strong men can hold on and be patient, and make 
 progress even when things seem dead against them. 
 They know their own mind, and go on calmly. These 
 are the true leaders. There is a deep truth in the old 
 saying that when things are at the worst they always 
 mend. But you say, when do you know that the 
 worst has come? I reply that there is a moment of 
 sickening misery which brings its own message. We 
 know then that any change must be a change for the 
 better. And there are changes often if we do not 
 faint, changes as welcome as they are surprising. 
 For months and perhaps for years we do not see 
 where they are to come from. We do not know per- 
 haps that they are coming till the moment of their 
 arrival. But they do come to the stout heart. It is 
 wise, then, not to lay plans for ten years ahead on the 
 assumption that the conditions in which we now find 
 ourselves will be permanent. It is wise to remember 
 that the conditions are changing, and that we may 
 find ourselves far happier, far lighter of heart, than 
 We had dared to dream. 
 
 Once more, poverty, if it is bravely and wisely 
 borne, may greatly better us. It is well for us to 
 have the complexity of things reduced to simplicity. 
 Once, perhaps, we lived in a little room and paid four 
 shillings a week. Now we are in a mansion which 
 
 110
 
 SAILING AGAINST THE WIND 
 
 costs 500 a year. Are we really happier in the man- 
 sion than we were in the small room? Could we go 
 back again and be content and find our own minds a 
 kingdom? I do not wish to cant far from it. If 
 poverty were in itself a desirable thing people would 
 not struggle so hard to escape from it. Poverty 
 often visits us most severely in its effect on those we 
 love. The blow comes very near the heart when we 
 cannot give to some poor sufferer the alleviations 
 which might give her a chance. All this is very true, 
 and yet it is true that continued prosperity in most 
 cases enervates, that the stronger virtues do not de- 
 velop themselves when everything goes smoothly and 
 easily, that all sunshine makes the desert. Poverty 
 may serve us well if it teaches us where the essence 
 of true life lies, and it may prepare us for the more 
 worthy use of riches. We may beat to windward in 
 poverty. When we no longer go with a fair wind 
 and have to tack constantly against a foul one, we 
 may cease to be spoiled children. 
 
 m
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 "OBSERVE THE FLIGHT OF YONDER SOLITARY 
 CROW " 
 
 WHEN the villain of the old-fashioned melodrama 
 finds his antagonist too much for him, he suddenly 
 points upwards during a pause in the combat and 
 cries out, " Observe the flight of yonder solitary 
 crow," or words to that effect. The unsuspecting 
 victim looks up, and the villain takes advantage of 
 his defenceless situation to plant his stage sword be- 
 tween the other's arm and ribs. 
 
 Robert Houdin, the great conjurer, in his two 
 most entertaining books, The Cheating of the Greeks 
 Unveiled, and the Secrets of Conjuring and Magic, 
 tells us that this is precisely the principle on which 
 conjuring tricks are performed. Houdin was the 
 founder of the modern school of conjuring. He was 
 full of inventive genius, and discarded contemp- 
 tuously the clumsy tricks of what he called the false 
 bottom school. So great was the reputation he ac- 
 quired, that the French Government sent him on a 
 sort of roving commission to Algeria, in order that 
 he might discredit the prestige of the Marabouts, 
 the wonderful workers who had attained extraor- 
 dinary influence over the Arabs by their pretended 
 miracles. Houdin was not above the use of in-
 
 "YONDER SOLITARY CROW" 
 
 genious mechanical devices. In his work on the 
 Cheating of the Greeks, which deals mainly with 
 card tricks, he tells us that an ingenious swindler's 
 instrument is a snuff-box, on which there is a small 
 medallion, about the size of a franc, containing a 
 miniature executed with considerable art. The 
 players naturally observe this, and sometimes it is 
 passed round to be inspected. When the game has 
 begun, the Greek takes a pinch of snuff, which 
 enables him to put the box down again nearest to 
 him. But at the same moment he has pressed an 
 invisible spring, which substitutes for the miniature 
 a small convex glass, from which he derives consid- 
 erable profit. In fact, when the Greek has the deal, 
 as his mirror is under the cards he gives his oppon- 
 ent, they are reflected in it. From time to time the 
 Greek restores the medallion, and offers a pinch of 
 snuff to his victim. But all such contrivances, he 
 earnestly insists, are quite useless without dexterity. 
 " To succeed as a conjurer three things are essen- 
 tial: first dexterity, second dexterity, and third dex- 
 terity." There is needed not only dexterity of the 
 hand, but also of the eye and the tongue. The vast 
 majority of conjuring tricks are variations of the 
 same broad idea namely to cause the disappear- 
 ance of a given object, and to make it reappear in a 
 different place from that in which it has been 
 ostensibly put. The details may vary, but the 
 principle is the same. Now in order to accomplish 
 this satisfactorily, the attention of the audience 
 
 113
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 must be diverted. They must observe the flight of 
 yonder solitary crow. So long as the eyes of the 
 audience are upon the performer, it is absolutely im- 
 possible to move the hands so quickly as to abstract 
 or to replace any object without being perceived. 
 But it is very easy to do this unnoticed if the audi- 
 ence are looking another way at the time. There- 
 fore the most necessary, as it is the most difficult 
 accomplishment for a conjurer to acquire, is to 
 divert attention from himself. It will not be suf- 
 ficient to ask them to look in another direction. 
 They will suspect the trick, and look on all the more 
 keenly. According to Houdin the chief requisite is 
 to have a good eye. That is, the performer, by an 
 earnest, convinced gaze in a particular direction, 
 will draw insensibly the eyes of others with him. If, 
 on the other hand, he furtively glances at the hand 
 which is performing some function that should be 
 kept secret, the game is up. It is because so much 
 mental training and adroitness are needed for con- 
 juring, that as a rule explanations of how tricks are 
 performed do not help the ordinary reader. He can 
 make no use of the instruction until he has acquired 
 the skill to use it. Nevertheless, Houdin told so 
 much in his books that his rivals did their best to 
 limit the circulation, and I believe the first is prac- 
 tically unknown, while the second was not available 
 till it was translated by Professor Hoffmann, and 
 published by Messrs. Routledge. 
 
 The place of diversions in life is a matter of no
 
 "YONDER SOLITARY CROW" 
 
 small moment, and as usual the etymology is in- 
 structive. Diversion is the act of diverting aside 
 from a course, turning into a different direction or 
 to a different point or destination. Very soon it 
 passes into the secondary meaning of sport, or play, 
 or pastime; that which diverts, turns, or draws the 
 mind from care, business, or study thus rests and 
 amuses. 
 
 I am copying from the Century Dictionary, 
 which gives the following quotation from Ad- 
 dison : " We will now for our diversion entertain 
 ourselves with a set of riddles, and see if we can find 
 a key to them among the ancient poets." Steele 
 says : " The necessities of hunger and thirst were 
 his greatest diversions from the reflections of his 
 lonely condition." There is a third technical mean- 
 ing. Diversion is the act of drawing the attention 
 and force of an enemy from the point where the 
 principal attack is to be made. Of this there are 
 many illustrations in the history of war. What 
 brought the fortunes of the Camisarts to their nadir 
 was a trick of Montrevel. He gave out that he pro- 
 posed travelling in his coach with a very small body- 
 guard. Having started in this fashion, he man- 
 aged to join his army, which had been so disposed 
 as completely to encircle the enemy. Cavalier, the 
 brave Camisart General, fell into the trap. He and 
 his troops were hemmed in on all sides by an enemy 
 sixfold their number. They fought the ground inch 
 by inch. Five hundred were killed, and not one was 
 
 115
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 taken prisoner, but the result was the Treaty of 
 Nismes. 
 
 It is not my habit to deal with political issues in 
 these letters, but it may safely be said that the trick 
 of diversion is by no means obsolete among our 
 statesmen. When a political party has little ac- 
 counts which it is inconvenient to settle, there is a 
 great temptation to divert attention from muddling 
 and blundering to something new. " Observe the 
 flight of yonder solitary crow." But very great 
 dexterity is needed. If the people imagine that they 
 are being hoaxed, they concentrate their observa- 
 tion in a hostile and dangerous manner. One of the 
 strangest episodes in Mr. Gladstone's career was his 
 appeal to the people in 1874. The Liberal Gov- 
 ernment had not been doing well. A spirit of uneasi- 
 ness had settled down into a condition of listless 
 inaction. The bye-elections went badly, and the 
 Premier became impatient of the general lethargy. 
 Like a thunderbolt came the news that there was to 
 be a Dissolution, and that Mr. Gladstone was to 
 appeal to the constituencies on a Budget. There 
 was very little specification of other measures in his 
 manifesto, but the Premier promised that the In- 
 come-tax was to be abolished, that assistance was to 
 be afforded to the ratepayers, and that the advo- 
 cates of a free breakfast-table were not to be for- 
 gotten. The voters were to be hurried to the polls 
 under the spell of the proffered boon, and everything 
 besides was to be forgotten. The British taxpayer 
 
 116
 
 "YONDER SOLITARY CROW" 
 
 at that time did not feel his burdens as he feels them 
 now. When shall we have a political leader promis- 
 ing the abolition of the Income-tax? Be that as it 
 may, the voters of 1874 thought they had found out 
 Mr. Gladstone trying the trick of the solitary crow. 
 He was denounced even by the most faithful of his 
 own friends, and the General Election ended in dis- 
 aster for his party. The moral is that the trick, 
 while it sometimes may succeed, is very dangerous. 
 Its whole prospect of success is the chance that the 
 voter may unsuspiciously follow the eyes of the 
 wizard. 
 
 But diversion, in the fullest sense of the word, 
 plays a very great and salutary part in life. There 
 is nothing so terrible as the concentration of 
 thought and energy in one channel. Sometimes a 
 particular subject fastens on the mind with a ter- 
 rible intensity. It lays an iron and immortal grasp 
 upon the spirit. Night and day the victim is never 
 free. He dreams of one thing by night, he wakens 
 to it in the morning, all the day it grips him and 
 refuses to let go. If that continues long enough 
 the end is madness. The domination of the fixed 
 idea, to the exclusion of every other interest in life, 
 is a form of insanity. Sometimes it is love, or rather 
 the exaggeration of love, as we see it in the letters 
 written by Keats to Fanny Brawne during his last 
 illness. Keats was certainly mad when he wrote 
 them. Sometimes it is remorse, but remorse can very 
 seldom write itself out. Sometimes, as in the case 
 
 117
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 of William Cowper, it is religious madness. Cowper 
 became persuaded that an injunction to suicide and 
 a subsequent sentence of condemnation were reve- 
 lations from heaven, and from that hour he lived in 
 his own conviction a doomed man. The wonder" 
 was that he was able to live at all, but what soothed 
 him was small diversions from his despairing 
 thoughts. He fed the chickens, he was continually 
 employed in gardening, and talked freely about his 
 favourite employment. He took care of three 
 leverets, which grew up as tame as cats, and as fond 
 of human society. He resolved to be a carpenter, 
 and constructed boxes, tables, stools, besides bird 
 and squirrel cages. He exercised much of his in- 
 genuity on an orange-tree and three myrtles. These 
 suggested a greenhouse which he built with his own 
 hands, and which afforded him amusement for a 
 longer time than any expedient to which he had fled 
 from the misery of having nothing to do. He took 
 to reading Greek and Latin, and translated Homer. 
 It was with that he was busy till within two years of 
 his end. During these years he translated little 
 Latin poems into English, or English poems into 
 Latin. When he was dying the physician asked him 
 how he felt. " Feel," he replied, " I feel unutter- 
 able despair." 
 
 In the ordinary, as well as in the extraordinary, 
 way of life, the faculty of diversion is invaluable. 
 It is often particularly useful in conversation. I 
 have heard of a great business man who, when things 
 
 118
 
 "YONDER SOLITARY CROW" 
 
 became unpleasant in a discussion, had a trick of 
 pulling out a drawer. In this drawer he kept some 
 rare and curious objects. He would select one and 
 show it, and the talk speedily became amicable. Sir 
 Arthur Helps, whose writings are full of hard-won 
 wisdom, says that a pleasant story will do more than 
 almost anything else to relieve the tension in per- 
 sonal relations. Animals are often a great relief 
 to the mind too busy with its work. The legend 
 of St. John and the quail will be remembered, and 
 the Irish saints in particular found great delight in 
 pet animals. In fact to this the new feeling about 
 the brute creation may be largely traced. It is also 
 very helpful to have a variety of studies. In her life 
 of George Grote, Mrs. Grote tells how the historian 
 was diverted from the fond attention and sustained 
 energy with which he worked at his Greece by an 
 eager interest in science. She was at first alarmed, 
 but came to feel that the diversion was salutary, and 
 certainly it enriched Grote's subsequent work. Con- 
 genial scenery is a mighty stay to some minds. 
 There are those who can live complacently in any 
 place, however hideous, but there are others who 
 simply cannot. If they are balked of their desire 
 for natural beauty of the kind they love, they cannot 
 go on. Of this Winckelmann is a striking example. 
 He was a German heart and soul, and in a certain 
 sense he remained a German. Even when he went to 
 Italy his passionate friendships continued to be with 
 Germans. But the scenery of Italy was the breath 
 
 119
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 of his life. Latterly his imagination became mor- 
 bidly homesick, and he actually meditated a violent 
 break with his Roman ties. He started with feverish 
 impatience on his journey to Berlin, and was thor- 
 oughly happy till he got to Verona. Scarcely an 
 hour after an extraordinary change was observed in 
 the expression of his countenance. He seemed to be 
 overcome with a spasm of horror as the Alpine world 
 opened before him. Suddenly he exclaimed that he 
 would then turn back at once, and though he went 
 forward to his death, it was in so strange a temper 
 of mind that his companion thought him deranged. 
 Friendship is a great diversion, and to accomplish 
 its full work it should exist between human beings of 
 different opinions, different attainments, and differ- 
 ent pursuits. Live too much in the circle of fellow- 
 workers, and you never escape the pressure of 
 thought and work. This, I have no doubt, is the 
 secret of the strange and apparently incongruous 
 associations formed by many of the most gifted 
 minds. They desired to escape from themselves and 
 their prison-houses of toil, they sought to be 
 recreated, in a word they needed and obtained diver- 
 sion. 
 
 120
 
 CHAPTER XIV 
 
 DRIVING A HOOP: A SUGGESTION FOR 
 CHRISTMAS 
 
 MRS. OLIPHANT tells us in her Autobiography that 
 she was not a fluent talker. She was often silent in 
 the midst of animated conversation. But she had 
 one friend who made her and every one else talk. 
 This was a wise and kind old lady, who by her gentle 
 suggestions, her pertinent inquiries, and her encour- 
 aging looks, unlocked the lips of every one she met. 
 Mrs. Oliphant says that the incitement given by this 
 friend was very like driving a hoop. The compari- 
 son is not unhappy. I am qualified to judge, for I 
 have driven a hoop with a very young companion not 
 so many years ago as you might think. The hoop 
 must be handled very tactfully at the start, but when 
 it gets into the swing it acts of itself, requiring little 
 or no aid. Most of us have known hostesses with the 
 invaluable art of drawing out and mingling in 
 friendly and interesting talk a whole company. It 
 is a very rare talent, and there is always behind it 
 much wisdom and unselfishness and sympathy. 
 
 Sometimes one may start a Difficult conversational- 
 ist for the mere pleasure of hearing him talk. In 
 this case the driving of the hoop is in a manner 
 selfish, especially in a dialogue. I have read that 
 
 121
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 the famous Master of Trinity, Dr. W. H. Thomp- 
 son, had to be started in this way. He was a very 
 formidable person. His snow-white hair, coal-black 
 eyebrows, and parchment complexion awed every 
 spectator, and the effect was increased by the critical 
 wrinkles on his brow and the inscrutable coldness of 
 his eyes. Once induced to speak, however, he could 
 say the most brilliant and memorable things. Even 
 when he was ordinary, which sometimes happened, 
 his words borrowed force from his personality. 
 That personality was so strong as to turn common- 
 place into epigram, and ordinary sarcasms into 
 crushing hits. But such a man as Thompson was 
 rather a talker than a conversationalist. He used 
 to terrify his companions by the way in which he 
 raised his brows to hear them when they ventured to 
 say anything. Jowett, the Master of Balliol, was 
 equally daunting, and at his silent breakfasts in- 
 flicted untold sufferings on bashful and ingenuous 
 youths. But there were those who knew how to make 
 Jowett talk how to drive the hoop. 
 
 In most cases, however, driving the hoop is, espe- 
 cially with old people, a distinct triumph of altruism, 
 for the talk of the great majority revolves happily 
 and safely on a very few stories and on a very few 
 subjects. All Scotsmen have known old gentlemen 
 whose conversational stock-in-trade was a series of 
 stories about Dr. Chalmers. Very often a con- 
 tinental journey in youth, with just a spice of ad- 
 venture, comes to the front in later years, and is
 
 DRIVING A HOOP 
 
 'dwelt upon with ever-increasing delight to the 
 speaker, and with, it must be confessed, a measure 
 of suffering on the part of the hearers. More weari- 
 some still, and not at all uncommon, is the self -justi- 
 fication of old people who have not been quite 
 successful, or who have fallen into what may be con- 
 sidered indiscretions. In her powerful little story, 
 A Village Tragedy, Mrs. Woods has rendered with 
 quick sympathy and delicate touches of humour the 
 character of Mrs. Pontin, the aunt of her heroine. 
 Mrs. Pontin is a fine specimen of the Midland rustic. 
 She was very conventional and respectable, but she 
 had married James Pontin within a few months of 
 her first husband's death. Ever afterwards her ac- 
 quaintances were destined to hear in much detail the 
 circumstances which had led to this breach of eti- 
 quette. If others did not give her a chance, Mrs. 
 Pontin herself moved the talk towards the great 
 theme. When her niece came to live with her she was 
 initiated thus 
 
 "Did you ever see your Aunt Susan?" asked 
 Mrs. Pontin. 
 
 " No," answered Annie, " but I've heard tell of 
 her. They used to say I was like her. She went off 
 in a decline, didn't she? " 
 
 " Yes, she was Benny's mother, and I always was 
 that fond of Benny. If it hadn't been along of him 
 and my hundred pounds as I couldn't get back I 
 don't know as I should ever ha' married Pontin." 
 
 She was always anxious to clear herself from the 
 123
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 imputation of having been moved to her second mar- 
 riage by any personal partiality for the bridegroom, 
 and that it should be recognised that she acted 
 throughout under the pressure of stern necessity. 
 Conversely, the memory of any youthful triumph 
 seems to strengthen at the last. The details of the 
 victory are recited more often and more fondly. 
 When the old people are allowed to tell their own 
 story, they often listen very pleasantly to the 
 talk of the young. With the young the difficulty to 
 be overcome as a rule is that of shyness, and often 
 the only method of overcoming it is to give oneself 
 away in a personal confidence. 
 
 But the power of driving the hoop is applicable 
 to other things. It is the tritest and yet nearly the 
 most necessary of commonplaces that encourage- 
 ment is sorely wanted in life. There is very little of 
 it ; as a rule, it is wholly beneficial ; it is a gift which 
 every one may impart. Nothing is more impressive 
 than the immense courage and patience with which 
 humanity bears its burdens. Men and women go 
 through lives of little cheer, much sorrow, and un- 
 broken toil, without a word of complaint. When 
 Matthew Arnold retired from his duties as an inspec- 
 tor, he received a present from his teachers. In re- 
 plying he laid aside completely the little affectations 
 in which he sometimes indulged, and spoke from the 
 heart. He told the teachers that when he began his 
 work he was oppressed by the irksomeness of its
 
 DRIVING A HOOP 
 
 "BZ. 
 
 3uties, and felt for a time that they were almost 
 unsupportable. But he met daily in the schools 
 men and women discharging duties as irksome as 
 his, and less well paid. He saw them making the 
 best of it. He saw the cheerfulness and the effi- 
 ciency with which they did their work, and he asked 
 himself again, " How do they do it? " " Gradually 
 it grew into a habit with me to put myself in their 
 places, and try to enter into their feelings, to rep- 
 resent to myself their life, and I assure you I got 
 many lessons from them." There are silent multi- 
 tudes who never develop to their true beauty and 
 happiness simply for lack of encouragement. The 
 case of M'Kay, in Marie Rutherford's Deliverance, 
 comes to mind. He loved his wife, who would have 
 given up every drop of blood in her body for him, 
 but she had no opinions that were not his, and he was 
 perpetually irritated by having before him an en- 
 feebled reflection of himself. Happily he discovered 
 his mistake before it was too late. " She became ill 
 very gradually, and M'Kay began to see in the 
 distance a prospect of losing her. A frightful pit 
 came in view. He became aware that he could not 
 do without her. He imagined what his home would 
 have been with other women whom he knew, and he 
 confessed that with them he would have been less 
 contented. He acknowledged that he had been guilty 
 of a kind of criminal epicurism; that he had rejected 
 in foolish, fatal, nay, even wicked indifference the 
 bread of life upon which he might have lived and 
 
 125
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 thriven. His whole effort now was to suppress him- 
 self in his wife. He would read to her, a thing he 
 never did before, and when she misunderstood, he 
 would patiently explain; he would take her into his 
 councils, and ask her opinion; he would abandon his 
 opinion for hers, and in the presence of her children 
 he always deferred to her, and delighted to acknowl- 
 edge that she knew more than he did, that she was 
 right and he was wrong. She was now confined to 
 her house, and the end was near, but this was the 
 most blessed time of her married life. She grew 
 under the soft rain of his loving care, and opened 
 out, not, indeed, into an oriental flower, rich in pro- 
 found mystery of scent and colour, but into a blos- 
 som of the chalk down. Altogether concealed and 
 closed she would have remained if it had not been 
 for this beneficent and heavenly gift poured upon 
 her." 
 
 There are those who encourage and exhilarate by 
 their very presence, who bring warmth and light 
 into every place they enter. " I shall never forget 
 the smile with which he greeted me the first time I 
 ever spoke to him, more than six-and-twenty years 
 ago, in the library at Ladywood. I have no doubt 
 that numbers will say the same thing. It seems to 
 me, as I look back upon those days, that the life to 
 every one of us was changed and exalted by an ac- 
 quaintance with him. Always and everywhere he 
 was himself, and what a self it was." Such was the 
 testimony borne by the author of John Inglesant to 
 
 126
 
 DRIVING A HOOP 
 
 an early friend. Then how much a word will do. 
 Over thirty years one man recollects how another 
 said to him in a crowded street, " That is very strik- 
 ing. I am very much obliged to you for telling me 
 that." 
 
 A word of heartening from a schoolmaster in 
 childhood will be remembered when a thousand 
 things apparently much more important are lost in 
 the azure. A word how much it may mean! 
 Bishop Fraser, of Manchester, was one of the most 
 radiant natures in the world. When he died his 
 friend Lord Lingen bore this testimony : " Both 
 before and after he became a Bishop he not unfre- 
 quently stayed at my house; and I really can say 
 without exaggeration that the very sight of him had 
 the effect of sunshine both on the servants and our- 
 selves. If ever there was a sociable and sympathetic 
 man he was one, pleasantly inquisitive, and ready to 
 talk to any one. " Which was the maid who cooked 
 that nice dish? " said he one morning after he had 
 read prayers to us all, referring to something he had 
 praised at dinner the day before." I might pursue 
 this train indefinitely, but I turn to a practical 
 suggestion. 
 
 When Christmas approaches we all think about 
 presents. Many of us have not very much to give. 
 Many do not care for presents of the ordinary kind. 
 We are satisfied with our possessions. What every 
 one values in a present is its fitness, the kind thought 
 of remembrance which it embodies. Why should we 
 
 127
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 not this Christmas send out a batch of kind, affec- 
 tionate, and encouraging letters? This at least is 
 within the power of us all, and who knows what hap- 
 piness we might give, what cheer, what strength, 
 what hope ? We can call to mind by a little thinking 
 friends and acquaintances with whom life has passed 
 but roughly during the year. Write to the friend 
 far away who is fighting a hard battle, and tell him 
 what you think of his constancy. Write to the sick 
 friend who fancies herself of no use in the world, 
 and tell her that her life matters much to you. 
 Write to the author whose book you have liked. 
 Send no advice there is a great deal too much ad- 
 vice in the world send encouragement, words of 
 recognition, of gratitude, of affection, of admira- 
 tion, and send such words especially to those who are 
 living through a time of great stress and trial. Your 
 letter may decide the issue of the conflict. 
 
 When we die I suppose most of us will be found 
 to have cherished a very few things. When the 
 desk is opened the possessions that have perhaps 
 mattered most will be discovered. Then there will 
 be surprises. In the life of Hugh Price Hughes we 
 are told that he kept very few letters, but in search- 
 ing through his desk his wife came upon one from 
 Dr. Jenkins. Mr. Hughes after a fierce controversy 
 sent in his resignation to the President of his 
 Church. Dr. Jenkins wrote an affectionate and ear- 
 nest dissuasion, beseeching him not to take that step. 
 Very likely this letter meant more to Mr. Hughes 
 
 128
 
 DRIVING A HOOP 
 
 than any of the costly gifts he received and de- 
 served. If I were to covet any honour of authorship 
 it would be this that some letters of mine might be 
 found in the desks of my friends when their life 
 struggle is ended. 
 
 129
 
 CHAPTER XV 
 
 THE HOUSE OF 
 
 To see interesting, characteristic, and individual 
 houses, you must go to a village or a country town. 
 It is pleasant to visit the scene of a novel, and 
 chose out the homes of the different characters. 
 Whether Mr. Hardy confirms me or not, I am sure 
 that I discovered in Marnhull the birthplace of Tess. 
 When you live in a suburb it is much more difficult 
 to people the different residences. In fact imagina- 
 tion alone cannot do it. You must stay some years 
 in the place, and gradually gather facts and experi- 
 ences. Then as things grow familiar, you find 
 yourself giving certain houses names. So I have 
 found it in a suburb which no curious mortal can 
 ever find out. There is something very depressing 
 in long rows of featureless, uniform buildings, but 
 when you understand that they are all homes in 
 name at least, the aspect of things is changed. You 
 begin even to love the little villas rented from 20 
 to 30 a year. In some cases they are the homes of 
 the disappointed, the lonely, and even the ill-deserv- 
 ing. In other cases there is within the humble walls 
 all the radiance of youth and love and hope. It is 
 terrible to be without a home, like the people one 
 meets occasionally on the Continent. They are 
 
 130
 
 THE HOUSE OF. 
 
 mostly childless couples, who have become intensely 
 selfish. They tell you that they fled from the grey 
 skies and cold winds of England. By and by you 
 discover that they ran away from their responsibili- 
 ties, and that as time goes on they hate the thought 
 of returning to them. They live the most idle and 
 the most profitless lives that can be imagined, and 
 they deserve their miserable deaths. One day they 
 are found sick and frightened by the waiter. They 
 pass away in a crowded hotel to the disgust of the 
 landlord, who will smuggle out their dead bodies by 
 night. Their money must go to somebody. Who- 
 ever receives it is heartily glad, and not at all thank- 
 ful. They are unmissed and unmourned, and who 
 can say that their end is not well merited? 
 
 There are in our suburb abodes of gloom as well 
 as places of joy, but I will not say much about the 
 former. One house I call the House of Many Sor- 
 rows. It was built some twenty years ago by a 
 prosperous city merchant. He had not lived in it 
 six months before there came a great crisis in his 
 affairs. He went to his man of business and told 
 him that he must have an advance of 10,000 for 
 a week. This would enable him to tide over his diffi- 
 culties. The money was refused, whereupon the man 
 took out a revolver and shot himself dead. Very 
 soon the widow and family disappeared. Tenant 
 came after tenant, but none stayed more than a few 
 months, and every family that inhabited the house 
 was visited with a heavy stroke of fate. I could tell 
 
 131
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 some of the stories if it were not for the danger of 
 identification. How it has fared with the occupants 
 of the house during the last five or six years I do 
 not know, but up till that time something ailed it. 
 The place was cursed. 
 
 We had at one time the House of the Old Lady 
 with the Knitting Needles. It was a very pretty 
 place, but nobody lived in it long, for it was haunted. 
 There was nothing very terrible about the ghost, but 
 she always appeared. You went to sleep in a certain 
 room and wakened to find beside you an old lady 
 placidly knitting. When you spoke to her she went 
 away surely the gentlest, quietest, and least for- 
 midable of ghosts. But the tenants did not like her. 
 There was great and increasing difficulty in letting 
 the house (I myself was strongly warned against 
 it), and now it has been thrown down and replaced 
 by flats. 
 
 Another cottage with a garden and a high wall 
 I name the House of Good Talk. It was so once 
 upon a time, when it was inhabited by an editor who 
 was both scholar and gentleman. He has been dead 
 many years. He was a bachelor, always cheerful, 
 and eminently social, though he had enough to de- 
 press him. He suffered from the double drain of a 
 wasting lung and an expensive weekly paper. The 
 journal he established himself, and carried through 
 deep waters to the appearance but not the reality of 
 success. This editor, indeed, fancied that he had 
 achieved a great triumph when he brought the loss 
 
 132
 
 THE HOUSE OF 
 
 down to 40 a week. No man I ever knew more 
 intensely enjoyed good talk. Let it be observed that 
 I say good talk, and not a good talk. Dr. Johnson 
 never could have said " Sir, we had a good talk." 
 Nobody spoke in that manner in the eighteenth cen- 
 tury. What he said was " Sir, we had good talk," 
 though Robert Louis Stevenson could not be made 
 to understand the distinction. Well, the talk at this 
 editor's house was extraordinarily good. Gener- 
 ally speaking, I have found the most pleasant con- 
 versation to be dialogue, but our host had a per- 
 sonality so vivid and sympathetic that he brought 
 everybody in. No doubt he selected. He liked 
 young men best, and he chose companions who had 
 common interests. So it turned out inevitably that 
 the talk was shoppy, but I like shoppy talk provided 
 it is my shop, as in this case it happened to be. On 
 a summer day we would gather in the garden, and 
 you might then hear the news you were most inter- 
 ested in, along with plenty of brilliant but not ill- 
 natured comment. Our host was very particular to 
 exclude bitterness and scandal. He was equally 
 scrupulous in his abhorrence of flattery. That de- 
 testable individual, the Second Fiddle, was never al- 
 lowed to play in his presence. It is long ago now, 
 but it was a great honour and privilege for me to 
 have some share of the talk in those days, and I 
 sometimes stop at the gate and look through and 
 see the little lawn peopled by kind ghosts. 
 
 There is another home which I call the House of 
 133
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 Perfect Hospitality. How can you explain the 
 secret of making a house pleasant to every one who 
 enters, or perhaps I should say to every one with 
 the smallest right to enter? The Human Mosquito 
 has no right to enter any house. You may find out 
 by scientific observations whether you are likely to 
 meet him, and shun the place as you would shun a 
 plague. Do you not know the human mosquito; the 
 man who is always rubbing you in the wrong way, 
 who persists in reminding you of things you would 
 give a year of your life to forget, who knows ex- 
 actly where your sore places are and makes for 
 them? I never met him at this house, but that is 
 not the whole story. There are hosts and hostesses 
 who have the gift of selecting pleasant guests, but 
 their guests do not show at their finest when they 
 have been secured. Perhaps the secret is a woman's 
 kindness and a woman's tact. The true test of a 
 lady is her quality as a hostess. When the guest 
 feels that he is welcome, that he is considered, that 
 he is in the fullest sense of the phrase at home, one 
 may be sure that a very friendly, a very observant, 
 and a very thoughtful mind has been at work. Ten- 
 nyson's welcome to Maurice is a very pretty thing, 
 especially pretty when it is turned into Latin, and, 
 as everybody knows the English, I may give a few 
 
 lines of the translation 
 
 " Non mordax aderit lingua cubantibus 
 Sed sermo modicus vinaque mollia, 
 Dum te pica loquax murmure garrulo , 
 Mulcet sub trabe pinea."
 
 THE HOUSE OF 
 
 A plain little villa I call the House of the Suc- 
 cessful Children. The father and mother are most 
 respectable, but not, so far as one can see, in any 
 way extraordinary. But their children have tri- 
 umphed marvellously in various fields of life. They 
 have been careful, industrious, loyal, and they have 
 swept the prizes. We all talk about them, and we 
 all wonder. How is this accounted for? Clever peo- 
 ple are often blessed with stupid sons. Parents who 
 have done their very best to train their children have 
 sometimes the unspeakable misery of seeing them go 
 wrong. Every now and then, however, you hear of 
 boys coming out and distinguishing themselves in 
 every worthy way. You cannot account for their 
 talent. It does not appear to be hereditary, but 
 there is the fact, and the homely, sensible fathers 
 and mothers are glorified in their offspring. I can- 
 not explain it, but George Eliot says somewhere that 
 a mother's love is at first merely an expansion of 
 the animal existence. At the beginning it merely 
 extends the range of self. But in after years it can 
 only continue to be a joy on the same terms as other 
 long-lived love that is, by much suppression of self 
 and much patience. Perhaps it is because the par- 
 ents, commonplace though they seem, have the wis- 
 dom to make the training of their children their su- 
 preme care. Under a homely guise great qualities 
 may be hidden, and the children find them out. Per- 
 haps, also, it is good for children that they should 
 be brought in contact from the very beginning with 
 
 135
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 the stern realities of life, that they should know what 
 it costs their parents to make the path clear for 
 them, and that they should thus be filled with 
 the eager desire not to be unworthy of their good- 
 ness. 
 
 Then there is the House of the Absent, inhabited 
 by a lady and her two children. We thought for a 
 long time that she was a widow. She is very cheer- 
 ful and very good, and regards her girls with an 
 obvious and delightful fondness and pride. But the 
 truth is that her husband is incurably insane. She 
 visits him every week in the asylum, and has done 
 so for some five years past. Her chief trouble is 
 that he has forgotten her children, and does not 
 always recognise her. The family rarely mention 
 him. They seem to feel a kind of shame because he 
 is mad. Yet they are such bright, cheerful people 
 that you hardly ever come under his shadow in the 
 house, though you are startled now and then to find 
 how much he is with them. The youngest child, who 
 is about ten years old, was playing once in my house 
 with other children. They started the game of 
 wishing, and the older people tried to guess what 
 the children had been coveting. This child, feeling, 
 I think, that it was not polite to leave me in the dark, 
 said she did not mind telling me, as she had wished 
 the same thing ever so many times, and it never came 
 true. I accepted the confidence thoughtlessly, mak- 
 ing a joke of it, and the poor girl told me, with a 
 little awkward shyness, but quite unaffectedly and 
 
 136
 
 THE HOUSE OF 
 
 without show of emotion, " I wished my father 
 might get better." 
 
 One of the most delightful places I visit is the 
 House of the Man with Many Friends. As a rule 
 men who have many friends have no friends, but in 
 this case the friendships have lasted over a long life- 
 time, and many of them are temporarily severed by 
 death. So there is no infidelity. There is only the 
 opening of the heart to take one in when another 
 goes. My friend is now beginning to be an old man, 
 and he has had a rarely fortunate experience. From 
 the very beginning of his career he has been thrown 
 into contact with the cleverest men in London. If 
 he has a fault it is that he is too much intolerant 
 of dulness. He belongs heart and soul to that society 
 which admits a man if he can talk well and brightly 
 and is a decent fellow, but will admit no one else, 
 however much money and however many titles he 
 may possess. My friend began with Leigh Hunt 
 and his circle, knew John Leech intimately, was ac- 
 quainted with Dickens and Thackeray, and has gone 
 on cultivating the fellowship of their successors, 
 such as they are, and many other people. He is a 
 repository of traditions about the old literary Bo- 
 hemia, and he is as keenly interested in the new as in 
 the old. He can enrich his conversation with sudden 
 and delightful memories and parallels from the past 
 in a way which is quite unique, so far as I know. 
 Personally, I am not skilled in conversation, but 
 pride myself on a certain knack in asking questions. 
 
 137
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 In this way much has come to me, and many things 
 that were not asked for. You might not care for 
 them, but I take pleasure in thinking that John 
 Leech, when he died, left behind him forty pairs of 
 trousers and forty-six pots of cayenne pepper. I 
 like to know that Professor Cowell bought one boot 
 at a time, and that an elastic-sided boot. When the 
 past is recalled and the dead are spoken of, it should 
 be in a spirit of kindly tenderness and charity, and 
 sucji is the happy atmosphere of the House of the 
 Man with Many Friends. 
 
 And then there is the House of the Lost Child, 
 whom I last saw with a crimson flower burning on her 
 breast. 
 
 138
 
 CHAPTER XVI 
 
 POTATOES OR CABBAGE? 
 
 MARK RUTHERFORD tells us that when he was a 
 Unitarian minister he dined once after a sermon with 
 an elderly gentleman and his wife. " They might 
 botli be about sixty-five, and were of about the same 
 temperament, pale, thin, and ineffectual, as if they 
 had been fed on gruel. We had dinner in a large 
 room with an old-fashioned grate in it, in which was 
 stuck a basket stove. I remember perfectly well 
 what we had for dinner. There was a neck of mut- 
 ton (cold), potatoes, cabbage, a suet pudding, and 
 some of the strangest-looking ale I ever saw about 
 the colour of lemon juice; but what it was really 
 like I do not know, as I do not drink beer. I was 
 somewhat surprised at being asked whether I would 
 take potatoes or cabbage, but thinking it was the 
 custom of the country not to indulge in both at once, 
 and remembering that I was on probation, I said 
 cabbage." My point to-day is that we are all too 
 apt to follow Mark Rutherford's example, and to 
 say cabbage, or, if not, to say potatoes, whether 
 we might have cabbage and potatoes, we acquiesce 
 in the " or," and are foolishly content with one or 
 the other. 
 
 I admit at once that there are real alternatives in 
 139
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 life. Forcible and homely expressions of this truth 
 are at everybody's hand. You cannot eat your cake 
 and have it, is a vulgar way of saying that the palm 
 is not to be obtained without the dust. It is part of 
 the wisdom of life to learn that we must concentrate. 
 It is given to no one to be great at everything. One 
 eminent writer tells us that it is hardly possible for 
 one person to be perfectly master of two languages. 
 To attain the first rank in any pursuit, be it a busi- 
 ness, or a study, or a game, one must forego pre- 
 eminence or even eminence in other pursuits. With 
 all our striving the limits of life remain, and are not 
 to be removed. What is true of the individual is true 
 of the nation. A people that goes mad on sport is 
 a people that cannot hope to retain the lead when 
 other nations become earnest. 
 
 I know also that we must mournfully and con- 
 stantly acquiesce in exclusions that seem to have no 
 ground in nature or in necessity. We have to choose 
 many times between potatoes and cabbage. It seems 
 as if the inhospitable universe might have bidden us 
 welcome to both. A man and a maid come together 
 in the freshness of life and commence the struggle 
 hand in hand. The battle is hard, but the opposing 
 forces give way at last, and the little summit on 
 which both hearts were set is attained. And then? 
 Why, then one is removed, one who had done her 
 part and more to gain the victory, but is not left 
 to enjoy it. And because she is gone it is no victory 
 for the other. He would rather a thousand times be 
 
 140
 
 POTATOES OR CABBAGE? 
 
 at the bottom of the hill again with her hand in his. 
 Or a man sets his soul on winning the prizes of life 
 for his son. All his heart is wrapped up in the boy. 
 He has no ambitions except for the lad's success. 
 What comes to him in the way of triumph is dear 
 just for the son's sake. As it happens he takes the 
 prizes. After a certain time the honours come 
 easily. Then the son dies, and life is turned into an 
 empty mockery, without meaning, without savour. 
 Why should such things be? We cannot answer one 
 of a thousand. We do not see why in each case the 
 dream should not have embodied itself in reality. It 
 would have been nothing wonderful, for all the street 
 is full of living people, and one thinks that many of 
 them could have been more easily spared. But all 
 that is left us is to bow our heads and acquiesce as 
 best we may. No lesson is so burnt in upon the 
 observer of human life as that of the nothingness of 
 splendour and the iron reality of suffering. 
 
 Still the fact remains that much of our life is in 
 our own hands, and that we acquiesce much too 
 lazily in exclusions that were not needful. For 
 " or " we might many times read " and." If we 
 did our lives would be a great deal more happy, and 
 a great deal more useful. I will put down roughly 
 a few illustrations, mostly from facts that are fresh 
 in my memory Let me begin by saying that is no 
 reason why charm of manner should not be added 
 to any gift, physical or intellectual. This is the 
 way to make room for the gift. All through life, 
 
 141
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 and especially at first, we have to confront resist- 
 ance. It is wise to choose the line of least resistance 
 if it is in the way to our goal. It is courtesy above 
 everything that will make way for us, that will win 
 recognition for a gift, and a place for its possessor. 
 Why should clever men be so deficient, as they often 
 are, in manner? Some are inveterate poseurs, and if 
 there be anything more sickening than pose I do 
 not know it. Others are what is termed brusque, 
 which invariably describes rudeness and insolence. 
 I might go through the catalogue, but it is not need- 
 ful. Gracious manners are always acceptable, even 
 in the humblest. When a man of great name and 
 genius, or a woman of great beauty possesses them, 
 they lead captives at their will. There is nothing 
 which wise guardians will more carefully attend to 
 in the education of the young than their training 
 in good manners. Who can tell how much the noto- 
 rious lack of good manners in the British people has 
 done to win for them the hatred of the world? 
 
 Why should we say capable or honest? Why 
 should not a man be both honest and capable? A 
 friend of mine advertised lately for a man to take up 
 a difficult but very promising and profitable line of 
 business. The qualifications required were somewhat 
 unusual, and I must not indicate them. He did not 
 expect many answers to his advertisement, but he 
 chose his medium well, and had seventeen. I think it 
 is quite possible that the majority of those who were 
 fit for the work and willing to undertake it applied.
 
 POTATOES OR CABBAGE? 
 
 At his request I examined the testimonials, and one 
 candidate stood very far above the rest; in fact, the 
 testimonials to his capacity were of a very striking 
 kind, and his own letters proved him to be a man of 
 rare intelligence and foresight. The puzzle was that 
 such a man should be content with such a salary as 
 was offered, though it was not a small salary, and 
 there were good prospects of an increase. But why 
 was he not in a better position? We made some pri- 
 vate inquiries, and at last came upon his track. He 
 was all, and perhaps more than all, his certificates 
 said in point of ability, but he had shown himself at 
 one great crisis of his life to be utterly untrustworthy. 
 Every effort had been made to give him a fresh 
 chance, but it was too late. My friend groaned and 
 said, Why should it not be possible to find a man who 
 is both honest and capable? The other applicants 
 had good characters, but there was no indication in 
 them of the exceptional capacity which the situation 
 required. 
 
 Pursuing a similar line, why should not a man be 
 both brilliant and industrious? To be very bright, 
 very clever, very quick gives a man a great advant- 
 age in life. To begin with, these qualities show 
 themselves at first sight and on every occasion. Most 
 people and many of the best show but poorly till you 
 know them. They cannot readily reveal their gift. 
 Among strangers they are stupid and awkward. It 
 is only in time that the perception of their excel- 
 lence dawns upon you. But the brilliant man is 
 
 143
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 master everywhere, and master at once. Now if he 
 combined with his brilliancy the patience, the rigour, 
 the self -discipline necessary for the best use of his 
 powers, there is nothing he might not accomplish. 
 How rarely does one find it does! The man calcu- 
 lates upon his speed. He allows himself indulgences 
 and holidays because he can so well make up for lost 
 time. So the old story is enacted, and the hare is 
 caught up by the tortoise. " It is his misfortune," 
 said a wise man to me, " that he is very clever. He 
 always presumes upon his cleverness, and therefore 
 never does himself justice, and in the end does no 
 more than might be done by a stupid person who is 
 diligent." 
 
 If a man has good thoughts, is there any reason 
 why he should not learn how to express them? Style is 
 the medium through which thoughts can reach the 
 dull ear of the world. Yet how many able men re- 
 duce their influence to nothing simply because they 
 will not master the instrument of expression. I know 
 one of very brilliant and subtle mind, and of great 
 accomplishment, a man who has the ambition of 
 leadership, and perhaps has the power to lead. But 
 he cannot write. He writes in such a way that he 
 loses half his readers at the end of the first para- 
 graph, and nearly another half at the end of the 
 second paragraph. His style has almost every kind 
 of vice that can belong to style. In addition, he has 
 the great moral defect of not perceiving and keeping 
 in view what may be said by his opponents. Whether 
 
 144.
 
 POTATOES OR CABBAGE? 
 
 a man is answering opponents or not, he ought al- 
 ways to have his eye upon them, to be considering 
 what they might say in answer to what he is saying. 
 The consequence is that though I generally agree 
 with him, he exasperates me so much by his method 
 of argumentation that at the end of his articles I 
 wish I were on the other side. How often has one 
 heard a preacher of excellent elocutionary gifts who 
 had simply nothing to say, or a preacher full of 
 thoughts, but with every possible awkwardness of 
 manner and expression! Why should these things 
 be? 
 
 " She has beautiful hair," said a very plain-spoken 
 old Englishman, " but I think of the head beneath 
 the hair." Why should he not think about both? 
 There is no reason why a pretty woman should be un- 
 cultivated and stupid. There is no reason why a 
 learned woman should be untidy and frowsy. Beauty 
 and accomplishment were meant to go together, and 
 yet if all stories are true, many women presume upon 
 their youth and beauty, and neglect the mind, while 
 others who are careful of the mind are so contemptu- 
 ous of the personal graces that they discourage and 
 prejudice and retard the reasonable advance of 
 womanhood. I am happy to think that this is be- 
 coming a thing of the past. If one reads the his- 
 tory of the French Salons, one sees that the power 
 and charm of womanhood are independent of years. 
 It was said of Madame De Sable, as of some other 
 remarkable Frenchwomen, that the part of her life 
 
 145
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 which was richest in interest and results was that 
 which was looked forward to by most of her sex with 
 melancholy as the period of decline. When between 
 fifty and sixty she had philosophers, wits, beauties, 
 and saints clustering round her. What was the 
 elixir which gave her this enduring and general at- 
 traction? No doubt the well-balanced development 
 of her mental powers. This gave her a comprehen- 
 sion of varied intellectual processes, and a tolerance 
 for varied forms of character which is even rarer in 
 woman than in man. We have all known examples 
 of this. We have seen how wit keeps beauty alive, 
 and how powerless the spell of beauty soon becomes 
 when there is neither character nor intellectual force 
 behind it. 
 
 One thing more. It is the combination of qualities 
 rather than their singularity which gives attraction 
 and influence. One and one in this region do not 
 make two; they make five. Respectable gifts used 
 with ceaseless industry will do far more to make life 
 efficient and happy than brilliant gifts where there 
 is no industry. From one point of view it is our duty 
 to make up our minds for necessary exclusions. That 
 is one great part of the wisdom of life, but a part 
 no less great, though often sadly forgotten, is to 
 determine against the unnecessary exclusion, to af- 
 firm our right to potatoes and cabbage. 
 
 146
 
 CHAPTER XVII 
 
 THE MAN WITH A COLD 
 
 EVERYBODY has a cold at times, and makes more or 
 less fuss about it, but there are unfortunate beings 
 with whom the intervals between colds contract until 
 they hardly count. The unfortunate individual who 
 belongs to this family may be called the Man with a 
 Cold. His association with a cold is his main char- 
 acteristic, the principal and nearly permanent fact 
 of his existence. 
 
 His lot is hard, for in the first place he cannot 
 speak of his trouble, or if he does speak, he is re- 
 fused a hearing. His fellow-creatures, even the near- 
 est and dearest, let him know at last that they will 
 have no more of it. This is a peculiar affliction, and 
 strikes against all that is reasonable, for, truly ap- 
 prehended, there is nothing so enthralling as the 
 Romance of a Cold. To write this romance, or to 
 tell it to go from the root o the matter to the end 
 of it to trace in all its picturesque and moving detail 
 the origin, progress, and issues of a cold, is one of 
 the highest and noblest employments of the human 
 faculties. But, as I have said, people will not 
 stand it. They will endure much boredom, but not 
 that. 
 
 The Man with a Cold, always so full of his subject, 
 147
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 is compelled to be silent on it. I have before me a 
 very sentimental essay on Sentimentalism, from Avhich 
 I will quote a passage, acknowledging that I have 
 taken some liberty with the writer's words : " It is 
 true that we have all much in common ; but what we 
 have most in common is this that we are all isolated. 
 Man is more than a combination of passions common 
 to his kind. Beyond them and behind them an inner 
 life, whose current we know we have within us, flows 
 on in solitary stillness. It lies deep beneath all 
 flashes on the surface. Just as the fancy of men in 
 dreams traverses earth and heaven, he cannot get 
 away from one weary weight the presence of a cold, 
 of a centre round which all revolves so is the soli- 
 tude of a cold the only tangible idea we can assign 
 to it. Habits change, convictions alter, even tastes 
 die away, but the cold, by a mysterious exercise of 
 its vitality, moves on from phase to phase, from 
 gloom to sunshine, from activity to repose." 
 
 But it is only the proprietor of a cold who fully 
 appreciates its romantic quality. A cold does man- 
 ifest itself to unsympathetic outsiders, but it must 
 be owned that the manifestation takes a very prosaic 
 form. The voice becomes hoarse and uncertain. It 
 is even as the voice of Mr. Raddle, which, when it 
 reached Mr. Sawyer's party, appeared to proceed 
 from beneath distant bedclothes. I knew a preacher 
 labouring under a tremendous cold, who managed in 
 some fashion to deliver a discourse in Edinburgh. 
 At the close an apparently sympathetic elder pre- 
 148
 
 THE MAN WITH A COLD 
 
 sented himself, and the following conversation took 
 place : 
 
 Elder: " This is most trying, most trying." 
 
 Preacher (endeavouring to be cheerful) : " Oh, not 
 so bad as all that. I do not feel any the worse for 
 it." 
 
 Elder (severely) : " I meant most trying for the 
 listeners." 
 
 Coughing cannot be described as an agreeable 
 sound; it is particularly irritating when two people 
 in the same house have colds at the same time, and 
 cough in responses, " hoasts encountering hoasts," 
 as the " Scottish Probationer " would put it. Then 
 you understand the meaning of the observant moral- 
 ist who declared that the only faults which could not 
 be forgiven were those which could not be helped. 
 Sneezing and blowing the nose are exercises which 
 by no stretch of fancy can be described as poetical, 
 and the same may be said of mufflers and red flannel. 
 Nowadays, people are so scared about their health, 
 and so apprehensive of infection, that the Man with 
 a Cold may expect, if he lives long enough, to be 
 shut up in a solitary cell. 
 
 Perhaps, however, the chief grievance of the Man 
 with a Cold is against his doctors. They will not 
 trouble themselves about a cold. If they are sent 
 for they treat it with contempt. The Man with a 
 Cold has nothing to say against the gallant and noble 
 efforts made by physicians to find the means of com- 
 bating the graver diseases. But he cannot help 
 
 149
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 thinking that some doctors might devote themselves 
 to grappling with troubles that are considered un- 
 important. I venture to say that the doctor who 
 could cut short a cold would make a royal income, 
 and earn the most sincere gratitude. As it is, the 
 Man with the Cold knows exactly how things are go- 
 ing to be. It bursts upon him suddenly that he has 
 caught a cold, and the whole programme of the next 
 three or four weeks unfolds itself : the various stages, 
 the steady progression from head to the throat, and 
 from the throat to the lung, the ineffectual and dis- 
 agreeable mixtures, the dulling of every energy and 
 faculty, the great weight added on to the load of 
 life. It must all be gone through, and physicians, 
 as Captain Bunsby observed, are in vain. 
 
 But there is more to say, and here it is going to 
 be said almost for the first time. The Man with a 
 Cold in this country and this century is compelled 
 to be silent on his very deepest convictions. He is 
 the victim of a persecution in which all sects and all 
 parties join. Dr. Clifford and the Archbishop of 
 Canterbury, Mr. Lloyd-George and Mr. J. G. Talbot, 
 Mr. Chaplin and Mr. Asquith, Mr. Walkley and Mr. 
 Henry Arthur Jones, will all unite as one man to 
 crush him if he dares to speak. The Man with a 
 Cold has to keep his secret well, and to fare on in a 
 desperate silence when he is all on fire to declare him- 
 self. He knows very well that colds, neuralgia, and 
 most of the ills that invest him, arise from the great 
 modern curse of Fresh Air. The other day my friend 
 
 150
 
 THE MAN WITH A COLD 
 
 Dagonet threw out a dark hint, but even his courage 
 will not suffice for the revealing of the truth. What 
 is to happen to the Man with a Cold if he says 
 frankly that he objects to open windows. Nowadays 
 all accept the saying that you should sit with open 
 windows, and sleep with open windows, and travel 
 in railway carriages with open windows. Venti- 
 lation is universally popular with the British people. 
 Churches must be ventilated, halls must be ventilated, 
 private dwelling must be ventilated. The late Mr. 
 Spurgeon used to boast that when he was a young 
 minister he broke a window in his chapel to let in 
 fresh air. His deacons, who no doubt were men with 
 colds, had strongly objected to ventilation, but Mr. 
 Spurgeon had his way, and as time went on everybody 
 agreed with him. Nowadays people with colds, even 
 those whose colds have passed into pleurisy, pneu- 
 monia, and consumption, are told that the cure is 
 in fresh air, that they should be out in the open as 
 much as possible. So much is this idea being pressed, 
 that institutions are built for the treatment, and I 
 should not be surprised if at last we are told that it 
 is best to live night and day in the open air. This 
 would mean the abolition of dwelling-houses and of 
 rent, and of mankind. Now the Man with a Cold 
 thinks he knows very well that fresh air is the enemy. 
 He has tried it compelled to do so against his own 
 convictions by dominating domestic influences. He 
 has slept with the windows open while he had a cold, 
 and the cold has developed into pleurisy or some- 
 
 151
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 thing else. The development, indeed, has promised 
 a very complete cure, a full cure for all ills, too 
 complete, however, for his taste. He knows exactly 
 what happens on a railway journey in the winter- 
 time. Some one in the carriage says with a smile of 
 winning sweetness, " You do not object to one window 
 open? " The Man with a Cold ruefully assents. He 
 objects with all his heart and soul, but what is the use? 
 Sometimes his companion graciously adds : " If we 
 had two windows open there might be a draught, but 
 one window can do no harm." The Man with a Cold 
 thinks that one window does the mischief effectually. 
 Sometimes, and perhaps oftener now than ever, both 
 windows are taken down, and a sharp current does its 
 deadly work. It does not matter very much, per- 
 haps, whether one window is open or two. If the 
 Man with a Cold had his will he would close all win- 
 dows for ever; he would construct windows in the 
 manner of the intelligent ancients, so that by no pos- 
 sibility could they ever be opened. 
 
 This suppression of honest opinion, thinks the 
 Man with a Cold, is fatal to the true interests of the 
 country. There has been a great clamour about de- 
 clining trade, and about the competition of foreign 
 nations, especially of the United States. Innumer- 
 able speeches have been delivered on the subject, and 
 will yet be delivered. There are those who preach 
 the nostrum of Protection. There are others who 
 preach the nostrum of Free Trade. The Man with 
 a Cold is not a Protectionist. He knows better than 
 
 152
 
 THE MAN WITH A COLD 
 
 that. Nor does he consider that Free Trade will 
 amend our ills. The country may remain a Free 
 Trade country and be beaten by foreign nations. 
 What is the true cure? The Man with a Cold knows. 
 He has travelled on the Continent and in America. 
 He is fully prepared to believe that the Continent is 
 ahead of us in enterprise and vitality, and especially 
 prepared to hear that the Americans are beating us 
 on every hand, for on the Continent, although in his 
 judgment things are getting worse, there still lingers 
 a wholesome dislike of open windows and fresh air. 
 When the Man with a Cold first visited the Continent 
 few windows opened. Now the English have brought 
 in their notions, and there is some change. Still, 
 especially in railway carriages, it is not as it is in 
 England. In a long Continental journey the Man 
 with a Cold generally finds his fellow-passengers, if 
 they are not Englishmen, as much afraid of the open 
 window as he is himself. It is, however, in the United 
 States that the Man with a Cold is truly happy. He 
 is happy everywhere: in hotels, in private houses, in 
 churches, in public halls. But he is supremely 
 blessed in railway carriages. Everywhere there are 
 great draughts of hot, stuffy, reviving air. But es- 
 pecially in the railway carriages is the sentiment of 
 the great American people clear and noble. Not 
 even a John Bull could induce them to allow a window 
 to be opened. It positively adds to his pleasure that 
 he has English companions who profess themselves 
 sorely discomfited and complain of headaches. All 
 
 153
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 along, right from New York to New Orleans, he can 
 travel without a breath of fresh air. In these cir- 
 cumstances his spirits rise, he recalls all his anec- 
 dotes and tells them with infinite zest ; he is ready with 
 his repartees, he radiates benevolence from every 
 feature. These are his high days of revel and luxury. 
 He is fortified against all dangers and equal to any 
 exertion. His voice is loud, and clear, and sweet. 
 He wishes this might go on for ever ; like the gentle- 
 man in. Browning's poem (modified slightly), he 
 would " ride for ever, for ever ride." There is no 
 sign that the American people have modified their 
 view on these subjects, and so long as they hold to 
 them the Man with a Cold knows that their influence 
 must become more and more paramount. He reads 
 about ten per cent, tariffs, and a hundred per cent, 
 tariffs, and retaliatory tariffs, but these things do 
 not touch him. If fresh air could be kept out he is 
 convinced that imports and exports would come all 
 right. What is wrong is that so many of our people 
 are working at half their power, depressed by neural- 
 gia and colds. If this could be prevented, then the 
 energy of the American people would be transferred 
 to this island, and we should go clear ahead. 
 
 For these and for other reasons the life of the Man 
 with a Cold is on the whole subdued. He has no 
 compensations to speak of. After a time he becomes 
 resigned, and he may even get to see the comic side 
 of the business. He watches for the dwindling in- 
 tervals that separate his cold. These are more and 
 
 154-
 
 THE MAN WITH A COLD 
 
 more enjoyable, but blessings brighten as they take 
 their flight. He has no hope of reversing the strong 
 current of popular opinion. Not until the nation 
 has come to sleeping in the open air through Febru- 
 ary or March, not until the population has been re- 
 duced by one-half, will there be any real improve- 
 ment. 
 
 155
 
 CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 THE DUAL LIFE: CHARLOTTE BRONTE, 
 GEORGE ELIOT, AND JANE AUSTEN 
 
 ALL of us live two lives, the life of reality and the 
 life of imagination. This may make either for hap- 
 piness or for misery. If we are at peace in the life 
 of reality notwithstanding whatever mars and ham- 
 pers it, we may revel in the dreams of what may come 
 in a fuller existence. But if the real life has brought 
 us little but pain, if our circumstances and our toils 
 are merely irksome and humiliating, if we have missed 
 sufficing love and friendship, then there is a schism 
 which may embitter and wear out the spirit in those 
 who are weak, and sadden it even in the strongest. 
 Rousseau's reflections are worth quoting. " The 
 recollection of the different periods of my life led me 
 to reflect upon the point which I had reached, and I 
 saw myself already in my declining years a prey to 
 painful evils, and believed that I was approaching the 
 end of my career without having enjoyed in its ful- 
 ness scarcely one single pleasure of those for which 
 my heart yearned, without having given scope to the 
 lively feelings which I felt it had in reserve, without 
 having tested or even sipped that intoxicating pleas- 
 ure which I felt was in my soul in all its force, and 
 which for want of an object always found itself kept 
 
 156
 
 THE DUAL LIFE 
 
 in check and unable to give itself vent in any other 
 way but through my sighs. How came it to pass 
 that I, a man of naturally expansive soul, for whom 
 to live was to love, had never been able to find a friend 
 entirely devoted to myself, a true friend I who felt 
 admirably adapted to be one myself? How came it 
 to pass that with feelings so easily set on fire, with a 
 heart so full of affection, I had never once been in- 
 flamed with the love of a definite object? Consumed 
 by the desire of loving without ever having been able 
 to stifle it completely, I saw myself approaching the 
 portals of old age and dying without having loved. 
 ... It seemed to me that destiny owed me something 
 which it had not yet granted me. Why had I been 
 born with delicate faculties if they were to remain 
 unemployed to the end? " 
 
 It is very hard to know the real life of a human 
 being, and much more difficult to understand their 
 life in dreams. Many keep their secret because they 
 will not, and many because they cannot, reveal it. 
 But perhaps something may be said of the three 
 great women novelists, Charlotte Bronte, George 
 Eliot, and Jane Austen. Whatever may be said about 
 the capacities of women, it cannot be denied that in 
 fiction they have attained their highest distinction, 
 and it is hard to believe that a woman can write a 
 novel without showing something of her own heart. 
 
 157
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 Of Charlotte Bronte we know as much as of any 
 other. Her life has been studied with such minute- 
 ness of investigation that almost every line of her 
 most secret and intimate letters has been recovered. 
 She wrote in her books with a passion and a freedom 
 hardly to be paralleled. But in her case the life of 
 reality and the life of imagination were in sharp and 
 bitter contrast. She herself was born to the poverty 
 and conventionality of a Yorkshire vicarage. There 
 was indeed much that was unconventional in her sur- 
 roundings, and her father retained his strong Irish 
 individuality through all repression. But for all 
 that, Charlotte Bronte had her narrow sphere to fill, 
 and was oppressed by its limitations. It is not too 
 much to say that she loathed and despised most of 
 the people she encountered. For the bigoted evan- 
 gelical parsons, beginning with Carus-Wilson and 
 going on to the curates in Shirley, she had hardly 
 even a touch of relenting. The purse-proud, vulgar, 
 hard manufacturing magnates who employed her as 
 a governess were equally detested and scorned. She 
 was the truest of sisters, and her sisters were worthy 
 of her love. But her brother trampled out the last 
 spark of love in her heart before he died. She was 
 devoted to her father, but was never under any illu- 
 sions about him. Such possible lovers as offered were 
 impossible, and though Charlotte Bronte was too wise 
 to contemn affection, and prized her friendships with 
 
 158
 
 THE DUAL LIFE 
 
 good women, she found none amongst them all to 
 whom she could speak her heart. Once, and once 
 only, in her youth her dream turned near reality. 
 She found in her Brussels teacher, not a man whom 
 she fell in love with, but a man whom she might have 
 loved. But though her heart was hot with the dream, 
 she came back to the stifling cares and burdens of 
 Haworth, and in all points anxiously fulfilled her 
 duty as a clergyman's daughter. Shy, demure, re- 
 served, punctilious all this she was to her neigh- 
 bours, and nothing beyond. 
 
 But when we read her books, we see that her 
 dream life was utterly different. Her heroines are 
 all of them, to use Rousseau's phrase, " children of 
 Melchizedek." They are orphans, free to take their 
 own course, free to work and to find, if it may be, the 
 glory of love. When love comes they have no tyran- 
 nical relatives to consult: the world has no claims 
 upon them. For Charlotte Bronte the ideal life was 
 that of a man and woman who chose each other from 
 all the world, and were sufficient to one another, fear- 
 ing no man's frown, asking no man's favour. She 
 did not despise the adornments of existence, but the 
 heart of life was love. When we consider the chains 
 which held her fast to duty, through her darkened 
 and anxious years, with the perfect freedom which 
 she allows to the children of her imagination, we can- 
 not but feel that in many ways Charlotte Bronte's 
 life was a true tragedy. No one was ever more faith- 
 ful in outward compliance than she, but her heart 
 
 159
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 was wrapped in flames, though she never suffered her- 
 self to say outright with Turgenieff's hero, " I should 
 rebel . . . and I rebel, I rebel." 
 
 II 
 
 In George Eliot it is impossible not to see the same 
 laceration, but there is a striking contrast in the 
 attitude of the two women to the regulated order of 
 life. Charlotte Bronte was no rebel against the 
 higher morality, and she reverenced religion as she 
 conceived it. For the morality and religion of many 
 whose company she was obliged to endure, she had 
 less than no regard. But George Eliot broke away 
 from her early faith, and violated with deliberation 
 the chief law of society. The circumstances of her 
 prolonged alliance with G. H. Lewes have never been 
 fully disclosed, and the reticence i-s justifiable. Suf- 
 fice it to say that about the middle of last century 
 there was a great outbreak of George Sandism in 
 English society, and particularly in English literary 
 society. It went much further than any printed 
 record tells us, though very significant hints may be 
 found here and there, particularly in the letters of 
 the Carlyles. There are those still living who can 
 speak of its results. George Eliot happened to be 
 the most conspicuous offender, but she was by no 
 means the greatest. In the record of her life it 
 seems as if she had discarded the old faith and prac- 
 tice with hardly a struggle. It has been said that 
 
 160
 
 THE DUAL LIFE 
 
 she shed her belief in Christianity as a rose-tree sheds 
 its flowers, and that there is not the faintest sign of 
 a moral pang in parting either with religious creed 
 or with moral instinct. Her union with Lewes she 
 justified to the end. 
 
 But when we turn to her books, with their noble 
 ethical spirit, we find them one long condemnation of 
 her own practice. It is little to say that she holds 
 up the sanctity of marriage to the respect of the 
 world. It is not enough even to say what is true, 
 that she represents marriage as of sacramental sig- 
 nificance. What is even more striking is her merci- 
 lessness to transgressors. They are pursued and 
 overcome by avenging furies, and she watches their 
 agonies without a tear of pity. The cruellest thing 
 ever written of a woman by a woman is the coarse and 
 revolting episode of Mrs. Transome in Felix Holt. 
 It is an indelible blot on George Eliot's work and rep- 
 utation, and the punishment of Mrs. Transome by 
 the hands of her own son is worthy of a remorseless 
 fiend, though it was inflicted by an erring woman. 
 The more one reads George Eliot's books the more 
 they seem to be an expiation for her own fault. 
 
 Was she happy, then? Assuredly not. She had 
 compensations, but the general impression of her life 
 and letters is profoundly melancholy. She did not, 
 I think, part with her early faith so absolutely and 
 so easily as is generally thought. Very few do part 
 with the beliefs in which they were nourished, however 
 they may modify their expression, and however far 
 
 161
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 behind they may leave them in practice. The con- 
 science of her youth tortured her, and made her 
 tremble. She was never made for defiance. She was 
 born to be a moralist, a Mrs. Grundy of a very noble 
 type, advising and warning passionate youth with an 
 uplifted finger : " Now, my dear." Her books show 
 that she was profoundly convinced that no woman 
 who violated the law of honour could ever escape the 
 consequences. What is more puzzling is that she 
 has very little pity, if indeed she has any pity, for 
 any woman who is the victim of her weakness. The 
 story of Hetty is not so cruel as the story of Mrs. 
 Transome, but it is cruel. We are made so to feel 
 the emptiness, the worthlessness, the senselessness of 
 Hetty, that her fall affects us scarcely more than the 
 fall of a mantelpiece ornament. 
 
 Ill 
 
 In Jane Austen we seem to have a life as quiet, 
 as calm, as delicate and unobtrusive as the life of 
 her books. That life is very tranquil, uninvaded by 
 the hurry, the crowding interests, and the aggres- 
 siveness of the outer world. It gives, as has been 
 said, a great sense of perfect seclusion, ample oppor- 
 tunity, plenty of space, and plenty of time. The 
 immortal Mr. Collins excuses himself for not sing- 
 ing : " ' If I, 5 said Mr. Collins, ' were so fortunate as 
 to be able to sing, I should have great pleasure in 
 obliging the company with an air; for I consider 
 
 162
 
 THE DUAL LIFE 
 
 music as a very innocent diversion, and perfectly 
 compatible with the profession of a clergyman. I 
 do not mean, however, to assert that we can be jus- 
 tified in devoting too much of our time to music, for 
 there are certainly other things to be attended to. 
 The rector of a parish has much to do. In the first 
 place, he must make such an agreement for tithes as 
 may be beneficial to himself and not offensive to his 
 patron. He must write his own sermons, and the 
 time that remains will not be too much for his parish 
 duties, and the care and improvement of his dwelling, 
 which he cannot be excused from making as comfort- 
 able as possible. And I do not think it of light im- 
 portance that he should have attentive and concilia- 
 tory manners towards everybody, especially towards 
 those to whom he owes his preferment. I cannot ac- 
 quit him of that duty ; nor could I think well of the 
 man who should omit an occasion of testifying his 
 respect towards anybody connected with the family.' 
 And with a bow to Mr. Darcy he concluded his 
 speech, which had been spoken so loud as to be heard 
 by half the room." London, which has long been 
 the great nerve-knot of this country, does not play 
 an important part in Miss Austen's books, and in 
 Emma, which is perhaps the best of them, it is hardly 
 mentioned at all. Everybody seems to be within a 
 drive. Tragedy scarcely enters the sequestered life. 
 There is time for the sedate flowering of every quality. 
 Death is almost completely excluded. I can remember 
 in the whole range of Miss Austen's fiction but 
 
 163
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 (death, and that takes place off the stage. George 
 Eliot's novels show a profound sense of the movement 
 of life towards death; nor does she shrink always 
 from the deathbed scenes which has been so much 
 too common in recent fiction. Even into Miss Aus- 
 ten's quiet and self-centred country death made his 
 entrance, and she had her share of mortal sorrow, 
 but the English gentlewoman of those days did not 
 reveal her heart. Miss Austen's first novel is de- 
 scribed on the title-page as " By a Lady," and the 
 phrase might be used of every line she penned. But 
 the showy, the glaring, the sentimental, the effusive, 
 she shrank from instinctively. She went no further 
 than unobtrusive irony and delicate banter. She was 
 happy, for the life was in many respects sheltered 
 and restful, and her sense of humour prevented her 
 suffering from fools even as much as her companions 
 did. Her mother tells us that while Lady Saye and 
 Sele was wearisome to her, Jane Austen found her 
 most amusing. 
 
 But one is not sorry to know that Jane Austen 
 could feel, and feel very deeply. In Miss Constance 
 Hill's admirable book on Jane Austen, Her Homes 
 and Her Friends, there is a most interesting account 
 of a love episode which seems to have occurred when 
 Jane Austen was twenty-three. She met in Devon- 
 shire a clergyman named Blackall, and the result was 
 a deep attachment. He died soon afterwards. This 
 happened about 1799, and though Jane Austen said 
 nothing, she ceased to write. " Between her first 
 
 164
 
 THE DUAL LIFE 
 
 novels and their successors, there was a period of 
 twelve years, a long, strange silence, for which there 
 must surely have been some reason. Is it not prob- 
 able that, lively and cheerful as she was in manner, 
 she had that deep, silent sorrow at her heart, which 
 could not but indispose her to the exercise of writing, 
 perhaps even paralysed the faculty of invention." 
 Jane Austen is not the less dear for this silence, and 
 the happiest thing is that her last books, which are 
 the brightest and sunniest of all, prove that she was 
 victorious over her trouble, that it enriched and mel- 
 lowed her sweet, faithful nature. Once, at least, 
 she let her heart slip into her pen, when she said as 
 Anne Elliot, " All the privilege I claim for my sex, 
 and it is not a very enviable one, is that of loving 
 longest when hope is gone." 
 
 165
 
 CHAPTER XIX 
 
 IN THE WORLD OF JANE AUSTEN 
 
 I HAVE occupied myself very pleasantly in recent 
 hours of leisure by reading over for a purpose Jane 
 Austen's novels in the two delightful India paper 
 volumes published by Messrs. Nelson. My purpose 
 was to comprehend the world Jane Austen described, 
 which was the world she moved in. 
 
 Of peculiarities in her style there are very few. 
 The most remarkable, perhaps, is her use of the word 
 " chief," particularly in Pride and Prejudice. I 
 have traced only one or two examples in her other 
 books. She speaks of Elizabeth Bennet " passing 
 the chief of the night in her sister's room." Again : 
 " The chief of every day was spent by him at Lucas 
 Lodge." Again : " Mrs. Gardiner, to whom the chief 
 of the news had been given before." Again : " The 
 chief of the time between breakfast and dinner was 
 now passed by him either at work in the garden or in 
 reading and writing." There are other instances, 
 but these will suffice. However, that is not my point. 
 I make notes on Jane Austen's views on matrimony, 
 on income, and on reading. 
 
 I 
 
 The place occupied by matrimony and matchmak- 
 ing in the minds and lives of her people is astounding. 
 
 166
 
 IN THE WORLD OF JANE AUSTEN 
 
 It is fair to say that she is describing the manners 
 of her period, and that in her best female characters, 
 Elizabeth Bennet and Anne Elliot, she gives us ex- 
 amples of sweet and dignified womanhood. But on 
 the whole, marriage is the prime interest on almost 
 every one of her pages. When the curtain rises at 
 the beginning of her novels, we are introduced im- 
 mediately to marriageable ladies and single men of 
 good fortune who may be induced to choose them. 
 Mothers are exceedingly solicitous, and all take part 
 in the game fathers, aunts, and sisters. Of Mrs. 
 Bennet we are told that the marriage of her daughter 
 had been the first object of her wishes since Jane was 
 sixteen. 
 
 The young ladies themselves, are, as a rule, quite 
 candid on the subject. Thus of Charlotte Lucas 
 we are told that without thinking highly either 
 of men or of matrimony, marriage had always been 
 her object. " It was the only honourable profession 
 for well-educated women of small fortune, and how- 
 ever uncertain all coming happiness must be, their 
 pleasantest preservative from want." Maria Bert- 
 ram in Mansfield Park has a matchmaker in her aunt 
 Mrs. Norris. " It would be peculiarly consoling to 
 see their dear Maria settled, she very often thought 
 always when they were in the company of men of 
 fortune, and particularly on the introduction of a 
 young man who had recently succeeded to one of the 
 best estates and finest places in the country." Mary 
 Crawford, who is by no means " odious," had not 
 
 167
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 been three hours in the house before she told what 
 she had planned. " Matrimony was her object, pro- 
 vided she could marry well." Even Marianne Dash- 
 woods says much the same thing. The openness with 
 which matrimonial disappointments are discussed is 
 amazing. 
 
 When Mr. Collins is refused by Elizabeth Bennet, 
 it seems as if everything went on in public. 
 There is no sort of reticence. As soon as he is re- 
 fused, Mrs. Bennet undertakes to bring her to rea- 
 son. " I will go directly to Mr. Bennet, and we shall 
 very soon settle that with him, I am sure. Accord- 
 ingly she called out to Mr. Bennet: ' You must come 
 and make Lizzie marry Mr. Collins, for she vows she 
 will not have him.' 5i Lizzie is summoned to the 
 library, but Mr. Bennet refuses to be firm. The sis- 
 ters are then called in, and while the family is con- 
 fused, Charlotte Lucas comes to spend the day with 
 them, and is told the news. Mr. Collins keeps on 
 staying in the house for a day or two in a state of 
 angry pride, while another of the daughters thinks 
 that she may marry him. The young ladies make 
 very little concealment of their feelings when men will 
 not propose. Emma is an exception at first, that 
 is, she does not think of marrying herself, but she 
 is fully engrossed in trying to marry her friends, and 
 in this way comes to discover her own feelings. Only 
 a very few, and these the best, of Jane Austen's 
 heroines are reserved to the point of self-respect. 
 
 168
 
 IN THE WORLD OF JANE AUSTEN 
 
 It Is painfully evident that to the women of these 
 times there was no career save marriage, although 
 the old maid in good circumstances might be respec- 
 table and respected. True, penniless young ladies 
 might become governesses as Jane Fairfax did, but 
 Jane describes the profession of a governess with 
 nothing short of horror. She says : " I was not 
 thinking of the slave trade governess trade was all 
 I had in view widely different certainly as to the 
 guilt of those who carry it on, but as to the greater 
 misery of the victims I do not know where it lies." 
 Emma, while busy with the affairs of others, main- 
 tains that she could endure the lot of an old maid. 
 But she was rich. " A single woman with a very 
 narrow income must be a ridiculous, disagreeable old 
 maid." It is poverty only which makes celibacy 
 contemptible to a generous public. We have in 
 Emma the portrait of an estimable but ridiculous 
 old maid, Miss Bates, described by the unregenerate 
 Emma as " so silly, so smiling, so prosy, so undis- 
 tinguished, and so .fastidious." Jane Austen has 
 never drawn a really sweet, noble, and stately old 
 maid. 
 
 Women in Jane Austin's world had to begin early 
 if they were to secure husbands. Seventeen seems to 
 have been thought a reasonable age for marriage, 
 though perhaps twenty-one was the best age. Con- 
 ditions became very serious at twenty-seven. It was 
 at that time that Charlotte Lucas was engaged. She 
 
 169
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 felt all the good luck of it. Marianne Dashwood de- 
 clared that a woman of twenty-seven could never 
 hope to feel or inspire affection again. The sweet 
 Anne Elliot married at twenty-seven, but we are told 
 that there was an interval before that age when her 
 physical charm was dimmed. In the case of Eliza- 
 beth Elliot, it allowed that it sometimes happens that 
 a woman is handsomer at twenty-nine than she was 
 ten years before. In fact, if there has been neither 
 ill-health nor anxiety, it is a time of life at which no 
 charm need be lost. Still Elizabeth felt the near 
 approach of the years of danger, and she had good 
 reasons for her apprehension. After thirty it seems 
 as if hope is past. Jane Austen has indeed very little 
 mercy for old age, and it is no great concession to say 
 that " a large bulky figure has as good a right to be 
 in deep affliction as the most graceful set of limbs in 
 the world." 
 
 II 
 
 Miss Austen has much to say on the incomes of 
 her characters, more perhaps than any other English 
 novelist, with the possible exception of Trollope. 
 Balzac exceeded her in minuteness. Scott, so far as 
 I can remember, has only once touched the subject. 
 The most revealing touch on this subject that I 
 remember is poor Charlotte Bronte's specification of 
 Shirley's magnificent income. It amounted to no less 
 
 170
 
 IN THE WORLD OF JANE AUSTEN 
 
 than 1000 a year, a sum which seemed to Miss 
 Bronte, as to Shirley, incalculable riches. Shirley, 
 when she accepted Moore, addressed him thus : " I do 
 not ask you to take off my shoulders all the cares and 
 duties of property, but I ask you to share the bur- 
 den, and to show me how to sustain my part well." 
 Miss Austen's average woman is very much alive to 
 the importance of a large income. That income is 
 best derived from sound freehold property. The 
 landlord is the gentleman. When Anne Elliot's 
 father escaped to the gaiety of Bath she grieved that 
 he should see nothing to regret in the " duties and 
 dignities of the resident landlord." Elinor Dash- 
 wood thinks that grandeur can do little for happi- 
 ness, but that wealth has much to do with it, and 
 Miss Crawford holds that " a large income is the 
 best recipe for happiness I have ever heard of." 
 When Miss Austen is describing the country society 
 with which she is most familiar, she has little hesita- 
 tion in fixing the necessary revenue. A country gen- 
 tleman with 2000 a year of his own and a moderate 
 addition from his wife is well off, but it is better if 
 his fortune should run to 2500; 4000 a year 
 Mr. Bingley's income is very good indeed, 10,000 
 a year, which was the income of Mr. Darcy, is " a 
 noble fortune." The dowries of women are, as a 
 rule, not excessive ; in the case of the Dashwood girls 
 only 1000 to each. Miss Maria Ward, of Hunting- 
 don, who married Sir Thomas Bertram, had 7000, 
 and this was considered at least 3000 short of what 
 
 171
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 it should have been ; 20,000 is a very good fortune 
 for a girl, and 30,000, which was the fortune of 
 Georgiana Darcy, is splendid. In Emma, Miss Aus- 
 ten enters a lower region of society. She depicts the 
 life of a country town in Surrey, which was little 
 more than a village. Every one was friendly, and 
 there the apothecary and the business man from 
 London mixed in the best society. But in coun- 
 try society the clergyman is almost the only poor 
 man, save relations, who enters the circle. A clergy- 
 man's income is sufficient if it amounts to 700 a 
 year, but it is better when it is 1000. On this a 
 young couple may live reputably; 350 a year is 
 not sufficient. When Mr. Ferrars married Miss 
 Dashwood, " they were neither of them quite enough 
 in love to think that .350 a year would supply them 
 with all the comforts of life." It did not occur to 
 their well-regulated minds that they should marry till 
 these comforts were secured, and a timely addition 
 of 10,000 to their fortune saved the situation. I 
 should add that in these days the Navy seems to have 
 been a lucrative profession, and Wentworth, the hus- 
 band of Anne Elliot, was reputed to have made 20,- 
 000 by the war. 
 
 I should be tempted to say that the 'dominant 
 thought in Miss Austen's mind was the supreme im- 
 portance of reading. What troubled her about her 
 
 112
 
 IN THE WORLD OF JANE AUSTEN 
 
 characters was their ignorance and their silliness, 
 their idleness and their vanity. She had a most ab- 
 solute conviction that the wise could not be happy 
 with the foolish, and that even the wise could not 
 maintain the zest of a married life without con- 
 tinually cultivating their minds. Perhaps the clas- 
 sical passage on this subject is in Mansfield Park. 
 There Miss Austen ridicules the female education of 
 the day. The two sisters Bertram are talking to 
 Mrs. Norris about the ignorance of their cousin 
 Fanny. " I cannot remember the time when I did 
 not know a great deal that she has not the least 
 notion of, yet how long it is, aunt, since we used to 
 repeat the chronological order of the Kings of Eng- 
 land, with the dates of their accession, and most of 
 the principal events of their reign." " Yes," added 
 the other, " and all the Roman Emperors as low as 
 Severus, besides a great deal of the heathen mythol- 
 ogy, and of the metals, semi-metals, planets and dis- 
 tinguished philosophers." This education Miss 
 Austen esteemed lightly. When Edmund Bertram 
 took his cousin's mind in hand, " his attentions were 
 otherwise of the highest importance in assisting the 
 improvement of her mind and extending its pleasures. 
 He knew her to be clever, to have a quick apprehen- 
 sion as well as good sense, and a fondness for read- 
 ing which, properly directed, must be an education 
 in itself. Miss Lee taught her French, and heard 
 her read the daily portion of history, but he recom- 
 mended the books which charmed her leisure hours. 
 
 173
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 He encouraged her taste and corrected her judg- 
 ment; he made reading useful by talking to her of 
 what she read, and heightened its attraction by judi- 
 cious praise." Miss Austen's theory of education is 
 to be found in the words, " a fondness for reading, 
 which, properly directed, must be an education in 
 itself." Is there any better theory of education than 
 this? I do not know of one. We find later on that 
 Fanny had been a collector of books from the first 
 hour of her ever commanding a shilling, and among 
 her possessions were Crabbe's Tales and the Idler. 
 She used to read Shakespeare to her aunt, and the 
 only occasion on which Crawford nearly touched her 
 heart was when he read Shakespeare aloud in a dra- 
 matic way. In Sense and Sensibility Marianne Dash- 
 wood had the knack of finding her way in every house 
 to the library, however it might be avoided by the 
 family in general. When Emma questioned Harriet 
 about her lover, Mr. Martin, the interrogations began 
 thus : " Mr. Martin, I suppose, is not a man of in- 
 formation beyond the line of his own business. He 
 does not read?" It turned out that Mr. Martin 
 had not read the Romance of the Forest, and the 
 Children of the Abbey. As for Harriet, she could 
 do nothing but collect and transcribe all the rid- 
 dles of every sort she could meet with on a thin 
 quarto of hot pressed paper. Captain Benwick 
 pleased Anne Elliot by being a young man of con- 
 siderable taste and reading, though principally in 
 Boetry. She recommended him a large allowance 
 
 174
 
 IN THE WORLD OF JANE AUSTEN 
 
 of prose in his daily study, " and on being requested 
 to particularise, mentioned such works of our best 
 moralists, such collections of the finest letters, such 
 memoirs of characters of worth and suffering as oc- 
 curred to her at the moment as calculated to rouse 
 and fortify the mind by the highest precepts and the 
 strongest examples of moral and religious genius." 
 
 When she heard that Captain Benwick was to 
 marry Louisa Musgrove, she was perplexed. The 
 high-spirited, joyous, talking Louisa Musgrove, and 
 the dejected, thinking, reading Captain Benwick, 
 seemed each of them everything that would not suit 
 the other, their minds most dissimilar. Where could 
 have been the attraction ? Darcy talked to Elizabeth 
 so agreeably of new books and music that she had 
 never been so well entertained in the room before. 
 Mrs. Bennet's weak understanding and illiberal mind 
 had very early in her marriage put an end to all her 
 husband's affection for her. Those who did not care 
 for reading had to make a pretence of caring. Miss 
 Bingley yawned when reading with Mr. Darcy, but 
 she had to say, " There is no enjoyment like reading. 
 How much sooner one tires of anything than of a 
 book! When I have a house of my own I shall be 
 miserable if I have not an excellent library." There 
 are many other illustrations which I am compelled 
 to leave out. 
 
 Jane Austen says nothing of death, but she does 
 not hesitate sometimes to paint the darker sides of 
 life, and on the whole she must be considered very 
 
 175
 
 THE KEY OF. THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 lenient. Hers was no doubt an age of elopements. 
 She says little or nothing about religion, though in 
 her heart deeply religious. One curious reference is 
 made in Persuasion: Anne Elliot knew that there had 
 been bad habits in her cousin's life, that Sunday 
 travelling had been a common thing. 
 
 176
 
 CHAPTER XX 
 
 " THERE MUST BE MANY A PAIR OF FRIENDS " 
 
 I AM not thinking of friendships between men and 
 women. There are many examples of such in biog- 
 raphies, and there would be more, I fancy, if biog- 
 raphies were not so much doctored as they are. In 
 the life of Archbishop Benson we read : " All his great 
 friendships, especially of later years, have been with 
 women ; he was not really at home in an atmosphere 
 of perfect equality; surround him with a certain 
 deference and affection, and he was expansive, hu- 
 morous, and racy. But with men of like age, whose 
 views he imagined differed widely from his own, he 
 froze and became silent and severe. . . . He thought 
 of the Church, or rather of religion, as the absorbing 
 fact of life. People of diametrically opposite views 
 he could not really tolerate. Cordiality with them 
 was out of the question. And he would not really 
 ever try to meet them or argue with them. Several 
 times, as in the Education Bill controversy, he lost 
 ground by not being able frankly to meet and discuss 
 matters with certain leading Radicals, who would 
 have been quite ready to meet him half-way. But 
 their view, or what he thought was their view, was 
 
 177
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 incredible and unintelligible to him." Nor am I 
 thinking of the ordinary intimacies between men. 
 Some men have no friends in the full sense of the 
 word. Others have a good many intimate friends, 
 none rising clearly above the rest. I am thinking 
 of men who have one great friend, one man whom they 
 need, to whom they tell everything, whom they must 
 meet as often as possible, whom they cannot do with- 
 out, who influence them, and are influenced by them. 
 Such friendships may cover parts of life, or almost 
 the whole of life. The point is that they are su- 
 preme while they endure. I shall put down such 
 instances as occur to me. 
 
 It is worth noting that Tennyson, so far as the 
 record goes, had no supreme friend after A. H. 
 Hallam. I doubt whether he had any woman friend 
 even. In Memonam was, in the full sense of the 
 word, a sincere book, for it commemorated an affec- 
 tion for which the writer never found any substitute. 
 By the way, has it been sufficiently remarked that 
 In Memoriam makes but a limited appeal to the be- 
 reaved? Its intensity has carried it through; but 
 when we think of it, we shall see that the bereave- 
 ments in life that leave aching, unhealed wounds are 
 not of the type Tennyson commemorates. Most peo- 
 ple become soon consoled for the loss of a friend, 
 however dear and intimate. There must be, as a 
 rule, nearer relations to create the enduring sense of 
 want. 
 
 Thackeray, in the proper sense, seems to have 
 178
 
 "MANY A PAIR OF FRIENDS" 
 
 had no friend. It is true that he spoke of Fitz- 
 Gerald as his greatest friend ; but FitzGerald and he 
 rarely met or corresponded, and a high friendship 
 insists on intercourse, whatever the difficulties may 
 be. I imagine that Thackeray had close friendships 
 with women. This was also the case with Dickens, 
 though there can be no doubt of his passionate af- 
 fection for John Forster. On one occasion Dickens 
 signed a letter John Forster, and then wrote a quaint, 
 pathetic apology, saying that his thoughts were 
 always so full of Forster that he sometimes con- 
 founded Forster's identity with his own. 
 
 I was set upon my subject by reading over again, 
 according to my annual custom, the life of Lord 
 Macaulay. The revelation of that life was Lord 
 Macaulay's extraordinary affection for his sisters 
 and their children. He had one friend, however, who 
 seems to have been in the full sense of the word a con- 
 fidential friend. This friend was Mr. T. F. Ellis, a 
 barrister of no very great mark. Ellis was an excel- 
 lent classical scholar, and that was one bond of kin- 
 ship between Lord Macaulay and himself; but there 
 must have been others. Macaulay never married, 
 and so far as the public knows, he was never even in 
 love. This gives a peculiar interest to his views upon 
 women, which, as careful students of his works know, 
 were decided and defined. He says significantly, on 
 the death of Ellis's wife, that he felt so much for his 
 friend that to bring his wife back he would give one 
 of his fingers, " which is more than most widowers 
 
 179
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 would give to bring back theirs." In his history, 
 referring to Madame de Maintenon, he describes the 
 kind of wife a middle-aged man should choose. 
 " When she attracted the notice of her Sovereign 
 she could no longer boast of youth or beauty; but 
 she possessed in an extraordinary degree those more 
 lasting charms which men of sense whose passions age 
 has tamed, and whose life is a life of business and 
 care, prize most highly in a female companion. Her 
 character was such as has been well compared to that 
 soft green on which the eye, wearied by warm tints 
 and glaring lights, reposes with pleasure. A just 
 understanding; an inexhaustible and never redundant 
 flow of rational, gentle, and sprightly conversation; 
 a temper of which the serenity was never for a mo- 
 ment ruffled; a tact which surpassed the tact of her 
 sex as much as the tact of her sex surpasses the tact 
 of ours ; such were the qualities which made the widow 
 of a buffoon first the confidential friend and then 
 the spouse of the proudest and most powerful of 
 European kings." There is much more autobiog- 
 raphy in Macaulay's writings than has yet been 
 pointed out. 
 
 Of supreme friendships which lasted through cir- 
 cumstances but a brief time I may recall that of 
 Robert Hall and James Mackintosh, when they were 
 students together at King's Collage, Aberdeen. 
 Theirs must have been a rare and lofty communion. 
 Circumstances divided them, but they were never 
 really estranged, and the letter of the author of 
 
 180
 
 "MANY A PAIR OF FRIENDS" 
 
 Vindicios Gallicce to the great Baptist, when Hall 
 was under a cloud of madness, is one of the finest ever 
 written. 
 
 There was the singular passion of friendship 
 between Dr. Chalmers and a young man in Glas- 
 gow who was a member of his congregation, Thomas 
 Smith. While it lasted it was a true devotion. It 
 seemed to fulfil every condition of friendship, but it 
 was interrupted early by Smith's death. Dr. John- 
 son was rich in friends, and they were friends worthy 
 of him. There were Garrick, and Burke, and Rey- 
 nolds, and Goldsmith, and Bennet Langton, and Top- 
 ham Beauclerk, and Boswell. But I think the true 
 Johnsonian will admit that the deepest affection for 
 another man ever shown by Johnson was given to the 
 poor apothecary Robert Levett. There was no kind 
 of intellectual equality between the men, and nobody 
 could see what attracted Johnson to his poor friend. 
 In fact, people are often unable to explain friend- 
 ships. But whatever the explanation, it is clear that 
 Johnson set his heart upon him. He resolved with 
 uncommon earnestness that whatever change might 
 befall him he would never be separated from Dr. 
 Levett. When Levett died he wrote the noble poem, 
 which he surpassed only in his lines: 
 
 " Sleep undisturbed within thy peaceful shrine 
 Till angels wake thee with a note like thine." 
 
 I do not wonder that Johnson was Scott's favour- 
 ite poet. There are few letters at once more 
 
 181
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET, 
 
 'dignified and more pathetic than that in which 
 Johnson announces Levett's death. " So has ended 
 the long life of a very useful and a very blameless 
 man." 
 
 One of the most fascinating studies in friendship 
 is the relation between Pope and Bolingbroke. 
 Bolingbroke had a strange upbringing. His re- 
 ligious education was chiefly in the sermons of Dr. 
 Manton, the Puritan who wrote the enormous com- 
 mentary on the hundred and nineteenth psalm. Dr. 
 Manton's influence did him no good. He became a 
 drunkard and a profligate; but he had great quali- 
 ties, and could be studious, hard-working, and philo- 
 sophical. His wife long retained her affection for 
 him, in spite of his manifold infidelities. Many 
 storms were over when he became acquainted with 
 Pope. The two men were as dissimilar as possible. 
 Bolingbroke was handsome and commanding in ap- 
 pearance, and his temper was joyous and affec- 
 tionate. Pope, on the other hand, was deformed, 
 malignant, and preternaturally sensitive. Students 
 of Whitwell Elwin will not be able, however much 
 they wish it, to rate Pope's character high. Yet 
 he, too, had noble qualities, and between himself and 
 Bolingbroke there grew up a fast friendship. It 
 seems certain that Bolingbroke supplied the ideas 
 of the Essay on Man, while Pope gave the setting 
 and the colouring. Of Bolingbroke, Pope said that 
 he was the greatest man and one of the best friends 
 he ever knew, and that he had known him so long and 
 
 182
 
 "MANY A PAIR OF FRIENDS" 
 
 so truly as not possibly to be deceived. In one of 
 Pope's letters we find this passage : " I now hold 
 the pen for my Lord Bolingbroke, who is reading 
 your letter between two haycocks, but his attention 
 is somewhat diverted by casting his eyes on the 
 clouds, not in admiration of what you say, but for 
 fear of a shower. He is pleased with your placing 
 him in the triumvirate between . you and me, while 
 one of us runs away with all the power like Augus- 
 tus, and another with all the pleasures like Anthony. 
 It is upon a foresight of this that he has fitted up 
 his farm." Pope had so strong an admiration for 
 Bolingbroke's gifts that he said when a comet ap- 
 peared he fancied it might be a coach to take 
 Bolingbroke home. But the friendship of the two 
 men was not based on mere admiration. Each saw 
 deeper. When Bolingbroke hung over the bedside 
 of the dying poet, he said : " I never knew a man 
 that had so tender a heart for his particular friends, 
 or more genuine friendship for mankind. I have 
 known Pope these thirty years, and value myself 
 
 more in his friendship than He could add no 
 
 more. When Pope reviewed his life on his deathbed, 
 and remembered all he had done for his friend, and 
 all that his friend had done for him, he declared, 
 " There is nothing that is meritorious but virtue and 
 friendship, and, indeed, friendship is only a part of 
 virtue." 
 
 Another noble and touching friendship was that 
 between Coleridge and Charles Lamb. Both of these 
 
 183
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 groat men passed shadowed and even tragical lives. 
 Both emerged more and more clearly as the first 
 among a circle of greatly endowed natures. Yet 
 what a friendship was theirs ; through what strug- 
 gles, and destinies, and hungerings, and tempta- 
 tions, and bewilderments, and falls did it pass. To 
 Coleridge, writes Lamb from London : " I know not 
 what suffering scenes you have gone through at 
 Bristol. My life has been somewhat diversified of 
 late. The six weeks that finished last year and be- 
 gun this your very humble servant spent very 
 agreeably in a mad-house at Hoxton. I am not 
 rational, and do not bite any one; but mad I was, 
 and many a vagary my imagination played with 
 me. Coleridge, it may convince you of my regard 
 for you when I tell you my head ran on you in my 
 madness as much as on another person [Lamb's sis- 
 ter], who I am inclined to think was the more 
 immediate cause of my temporary frenzy." Cole- 
 ridge wrote : " My happiest moments are broken in 
 upon by the reflection that I must make haste. I 
 am too late! I am already months behind! I have 
 received my pay months beforehand! O wayward 
 and desultory spirit of genius ! Ill canst thou brook 
 a taskmaster. The tenderest touch from the hand 
 of obligation wounds thee like a scourge of scor- 
 pions." It was, as has been said, through cloud and 
 sunshine and simoon that they two loved each other 
 with a love possible only to heroic hearts. Lamb 
 could laugh at Coleridge preaching to a button, but
 
 "MANY A PAIR OF FRIENDS" 
 
 he was too wise not to understand that Coleridge's 
 was among the mightiest of created intellects, sec- 
 ond in England only to Shakespeare. Nor did 
 Coleridge fail to see his friend's genius, a genius 
 which was in one of its aspects a genius for 
 goodness. 
 
 I wish I had space to write of the friendship be- 
 tween Goethe and Schiller. The colossal calm of 
 Goethe was broken by Schiller's death. It was not 
 apparently broken when his own son was smitten, 
 but when he knew there was no hope for Schiller he 
 wept in the hours of the lonely night. In the morn- 
 ing he inquired of a woman whether Schiller had 
 been very ill yesterday. The woman sobbed audibly. 
 "He is dead?" said Goethe, faintly. "You have 
 said it," she replied. " He is dead," repeated Goethe, 
 covering his eyes with his hands. Nor should we 
 forget the friendship between Jean Paul Richter 
 and Christian Otto. This was one of the friendships 
 where there was a complete exchange of thought. 
 The two were transparent to one another, and they 
 lifted one another. " I pray thee," said Richter to 
 Otto, " to be my public, my reading world, my critic, 
 my reviewer." For fourteen years they corre- 
 sponded daily, until at last they were able to live at 
 Bayreuth together. Jean Paul had become famous, 
 but the fellowship of Otto was sweeter than ever. 
 Otto was near Richter when he died, and in death 
 they were not divided, for Otto survived his friend 
 but a few months, arranged the last manuscript of 
 
 185
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET, 
 
 the unfinished Selma, and then quickly drooped 
 away in sorrow. The letters between the two brim 
 over with the largesse of human sympathy, and are 
 an enduring memorial of a friendship which was at 
 once heroic, tender, and truthful. 
 
 186
 
 CHAPTER XXI 
 
 DR. ALEXANDER BAIN 
 
 ON Friday morning, September 18, 1903, Dr. 
 Alexander Bain, Emeritus Professor of Logic and 
 English Literature in the University of Aberdeen, 
 passed away in his eighty-sixth year. His was a 
 very strong and remarkable personality, and his 
 work was influential in no ordinary degree. The 
 Autobiography which he has left behind him has 
 done something to make his individuality intelligible, 
 but like Mark Pattison's it has failed to do him 
 justice. I can speak of him only from the recollec- 
 tions of a pupil, recollections which, alas! go back 
 for more than thirty years. Of his private life I 
 never knew anything, and save for a few communi- 
 cations on literary business, I had no intercourse 
 with him after leaving College, but I can understand 
 that he was " thinking long to die." His work was 
 finished, and though he did not profess to love work, 
 he lived for it. He tells us himself that his friend 
 John Stuart Mill's fixed idea was that he came into 
 the world not to serve himself, but to serve his race, 
 and that idleness, except as a condition of renewed 
 labour, was culpable and base. His favourite text 
 was " The night cometh when no man can work." 
 Here is an interesting remark in a letter to Thorn- 
 
 187
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 ton in 1860. Thornton had been to see Oxford, and 
 Mill recalls his own visit twenty years before, and 
 says : " In that same holiday I completed the first 
 ilraft of my Logic, and had for the first time the 
 feeling that I had now actually accomplished some- 
 thing that one certain portion of my life's work 
 was done." I understand that on the night of his 
 death, when he was informed that he would not 
 recover, he immediately said : " My work is 
 done." 
 
 Like other schoolboys of that generation in the 
 North of Scotland, I knew Bain first through his 
 Grammar. The book had a great sale, largely a 
 forced sale, because it was made one of the subjects 
 of examination in the Bursary competition, but in 
 addition to that a considerable sale throughout the 
 world. Having learned it and taught it, I came to 
 know it almost by heart. It was full of the author's 
 characteristic acuteness, and though much criticised 
 by experts had its own value. In particular, the 
 author pointed out many of the current mistakes in 
 speech and print. If the teaching of grammar is of 
 any use which is very doubtful Dr. Bain may 
 have done as much as most teachers in warning 
 pupils off the rocks. Like everything he wrote, the 
 book was marked by a certain originality, and, shall 
 I say, crotchetiness. Alas ! I have forgotten nearly 
 everything except a distinction he made between the 
 use of " who " and " that," and his defence of the 
 use of a preposition to close the sentence. Thus: 
 
 188
 
 DR. ALEXANDER BAIN 
 
 " I must use the freedom I was born with," and " In 
 that dumb rhetoric which you make use of." 
 
 Students were thus prepared to view Professor 
 Bain with considerable curiosity when the day came 
 for donning the red cloak. We had the advantage 
 of his teaching in our first year when he lectured on 
 English. At that time he was by far the most cele- 
 brated man on the professorial staff. He was per- 
 haps the only Professor of that period who was 
 widely known beyond the north of Scotland. The 
 students had only vague ideas of his friendships and 
 his fame, but they knew very well that he was some- 
 body in the world, and not a mere provincial 
 celebrity. The fact had due influence. They came 
 prepared to give him a hearing. Many of them, like 
 myself, were too young and too ignorant. I was not 
 fifteen when I sat down in his class, and yet I re- 
 member keenly to this day his appearance and man- 
 ner. Though the favourable suffrages of the out- 
 side world prepossess students, they invariably 
 judge for themselves. None of them had ever any 
 doubt about Bain's ability. Whether you liked him 
 or not, whether you followed him or not, he was 
 plainly a very strong man without a touch of weak- 
 ness or silliness, equipped at every point, and within 
 his limits master of his subject. He had also a 
 resolute will, and was a man who had to be obeyed. 
 Very able men sometimes fail completely to keep 
 order in their classes. Clerk Maxwell, for example, 
 was even a more powerful man than Bain, but dur- 
 
 189
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 ing his professorship in Aberdeen his classroom was 
 a scene of continual disorder. Bain was keen, alert, 
 and commanding; the least disturbance was in- 
 stantly repressed. One pupil, we will call him John 
 Thomson, once proved unruly, and was instantly 
 called to order by the Professor. 
 
 " John Thomson," said he, " are you ashamed of 
 yourself? " 
 
 " No," was the reply. 
 
 " Well, John Thomson, I will make you ashamed 
 of yourself. I fine you a half-crown." 
 
 This was the only insubordination I have ever 
 witnessed in Bain's class. His quiet authority 
 dominated the room. 
 
 Dr. Bain was not only an able Professor; he was 
 also thoroughly conscientious. He did his work with 
 scrupulous fidelity. Every student could see that 
 his course was most carefully prepared, and that in 
 every detail of his work he was exact and reliable. 
 This is the quality which students admire most in 
 a Professor. Bain never aimed at popularity. He 
 never sought either to be admired or to be loved. 
 There was not the faintest geniality in his manner. 
 He never in my time made a joke, and he kept him- 
 self completely aloof from the main body of the 
 students. He simply did his duty, and in this way 
 obtained, if not popularity, an excellent equivalent 
 for it. The students showed their admiration for 
 him years after by twice electing him Lord Rector 
 of the University. Even then he did not gush. He 
 
 190
 
 DR. ALEXANDER BAIN 
 
 did not flatter them; he did not profess to be over- 
 powered with the honour; he simply took up the 
 duties and discharged them according to his lights. 
 I should add that to students who met him in the 
 streets he was particularly courteous. He acknowl- 
 edged every salutation with a smile and by lifting his 
 shabby hat. He was also very polite in replying to 
 letters. More than that, he took special interest in 
 students who showed sympathy with his views and 
 intellectual power. Alone of all the Professors, he 
 invited the prizemen in his classes to his house, where 
 they had an opportunity of choosing their prizes. 
 Among the books he also included some publications 
 of Messrs. Chambers, particularly the Information 
 for the People, to which he himself had been a con- 
 tributor. The first prizeman in my year was Andrew 
 Craik, who died shortly after taking a high 
 wranglership at Cambridge. Bain, I remember, 
 gave him the prize with a very kind smile, and said: 
 " The first prize has been gained in a very distin- 
 guished and superior manner indeed by Andrew 
 Craik." His assistants were employed in the prep- 
 aration of his books more largely than may be 
 generally known. He influenced some of them very 
 deeply, and they became propagandists of his views. 
 Among the best loved of his pupils was George 
 Croom-Robertson, who became Professor in Univer- 
 sity College, London. It is not surprising that the 
 election of an unknown young Scotsman over the 
 head of James Martineau created resentment, but 
 
 191
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 Groom-Robertson's ability and generosity of nature 
 subdued all opponents, and won the friendship of 
 Martineau himself. Bain exerted himself to find 
 Chairs for his best scholars, and was not seldom suc- 
 cessful. It is fair to say that among the men he 
 most helped were some whose views on the most im- 
 portant of all subjects widely diverged from his own. 
 In appearance he recalled Democritus in Burton's 
 Anatomy of Melancholy, though he was not old at 
 the time, " a little wearish old man, somewhat 
 melancholy by nature, averse to company in his 
 latter days, and much given to solitude." His scanty 
 locks of hair were thriftily spread over his bald 
 cranium. He wore no moustache, his chin was 
 shaven, and his face was surrounded with thick 
 black hair. Thus his mouth was clear. His eyes 
 and his mouth gave a certain impression of weari- 
 ness and disenchantment. The face was not sad, 
 either tragically or poetically. Its expression 
 seemed to say : " Most things in life are irksome ; 
 teaching is irksome to me and learning to you. But 
 we have to do our work without whining. I shall 
 do mine, and I shall see that you do yours." I am 
 anxious not to exaggerate, and I think my impres- 
 sion is right. When Dr. Bain retired from the pro- 
 fessorship years after, he told his students that he 
 had found it hard work, and that it was some relief 
 to be done with it. There was no joyousness, no 
 enthusiasm in his manner and aspect. He used to 
 give a great place to fear, and thought that punish- 
 
 192
 
 DR. ALEXANDER BAIN 
 
 ment In some form was more than three-fourths of 
 the motive-power to virtue in the mass of mankind. 
 He had also an acute sense of the penalties that at- 
 tached to folly, and spoke of imprudence as the most 
 radically incurable of all natural defects. To youth, 
 as may be well imagined, he was a somewhat stern 
 monitor. 
 
 Dr. Bain was in a manner the most impersonal 
 teacher I ever knew. In one sense he was personal. 
 Whatever he taught he taught in his own way and 
 from his own textbooks. In essays and examinations 
 he liked to get back what he had given. But he 
 made no direct use of his own experiences. We knew 
 that he was an intimate friend of John Stuart Mill, 
 whose name in those days was great in the land, but 
 we never knew it from himself. Of his own feelings 
 he never spoke. He made hardly any reference to 
 other teachers. It was as if he himself had said on 
 each subject that came up the first word and the last. 
 He never attempted to influence his students re- 
 ligiously or politically. We knew, of course, that he 
 had abandoned the Christian faith, and the acute 
 logicians among us probably saw that his principles, 
 followed out strictly, involved agnosticism. But he 
 stuck to his text. He attended when it was his turn 
 the college chapel. I remember seeing him listening 
 to old Principal Pirie, a man of great native vigour 
 and very combative. Bain liked Pirie and appre- 
 ciated him, as he showed in a very characteristic 
 speech after the Principal's death. He listened at- 
 
 193
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 tentively to the sermon, and joined heartily in the 
 singing of the Psalms. There never was a classroom 
 where attention was more resolutely fixed on the sub- 
 ject, never a classroom where fewer echoes from the 
 outside were heard. 
 
 In my first year, Bain was understood to teach 
 English Literature. He had his own method of in- 
 struction, and very quaint it seemed at the time and 
 seems now. He had published a book on Rhetoric, 
 with an elaborate analysis of the qualities of style, 
 and he gave us each a little pamphlet of extracts 
 from the best English writers. Our business was to 
 touch them up till they squared with the precepts 
 in the Professor's manual. He himself skilfully 
 emended them one by one. Though far too young 
 and ignorant to follow him well, many of us resented 
 these emendations. For myself I came up with my 
 head full of Hazlitt, and when I heard Bain criticis- 
 ing Shakespeare for his hyperbolic style I was in- 
 dignant. There was one passage in particular, that 
 which ends 
 
 " Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye 
 Till tears shall drown the wind," 
 
 on which Bain was very hard. Another was Words- 
 worth's verse: 
 
 " One impulse from a vernal wood 
 
 May teach you more of man, 
 Of moral evil and of good 
 Than all the sages can." 
 
 194
 
 DR. ALEXANDER BAIN 
 
 On this Bain observed : " The average man is 
 unable to cope with such extravagance." On 
 Burns's lines, 
 
 " For nature made her what she is 
 And never made anither," 
 
 he remarked : " There is nothing in the language 
 or in the thought to redeem the extravagance of the 
 last two lines." He was very funny on Tennyson's 
 love poetry. Thus on : 
 
 " Her feet have touch'd the meadows, 
 And left the daisies rosy," 
 
 he observed that it was a strong hyperbole, but 
 that " it retained a slight hold on actual facts " ! 
 The result was that a few of us at any rate did not 
 believe anything he said, and thought him quite in- 
 competent to speak on literature. That his method 
 was entirely wrong, and that his criticisms were 
 often ridiculous, I have no doubt. But the intelli- 
 gent student might have learned much from him, for 
 his acute mind was always working. Thus, like 
 Lowell, he disbelieved entirely in the alleged objec- 
 tivity of Shakespeare, and maintained that his works 
 showed amongst other things a nature of excep- 
 tional generosity and cheerfulness. Dr. Bain would 
 have commanded more confidence as a corrector if 
 he had written better himself. Of his style it may 
 justly be remarked that it is singularly charmless. 
 He was very fond of that dangerous point the semi- 
 
 195
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 colon, and added clause after clause till everything 
 dragged. I kept till lately an essay on which he 
 wrote a criticism in red ink, which ran as follows: 
 " A model of lucid statement ; handwriting bad ; 
 punctuation very defective." 
 
 Two years later we met him in the class of Logic 
 and Psychology. Of this logic I remember nothing. 
 His psychology was another matter. The pupil 
 must have been dull indeed who would not under- 
 stand. One of his ablest scholars has explained in 
 the Times the great work he did on this subject. I 
 am not in the very least degree qualified to discuss 
 it, but I remember how Professor James spoke of 
 him at Harvard some years ago. To some of us 
 the manner in which he connected philosophy and 
 psychology was partly repellent and partly absurd. 
 My closest companion in these days, Robert Neil, 
 afterwards of Cambridge, was wont to quote one of 
 his memorable sentences : " The Organ of Smell is 
 the Nose." Still, even the dullest and the most care- 
 less could not fail to see how much power and 
 originality marked his psychological work. The 
 abler men knew how serious were the bearings of his 
 monism, and some of them were driven into strong 
 antagonism. Of these was Robertson Smith. There 
 was a legend that Robertson Smith in answering 
 Bain's examination papers gave the replies he had 
 heard in the class and appended refutations. How- 
 ever this may be, Smith publicly said that Bain was 
 *he most powerful teacher he had ever been under, 
 
 196
 
 DR. ALEXANDER BAIN 
 
 and that he had not been able to accept his teaching 
 in any of its essentials. I do not think Bain relished 
 the opposition. When he wrote a testimonial for 
 Smith, he said that there could be no doubt as 
 to Smith's extraordinary powers of acquisition. 
 Whether those powers of acquisition were accom- 
 panied by equal powers of origination remained to 
 be seen. Smith rather resented the insinuation. 
 When I go back I can see that we were not old 
 enough to understand the shrewd, practical wisdom 
 evinced in Bain's comments on life. One of his 
 points I clearly recollect was his insistence on the 
 fact that no triumph is ever complete. There was 
 always something to mar it. 
 
 Bain's students saw much of him, and much that 
 was very noble, but they did not see the best. The 
 testimony of those brought into intimate relations 
 with him proved that under his reserved and cold ex- 
 terior there burned a nature of great intensity and 
 tenderness. Professor Blaikie, who was his fellow- 
 student, describes him in his Autobiography as sim- 
 ple, kindly, and remarkable for the calmness of his 
 mind and manner. Dr. Bain was brought up under 
 the ministry of the famous Dr. Kidd, the chief 
 evangelical preacher in the Aberdeen of his day. 
 To Dr. Stark's Life of Dr. Kidd Dr. Bain contrib- 
 utes a most interesting paper in which he refers 
 particularly to the old preacher's prayers and says: 
 " I can only choose a few illustrative points which 
 have clung to my memory. His Baptismal prayer 
 
 197
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 was fixed into a set form, but yet the touches it con- 
 tained seemed never to tire by repetition. Two pas- 
 sages in particular I am able to quote. The first was 
 returning thanks to God * for His goodness to the 
 mother in the time of nature's sorrow,' with a peti- 
 tion to perfect her recovery. More striking still was 
 the passage where he prayed for ' all who have ever 
 been baptized in this place,' adding, ' Wherever 
 they are, by sea or by land, we follow them with our 
 prayers, that none of them may be lost on the morn- 
 ing of the great Day.' " Another fellow-student of 
 Bain's was the beloved David Masson, who happily 
 survives him. Their friendship continued firm and 
 fast through all the years. 
 
 198
 
 CHAPTER XXII 
 
 CONCERNING SPECTACLES 
 
 WHEN you detect in yourself an inability to dis- 
 tinguish between 3 and 8 when the figures are small, 
 when you loathe increasingly the consultation of 
 railway time-tables, when you are inclined to pass 
 over the small print in the newspapers, your friends 
 will advise you to consider the propriety of using 
 spectacles. They may even declare that delay in 
 getting spectacles when they are needed leads to 
 great confusion of mind and to feeble and tottering 
 gait. 
 
 Whether we need spectacles or not for the bodily 
 eyes, I am sure we need them for the eyes of the 
 mind. If we were perfect we should not need them. 
 Our vision would then be true; we should be able to 
 judge the world. As things are, our general im- 
 perfection means among many other things an im- 
 perfection in vision, and an incapacity to give 
 righteous judgment. The attempt to look at nature 
 and human nature with the naked eye is bound to 
 fail. It is told of Jacques Balmat, the man who first 
 climbed Mont Blanc, that he went without spec- 
 tacles. Nothing much was known about climbing 
 then. It was not understood how the snows affected 
 the sight. When Balmat came down he found him- 
 
 199
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 self almost blind, and his skin was peeling off his 
 face, his eyes were quite bloodshot, and people 
 hardly knew him. The next explorers took spec- 
 tacles, and ever since mountain spectacles have been 
 one of the trades of Switzerland. The spectacled 
 vision is the only vision which gives you the full view 
 of the mountain. There is a pretty story at the be- 
 ginning of Kim, which tells how the curator, who is 
 understood to represent Mr. Kipling's father, pre- 
 sented the Lama with a pair of spectacles. The 
 Lama had heavily scraped horn spectacles. But 
 when he put on the new pair, he exclaimed, " A 
 feather ! A very feather upon the face ! " The old 
 man turned his face delightedly, and wrinkled up his 
 nose. " How scarcely do I feel them ! How clearly 
 do I see!" 
 
 Dean Swift began by looking at human nature 
 with the naked eye, and he ended just as Balmat 
 ended, with bloodshot and almost blind eyes. In 
 his able little book on Thackeray, Mr. Charles Whib- 
 ley criticises severely Thackeray's lecture on Swift 
 as a blot upon his literary reputation. Thackeray 
 asked, " What fever was boiling in him that he 
 should see the world bloodshot ? " Mr. Whibley 
 scarcely does justice to Thackeray, for Thackeray 
 acknowledges that Swift " was a reverent and pious 
 spirit for Swift could love and could pray. 
 Through the storms and tempests of his furious 
 mind the stars of religion and love broke out in the 
 blue, shining securely, though hidden by the driving 
 
 200
 
 CONCERNING SPECTACLES 
 
 clouds and the maddened hurricane of his life." 
 But what Swift saw was the worthlessness of all 
 mankind, the pettiness, cruelty, pride, imbecility, the 
 general vanity, the foolish pretensions, the mock 
 greatness, the pompous dulness, the mean men, the 
 base successes. In a manner no one saw more deeply 
 and more keenly, and yet no one more utterly missed 
 the way and the truth. 
 
 On the eyes of the soul we must put the spectacles 
 of charity to use a word which has a wide stretch 
 of meaning. To begin with its full sense of love. 
 There is nothing more derided than the raptures of 
 a young affection. But it may be doubted whether 
 any people in the world are so wise as young, true 
 lovers. They see the best in each other, that best 
 which may in the end be victorious over all that mars 
 and flaws it, and outlast every evil element. For 
 love not only sees, but draws out. It brings into 
 action the highest energies of the soul, and calls 
 forth its deep and shrouded beauties. They are 
 happy indeed who maintain that vision through the 
 tests and trials of life. You will remember Emer- 
 son's significant parable, Each and All. 
 
 " The lover watched his graceful maid, 
 As 'mid the virgin train she strayed, 
 Nor knew her beauty's best attire 
 Was woven still by the snow-white choir. 
 At last she came to his hermitage, 
 Like the bird from the woodlands to the cage: 
 The gay enchantment was undone, 
 A gentle wife, but fairy none." 
 
 201
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 That is not the end of the story if it is a story of 
 true love. " Love is believing, and the best is 
 truest." 
 
 To look aright on human beings we must wear 
 the spectacles of an indulgent kindliness. It is in 
 this way we shall get the best and the most out of 
 the world. There is a mawkish, silly, and indecent 
 charity, but there are those who without folly and 
 without untruth can think of what may be pleaded 
 in mitigation of the worst offenders. Dickens de- 
 lighted to describe such people, but he never sur- 
 passed his picture of Traddles in David Copperfield. 
 When Traddles chose the dearest girl in the world 
 none of her sisters could endure the thought of her 
 ever being married. In particular, Sarah, who had 
 something the matter with her spine, objected 
 violently. 
 
 " * She clenched both her hands,' said Traddles ; 
 ' shut her eyes ; turned lead-colour ; became per- 
 fectly stiff; and took nothing for two days but 
 toast and water administered with a teaspoon.' 
 
 " * What a very unpleasant girl,' remarked David 
 Copperfield. 
 
 " * Oh, I beg your pardon, Copperfield,' said 
 Traddles. * She is a very charming girl, but she 
 had , great deal of feeling.' ' Serious also was the 
 grief of her mother, which mounted from her legs 
 into her chest, and then into her head. " As I men- 
 tioned on a former occasion, she is a very superior 
 woman, but has lost the use of her limbs. Whatever
 
 CONCERNING SPECTACLES 
 
 occurs to harass her usually settles In her legs, but 
 on this occasion it mounted to the chest, and then 
 to the head, and in short, pervaded the whole sys- 
 tem in a most alarming manner. However, they 
 brought her through it by unremitting and affec- 
 tionate attention." 
 
 But the triumph of Traddles' charity is his re- 
 mark on the detestable Uriah Heep. 
 
 " ( He is a monster of meanness,' said my aunt. 
 
 " * Really, I don't know about that,' observed 
 Traddles, thoughtfully. ' Many people can be very 
 mean when they give their minds to it.' ' 
 
 The observation, perhaps, was in excess. Nor 
 should I care to defend Deacon Solomon Rising, of 
 Connecticut. The deacon was giving evidence about 
 Mr. Elijah Hitchcock, a constable whose character 
 was under scrutiny. 
 
 " * Deacon Solomon Rising,' said the judge, ' do 
 you think Mr. Hitchcock is a dishonest man? ' 
 
 " * Oh, no, sir, not by any means.' 
 
 " * Well, do you think that he is a mean man? ' 
 
 " * Well, with regard to that,' said the deacon, a 
 little more deliberately, * I may say that I do not 
 really think he is a mean man; I have sometimes 
 thought he was what you might call a keerf ul man 
 a prudent man, so to speak.' 
 
 " * What do you mean by a prudent man? ' 
 
 " ' Well, I mean this, that at one time he had an 
 execution for four dollars against the old widow 
 Witter back here, and he went up to her house, and 
 
 203
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 levied on a lot of ducks, and he chased them ducks 
 one at a time round the house pooty much all day, 
 and every time he catched a duck he'd set right down 
 and wring its neck, and charge mileage, and the 
 mileage amounted to more than the debt. Nothing 
 mean about it as I know of, but I always thought 
 that Mr. Hitchcock was a very prudent man.' ' 
 
 It is very wise to use spectacles in contemplating 
 your surroundings and your possessions. I have 
 always liked very much the Spaniard who was par- 
 tial to cherries, and put on spectacles to eat them in 
 order that they might look bigger. There is gen- 
 erally something on which the heart may fasten, even 
 in the bleakest and most uncongenial sphere. Long 
 ago I read of a Scottish minister who had an ugly 
 little church. The church, however, boasted a beau- 
 tiful Norman door. The minister took such pride 
 in the door, that he came to believe all the building 
 as fair as the entrance, and to consider himself more 
 highly favoured than his brethren in city cathedrals. 
 Great Expectations, that late novel in which Dickens 
 so marvellously recovered his early form, has few 
 more delightful passages than the story of Pip's 
 visit to Mr. Wemmick's cottage at Walworth. The 
 house was a little wooden cottage in the midst of 
 plots of garden, and the top of it was cut out and 
 painted like a battery mounted with guns. It had 
 a real flagstaff, and on Sundays Wemmick ran up 
 a real flag. " Then look here, after I have crossed 
 this bridge I hoist it up so and cut off the com- 
 
 204
 
 CONCERNING SPECTACLES 
 
 munication." The bridge was a plank, and It crossed 
 a chasm about four feet wide and two deep. " But 
 it was very pleasing to see the pride with which he 
 hoisted it up and made it fast ; smiling as he did so 
 with a relish, and not merely mechanically." There 
 was a gun which was fired at nine o'clock every 
 night, Greenwich time. At the back there was a pig, 
 and there were also fowls and rabbits. Wemmick's 
 aged father was even more proud of it than his son. 
 " This is a fine place of my son's, sir," cried the old 
 man, while I nodded as hard as I possibly could. 
 " This is a pretty pleasure-ground, sir. This spot 
 and the beautiful works upon it ought to be kept 
 together by the Nation after my son's time for the 
 people's enjoyment." Wemmick explained to Pip, 
 as he smoked a pipe, that it had taken him a good 
 many years to bring the property up to its present 
 pitch of perfection. We smile at this, but it would 
 be well for most of us that we could see our pos-' 
 sessions as Wemmick saw his. 
 
 I might speak of the spectacles of prejudice and 
 of fear, but it is hardly needful. It is often a real 
 necessity to lay the spectacles of prejudice aside in 
 judging the work of another. I do not say that we 
 are to forget a man's past in estimating his present. 
 That is impossible, but I am certain that there is no 
 more fruitful cause of misery and mischief and in- 
 justice than prejudice. We need to have a special 
 fear of ourselves when we come to speak or write of 
 those who have opposed us, and perhaps injured us. 
 
 205
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 Then the spectacles of fear that are always looking 
 into the future and seeing a lion in every mouse 
 should be smashed in pieces. We cannot see into the 
 future, and the best provision we can make for it 
 is to live the days wisely as they pass. 
 
 I do not forget that the spectacles of partiality, 
 and even of love, may sometimes deceive us. They 
 are most deceiving, perhaps, in the case of children. 
 Outsiders are often compelled to see that parents 
 are cruelly blind to their children's faults and needs. 
 Nor is there any such thing as true love without the 
 capacity for moral indignation. There is no value 
 in praise from some men. They cannot blame, and 
 there is no worth in the praise of those who cannot 
 blame on due cause shown. The grossly amiable 
 man usually makes a failure of his life. Sydney 
 Smith says that Sir James Mackintosh's chief foible 
 was indiscriminate praise. He amused himself once 
 in writing a termination of a speech for Mackintosh. 
 It ran thus: 
 
 "'It is impossible to conclude these observations without 
 expressing the obligations I am under to a person in a much 
 more humble scene of life, I mean, sir, the hackney-coach- 
 man by whom I have been driven to this meeting. To pass 
 safely through the streets of a crowded metropolis must re- 
 quire, on the part of the driver, no common assemblage of 
 qualities. He must have caution without timidity, activity 
 without precipitation, and courage without rashness; he must 
 have a clear perception of his object, and a dexterous use of 
 his means. I can safely say of the individual in question, that, 
 for a moderate reward, he has displayed unwearied skill; and 
 to him I shall never forget that I owe un fractured integrity of 
 
 206
 
 CONCERNING SPECTACLES 
 
 limb, exemption from pain, and perhaps prolongation of exist- 
 ence. 
 
 " ' Nor can I pass over the encouraging cheerfulness with 
 which I was received by the waiter, nor the useful blaze of 
 light communicated by the link-boys, as I descended from the 
 carriage. It was with no common pleasure that I remarked 
 in these men, not the mercenary bustle of venal service, but 
 the genuine eifusions of untutored benevolence: not the 
 rapacity of subordinate agency, but the alacrity of humble 
 friendship. What may not be said of a country where all the 
 little accidents of life bring forth the hidden qualities of the 
 heart, where her vehicles are driven, her streets illumined, 
 and her bells answered, by men teeming with all the refine- 
 ments of civilised life? 
 
 " ' I cannot conclude, sir, without thanking you for the very 
 clear and distinct manner in which you have announced the 
 proposition on which we are to vote. It is but common 
 justice to add, that public assemblies rarely witness articula- 
 tion so perfect, language so select, and a manner so eminently 
 remarkable for everything that is kind, impartial, and just.' " 
 
 207
 
 THE ART OF PACKING 
 
 THE art of packing is confessedly rare and difficult, 
 and I never mastered it. In the old days when I had 
 to do my best, there was nothing for it but brute 
 force. A bag or a trunk was a thing to be subdued 
 and overcome. When a student, I purchased as 
 large a box as I could afford, and when the end of 
 the session arrived I put everything into my box, 
 and then sat down on it till it was brought to reason. 
 The results were not entirely satisfactory, but they 
 were the best I could achieve. 
 
 Later on my difficulties increased. Like most men 
 I have an ineradicable prejudice against luggage. 
 When I put a bag or a box into the luggage van it 
 is with small hope of ever seeing it again. For ten 
 minutes after in the railway carriage I think of how 
 I shall be able to get on if my luggage vanishes into 
 space. For those who cannot learn to pack, the one 
 resource is to get some one who will pack for them. 
 Wonderful is the competency of some packers. 
 They put in everything you want, and nothing else. 
 They put it in small compass. They pack it in such 
 a way that it emerges uninjured. I praise, and 
 admire, and thank them. If there is trouble it comes 
 in at the other end. When you have to return you 
 
 208
 
 THE ART OF PACKING 
 
 may find, if left alone, that you cannot get the 
 things back into their place. In that case you will 
 be followed for days after your return by mysterious 
 parcels sent from the hotel. This is humiliating 
 enough, but perhaps you cannot help it. A delight- 
 ful writer whose hand, alas ! is cold to-day has 
 described the adventures of a husband and wife who 
 agreed on their honeymoon to have their luggage 
 put together. The lady had her preferences, and 
 so had the gentleman. She wished to have with her 
 five paint boxes, six sketch-books, two cameras, three 
 kodaks, a butterfly net and box, a camp stool, a 
 formidable array of hats, three sunshades of differ- 
 ent colours, and a collection of rugs and wraps fit 
 for the Arctic regions. They were going to the 
 Italian Lakes at the hottest time of the year. The 
 gentleman despised all these things, but he could not 
 get on without a large assortment of boots and 
 shoes, and a series of volumes on the geological 
 strata of the Alps and the Renaissance in Lom- 
 bardy. " Trouble followed," as the theological stu- 
 dent said in summarising the experience of Jonah. 
 At the end of the journey, the lady found her best 
 comb smashed, a precious silver mirror shivered to 
 atoms, her dresses crushed, and her hats reduced to 
 jellies. 
 
 I thought about my many adventures in packing 
 the other day when I was dictating some articles 
 for a halfpenny paper. In these journals a thou- 
 sand words is the limit, and if you can get your 
 
 203
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 matter into five hundred words, so much the better. 
 Every well-edited journal seeks to have a justifi- 
 cation for everything it prints. Many people fancy 
 that editors have difficulty in filling their columns. 
 If they have, it is a proof that they are incompe- 
 tent. Every journal in a healthy state is compelled 
 te reject constantly articles with a good claim to 
 publication. But in a halfpenny daily, where many 
 subjects must be touched, the problem is acute. It 
 is a question of packing. In the first place, no 
 article should be packed in it that is not needed. 
 Every paragraph should be its own justification. 
 Then the articles should be skilfully packed, and 
 not rumpled and crushed. It is no credit to get 
 many things into a small bag if they all emerge 
 damaged. Many writers would find it useful to take 
 a thousand words of their writing and reduce the 
 thousand to five hundred without impairing the 
 effect. It is not easy with writing that is worth any- 
 thing. A theological professor, criticising a stu- 
 dent's sermon, said that the half of it had better be 
 omitted, and it did not matter which half. You can- 
 not condense your article simply by cutting it in 
 two. You must rewrite it upon another scale. It is 
 not enough to be brief. You must be interesting, 
 and it is possible and very easy to be both brief and 
 tedious. The editing of the ideal halfpenny news- 
 paper, simple as it seems to the outsider, is in reality 
 as difficult as the editing of the Times, for every 
 headed paragraph, however short, is a study in the 
 
 210
 
 THE ART OF PACKING 
 
 art of condensation. I quite understand that certain 
 subjects cannot be satisfactorily dealt with in very 
 brief articles or paragraphs. Nevertheless, the man 
 who runs to length should suspect himself. There 
 are preachers who think that the religion of the 
 country is dying out because people object to ser- 
 mons an hour long. But the old story comes up 
 irresistibly. If a man cannot strike oil in twenty 
 minutes, he had better cease boring. 
 
 This leads me to say that the art of packing is 
 the art of life. What shall we do with the day? 
 Here are the twelve hours before us. What work 
 can we put into them? A very favourite theme of 
 Addison's Spectator was the waste of the day, espe- 
 cially by fine ladies. This is a specimen: 
 
 Saturday. Rose at eight o'clock in the morning. Sat down 
 to my toilette. 
 
 From eight to nine. Shifted a patch for half an hour 
 before I could determine it. Fixed it above my left eye- 
 brow. 
 
 From nine to twelve. Drank my tea and dressed. 
 
 From twelve to two. At chapel. A great deal of good com- 
 pany. Mem. The third air in the new opera. Lady Blithe 
 dressed frightfully. 
 
 From three to four. Dined. Miss Kitty called upon me to 
 go to the opera before I was risen from table. 
 
 From dinner to six. Drank tea. Turned off a footman for 
 being rude to Veny. 
 
 Six o'clock. Went to the opera. I did not see Mr. Froth 
 till the beginning of the second act. Mr. Froth talked to a 
 gentleman in a black wig; bowed to a lady in the front box. 
 Mr. Froth and his friend clapped Nicolini in the third act. 
 Mr. Froth cried out ' Ancora.' Mr. Froth led me to my chair. 
 I think he squeezed my hand.
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 Eleven at night. Went to bed. Melancholy dreams. Me- 
 thought Nicolini said he was Mr. Froth. 
 Sunday. Indisposed. 
 
 There are people who never waste a moment, who 
 get up very early, and have done much work by 
 breakfast, who are always pulling out pen, pencil, 
 or needle, while others seem unemployed. I remem- 
 ber Robertson Smith telling me that he learned 
 Italian when he was dressing. This perhaps may be 
 overdone. There may be seasons and spaces which 
 it is not worth while to fill with an occupation. Is 
 it worth while to read at meals or out of doors? I 
 think not, unless one is very lonely indeed. Haydon, 
 the painter, tells us a pleasant story of Sir Walter 
 Scott. Sir Walter went to see a picture of Hay- 
 don's which was on view. He arrived before the door 
 was open, and was told that the man would not be 
 long in coming. He quietly sat down and waited. 
 Haydon found him thus, and delightedly records it 
 as a beautiful trait of this great genius. It was a 
 beautiful trait, but many of us would have tried to 
 fill up the short interval somehow. 
 
 The truth is that in order to give out you must 
 take in, and that the time spent in absorbing is just 
 as necessary and just as well spent as the time spent 
 in testifying. The other day I was in a country 
 town, and took out of the circulating library two 
 books I had not seen for years the Life of Bishop 
 Wilberforce and the Life of Dean Hook. Both were 
 indefatigable men. Of Wilberforce it was said
 
 THE ART OF PACKING 
 
 that he could write two letters at once, one with his 
 left hand and the other with his right. Also it is 
 said that he could dictate seven letters at one and 
 the same time. I do not believe these stories, but 
 many people do believe them. Wilberforce was an 
 early riser, he was always writing, always preach- 
 ing, always travelling, and being a man of fine 
 gifts, he won a great position. Yet his life on the 
 whole was impaired and disappointed. He never 
 succeeded in achieving the place of his ambition. 
 He saw over and over again men preferred to him 
 who were conspicuously his inferiors. He came 
 under a general suspicion of insincerity. The Queen 
 suspected him, and so did many of her subjects. 
 Yet I think unprejudiced readers of his letters and 
 journals will see that in intention he was always 
 honest. What injured him was that he knew noth- 
 ing. He read practically nothing, he was not in any 
 sense a scholar; he thought the time spent in study 
 was wasted time. In spite of his ignorance he rushed 
 headlong into controversies where no man can do 
 any good who is not equipped with the results of 
 patient and scholarly investigation. Thus he as- 
 saulted the authors of Essay and Reviews in the 
 Quarterly, and declared them enemies of the Chris- 
 tian faith. In the same periodical he made a furious 
 onslaught on Darwin. It is safe to say that Wil- 
 berforce had given moments to science where Dar- 
 win had given days, and his article is simply pre- 
 sumptuous nonsense. He rushed into a fray about
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 Bishop Hampden, and it turned out in the end that 
 he had not read Hampden's books. Having got into 
 false positions, he had to get out of them as best he 
 could, and he did not get out of them well. How 
 much more Wilberforce would have accomplished if 
 he had been content to be quiet at times ! Dean 
 Hook was another example of immense and pro- 
 longed industry. He, too, was an early riser. He 
 sometimes wrote three sermons in one day. Hook 
 was a reader as well as a writer, and he has left many 
 books behind him, but I doubt whether any of them 
 will live. There was no touch of intellectual dis- 
 tinction about him, nothing at all of the saving 
 grace of style. Honest, laborious, bold, ambitious, 
 he did good and even great work in his day, perhaps 
 the best work that he could accomplish, and yet one 
 imagines that under conditions of more leisure and 
 less absorption he might have done something of an- 
 other kind. For myself, I particularly dislike people 
 who profess to be busy, and seem to be hurried, peo- 
 ple who look at the clock when you visit them, or 
 when they visit you. We must not try to pack life 
 too close.
 
 CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 " WORK-DRUNKENNESS " 
 
 AMONG the most interesting passages in Herbert 
 Spencer's Autobiography are those in which he ex- 
 pounds the ethics of work. Spencer was of opinion 
 that many people were mad about work, that they 
 habitually overworked themselves in a way that sad- 
 dened and shortened their lives. Thus he remon- 
 strates very strongly with his American friend 
 Youmans for his tendency to undue self-sacrifice. 
 Youmans came over to this country to recruit, and 
 found himself no better when he returned to America. 
 He wrote despondently to Spencer, who answered 
 him in pungent terms. " That you will either cut 
 short your life or incapacitate yourself is an infer- 
 ence one cannot avoid drawing; seeing that in your 
 case, as in a host of other cases, experience seems 
 to have not the slightest effect. It is a kind of work- 
 drunkenness, and you seem to be no more able to 
 resist the temptation than the dipsomaniac resists 
 alcohol. Excuse my strong expressions. I use them 
 in the hope that they may do some good, though it 
 is a very faint hope. The only course that could 
 give me any confidence that you will not bring your 
 career of usefulness to a premature close would be to 
 learn that you had put yourself under the despotic
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 control of your sister; and even if you did this, I 
 suspect you would quickly break the agreement 
 under the pressure of some fancied necessity, as 
 though fulfilment of some passing purpose was 
 necessary and maintenance of life unnecessary ! 
 What is the use of all this propagation of knowledge 
 if it is to end in such results? " Spencer grimly re- 
 marks that his anticipation was fulfilled. Youmans 
 brought his life to a premature close. " Though he 
 reached the age of sixty-six, yet that his death at 
 that age was premature is shown by the fact that 
 both his parents were then alive." 
 
 Almost from the beginning of his career Spencer 
 was deliberately and willingly idle at times. His 
 danger, as he conceived it, was not that of doing too 
 little, but that of doing too much. He considered 
 that men ought to raise more often the question, Is 
 the game worth the candle? Will what is gained 
 duly compensate for what must be paid? Let 
 means and ends be weighed. Life is not for work, 
 but work is for life, and when it is carried to the 
 extent of undermining life or unduly absorbing it, 
 work is not praiseworthy, but blameworthy. The 
 progress of mankind should liberate life more and 
 more from mere toil, and make it available for relaxa- 
 tion, for pleasurable culture, for aesthetic gratifi- 
 cation, for travel, for games. But for most people 
 the path of duty is identified with devotion to work, 
 and you may often see a busy man, half invalided by 
 ceaseless toil, persist, in spite of the expostulations 
 
 216
 
 " WORK-DRUNKENNESS " 
 
 of his family and friends, in daily making himself 
 worse by over-application. Spencer expressed the 
 wish that he had a keeper who would restrain him 
 when he was doing too much. As might be expected, 
 he gravely disapproved of American energy. He 
 considered that the fault of American life was an 
 over-devotion to work, and he believed that the 
 future had in store a new ideal, differing as much 
 from the present ideal of industrialism as that ideal 
 differs from past ideals of militancy. 
 
 Undoubtedly the subject is worth pondering. 
 Many of us in these strenuous days have to suffer 
 the remonstrances of kind friends who declare we 
 are working too hard. They cannot understand why 
 we should not take things in moderation, and un- 
 doubtedly there is something in what they say. 
 There are laws of life which cannot be neglected with 
 impunity. It is a poor heart that never rejoices; it 
 is a poor life into which no sunshine falls. When we 
 are loaded day by day with duties and obligations 
 which we have just strength enough to perform, 
 which fill up every available minute, when we never 
 travel, never rest, never relax ourselves in the com- 
 pany of friends, we are not living as we ought to 
 live. 
 
 There must be an enjoyment of life in order to 
 attain its full efficiency ; there must be more than 
 a ceremonious recognition of the laws of health. 
 Above all, there must be a certain rest of soul. Even 
 in the midst of work we should be able to escape in
 
 thought from the noise and confusion of the battle, 
 and possess ourselves in peace. 
 
 Yet I am persuaded that even now there is not 
 half so much danger of overwork as of underwork. 
 And also that the life which leans to the first is at 
 once more fruitful and more enjoying than the life 
 which leans to the second. A study of Herbert 
 Spencer's own experiences is instructive. 
 
 In the first place, for many of us there is little 
 choice. Spencer had neither wife nor child. He 
 was content at first with a very small income. His 
 moderate wants were supplied, and he was free for 
 his chosen task. The great majority of us have no 
 private means to begin with. We have to depend on 
 our own exertions for every penny we possess. 
 Other lives are linked with ours, and have claims 
 upon us that admit of no denial. The question of 
 how much work or how little work we are to do in 
 life is solved for us. We have our duty to fulfil in 
 the sphere in which we are placed, and in the faith- 
 ful fulfilment of that we find scope for all our 
 energies. 
 
 But there is more to say. Does it not frequently 
 happen that work only begins to tell when it is car- 
 ried on to the point of sacrifice? This may be be- 
 cause of the struggle for existence. I can conceive 
 a student determining to work a few hours a day, 
 giving the rest to recreation. But if he fixes on 
 three hours, let us say, he will find that some one of 
 equal or superior gifts is working six hours, and will 
 
 218
 
 " WORK-DRUNKENNESS " 
 
 certainly come in before him. That, however, is a 
 superficial explanation. I cannot, after much re- 
 flection, explain the fact, but the fact is there. It 
 is a vital truth that work carried beyond the boun- 
 dary of the natural strength is the work that makes 
 its mark in the world. A man has made no mark, 
 and asks himself why. It is because he has not paid 
 the price of making the mark. 
 
 It looks very well in theory to say you have a 
 certain income; you have a decent business; you 
 ought to be satisfied with the returns and go on 
 quietly. Why should you harass yourself trying to 
 get more? This looks unanswerable, but it is very 
 easily answered. The condition on which most in- 
 comes, and I should think nearly all businesses are 
 held, is that there should be a constant effort after 
 progress. Can business men say, " We will restrict 
 ourselves to what we are doing ; we will make no pro- 
 vision for expansion; we will not try after new 
 markets " ? Business men who say this are sure to be 
 ousted. The old markets will be taken from them 
 because they have refused to reach out to the new. 
 Doubtless in their endeavours to overtake business 
 they will make losses, but if they limit the losses to 
 their capacity they will in the long run succeed bet- 
 ter than if they coasted cautiously by the shore, 
 and never ventured out into the open sea. 
 
 The truth is, however, that most men who over- 
 work themselves cannot help it. They are, as it 
 were, possessed by some spirit, be it good or be it 
 
 219
 
 THE KEY OF. THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 evil. They hear a call and obey it, not waiting 
 nicely to calculate the results. Should men be am- 
 bitious? Ambitious means, etymologically, I sup- 
 pose, a going about to canvass for the support of 
 others. Well, it is in this way, and in this way only, 
 that leaders are made. In this way only can a party 
 be constructed and held together, and advanced. In 
 every department of life we need leaders sorely. 
 The true leader has probably some pleasure in lead- 
 ing, but he does not seek after leadership for the 
 sake of any prize it gives. He works in obedience 
 to an inner irresistible impulse. Then there are 
 those who give themselves to great causes. These, 
 or the noblest of them, often deliberately elect to 
 leave those causes in the knowledge that they will 
 have no visible success in their battle here. To 
 identify themselves with certain contentions means 
 exclusion from much that makes life desirable. It 
 means hard fighting, and a rain of blows. It cer- 
 tainly cannot mean a visible coronation on the earth, 
 yet it means happiness of the truest and deepest 
 kind. It was not chosen for that happiness ; the 
 choice was the result of an impulse which could not 
 be thwarted. Toil for our dear ones is very sweet. 
 The losing of oneself sustains many a heart in peace 
 and joy, through the glare and turmoil of human 
 existence. But the plunge into the midcurrent of 
 human strife is not usually taken after a process of 
 argument. " I am willing to spend and be spent 
 for you."
 
 " WORK-DRUNKENNESS " 
 
 Was Spencer himself happier than men who never 
 husbanded their energies? He produced his system, 
 no doubt, but he seemed to lose much in the process. 
 For one thing he had to kill time. If he worked 
 three hours in a day he had done his task, and as he 
 did not care for reading and could only maintain 
 social intercourse on his own terms, he had difficulty 
 in getting through the hours without weariness. 
 There are many of us who have had to deal with our 
 own difficulties, but have been mercifully spared 
 Spencer's peculiar trial. A really hard worker does 
 not know what killing time means. He cannot but 
 remember that time is killing him. But I am sure 
 there will not be a few readers of these lines who 
 look back upon their lives, and remember in them 
 many hours which they did not know how to employ. 
 Their trouble has rather been that the hours of the 
 day were too few. They have had always more in 
 the way of work and enjoyment than they could 
 ever compass. Sometimes sheer weakness or illness 
 may make a leisure hour greatly looked forward to 
 quite useless, but, given ordinary conditions of 
 things, ennui is a word for whose meaning they have 
 to look out in the dictionary. They know nothing of 
 it themselves. What they do know is that the suf- 
 ferers from the malady find it intolerable. Surely 
 it is infinitely better to suffer from the weariness of 
 overwork than to find time hanging heavy on one's 
 hands. 
 
 Spencer suffered intensely from the concentration
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 of his interest upon himself. This gives an air of 
 meanness and littleness to a character which was 
 essentially neither mean nor little, but in many 
 points great. To be delivered from morbid intro- 
 spection is one of the chief of blessings. The over- 
 worked man, the work-drunken man, if you choose to 
 call him so, is free from that. He has no time to 
 think of himself, and he is saved thereby from 
 innumerable ills. 
 
 But I have been leading up all the while to a chal- 
 lenge Is it true that over-worked men are less 
 happy, less healthy, and shorter lived than others? 
 I do not believe it. Let any one think over the list 
 of his friends. There are three or four of my 
 friends who might fairly be described as work- 
 drunken. They are always busy and always ready 
 to take on more work. Two of them are not physi- 
 cally robust, but, save at times of immense pressure, 
 they are the most cheerful and gentle men I know. 
 They never brood, they are generally hopeful; they 
 have little relaxation, but what they have is relished 
 with an intensity of joy. They are the people who 
 keep young in the true sense of the word. They have 
 the spirit that secures the happiness because it does 
 not shrink from the unhappiness of working days. 
 They have their times of full sunshine given to 
 happy memories, happy experiences, and happy 
 hopes. I think of others who are under-worked, and 
 I will not say that I have not sometimes envied them 
 their leisure, but I have never envied them long, nor
 
 " WORK-DRUNKENNESS " 
 
 have I ever felt that the envy was rational. It 
 would be well perhaps if we knew just how 
 much we ought to do. But in a life like this our 
 calculations are rough and precarious, and we are 
 upon the right side, as we escape from self and self- 
 ishness. What drains and exhausts vitality is work 
 carried on anxiously, work accompanied with worry, 
 and work generally brings worry because it is not 
 well and thoroughly done. Spencer did his part in 
 life, and we have no right to criticise him, but if he 
 could have forgotten himself at times he would have 
 left a fairer and nobler record.
 
 CHAPTER XXV 
 
 " MELTED DOWN FOR THE TALLOW TRADE " 
 
 " BE courteous, be obliging, Dan," said Sir Hugo to 
 Daniel Deronda, " but don't give yourself over to be 
 melted down for the tallow trade." 
 
 During the holiday season I wakened one morning 
 to the unwonted consciousness that I had a whole 
 forenoon to dispose of at my own will and pleasure. 
 Immediately three manuscripts presented themselves 
 to my mind. They were all from strangers who had 
 written asking me to read the manuscripts, give an 
 opinion on them, and if possible get them published. 
 It was perhaps my duty to read those manuscripts, 
 and yet the prospect was sufficiently bleak. There 
 were so many other things that I wished to do, and 
 the doing of which seemed likely to be a great deal 
 more useful. So I came to a problem which appeals 
 not only to the great and eminent few but to all of 
 us who are keeping our heads above water. How 
 far should the claims of strangers be allowed to in- 
 trude upon the work of life? 
 
 Going up to the study, I read a sketch of a distin- 
 guished preacher who died lately. His friend said 
 that this minister was in early years an earnest stu- 
 dent, and continued to be so in intention, but he
 
 "MELTED FOR THE TALLOW TRADE" 
 
 was so mobbed by details that he was unable to sat- 
 isfy the claims of the intellect. He was so busy that 
 he could not find time to read. Then I took up a 
 new book by Lilian Whiting called Life Radiant, 
 and to my delight I found that she had discussed 
 my problem for me with much insight, good feeling, 
 and sound sense. Her chapter may be called " A 
 Study in the Ethics of Interruption." I take my 
 own way, but Miss Whiting's essays on this and kin- 
 dred themes may be cordially recommended. She is 
 more hopeful than I am about the prospects of telep- 
 athy and such things. There is charm in her 
 writing, the charm which belongs to a kind and 
 hopeful and sanguine nature. 
 
 There are two sides to the question. In the first 
 place, a man must do the work of his life, and he 
 must do it day by day. He cannot do it as it should 
 be done unless he concentrates on it his mental 
 energy for the time. There are very few of us who 
 can maintain this concentration through constant 
 interruptions. Once we settle down to the bit of 
 work that presents itself we can make some progress 
 if we are left alone, but callers and letters and mes- 
 sages throw us off the track, and devastate our pur- 
 pose. We cannot begin where we left off, and the 
 golden morning slips by without leaving any solid 
 and tangible product. If we are to do our work we 
 must reserve for it certain hours, and keep these 
 hours secure. 
 
 On the other hand, there is the great and binding
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 claim of humanity. The unwelcome visitor seems to 
 say, " Do you desire to serve humanity ? I am 
 humanity." The letter from a stranger seems to 
 demand an answer. It is very difficult if not im- 
 possible to get rid of the feeling that every human 
 being who writes to you civilly ought to have a re- 
 ply. It is an instinct of the heart to uphold the 
 falling and to raise the fallen. Nor would there be 
 any difficulty in following out this conviction if the 
 trials that called for relief were great trials. A 
 voice from the depths commands a hearing. But 
 mostly you are annoyed about small trifling mat- 
 ters. They take up time and patience, and melt you 
 down into tallow by degrees, but they are in them- 
 selves insignificant. Miss Whiting states the case 
 very well. " A writer who may be pressed for time, 
 finds in his mail matter a number of personal re- 
 quests from strangers. One packet contains manu- 
 scripts, perhaps, which a woman from Montana 
 entreats especially to be read, and returned with ad- 
 vice or suggestion. Some one in Texas wants a 
 paragraph copied that he may use it in compiling 
 a calendar: an individual in Indiana has a collection 
 of autographs for sale, and begs to know of the 
 ways and means for disposing of them; and an 
 author in Arizona desires that a possible publisher 
 be secured for her novel. And so the requests run 
 on." 
 
 There is another difficulty. It is always a de- 
 light to encourage. It is one of the pleasantest
 
 things in the world to congratulate a young author 
 on a triumphant success. The noble pleasure of 
 praising strengthens the giver and the receiver. 
 But in the vast majority of cases one has to search 
 anxiously and perhaps awkwardly enough for 
 phrases that decently disguise disappointment. 
 What you wish to say to the widow who has been 
 left destitute, and has been induced to believe that 
 she can earn a living for her children by her pen, 
 is that she has no faculty. How are you to say it? 
 Whatever way you say it, it will give disappoint- 
 ment, and the pain reacts on one's self. It is harder, 
 but still not difficult, to give sympathy to those who 
 really deserve it, who have been doing their best, 
 and kept down by circumstances. But here again it 
 is often quite evident that censure rather than sym- 
 pathy is needed. How are we to say, " I am very 
 sorry, but it is all your own fault " ? It is never 
 pleasant to say no, and yet humanity is not easily 
 succoured, and it is only now and then that efficient 
 and timely help can be given. 
 
 The problem does not concern those who deliber- 
 ately choose as their life-work a business of details. 
 I find in a newspaper an extract from the annual 
 report of the Rector of Spitalfields. He describes 
 the applicants for help who come to his parish room 
 any morning, Englishmen and alien, Christian and 
 Jew, drunken and sober, worthy and base, thrifty 
 and profligate. The following are sample re- 
 quests :
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 * Bread for my children.' 
 
 'Please send "nuss"; mother's awful bad.' 
 
 * Boots for my boy. He's got none, and can't go to school, 
 and the School Board's sent me a summons.' 
 
 ' To know if you'll go bail for my son that's in a bit of 
 trouble.' 
 
 ' I thought perhaps you'd help me to a bit o' black, to follow 
 him respectable to the grave.' 
 
 'D'ye mind renewing my hawker's licence? Yer did last 
 year, didn't yer?' 
 
 ' Shoeblack ain't much use without brushes, and they was 
 only new last week. But there y'are, s'help me, sir, they 'as 
 took the lot afore my werry eyes.' 
 
 'And so on,' adds the rector, 'day after day, and year after 
 year.' 
 
 This excellent clergyman is doing the work to which 
 he has dedicated himself in meeting these applica- 
 tions as best he can. Dr. Lightfoot wished to write 
 a history of the fourth century, and he had unique 
 qualifications for the task. But when he was offered 
 the Bishopric of Durham he thought it his duty to 
 accept it. He knew very well that most of his life 
 in Durham would have to be spent in interviews, 
 examinations, sermons, addresses, and the like, and 
 that it would be impossible for him to continue mak- 
 ing contributions to scholarship on the old scale. 
 We may think he chose well or ill, but he knew best 
 himself, and he chose with his eyes open. A man 
 may concentrate himself on writing a few books, or 
 he may choose to be a journalist. If he elects jour- 
 nalism as a profession he knows very well that 
 his efforts must be scattered and fragmentary, and 
 soon forgotten. He might possibly be remembered 
 
 228
 
 "MELTED FOR THE TALLOW TRADE" 
 
 longer if he devoted himself to work that had a 
 chance of endurance, but he weighs the claims and 
 chances, and if he chooses to say that journalism 
 gives him opportunities and influence not open other- 
 wise, he is entitled to have his way, and not entitled 
 to repine at the necessary conditions. Macaulay felt 
 very strongly the conflict between the claims of poli- 
 tics and the claims of literature. He came even to 
 grudge the time spent on his essays; it was stolen 
 from his history. But if Macaulay had chosen to 
 be a politician and to leave literature alone, he would 
 no doubt have still done a great work, though 
 as a politician he would have been compelled to sub- 
 mit to interruptions and to distractions of every 
 kind. 
 
 The real problem is not the conflict between one 
 form of work and another, but the conflict between 
 regular work, work for which a man is paid, work 
 to which he has given himself, and irregular unpaid 
 service given in compliance with the claims of those 
 who are in a manner strangers. I once travelled for 
 a day with a famous American Bishop. He had evi- 
 dently prepared himself for some literary task, but 
 somehow a little old lady had fastened herself on to 
 him, and she kept talking through the hours. The 
 Bishop managed to be civil perhaps, but that is the 
 most that could be said of him. 
 
 I think it may be said as a general rule that the 
 work of your life, the work to which you have given 
 yourself, must be done and done as well as you can 
 
 229
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 do it. That is the main thing. This is the way in 
 which one may best serve humanity. If a clergyman 
 is expected to preach regularly, he must mind his 
 pulpit first. It is no excuse for a badly prepared 
 sermon to say that he was busy through the week 
 attending this meeting and that. This means sim- 
 ply that he was too busy to do his duty. The 
 journalist must not neglect his work in order to de- 
 liver harangues. The student must at all cost keep 
 his hours. He must not allow his morning to be 
 broken up ; he must not suffer the distractions of life 
 to get in the way. The days are passing, and the 
 weeks and the months and the years. Life shrinks 
 and dwindles into a narrow compass. It is high 
 time to be doing something on a regular plan in a 
 settled way. Otherwise in a multitude of trifles the 
 golden opportunity slips. In other words, concen- 
 tration is necessary, and interruptions must be 
 ended at any cost. If not, everything we do will 
 be blurred and stained by error, shortcoming, and 
 slovenliness. 
 
 But when the first claims of duty are satisfied, and 
 these are the first claims, we have to ask what spare 
 strength and leisure we can give away. The heart 
 that is sensitive to human need longs to give, and 
 there are more things than money that can be given 
 thought and counsel and kindness and patience. 
 There are workers who are never exhausted or 
 wearied. They have mujch to give, and they give it. 
 I have often recalled Mr. Gladstone's illimitable 
 
 230
 
 "MELTED FOR THE TALLOW TRADE" 
 
 goodness in this way. He was always ready to 
 answer, and his innumerable postcards, which were 
 so often ridiculed, were a genuine and striking proof 
 of a good, kind heart. Sir Walter Scott in the hey- 
 day of his strength accomplished his work early in 
 the day, and with the hours that remained he was 
 prodigally generous. Others again find their own 
 work as much as they can do. They are worn out 
 when it is finished. From such people less should be 
 expected, but even they have something to give, and 
 they ought to give it. Charles Dickens was one of 
 the most generous of men, but I have no doubt that 
 he shortened his life by his incessant readiness to 
 answer every call. There are men of strong vitality 
 who can endure the strain of continual callers, men 
 who with a rush of geniality hurry one visitor out 
 of the room and are ready for the next. Others 
 again can only look helplessly at the stranger and 
 wait with what courtesy is possible till he is pleased 
 to go. There are many, I am sure, who would rather 
 give away anything than their leisure. They are 
 quite willing to part with what money they can spare, 
 but their leisure they covet it so much, they look 
 forward to it with such anticipations. They have 
 but a few hours perhaps in the week. These hours 
 are more precious than gold. They are greedily 
 longed for, the leisure in which they can write an- 
 other chapter of that book which advances so slowly 
 in which they can do that bit of honest, serious 
 hard reading in which they can pay that long-de-
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 ferred visit to the friend who is two hours away in 
 London. When some men give their leisure they 
 give it with a great if silent pang. But as Miss 
 Whiting tells us, interruptions may be opportuni- 
 ties. May be..
 
 CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 " EHEU EVELINA " 
 
 IT is impossible to think of the Buried Romance of 
 Life without remembering the love-story of the 
 Antiquary. Mr. Oldbuck opened a door of a cabinet 
 of his ancestor Aldobrand, and produced a bundle 
 of papers tied with a black riband and labelled 
 " Examinations, etc., taken by Jonathan Oldbuck, 
 J.P., upon the 18th of February, 17" ; a little 
 under was written in a small hand " Eheu Evelina." 
 The tears dropped from the earl's eyes as he endeav- 
 oured in vain to unfasten the knot which secured 
 these documents. The story is immortal, and should 
 be alive in the memory of every reader. Eveline 
 Neville had been the pupil of Oldbuck more than 
 twenty years before, and " her gentleness, her do- 
 cility, her pleasure in the studies which I pointed 
 out to her attached my affection more than became 
 my age (though that was not then much advanced) 
 or the solidity of my character. But I need not 
 remind your lordship of the various modes in which 
 you indulged your gaiety at the expense of an awk- 
 ward and retired student embarrassed by the ex- 
 pression of feelings so new to him, and I have no 
 
 233
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 doubt that the young lady joined you in the well- 
 deserved ridicule it is the way of womankind." 
 One is glad to know that the suspicion was ill- 
 founded. " Let me say you do injustice to the mem- 
 ory of the gentlest and kindest as well as to the 
 most unhappy of women to suppose she could make 
 a jest of the honest affection of a man like you." 
 Eveline was the Antiquary's first and only love, and 
 when he lost her he became the narrowed, rugged, 
 eccentric and somewhat penurious figure we know. 
 But he remained a gentleman, and kept within him 
 something of that sap of life which she had stirred 
 in him long before. 
 
 George Eliot has given us a parallel in Mr. Gil- 
 fiVs Love Story. As Mr. Gilfil is introduced to us, 
 he, like the Antiquary, was close-fisted, though the 
 propensity showed itself rather in the parsimony of 
 his personal habits than in withholding help from the 
 needy. He indulged in moderate potations of gin 
 and water, his chat was slipshod, and his manners 
 homely. He was most frequently to be found of an 
 evening by the side of his own sitting-room fire 
 smoking his pipe and imbibing his favourite mix- 
 ture. He did not shine in the more spiritual func- 
 tions of his office, and was content with a large heap 
 of short sermons, rather yellow and worn at the 
 edges, from which he took two every Sunday, secur- 
 ing perfect impartiality in the selection by taking 
 them as they came without reference to topics. But 
 there was a room in his home which his housekeeper 
 
 8*
 
 " EHEU EVELINA " 
 
 had dusted and let the air upon four times a year 
 for more than thirty years. In that room was the 
 likeness of a girl, probably not more than eighteen, 
 with small features, thin cheeks, a pale southern- 
 looking complexion, and large dark eyes. " Alas ! 
 alas ! we poor mortals are often little better than 
 wood ashes there is small sign of the sap and the 
 leafy freshness and the bursting buds that were once 
 there. But whenever we see wood ashes we know that 
 all that early fulness of life must have been. I at 
 least hardly ever look at a bent old man or a wizened 
 old woman but I see also with my mind's eye that 
 past of which they are the shrunken remnant, and 
 the unfinished romance of rosy cheeks and bright 
 eyes seems sometimes of feeble interest and signifi- 
 cance compared with the drama of hope and love 
 which has long ago reached its catastrophe, and left 
 the poor soul like a dim and dusty stage with all its 
 sweet curtain scenes and fair perspectives over- 
 turned and thrust out of sight." " Such was the 
 locked-up chamber in Mr. Gilfil's house: a sort of 
 visible symbol of the secret chamber in his heart 
 where he had long turned the key on early hopes 
 and early sorrows, shutting up for ever all the pas- 
 sion and the poetry of his life." He had lived with 
 Tina for a few months of perfect happiness. She 
 leaned entirely on his love, and found life sweet for 
 his sake. Then she died, and his love went with her 
 into deep silence for evermore. For himself, like 
 the Antiquary, he was left with knots and rugged- 
 
 235
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 ness, whimsical, odd, sometimes irritating; but the 
 heart of him was sound and the grain was of the 
 finest. " It is with men as with trees : if you lop off 
 their finest branches into which they were pouring 
 their young life- juice the wounds will be healed over 
 with some rough boss, some old excrescence, and 
 what might have been a grand tree, expanding 
 into liberal shade, is but a whimsical mistaken 
 trunk." 
 
 Romance is buried in the most unlikely places. 
 There is a fine touch in Hypatla. " He went on to 
 my utter astonishment by such a eulogium on wedlock 
 as I never heard from Jew or heathen, and ended by 
 advice to young married folk so thoroughly excel- 
 lent and to the point that I could not help telling 
 him when he stopped what a pity I thought it that 
 he had not himself married and made some good 
 woman happy by putting his own recipes into prac- 
 tice. . . . And at that, Hypatia, I saw an expres- 
 sion on his face which made me wish for the moment 
 that I had beaten out this impudent tongue of mine 
 before I so rashly touched some deep old wound. . . . 
 The man has wept bitter tears ere now, be sure of 
 it." With this may go Mr. Simcox's beautiful lines : 
 
 " Forget-me-nots were blooming 
 
 Under the castle walls; 
 One said, ' They are forgotten 
 
 Who feasted in its halls.' 
 'And who would be remembered?
 
 " EHEU EVELINA " 
 
 What is the use of fame?' 
 A scholar cried ; ' for glory 
 
 Is near akin to shame.' 
 Yet he too plucked the flowers, 
 
 And his pale face flushed hot, 
 And gave one to a lady, 
 
 And said, ' Forget-me-not.' 
 
 The lady in her cloister 
 
 Burnt her young heart away, 
 The scholar in his college 
 
 Grew deaf and dull and grey. 
 But when, they put the grave clothes 
 
 On each of them at last, 
 They found that each had cherished 
 
 A relic of the past. 
 With each of them was buried, 
 
 To ripen or to rot, 
 Deep underground for ages, 
 
 A blue forget-me-not." 
 
 All the outward sign that is left may be a little 
 packet of old letters kept in some hidden place. Best 
 not to open them perhaps. To do so is to encounter 
 one's own past, to root up sorrows and griefs and 
 blunders, to revive the old loves, to meet the ghosts 
 of the dead and of one's old self to make head as one 
 best may against sudden shocks and surprises. Old 
 letters have something akin to sleeping dogs and tor- 
 pid snakes. Well, perhaps, also to avoid meetings 
 if meetings are still possible. There is a curious 
 passage in Mark Rutherford's Deliverance: " I begin 
 to believe that a first love never dies. A boy falls in 
 love at eighteen or nineteen. The attachment comes
 
 to nothing. It is broken off for a multitude of rea- 
 sons, and he sees its absurdity. He marries afterwards 
 some other woman whom he even adores, and he has 
 children for whom he spends his life; yet in an ob- 
 scure corner of his soul he preserves everlasting the 
 cherished picture of the girl who first was dear to 
 him. She too marries. In process of time she is 
 fifty years old and he is fifty-two. He has not seen 
 her for thirty years or more, but he continually 
 turns aside into the little oratory to gaze upon the 
 face as it last appeared to him when he left her at 
 her gate, and saw her no more. He inquires now and 
 then dimly about her when he gets the chance, and 
 once in his life he goes down to the town where she 
 lives solely in order to get a sight of her without her 
 knowing anything about it. He does not succeed, 
 and he comes back and tells his wife, from whom he 
 never conceals any secrets, that he has been away 
 on business." He does not succeed Mark Ruther- 
 ford has saved himself by that. Some have suc- 
 ceeded to their sorrow. When Rousseau went in 
 1754 to revisit the city of his birth, he turned aside 
 in the road to visit her who had once been all the 
 world to him. But he felt the shock of the changed 
 reality. " He had not prepared himself by recalling 
 the commonplace which we only remember for others, 
 how time wears hard and ugly lines into the face that 
 recollection at each new energy makes lovelier with 
 an added sweetness." " I saw her," he says, " but 
 in what a state, O God, in what debasement! Was 
 
 238
 
 " EHEU EVELINA " 
 
 this the same Madame de Warens in those days so 
 brilliant to whom the priest of Pontverre had sent 
 me? How my heart was torn by the sight!" 
 
 When we read the story in real life we find that the 
 moral is the same. There is no evil, and there may 
 be much good in the possession of an old romance 
 provided that the memory of the dead does not weaken 
 fidelity to the living. Johnson took about with him 
 through all his changing life the letters of Molly 
 Aston, and kept his promise that they should be the 
 last things he would destroy. But the letters and all 
 the memories bound up with them never weakened 
 for an instant his abiding love for Tetty. I am not 
 sure that it was so with Scott. When he writes in 
 his diary " What a romance to tell ! and told I fear 
 it will one day be, and then my three years of dream- 
 ing and my two years of wakening will be chronicled 
 doubtless. But the dead will feel no pain." Scott 
 was a great gentleman, and doubtless he cherished 
 and lamented the woman he married. But there are 
 worlds of significance in such sentences as that of G. 
 R. Gleig : " Lady Scott could never be a companion 
 to him." 
 
 We have the portrait of the lost love prefixed 
 to the memoir of Principal Forbes of St. Andrews, 
 and one cannot look at the somewhat hard fea- 
 tures without wondering how it would have fared 
 with Scott if his wishes had been fulfilled. It is diffi- 
 cult to regret the romance of his life, for Scott in 
 arranging for the marriage of his son showed more 
 
 239
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 shrewdness and more care for the good things of life 
 than one altogether approves. But happily his own 
 story has not been told fully, and the subject is 
 eminently one to be treated charily. As for Swift, 
 I am quite convinced that he never in any real sense 
 loved Stella. No man could have loved her who 
 wrote the poems which Swift addressed to her as the 
 years went on. Nor do I believe that he loved Van- 
 essa, though on this point there is more room for 
 idoubt. 
 
 One may say again that the peril of such romance 
 as I have been writing about is that the dead and the 
 living may be unfairly matched. Lockhart's lines 
 
 " When youthful faith is fled, 
 Of loving take thy leave; 
 Be faithful to the dead, 
 The dead cannot deceive," 
 
 have their sting. The dead cannot err, cannot grow 
 old. Everything that came short in them passes from 
 the memory, and nought but the truth, the grace, 
 the tenderness remain. As Mr. Morley admirably 
 expresses it, " recollection at each new energy makes 
 them lovelier with an added sweetness." The living 
 have to bear the touches of time and travail, and they 
 are near us. Shenstone's beautiful phrase in the 
 epitaph on Miss Dolmon " Heu ! quanto minus est 
 cum reliquis versari quam tui meminisse!" is trans- 
 lated by Byron: 
 
 240
 
 "EHEU EVELINA" 
 
 "Yet how much less it were to gain 
 
 Though thou hast left me free, 
 The loveliest things that still remain 
 Than thus remember thee." 
 
 Sometimes, in many natures the thought of the past 
 is simply unnerving. Hawthorne has put this very 
 well and truly in the closing page of the Blithedale 
 Romance. The narrator has lost his ideals, and lacks 
 a purpose. " There is one secret I have concealed 
 it all along, and never meant to let the least whisper 
 of it escape one foolish little secret which probably 
 may have had something to do with these inactive 
 years of meridian manhood, with my bachelorship, 
 with the unsatisfied retrospect that I fling back on 
 life, and my listless glance towards the future. Shall 
 I reveal it? It is an absurd thing for a man in his 
 afternoon a man of the world moreover with three 
 white hairs in his brown moustache, and that deepen- 
 ing track of a crow's foot in each temple, an absurd 
 thing ever to have happened, and quite the absurdest 
 for an old bachelor like me to talk about. But it 
 rises in my throat; so let it come. . . . I I myself 
 was in love with Priscilla." 
 
 For the great majority, however, I believe that the 
 memory of a Buried Romance is softening and elevat- 
 ing. Life, as it goes on, tends to become so sordid, 
 that the heart grows hard if it ceases to converse with 
 the past. If a hopeless passion persists through a 
 considerable part of life and embitters it, we have 
 tragedy of the worst kind, and Mr. Hamerton truly
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 says that the profounder students of human nature, 
 like Scott himself, take the dangers of passionate 
 love very seriously. Happily, in most cases the bit- 
 terness dies and the sweetness remains. Every gent- 
 ler thought, every kinder deed, is a blossom cast on 
 an unforgotten grave.
 
 CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 THE TRAGEDY OF FIRST NUMBERS 
 
 A FRIEND of mine has made a practice for many years 
 of buying and collecting the first numbers of every 
 new periodical. His gathering is an instructive and 
 ghastly sight. If I could assemble the unfortunate 
 persons, proprietors and editors, who were responsi- 
 ble for these ventures, and set forth their experi- 
 ences, then indeed a tale would be unfolded. First 
 numbers are very often tragical. After all the fuss 
 has been gone through, after all the countless diffi- 
 culties have been for the time surmounted, you have 
 placed in your hands the first issue of your new 
 paper. You are sick when you see it, and grow 
 sicker with every page you turn over. The short- 
 comings, the blunders, the faults of every kind stand 
 out with glaring and appalling clearness. If you 
 could only have a chance of doing it all over again ! 
 But that chance does not come to you. Sometimes 
 the feelings with which one regards the efforts of 
 his friends are hardly less painful. There was a 
 chance and so much depended on it, and now all 
 is over. 
 
 For nowadays a thoroughly bad first number is 
 practically beyond retrieval. Twenty years ago the
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 projectors of new papers began low. They did not 
 spend much on preliminary advertising; they were 
 satisfied to print a moderate edition. Generally 
 speaking their sales were small at the commencement. 
 If there was a root of life in the journal it gradually 
 became stronger. Subscribers increased, and in a 
 year or so the corner might be turned without any 
 very extravagant expenditure. In these times all 
 that was wanted of a first number was that it should 
 have some quality of freshness and strength. Now- 
 adays you commence a new paper after a large pre- 
 liminary expenditure sufficient to bring it thoroughly 
 before the public you are aiming at. Perhaps 1000 
 is the least sum that can be spent, and I have known 
 as much as 40,000 spent before the number ap- 
 peared. If the money is used wisely, there is no fear 
 about the sale of the first issue. What the next great 
 development in journalism may be I do not know; 
 I wish I did. But I am tolerably certain that the 
 people are ready for a decisive alteration. This is 
 proved by the eagerness which they show in purchas- 
 ing first numbers. Again and again, of late, from 
 250,000 to 600,000 copies of new papers have been 
 disposed of almost immediately. These numbers are 
 eagerly scanned, but the trouble is that no second 
 chance is given. If the numbers are disapproved of 
 the purchaser does the paper all the harm he can by 
 condemning it, and of twenty who buy the first 
 number only one or two buy the second. What is 
 to be done? In many cases the wisest thing would 
 
 244
 
 TRAGEDY OF FIRST NUMBERS 
 
 be to cut the loss at once. Pride, however, points an- 
 other way, and the paper drags on and on, trying 
 one desperate expedient after another, till a few 
 more thousands are spent, and then there is a funeral 
 with no mourners. The paper that was boomed and 
 heralded passes away, and not even the paragraphist 
 in difficulty bestows a single line upon it. This is 
 tragedy. Perhaps there are fifty such tragedies 
 every year in England. 
 
 Why are the first numbers usually so bad? It is 
 a mystery. The ablest, the most brilliant, and the 
 most experienced of journalists will turn out for you 
 a first number so execrable in every respect that the 
 humblest amateur journalist in a country town might 
 be ashamed of it. I am measuring my words. Great 
 firms with endless resources at their back will put out 
 first numbers which are only seen to be at once con- 
 demned. There is a fatality about the first number. 
 Among all the first numbers I recollect, and they 
 ace very many, I rememer only two or three that 
 could be called excellent. Some causes of failure 
 may be suggested, but I do not profess to give any- 
 thing like a complete or satisfactory account of the 
 fact. 
 
 The idea of the paper may be wrong. Papers 
 are started with a view to supply the particular needs 
 of a particular class. It may turn out, it often does 
 turn out, that the need exists only in the imagination 
 of the projector, and has no correspondence with 
 reality. Thus a well-known editor explained to me 
 
 245
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 that he devised a journal which would interpret Bel- 
 gravia to Brixton. It turned out that Brixton did 
 not want to hear about Belgravia. It is still an un- 
 decided question whether women demand daily news- 
 papers of their own. One experienced j ournalist of 
 my acquaintance maintains that they do not, that 
 they prefer to read the papers their husbands read, 
 and that in a properly conducted daily journal the 
 needs of both men and women ought to be met. 
 Again, it may turn out that an idea suits a section 
 of the public, but that this section is not strong 
 enough to float a journal of its own. 
 
 Another case of failure is the want of unity in the 
 contents of a paper. A good many years ago a six- 
 penny weekly was started under very promising au- 
 spices. The editor secured articles from many bril- 
 liant contributors. If he had printed all the names 
 of his writers it would have been admitted that few 
 journals had ever commanded so powerful a team. 
 But when the twenty articles appeared, it was felt 
 that they did not make a paper, and there was gen- 
 eral disappointment. The editor replied to com- 
 plaints by giving the names of some of his contribu- 
 tors. The reply was not convincing. A weekly 
 journal of opinion relying on anonymous contribu- 
 tions must maintain the same tone and style through- 
 out. It is perhaps the highest achievement of an 
 editor, the most convincing proof that he under- 
 stands his business, when he is able to induce his con- 
 tributors to write after a certain style. It was said 
 
 246
 
 TRAGEDY OF FIRST NUMBERS 
 
 by an eminent man, who wrote in the old days for 
 both the Saturday Review and the Spectator, that he, 
 unconsciously to himself, changed his style according 
 as he was writing for the one or for the other. The old 
 editors made great efforts after this unity, and led 
 lives of strife with their staff. In order to secure the 
 oneness they insisted on the right to change the ar- 
 ticles of very eminent writers. The correspondence 
 of Macvey Napier and Whitwell Elwin will show how 
 resolutely this privilege was asserted, and how vio- 
 lently its exercise was resented. Nowadays, I think, 
 there is very little of that. Whether articles are pub- 
 lished anonymously or with signatures, they are pub- 
 lished very much as they were sent in. 
 
 A journal may be approved page by page, and yet 
 it may turn out when the pages are put together that 
 something has gone badly wrong. This is a con- 
 stant cause of failure, and it is more difficult perhaps 
 to obviate than any other. A good paper is like a 
 well arranged dinner. There should be substantial 
 food and delicacies to tempt the appetite. It is not 
 easy to attain the secret of combination. We may 
 be quite sure that no paper will live long on a single 
 feature, that its strength is in several features, each 
 appealing more or less powerfully to readers. It is 
 a matter of the greatest difficulty to find how each 
 page and half-page may be turned to the best ac- 
 count. Many do not find out until after a series of 
 costly experiments, and many never find out at all. 
 But no journal is in a quite secure position if the 
 
 247
 
 filling up of any part of it, however small, is left to 
 the chances of the moment. 
 
 I shall mention one other cause of failure, and only 
 one. The fault may be not the editor's, but the 
 publisher's. Though the editor has usually a share 
 in fixing the style of production, the publisher is apt 
 to assert his rights there. I have seen first numbers 
 which were not amiss, so far as the literary contents 
 were concerned, but they were spoiled by bad paper 
 and unsatisfactory printing. Illustrations nowa- 
 days are worse than useless to a journal unless they 
 are well produced. They cannot be well produced 
 save under certain conditions. The paper must be of 
 a quality fit to do them justice, and a rotary machine 
 will only print illustrations satisfactorily if the paper 
 is of a good class. There is nothing that gives a 
 journal so cheap and hopeless a look as execrably 
 printed blocks. While really popular journals can- 
 not afford good paper, they should do their best. I 
 had rather have sixteen pages on fairly good paper 
 than twenty on a paper which makes the reading 
 matter ugly or illegible. The smallest difference in 
 the price per pound of paper makes all the difference 
 in the world to journals with a large circulation, and 
 publishers are constantly tempted to lower the quality 
 of the paper they buy. They may thus frustrate all 
 the efforts of their literary staff. If the protec- 
 tionists have their way, and manage to raise the 
 price of paper, it will be interesting to see the results 
 on the cheap press in this country. 
 
 248
 
 TRAGEDY OF FIRST NUMBERS 
 
 Can anything be done to avert the misfortune of 
 a first number? The only plan is to print speci- 
 men numbers before publication, and have them 
 thoroughly and mercilessly criticised. A hundred 
 pounds spent in this way may save thousands of 
 pounds in the future. The cruellest critics do not 
 care to point out his blunders to the unhappy man 
 whose paper is already on the bookstalls, but when it 
 is in the experimental stage it is a real kindness to 
 point out the faults, and the wise projector will wel- 
 come the most severe attacks. It is only when you 
 see your idea materialised that you are able properly 
 to judge of it. You may see that while the project 
 is not impracticable, it requires for its working out 
 far more money, far more time, and far more ability 
 than you had contemplated. Or you may see that 
 the want you sought to supply is already met else- 
 where. If you are wise, you will not be satisfied 
 with your own opinion, nor even with what is called 
 expert opinion. Try the paper on an average reader, 
 and see what he or she says. This is not an infal- 
 lible remedy against mistakes. A paper may be well 
 turned out in every part, and an appeal to the public 
 may show that it is not wanted. Also, while a paper 
 working out an absolutely new and popular idea in 
 journalism will succeed though badly done at first, a 
 rival to it will have much more to confront, and will 
 not succeed unless it is very clearly better than the 
 journal it is more or less imitating. I cannot call to 
 mind a single case where the original journal, well 
 
 249
 
 maintained, was killed by rivals, but I have known 
 many cases where rivals managed to obtain a greater 
 circulation, and to check the development of the par- 
 ent journal, even if they did not reduce its strength. 
 I ought to say that a bad first number does not 
 necessarily spell failure. There may be capital 
 enough and brains enough to go on till the memory 
 of the failure is wiped out, and the journal is suc- 
 cessful. But even in that event it is probable that 
 thousands and thousands of pounds have to be spent 
 which if the start had been good might have been 
 saved. 
 
 250
 
 CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 MR. E. H. HUTTON OF THE " SPECTATOB. " 
 (Published September 16, 1897) 
 
 ON September 9, 1897, Mr. Hutton succumbed to his 
 long and painful illness. He died of an internal 
 cancer, the presence of which was not certainly known 
 till a comparatively short time ago. But in a letter 
 written so lately as July he said that though doing 
 his work he felt far from well, and did not anticipate 
 many more years. From the nature of the malady 
 he suffered much, but, happily, during the very last 
 period he was comparatively free from pain, although 
 not from great weakness. He bore all with charac- 
 teristic and Christian resignation and quietness. It 
 may well be supposed that the end was not unwel- 
 come. For many years his wife, a very bright and 
 gifted woman, suffered from severe melancholia. 
 Mr. Hutton would not have her removed, and tenderly 
 watched over her till she died. But his home was dark- 
 ened. Mrs. Hutton never spoke, and only recognised 
 her husband by showing signs of uneasiness when he 
 came later from work than was his custom. When at 
 last she passed away his illness rapidly increased. 
 He was too weak to read letters or to say much, but 
 showed an anxiety that no official biography of his
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 career should be published, an anxiety which the 
 Spectator has respected so far as to insert only a 
 brief paragraph announcing his death. In every 
 relation of life Mr. Hutton was noble and generous, 
 and it is fit that others should say something of 
 his stainless and influential career. 
 
 Richard Holt Hutton was born seventy-one years 
 ago at Leeds, where his father, Dr. Joseph Hutton, 
 was minister of the Mill Hill Unitarian Chapel. At 
 this time the chapel, which has now been superseded 
 by a new building, was attended by many of the 
 leading families of the town. Dr. Hutton was an 
 Irishman, and a graduate of Trinity College, Dub- 
 lin. His father was a Unitarian minister in Dublin. 
 He was in his day a considerable preacher, and 
 greatly respected through his communion. His 
 weakness in the pulpit is said to have been an irresist- 
 ible tendency to weep on very little occasion. Mrs. 
 Hutton was a decidedly able woman of intellectual 
 tastes. Dr. Hutton was a thorough Unitarian, and 
 followed the drift of his denomination in departing 
 from the old and comparatively orthodox views. It 
 is told of him that at a meeting of ministers, held to 
 discuss prophecy some sixty or seventy years ago, he 
 expressed the opinion that no prophecy, not even the 
 fifty-third of Isaiah, had any reference to Jesus 
 Christ. Dr. Hutton received a call to the now ex- 
 tinct chapel at Carter Lane, St. Paul's Churchyard, 
 London. At that time some of the chief London 
 Unitarian families attended the Clarkes, the Law- 
 
 5252
 
 MR. R. H. HUTTON OF THE " SPECTATOR " 
 
 rences, the Nettlefolds, the Chamberlains, and others. 
 Mr. Joseph Chamberlain's father was a leading mem- 
 ber and a very pronounced Unitarian, while the pres- 
 ent Secretary of State for the Colonies not only wor- 
 shipped in the chapel but took an active part in its 
 work. The building was inconveniently situated for 
 the majority of the attendants, and Dr. Hutton ul- 
 timately resigned his charge, where he was succeeded 
 by the Rev. Henry Solly, honourably known in litera- 
 ture and in philanthropic work. Richard Hutton 
 was educated at the University College School and 
 the University College, institutions much favoured 
 by Unitarians until the scandalous episode of the re- 
 jection of Dr. Martineau for the Philosophical Chair 
 took place. Dr. Martineau, I believe, lost the place 
 by the absence of Henry Crabb Robinson, who was 
 in Brighton, and who did not know the date of the 
 election. Among Hutton's friends at the time were 
 his future brother-in-law, William Caldwell Roscoe, 
 who died early, but lived long enough to leave be- 
 hind, perhaps, the very best critical essays that have 
 been written since Hazlitt; Walter Bagehot, and 
 others scarcely less gifted. One of Mr. Hutton's 
 most characteristic writings was the memoir he pre- 
 fixed to his brother-in-law's works issued posthum- 
 ously, and he also wrote a too brief memoir of Bage- 
 hot. The young student was much influenced by 
 some of his teachers, especially by that singularly 
 able, though it is to be feared forgotten scholar, 
 Professor Maiden, on whom he wrote a striking arti- 
 
 253
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET, 
 
 cle, and the brilliant and versatile Augustus de Mor- 
 gan. He greatly distinguished himself as a student, 
 took honours and the gold medal in philosophy with 
 his degree of M.A. But perhaps the intellectual in- 
 tercourse which he enjoyed with his compeers was 
 even more stimulating. The Huttons lived at Ham- 
 ilton Place, King's Cross, and Hutton himself has 
 told us of the walks which he took with Bagehot, dis- 
 cussing all subjects, through the dreary chain of 
 squares which led from University College to his 
 home. 
 
 It is not to be wondered at that the young man, 
 whose associations had all been with Unitarianism 
 (Bagehot, and Roscoe, too, were of leading Unitarian 
 families) , should resolve to follow his father's career. 
 He was educated for the Unitarian ministry at Man- 
 chester New College under two very able men, the 
 Rev. J. J. Tayler and James Martineau. Martineau, 
 who was twenty years older, became one of the great 
 influences in his life, though he ultimately was far 
 separated from his teacher's creed. In particular, 
 Martineau's elaborate style of long sentences shaped 
 Hutton's, and perhaps not for the best. Hutton 
 never attained, and never tried to attain, that uni- 
 form, incessant, fatiguing brilliancy which in Mar- 
 tineau " makes you dig for dulness as for hid treas- 
 ure." Though he had a marvellous command of 
 English, and was perpetually hitting even to the last 
 on happy and novel phrases, it cannot be denied that 
 his writing often trails and lags, that he does not
 
 MR. R. H. HUTTON OF THE " SPECTATOR " 
 
 convey his thoughts lucidly, and that the best of him 
 is usually to be got at a second perusal. He studied 
 for short periods afterwards at two German univer- 
 sities, and learned to read German well, and to ac- 
 quire a good knowledge of German criticism, espe- 
 cially the criticism of Baur, although he never went 
 really deep into German thought. 
 
 And now came the period which I believe to have 
 been the most determining in his life. He was a can- 
 didate for a Unitarian pulpit, and he failed in his 
 quest. To use the Scottish phrase, he was a pro- 
 bationer who did not get a church, and who became 
 " a stickit minister." He may have been offered a 
 sphere of labour, although I doubt it, but never was 
 offered any adequate sphere, and though he supplied 
 pulpits here and there, nothing came of it. Some 
 papers have said that he was settled at Gloucester as 
 Unitarian minister. This is not so. His brother for 
 a time ocupied the pulpit there. Old Unitarians have 
 reminiscences of his sermons, in particular of one on 
 the significance of the word " Christopher," which 
 he preached up and down the country. Perhaps the 
 reason of his failure was that he was shortsighted, 
 and read his sermons with some difficulty. His dis- 
 courses are also said, and probably with truth, to have 
 been difficult and heavy. In any case he failed, and 
 relinquished the profession, and as we shall see later 
 on, this failure coloured his whole thought of the 
 churches and of religion. It may be mentioned that 
 for a brief period he edited the Unitarian paper called 
 
 255
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 the Inquirer, but I fancy this was play more than 
 anything else. At least he was in the habit of talking 
 as if it were. 
 
 The next episode in his career was his marriage 
 to Miss Roscoe, sister of W. C. Roscoe, and one of 
 the famous Liverpool family. She is remembered as 
 a singularly sweet and gracious woman. He obtained 
 the Principalship of University Hall, in succession, 
 if I am not mistaken, to Clough, with whom he was 
 on very friendly terms; and all seemed to go well 
 with him. He continued to be a Unitarian, though 
 he had relinquished preaching, and with his young 
 wife attended the preaching of Mr. Solly in Carter 
 Lane Chapel. 
 
 Then came perhaps the most trying time of his 
 life. He fell into bad health. Consumption was 
 threatened, and he was ordered by the doctors to go 
 out to the West Indies. He resigned the Principal- 
 ship of University Hall, and went out with Mrs. 
 Hutton. The change was very beneficial to him, but 
 Mrs. Hutton caught yellow fever and died. The 
 blow was crushing. His brother-in-law came out and 
 brought him home. When he had recovered a little 
 from his deep dejection, he found himself almost with- 
 out resource, but was able to contribute a little to 
 Unitarian periodicals like the Prospective Review, 
 took chambers at Lincoln's Inn, and began to read for 
 the Bar. Then followed the great change which 
 permanently altered the complexion of his life. One 
 day Mr. Maurice happened to remark to Mr. Solly, 
 
 256
 
 MR. R. H. HUTTON OF THE " SPECTATOR " 
 
 who was visiting him, that the best article on his 
 theological essays had appeared in the Prospective 
 Review, and that he greatly wished to know the 
 author. Mr. Solly immediately told him that the 
 essay was by Mr. Hutton, and offered to intro- 
 duce them. He went over to Hutton's chambers, 
 found him out, but gave the message to his brother, 
 and Hutton immediately called on Maurice. This 
 was the beginning of an unusually strong and last- 
 ing friendship. Under its influence Mr. Hutton soon 
 became a member of the Church of England, a de- 
 voted member, and perhaps more and more devoted 
 as life went on. He was married again to a cousin 
 of his former wife also a Miss Roscoe and found 
 congenial employment in the editorship of a new 
 quarterly, the National Review. When it was started 
 the days of the quarterlies were passing away, and 
 the periodical never paid its expenses. But in my 
 judgment, and I have read almost every word of it, 
 no such excellent review has ever been published in 
 England. The very best writings of Hutton, Ros- 
 coe, Greg, Martineau, and many others, appeared in 
 it. Whatever the nomenclature may have been 
 and every journalist knows that does not amount to 
 much Hutton was the real editor, and the life of the 
 periodical. He showed there that he possessed the 
 editorial faculty. He was not only able to write 
 himself, but he knew what subjects were vital, and he 
 knew how to choose and rule his men. Although I 
 have no positive evidence of the fact, I strongly sus- 
 
 257
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 pect that he had his difficulties with Lady Byron, 
 who found the money, or at least much of the money, 
 necessary for the carrying on of the periodical. 
 About Lady Byron Mr. Hutton was noticeably ret- 
 icent, but once or twice he permitted himself to say 
 something of her character. He seems to have found 
 her much as she is described in Medora Leigh, a good 
 woman, with generous impulses, but capricious and 
 unreliable. Through her Mr. Hutton became ac- 
 quainted with various notable persons Mr. A. J. 
 Scott, of whom he spoke as a truly prophetic man, 
 but indolent and unbusiness-like ; A. J. Ross, the 
 clever Presbyterian minister at Brighton, who was 
 deposed for heresy; George Macdonald, and others. 
 I am not sure whether he personally knew Frederick 
 Robertson, who was on intimate terms with Lady 
 Byron, but he has spoken of Robertson as the best of 
 theologians, better even than Maurice, although his 
 influence on Hutton was nothing like so deep as that 
 of Maurice and Newman. One of the features of 
 the National Review, which was very prophetic of 
 the Spectator, was the short comments on new books 
 at the end. It is from the National Review that his 
 two volumes of theological and literary essays are 
 reprinted. They were first published on the sugges- 
 tion of Mr. Strahan, and are now included in Messrs. 
 Macmillan's Eversley Series. I have always thought 
 Hutton spoiled all his republications by turning 
 " we " into " I," and by cutting out remorselessly 
 the more brilliant and audacious bits. The essays 
 
 258
 
 MR. R. H. HUTTON OF THE " SPECTATOR " 
 
 were not written for book publication, but for anony- 
 mous publication, and they ought certainly to have 
 been left in the original form. As every one knows, 
 they are very stately productions, and some of them 
 made a deep mark. Professor Drummond said that 
 the essay on Goethe was the best critical piece that 
 had been written in this century, a judgment with 
 which I cannot agree, though certainly the paper has 
 great merits both of style and thought. Another 
 piece, which almost gave a nickname, was that on 
 " The Hard Church," an attack on Henry Rogers, 
 which was by no means without justification. But 
 some of the best essays have never been reprinted. 
 In particular there was one on Lord Lytton the 
 younger, which was a gem in its way. For the 
 Lyttons, father and son, Mr. Hutton had a pro- 
 found contempt. He detested them for their display 
 of Parisian diamonds, and he never did justice to 
 the very great and various powers of the senior. 
 The income from the National Review was not very 
 large, and Mr. Hutton supplemented it by teaching 
 mathematics to young ladies in Bedford College. 
 He was much liked by his pupils, and made a success- 
 ful teacher, though his frequent attacks of giddiness 
 made the work somewhat irksome. 
 
 All this time he had been in training for his true 
 place, which came to him strangely. He was thirty- 
 five or thirty-six, in the very prime of his vigour, and 
 looking out anxiously for a suitable sphere. Mr. 
 Meredith Townsend, who had been successful as a 
 
 259
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 journalist in India, but had suffered there from 
 severe bereavement, resolved to come to this country 
 and buy a paper. He relinquished the Friend of 
 India and purchased the Spectator. He went on with 
 the journal for six months single-handed, and then 
 found it was too much for him. He consulted that 
 well-known Indian politician, Mr. Wilson, the father- 
 in-law of Bagehot, and Wilson told him he knew the 
 very man. His recommendation of Hutton was ac- 
 cepted by Townsend. Thus began a very close, re- 
 markable, and influential alliance, which was even 
 strengthened as time went on, and which only death 
 has broken. So close was it that I believe that some- 
 times one would begin an article and the other would 
 finish it. Each learned from each, save that Mr. 
 Townsend's writings never took a profound religious 
 tone. The only difference that ever occurred be- 
 tween them was when Mr. Hutton became more and 
 more of a High Churchman. When Hutton came 
 on the Spectator his place had to be created. Reli- 
 gion had never been prominent in the journal, but 
 Hutton at once began to preach, and he preached to 
 a great and listening and picked audience until he 
 died. His friend Maurice agreed with Mr. Spur- 
 geon in thinking that no ministerial position is equal 
 in importance to that of a man who can collect and 
 hold a constituency which will read his religious in- 
 struction. He very greatly rejoiced in the oppor- 
 tunity that had at last presented itself to his friend 
 and disciple. 
 
 260
 
 MR. R. H. HUTTON OF THE " SPECTATOR " 
 
 Something ought to be said of the position in which 
 Townsend and Hutton found the Spectator. That 
 journal was started by a very able Scotsman, Robert 
 Stephen Rintoul. Rintoul was editor of the Dundee 
 Advertiser about 1813, and he was certainly a born 
 editor. At the very beginning of his career he ele- 
 vated the compilation of a newspaper into an art. 
 The selection, condensation, and classification of news 
 and discussions in each successive issue was carefully 
 studied with a view to make the paper complete and 
 attractive as a whole. To attain this end he on one oc- 
 casion actually rewrote the whole contents of a num- 
 ber of his journal. He had Thomas Chalmers as one of 
 his contributors, and acquired a position of great in- 
 fluence. In 1828 he came to London, and after he 
 had made some unsuccessful attempts to establish a 
 paper his friends raised the funds for the Spectator, 
 the most prominent of them being William Dixon of 
 Govan. The first number appeared in 1828, and 
 from that date to the day of his death his history was 
 the history of his journal. Rintoul fought for par- 
 liamentary reform, for the extension of the franchise, 
 the shortening of the duration of Parliaments, and 
 the ballot. He was a coadjutor of Rowland Hill in 
 his Post Office ideas, and was a great advocate of 
 systematic colonisation. He fought also most effi- 
 ciently for the Anti-Corn-Law League, and though 
 in the end of the day he did not achieve a very great 
 pecuniary success, he was otherwise successful. 
 Rintoul died in 1858, and I believe that Thornton 
 
 261
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 Hunt then appeared on the scene. For some time 
 before his death Rintoul had ceased to do much of 
 his work. It is usually said that the Spectator sank 
 into utter futility during the interregnum, but this 
 is not true. A great and successful effort was made 
 to improve it. In particular Leigh Hunt then near 
 the end of his career was secured as a contributor, 
 and wrote under the heading of " The Occasional " 
 some valuable though very little known articles, the 
 most noticeable of which is the account of Edmund 
 Oilier, the publisher of Shelley and Keats. They were 
 his very last writings. The series is not to be neglected 
 by any student of literary history. The Spectator 
 was then largely a newspaper, and the news, and 
 particularly the foreign news, was much improved. 
 The time, however, had now come for a reorganisa- 
 tion, and gradually Messrs. Hutton and Townsend 
 considerably altered the character of the paper. 
 They discarded news and parliamentary reports, gave 
 a chronicle of the week, and made the rest of the 
 paper articles and reviews. They did far more than 
 this. They shot their individuality through every 
 part of it. Two such rich and complex personali- 
 ties have perhaps never been associated with any 
 paper, and the singular accordance of their views 
 turned their union to the best possible account. But 
 undoubtedly the first great change was the introduc- 
 tion of the religious element. This was done pro- 
 nouncedly. Books in particular were reviewed from 
 the ethical and religious standpoint. And the same 
 
 262
 
 MR. R. H. HUTTON OF THE " SPECTATOR " 
 
 i 
 principle was applied to politics. In fact, at one 
 
 time Frederick Maurice had a department of the 
 Spectator all to himself. Journalists often forget 
 that they are writing for a baptized people, but the 
 editors of the Spectator did not, and have had their 
 reward. Everywhere supporters rallied round them, 
 and the fortunes of their journal underwent a total 
 change. It ought to be said, however, that Rintoul's 
 mark is on it even now in appearance, in arrange- 
 ment, and, above all, in a certain decorous moderation 
 of tone. 
 
 From the first the paper under the new regime 
 was uncompromisingly Anglican. It has often been 
 the subject of amazement to Nonconformists that a 
 paper, one of whose editors was brought up in Non- 
 conformity, and was a Noncomformist minister, 
 should treat them with a steady hostility, and not only 
 with hostility, but with almost lack of understanding. 
 That Mr. Gladstone should not understand Noncon- 
 formists is more intelligible, though he was originally 
 a Presbyterian. But that Mr. Hutton should never 
 I use the word advisedly all those years say one 
 sympathetic or kind word about Nonconformity is 
 difficult to understand, were it not that I know his 
 career. He was " a stickit minister," and his whole 
 estimate of British Dissent was based on that fact. 
 I do not mean, of course, that he resented his fail- 
 ure. He was infinitely above such paltriness. No 
 man was freer from envy or jealousy, and, indeed, 
 one has sometimes found " stickit ministers " most 
 
 263
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 faithful and devoted adherents of the churches that 
 could find no use for them. But he argued that if 
 there was no room for his ministry in Dissent, there 
 must be something wrong, and he was perhaps en- 
 titled to argue in that manner. He did not like to 
 write about Dissent at all, or to speak of it, but now 
 and then he gave glimpses of his true mind. For 
 example, in writing about his father's successor at 
 Mill Hill, Leeds, the late Rev. Charles Wicksteed, 
 he said that " the Dissenting minister has to appeal 
 to the suffrages of the congregations, to preach as 
 a candidate, and to pit his talent against a number 
 of other men, presumably his equals and possibly his 
 superiors, and he cannot be blamed if he is filled with 
 a desire to surpass them when a wider sphere of in- 
 fluence is to be attained." This created an urgent 
 temptation for the Dissenting minister to shine as a 
 preacher, resulting in " the love of effect and admir- 
 ation, and a tendency rather to express the vein of 
 thought and feeling recognised as proper for the oc- 
 casion than to follow without self -analysis the direc- 
 tion of the unbiassed mind." I could quote other 
 passages equally relevant, but this is sufficient. Mr. 
 Hutton had not a few Dissenters first and last as his 
 contributors, but he very rarely allowed them to say 
 a word for their brethren or their cause. Even when 
 hardest pressed, as by the demands of the Scottish 
 Disestablishers, the utmost he would do was to allow 
 James Macdonell to say something in their favour. 
 For a little time he wavered about Welsh Disestab- 
 
 264
 
 MR. R. H. HUTTON OF THE SPECTATOR " 
 
 lishment, but ultimately opposed it stoutly. This 
 hatred for and distrust of the Christian democracy 
 led him to Erastianism. He would rather have a 
 civil court decide anything religious or not religious 
 than an ecclesiastical court. Yet the Dissenters read 
 him most humbly and patiently. They bore all 
 things from him, as they bore all things from Mr. 
 Gladstone. Week by week they kissed the rod, and 
 made as though they liked it. In one of Mr. Barrie's 
 early sketches he amusingly described the travels of 
 a copy of the Spectator from manse to manse. Mr. 
 Hutton was well aware of all this, but it did not alter 
 either his convictions or his feelings. At the begin- 
 ning he was much out of temper with the predominant 
 party in the English Church, but as time went on 
 the paper became as churchy as the Guardian, and 
 with all the fairness of the editors it never was pos- 
 sible for them to get further than that Dissenters 
 had a right to toleration, that is, that they should be 
 exempted from direct persecution. 
 
 The politics of the Spectator were for long soundly 
 Liberal, the question of Disestablishment being re- 
 served. The first struggle it went through was on 
 the Civil War in America, when it took the side of the 
 North. Mr. Gladstone, it will be remembered, was 
 in the opposite camp, and declared that Jeff Davis 
 had made a nation. The battle cost the Spectator 
 much, for Society was overwhelmingly against it, but 
 in the end it conquered and made good its losses. 
 Gradually the paper became more and more Glad- 
 
 265
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 stonian, though not blind to Mr. Gladstone's faults. 
 Between Mr. Hutton and Mr. Gladstone there was 
 for a long time a somewhat intimate friendship, and 
 his admiration of the great statesman's character 
 knew no bounds. One of the very few cases in which 
 he allowed himself to engage in a personal contro- 
 versy was when Mr. Louis Jennings made a bitter 
 personal attack on Mr. Gladstone. Mr. Hutton re- 
 plied with unusual warmth. By this time he had 
 severed his relations with Mr. Gladstone owing to the 
 Home Rule question, but all the more on this account 
 he felt it necessary to assert his conviction of the 
 honesty, the humility, and the self-sacrifice of his 
 old leader. Still, Mr. Hutton was not blind, and per- 
 haps the most felicitous expression ever used to de- 
 scribe Mr. Gladstone is his, " A Highlander of 
 genius." As is well known, when the Home Rule ques- 
 tion came on, the Spectator took a chief part in op- 
 posing the movement. The paper was remarkable 
 for its shrewd estimates of politicians. Though it 
 disliked Mr. Chamberlain's Dissenting zeal, it was 
 never for a moment blind to his great power and to 
 his certain place of predominance. It hailed Mr. 
 Asquith at first, but grew colder to him later. It 
 prophesied Sir Henry Fowler's place in the Liberal 
 party. One of Mr. Button's chief personal antip- 
 athies was to Mr. Labouchere, an antipathy ex- 
 pressed more strongly in private than in public. In 
 conversation it was once said to him, " You live near 
 Mr. Labouchere?" "Yes," he replied significantly, 
 
 266
 
 MR. R. H. HUTTON OF THE " SPECTATOR " 
 
 " within a stone's-throw." Although the Spectator 
 has supported the Government, it took the side of 
 Greece when other journals, formerly conspicuous in 
 the battle for freedom, betrayed the cause. The 
 Spectator, notwithstanding many things to disquiet, 
 held fast to the faith that the heart of the nation 
 cannot be crushed down by appeals addressed to its 
 pockets and its fears. 
 
 I cannot fully trace the gradual change in Mr. 
 Hutton's theology. From Unitarianism he passed 
 to Mauricianism, and from Mauricianism he passed 
 to High Churchism, and it was thought would pass 
 to Rome. I believe, however, that he died a very 
 decided Protestant, though the spell of Dr. Newman 
 grew stronger and stronger with the passage of time. 
 The transition from Mauricianism to High Church- 
 ism was not so unnatural as it might seem. Maurice 
 always repudiated the name Broad Churchman. And 
 Mr. Hutton had no sympathy with the ways of those 
 who distilled a residuum of meaning from the Scrip- 
 tures and pretended that this was what was intended 
 by the writer. He disliked the bleached paraphrases 
 which certain Broad Churchmen make of the most 
 passionate words of Scripture. He was always aim- 
 ing at vital force and original freshness. He craved 
 for reality, for a fresh comprehension of the living 
 powers of religion. Evangelicalism he disliked, mis- 
 understood, and caricatured. He called it " spirit- 
 ual greediness." At first he had a great deal to say 
 against eternal punishment, but he came to see that 
 
 267
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 something constructive was wanted, something pro- 
 founder and more impressive than criticism can fur- 
 nish ; and it is not altogether surprising that, situated 
 as he was, he found it in the High Church party. 
 It is true that in the preface to the second edition 
 of his theological essays, he writes against both the 
 High Church party and the Church of Rome. But 
 this was composed in 1876, and cannot be said to 
 represent his final opinion. In his early days on the 
 Spectator he was denounced by Canon Liddon, but 
 by the end the vehement preacher was his close ally 
 and contributor. Mr. Hutton did his greatest ser- 
 vice in the years when Huxley and Tyndall were in 
 their plenitude of power. He was an adversary that 
 could not be ignored or despised, and week by week 
 he maintained unflinchingly the cause of a spiritual 
 faith. 
 
 Mr. Hutton, I have said, was a real editor, and 
 made his paper interesting. The excellent summary 
 of the week was always one of the best bits of jour- 
 nalism accomplished in Britain, and there was noth- 
 ing elsewhere of its kind. He did much less than 
 might have been expected to get able coadjutors. 
 One of his early finds was Mr. Swinburne, some of 
 whose Poems and Ballads, strange to say, made their 
 appearance first in the Spectator among them 
 Faustine. Mr. Swinburne also wrote prose, and on 
 one occasion produced an article on Victor Hugo so 
 inordinately long that it had to appear in three parts. 
 But the alliance was not one of a kind that could con- 
 
 268
 
 MR. R. H. HUTTON OF THE " SPECTATOR " 
 
 tinue, and Mr. Swinburne's later aberrations found 
 few severer critics than his late editor, the article 
 on Swinburne's literary papers being as trenchant 
 an essay as Mr. Hutton ever wrote. For the literary 
 department, of which he had the control, he usually 
 selected safe, rather than brilliant critics. He was 
 good-natured about giving young beginners a chance, 
 young pupils of Bedford College and others, and the 
 result was that the Spectator reviews were sometimes 
 below the mark. Nevertheless he so stamped his own 
 personality on them that they were more valued by 
 publishers than perhaps any others. He was an 
 admirable critic, not widely read, but a brooding 
 student of the best authors. Trollope had in him one 
 of his most appreciative reviewers, and he was first 
 to detect the authorship of Nina Balakta. Arnold 
 and Tennyson were among the many who owned their 
 obligations to him, and the delight with which he 
 hailed the apearance of Mr. William Watson will 
 not be forgotten. He had curious prejudices, and 
 an ethical dislike with him was almost impossible to 
 overcome. For example, he persistently depreciated 
 George Meredith's novels, maintaining throughout 
 that Meredith was essentially a coarse and affected 
 though clever writer. Sir William Hardman has 
 left on record the impression produced on Meredith 
 by one of his reviews. Perhaps the great secret of 
 his success was that he poured his whole soul into 
 his life as a journalist. He did one thing, and only 
 one. He contributed very little to other periodicals 
 
 269
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 than his own. His books, with few exceptions, were 
 reprints. He wrote for Mr. John Morley's series a 
 monograph on Scott. He also wrote a little book 
 on Cardinal Newman good and suggestive, but 
 hardly worthy of him. 
 
 Although he disliked public appearances, Mr. Hut- 
 ton on various occasions made speeches. The most 
 notable of these was one in connection with a presenta- 
 tion to Dr. Martineau. He also contributed papers 
 more than once to the Church Congress. The one 
 accessible glimpse into his private life is to be found 
 in a delightful anonymous volume, Holiday Rambles 
 of a Wife and her Husband. This was a really re- 
 markable example of Mr. Hutton's versatility. The 
 brightness and vivacity of the lady's contributions 
 contrast noticeably with the graver and more bur- 
 dened style of her husband. But all the letters were 
 from the same hand. 
 
 270
 
 CHAPTER XXIX 
 
 JAMES PAYN 
 (Published March 31, 1898) 
 
 IF liking and gratitude are qualifications for writing 
 about a man, if knowledge of his works is a qualifica- 
 tion, I should be able to write about James Payn. I 
 think it is a bold thing to say, and yet I will hazard 
 it, that I have read every one of his hundred books, 
 and read many of them more than once. From him 
 I first received encouragement in literature, and yet 
 it seems impossible to say much about him, so many 
 thoughts and memories crowd into the mind. A 
 more gracious and charming figure has not appeared 
 in literature since Sir Walter Scott died, and though 
 he worked very hard and seemed to be content with 
 his rewards, such as they were, he never had justice 
 done to him. Now that he is dead, his biographers, 
 as a rule, have had very little to tell of him, save what 
 he gave them in his own two volumes of Reminis- 
 cences. Even these volumes are not at all full, and 
 not even quite trustworthy, as will be perceived by 
 any careful reader who will compare them. The real 
 materials for James Payn's history are to be found in 
 the volumes of Chambers's Journal during the years 
 of his editorship, which commenced in 1858 and 
 
 271
 
 THE KEY OE THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 ended on the death of Robert Chambers about 1871. 
 All his best work is to be found there. In his later 
 years he broke out in one or two new directions, but 
 upon the whole he kept repeating the stories and the 
 facts which had done their duty so well during his 
 connection with Chambers's. 
 
 James Payn was born at Cheltenham in 1830, the 
 son of a gentleman residing at Maidenhead, who was 
 clerk to the Thames Commissioners, and who, al- 
 though disinherited by a wealthy father, was able 
 to send his son to Eton, Woolwich, and Cambridge. 
 The boy was delicate and clever, but somewhat per- 
 verse, or rather individual, in his tastes. He hated 
 school life. He had a very poor opinion of boys. 
 He used to maintain that what attracted them in 
 novelists like Fielding and Smollett was simply the 
 indecency, and he believed that there was no limit to 
 their cruelty. Being very clever, James Payn was 
 able to take a fairly good place. He passed third at 
 the entrance examination at Woolwich, but he was 
 never interested in the routine work either of school 
 or college; in fact, he looked upon the education 
 communicated there as a huge fraud, and never 
 ceased to denounce it as ineffectual for the purposes 
 of life. He busied himself, however, in other direc- 
 tions, indulged his literary tastes, spoke as a debater 
 at the Union, where he figured as a strong Radical, 
 and acquired the friendship of men like W. G. Clark, 
 whose wit he greatly admired. Clark, by the way, 
 published a volume of sermons, which I possess, but
 
 JAMES PAYN 
 
 afterwards, if I am not mistaken, abandoned reli- 
 gious belief. While at the University, Mr. Payn 
 managed to get a volume of poems published. They 
 were entitled Stories from Boccaccio, and they re- 
 ceived a friendly word from George Brimley in the 
 Spectator. Payn professed to be indifferent to re- 
 views, but in reality nobody that I ever knew of cared 
 so much about them. In his Reminiscences he speaks 
 with the most effusive gratitude of Brimley's criti- 
 cism as "like ten thousand tonics in a single dose." 
 He was easily pleased. All that Brimley says is, 
 " There is much promise and some performance in 
 this little volume of poems. . . . With a fresh inci- 
 dent of domestic life placed in appropriate scenery, 
 or with a topic suggestive of an unhackneyed strain of 
 thought, Mr. Payn produces a little poem of interest 
 and freshness. When he selects a theme already 
 worn by use, though the skill of the treatment or the 
 merit of the verses is just the same, the piece, if not 
 commonplace, is comparatively flat." Imagine what 
 a young poet in these days would say to such a criti- 
 cism! But perhaps authors were modest then. He 
 published another volume of poems later, but the 
 truth is he was not a poet, although within his limits 
 one of the surest judges of poetry I have ever known. 
 Gradually, in fact very quickly, he established a 
 connection with literature, and having just enough 
 to live upon apart from his gains, he got married, 
 whenever he took his degree, to Miss Louisa Adelaide 
 Edlin, a step which he always considered the wisest 
 
 273
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 in his life. Miss Edlin's brother, Sir Peter, was 
 much tried by the halfpenny evening newspapers 
 some time ago. James Payn at that time was young, 
 and younger in spirit even than his years. To the 
 last he envied youth, and mourned over the passing 
 of the years. Dignities and gains brought no com- 
 pensation for what time took away. His heroes and 
 heroines are almost always youthful. As Mr. Barrie 
 said years ago, " The noble youths of Lost Sir Mas- 
 singberd are noble at seventeen. Indeed, it is no- 
 ticeable that Mr. Payn likes to catch his heroes and 
 heroines young. None over twenty need apply. I 
 was reading Less Black than we are Painted lately, 
 and found a hero and heroine engaged to be married 
 a serious affair even in later life at the age of 
 sixteen and a half. When the story ends they are 
 married at twenty-one they have gone through 
 every experience, they have settled down to spend 
 the few remaining years of life quietly, a broken- 
 down married man and woman of the world. If all 
 Mr. Payn's heroes could be gathered together and a 
 schoolmaster then introduced who said, * Gentlemen, 
 we shall now resume our studies,' the effect would, no 
 doubt, be remarkable." After his marriage he had 
 a time of ideal happiness in Lakeland. Through his 
 father he had come to know Miss Mitford, in whose 
 letters he figures largely, and though he never took 
 any notice of the fact, not always to his advantage. 
 He was remarkably handsome at this time, and con- 
 scious of it, but his high spirits and genial humour
 
 JAMES PAYN 
 
 made him a general favourite. Miss Mitford intro- 
 duced him to Harriet Martineau, for whom he had a 
 strong affection, and he made the acquaintance of 
 Dr. Arnold's children, including Matthew and Wil- 
 liam. He kept busily contributing to Household 
 Words and Chambers's Journal, and in a compara- 
 tively short time went to Edinburgh as joint editor 
 of Chambers's with Mr. Leitch Ritchie. Thus began 
 what was incomparably the most important section 
 of his life work. He had able associates in Edin- 
 burgh. Leitch Ritchie was no mean writer. There 
 is a quiet beauty about his story, Wearyfoot Com- 
 mon, which takes one back to it again and again. 
 Robert Chambers was in full vigour and happiness 
 with his large family circle, presided over by the 
 bravest and sunniest of wives, " Mrs. Balderstone." 
 Robert Chambers was a man in many respects akin 
 to Payn, with a keen sense of humour, an eager in- 
 terest in literature, a quiet contempt for many of the 
 conventions accepted in the city he moved in. But 
 the strongest man there was William Chambers, and 
 if Payn could be said to detest any one, and certainly 
 he was a good hater, he detested William. Curiously 
 enough, he was always of opinion that the whole suc- 
 cess of the Chambers was due to Robert. There is 
 no need to put one above another, but as a matter of 
 fact William had qualities which made for success, 
 and which were possessed neither by Robert Chambers 
 nor by James Payn. He understood what the people 
 liked. He had a strong will and an indomitable per- 
 
 273
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 severance, and in spite of what Payn says, a consid- 
 erable literary faculty. If anybody doubts this, let 
 him read the little book on William and Robert 
 Chambers. An Englishman, a public schoolman, a 
 University man, a clubman, a humourist, James Payn 
 found himself utterly out of tune with Edinburgh 
 society. He hardly made the most of what was open 
 to him. Lord Neaves, for example, was a very 
 clever man, but when writing about him and Lord 
 Deas in the Cornhill, Payn spoke of them as Neaves 
 and Deaves, evidently thinking them persons whose 
 names were not worth spelling rightly. He resented 
 the small regard paid to literary men not otherwise 
 endowed, the ridiculous respect, as he considered it, 
 for professors, the undervaluing of such men as 
 Alexander Smith. For the religion of Scotland, and 
 especially for the hypocritical part of it, he had a 
 profound loathing. The climate did not suit him, 
 and his wife and children were delicate. He had a 
 legend of a four-wheeled cab being blown over in the 
 Edinburgh streets. Nevertheless he went on assidu- 
 ously with his work, though his name for long did not 
 emerge into the general knowledge. After some years 
 he joyfully returned to edit the Journal from Lon- 
 don when Robert Chambers made his move there. 
 He took up his abode in the comfortable but modest 
 house in Maida Vale, which he occupied till his death, 
 became a member of the Reform Club, and entered 
 with eager zest into the literary life of London. 
 With society he had no concern. He went to bed 
 
 276
 
 JAMES PAYN 
 
 every night at ten, his habits were perfectly regular, 
 and he made no intimates of people who could not 
 talk about books. In his earlier days, however, he 
 explored pretty thoroughly some of the obscurer re- 
 gions of London life, and had strange stories to print 
 of them, and stranger yet that never got into print. 
 What shall I say of his work in Chambers's? 
 Never, to my thinking, did an editor do better work. 
 Never was a periodical more eagerly welcomed by me 
 month by month, than Chambers's under his editor- 
 ship. What Mr. Barrie said about him was per- 
 fectly right. " If I were an American millionaire, 
 and could afford to keep a novelist of my own, I 
 would first offer the appointment to Mr. Payn. No 
 brighter, shrewder, manlier writer touches paper. 
 His very name puts one in good humour like the 
 sound of the dinner gong." There was nothing in 
 his paper that he did not do well. He wrote most of 
 the stories, short and long; he had a remarkable eye 
 for poetry, and his record of magazine verse far 
 excels that of any other editor. He was a good 
 critic, and could do justice to authors who were un- 
 popular like William Barnes, for whom he had a 
 fervent and discerning admiration. Nobody could 
 pick out with more skill the good points of a dull 
 book, and make an entertaining article of them. He 
 could describe, he could write biography, and, above 
 all, he could moralise in the most charming manner 
 on life, illustrating his observations by innumerable 
 delightful anecdotes. The essays which began each 
 
 277
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 weekly number of Chambers 's were nearly all from his 
 pen, and I cannot even yet understand why they are 
 so little appreciated. Yet, strange to say, although 
 there were spurts, as when Lost Sir Massingberd was 
 published, the circulation of Chambers's Journal 
 began to decline under him, and went down so alarm- 
 ingly that, if I am not mistaken, it became an abso- 
 lute necessity to resort to a complete change of policy. 
 Accordingly, Payn was dismissed, much to his in- 
 dignation. William Chambers filled the paper with 
 his own contributions, and it rapidly recovered its 
 old place in public favour. It is easy to say that 
 this simply showed that the public preferred bad 
 work, but this is not true. Some of the shrewdest 
 literary people I knew in Scotland at that time ex- 
 pressed their delight that Payn had been got rid of. 
 What is the explanation? It is worth while to 
 ask, because it will help us to understand why Payn, 
 with all his outstanding merits, was never quite an 
 outstanding man, always in the second rank and never 
 near the first. To begin with the proprietors made 
 a great error in binding him to write for no periodi- 
 cal but Chambers's. The consequence was that he 
 wrote too much, although if he had been able to vary 
 his style this would not have mattered. He could 
 not vary it, however. He wrote always as a club- 
 man, as a man of the world, as a humorous, and oc- 
 casionally sardonic writer. He was good-natured, 
 but once said that Abraham Lincoln was endeared to 
 him for ever by saying, when he was beset by place-
 
 JAMES PAYN 
 
 hunters, that he was glad he had got smallpox, be- 
 cause it was something he could give to everybody. 
 Lincoln's rebuke to a patriot also pleased him hugely. 
 " I have found, Siree, that those people who are so 
 precious ready to spill the last drop of their blood 
 are extraordinarily careful about spilling the first 
 drop." Humour, though a precious faculty in mod- 
 eration, is a very dangerous one. Sardonic humour 
 is absolutely fatal. Mr. Payn had a fondness for 
 sensational plots, or rather, he believed that they 
 fetched the public. But his humour was often too 
 much for him, and you could see him visibly grinning 
 at his own sensations. He could make love heartily 
 enough, but Mr. Barrie keenly remarked that there, 
 too, he could not keep serious. " When he comes to 
 his love passages the brackets are thicker than ever, 
 as if he must find some vent for his humour or die, 
 and he rather shirks telling how much longer Her- 
 bert (17) held the hand of Christina (16) than was 
 absolutely necessary. He is given to leaving the 
 proposal to the reader's imagination, and if he faces 
 it, he is in higher spirits than ever next chapter, like 
 one exulting because he has got it over." He made 
 a great success by Lost Sir Massingberd, the story 
 of a man who disappeared in a tree. He followed it 
 up by another novel in which a young gentleman 
 commits murder. The idea occurs to some of his 
 friends to plead insanity. The counsel for the de- 
 fence does so by reading the best poem Payn ever 
 wrote. " Gentlemen of the jury, we have caused 
 
 279
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 twelve copies of this most extraordinary production 
 to be printed, which will be placed in your hands, lest 
 you may imagine that any latent meaning in the 
 verses may have escaped you from my delivery of 
 them." The speaker goes on at great length, and 
 the jury return a unanimous verdict of not guilty. 
 When Payn did such things as that his readers began 
 to feel that he was laughing at them, and resolved to 
 give him a wide berth thereafter. People of his own 
 class and culture, on the other hand, laughed at his 
 sensationalism, even when he did not wish them to 
 laugh, and on that account no sort of justice was 
 done to his real qualities. The consequence is that 
 he fell between two stools, never thoroughly gaining 
 either the cultured class or the general public. No 
 doubt his books, many of them, had a large circula- 
 tion, but this circulation, I suspect, steadily fell off, 
 although his work did not deteriorate. Indeed, one 
 of his last productions, The Disappearance of George 
 Driffel, is as good in its way as anything he ever 
 wrote. But he sold at the most by thousands when 
 others were selling by tens of thousands. It must be 
 acknowledged, too, that he had no distinction of 
 style, and no real pathos. It may be doubted whether 
 he ever made a reader cry. And yet what a store of 
 entertainment, of brightness, of wisdom and of wit 
 is to be found in his innumerable pages! 
 
 Mr. Payn became literary adviser to Messrs. 
 Smith, Elder and Co., the most notable events of this 
 connection being the discovery of Vice Versa and the 
 
 280
 
 JAMES PAYN 
 
 rej ection of John Inglesant. He knew good wort as 
 few did. The reader has been always safe with any 
 book of fiction bearing the imprint of Smith, Elder 
 and Co. Later on he became editor of the Cornhill, 
 which was turned into a sixpenny, but did not 
 achieve much success. He began well with the idea 
 of making a readable magazine, but was bullied by 
 the critics into the old style two slabs of a serial, 
 one at the beginning, the other at the end, one or 
 two short stories, an article on Coral, another on 
 the Antibes, and the periodical did no good. He 
 wrote much in the Times, especially to which he con- 
 tributed reviews of novels. I have seen it said that 
 Payn never wrote unfavourable notices. It is not 
 true. He was a very kindly critic, and did not at- 
 tack where he was not provoked, but, as he said him- 
 self, he was in the habit of paying off those who 
 attacked him, giving them as good as he got. I 
 could tell some extraordinary and, indeed, almost in- 
 credible stories of these. In the end of the day he 
 was generally even with people. He spoke very 
 kindly of his contemporaries, but looked back to 
 Dickens and Thackeray. For Dickens he had a pro- 
 found veneration amounting almost to idolatry, but 
 he was never induced to write down what may be 
 called the secrets of his intercourse with " the mas- 
 ter." His social essays appeared in the Nineteenth 
 Century and elsewhere, and were always suggestive. 
 As the years went on, and ill-health increased, the 
 profound melancholy which is in most true humourists 
 
 281
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 developed itself very strongly. I think the first 
 explicit declaration of this appeared in the Nineteenth 
 Century in 1879, in a paper called The Midway Inn, 
 where he said that the desire to be out of it all in- 
 creased till old age is no longer looked forward to; 
 that there the attractions of the place are dying out 
 like those of Bath and Cheltenham. The middle- 
 aged are so weary, that if the choice were in their 
 hands, and affected only themselves, they would 
 rather avoid long life. 
 
 This mood grew with him, and found poignant 
 expression in a paper called The Backwater of Life. 
 It began very early, and I will quote the poem which 
 in his story is used to prove insanity as proof of this. 
 It is really one of the most characteristic things the 
 author ever wrote: 
 
 " When the doors have closed behind us, and the voices died 
 
 away, 
 Do the singers cease their singing, and the children end their 
 
 play? 
 Do the words of wisdom well no more through the calm 
 
 lips of age? 
 Are the fountains dried whence the young draw hopes too 
 
 deep for the faith of the sage? 
 And, like the flower that closes up when the east begins to 
 
 glow, 
 Doth the maiden's beauty fade from off her tender cheek 
 
 and brow? 
 
 Are they all but subtle spirits changing into those and these, 
 To vex us with a feigned sorrow, or to mock us while they 
 
 please ? 
 All this world a scene phantasmal, shifting aye to something 
 
 strange, 
 
 283
 
 JAMES PAYN 
 
 Such as, if but disenchanted, one might mark in act to 
 
 change. 
 
 See the unembodied beings that we hold of our own kind, 
 Friend and foe, and kin and lover, each a help to make us 
 
 blind, 
 
 Set to watch our lonely hours, ambushing about our path, 
 That our eyes may never open till their lids are closed in 
 
 death ; 
 And when so closed, will these things be as though we had 
 
 ne'er been born, 
 And e'en without those tears which are dried swift as the 
 
 dews by the morn, 
 That makes us feel these fancies more, so strange doth it 
 
 appear, 
 How the memory of a dead man dies with those he held 
 
 most dear, 
 As though there was an end, with life, of the mockery that 
 
 beguiles, 
 Our every act, tricks out our woes, and cheats us of our 
 
 smiles, 
 And makes to love, and scorn, and hate, and parts and 
 
 reconciles." 
 
 283
 
 DR. GEORGE MACDONALD 
 (Published September 21, 1905) 
 
 DR. GEORGE MACDONALD died on September 18th at 
 his son's residence near Ashstead, Surrey. He was 
 nearly eighty-one years of age. For a considerable 
 time his mind has been darkened. He was almost al- 
 ways silent, and his memory was gone, but he was 
 apparently peaceful and free from pain, and he had 
 the watchful and devoted tending of his children. 
 It is no matter for tears, but rather for songs of 
 praise, that his beautiful spirit has passed from 
 moonlight and dreamlight and darkness into full and 
 everlasting daylight. The prayer of his youth has 
 been answered at last 
 
 " God give us heaven. Remember our poor hearts. 
 We never grasp the zenith of the time; 
 We find no spring except in winter prayers." 
 
 I 
 
 George Macdonald was born at Huntly, Aberdeen- 
 shire, in 1824. His grandfather, Charles Edward 
 Macdonald, was born just before the battle of Cul- 
 loden, and was named after the Pretender, whom his 
 family ardently followed. They took refuge after
 
 DR. GEORGE MACDONALD 
 
 the fight in Portsoy, and hid for months in caves on 
 the seacoast. They were descended from fugitives 
 who escaped the massacre of Glencoe. Charles Ed- 
 ward Macdonald was educated at the famous Fordyce 
 school, and married Isabella Robertson of Huntly, 
 whom her grandson afterwards made immortal as 
 Mrs. Falconer. He took up the bleaching business, 
 and was also agent of the Aberdeen Bank at a salary 
 of 20. Isabella Robertson was brought up in an 
 atmosphere considered severe even at that time. She 
 was allowed to learn reading, but writing was forbid- 
 den, " for fear she should write to the lads." At the 
 time of her marriage the young couple attended the 
 Parish Church, which was allowed to remain in an 
 extraordinarily neglected condition. One day the 
 snow lay in the church some inches deep, and Mrs. 
 Macdonald was so incensed that she went to the 
 church of Mr. George Cowie, who was expelled from 
 the Secession for allowing the Haldanes to preach for 
 him, and became perforce an Independent minister, 
 the minister of the " Missionar Kirk " which sent 
 forth so many preachers and teachers. Her hus- 
 band, however, remained in the Parish Church to the 
 last. George Macdonald's father, who was a very 
 handsome man, was full of deep religious feeling, 
 and attached himself to the Congregationalists in 
 Huntly. He engaged in various manufactures flax 
 linen, potato starch, meal according to the exigen- 
 cies of the times. He lived till 1858, and died when 
 he was sixty-six. There are many stories told of his 
 
 285
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 coolness, his courage, and his kindness. George 
 Macdonald's mother was Helen Mackay, from Banff. 
 She was married in 1822, and died some ten years 
 after, leaving five sons, of whom George was the 
 second. Her husband married in 1839 Miss Mac- 
 Coll, the daughter of an Episcopalian clergyman, who 
 has lived to be a centenarian. She proved an ideal 
 stepmother, a mighty blessing to all the children as 
 well as to her husband. George Macdonald was very 
 happy at home, and warmly attached both to his 
 father and to his mother. His poem " A Hidden 
 Life," is tenderly dedicated to his father in some lines 
 which declare that it was his father's life that taught 
 him that " fatherhood is at the great world's core." 
 But perhaps the strongest influence of George Mac- 
 donald's early years was his grandmother. 
 
 In Huntly and the neighbourhood, there was for 
 many years a general indifference to religion. So 
 great was the apathy that the region was known as 
 the "Dead Sea." It was Mr. Cowie, who must by 
 no means be confounded with Mr. Cowie in Macdon- 
 ald's novel, who broke the trance. His ministry was 
 an apostolate. He established Sunday schools ; all 
 round congregations and ministers sprang up, spir- 
 itual life strengthened, and the power of religion 
 steadily waxed. George Macdonald's minister was 
 the Rev. John Hill, of whom all that need be said is 
 that he was a worthy successor to Mr. Cowie. George 
 Macdonald's brother a man even more gifted than 
 himself John Hill Macdonald, was named after the 
 
 286
 
 DR. GEORGE MACDONALD 
 
 preacher. George Macdonald's childhood and youth 
 were spent at The Farm, near Huntly. In childhood 
 he was very delicate, but as he passed into his 'teens 
 he grew stronger. He never took much interest in 
 the sports and games of childhood, but was always a 
 diligent reader. The religious atmosphere in his 
 father's house was all-pervading. There was worship 
 morning and evening. In the chapel there were three 
 services every Sunday in summer, and two in the win- 
 ter. There were also prayer meetings during the 
 week. A strict censorship was exercised over books, 
 but the Pilgrim's Progress and Robinson Crusoe were 
 permitted. When George was eleven he was found 
 by his father reading one of the Waverley novels, 
 and severely reprimanded. The book was taken from 
 him, but later his father acknowledged the mistake. 
 By and by he went to study at King's College, Aber- 
 deen, where he gained a bursary of 15 a year. He 
 had no experience of the hardness which was familiar 
 to so many of his contemporaries. His physical wants 
 were fully provided for, and his college years were 
 happy. He does not seem to have distinguished him- 
 self, though I have heard that he obtained a prize for 
 chemistry. Among his companions at college was 
 the late Sir W. D. Geddes, who came to be Principal 
 of the University. It was remembered by his contem- 
 poraries that the boy, who was a very good-looking 
 lad, was particularly careful about his dress, and 
 inclined to be vain of his appearance. He was very 
 amiable, however, and a general favourite. 
 
 287
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 II 
 
 In 1845 he went to London as tutor in a gentle- 
 man's family, and there is much reason to believe that 
 this was a formative period in his life. He went to 
 Highbury College and studied for the Congregational 
 ministry, managing somehow to get a fairly good 
 knowledge of German among other things in the 
 course of his curriculum. In 1850 he settled as pas- 
 tor of the little Congregational chapel in Arundel. 
 He was in very delicate health, and puzzled a simple- 
 minded congregation with his mystical sermons. It 
 is easy to understand this. The young preacher 
 forgot 
 
 "That stars beyond a certain height 
 Give mortals neither heat nor light." 
 
 But he was much appreciated in his Bible class, for 
 which he used to write poems. Some of these I have 
 read. They show that he had already made good 
 advance in his semi-mystical studies, and was familiar 
 with Novalis and Jean Paul. While at Arundel in 
 1851, he made his happy marriage to Miss Powell, 
 the daughter of Mr. Powell, of The Limes, Upper 
 Clapton. Miss Powell was slightly older than he, 
 and pre-deceased him by a few years. There were 
 born to them eleven children, and of that household 
 there are many who have sacred memories. The con- 
 nection between George Macdonald and the Arundel 
 Congregationalists terminated naturally and without 
 resentment on Macdonald's part. 
 
 288
 
 DR. GEORGE MACDONALD 
 
 III 
 
 There followed a somewhat obscure period. When 
 Macdonald left Arundel, he preached for a time in 
 Manchester, where he became intimate with A. J. 
 Scott, whom to the last day of his conscious life he 
 maintained to be the greatest man he ever knew. 
 Scott lives upon the testimony of those who knew him, 
 though there are broken lights in his volume of 
 discourses. How Macdonald's preaching sped at 
 Manchester I do not very well know. There are 
 those living who can testify their obligation to the 
 preacher. He was for a time minister of a church 
 in Bolton composed mostly of working men. They 
 were devoted to him, and only his ill-health drove 
 him from them. In a letter dated Manchester, 
 January 2, 1856, he said: "It will be some time 
 before I am able to work again. We are going to 
 Devonshire, or somewhere in the south, for a while. 
 My congregation at Bolton is willing to 
 wait any time for me, in the hope that I shall be able 
 to resume my work amongst them." In the same 
 letter he speaks of "the generosity of my congrega- 
 tion at Bolton." Ultimately he drifted inevitably to 
 London and to literature. A preacher he remained 
 all his life, but he was not called to the regular minis- 
 try. He became what he called a lay member of the 
 Church of England, but of course his sermons were 
 preached from Nonconformist pulpits, which were 
 most hospitably thrown open to him. Never was 
 
 289
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 Ihere a man who more delighted in preaching. To 
 quote his own words : " Thoughts began to burn in 
 me and words to come unbidden, till sometimes I had 
 almost to restrain myself from rising in the pew 
 where I was seated, ascending the pulpit stairs, and 
 requesting the man who had nothing to say to walk 
 down and allow me who had something to say to take 
 his place." As early as 1853 he wrote about Brown- 
 ing's Christmas Eve. He reviewed some of Lynch's 
 early writings. There were at that time a few Non- 
 conformist periodicals of Liberal tendencies, the 
 Nonconformist, the Eclectic Review, and later on the 
 Christian Spectator. But he had not yet found him- 
 self in prose. He was still a poet, and the first an- 
 nouncement to the world of his real genius was in 
 his dramatic book, Within and Without, which ap- 
 peared in 1856, and was followed by Poems in 1857. 
 These books were full of unquestionable genius and 
 profound religious feeling. The author was recog- 
 nised by discerning minds as a poet. His form was 
 imperfect, and conscious of this he was always trying 
 to alter it. But he had more much more than 
 the poetic temperament, and although obviously 
 strongly influenced by his favourite writers, espe- 
 cially perhaps by Spencer, George Herbert, and 
 Wordsworth, his own strong personality, the secret 
 of the individual nature, was behind all. These 
 books brought him many friendships which proved 
 of priceless value in after years. Among them was 
 Lady Byron one of the most enigmatic personalities 
 
 290
 
 DR. GEORGE MACDONALD 
 
 of the nineteenth century. Lady Byron was in a 
 sense the mainspring of the liberal theological move- 
 ment of the fifties. It was she who found funds for 
 the National Review, so brilliantly conducted by 
 R. H. Hutton. She was the most intimate friend of 
 F. W. Robertson. Strange to say, we know very little 
 of her. The biography which her friend A. J. Ross 
 of Brighton wrote was cancelled, and it has been 
 hinted not obscurely that she was capricious and 
 difficult. But to George Macdonald she was the most 
 steadfast of friends, and he dedicated to her memory 
 his first novel, "with a love stronger than death." 
 Another friend the books brought him was Mrs. 
 Russell Gurney, whose letters were published some 
 years ago. This friendship also lasted. I do not 
 know whether it was at this time that Macdonald 
 came to know the Cowper Temples, but he became 
 soon after closely associated with them and their 
 circle, and was a familiar and favourite speaker at 
 the Broadlands Conference. 
 
 Lady Byron's kindness seems to have absolved him 
 from the drudgery of teaching. He had given les- 
 sons at ladies' schools, and among these favoured in- 
 stitutions was the school of Mrs. Ellis, at Hoddesdon. 
 It was about this time that he came under the direct 
 influence of Maurice, but as we shall see there were 
 great differences between the two, and Macdonald 
 had a Scottish independence of mind which prevented 
 him calling many his masters. 
 
 The poems, however, made no impression on the 
 291
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 popular mind, and very few were sold. A step in 
 advance was taken when in 1858 he published Phan- 
 tasies: a Faerie Romance, the first of many similar 
 books, the most notable of which was perhaps The 
 Portent, published in 1864. Macdonald's Celtic blood 
 came out in these volumes. The last gleams of 
 Highland superstition and mysticism linger in these 
 stories " stories of witchcraft and second sight, and 
 the wheeling and marshalling of ghostly armies on 
 the moors when their tarns glimmered white in the 
 moonlight." Macdonald dealt very skilfully with 
 the supernatural, more skilfully, I venture to think, 
 even than Mrs. Oliphant. But Phantasies was not 
 the best of his books, though it is full of beautiful 
 passages. He was not a mystic of the first order, 
 but certainly he was a mystic in the sense that he 
 believed and apprehended the symbolism of nature, 
 and also to some extent the symbolism of Scripture. 
 
 IV 
 
 The emergence into fame took place in 1862, with 
 the publication of David Elginbrod. Mrs. Oliphant 
 wrote to Mr. John Blackwood in 1863 : " It was at 
 my urgent recommendation (having read the MS. 
 and made such humble suggestions towards its im- 
 provement as my knowledge of the literary suscepti- 
 bility made possible) that Mr. Blackett published it, 
 and the author is not only a man of genius, but a man 
 burdened with ever so many children, and what 
 
 292
 
 DR. GEORGE MACDONALD 
 
 is perhaps worse, a troublesome conscientiousness." 
 Mrs. Oliphant earnestly pleaded with the editor of 
 Blackwood that he should insert an article on David 
 Elginbrod, but apparently she failed. She managed, 
 however, to get in part of a sentence " a rare and 
 chance work of genius, which is only in form a novel 
 such as the wonderful book, full of all manner of 
 poetic instinct and tender wisdom, called David 
 Elgiribrod, which neither our space nor purpose at 
 present permits us to enter on." The book made way, 
 and it is on three novels dealing with his native 
 region, David Elginbrod, Alec Forbes, and Robert 
 Falconer, that George Macdonald's fame will depend. 
 In these he delivers all his message, and is in every 
 way at his highest. 
 
 The novels were sermons by a preacher who was 
 almost consumed with the intensity of his message. 
 They were polemical, a protest against Calvinism, 
 and especially against the dogma of eternal punish- 
 ment. They were fiercely positive in their preaching 
 that God is love, that God is Father. They de- 
 nounced the formulation of dogma. They were full 
 of faith in the ultimate and complete victory of the 
 light. The story was subordinate, and yet it was 
 true and absorbing. The impression these books 
 made on many young minds could never be exagger- 
 ated. How wonderful it was to see the young genius 
 come forth to the fight against the time-honoured 
 dogmas with his dazzling spear of youthful scorn 
 and beautiful indignation ! The diamond point of 
 
 293
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 his virgin weapons, the figure of the preacher all 
 glowing and poetic in a region of ultra prose these 
 were enough to fascinate youth, and the heart was 
 cold that did not fall in love with his generous and 
 tender dreams. I say the books were constructive. 
 They were altogether noble in their tone and feeling. 
 No one could lay them down without thrilling to the 
 thought that truth and goodness and God are alone 
 worth living for. Even though it might be impossible 
 to accept their full teaching, they throbbed with a 
 spiritual life which could not but communicate itself. 
 They are books of the true prophetic quality, and 
 ought not to be forgotten. 
 
 Many of the characters were drawn from Huntly 
 people. Thus Thomas Crann, the stonemason, was 
 James Maitland, the strenuous supporter of Mr. 
 Cowie in his struggle against the intolerance of the 
 Secession. Murdoch Malison was also a real char- 
 acter. His real name was Colin Stewart. He be- 
 longed to Ross-shire, and was a licentiate of the 
 Church of Scotland. His schoolroom was an old 
 handloom weaver's shed, situated where the Huntly 
 Free Church now stands. He had a firm faith in 
 the teaching power of the tawse, and the value of 
 its use was much believed in by the parents of the 
 children. I have been told on high authority that 
 he imprisoned on a fine Saturday, nineteen boys for 
 failing in the Shorter Catechism. He forgot to 
 let them out, but they escaped by the window. On 
 Monday, he flogged them all till the strap was cov- 
 
 294
 
 DR. GEORGE MACDONALD 
 
 ered with blood so covered that he had to send it 
 out to be washed. The boy whom he sent on this 
 errand was James Spence, afterwards the Rev. Dr. 
 Spence of the Poultry Chapel, London. Stewart 
 ultimately settled in New South Wales, and oddly 
 enough he married in Australia an old aunt of the 
 author of Alec Forbes. But in the best of all Mac- 
 donald's books, Robert Falconer, we have the largest 
 autobiographical element. That fine character, Mrs. 
 Falconer, in whom we see the grander type of char- 
 acter which Calvinism has produced in Scotland, a 
 character in which a flame of true religion burned 
 under a thick and hard crust, was his own grand- 
 mother, upright, just, severe, and yet at heart lov- 
 ing, with nothing mean about her. The boy's soul 
 and hers came into contact, and he saw her when 
 he wrote Robert Falconer in the tender light of holy 
 memories. The story of Shargar is based on fact. 
 The grandmother took charge of the family of a 
 woman who was begging, hoping to save them from 
 utter ruin. Two of them went abroad, the third re- 
 mained at home and made a fortune, living till 1898. 
 Mrs. Falconer believed that all merriment came from 
 the devil himself. The fiddle, about which so much 
 is said in this novel, was in reality her own husband's, 
 and after his death in 1819 was actually burned 
 by her that she might save her own sons from per- 
 forming on it. Her antagonism to Roman Catholi- 
 cism was extreme, although it did not extend to 
 individuals. One of her grandsons used to tell of a 
 
 295.
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 visit which he paid to her shortly before her death. 
 She was sitting up in bed reading the large type of 
 a newspaper article, although ninety-two years of 
 age. It was in the year 1848, the year when many 
 European thrones were shaken. She was deeply in- 
 terested about the Pope. Addressing her grandson, 
 she said, " Laddie, the papers say that amo' a' the 
 changes takin* place i' the warld, they have gotten 
 a gweed Pope at Rome, and I have been prayin' to 
 the Lord a' nicht that he wud gie him a new heart 
 and a gweed wife." Eric Ericson is suggested at 
 least by the writer's brother, John Hill Macdonald, 
 who died in 1858. The poems which are strikingly 
 beautiful, are entirely his. He went to Russia, as 
 tutor in the family of the Chaplain to the British 
 Embassy in Moscow, just before the Crimean war, 
 remaining there till near its close, when, after a 
 short stay in Germany, he returned home. The 
 cold of the Russian climate, however, left its marks 
 upon him, and consumption carried him off. George 
 Macdonald always delighted to say that his brother 
 was a greater and more original genius than himself. 
 
 The remaining events in George Macdonald's life 
 are comparatively well known. He had a period of 
 great prosperity when he was working with Mr. 
 Strahan, the publisher. In Good Words, Good 
 Words for the Young, the Argosy, and the Sunday 
 Magazine, much of his work appeared, and was 
 
 296
 
 DR. GEORGE MACDONALD 
 
 highly paid for. He worked very diligently, pub- 
 lishing novels, dramas, poems, and stories for chil- 
 dren. Macdonald lived in his most prosperous time 
 at The Retreat, Hammersmith, where he exercised 
 a generous hospitality. Ultimately he found it 
 necessary to live abroad during the winter. At first 
 he stayed at Nervi, near Genoa, but he soon acquired 
 his home at Bordighera. This came to be the centre 
 of the place for all visitors, and no one who was ever 
 there will forget his experience. Macdonald was 
 the most generous of givers time, money, thought, 
 and care were lavishly spent. He preached and lec- 
 tured constantly to the visitors, and all were wel- 
 come. In the summer months, he came to this 
 country and preached and lectured so long as he had 
 strength. Few authors were more familiar person- 
 ally to the public, and his grand prophetic figure, 
 his great hope in God, his burning zeal, and his beau- 
 tiful diction made him one of the most charming and 
 acceptable of preachers. 
 
 This is not the place in which to discuss his mes- 
 sage. In a sense it is true that he preached the 
 love of God to a generation that needed the word, 
 but as time went on and thoughts changed, he found 
 his true sphere as the great prophet of immortality. 
 Dogmatic universalism has necessarily failed to 
 commend itself to the modern mind. Men hesitate 
 to say how long and how far the choice of evil will 
 persist. They may hope, but that is all. Whether 
 the Tree is to be penetrated with life to its remotest 
 
 297
 
 THE KEY OF THE BLUE CLOSET 
 
 branch when it is thrown out into its final blossom- 
 ing of holiness and joy, they cannot tell. There is 
 that in life and there is that in revelation which for- 
 bids assurance. But the prophet of immortality in 
 a world of death has a high function. It is con- 
 fusing and misleading to associate Macdonald with 
 Maurice and with Robertson. They had many 
 points of contact, but there were deep differences. 
 Neither Maurice nor Robertson could be called the 
 prophet of immortality. The truest thing perhaps 
 ever said about Maurice was that he touched the 
 concrete as a bird dips its wing into the water. 
 Macdonald on the contrary was intensely interested 
 in life. Miss Wedgwood, one of Maurice's most 
 intimate friends, has said that she cannot recall 
 another religious teacher who so consistently refused 
 to contemplate the world beyond the grave. So 
 much was this the case, that we learn from his 
 Memoir that it was even possible for honest readers 
 to doubt of his belief in a future life. As for 
 Robertson, he scarcely believed in the recognition 
 of friends in eternity. Macdonald, on the contrary, 
 was vehemently persuaded of the sanctity and per- 
 manence of love, and to him a heaven was a home 
 heaven. Only those who have read his books 
 through can understand the strong invigorating 
 note of faith which runs through them. And all of 
 them are in unison with the first chords he struck. 
 Now that he has gone, I recall some words of his 
 written in a letter of 1877 : " Sometimes one is 
 
 298
 
 DR. GEORGE MACDONALD 
 
 tempted to say, ' Would it were all over, and we were 
 altogether in the great thought-room beyond. How 
 one is tethered by the heavy chain of gravitation! 
 But I do not say it. Let me be just as He wills, for 
 His will is my will. Until we are ripe, it is not good 
 we should drop ; then we shall hang no longer.' ' 
 
 THE END 
 
 299
 
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