THE WORKS OF 
 
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 THE LIBRARY 
 
 OF 
 
 THE UNIVERSITY 
 OF CALIFORNIA 
 
 LOS ANGELES 
 
 GIFT OF 
 
 FREDERIC THOMAS BLANCHARD 
 
 FOR THE 
 ENGLISH READING ROOM
 
 ^
 
 PORTRAIT OF THOMAS CARLYLE 
 
 By J. A. McNeil Whistler 
 
 Purchased by the City of Glasgow, and now in 
 the Municipal Gallery 
 
 "Alton Locke" was refused by Kingsley's 
 publisher it was probably the intervention of 
 Thomas Carlyle that caused it to be published 
 by Chapman & Hall. "Saunders Mackaye, my 
 invaluable countryman in this book, is nearly 
 perfect," said Carlyle, when he first read the 
 story. Kingsley's son, Maurice, tells us that 
 his father had Carlyle in mind when drawing 
 the portrait of Sandy. 
 
 " 'Sandy, my lad,' my father used to say, 
 'a man kens just as much as he's taught 
 himsel', and na mair. So get wisdom; and wi' 
 all your getting, get understanding.' " 
 
 "Alton Locke," 
 Vol. I. f. r?4
 
 c o 
 
 THE BIDEFORD EDITION 
 
 M 
 
 
 NOVELS, POEMS &> LETTERS 
 OF CHARLES KINGSLEY 
 
 
 
 Alton Locke 
 
 
 
 VOLUME I 
 
 
 
 BY CHARLES [KINGSLEY 
 
 
 
 WITH A PREFATORY MEMOIR 
 BY THOMAS HUGHES 
 
 
 
 ILLUSTRATED 
 
 
 
 NEW YORK AND LONDON 
 
 THE CO-OPERATIVE 
 PUBLICATION SOCIETY 
 
 
 
 
 ' vw ( 
 
 
 M 

 
 Copyright, 1898 
 BY J. F. TAYLOR & COMPANY 
 
 Alton Locke 
 Volume I.
 
 THE NOVELS 
 
 AND POEMS OF 
 
 CHARLES KINGSLEY 
 
 Vol. Ill 1
 
 PREFATORY MEMOIR * 
 
 CHEAP CLOTHES AND NASTY 69 
 
 PREFACE TO THE UNDERGRADUATES OF CAMBRIDGE . 101 
 
 PREFACE TO THE WORKINGMEN OF GREAT BRITAIN . 123 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 I. A POET'S CHILDHOOD 131 
 
 II. THE TAILOR'S WORKROOM 153 
 
 III. SANDY MACKAYE 173 
 
 IV. TAILORS AND SOLDIERS 184 
 
 V. THE SCEPTIC'S MOTHER .......... 200 
 
 VI. THE DULWICH GALLERY 213 
 
 VII. FIRST LOVE 232 
 
 VIII. LIGHT IN A DARK PLACE 245 
 
 IX. POETRY AND POETS 259 
 
 X. How FOLKS TURN CHARTISTS 268 
 
 XL "THE YARD WHERE THE GENTLEMEN LIVE" . . 288 
 
 XII. CAMBRIDGE 301 
 
 XIII. THE LOST IDOL FOUND . . . 315
 
 ALTON LOCKE
 
 PREFATORY MEMOIR 
 
 THE tract appended to this preface has been 
 chosen to accompany this reprint of " Alton 
 Locke " in order to illustrate, from another side, a 
 distinct period in the life of Charles Kingsley, 
 which stands out very much by itself. It may be 
 taken roughly to have extended from 1848 to 1856. 
 It has been thought that they require a preface, 
 and I have undertaken to write it, as one of the 
 few survivors of those who were most intimately 
 associated with the author at the time to which the 
 works refer. 
 
 No easy task ; for, look at them from what point 
 we will, these years must be allowed to cover an 
 anxious and critical time in modern English his- 
 tory, but, above all, in the history of the working 
 classes. In the first of them the Chartist ag : tation 
 came to a head and burst, and was followed by 
 the great movement towards association, which, 
 developing in two directions and by two distinct 
 methods represented respectively by the amal- 
 gamated trades unions, and co-operative soci- 
 eties has in the intervening years entirely 
 changed the conditions of the labor question in 
 England, and the relations of the working to the 
 upper and middle classes. It is with this, the 
 social and industrial side of the history of those
 
 2 Prefatory Memoir 
 
 years, that we are mainly concerned here. Charles 
 Kingsley has left other and more important writ- 
 ings of those years. But these are beside our 
 purpose, which is to give some such slight sketch 
 of him as may be possible within the limits of a 
 preface, in the character in which he was first 
 widely known, as the most outspoken and power- 
 ful of those who took the side of the laboring 
 classes at a critical time the crisis, in a word, 
 when they abandoned their old political weapons, 
 for the more potent one of union and association, 
 which has since carried them so far. 
 
 To no one of all those to whom his memory is 
 very dear can this seem a superfluous task, for no 
 writer was ever more misunderstood or better 
 abused at the time, and after the lapse of almost a 
 quarter of a century the misunderstanding would 
 seem still to hold its ground. For through all the 
 many notices of him which appeared after his death 
 in last January [1875], there ran the same apolo- 
 getic tone as to this part of his life's work. While 
 generally, and as a rule cordially, recognizing his 
 merits as an author, and a man, the writers seemed 
 to agree in passing lightly over this ground. 
 When it was touched it was in a tone of apology, 
 sometimes tinged with sarcasm, as in the curt notice 
 5n the " Times " " He was understood to be the 
 Parson Lot of those ' Politics for the People ' which 
 made no little noise in their time, and as Parson 
 Lot he declared in burning language that to his 
 mind the fault in the ' People's Charter ' was that 
 it did not go nearly far enough." And so the 
 writer turns away, as do most of his brethren, leav- 
 ing probably some such impression as this on the 
 minds of most of their readers " Young men of
 
 Prefatory Memoir 3 
 
 power and genius are apt to start with wild notions. 
 He was no exception. Parson Lot's sayings and 
 doings may well be pardoned for what Charles 
 Kingsley said and did in after years ; so let us drop 
 a decent curtain over them, and pass on." 
 
 Now, as very nearly a generation has passed 
 since that signature used to appear at the foot of 
 some of the most noble and vigorous writing of 
 our time, readers of to-day are not unlikely to ac- 
 cept this view, and so to find further confirmation 
 and encouragement in the example of Parson Lot 
 for the mischievous and cowardly distrust of any- 
 thing like enthusiasm amongst young men, already 
 sadly too prevalent in England. If it were only 
 as a protest against this " surtout point de zele " 
 spirit, against which it was one of Charles Kings- 
 ley's chief tasks to fight with all his strength, it is 
 well* that the facts should be set right. This done, 
 readers may safely be left to judge what need there 
 is for the apologetic tone in connection with the 
 name, the sayings, and doings of Parson Lot 
 
 My first meeting with him was in the autumn of 
 1848, at the house of Mr. Maurice, who had lately 
 been appointed Reader of Lincoln's Inn. No paro- 
 chial work is attached to that post, so Mr. Maurice 
 had undertaken the charge of a small district in 
 the parish in which he lived, and had set a number 
 of young men, chiefly students of the Inns of Court 
 who had been attracted by his teaching, to work 
 in it. Once a week, on Monday evenings, they 
 used to meet at his house for tea, when their own 
 work was reported upon and talked over. Sugges- 
 tions were made and plans considered ; and after- 
 wards a chapter of the Bible was read and discussed. 
 Friends and old pupils of Mr. Maurice's, residing
 
 4 Prefatory Memoir 
 
 in the country, or in distant parts of London, were 
 in the habit of coming occasionally to these meet- 
 ings, amongst whom was Charles Kingsley. He 
 had been recently appointed Rector of Eversley, 
 and was already well known as the author of " The 
 Saint's Tragedy," his first work, which contained 
 the germ of much that he did afterwards. 
 
 His poem, and the high regard and admiration 
 which Mr. Maurice had for him, made him a nota- 
 ble figure in that small society, and his presence 
 was always eagerly looked for. What impressed 
 me most about him when we first met was, his 
 affectionate deference to Mr. Maurice, and the vigor 
 and incisiveness of everything he said and did. He 
 had the power of cutting out what he meant in a 
 few clear words, beyond any one I have ever met. 
 The next thing that struck one was the ease with 
 which he could turn from playfulness, or even 
 broad humor, to the deepest earnest At first I 
 think this startled most persons, until they came 
 to find out the real deep nature of the man ; and 
 that his broadest humor had its root in a faith 
 which realized, with extraordinary vividness, the 
 fact that God's Spirit is actively abroad in the 
 world, and that Christ is in every man, and made 
 him hold fast, even in his saddest moments, and 
 sad moments were not infrequent with him, the 
 assurance that, in spite of all appearances, the 
 world was going right, and would go right some- 
 how, " Not your way, or my way, but God's way." 
 The contrast of his humility and audacity, of his 
 distrust in himself and confidence in himself, was 
 one of those puzzles which meet us daily in this 
 world of paradox. But both qualities gave him a 
 peculiar power for the work he had to do at that
 
 Prefatory Memoir 5 
 
 time, with which the name of Parson Lot is 
 associated. 
 
 It was at one of these gatherings, towards the 
 end of 1847 or early in 1848, when Kingsley found 
 himself in a minority of one, that he said jokingly, 
 he felt much as Lot must have felt in the Cities of 
 the Plain, when he seemed as one that mocked to 
 his sons-in-law. The name Parson Lot was then and 
 there suggested, and adopted by him, as a familiar 
 now de plume. He used it from 1848 up to 1856; 
 at first constantly, latterly much more rarely. But 
 the name was chiefly made famous by his writings 
 in " Politics for the People," the " Christian Social- 
 ist," and the "Journal of Association," three period- 
 icals which covered the years from '48 to '52; by 
 " Alton Locke ; " and by tracts and pamphlets, of 
 which the best known, " Cheap Clothes and Nasty," 
 is now republished. 
 
 In order to understand and judge the sayings 
 and writings of Parson Lot fairly, it is necessary to 
 recall the condition of the England of that day. 
 Through the winter of 1847-8, amidst widespread 
 distress, the cloud of discontent, of which Chartism 
 was the most violent symptom, had been growing 
 darker and more menacing, while Ireland was only 
 held down by main force. The breaking out of 
 the revolution on the Continent in February in- 
 creased the danger. In March there were riots in 
 London, Glasgow, Edinburgh, Liverpool, and other 
 large towns. On April 7th, the " Crown and 
 Government Security Bill," commonly called " the 
 gagging act," was introduced by the Government, 
 {he first reading carried by 265 to 24, and the 
 second a few days later by 452 to 35. On the 
 loth of April the Government had to fill London
 
 6 Prefatory Memoir 
 
 with troops, and put the Duke of Wellington in 
 command, who barricaded the bridges and Down- 
 ing Street, garrisoned the Bank and other public 
 buildings, and closed the Horse Guards. 
 
 When the momentary crisis had passed, the old 
 soldier declared in the House of Lords that " no 
 great society had ever suffered as London had 
 during the preceding days," while the Home 
 Secretary telegraphed to all the chief magistrates 
 of the kingdom the joyful news that the peace had 
 been kept in London. In April, the Lord Chan- 
 cellor, in introducing the Crown and Government 
 Security Bill in the House of Lords, referred to 
 the fact that " meetings were daily held, not only 
 in London, but in most of the manufacturing 
 towns, the avowed object of which was to array 
 the people against the constituted authority of 
 these realms." For months afterwards the Char- 
 tist movement, though plainly subsiding, kept the 
 Government in constant anxiety; and again in 
 June, the Bank, the Mint, the Custom House, and 
 other public offices were filled with troops, and 
 the Houses of Parliament were not only garrisoned 
 but provisioned as if for a siege. 
 
 From that time, all fear of serious danger passed 
 away. The Chartists were completely discouraged, 
 and their leaders in prison; and the upper and 
 middle classes were recovering rapidly from the 
 alarm which had converted a million of them into 
 special constables, and were beginning to doubt 
 whether the crisis had been so serious after all, 
 whether the disaffection had ever been more than 
 skin deep. At this juncture a series of articles 
 appeared in the " Morning Chronicle " on " Lon- 
 don Labor and the London Poor," which startled
 
 Prefatory Memoir 7 
 
 the well-to-do classes out of their jubilant and 
 scornful attitude, and disclosed a state of things 
 which made all fair-minded people wonder, not 
 that there had been violent speaking and some 
 rioting, but that the metropolis had escaped the 
 scenes which had lately been enacted in Paris, 
 Vienna, Berlin, and other Continental capitals. 
 
 It is only by an effort that one can now realize 
 the strain to which the nation was subjected dur- 
 ing that winter and spring, and which, of course, 
 tried every individual man also, according to the 
 depth and earnestness of his political and social 
 convictions and sympathies. The group of men 
 who were working under Mr. Maurice were no 
 exceptions to the rule. The work of teaching and 
 visiting was not indeed neglected, but the larger 
 questions which were being so strenuously mooted 
 the points of the people's charter, the right of 
 public meeting, the attitude of the laboring class * 
 to the other classes absorbed more and more 
 of their attention. Kingsley was very deeply 
 impressed with the gravity and danger of the 
 crisis more so, I think, than almost any of his 
 friends; probably because, as a country parson, 
 he was more directly in contact with one class of 
 the poor than any of them. How deeply he felt 
 for the agricultural poor, how faithfully he re- 
 flected the passionate and restless sadness of the 
 time, may be read in the pages of " Yeast," which 
 was then coming out in " Eraser." As the win- 
 ter months went on, this sadness increased, and 
 seriously affected his health. 
 
 " I have a longing," he wrote to Mr. Ludlow, 
 "to do something what, God only knows. You 
 say, ' he that believeth will not make haste,' but
 
 8 Prefatory Memoir 
 
 I think he that believeth must make haste, or get 
 damned with the rest. But I will do anything that 
 anybody likes I have no confidence in myself or 
 in anything but God. I am not great enough for 
 such times, alas ! ' nt pour faire des vers,' as Camille 
 Desmoulins said." 
 
 This longing became so strong, as the crisis in 
 April approached, that he came to London to see 
 what could be done, and to get help from Mr. 
 Maurice, and those whom he had been used to 
 meet at his house. He found them a divided body. 
 The majority were sworn in as special constables, and 
 several had openly sided with the Chartists ; while 
 he himself, with Mr. Maurice and Mr. Ludlow, was 
 unable to take active part with either side. The 
 following extract from a letter to his wife, written on 
 the pth of April, shows how he was employed 
 during these days, and how he found the work 
 which he was in search of, the first result of which 
 was the publication of " those ' Politics for the Peo- 
 ple ' which made no small noise in their times " 
 
 " April i ith, 1848. The events of a week have 
 been crowded into a few hours. I was up till four 
 this morning writing posting placards, under 
 Maurice's auspices, one of which is to be got out 
 to-morrow morning, the rest when we can get 
 money. Could you not beg a few sovereigns 
 somewhere to help these poor wretches to the 
 truest alms ! to words, texts from the Psalms, 
 anything which may keep even one man from 
 cutting his brother's throat to-morrow or Friday? 
 Pray, pray, help us. Maurice has given me a 
 highest proof of confidence. He has taken me 
 to counsel, and we are to have meetings for 
 prayer and study, when I come up to London/
 
 Prefatory Memoir 9 
 
 and we are to bring out a new set of real ' Tracts 
 for the Times,' addressed to the highest orders. 
 Maurice is d la hauteur des circonstances deter- 
 mined to make a decisive move. He says, if the 
 Oxford Tracts did wonders, why should not we? 
 Pray for us. A glorious future is opening, and 
 both Maurice and Ludlow seem to have driven 
 away all my doubts and sorrow, and I see the 
 blue sky again, and my Father's face ! " 
 
 The arrangements for the publication of" Politics 
 for the People " were soon made ; and in one of the 
 earliest numbers, for May, 1848, appeared the paper 
 which furnishes what ground there is for the state- 
 ment, already quotep!, that " he declared, in burning 
 language, that the People's Charter did not go far 
 enough." It was No. I of " Parson Lot's Letters 
 to the Chartists." Let us read it with its context. 
 
 " I am not one of those who laugh at your peti- 
 tion of the loth of April: I have no patience with 
 those who do. Suppose there were but 250,000 
 honest names on that sheet suppose the Charter 
 itself were all stuff yet you have still a right 
 to fair play, a patient hearing, an honorable and 
 courteous answer, whichever way it may be. But 
 my only quarrel with the Charter is that it does not 
 go far enough in reform. I want to see you free, 
 but I do not see that what you ask for will give 
 you what you want. I think you have fallen into 
 just the same mistake as the rich, of whom you 
 complain the very mistake which has been our 
 curse and our nightmare. I mean the mistake of 
 fancying that legislative reform is social reform, or 
 that men's hearts can be changed by Act of Parlia- 
 ment. If any one will tell me of a country where 
 a Charter made the rogues honest, or the idle in-
 
 io Prefatory Memoir 
 
 dustrious, I will alter my opinion of the Charter, 
 but not till then. It disappointed me bitterly when 
 I read it. It seemed a harmless cry enough, but a 
 poor bald constitution-mongering cry as ever I 
 heard. The French cry of ' organization of labor ' 
 is worth a thousand of it, but yet that does not 
 go to the bottom of the matter by many a mile." 
 And then, after telling how he went to buy a num- 
 ber of the Chartist newspaper, and found it in a 
 shop which sold " flash songsters," " the Swell's 
 Guide," and " dirty milksop French novels," and 
 that these publications, and a work called "The 
 Devil's Pulpit," were puffed in its columns, he goes 
 on: " These are strange times. I thought the devil 
 used to befriend tyrants and oppressors, but he 
 seems to have profited by Burns's advice to 'tak a 
 thought and mend.' I thought the struggling free- 
 man's watchword was : ' God sees my wrongs.' 
 ' He hath taken the matter into His own hands.' 
 ' The poor committeth himself unto Him, for He 
 is the helper of the friendless.' But now the devil 
 seems all at once to have turned philanthropist and 
 patriot, and to intend himself to fight the good 
 cause, against which he has been fighting ever 
 since Adam's time. I don't deny, my friends, it 
 is much cheaper and pleasanter to be reformed by 
 the devil than by God ; for God will only reform 
 society on the condition of our reforming every 
 man his own self while the devil is quite ready 
 to help us to mend the laws and the parliament, 
 earth and heaven, without ever starting such an 
 impertinent and ' personal ' request, as that a man 
 should mend himself. That liberty of the subject 
 he will always respect." " But I say honestly, 
 whomsoever I may offend, the more I have read
 
 Prefatory Memoir 1 1 
 
 of your convention speeches and newspaper arti- 
 cles, the more I am convinced that too many of 
 you are trying to do God's work with the devil's 
 tools. What is the use of brilliant language about 
 peace, and the majesty of order, and universal love, 
 though it may all be printed in letters a foot long, 
 when it runs in the same train with ferocity, rail- 
 ing, mad, one-eyed excitement, talking itself into 
 a passion like a street woman ? Do you fancy that 
 after a whole column spent in stirring men up to 
 fury, a few twaddling copybook headings about 
 ' the sacred duty of order ' will lay the storm again ? 
 What spirit is there but the devil's spirit in blood- 
 thirsty threats of revenge?" "I denounce the 
 weapons which you have been deluded into em- 
 ploying to gain you your rights, and the indecency 
 and profligacy which you are letting be mixed 
 up with them ! Will you strengthen and justify 
 your enemies? Will you disgust and cripple your 
 friends? Will you go out of your way to do 
 wrong? When you can be free by fair means, 
 will you- try foul? When you might keep the 
 name of Liberty as spotless as the Heaven from 
 which she comes, will you defile her with blas- 
 phemy, beastliness, and blood? When the cause 
 of the poor is the cause of Almighty God, will 
 you take it out of His hands to entrust it to the 
 devil? These are bitter questions, but as you 
 answer them so will you prosper." 
 
 In Letter II. he tells them that if they have fol- 
 lowed a different " Reformer's Guide " from his, it 
 is " mainly the fault of us parsons, who have never 
 told you that the true ' Reformer's Guide,' the true 
 poor man's book, the true ' Voice of God against 
 tyrants, idlers, and humbugs, was the Bible.' The
 
 12 Prefatory Memoir 
 
 Bible demands for the .poor as much, and more, 
 than they demand for themselves ; it expresses the 
 deepest yearnings of the poor man's heart far more 
 nobly, more searchingly, more daringly, more elo- 
 quently, than any modern orator has done. I say, 
 it gives a ray of hope say rather a certain dawn 
 of a glorious future, such as no universal suffrage, 
 free trade, communism, organization of labor, 
 or any other Morrison's-pill-measure can give 
 and yet of a future, which will embrace all that is 
 good in these a future of conscience, of justice, 
 of freedom, when idlers and oppressors shall no 
 more dare to plead parchments and Acts of Parlia- 
 ment for their iniquities. I say the Bible promises 
 this, not in a few places only, but throughout ; it 
 is the thought which runs through the whole Bible, 
 justice from God to those whom men oppress, glory 
 from God to those whom men despise. Does that 
 look like the invention of tyrants, and prelates? 
 You may sneer, but give me a fair hearing, and if 
 I do not prove my words, then call me the same 
 hard name which I shall call any man, who having 
 read the Bible, denies that it is the poor man's com- 
 fort and the rich man's warning." 
 
 In subsequent numbers (as afterwards in the 
 " Christian Socialist," and the "Journal of Associa- 
 tion ") he dwells in detail on the several popular 
 cries, such as, " a fair day's wage for a fair day's 
 work," illustrating them from the Bible, urging his 
 readers to take it as the true Radical Reformer's 
 Guide, if they were longing for the same thing as he 
 was longing for to see all humbug, idleness, in- 
 justice, swept out of England. His other contribu- 
 tions to these periodicals consisted of some of his 
 best short poems : " The Day of the Lord ; " " The
 
 Prefatory Memoir 1 3 
 
 Three Fishers ;" " Old and New," and others; of 
 a series of Letters on the Frimley murder; of a 
 short story called " The Nun's Pool," and of some 
 most charming articles on the pictures in the Na- 
 tional Gallery, and the collections in the British 
 Museum, intended to teach the English people how 
 to use and enjoy their own property. 
 
 I think I know every line which was ever pub- 
 lished under the signature Parson Lot ; and I take 
 it upon myself to say, that there is in all that 
 " burning language " nothing more revolutionary 
 than the extracts given above from his letters to 
 the Chartists. 
 
 But, it may be said, apart from his writings, did 
 not Parson Lot declare himself a Chartist in a pub- 
 lic meeting in London ; and did he not preach in a 
 London pulpit a political sermon, which brought 
 up the incumbent, who had invited him, to protest 
 from the altar against the doctrine which had just 
 been delivered? 
 
 Yes ! Both statements are true. Here are the 
 facts as to the speech, those as to the sermon I 
 will give in their place. In the early summer of 
 1848 some of those who felt with C. Kingsley that 
 the " People's Charter " had not had fair play or 
 courteous treatment, and that those who signed it 
 had real wrongs to complain of, put themselves into 
 communication with the leaders, and met and talked 
 with them. At last it seemed that the time was 
 come for some more public meeting, and one was 
 called at the Cranbourn Tavern, over which Mr. 
 Maurice presided. After the president's address 
 several very bitter speeches followed, and a vehe- 
 ment attack was specially directed against the 
 Church and the clergy. The meeting waxed
 
 14 Prefatory Memoir 
 
 warm, and seemed likely to come to no good, 
 when Kingsley rose, folded his arms across his 
 chest, threw his head back, and began with the 
 stammer which always came at first when he was 
 much moved, but which fixed every one's attention 
 at once "I am a Church of England parson " 
 a long pause "and a Chartist;" and then he 
 went on to explain how far he thought them right 
 in their claim for a reform of Parliament; how 
 deeply he sympathized with their sense of the in- 
 justice of the law as it affected them ; how ready he 
 was to help in all ways to get these things set right ; 
 and then to denounce their methods, in very much 
 the same terms as I have already quoted from his 
 letters to the Chartists. Probably no one who was 
 present ever heard a speech which told more at the 
 time. I had a singular proof that the effect did not 
 pass away. The most violent speaker on that oc- 
 casion was one of the staff of the leading Chartist 
 newspaper. I lost sight of him entirely for more 
 than twenty years, and saw him again, a little gray 
 shrivelled man, by Kingsley's side, at the grave of 
 Mr. Maurice, in the cemetery at Hampstead. 
 
 The experience of this meeting encouraged its 
 promoters to continue the series, which they did 
 with a success which surprised no one more than 
 themselves. Kingsley's opinion of them may be 
 gathered from the following extract from a letter 
 to his wife : 
 
 "June 4, 1848, Evening. A few words before 
 bed. I have just come home from the meeting. 
 No one spoke but working men, gentlemen I should 
 call them, in every sense of the term. Even / was 
 perfectly astonished by the courtesy, the reverence 
 to Maurice, who sat there like an Apollo, their elo-
 
 Prefatory Memoir 15 
 
 quence, the brilliant, nervous, well-chosen language, 
 the deep simple earnestness, the Tightness and mod- 
 eration of their thoughts. And these are the Chart- 
 ists, these are the men who are called fools and 
 knaves who are refused the rights which are 
 bestowed on every profligate fop. ... It is God's 
 cause, fear not He will be with us, and if He is 
 with us, who shall be against us ? " 
 
 But while he was rapidly winning the confidence 
 of the working classes, he was raising up a host of 
 more or less hostile critics in other quarters by his 
 writings in " Politics for the People," which journal 
 was in the midst of its brief and stormy career. At 
 the end of June, 1848, he writes to Mr. Ludlow, one 
 of the editors 
 
 " I fear my utterances have had a great deal to 
 do with the ' Polities' ' unpopularity. I have got 
 worse handled than any of you by poor and rich. 
 There is one comfort, that length of ears is in the 
 donkey species always compensated by toughness 
 of hide. But it is a pleasing prospect for me (if 
 you knew all that has been said and written about 
 Parson Lot), when I look forward and know that 
 my future explosions are likely to become more 
 and more obnoxious to the old gentlemen, who 
 stuff their ears with cotton, and then swear the 
 children are not screaming." 
 
 " Politics for the People " was discontinued for 
 want of funds; but its supporters, including all 
 those who were working under Mr. Maurice 
 who, however much they might differ in opinions, 
 were of one mind as to the danger of the time, and 
 the duty of every man to do his utmost to meet 
 that danger were bent upon making another 
 effort. In the autumn, Mr. Ludlow, and others of
 
 1 6 Prefatory Memoir 
 
 their number who spent the vacation abroad, came 
 back with accounts of the efforts at association 
 which were being made by the workpeople of 
 Paris. 
 
 The question of starting such associations in 
 England as the best means of fighting the slop 
 system which the " Chronicle " was showing to 
 lie at the root of the misery and distress which 
 bred Chartists was anxiously debated. It was 
 at last resolved to make the effort, and to identify 
 the new journal with the cause of Association, and 
 to publish a set of tracts in connection with it, of 
 which Kingsley undertook to write the first, " Cheap 
 Clothes and Nasty." 
 
 So "The Christian Socialist" was started, with 
 Mr. Ludlow for editor, the tracts on Christian 
 Socialism begun under Mr. Maurice's supervision, 
 and the society for promoting working-men's asso- 
 ciations was formed out of the body of men who 
 were already working with Mr. Maurice. The 
 great majority of these joined, though the name 
 was too much for others. The question of taking 
 it had been much considered, and it was decided, 
 on the whole, to be best to do so boldly, even 
 though it might cost valuable allies. Kingsley was 
 of course consulted on every point, though living 
 now almost entirely at Eversley, and his views as 
 to the proper policy to be pursued may be gathered 
 best from the following extracts from letters of his 
 to Mr. Ludlow 
 
 " We must touch the workman at all his points 
 of interest. First and foremost at association 
 but also at political rights, as grounded both on the 
 Christian ideal of the Church, and on the historic 
 facts of the Anglo-Saxon race. Then national edu-
 
 Prefatory Memoir 17 
 
 cation, sanitary and dwelling-house reform, the free 
 sale of land, and corresponding reform of the land 
 laws, moral improvement of the family relation, 
 public places of recreation (on which point I am 
 very earnest), and I think a set of hints from his- 
 tory, and sayings of great men, of which last I 
 have been picking up from Plato, Demosthenes, 
 etc." 
 
 1849. "This is a puling, quill-driving, soft- 
 handed age among our own rank, I mean. 
 Cowardice is called meekness ; to temporize is to 
 be charitable and reverent; to speak truth, and 
 shame the devil, is to offend weak brethren, who, 
 somehow or other, never complain of their weak 
 consciences till you hit them hard. And yet, my 
 dear fellow, I still remain of my old mind that it 
 is better to say too much than too little, and more 
 merciful to knock a man down with a pickaxe 
 than to prick him to death with pins. The world 
 says, No. It hates anything demonstrative, or vio- 
 lent (except on its own side), or unrefined." 
 
 1849. "The question of property is one of 
 these cases. We must face it in this age simply 
 because it faces us." "I want to commit myself 
 I want to make others commit themselves. No 
 man can fight the devil with a long ladle, however 
 pleasant it may be to eat with him with one. A 
 man never fishes well in the morning till he has 
 tumbled into the water." 
 
 And the counsels of Parson Lot had undoubtedly 
 great weight in giving an aggressive tone both to 
 the paper and the society. But if he was largely 
 responsible for the fighting temper of the early 
 movement, he, at any rate, never shirked his share 
 of the fighting. His name was the butt at which 
 
 Vol. Ill 2
 
 1 8 Prefatory Memoir 
 
 all shafts were aimed. As Lot " seemed like one 
 that mocked to his sons-in-law," so seemed the 
 Parson to the most opposite sections of the British 
 nation. As a friend wrote of him at the time, he 
 " had at any rate escaped the curse of the false 
 prophets, ' Woe unto you when all men shall speak 
 well of you.' " Many of the attacks and criticisms 
 were no doubt aimed not so much at him person- 
 ally as at the body of men with whom, and for 
 whom, he was working; but as he was (except 
 Mr. Maurice) the only one whose name was known, 
 he got the lion's share of all the abuse. The 
 storm broke on him from all points of the compass 
 at once. An old friend and fellow-contributor to 
 " Politics for the People " led the Conservative 
 attack, accusing him of unsettling the minds of the 
 poor, making them discontented, etc. Some of 
 the foremost Chartists wrote virulently against him 
 for " attempting to justify the God of the Old 
 Testament," who, they maintained, was unjust 
 and cruel, and, at any rate, not the God " of the 
 people." The political economists fell on him for 
 his anti-Malthusian belief, that the undeveloped fer- 
 tility of the earth need not be overtaken by popu- 
 lation within any time which it concerned us to 
 think about. The quarterlies joined in the attack 
 on his economic heresies. The "Daily News" 
 opened a cross fire on him from the common-sense 
 Liberal battery, denouncing the " revolutionary 
 nonsense, which is termed Christian Socialisms ; " 
 and, after some balancing, the " Guardian," repre- 
 senting in the press the side of the Church to 
 which he leant, turned upon him in a very cruel 
 article on the republication of " Yeast " (originally 
 written for " Fraser's Magazine " ), and accused
 
 Prefatory Memoir 19 
 
 him of teaching heresy in doctrine, and in morals 
 " that a certain amount of youthful profligacy does 
 no real permanent harm to the character, perhaps 
 strengthens it for a useful and religious life." 
 
 In this one instance Parson Lot fairly lost his 
 temper, and answered, " as was answered to the 
 Jesuit of old mentiris impudentissime" With 
 the rest he seemed to enjoy the conflict and " kept 
 the ring," like a candidate for the wrestling cham- 
 pionship in his own county of Devon against all 
 comers, one down another come on. 
 
 The fact is, that Charles Kingsley was born a 
 fighting man, and believed in bold attack. "No 
 human power ever beat back a resolute forlorn 
 hope," he used to say ; " to be got rid of, they 
 must be blown back with grape and canister," 
 because the attacking party have all the universe 
 behind them, the defence only that small part 
 which is shut up in their walls. And he felt most 
 strongly at this time that hard fighting was needed. 
 " It is a pity," he writes to Mr. Ludlow, " that 
 telling people what 's right, won't make them do 
 it ; but not a new fact, though that ass the world 
 has quite forgotten it; and assures you that dear, 
 sweet ' incompris ' mankind only wants to be told 
 the way to the millennium to walk willingly into 
 it which is a lie. If you want to get mankind, 
 if not to heaven, at least out of hell, kick them 
 out." And again, a little later on, in urging the 
 policy which the " Christian Socialist " should still 
 follow 
 
 1851. "It seems to me that in such a time as 
 this the only way to fight against the devil is to 
 attack him. He has got it too much his own 
 way to meddle with us if we don't meddle with
 
 2O Prefatory Memoir 
 
 him. But the very devil has feelings, and if you 
 prick him will roar . . . whereby you, at all events, 
 gain the not-every-day-of-the- week-to-be-attained 
 benefit of finding out where he is. Unless, indeed, 
 as I suspect, the old rascal plays ventriloquist (as 
 big grasshoppers do when you chase them), and 
 puts you on a wrong scent, by crying ' Fire ! ' out 
 of saints' windows. Still, the odds are if you prick 
 lustily enough, you make him roar unawares." 
 
 The memorials of his many controversies lie 
 about in the periodicals of that time, and any one 
 who cares to hunt them up will be well repaid, and 
 struck with the vigor of the defence, and still 
 more with the complete change in public opinion, 
 which has brought the England of to-day clean 
 round to the side of Parson Lot. The most com- 
 plete perhaps of his fugitive pieces of this kind 
 is the pamphlet, "Who are the friends of Order?" 
 published by J. W. Parker and Son, in answer to 
 a very fair and moderate article in " Eraser's Maga- 
 zine." The Parson there points 'out how he and 
 his friends were " cursed by demagogues as aristo- 
 crats, and by tories as democrats, when in reality 
 they were neither." And urges that the very fact 
 of the Continent being overrun with communist 
 fanatics is the best argument for preaching associa- 
 tion here. 
 
 But though he faced his adversaries bravely, it 
 must not be inferred that he did not feel the 
 attacks and misrepresentations very keenly. In 
 many respects, though housed in a strong and 
 vigorous body, his spirit was an exceedingly tender 
 and sensitive one. I have often thought that at 
 this time his very sensitiveness drove him to say 
 things more broadly and incisively, because he
 
 Prefatory Memoir 21 
 
 was speaking as it were somewhat against the 
 grain, and knew that the line he was taking would 
 be misunderstood, and would displease and alarm 
 those with whom he had most sympathy. For he 
 was by nature and education an aristocrat in the 
 best sense of the word, believed that a landed 
 aristocracy was a blessing to the country, and that 
 no country would gain the highest liberty without 
 such a class, holding its own position firmly, but 
 in sympathy with the people. He liked their 
 habits and ways, and keenly enjoyed their society. 
 Again, he was full of reverence for science and 
 scientific men, and specially for political economy 
 and economists, and desired eagerly to stand well 
 with them. And it was a most bitter trial to him 
 to find himself not only in sharp antagonism with 
 traders and employers of labor, which he looked 
 for, but with these classes also. 
 
 On the other hand, many of the views and habits 
 of those with whom he found himself associated 
 were very distasteful to him. In a new social 
 movement, such as that of association as it took 
 shape in 1849-50, there is certain to be great at- 
 traction for restless and eccentric persons, and in 
 point of fact many such joined it. The beard move- 
 ment was then in its infancy, and any man except a 
 dragoon who wore hair on his face was regarded as 
 a dangerous character, with whom it was compro- 
 mising to be seen in any public place a person 
 in sympathy with sansculottes, and who would dis- 
 pense with trousers but for his fear of the police. 
 Now, whenever Kingsley attended a meeting of the 
 promoters of association in London, he was sure to 
 find himself in the midst of bearded men, vegeta- 
 rians, and other eccentric persons, and the contact
 
 22 Prefatory Memoir 
 
 was very grievous to him. " As if we shall not 
 be abused enough," he used to say, " for what we 
 must say and do without being saddled with mis- 
 chievous nonsense of this kind." To less sensitive 
 men the effect of eccentricity upon him was almost 
 comic, as when on one occasion he was quite upset 
 and silenced by the appearance of a bearded mem- 
 ber of Council at an important deputation in a 
 straw hat and blue plush gloves. He did not 
 recover from the depression produced by those 
 gloves for days. Many of the workmen, too, who 
 were most prominent in the Associations were al- 
 most as little to his mind windy inflated kind of 
 persons, with a lot of fine phrases in their mouths 
 which they did not know the meaning of. 
 
 But in spite of all that was distasteful to him in 
 some of its surroundings, the co-operative move- 
 ment (as it is now called) entirely approved itself 
 to his conscience and judgment, and mastered him 
 so that he was ready to risk whatever had to be 
 risked in fighting its battle. Often in those days, 
 seeing how loath Charles Kingsley was to take in 
 hand much of the work which Parson Lot had to 
 do, and how fearlessly and thoroughly he did it 
 after all, one was reminded of the old Jewish 
 prophets, such as Amos the herdsman of Tekoa 
 " I was no prophet, neither was I a prophet's son, 
 but I was an herdsman and a gatherer of sycamore 
 fruit : and the Lord took me as I followed the flock, 
 and said unto me, Go prophesy unto my people 
 Israel." 
 
 The following short extracts from his correspond- 
 ence with Mr. Ludlow, as to the conduct of the 
 " Christian Socialist," and his own contributions to 
 it, may perhaps serve to show how his mind was 
 working at this time :
 
 Prefatory Memoir 23 
 
 Sept., 1850. " I cannot abide the notion of Branch 
 Churches or Free (sect) Churches, and unless my 
 whole train of thought alters, I will resist the temp- 
 tation as coming from the devil. Where I am I am 
 doing God's work, and when the Church is ripe for 
 more, the Head of the Church will put the means 
 our way. You seem to fancy that we may have a 
 Deus quidam Deceptor over us after all. If I did I 'd 
 go and blow my dirty brains out and be rid of the 
 whole thing at once. I would indeed. If God, 
 when people ask Him to teach and guide them, 
 does not ; if when they confess themselves rogues 
 and fools to Him, and beg Him to make them 
 honest and wise, He does not, but darkens them, 
 and deludes them into bogs and pitfalls, is he a 
 Father? You fall back into Judaism, friend." 
 
 Dec., 1850. "Jeremiah is my favorite book 
 now. It has taught me more than tongue can tell. 
 But I am much disheartened, and am minded to 
 speak no more words in this name (Parson Lot) ; 
 and yet all these bullyings teach one, correct one, 
 warn one show one that God is not leaving one 
 to go one's own way. ' Christ reigns,' quoth 
 Luther." 
 
 It was at this time, in the winter of 1850, that 
 "Alton Locke " was published. He had been en- 
 gaged on it for more than a year, working at it in 
 the midst of all his controversies. The following 
 extracts from his correspondence with Mr. Ludlow 
 will tell readers more about it than any criticism, 
 if they have at all realized the time at which it was 
 written, or his peculiar work in that time. 
 
 February, 1849. "I have hopes from the book 
 I am writing, which has revealed itself to me so 
 rapidly and methodically that I feel it comes down
 
 24 Prefatory Memoir 
 
 from above, and that only my folly can spoil it, 
 which I pray against daily." 
 
 1849. "I think the notion a good one (refer- 
 ring to other work for the paper which he had been 
 asked to do), but I feel no inspiration at all that 
 way; and I dread being tempted to more and 
 more bitterness, harsh judgment, and evil speak- 
 ing. I dread it. I am afraid sometimes I shall 
 end in universal snarling. Besides, my whole time 
 is taken up with my book, and that I do feel in- 
 spired to write. But there is something else which 
 weighs awfully on my mind (the first number 
 of Cooper's Journal, which he sent me the other 
 day). Here is a man of immense influence openly 
 preaching Strausseanism to the workmen, and in a 
 fair, honest, manly way which must tell. Who will 
 answer him? Who will answer Strauss? 1 Who 
 will denounce him as a vile aristocrat, robbing the 
 poor man of his Saviour of the ground of all 
 democracy, all freedom, all association of the 
 Charter itself? Oh, si mihi centum voces et ferrea 
 lingua ! Think about that." 
 
 January, 1850. "A thousand thanks for your 
 letter, though it only shows me what I have long 
 suspected, that I know hardly enough yet to make 
 the book what it should be. As you have made a 
 hole, you must help to fill it. Can you send me 
 any publication which would give me a good 
 notion of the Independents' view of politics, also 
 one which would give a good notion of the Fox- 
 Emerson-Strauss school of Blague-Unitarianism, 
 
 1 He did the work himself. After many interviews, and a 
 long correspondence with him, Thomas Cooper changed his 
 views, and has been lecturing and preaching for many years as 
 a Christian.
 
 Prefatory Memoir 25 
 
 which is superseding dissent just now? It was with 
 the ideal of Calvinism, and its ultimate bearing on 
 the people's cause, that I wished to deal. I be- 
 lieve that there must be internecine war between 
 the people's church /. e. the future development 
 of Catholic Christianity, and Calvinism even in its 
 mildest form, whether in the Establishment or out 
 of it and I have counted the cost and will give 
 every party its slap in their turn. But I will alter, 
 as far as I can, all you dislike." 
 
 August, 1850. "How do you know, dearest 
 man, that I was not right in making the Alton of 
 the second volume different from the first? In 
 showing the individuality of the man swamped and 
 warped by the routine of misery and discontent? 
 How do you know that the historic and human 
 interest of the book was not intended to end with 
 Mackay's death, in whom old radicalism dies, ' not 
 having received the promises,' to make room for the 
 radicalism of the future? How do you know that 
 the book from that point was not intended to take 
 a mythic and prophetic form, that those dreams 
 come in for the very purpose of taking the story 
 off the ground of the actual into the deeper and 
 wider one of the ideal, and that they do actually 
 do what they were intended to do ? How do you 
 know that my idea of carrying out Eleanor's ser- 
 mons in practice were just what I could not and 
 if I could, dared not give? that all that I could do 
 was to leave them as seed, to grow by itself in 
 many forms, in many minds, instead of embody- 
 ing them in some action which would have been 
 both as narrow as my own idiosyncrasy, gain the 
 reproach of insanity, and be simply answered by 
 ' If such things have been done, where are
 
 26 Prefatory Memoir 
 
 they ? ' and lastly, how do you know that I had 
 not a special meaning in choosing a civilized fine 
 lady as my missionary, one of a class which, as it 
 does exist, God must have something for it to 
 do, and, as it seems, plenty to do, from the fact 
 that a few gentlemen whom I could mention, not 
 to speak of Powell Buxtons, Howards, Ashleys, 
 etc., have done more for the people in one year 
 than they have done for themselves in fifty ? If I 
 had made her an organizer, as well as a preacher, 
 your complaint might have been just. My dear 
 man, the artist is a law unto himself or rather 
 God is a law to him, when he prays, as I have 
 earnestly day after day about this book to be 
 taught how to say the right thing in the right way 
 and I assure you I did not get tired of my 
 work, but labored as earnestly at the end as I 
 did at the beginning. The rest of your criticism, 
 especially about the interpenetration of doctrine 
 and action, is most true, and shall be attended 
 to. Your brother, C. K." 
 
 
 
 The next letter, on the same topic, in answer to 
 criticisms on " Alton Locke," is addressed to a 
 brother clergyman 
 
 " EVERSLEY, January 13, 1851. 
 
 " REV. DEAR SIR I will answer your most in- 
 teresting letter as shortly as I can, and if possible 
 in the same spirit of honesty as that in which you 
 have written to me. 
 
 " First, I do not think the cry ' Get on ' to be 
 anything but a devil's cry. The moral of my 
 book is that the working man who tries to get on, 
 to desert his class and rise above it, enters into a
 
 Prefatory Memoir 27 
 
 lie, and leaves God's path for his own with 
 consequences. 
 
 "Second, I believe that a man might be, as a 
 tailor or a costermonger, every inch of him a saint, 
 a scholar, and a gentleman, for I have seen some 
 few such already. I believe hundreds of thou- 
 sands more would be so, if their businesses were 
 put on a Christian footing, and themselves given 
 by education, sanitary reforms, etc., the means of 
 developing their own latent capabilities I think 
 the cry, ' Rise in Life,' has been excited by the 
 very increasing impossibility of being anything but 
 brutes while they struggle below. I know well all 
 that is doing in the way of education, etc., but I 
 do assert that the disease of degradation has been 
 for the last forty years increasing faster than the 
 remedy. And I believe, from experience, that 
 when you put workmen into human dwellings, 
 and give them a Christian education, so far from 
 wishing discontentedly to rise out of their class, 
 or to level others to it, exactly the opposite takes 
 place. They become sensible of the dignity of 
 work, and they begin to see their labor as a true 
 calling in God's Church, now that it is cleared 
 from the accidentia which made it look, in their 
 eyes, only a soulless drudgery in a devil's work- 
 shop of a World. 
 
 " Third, From the advertisement of an ' English 
 Republic ' you send, I can guess who will be the 
 writers in it, etc. etc., being behind the scenes. It 
 will come to naught. Everything of this kind is 
 coming to naught now. The workmen are tired 
 of idols, ready and yearning for the Church and 
 the Gospel, and such men as your friend may 
 laugh at Julian Harney, Feargus O'Connor, and
 
 28 Prefatory Memoir 
 
 the rest of that smoke of the pit. Only we 
 live in a great crisis, and the Lord requires 
 great things of us. The fields are white to 
 harvest. Pray ye therefore the Lord of the har- 
 vest, that he may send forth laborers into His 
 harvest. 
 
 " Fourth, As to the capacities of working men, 
 I am afraid that your excellent friend will find that 
 he has only the refuse of working intellects to 
 form his induction on. The devil has got the best 
 long ago. By the neglect of the Church, by her 
 dealing (like the Popish Church and all weak 
 churches) only with women, children, and beggars, 
 the cream and pith of working intellect is almost 
 exclusively self-educated, and, therefore, alas ! in- 
 fidel. If he goes on as he is doing, lecturing on 
 history, poetry, science, and all the things which 
 the workmen crave for, and can only get from 
 
 such men as H , Thomas Cooper, etc., mixed 
 
 up with Straussism and infidelity, he will find that 
 he will draw back to his Lord's fold, and to his 
 lecture-room, slowly, but surely, men, whose 
 powers will astonish him, as they have astonished 
 me. 
 
 " Fifth, The workmen whose quarrels you men- 
 tion are not Christians, or socialists either. They 
 are of all creeds and none. We are teaching them 
 to become Christians by teaching them gradually 
 that true socialism, true liberty, brotherhood, and 
 true equality (not the carnal dead level equality 
 of the Communist, but the spiritual equality of 
 the church idea, which gives every man an equal 
 chance of developing and using God's gifts, and 
 rewards every man according to his work, without 
 respect of persons) is only to be found in loyalty
 
 Prefatory Memoir 29 
 
 and obedience to Christ. They do quarrel, but 
 if you knew how they used to quarrel before as- 
 sociation, the improvement since would astonish 
 you. And the French associations do not quarrel 
 at all. I can send you a pamphlet on them, if 
 you wish, written by an eyewitness, a friend of 
 mine. 
 
 " Sixth, If your friend wishes to see what can be 
 made of workmen's brains, let him, in God's name, 
 go down to Harrow Weald, and there see Mr. 
 Monro see what he has done with his own 
 national school boys. I have his opinion as to 
 the capabilities of those minds, which we, alas ! 
 now so sadly neglect. I only ask him to go and 
 ask of that man the question which you have 
 asked of me. 
 
 "Seventh, May I, in reference to myself and 
 certain attacks on me, say, with all humility, that 
 I do not speak from hearsay now, as has been 
 asserted, from second-hand picking and stealing 
 out of those ' Reports on Labor and the Poor,' 
 in the ' Morning Chronicle/ which are now being 
 reprinted in a separate form, and which I entreat 
 you to read if you wish to get a clear view of the 
 real state of the working classes. 
 
 " From my cradle, as the son of an active 
 clergyman, I have been brought up in the most 
 familiar intercourse with the poor in town and 
 country. My mother, a second Mrs. Fry, in spirit 
 and act. For fourteen years my father has been 
 the rector of a very large metropolitan parish 
 and I speak what I know, and testify that which 
 I have seen. With earnest prayer, in fear and 
 trembling, I wrote my book, and I trust in Him 
 to whom I prayed that He has not left me to
 
 30 Prefatory Memoir 
 
 my own prejudices or idols on any important 
 point relating to the state of the possibilities of 
 the poor for whom He died. Any use which you 
 choose you can make of this letter. If it should 
 seem worth your while to honor me with any 
 further communications, I shall esteem them a 
 delight, and the careful consideration of them a 
 duty. Believe me, Rev. and dear sir, your faithful 
 and obedient servant, C. KlNGSLEY." 
 
 By this time the society for promoting associa- 
 tions was thoroughly organized, and consisted of 
 a council of promoters, of which Kingsley was a 
 member, and a central board, on which the mana- 
 gers of the associations and a delegate from each 
 of them sat. The council had published a number 
 of tracts, beginning with " Cheap Clothes and 
 Nasty," which had attracted the attention of many 
 persons, including several of the London clergy, 
 who connected themselves more or less closely 
 with the movement. Mr. Maurice, Kingsley, Han- 
 sard, and others of these, were often asked to 
 preach on social questions, and when in 1851, on 
 the opening of the Great Exhibition, immense 
 crowds of strangers were drawn to London, they 
 were specially in request. For many London 
 incumbents threw open their churches, and organ- 
 ized series of lectures, specially bearing on the 
 great topic of the day. It was now that the inci- 
 dent happened which once more brought upon 
 Kingsley the charge of being a revolutionist, and 
 which gave him more pain than all other attacks 
 put together. One of the incumbents before re- 
 ferred to begged Mr. Maurice to take part in his 
 course of lectures, and to ask Kingsley to do so;
 
 Prefatory Memoir 31 
 
 assuring Mr. Maurice that he " had been reading 
 Kingsley's works with the greatest interest, and 
 earnestly desired to secure him as one of his 
 lecturers." " I promised to mention this request 
 to him," Mr. Maurice says, " though I knew he 
 rarely came to London, and seldom preached 
 except in his own parish. He agreed, though 
 at some inconvenience, that he would preach a 
 sermon on the ' Message of the Church to the 
 Laboring Man.' I suggested the subject to him. 
 The incumbent intimated the most cordial approval 
 of it. He had asked us, not only with a previous 
 knowledge of our published writings, but expressly 
 because he had that knowledge. I pledge you my 
 word that no questions were asked as to what we 
 were going to say, and no guarantees given. Mr. 
 Kingsley took precisely that view of the message 
 of the Church to laboring men which every 
 reader of his books would have expected him to 
 take." 
 
 Kingsley took his text from Luke iv. verses 16 
 to 21 : "The spirit of the Lord is upon me because 
 He hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the 
 poor," etc. What then was that gospel? Kings- 
 ley asks, and goes on "I assert that the business 
 for which God sends a Christian priest in a Chris- 
 tian nation is, to preach freedom, equality, and 
 brotherhood in the fullest, deepest, widest meaning 
 of those three great words ; that in as far as he so 
 does, he is a true priest, doing his Lord's work 
 with his Lord's blessing on him ; that in as far as 
 he does not he is no priest at all, but a traitor to 
 God and man ; " and again, " I say that these 
 words express the very pith and marrow of a 
 priest's business ; I say that they preach freedom,
 
 32 Prefatory Memoir 
 
 equality, and brotherhood to rich and poor for 
 ever and ever." Then he goes on to warn his 
 hearers how there is always a counterfeit in this 
 world of the noblest message and teaching. 
 
 Thus there are two freedoms the false, where 
 a man is free to do what he likes ; the true, where 
 a man is free to do what he ought. 
 
 Two equalities the false, which reduces all in- 
 tellects and all characters to a dead level, and 
 gives the same power to the bad as to the good, 
 to the wise as to the foolish, ending thus in prac- 
 tice in the grossest inequality; the true, wherein 
 each man has equal power to educate and use 
 whatever faculties or talents God has given him, 
 be they less or more. This is the divine equality, 
 which the Church proclaims, and nothing else 
 proclaims as she does. 
 
 Two brotherhoods the false, where a man 
 chooses who shall be his brothers, and whom he 
 will treat as such ; the true, in which a man be- 
 lieves that all are his brothers, not by the will of 
 the flesh, or the will of man, but by the will of God, 
 whose children they all are alike, the Church 
 has three special possessions and treasures, the 
 Bible, which proclaims man's freedom, Baptism his 
 equality, the Lord's Supper his brotherhood. 
 
 At the end of this sermon (which would scarcely 
 cause surprise to-day if preached by the Archbishop 
 of Canterbury in the Chapel Royal) the incumbent 
 got up at the altar and declared his belief that 
 great part of the doctrine of the sermon was un- 
 true, and that he had expected a sermon of an 
 entirely different kind. To a man of the preacher's 
 vehement temperament it must have required a 
 great effort not to reply at the moment. The con-
 
 Prefatory Memoir 33 
 
 gregation was keenly excited, and evidently ex- 
 pected him to do so. He only bowed his head, 
 pronounced the blessing, and came down from the 
 pulpit. 
 
 I must go back a little to take up the thread of 
 his connection with, and work for, the Society for 
 Promoting Working Men's Associations. After it 
 had passed the first difficulties of starting, he was 
 seldom able to attend either council or central 
 board. Every one else felt how much more im- 
 portant and difficult work he was doing by fighting 
 the battle in the press, down at Eversley, but he 
 himself was eager to take part in the everyday 
 business, and uneasy if he was not well informed 
 as to what was going on. 
 
 Sometimes, however, he would come up to the 
 council, when any matter specially interesting to 
 him was in question, as in the following example, 
 when a new member of the council, an Eton 
 master, had objected to some strong expressions 
 in one of his letters on the Frimley murder, in the 
 " Christian Socialist " : 
 
 1849. "The upper classes are like a Yankee 
 captain sitting on the safety-valve, and serenely 
 whistling but what will be will be. As for the 
 worthy Eton parson, I consider it infinitely expedi- 
 ent that he be entreated to vent his whole dislike 
 in the open council forthwith, under a promise on 
 my part not to involve him in any controversy or 
 reprisals, or to answer in any tone except that of 
 the utmost courtesy and respect. Pray do this. 
 It will at once be a means of gaining him, and a 
 good example, please God, to the working men ; 
 and for the Frimley letter, put it in the fire if you 
 like, or send it back to have the last half re-
 
 34 Prefatory Memoir 
 
 written, or ' anything else you like, my pretty little 
 dear.'" 
 
 But his prevailing feeling was getting to be, that 
 he was becoming an outsider 
 
 " Nobody deigns to tell me," he wrote to me, 
 " how things go on, and who helps, and whether 
 I can help. In short, I know nothing, and begin 
 to fancy that you, like some others, think me a 
 lukewarm and time-serving aristocrat, after I have 
 ventured more than many, because I had more 
 to venture." 
 
 The same feeling comes out in the following 
 letter, which illustrates too, very well, both his 
 deepest conviction as to the work, the mixture of 
 playfulness and earnestness with which he handled 
 it, and his humble estimate of himself. It refers 
 to the question of the admission of a new asso- 
 ciation to the union. It was necessary, of course, 
 to see that the rules of a society, applying for 
 admission to the union, were in proper form, and 
 that sufficient capital was forthcoming, and the 
 decision lay with the central board, controlled in 
 some measure by the council of promoters. 
 
 An association of clay-pipe makers had applied 
 for admission, and had been refused by the vote of 
 the central board. The council, however, thought 
 there were grounds for reconsidering the decision, 
 and to strengthen the case for admission, Kings- 
 ley's opinion was asked. He replied : 
 
 "EVERSLEY, May 31, 1850. 
 
 " The sight of your handwriting comforted me 
 for nobody takes any notice of me, not even the 
 printers ; so I revenge myself by being as idle as 
 a dog, and fishing, and gardening, and basking in
 
 Prefatory Memoir 35 
 
 this glorious sun. But your letter set me thank- 
 ing God that he has raised up men to do the 
 work of which I am not worthy. As for the pipe- 
 makers, give my compliments to the autocrats, and 
 tell them it is a shame. The vegetarians would 
 have quite as much right to refuse the butchers, 
 because, forsooth, this is now discovered not to 
 be a necessary trade. Bosh ! The question is 
 this If association be a great Divine law and 
 duty, the realization of the Church idea, no man 
 has a right to refuse any body of men, into whose 
 heart God has put it to come and associate. It 
 may be answered that these men's motives are 
 self-interested. I say, ' Judge no man.' You dare 
 not refuse a heathen baptism because you choose 
 to think that his only motive for turning Christian 
 is the selfish one of saving his own rascally soul. 
 No more have you a right to refuse to men an 
 entrance into the social Church. They must come 
 in, and they will, because association is not men's 
 dodge and invention but God's law for mankind 
 and society, which He has made, and we must not 
 limit. I don't know whether I am intelligible, but 
 what 's more important, I know I am right. Just 
 read this to the autocrats, and tell them with my 
 compliments, they are popes, tyrants, Manichees, 
 ascetics, sectarians, and everything else that is 
 abominable ; and if they used as many pipes as I 
 do, they would know the blessing of getting them 
 cheap and start an associate baccy factory besides. 
 Shall we try? But, this one little mistake excepted 
 (though, if they repeat it, it will become a great 
 mistake, and a wrong, and a ruinous wrong), they 
 are much better fellows than poor I, and doing a 
 great deal more good, and at every fresh news of
 
 36 Prefatory Memoir 
 
 their deeds I feel like Job's horse, when he scents 
 the battle afar off." 
 
 No small part of the work of the council con 
 sisted in mediating and arbitrating in the disputes 
 between the associates and their managers ; indeed, 
 such work kept the legal members of the board 
 (none of whom were then overburdened with regu- 
 lar practice) pretty fully occupied. Some such 
 dispute had arisen in one of the most turbulent of 
 these associations, and had been referred to me for 
 settlement. I had satisfied myself as to the facts, 
 and considered my award, and had just begun to 
 write out the draft, when I was called away from 
 my chambers, and left the opening lines lying on 
 my desk. They ran as follows : " The Trustees 
 of the Mile End Association of Engineers, seeing 
 that the quarrels between the associates have not 
 ceased " at which word I broke off. On return- 
 ing to my chambers a quarter of an hour later, I 
 found a continuation in the following words : 
 
 " And that every man is too much inclined to behave him- 
 self like a beast, 
 In spite of our glorious humanity, which requires neither 
 
 God nor priest, V 
 Yet is daily praised and plastered by ten thousand fools 
 
 at least 
 Request Mr. Hughes' presence at their jawshop in the 
 
 East, 
 Which don't they wish they may get it, for he goes out 
 
 to-night to feast 
 At the Rev. C. Kingsley's rectory, Chelsea, where he '11 get 
 
 his gullet greased 
 With the best of Barto Valle's port, and will have his joys 
 
 increased 
 By meeting his old college chum, McDougal the Borneo 
 
 priest
 
 Prefatory Memoir 37 
 
 So come you thief and drop your brief, 
 
 At six o'clock without relief ; 
 
 And if you won't may you come to grief, 
 
 Says Parson Lot the Socialist Chief, 
 
 Who signs his mark at the foot of the leaf thus " 
 
 and, at the end, a clenched fist was sketched in a 
 few bold lines, and under it, " Parson Lot, his 
 mark " written. 
 
 I don't know that I can do better than give the 
 history of the rest of the day. Knowing his town 
 habits well, I called at Parker the publisher's, after 
 chambers, and found him there, sitting on a table 
 and holding forth on politics to our excellent little 
 friend, John Wm. Parker, the junior partner. 
 
 We started to walk down to Chelsea, and a dense 
 fog came on before we had reached Hyde Park 
 Corner. Both of us knew the way well ; but we 
 lost it half a dozen times, and his spirit seemed to 
 rise as the fog thickened. "Isn't this like life?" 
 he said, after one of our blunders : " a deep yellow 
 fog all round, with a dim light here and there 
 shining through. You grope your way on from 
 one lamp to another, and you go up wrong streets 
 and back again ; but you get home at last there 's 
 always light enough for that." After a short pause 
 he said, quite abruptly, " Tom, do you want to live 
 to be old?" I said I had never thought on the 
 subject; and he went on, " I dread it more than I 
 can say. To feel one's powers going, and to end 
 in snuff and stink. Look at the last days of Scott, 
 and Wordsworth, and Southey." I suggested St. 
 John. "Yes," he said, "that's the right thing, 
 and will do for Bunsen, and great, tranquil men like 
 him. The longer they live the better for all. But 
 for an eager, fiery nature like mine, with fierce
 
 38 Prefatory Memoir 
 
 passions eating one's life out, it won't do. If I 
 live twenty years I know what will happen to me. 
 The back of my brain will soften, and I shall most 
 likely go blind." 
 
 The Bishop got down somehow by six. The 
 dinner did not last long, for the family were away, 
 and afterwards we adjourned to the study, and 
 Parson Lot rose to his best. He stood before the 
 fire, while the Bishop and I took the two fireside 
 arm-chairs, and poured himself out, on subject 
 after subject, sometimes when much moved taking 
 a tramp up and down the room, a long clay pipe 
 in his right hand (at which he gave an occasional 
 suck ; it was generally out, but he scarcely noticed 
 it), and his left hand passed behind his back, clasp- 
 ing the right elbow. It was a favorite attitude with 
 him, when he was at ease with his company. 
 
 We were both bent on drawing him out ; and 
 the first topic, I think, raised by the Bishop was, 
 Froude's history, then recently published. He took 
 up the cudgels for Henry VIII., whom we accused 
 of arbitrariness. Henry was not arbitrary; arbi- 
 trary men are the most obstinate of men? Why? 
 Because they are weak. The strongest men are 
 always ready to hear reason and change their 
 opinions, because the strong man knows that if he 
 loses an opinion to-day he can get just as good a 
 one to-morrow in its place. But the weak man 
 holds on to his opinion, because he can't get 
 another, and he knows it. 
 
 Soon afterwards he got upon trout fishing, which 
 was a strong bond of union between him and me, 
 and discoursed on the proper methods of fishing 
 chalk streams. " Your flies can't be too big, but 
 they must be on small gut, not on base-viol fiddle-
 
 Prefatory Memoir 39 
 
 strings, like those you brought down to Farnham 
 last year. I tell you gut is the thing that does it. 
 Trout know that flies don't go about with a ring 
 and a hand pole through their noses, like so many 
 prize bulls of Lord Ducie's." 
 
 Then he got on the possible effect of association 
 on the future of England, and from that to the first 
 international exhibition, and the building which 
 was going up in Hyde Park. 
 
 " I mean to run amuck soon," he said, " against 
 all this talk about genius and high art, and the rest 
 of it. It will be the ruin of us, as it has been of 
 Germany. They have been for fifty years finding 
 out, and showing people how to do everything in 
 heaven and earth, and have done nothing. They 
 are dead even yet, and will be till they get out of 
 the high-art fit. We were dead, and the French 
 were dead till their revolution; but that brought 
 us to life. Why did n't the Germans come to life 
 too? Because they set to work with their arts, 
 sciences, and how to do this, that, and the other 
 thing, and doing nothing. Goethe was, in great 
 part, the ruin of Germany. He was like a great 
 fog coming down on the German people, and 
 wrapping them up." 
 
 Then he, in his turn, drew the Bishop about 
 Borneo, and its people, and fauna and flora; and 
 we got some delightful stories of apes, and con- 
 verts, and honey bears, Kingsley showing himself, 
 by his questions, as familiar with the Bornean 
 plants and birds as though he had lived there. 
 Later on we got him on his own works, and he told 
 us how he wrote. " I can't think, even on scien- 
 tific subjects, except in the dramatic form. It is 
 what Tom said to Harry, and what Harry answered
 
 40 Prefatory Memoir 
 
 him. I never put pen to paper till I have two or 
 three pages in my head, and see them as if they 
 were printed. Then I write them off, and take a 
 turn in the garden, and so on again." We wan- 
 dered back to fishing, and I challenged his keen- 
 ness for making a bag. " Ah ! " he said, " that 's 
 all owing to my blessed habit of intensity, which 
 has been my greatest help in life. I go at what I 
 am about as if there was nothing else in the world 
 for the time being. That 's the secret of all hard- 
 working men ; but most of them can't carry it into 
 their amusements. Luckily for me I can stop from 
 all work, at short notice, and turn head over heels 
 in the sight of all creation, and say, I won't be 
 good or bad, or wise, or anything, till two o'clock 
 to-morrow." 
 
 At last the Bishop would go, so we groped our 
 way with him into the King's Road, and left him in 
 charge of a link-boy. When we got back, I said 
 something laughingly about his gift of talk, which 
 had struck me more that evening than ever before, 
 
 " Yes," he said, " I have it all in me. I could be 
 as great a talker as any man in England, but for 
 my stammering. I know it well ; but it 's a blessed 
 thing for me. You must know, by this time, that 
 I 'm a very shy man, and shyness and vanity 
 always go together. And so I think of what 
 every fool will say of me, and can't help it. When 
 a man's first thought is not whether a thing is 
 right or wrong, but what will Lady A. or Mr. B. 
 say about it, depend upon it he wants a thorn in 
 the flesh, like my stammer. When I am speaking 
 for God, in the pulpit, or praying by bedsides, I 
 never stammer. My stammer is a blessed thing 
 for me. It keeps me from talking in company,
 
 Prefatory Memoir 41 
 
 and from going out as much as I should do but 
 for it." 
 
 It was two o'clock before we thought of moving, 
 and then, the fog being as bad as ever, he insisted 
 on making me up a bed on the floor. While we 
 were engaged in this process, he confided to me 
 that he had heard of a doctor who was very suc- 
 cessful in curing stammering, and was going to try 
 him. I laughed, and reminded him of his thorn in 
 the flesh, to which he replied, with a quaint twinkle 
 of his eye, " Well, that 's true enough. But a man 
 has no right to be a nuisance, if he can help it, and 
 no more right to go about amongst his fellows 
 stammering, than he has to go about stinking." 
 
 At this time he was already at work on another 
 novel ; and, in answer to a remonstrance from a 
 friend, who was anxious that he should keep all his 
 strength for social reform, writes 
 
 1851. "I know that He has made me a parish 
 priest, and that that is the duty which lies nearest 
 me, and that I may seem to be leaving my calling 
 in novel writing. But has He not taught me all 
 these very things by my parish priest life? Did 
 He, too, let me become a strong, daring, sporting, 
 wild man of the woods for nothing? Surely the 
 education He has given me so different from that 
 which authors generally receive, points out to me a 
 peculiar calling to preach on these points from my 
 own experience, as it did to good old Isaac Wal- 
 ton, as it has done in our own day to that truly 
 noble man Captain Marryat. Therefore I must 
 believe, ' si tu sequi la tua Stella? with Dante, that 
 He who ordained my star will not lead me into 
 temptation, but through it, as Maurice says. 
 Without Him all places and methods of life are 
 
 Vol. Ill 3
 
 42 Prefatory Memoir 
 
 equally dangerous with Him, all equally safe. 
 Pray for me, for in myself I am weaker of purpose 
 than a lost greyhound, lazier than a dog in rainy 
 weather." 
 
 While the co-operative movement was spreading 
 in all directions, the same impulse was working 
 amongst the trades unions, and the engineers had 
 set the example of uniting all their branches into 
 one society. In this winter they believed them- 
 selves strong enough to try conclusions with their 
 employers. The great lock-out in January, 1852, 
 was the consequence. The engineers had appealed 
 to the Council of Promoters to help them in put- 
 ting their case which had been much misrepre- 
 sented fairly before the public, and Kingsley had 
 been consulted as the person best able to do it. 
 He had declined to interfere, and wrote me the 
 following letter to explain his views. It will show 
 how far he was an encourager of violent measures 
 or views? 
 
 "EvERSLEY, January 28, 1852. 
 
 "You may have been surprised at my having 
 taken no part in this Amalgamated Iron Trades' 
 matter. And I think that I am bound to say why 
 I have not, and how far I wish my friends to 
 interfere in it. 
 
 " I do think that we, the Council of Promoters, 
 shall not be wise in interfering between masters 
 and men; because I. I question whether the 
 points at issue between them can be fairly under- 
 stood by any persons not conversant with the 
 practical details of the trade. , . . 
 
 " 2. Nor do I think they have put their case as 
 well as they might. For instance, if it be true that
 
 Prefatory Memoir 43 
 
 they themselves have invented many, or most, of 
 the improvements in their tools and machinery, 
 they have an argument in favor of keeping out 
 unskilled laborers, which is unanswerable, and yet, 
 that they have never used viz. ' Your masters 
 make hundreds and thousands by these improve- 
 ments, while we have no remuneration for this 
 inventive talent of ours, but rather lose by it, 
 because it makes the introduction of unskilled 
 labor more easy. Therefore, the only way in 
 which we can get anything like a payment for this 
 inventive faculty of which we make you a present 
 over and above our skilled labor, for which you 
 bargained, is to demand that we, who invent the 
 machines, if we cannot have a share in the profits 
 of them, shall at least have the exclusive privilege 
 of using them instead of their being, as now, 
 turned against us.' That, I think, is a fair argu- 
 ment; but I have seen nothing of" it from any 
 speaker or writer. 
 
 " 3. I think whatever battle is fought, must be 
 fought by the men themselves. The present dodge 
 of the Manchester school is to cry out against us, 
 as Greg did. 'These Christian Socialists are a set 
 of mediaeval parsons, who want to hinder the inde- 
 pendence and self-help of the men, and bring them 
 back to absolute feudal maxims; and then, with 
 the most absurd inconsistency, when we get up a 
 corporation workshop, to let the men work on the 
 very independence and self-help of which they 
 talk so fine, they turn round and raise just the 
 opposite yell and cry. The men can't be inde- 
 pendent of capitalists ; these associations will fail 
 because the men are helping themselves' showing 
 that what they mean is, that the men shall be
 
 44 Prefatory Memoir 
 
 independent of every one but themselves inde- 
 pendent of legislators, parsons, advisers, gentle- 
 men, noblemen, and every one that tries to help 
 them by moral agents ; but the slaves of the capi- 
 talists, bound to them by a servitude increasing 
 instead of lightening with their numbers. Now, 
 the only way in which we can clear the cause of 
 this calumny is to let the men fight their own 
 battle; to prevent any one saying, 'These men 
 are the tools of dreamers and fanatics,' which 
 would be just as ruinously blackening to them in 
 the public eyes, as it would be to let the cry get 
 abroad, ' This is a Socialist movement, destructive 
 of rights of property, communism, Louis Blanc, 
 and the devil, etc.' You know the infernal stuff 
 which the devil gets up on such occasions 
 having no scruples about calling himself hard 
 names, when it suits his purpose, to blind and 
 frighten respectable old women. 
 
 " Moreover, these men are not poor distressed 
 needlewomen or slop-workers. They are the most 
 intelligent and best educated workmen, receiving 
 incomes often higher than a gentleman's son whose 
 education has cost ^1000, and if they can't fight 
 their own battles, no men in England can, and the 
 people are not ripe for association, and we must 
 hark back into the competitive rot heap again. 
 All, then, that we can do is, to give advice when 
 asked to see that they have, as far as we can get 
 at them, a clear stage and no favor, but not by 
 public, but by private influence. 
 
 " But we can help them in another way, by 
 showing them the way to associate. That is quite 
 a distinct question from their quarrel with their 
 masters, and we shall be very foolish if we give
 
 Prefatory Memoir 45 
 
 the press a handle for mixing up the two. We 
 have a right to say to masters, men, and public, 
 1 We know and care nothing about the iron strike. 
 Here are a body of men coming to us, wishing to 
 be shown how to do that which is a right thing 
 for them to do well or ill off, strike or no strike, 
 namely, associate ; and we will help and teach 
 them to do that to the very utmost of our power.' 
 
 " The Iron Workers' co-operative shops will be 
 watched with lynx eyes, calumniated shamelessly. 
 Our business will be to tell the truth about them, 
 and fight manfully with our pens for them. But 
 we shall never be able to get the ears of the 
 respectabilities and the capitalists, if we appear at 
 this stage of business. What we must say is, ' If 
 you are needy and enslaved, we will fight for you 
 from pity, whether you be associated or competitive. 
 But you are neither needy, nor, unless you choose, 
 enslaved ; and therefore we will only fight for you 
 in proportion as you become associates. Do that, 
 and see if we can't stand hard knocks for your 
 sake.' Yours ever affectionate, C. KINGSLEY." 
 
 In the summer of 1852 (mainly by the continued 
 exertions of the members of the council, who had 
 supplied Mr. Slaney's committee with all his evi- 
 dence, and had worked hard in other ways for this 
 object) a bill for legalizing industrial associations 
 was about to be introduced into the House of 
 Commons. It was supposed at one time that it 
 would be taken in hand by the Government of 
 Lord Derby, then lately come into office, and 
 Kingsley had been canvassing a number of persons 
 to make sure of its passing. On hearing that a 
 Cabinet Minister would probably undertake it, he 
 writes :
 
 46 Prefatory Memoir 
 
 " Let him be assured that he will by such a 
 move do more to carry out true conservatism, and 
 to reconcile the workmen with the real aristocracy, 
 than any politician for the last twenty years has 
 done. The truth is, we are in a critical situation 
 here in England. Not in one of danger which 
 is the vulgar material notion of a crisis, but at the 
 crucial point, the point of departure of principles 
 and parties which will hereafter become great and 
 powerful. Old Whiggery is dead, old true blue 
 Toryism of the Robert Inglis school is dead too 
 and in my eyes a great loss. But as live dogs are 
 better than dead lions, let us see what the live 
 dogs are. 
 
 " i. The Peelites, who will ultimately, be sure, 
 absorb into themselves all the remains of Whig- 
 gery, and a very large proportion of the Conser- 
 vative party. In an effete unbelieving age, like 
 this, the Sadducee and the Herodian will be the 
 most captivating philosopher. A scientific lazi- 
 ness, lukewarmness, and compromise, is a cheery 
 theory for the young men of the day, and they 
 will take to it con amore. I don't complain of 
 Peel himself. He was a great man, but his method 
 of compromise, though useful enough in particular 
 cases when employed by a great man, becomes a 
 most dastardly 'schema mundi' when taken up by 
 a school of little men. Therefore the only help 
 which we can hope for from the Peelites is that 
 they will serve as ballast and cooling pump to 
 both parties, but their very trimming and modera- 
 tion make them fearfully likely to obtain power. 
 It depends on the wisdom of the present govern- 
 ment, whether they do or not. 
 
 "2. Next you have the Manchester school, from
 
 Prefatory Memoir 47 
 
 whom Heaven defend us ; for of all narrow, con- 
 ceited, hypocritical, and anarchic and atheistic 
 schemes of the universe, the Cobden and Bright one 
 is exactly the worst. I have no language to express 
 my contempt for it, and therefore I quote what Mau- 
 rice wrote me this morning. ' If the Ministry would 
 have thrown Protection to the dogs (as I trust they 
 have, in spite of the base attempts of the Corn Law 
 Leaguers to goad them to committing themselves 
 to it, and to hold them up as the people's enemies), 
 and throw themselves into social measures, who 
 would not have clung to them, to avert that horri- 
 ble catastrophe of a Manchester ascendency, which 
 I believe in my soul would be fatal to intellect, 
 morality, and freedom, and will be more likely to 
 move a rebellion among the working men than any 
 Tory rule which can be conceived.' 
 
 " Of course it would. To pretend to be the 
 workmen's friends, by keeping down the price of 
 bread, when all they want thereby is to keep down 
 wages and increase profits, and in the meantime to 
 widen the gulf between the working man and all 
 that is time-honored, refined, and chivalrous in 
 English society, that they may make the men their 
 divided slaves, that is perhaps half unconsciously, 
 for there are excellent men amongst them the 
 game of the Manchester school." 
 
 " I have never swerved from my one idea of the 
 last seven years, that the real battle of the time is, 
 if England is to be saved from anarchy and unbe- 
 lief, and utter exhaustion caused by the competi- 
 tive enslavement of the masses, not Radical or 
 Whig against Peelite or Tory let the dead bury 
 their dead but the Church, the gentlemen, and 
 the workman, against the shopkeepers and the
 
 48 Prefatory Memoir 
 
 Manchester school. The battle could not have 
 been fought forty years ago, because on one side 
 the Church was an idle phantasm, the gentlemen 
 too ignorant, the workman too merely animal; 
 while, on the other, the Manchester cotton-spinners 
 were all Tories, and the shop-keepers were a dis- 
 tinct class interest from theirs. But now these two 
 latter have united, and the sublime incarnation of 
 shop-keeping and labor-buying in the cheapest 
 market shines forth in the person of Moses and 
 Son, and both cotton-spinners and shop-keepers 
 say ' This is the man ! ' and join in one common 
 press to defend his system. Be it so : now we 
 know our true enemies, and soon the working men 
 will know them also. But if the present ministry 
 will not see the possibility of a coalition between 
 them and the workmen, I see no alternative but 
 just what we have been straining every nerve to 
 keep off a competitive United States, a democ- 
 racy before which the work of ages will go down 
 in a few years. A true democracy, such as you 
 and I should wish to see, is impossible without a 
 Church and a Queen, and, as I believe, without a 
 gentry. On the conduct of statesmen it will de- 
 pend whether we are gladly and harmoniously to 
 develop England on her ancient foundations, or 
 whether we are to have fresh paralytic govern- 
 ments succeeding each other in doing nothing, 
 while the workmen and the Manchester school 
 fight out the real questions of the day in ignorance 
 and fury, till the ' culbute generate' comes, and 
 gentlemen of ancient family, like your humble 
 servant, betake themselves to Canada, to escape, 
 not the Amalgamated Engineers, but their ' mas- 
 ters,' and the slop-working savages whom their
 
 Prefatory Memoir 49 
 
 masters' system has created, and will by that time 
 have multiplied tenfold. 
 
 " I have got a Thames boat on the lake at 
 Bramshill, and am enjoying vigorous sculls. My 
 answer to ' Eraser ' is just coming out ; spread it 
 where you can." 
 
 In the next year or two the first excitement 
 about the co-operative movement cooled down. 
 Parson Lot's pen was less needed, and he turned 
 to other work in his own name. Of the richness 
 and variety of that work this is not the place to 
 speak, but it all bore on the great social problems 
 which had occupied him in the earlier years. The 
 Crimean war weighed on him like a nightmare, 
 and modified some of his political opinions. On 
 the resignation of Lord Aberdeen's Government on 
 the motion for inquiry into the conduct of the war, 
 he writes, February 5, 1855 : " It is a very bad job, 
 and a very bad time, be sure, and with a laughing 
 House of Commons we shall go to Gehenna, even if 
 we are not there already But one comfort is, that 
 even Gehenna can burn nothing but the chaff and car- 
 cases, so we shall be none the poorer in reality. So 
 as the frost has broken gloriously, I wish you would 
 get me a couple of dozen of good flies, viz. cock a 
 bondhues, red palmers with plenty of gold twist ; 
 winged duns, with bodies of hare's ear and yellow 
 mohair mixed well ; hackle duns with gray bodies, 
 and a wee silver, these last tied as palmers, and 
 the silver ribbed all the way dov/n. If you could 
 send them in a week I shall be very glad, as fish- 
 ing begins early." 
 
 In the midst of the war he was present one day 
 at a council meeting, after which the manager of 
 one of the associations referring to threatened
 
 50 Prefatory Memoir 
 
 bread riots at Manchester, asked Kingsley's opin- 
 ion as to what should be done. "There never 
 were but two ways," he said, " since the beginning 
 of the world of dealing with a corn famine. One 
 is to let the merchants buy it up and hold it as 
 long as they can, as we do. And this answers the 
 purpose best in the long run, for they will be sell- 
 ing corn six months hence when we shall want it 
 more than we do now, and makes us provident 
 against our wills. The other is Joseph's plan." 
 Here the manager broke hi, " Why did n't our 
 Government step in then, and buy largely, and 
 store in public granaries?" "Yes," said Kingsley, 
 " and why ain't you and I flying about with wings 
 and dewdrops hanging to our tails? Joseph's plan 
 won't do for us. What minister would we trust 
 with money enough to buy corn for the people, 
 or power to buy where he chose ? " And he went 
 on to give his questioner a lecture in political 
 economy, which the most orthodox opponent of 
 the popular notions about Socialism would have 
 applauded to the echo. 
 
 By the end of the year he had nearly finished 
 " Westward Ho ! " the most popular of his 
 novels, which the war had literally wrung out of 
 him. He writes: 
 
 " December 18, 1855. 
 
 " I am getting more of a Government man every 
 day. I don't see how they could have done better 
 in any matter, because I don't see but that / 
 should have done a thousand times worse in their 
 place, and that is the only fair standard. 
 
 " As for a ballad oh ! my dear lad, there is 
 no use fiddling while Rome is burning. I have
 
 Prefatory Memoir 51 
 
 nothing to sing about those glorious fellows, ex- 
 cept ' God save the Queen and them.' I tell you 
 the whole thing stuns me, so I cannot sit down 
 to make fiddle rhyme with diddle about it or 
 blundered with hundred like Alfred Tennyson. 
 He is no Tyrtaeus, though he has a glimpse of 
 what Tyrtaeus ought to be. But I have not even 
 that; and am going rabbit-shooting to-morrow 
 instead. But every man has his calling, and my 
 novel is mine, because I am fit for nothing better. 
 The book " ( Westward Ho ! ) " will be out the 
 middle or end of January, if the printers choose. 
 It is a sanguinary book, but perhaps containing 
 doctrine profitable for these times. My only pain 
 is that I have been forced to sketch poor Paddy 
 as a very worthless fellow then, while just now he 
 is turning out a hero. I have made the deliberate 
 amende honorable in a note." 
 
 Then, referring to some criticism of mine on 
 " Westward Ho ! " "I suppose you are right as 
 to Amyas and his mother ; I will see to it. You 
 are probably right too about John Hawkins. The 
 letter in Purchas is to me unknown, but your con- 
 ception agrees with a picture my father says he 
 has seen of Captain John (he thinks at Lord 
 Anglesey's, at Beaudesert) as a prim, hard, terrier- 
 faced, little fellow, with a sharp chin, and a dogged 
 Puritan eye. So perhaps I am wrong: but I 
 don't think that very important, for there must 
 have been sea-dogs of my stamp in plenty too." 
 Then, referring to the Crimean war "I don't say 
 that the two cases are parallel. I don't ask 
 England to hate Russia as she was bound to 
 hate Spain, as God's enemy; but I think that a 
 little Tudor pluck and Tudor democracy (para-
 
 52 Prefatory Memoir 
 
 doxical as the word may seem, and inconsistently 
 as it was carried out then) is just what we want 
 now." 
 
 " Tummas ! Have you read the story of Abou 
 Zennab his horse, in Stanley's 'Sinai,' p. 67? 
 What a myth ! What a poem old Wordsworth 
 would have writ thereon ! If I did n't cry like a 
 babby over it What a brick of a horse he must 
 have been, and what a brick of an old head-splitter 
 Abou Zennab must have been, to have his com- 
 mandments keeped unto this day concerning of his 
 horse ; and no one to know who he was, nor when, 
 nor how, nor nothing. I wonder if anybody '11 
 keep our commandments after we be gone, much 
 less say, ' Eat, eat, O horse of Abou Kingsley ! ' " 
 
 By this time the success of " Westward Ho ! " 
 and " Hypatia " had placed him in the first rank 
 of English writers. His fame as an author, and 
 his character as a man, had gained him a position 
 which might well have turned any man's head. 
 There were those amongst his intimate friends 
 who feared that it might be so with him, and who 
 were faithful enough to tell him so. And I can- 
 not conclude this sketch better than by giving his 
 answer to that one of them with whom he had 
 been most closely associated in the time when, 
 as Parson Lot, every man's hand had been against 
 him 
 
 " MY DEAR LUDLOW, 
 
 " And for this fame, etc., 
 
 " I know a little of her worth. 
 
 " And I will tell you what I know. 
 
 " That, in the first place, she is a fact, and as 
 such, it is not wise to ignore her, but at least to
 
 Prefatory Memoir 53 
 
 walk once round her, and see her back as well 
 as her front. 
 
 " The case to me seems to be this. A man feels 
 in himself the love of praise. Every man does who 
 is not a brute. It is a universal human faculty ; 
 Carlyle nicknames it the sixth sense. Who made 
 it? God or the devil? Is it flesh or spirit? a 
 difficult question ; because tamed animals grow to 
 possess it in a high degree ; and our metaphysi- 
 cian does not yet allow them spirit. But, which- 
 ever it be, it cannot be for bad : only bad when 
 misdirected, and not controlled by reason, the 
 faculty which judges between good and evil. Else 
 why has God put His love of praise into the heart 
 of every child which is born into the world, and 
 entwined it into the holiest filial and family affec- 
 tions, as the earliest mainspring of good actions? 
 Has God appointed that every child shall be fed 
 first with a necessary lie, and afterwards come to 
 the knowledge of your supposed truth, that the 
 praise of God alone is to be sought? Or are we 
 to believe that the child is intended to be taught 
 as delicately and gradually as possible the painful 
 fact, that the praise of all men is not equally worth 
 having, and to use his critical faculty to discern 
 the praise of good men from the praise of bad, 
 to seek the former and despise the latter? I 
 should say that the last was the more reasonable. 
 And this I will say, that if you bring up any child to 
 care nothing for the praise of its parents, its elders, 
 its pastors, and masters, you may make a fanatic 
 of it, or a shameless cynic ; but you will neither 
 make it a man, an Englishman, nor a Christian. 
 
 " But ' our Lord's words stand, about not seek- 
 ing the honor which comes from men, but the
 
 54 Prefatory Memoir 
 
 honor which comes from God only ! ' True, they 
 do stand, and our Lord's fact stands also, the fact 
 that He has created every child to be educated 
 by an honor which comes from his parents and 
 elders. Both are true. Here, as in most spiritual 
 things, you have an antinomia, an apparent con- 
 tradiction, which nothing but the Gospel solves. 
 And it does solve it ; and your one-sided view of the 
 text resolves itself into just the same fallacy as the 
 old ascetic one. ' We must love God alone, there- 
 fore we must love no created thing.' To which 
 St. John answers pertinently, ' He who loveth not 
 his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love 
 God whom he hath not seen ? ' If you love your 
 brethren, you love Christ in them. If you love 
 their praise, you love the praise of Christ in them. 
 For consider this, you cannot deny that, if one 
 loves any person one desires that person's esteem. 
 But we are bound to love all men, and that is our 
 highest state. Therefore, in our highest state, we 
 shall desire all men's esteem. Paradoxical, but 
 true. If we believe in Christmas-day, if we be- 
 lieve in Whitsunday, we shall believe that Christ is 
 in all men, that God's spirit is abroad in the earth, 
 and therefore the dispraise, misunderstanding, and 
 calumny of men will be exquisitely painful to us, 
 and ought to be so ; and, on the other hand, the 
 esteem of men, and renown among men for doing 
 good deeds will be inexpressibly precious to us. 
 They will be signs and warrants to us that God 
 is pleased with us, that we are sharing in that 
 ' honor and glory ' which Paul promises again 
 and again, with no such scruples as yours, to those 
 who lead heroic lives. We shall not neglect the 
 voice of God within us; but we shall remember
 
 Prefatory Memoir 55 
 
 that there is also a voice of God without us, 
 which we must listen to ; and that in a Christian 
 land, vox populi, patiently and discriminately lis- 
 tened to, is sure to be found not far off from the 
 vox Dei. 
 
 " Now, let me seriously urge this last fact on you. 
 Of course, in listening to the voice of the man out- 
 side there is a danger, as there is in the use of any 
 faculty. You may employ it, according to Divine 
 reason and grace, for ennobling and righteous pur- 
 poses ; or you may degrade it to carnal and selfish 
 ones ; so you may degrade the love of praise into 
 vanity, into longing for the honor which comes 
 from men, by pandering to their passions and 
 opinions, by using your powers as they would too 
 often like to use theirs, for mere self-aggrandize- 
 ment, by saying in your heart quam pulchrum 
 digito monstrari et diceri hie est. That is the man 
 who wrote the fine poem, who painted the fine 
 picture, and so forth, till, by giving way to this, 
 a man may give way to forms of vanity as base 
 as the red Indian who sticks a fox's tail on, and 
 dances about boasting of his brute cunning. I 
 know all about that, as well as any poor son of 
 Adam ever did. But I know, too, that to desire 
 the esteem of as many rational men as possible ; 
 in a word, to desire an honorable and true renown 
 for having done good in my generation, has noth- 
 ing to do with that; and the more I fear and 
 struggle against the former, the more I see the 
 exceeding beauty and divineness, and everlasting 
 glory of the latter as an entrance into the com- 
 munion of saints. 
 
 " Of course, all this depends on whether we do 
 believe that Christ is in every man, and that God's
 
 56 Prefatory Memoir 
 
 spirit is abroad in the earth. Of course, again, it 
 will be very difficult to know who speaks by God's 
 spirit, and who sees by Christ's light in him ; but 
 surely the wiser, the humbler path, is to give men 
 credit for as much wisdom and Tightness as pos- 
 sible, and to believe that when one is found fault 
 with, one is probably in the wrong. For myself, 
 on looking back, I see clearly with shame and 
 sorrow, that the obloquy which I have brought 
 often on myself and on the good cause, has been 
 almost all of it my own fault that I have given 
 the devil and bad men a handle, not by caring 
 what people would say, but by not caring by 
 fancying that I was a very grand fellow, who was 
 going to speak what I knew to be true, in spite of 
 all fools (and really did and do intend so to do), 
 while all the while I was deceiving myself, and un- 
 aware of a canker at the heart the very opposite 
 to the one against which you warn me. I mean 
 the proud, self-willed, self-conceited spirit which 
 made no allowance for other men's weakness or 
 ignorance; nor again, for their superior experi- 
 ence and wisdom on points which I had never 
 considered which took a pride in shocking and 
 startling, and defying, and hitting as hard as I 
 could, and fancied, blasphemously, as I think, that 
 the word of God had come to me only, and went 
 out from me only. God forgive me for these sins, 
 as well as for my sins in the opposite direction ; 
 but for these sins especially, because I see them to 
 be darker and more dangerous than the others. 
 
 " For there has been gradually revealed to me 
 (what my many readings in the lives of fanatics and 
 ascetics ought to have taught me long before), that 
 there is a terrible gulf ahead of that not caring
 
 Prefatory Memoir 57 
 
 what men say. Of course it is a feeling on which 
 the spirit must fall back in hours of need, and cry: 
 ' Thou, God, knowest mine integrity. I have be- 
 lieved, and therefore I will speak; thou art true, 
 though all men be liars ! ' But I am convinced 
 that that is a frame in which no man can live, or 
 is meant to live ; that it is only to be resorted to in 
 fear and trembling, after deepest self-examination, 
 and self-purification, and earnest prayer. For 
 otherwise, Ludlow, a man gets to forget that voice 
 of God without him, in his determination to listen 
 to nothing but the voice of God within him, and so 
 he falls into two dangers. He forgets that there is 
 a voice of God without him. He loses trust in, and 
 charity to, and reverence for his fellow-men; he 
 learns to despise, deny, and quench the Spirit, and 
 to despise prophesyings, and so becomes gradually 
 cynical, sectarian, fanatical. 
 
 " And then comes a second and worse danger. 
 Crushed into self, and his own conscience and 
 schema mundi, he loses the opportunity of correct- 
 ing his impression of the voice of God within, by 
 the testimony of the voice of God without; and so he 
 begins to mistake more and more the voice of that 
 very flesh of his, which he fancies he has con- 
 quered, for the voice of God, and to become, with- 
 out knowing it, an autotheist. And out of that 
 springs eclecticism, absence of tenderness for men, 
 for want of sympathy with men ; as he makes his 
 own conscience his standard for God, so he makes 
 his own character the standard for men ; and so he 
 becomes narrow, hard, and if he be a man of strong 
 will and feelings, often very inhuman and cruel. 
 This is the history of thousands of Jeromes, 
 Lauds, Puritans who scourged Quakers, Quakers
 
 58 Prefatory Memoir 
 
 who cursed Puritans ; nonjurors, who, though they 
 would die rather than offend their own conscience 
 in owning William, would plot with James to mur- 
 der William, or to devastate England with Irish 
 Rapparees and Auvergne dragoons. This, in fact, 
 is the spiritual diagnosis of those many pious per- 
 secutors, who though neither hypocrites nor black- 
 guards themselves, have used both as instruments 
 of their fanaticism. 
 
 " Against this I have to guard myself, you little 
 know how much, and to guard my children still 
 more, brought up, as they will be, under a father, 
 who, deeply discontented with the present genera- 
 tion, cannot but express that discontent at times. 
 To make my children ' banausoi,' insolent and 
 scoffing radicals, believing in nobody and nothing 
 but themselves, would be perfectly easy in me if I 
 were to make the watchword of my house, ' Never 
 mind what people say.' On the contrary, I shall 
 teach them that there are plenty of good people 
 in the world ; that public opinion has pretty surely 
 an undercurrent of the water of life, below all its 
 froth and garbage : and that in a Christian country 
 like this, where, with all faults, a man (sooner or 
 later) has fair play and a fair hearing, the esteem 
 of good men, and the blessings of the poor, will be 
 a pretty sure sign that they have the blessing of 
 God also ; and I shall tell them, when they grow 
 older, that ere they feel called on to become mar- 
 tyrs, in defending the light within them against all 
 the world, they must first have taken care most pa- 
 tiently, and with all self-distrust and humility to 
 make full use of the light which is around them, 
 and has been here for ages before them, and would 
 be here still, though they had never been born or
 
 Prefatory Memoir 59 
 
 thought of. The antino.my between this and their 
 own conscience may be painful enough to them 
 some day. To what thinking man is it not a life- 
 long battle ? but I shall not dream that by deny- 
 ing one pole of the antinomy I can solve it, or do 
 anything but make them, by cynicism or fanati- 
 cism, bury their talent in the earth, and not do the 
 work which God has given them to do, because 
 they will act like a parson who, before beginning 
 his sermon, should first kick his congregation out 
 of doors, and turn the key ; and not like St. Paul, 
 who became all things to all men, if by any means 
 he might save some. 
 
 "Yours ever affectionately, with all Christmas 
 blessings, C. KlNGSLEY. 
 
 " FARLY COURT, December 26, 1855. 
 
 " I should be very much obliged to you to show 
 this letter to Maurice." 
 
 One more letter only I will add, dated about the 
 end of the " Parson Lot " period. He had written 
 to inform me that one of the old Chartist leaders, 
 a very worthy fellow, was in great distress, and to 
 ask me to do what I could for him. In my reply 
 I had alluded somewhat bitterly to the apparent 
 failure of the association movement in London, and 
 to some of our blunders, acknowledging how he had 
 often seen the weak places, and warned us against 
 them. His answer came by return of post: 
 
 "EVERSLEY, May, 1856. 
 
 " DEAR TOM It 's an ill bird that fouls its own 
 nest; and don't cry stinking fish, neither don't 
 hollow till you 're out of the wood which you
 
 60 Prefatory Memoir 
 
 ought n't to have called yourself Tom fool, and 
 blasphemed the holy name thereby, till you knowed 
 you was sich, which you was n't, as appears by 
 
 particulars. And I have heard from T twice 
 
 to-day, and he is agreeable, which, if he was n't, 
 he is an ass, and don't know half a loaf is better 
 than no bread, and you must n't look a gift horse 
 in the mouth, but all is as right as a dog-fox down 
 wind and vi. millia pass^lum to the next gorse. But 
 this 25 of his is a grueller, and I learnt with 
 interest that you are inclined to get the fish's nose 
 out of the weed. I have offered to lend him 10 
 hopes it may be lending and have written a 
 desperate begging letter to R. Monckton Milnes, 
 Esq., which 'evins prosper. Poor T says to- 
 night that he has written to Forster about it 
 which he must have the small of his back very 
 hard against the ropes so to do, so the sooner we 
 get the ginger-beer bottle out the longer he '11 
 fight, or else he '11 throw up the sponge at once ; 
 for I know his pride. I think we can raise it 
 
 somehow. I have a last card in old , the judge 
 
 who tried and condemned him, and is the dearest 
 
 old soul alive, only he will have it T showed 
 
 dunghill, and don't carry a real game hackle. If 
 I am to tackle he you must send me back those 
 letters to appeal to his piety and 'joys as does 
 abound,' as your incomparable father remarks. 
 When will you give me that canticle? He says 
 Tom Taylor (I believe all the world is called 
 Thomas) has behaved to him like a brother, which, 
 indeed, was to be expexed, and has promised him 
 copying at a shilling an hour, and will give him a 
 chop daily free gracious ; but the landlord won't 
 wait, which we must n't neither.
 
 Prefatory Memoir 61 
 
 " Now, business afore pleasure. You are an old 
 darling, and who says no, I 'd kick him, if it warn't 
 for my cloth ; but you are green in cottoning to 
 me about our '48 mess. Because why? I lost 
 nothing I risked nothing. You fellows worked 
 like bricks, spent money, and got midshipman's 
 half-pay (nothing a-day and find yourself), and 
 monkey's allowance (more kicks than halfpence). 
 I risked no money ; 'cause why, I had none ; but 
 made money out of the movement, and fame too. 
 I 've often thought what a dirty beast I was. I 
 made 150 by Alton Locke, and never lost a 
 farthing; and I got, not in spite of, but by the 
 rows, a name and a standing with many a one who 
 would never have heard of me otherwise, and I 
 should have been a stercoraceous mendicant if I 
 had hollowed when I got a facer, while I was win- 
 ning by the cross, though I did n't mean to fight 
 one. No. And if I'd had 100,000, I'd have, 
 and should have, staked and lost it all in 1 848-50. 
 I should, Tom, for my heart was and is in it, and 
 you '11 see it will beat yet ; but we ain't the boys. 
 We don't see but half the bull's eye yet, and don't 
 see at all the policeman which is a going on his 
 beat behind the bull's eye, and no thanks to us. 
 Still some somedever, it 's in the fates, that asso- 
 ciation is the pure caseine, and must be eaten by 
 the human race if it would save its soul alive, 
 which, indeed, it will ; only don't you think me a 
 good fellow for not crying out, when I never had 
 more to do than scratch myself and away went 
 the fleas. But you all were real bricks; and if 
 you were riled, why let him that is without sin 
 cast the first stone, or let me cast it for him, and 
 see if I don't hit him in the eye.
 
 62 Prefatory Memoir 
 
 " Now to business ; I have had a sorter kinder 
 sample day. Up at 5, to see a dying man; ought 
 to have been up at 2, but Ben King the rat-catcher, 
 who came to call me, was taken nervous ! ! ! and 
 didn't make row enough; was from 5.30106.30 
 with the most dreadful case of agony insensible 
 to me, but not to his pain. Came home, got a 
 wash and a pipe, and again to him at 8. Found 
 him insensible to his own pain, with dilated pupils, 
 dying of pressure of the brain going any moment. 
 Prayed the commendatory prayers over him, and 
 started for the river with West. Fished all the 
 morning in a roaring N. E. gale, with the dreadful 
 agonized face between me and the river, pondering 
 on THE mystery. Killed eight on ' March brown' 
 and ' governor,' by drowning the flies, and taking 
 'em out gently to see if aught was there which is 
 the only dodge in a north-easter. 'Cause why? 
 The water is warmer than the air ergo, fishes 
 don't like to put their noses out o' doors, and feeds 
 at home downstairs. It is the only wrinkle, Tom. 
 The captain fished a-top, and caught but three 
 all day. They were n't going to catch a cold in 
 their heads to please him or any man. Clouds 
 burn up at I P. M. I put on a minnow, and kill 
 three more; I should have had lots, but for the 
 image of the dirty hickory stick, which would 
 ' walk the waters like a thing of life,' just ahead of 
 my minnow. Mem. Never fish with the sun in 
 your back; it's bad enough with a fly, but with 
 a minnow it 's strychnine and prussic acid. My 
 eleven weighed together four and a half pounds 
 three to the pound ; not good considering I had 
 passed many a two-pound fish, I know. 
 
 " Corollary. Brass minnow don't suit the water.
 
 Prefatory Memoir 63 
 
 Where is your wonderful minnow? Send him me 
 down, or else a horn one, which I believes in des- 
 perate; but send me something before Tuesday, 
 and I will send you P.O.O. Horn minnow looks 
 like a gudgeon, which is the pure caseine. One 
 pounder I caught to-day on the ' March brown ' 
 womited his wittles, which was rude, but instruc- 
 tive; and among worms was a gudgeon three 
 inches long and more. Blow minnows gudgeon 
 is the thing. 
 
 " Came off the water at 3. Found my man 
 alive, and, thank God, quiet. Sat with him, and 
 thought him going once or twice. What a mystery 
 that long, insensible death-struggle is ! Why 
 should they be so long about it ! Then had to go 
 Hartley Row for an Archdeacon's Sunday-school 
 meeting three hours' useless (I fear) speechify- 
 ing and ' shop ' ; but the Archdeacon is a good 
 man, and works like a brick beyond his office. 
 Got back at 10.30, and sit writing to you. So 
 goes one's day. All manner of incongruous things 
 to do and the very incongruity keeps one beany 
 and jolly. Your letter was delightful. I read part 
 of it to West, who says, you are the best fellow on 
 earth, to which I agree. 
 
 " So no more from your sleepy and tired 
 
 "C. KlNGSLEY." 
 
 This was almost the last letter I ever received 
 from him in the Parson Lot period of his life with 
 which alone this notice has to do. It shows, I think, 
 very clearly that it was not that he had deserted his 
 flag (as has been said) or changed his mind about 
 the cause for which he had fought so hard and so 
 well. His heart was in it still as warmly as ever, as
 
 64 Prefatory Memoir 
 
 he says himself. But the battle had rolled away to 
 another part of the field. Almost all that Parson 
 Lot had ever striven for was already gained. The 
 working classes had already got statutory protec- 
 tion for their trade associations, and their unions, 
 though still outside the law, had become strong 
 enough to fight their own battles. And so he laid 
 aside his fighting name and his fighting pen, and 
 had leisure to look calmly on the great struggle 
 more as a spectator than an actor. 
 
 A few months later, in the summer of 1856, 
 when he and I were talking over and preparing for 
 a week's fishing in the streams and lakes of his 
 favorite Snowdonia, he spoke long and earnestly 
 in the same key. I well remember how he wound 
 it all up with, " The long and short of it is, I am 
 becoming an optimist. All men, worth anything, 
 old men especially, have strong fits of optimism 
 even Carlyle has because they can't help hoping, 
 and sometimes feeling, that the world is going 
 right, and will go right, not your way, or my way, 
 but its own way. Yes ; we Ve all tried our Hollo- 
 way's Pills, Tom, to cure all the ills of all the world 
 and we Ve all found out I hope by this time that 
 the tough old world has more in its inside than any 
 Holloway's Pills will clear out." A few weeks later 
 I received the following invitation to Snowdon, and 
 to Snowdon we went in the autumn of 1856. 
 
 THE INVITATION. 
 
 Come away with me, Tom, 
 Term and talk is done ; 
 My poor lads are reaping, 
 Busy every one.
 
 Prefatory Memoir 65 
 
 Curates mind the parish, 
 Sweepers mind the Court, 
 We '11 away to Snowdon 
 For our ten days' sport, 
 Fish the August evening 
 Till the eve is past, 
 Whoop like boys at pounders 
 Fairly played and grassed. 
 When they cease to dimple, 
 Lunge, and swerve, and leap, 
 Then up over Siabod 
 Choose our nest, and sleep. 
 Up a thousand feet, Tom, 
 Round the lion's head, 
 Find soft stones to leeward 
 And make up our bed. 
 Eat our bread and bacon, 
 Smoke the pipe of peace, 
 And, ere we be drowsy, 
 Give our boots a grease. 
 Homer's heroes did so, 
 Why not such as we ? 
 What are sheets and servants? 
 Superfluity. 
 
 Pray for wives and children 
 Safe in slumber curled, 
 Then to chat till midnight 
 O'er this babbling world. 
 Of the workmen's college, 
 Of the price of grain, 
 Of the tree of knowledge, 
 Of the chance of rain; 
 If Sir A. goes Romeward, 
 If Miss B. sings true, 
 If the fleet comes homeward, 
 If the mare will do, 
 Anything and everything 
 Up there in the sky 
 Angels understand us, 
 And no "saints " are by. 
 Down, and bathe at day-dawn, 
 Tramp from lake to lake, 
 
 Vol. IK-4
 
 66 Prefatory Memoir 
 
 Washing brain and heart clean 
 Every step we take. 
 Leave to Robert Browning 
 Beggars, fleas, and vines ; 
 Leave to mournful Ruskin 
 Popish Apennines, 
 Dirty Stones of Venice 
 And his Gas-lamps Seven ; 
 We Ve the stones of Snowdon 
 And the lamps of heaven. 
 Where 's the mighty credit 
 In admiring Alps ? 
 Any goose sees "glory" 
 In their " snowy scalps." 
 Leave such signs and wonders 
 For the dullard brain, 
 As aesthetic brandy, 
 Opium and cayenne ; 
 Give me Bramshill common 
 (St. John's harriers by), 
 Or the vale of Windsor, 
 England's golden eye. 
 Show me life and progress, 
 Beauty, health, and man ; 
 Houses fair, trim gardens, 
 Turn where'er I can. 
 Or, if bored with " High Art, 
 And such popish stuff, 
 One's poor ears need airing, 
 Snowdon 's high enough, 
 While we find God's signet 
 Fresh on English ground, 
 Why go gallivanting 
 With the nations round ? 
 Though we try no ventures 
 Desperate or strange ; 
 Feed on commonplaces 
 In a narrow range ; 
 Never sought for Franklin 
 Round the frozen Capes ; 
 Even, with Macdougall, 
 Bagged our brace of apes ;
 
 Prefatory Memoir 67 
 
 Never had our chance, Tom, 
 In that black Redan ; 
 Can't avenge poor Brereton 
 Out in Sakarran; 
 Tho' we earn our bread, Tom, 
 By the dirty pen, 
 What we can we will be, 
 Honest Englishmen. 
 Do the work that 's nearest, 
 Though it's dull at whiles; 
 Helping, when we meet them, 
 Lame dogs over stiles ; 
 See in every hedgerow 
 Marks of angels' feet, 
 Epics in each pebble 
 Underneath our feet ; 
 Once a-year, like schoolboys 
 Robin-Hooding go, 
 Leaving fops and fogies 
 A thousand feet below. 
 
 THOMAS HUGHES.
 
 CHEAP CLOTHES AND NASTY 
 
 KING RYENCE, says the legend of Prince 
 Arthur, wore a paletot trimmed with kings' 
 beards. In the first French Revolution (so Carlyle 
 assures us) there were at Meudon tanneries of 
 human skins. Mammon, at once tyrant and revo- 
 lutionary, follows both these noble examples in 
 a more respectable way, doubtless, for Mammon 
 hates cruelty ; bodily pain is his devil the worst 
 evil which he, in his effeminacy, can conceive. So 
 he shrieks benevolently when a drunken soldier is 
 flogged ; but he trims his paletots, and adorns his 
 legs, with the flesh of men and the skins of women, 
 with degradation, pestilence, heathendom, and de- 
 spair ; and then chuckles self-complacently over 
 the smallness of his tailors' bills. Hypocrite ! 
 straining at a gnat and swallowing a camel ! What 
 is flogging, or hanging, King Ryence's paletot or 
 the tanneries of Meudon, to the slavery, starvation, 
 waste of life, year-long imprisonment in dungeons 
 narrower and fouler than those of the Inquisition, 
 which goes on among thousands of free English 
 clothes-makers at this day? 
 
 " The man is mad," says Mammon, smiling 
 supercilious pity. Yes, Mammon; mad as Paul
 
 70 Cheap Clothes and Nasty 
 
 before Festus; and for much the same reason, 
 too. Much learning has made us mad. From 
 two articles in the " Morning Chronicle " of Fri- 
 day, I4th December, and Tuesday, i8th Decem- 
 ber, on the Condition of the Working Tailors, we 
 learnt too much to leave us altogether masters of 
 ourselves. But there is method in our madness; 
 we can give reasons for it satisfactory to our- 
 selves, perhaps also to Him who made us, and you, 
 and all tailors likewise. Will you, freshly bediz- 
 ened, you and your footmen, from Nebuchadnezzar 
 and Co.'s " Emporium of Fashion," hear a little 
 about how your finery is made? You are always 
 calling out for facts, and have a firm belief in sal- 
 vation by statistics. Listen to a few. 
 
 The metropolitan commissioner of the " Morn- 
 ing Chronicle " called two meetings of the work- 
 ing tailors, one in Shadwell, and the other at the 
 Hanover Square rooms, in order to ascertain their 
 condition from their own lips. Both meetings 
 were crowded. At the Hanover Square rooms 
 there were more than one thousand men ; they were 
 altogether unanimous in their descriptions of the 
 misery and slavery which they endured. It ap- 
 pears that there are two distinct tailor trades 
 the "honorable" trade, now almost confined to the 
 West End, and rapidly dying out there, and the 
 " dishonorable " trade of the show-shops and slop- 
 shops the plate-glass palaces, where gents 
 and, alas ! those who would be indignant at that 
 name buy their cheap-and-nasty clothes. The 
 two names are the tailors' own slang ; slang is true 
 and expressive enough, though, now and then. 
 The honorable shops in the West End number 
 only sixty; the dishonorable, four hundred and
 
 
 Cheap Clothes and Nasty 71 
 
 more; while at the East End the dishonorable 
 trade has it all its own way. The honorable parf 
 of the trade is declining at the rate of one hundred 
 and fifty journeymen per year; the dishonorable 
 increasing at such a rate that in twenty years it 
 will have absorbed the whole tailoring trade, which 
 employs upwards of twenty-one thousand journey- 
 men. At the honorable shops the work is done, 
 as it was universally thirty years ago, on the prem- 
 ises and at good wages./? In the dishonorable 
 trade the work is taken home by the men, to be 
 done at the very lowest possible prices, which de- 
 crease year by year, almost month by month. At 
 the honorable shops, from 36^. to 24*. is paid for a 
 piece of work for which the dishonorable shop pays 
 from 22s. to 9-f. But not to the workman ; happy 
 is he if he really gets two-thirds, or half of that. 
 For at the honorable shops, the master deals 
 directly with his workmen ;~^vhile at the dishonor- 
 able ones, the greater part of the work, if not the 
 whole, is let out to contractors, or middle-men 
 " sweaters" as their victims significantly call them 
 who, in their turn, let it out again, sometimes to 
 the workmen, sometimes to fresh middle-men ; so 
 that out of the price for labor on each article, not 
 only the workmen, but the sweater, and perhaps 
 the sweater's sweater, and a third, and a fourth, and 
 a fifth, have to draw their profit. And when the 
 labor price has been already beaten down to the 
 lowest possible, how much remains for the work- 
 men after all these deductions, let the poor fellows 
 themselves say ! 
 
 One working tailor (at the Hanover Square 
 Rooms Meeting) " mentioned a number of shops, 
 both at the East and West ends, whose work was
 
 72 Cheap Clothes and Nasty 
 
 all taken by sweaters ; and several of these shops 
 were under royal and noble patronage. There was 
 one notorious sweater who kept his carriage. He 
 was a Jew, and, of course, he gave a preference to 
 his own sect. Thus, another Jew received it from 
 him second hand and at a lower rate ; then it went 
 to a third till it came to the unfortunate Christian 
 at perhaps the eighth rate, and he performed the 
 work at barely living prices; this same Jew re- 
 quired a deposit of $ in money before he would 
 give out a single garment to be made. He need 
 not describe the misery which this system entailed 
 upon the workmen. It was well known, but it was 
 almost impossible, except for those who had been 
 at the two, to form an idea of the difference be- 
 tween the present meeting and one at the East End, 
 where all who attended worked for slop-shops and 
 sweaters. The present was a highly respectable 
 assembly; the other presented no other appear- 
 ance but those of misery and degradation." 
 
 Another says : " We have all worked in the 
 honorable trade, so we know the regular prices 
 from our own personal experience. Taking the 
 bad work with the good work, we might earn 1 1 s. 
 a week upon an average. Sometimes we do earn 
 as much as 15^. ; but, to do this, we are obliged to 
 take part of our work home to our wives and 
 daughters. We are not always fully employed. 
 We are nearly half our time idle. Hence our 
 earnings are, upon an average throughout the year, 
 not more than $s. 6d. a week." " Very often I have 
 made only 3$. 4^. in the week," said one. " That's 
 common enough with us all, I can assure you," 
 said another. "Last week my wages was 75. 6d." 
 declared one. " I earned 6s. 4^.," exclaimed the
 
 Cheap Clothes and Nasty 73 
 
 second. " My wages came to gs. 2d. The week 
 before I got 6s. T,d." " I made "js. gd." and " I Js. 
 or 8s., I can't exactly remember which." " This is 
 what we term the best part of our winter season. 
 The reason why we are so long idle is because 
 more hands than are wanted are kept on the 
 premises, so that in case of a press of work coming 
 in, our employers can have it done immediately. 
 Under the day work system no master tailor had 
 more men on the premises than he could keep 
 continually going; but since the change to the 
 piece-work system, masters made a practice of 
 engaging double the quantity of hands that they 
 have any need for, so that an order may be exe- 
 cuted ' at the shortest possible notice,' if requisite. 
 A man must not leave the premises when unem- 
 ployed, if he does, he loses his chance of work 
 coming in. I have been there four days together, 
 and had not a stitch of work to do." " Yes ; that 
 is common enough." " Ay, and then you 're told, 
 if you complain, you can go, if you don't like it. 
 I am sure twelve hands would do all they have 
 done at home, and yet they keep forty of us. It's 
 generally remarked that, however strong and 
 healthy a man may be when he goes to work at 
 that shop, in a month's time he '11 be a complete 
 shadow, and have almost all his clothes in pawn. 
 By Sunday morning, he has no money at all left, 
 and he has to subsist till the following Saturday 
 upon about a pint of weak tea, and four slices of 
 bread and butter per day ! ! ! " 
 
 " Another of the reasons for the sweaters keep- 
 ing more hands than they want is, the men gener- 
 ally have their meals with them. The more men 
 they have with them the more breakfasts and teas
 
 74 Cheap Clothes and Nasty 
 
 they supply, and the more profit they make. The 
 men usually have to pay 4^., and very often $d. 
 for their breakfast, and the same for their tea. 
 The tea or breakfast is mostly a pint of tea or 
 coffee, and three to four slices of bread and butter. 
 / worked for one sweater who almost starved the 
 men ; the smallest eater there would not have had 
 enough if he had got three times as much. They 
 had only three thin slices of bread and butter, not 
 sufficient for a child, and the tea was both weak and 
 bad. The whole meal could not have stood him in 
 2d, a head, and what made it worse was, that the 
 men who worked there couldn't afford to have 
 dinners, so that they were starved to the bone. The 
 sweater's men generally lodge where they work. 
 A sweater usually keeps about six men. These 
 occupy two small garrets ; one room is called the 
 kitchen, and the other the workshop ; and here the 
 whole of the six men, and the sweater, his wife, and 
 family, live and sleep. One sweater / worked with 
 had four children and six men, and they, together 
 with his wife, sister-in-law, and himself, all lived 
 in two rooms, the largest of which was about eight 
 feet by ten. We worked in the smallest room and 
 slept there as well all six of us. There were two 
 turn-up beds in it, and we slept three in a bed. 
 There was no chimney, and, indeed, no ventilation 
 whatever. I was near losing my life there the 
 foul air of so many people working all day in the 
 place, and sleeping there at night, was quite suffocat- 
 ing. Almost all the men were consumptive, and I 
 myself attended the dispensary for disease of the 
 lungs. The room in which we all slept was not 
 more than six feet square. We were all sick and 
 weak, and loath to work. Each of the six of us paid
 
 Cheap Clothes and Nasty 75 
 
 2s. 6d. a week for our lodging, or 15*. altogether, 
 and I am sure such a room as we slept and worked 
 in might be had for is. a week ; you can get a 
 room with a fireplace for is. 6d. a week. The 
 usual sum that the men working for sweaters pay 
 for their tea, breakfasts, and lodging is 6s. 6d. to ys. 
 a week, and they seldom earn more money in the 
 week. Occasionally at the week's end they are in 
 debt to the sweater. This is seldom for more than 
 6d., for the sweater will not give them victuals if he 
 has no work for them to do. Many who live and 
 work at the sweater's are married men, and are 
 obliged to keep their wives and children in lodg- 
 ings by themselves. Some send them to the work- 
 house, others to their friends in the country. 
 Besides the profit of the board and lodging, the 
 sweater takes 6d. out of the price paid for every 
 garment under los. ; some take 15., and I do know 
 of one who takes as much as 2s. This man works 
 for a large show-shop at the West End. The usual 
 profit of the sweater, over and above the board 
 and lodging, is 2s. out of every pound. Those 
 who work for sweaters soon lose their clothes, and 
 are unable to seek for other work, because they 
 have not a coat to their back to go and seek it in. 
 Last week, I worked with another man at a coat for 
 one of 'her Majesty 's minis fers, and my partner never 
 broke his fast while, he was making his half of it. 
 The minister dealt at a cheap West End show-shop. 
 All the workman had the whole day and a half he 
 was making the coat was a little tea. But sweaters' 
 work is not so bad as Government work after all. 
 At that, we cannot make more than 4*. or 5J. a 
 week altogether that is, counting the time we 
 are running after it, of course. Government con-
 
 
 76 Cheap Clothes and Nasty 
 
 tract work is the worst of all, and the starved-out 
 and sweated-out tailor's last resource. But still, 
 Government does not do the regular trade so much 
 harm as the cheap show and slop-shops. These 
 houses have ruined thousands. They have cut 
 down the prices, so that men cannot live at the 
 work; and the masters who did and would pay 
 better wages, are reducing the workmen's pay 
 every day. They say they must either compete 
 with the large show-shops or go into the Gazette" 
 
 Sweet competition ! Heavenly maid ! Now- 
 adays hymned alike by penny-a-liners and philoso- 
 phers as the ground of all society the only real 
 preserver of the earth ! Why not of heaven, too? 
 Perhaps there is competition among the angels, 
 and Gabriel and Raphael have won their rank by 
 doing the maximum of worship on the minimum 
 of grace? We shall know some day. In the 
 meanwhile, " these are thy works, thou parent of 
 all good ! " Man eating man, eaten by man, in 
 every variety of degree and method ! Why does not 
 some enthusiastic political economist write an epic 
 on " The Consecration of Cannibalism " ? 
 
 But if any one finds it pleasant to his soul to 
 believe the poor journeymen's statements exag- 
 gerated, let him listen to one of the sweaters 
 themselves : 
 
 " I wish," says he, " that others did for the men 
 as decently as I do. I know there are many who 
 are living entirely upon them. Some employ as 
 many as fourteen men. I myself worked in the 
 house of a man who did this. The chief part of 
 us lived, and worked, and slept together in two 
 rooms, on the second floor. They charged 2s. 6d 
 per head for the lodging alone. Twelve of the
 
 Cheap Clothes and Nasty 77 
 
 workmen, I am sure, lodged in the house, and these 
 paid altogether $os. a week rent to the sweater. I 
 should think the sweater paid Ss. a week for the 
 rooms so that he gained at least 22s. clear out of 
 the lodging of these men, and stood at no rent 
 himself. For the living of the men he charged 
 $d. for breakfasts, and the same for teas, and %d. 
 for dinner or at the rate of ios. 6d. each per 
 head. Taking one with the other, and considering 
 the manner in which they lived, I am certain that 
 the cost for keeping each of them could not have 
 been more than 55. This would leave 5^. 6d. clear 
 profit on the board of each of the twelve men, or, 
 altogether, 5 6s. per week; and this, added to 
 the i 2s. profit on the rent, would give 4. &s. 
 for the sweater's gross profit on the board and 
 lodging of the workmen in his place. But, besides 
 this, he got is. out of each coat made on his prem- 
 ises, and there were twenty-one coats made there, 
 upon an average, every week ; so that, altogether, 
 the sweater's clear gains out of the men were 5 
 95. every week. Each man made about a coat and 
 a half in the course of the seven days (for they all 
 worked on a Sunday they were generally told to 
 1 borrow a day off the Lord' ). For this coat and 
 a half each hand got i: 2:6, and out of it he had 
 to pay 135. for board and lodging; so that there 
 was gs. 6d. clear left. These are the profits of the 
 sweater, and the earnings of the men engaged under 
 him, when working for the first-rate houses. But 
 many of the cheap houses pay as low as Ss. for the 
 making of each dress and frock coat, and some of 
 them as low as 6s. Hence the earnings of the men 
 at such work would be from 9$. to 12s. per week, 
 and the cost of their board and lodging without
 
 78 Cheap Clothes and Nasty 
 
 dinners, for these they seldom have, would be 
 from 75. 6d. to 8s. per week. Indeed, the men 
 working under sweaters at such prices generally 
 consider themselves well off if they have a shilling 
 or two in their pockets for Sunday. The profits of 
 the sweater, however, would be from 4 to 5 out 
 of twelve men, working on his premises. The 
 usual number of men working under each sweater 
 is about six individuals; and the average rate of 
 profit about 2 ios. t without the sweater doing any 
 work himself. It is very often the case that a man 
 working under a sweater is obliged to pawn his 
 own coat to get any pocket-money that he may 
 require. Over and over again the sweater makes 
 out that he is in his debt from is. to 2s. at the end 
 of the week, and when the man's coat is in pledge, he 
 is compelled to remain imprisoned in the sweater's 
 lodgings for months together. In some sweating 
 places, there is an old coat kept called a ' reliever,' 
 and this is borrowed by such men as have none of 
 their own to go out in. There are very few of the 
 sweaters' men who have a coat to their backs or a 
 shoe to their feet to come out into the streets on 
 Sunday. Down about Fulwood's Rents, Holborn, 
 I am sure 1 would not give 6d. for the clothes that 
 are on a dozen of them ; and it is surprising to me, 
 working and living together in such numbers and 
 in such small close rooms, in narrow close back 
 courts as they do, that they are not all swept off by 
 some pestilence. I myself have seen half a dozen 
 men at work in a room that was a little better than 
 a bedstead long. It was as much as one could do 
 to move between the wall and the bedstead when it 
 was down. There were two bedsteads in this room, 
 and they nearly filled the place when they were
 
 Cheap Clothes and Nasty 79 
 
 down. The ceiling was so low, that I could n't 
 stand upright in the room. There was no ventila- 
 tion in the place. There was no fireplace, and 
 only a small window. When the window was 
 open, you could nearly touch the houses at the 
 back, and if the room had not been at the top of 
 the house, the men could not have seen at all in 
 the place. The staircase was so narrow, steep, 
 and dark, that it was difficult to grope your way 
 to the top of the house it was like going up 
 a steeple. This is the usual kind of place, in 
 which the sweaters' men are lodged. The reason 
 why there are so many Irishmen working for the 
 sweaters is, because they are seduced over to this 
 country by the prospect of high wages and plenty 
 of work. They are brought over by the Cork 
 boats at icw. a head, and when they once get here, 
 the prices they receive are so small, that they are 
 unable to go back. In less than a week after 
 they get here, their clothes are all pledged, and 
 they are obliged to continue working under the 
 sweaters. 
 
 " The extent to which this system of ' street 
 kidnapping ' is carried on is frightful. Young 
 tailors, fresh from the country, are decoyed by the 
 sweaters' wives into their miserable dens, under 
 extravagant promises of employment, to find 
 themselves deceived, imprisoned, and starved, often 
 unable to make their escape for months perhaps 
 years; and then only fleeing from one dungeon to 
 another as abominable." 
 
 In the meantime, the profits of the beasts of 
 prey who live on these poor fellows both mas- 
 ters and sweaters seem as prodigious as therr 
 cruelty.
 
 8o Cheap Clothes and Nasty 
 
 Hear another working tailor on this point: 
 " In 1844 I belonged to the honorable part of the 
 trade. Our house of call supplied the present 
 show-shop with men to work on the premises. 
 The prices then paid were at the rate of 6d. per 
 hour. For the same driving capes that they paid 
 IBs. then, they give only 12s. for now. For the 
 dress and frock coats they gave 155. then, and now 
 they are 143, The paletots and shooting coats 
 were I2s. ; there was no coat made on the premises 
 under that sum. At the end of the season, they 
 wanted to reduce the paletots to gs. The men re- 
 fused to make them at that price, when other 
 houses were paying as much as 155. for them. 
 The consequence of this was, the house discharged 
 all the men, and got a Jew middle-man from the 
 neighborhood of Petticoat Lane, to agree to do 
 them all at ?s. 6d. a piece. The Jew employed all 
 the poor people who were at work for the slop 
 warehouses in Houndsditch and its vicinity. This 
 Jew makes on an average 500 paletots a week. 
 The Jew gets 2s. 6d. profit out of each, and having 
 no sewing trimmings allowed to him, he makes the 
 work-people find them. The saving in trimmings 
 alone to the firm, since the workmen left the 
 premises, must have realized a small fortune to 
 them. Calculating men, women, and children, I 
 have heard it said that the cheap house at the 
 West End employs 1000 hands. The trimmings 
 for the work done by these would be about 6d. a 
 week per head, so that the saving to the house 
 since the men worked on the premises has been no 
 less than 1300 a year, and all this taken out of 
 the pockets of the poor. The Jew who contracts 
 for making the paletots is no tailor at all. A few
 
 Cheap Clothes and Nasty 81 
 
 years ago he sold sponges in the street, and now 
 he rides in his carriage. The Jew's profits are 
 500 half-crowns, or 60 odd, per week that is 
 upwards of 3000 a year. Women are mostly 
 engaged at the paletot work. When I came to 
 work for the cheap show-shop I had 5 lOs. in the 
 saving bank; now I have not a halfpenny in it. 
 All I had saved went little by little to keep me and 
 my family. I have always made a point of putting 
 some money by when I could afford it, but since I 
 have been at this work it has been as much as I 
 could do to five, much more to save. One of the 
 firm for which I work has been heard publicly to 
 declare that he employed 1000 hands constantly. 
 Now the earnings of these at the honorable part 
 of the trade would be upon an average, taking 
 the skilful with the unskilful, 155. a week each, or 
 39,000 a year. But since they discharged the 
 men from off their premises, they have cut down 
 the wages of the workmen one-half taking one 
 garment with another though the selling prices 
 remain the same to the public, so that they have 
 saved by the reduction of the workmen's wages 
 no less than 19,500 per year. Every other quar- 
 ter of a year something has been ' docked ' off our 
 earnings, until it is almost impossible for men with 
 families to live decently by their labor; and now, 
 for the first time, they pretend to feel for them. 
 They even talk of erecting a school for the chil- 
 dren of their workpeople ; but where is the use of 
 erecting schools, when they know as well as we do, 
 that at the wages they pay, the children must be 
 working for their fathers at home? They had 
 much better erect workshops, and employ the men 
 on the premises at fair living wages, and then the
 
 82 Cheap Clothes and Nasty 
 
 men could educate their own children without 
 being indebted to their charity." 
 
 On this last question of what the master-canni- 
 bals had " much better do," we have somewhat to 
 say presently. In the meantime, hear another of 
 the things which they had much better not do. 
 " Part of the fraud and deception of the slop trade 
 consists in the mode in which the public are made 
 believe that the men working for such establish- 
 ments earn more money than they really do. The 
 plan practised is similar to that adopted by the 
 army clothier, who made out that the men working 
 on his establishment made per week from i$s. to 
 l?s. each, whereas, on inquiry, it was found that a 
 considerable sum was paid out of that to those 
 who helped to do the looping for those who took 
 it home. When a coat is given to me to make, a 
 ticket is handed to me with the garment, similar to 
 this one which I have obtained from a friend of 
 mine. 
 
 448 
 
 Mr. Smith 6,675 Made by M 
 Ze=*l 2s.*>*lined lustre 
 
 quilted double stitched 
 each side seams 
 448. No. 6,675. 
 
 o'clock Friday 
 Mr. Smith 
 
 On this you see the price is marked at 12s." con- 
 tinued my informant, " and supposing that I, with 
 two others, could make three of these garments in 
 the week, the sum of thirty-six shillings would 
 stand in the books of the establishment as the
 
 Cheap Clothes and Nasty 83 
 
 amount earned by me in that space of time. This 
 would be sure to be exhibited to the customers, im- 
 mediately that there was the least outcry made 
 about the starvation price they paid for their work, 
 as a proof that the workpeople engaged on their 
 establishment received the full prices ; whereas, of 
 that 365. entered against my name, / should have 
 had to pay 243. to those who assisted me; besides 
 this, my share of the trimmings and expenses would 
 have been is. 6d., and probably my share of the 
 fires would be I s. more ; so that the real fact would 
 be, that I should make gs. 6d. clear, and this it 
 would be almost impossible to do, if I did not work 
 long over hours. I am obliged to keep my wife 
 continually at work helping me, in order to live." 
 In short, the condition of these men is far worse 
 than that of the wretched laborers of Wilts or 
 Dorset. Their earnings are as low and often 
 lower ; their trade requires a far longer instruction, 
 far greater skill and shrewdness; their rent and 
 food are more expensive ; and their hours of work, 
 while they have work, more than half as long again. 
 Conceive sixteen or eighteen hours of skilled labor 
 in a stifling and fetid chamber, earning not much 
 more than 6s. 6d. or js. a week ! And, as has been 
 already mentioned in one case, the man who will 
 earn even that, must work all Sunday. He is even 
 liable to be thrown out of his work for refusing to 
 work on Sunday. Why not? Is there anything 
 about one idle day in seven to be found among 
 the traditions of Mammon? When the demand 
 comes, the supply must come ; and will, in spite of 
 foolish auld-warld notion about keeping days holy 
 or keeping contracts holy either, for, indeed, 
 Mammon has no conscience right and wrong
 
 84 Cheap Clothes and Nasty 
 
 are not words expressible by any commercial laws 
 yet in vogue ; and therefore it appears that to earn 
 this wretched pittance is by no means to get it. 
 " For," says one, and the practice is asserted to be 
 general, almost universal, " there is at our establish- 
 ment a mode of reducing the price of our labor even 
 lower than we have mentioned. The prices we 
 have stated are those nominally paid for making 
 the garments ; but it is not an uncommon thing in 
 our shop for a man to make a garment, and receive 
 nothing at all for it. I remember a man once 
 having a waistcoat to do, the price of making 
 which was 2s., and when he gave the job in he was 
 told that he owed the establishment 6d. The 
 manner in which this is brought about is by a sys- 
 tem of fines. We are fined if we are behind time 
 with our job, 6d. the first hour, and $d. for each hour 
 that we are late." " I have known as much as /s. 6d. 
 to be deducted off the price of a coat on the score 
 of want of punctuality," one said; " and, indeed, 
 very often the whole money is stopped. It would 
 appear as if our employers themselves strove to 
 make us late with our work, and so have an oppor- 
 tunity of cutting down the price paid for our labor. 
 They frequently put off giving out the trimmings 
 to us till the time at which the coat is due has ex- 
 pired. If to the trimmer we return an answer that 
 is considered ' saucy,' we are fined 6d. or is. ac- 
 cording to the trimmer's temper." " I was called 
 a thief," another of the three declared, " and be- 
 cause I told the man I would not submit to such 
 language, I was fined 6d. These are the principal 
 of the in-door fines. The out-door fines are still 
 more iniquitous. There are full a dozen more 
 fines for minor offences ; indeed, we are fined upon
 
 Cheap Clothes and Nasty 85 
 
 every petty pretext. We never know what we have 
 to take on a Saturday, for the meanest advantages 
 are taken to reduce our wages. If we object to 
 pay these fines, we are told that we may leave; 
 but they know full well that we are afraid to throw 
 ourselves out of work." 
 
 /"'Folks are getting somewhat tired of the old 
 rodomontade that a slave is free the moment he 
 sets foot on British soil ! Stuff! are these tailors 
 free? Put any conceivable sense you will on the 
 word, and then say are they free? We have, 
 thank God, emancipated the black slaves; it 
 would seem a not inconsistent sequel to that act to 
 set about emancipating these white ones. Oh ! we 
 forgot ; there is an infinite difference between the 
 two cases the black slaves worked for our 
 colonies; the white slaves work for us. But, 
 indeed, if, as some preach, self-interest is the main- 
 spring of all human action, it is difficult to see who 
 will step forward to emancipate the said white 
 slaves ; for all classes seem to consider it equally 
 their interest to keep them as they are ; all classes, 
 though by their own confession they are ashamed, 
 are yet not afraid to profit by the system which 
 keeps them down. 
 
 Not only the master tailors and their underlings, 
 but the retail tradesmen, too, make their profit out 
 of these abominations. By a method which 
 smacks at first sight somewhat of benevolence, but 
 proves itself in practice to be one of those " pre- 
 cious balms which break," not " the head " (for that 
 would savor of violence, and might possibly give 
 some bodily pain, a thing intolerable to the nerves 
 of Mammon) but the heart an organ which, be- 
 ing spiritual, can of course be recognized by no
 
 86 Cheap Clothes and Nasty 
 
 laws of police or commerce. The object of the 
 State, we are told, is "the conservation of body 
 and goods " ; there is nothing in that about broken 
 hearts; nothing which should make it a duty to 
 forbid such a system as a working tailor here 
 describes : 
 
 " Fifteen or twenty years ago, such a thing as a 
 journeyman tailor having to give security before 
 he could get work was unknown ; but now I and 
 such as myself could not get a stitch to do first 
 handed, if we did not either procure the security 
 of some householder, or deposit $ in the hands 
 of the employer. The reason of this is, the jour- 
 neymen are so badly paid that the employers 
 know they can barely live on what they get, and 
 consequently they are often driven to pawn the 
 garments given out to them, in order to save them- 
 selves and their families from starving. If the 
 journeyman can manage to scrape together $, he 
 has to leave it in the hands of his employer all the 
 time that he is working for the house. I know one 
 person who gives out the work for a fashionable 
 West End slop-shop that will not take household 
 security, and requires 5 from each hand. I am 
 informed by one of the parties who worked for 
 this man that he has as many as 150 hands in his 
 employ, and that each of these has placed 5 in 
 his hands, so that altogether the poor people have 
 handed over ^750 to increase the capital upon 
 which he trades, and for which he pays no interest 
 whatsoever." 
 
 This recalls a similar case (mentioned by a poor 
 stay-stitcher in another letter, published in the 
 " Morning Chronicle," of a large wholesale stay- 
 maker in the City, who had amassed a large for-
 
 Cheap Clothes and Nasty 87 
 
 tune by beginning to trade upon the 55. which he 
 demanded to be left in his hands by his work- 
 people before he gave them employment. 
 
 " Two or three years back one of the slop-sellers 
 at the East End became bankrupt, and the poor 
 people lost all the money that had been deposited 
 as security for work in his hands. The journeymen 
 who get the security of householders are enabled 
 to do so by a system which is now in general prac- 
 tice at the East End. Several bakers, publicans, 
 chandler-shop keepers, and coal-shed keepers, 
 make a trade of becoming security for those seek- 
 ing slop-work. They consent to be responsible for 
 the workpeople upon the condition of the men 
 dealing at their shops. The workpeople who re- 
 quire such security are generally very good cus- 
 tomers, from the fact of their either having large 
 families, all engaged in the same work, or else 
 several females or males working under them, and 
 living at their house. The parties becoming se- 
 curities thus not only greatly increase their trade, 
 but furnish a second-rate article at a first-rate 
 price. It is useless to complain of the bad quality 
 or high price of the articles supplied by the se- 
 curities, for the shopkeepers know, as well as the 
 workpeople, that it is impossible for the hands to 
 leave them without losing their work. I know one 
 baker whose security was refused at the slop-shop 
 because he was already responsible for so many, 
 and he begged the publican to be his deputy, so 
 that by this means the workpeople were obliged to 
 deal at both baker's and publican's too. I never 
 heard of a butcher making a trade of becoming 
 security, because the slopwork people cannot afford 
 to consume much meat.
 
 88 Cheap Clothes and Nasty 
 
 " The same system is also pursued by lodging- 
 house keepers. They will become responsible if 
 the workmen requiring security will undertake to 
 lodge at their house." 
 
 But of course the men most interested in keep- 
 ing up the system are those who buy the clothes 
 of these cheap shops. And who are they? Not 
 merely the blackguard gent the butt of Albert 
 Smith and Punch, who flaunts at the Casinos and 
 Cremorne Gardens in vulgar finery wrung out of 
 the souls and bodies of the poor; not merely the 
 poor lawyer's clerk or reduced half-pay officer 
 who has to struggle to look as respectable as his 
 class commands him to look on a pittance often 
 no larger than that of the day laborer no, 
 strange to say and yet not strange, considering 
 our modern eleventh commandment " Buy cheap 
 and sell dear,' the richest as well as the poorest 
 imitate the example of King Ryence and the tan- 
 ners of Meudon. At a great show establish- 
 ment to take one instance out of many the very 
 one where, as we heard just now, " however strong 
 and healthy a man may be when he goes to work 
 at that shop, in a month's time he will be a com- 
 plete shadow, and have almost all his clothes in 
 pawn " 
 
 " We have also made garments for Sir , 
 
 Sir , Alderman , Dr. , and Dr. 
 
 . We make for several of the aristocracy. 
 
 We cannot say whom, because the tickets fre- 
 quently come to us as Lord and the Marquis 
 
 of . This could not be a Jew's trick, because 
 
 the buttons on the liveries had coronets upon 
 them. And again, we know the house is patron- 
 ized largely by the aristocracy, clergy and gentry,
 
 Cheap Clothes and Nasty 89 
 
 by the number of court-suits and liveries, surplices, 
 regimentals, and ladies' riding-habits that we con- 
 tinually have to make up. There are more clergy- 
 men among the customers than any other class, and 
 often we have to work at home upon the Sunday at 
 their clothes, in order to get a living. The custom- 
 ers are mostly ashamed of dealing at this house, for 
 the men who take the clothes to the customers' 
 houses in the cart have directions to pull up at the 
 corner of the street. We had a good proof of the 
 dislike of gentlefolks to have it known that they 
 dealt at that shop for their clothes, for when the 
 trousers buttons were stamped with the name of 
 the firm, we used to have the garments returned, 
 daily, to have other buttons put on them, and now 
 the buttons are unstamped " ! ! ! 
 
 We shall make no comment on this extract. It 
 needs none. If these men know how their clothes 
 are made, they are past contempt. Afraid of man, 
 and not afraid of God ! As if His eye could not 
 see the cart laden with the plunder of the poor, be- 
 cause it stopped round the corner? If, on the 
 other hand, they do not know these things, and 
 doubtless the majority do not, it is their sin that 
 they do not know it. Woe to a society whose only 
 apology to God and man is, " Am I my brother's 
 keeper?" Men ought to know the condition of 
 those by whose labor they live. Had the ques- 
 tion been the investment of a few pounds in a 
 speculation, these gentlemen would have been care- 
 ful enough about good security. Ought they to 
 take no security when they invest their money in 
 clothes, that they are not putting on their backs 
 accursed garments, offered in sacrifice to devils, 
 reeking with the sighs of the starving, tainted 
 
 Vol. Ill 5
 
 90 Cheap Clothes and Nasty 
 
 yes, tainted, indeed, for it comes out now that 
 diseases numberless are carried home in these same 
 garments from the miserable abodes where they 
 are made. Evidence to this effect was given in 
 1844; but Mammon was too busy to attend to it 
 These wretched creatures, when they have pawned 
 their own clothes and bedding, will use as substi- 
 tutes the very garments they are making. So 
 
 Lord 's coat has been seen covering a group 
 
 of children blotched with small-pox. The Rev. 
 
 D finds himself suddenly unpresentable from 
 
 a cutaneous disease, which it is not polite to men- 
 tion on the south of Tweed, little dreaming that the 
 shivering dirty being who made his coat has been 
 sitting with his arms in the sleeves for warmth 
 while he stitched at the tails. The charming Miss 
 
 C is swept off by typhus or scarlatina, and 
 
 her parents talk about " God's heavy judgment and 
 visitation " had they tracked the girl's new rid- 
 ing-habit back to the stifling undrained hovel where 
 it served as a blanket to the fever-stricken slop- 
 worker, they would have seen why God had visited 
 them, seen that his judgments are true judgments, 
 and give His plain opinion of the system which 
 " speaketh good of the covetous whom God ab- 
 horreth " a system, to use the words of the 
 " Morning Chronicle's" correspondent, " unheard of 
 and unparalleled in the history of any country a 
 scheme so deeply laid for the introduction and sup- 
 ply of under-paid labor to the market, that it is 
 impossible for the working man not to sink and be 
 degraded by it into the lowest depths of wretched- 
 ness and infamy a system which is steadily and 
 gradually increasing, and sucking more and more 
 victims out of the honorable trade, who are really
 
 Cheap Clothes and Nasty 91 
 
 intelligent artisans, living in comparative comfort 
 and civilization, into the dishonorable or sweating 
 trade in which the slop-workers are generally al- 
 most brutified by their incessant toil, wretched 
 pay, miserable food, and filthy homes." 
 
 But to us, almost the worst feature in the whole 
 matter is, that the Government are not merely 
 parties to, but actually the originators of this sys- 
 tem. The contract system, as a working tailor 
 stated, in the name of the rest, " had been mainly 
 instrumental in destroying the living wages of the 
 working man. Now, the Government were the sole 
 originators of the system of contracts and of sweat- 
 ing. Forty years ago, there was nothing known of 
 contracts, except Government contracts ; and at 
 that period the contractors were confined to mak- 
 ing slops for the navy, the army, and the West 
 India slaves. It was never dreamt of then that 
 such a system was to come into operation in the 
 better classes of trade, till ultimately it was de- 
 structive of masters as well as men. The Govern- 
 ment having been the cause of the contract system, 
 and consequently of the sweating system, he called 
 upon them to abandon it. The sweating system 
 had established the show-shops and the ticket 
 system, both of which were countenanced by the 
 Government, till it had become a fashion to sup- 
 port them. 
 
 " Even the Court assisted to keep the system in 
 fashion, and the royal arms and royal warrants were 
 now exhibited common enough by slop-sellers." 
 
 " Government said, its duty was to do justice. 
 But was it consistent with justice to pay only 2s. 
 >d. for making navy jackets, which would be paid 
 los. for by every 'honorable' tradesman? Was
 
 92 Cheap Clothes and Nasty 
 
 it consistent with justice for the Government to 
 pay for Royal Marine clothing (private's coat and 
 epaulettes) is. gd.? Was it consistent with justice 
 for the Government to pay for making a pair of 
 trousers (four or five hours' work) only 2\d.1 
 And yet, when a contractor, noted for paying just 
 wages to those he employed, brought this under 
 the consideration of the Admiralty, they declared 
 they had nothing to do with it. Here is their 
 answer : 
 
 " ADMIRALTY, March 19, 1847. 
 
 "SiR Having laid before my Lords Commissioners 
 of the Admiralty your letter of the 8th inst., calling their 
 attention to the extremely low prices paid for making up 
 articles of clothing, provided for her Majesty's naval 
 service, I am commanded by their lordships to acquaint 
 you that they have no control whatever over the wages 
 paid for making up contract clothing. Their duty is to 
 take care that the articles supplied are of good quality, 
 and well made : the cost of the material and the work- 
 manship are matters which rest with the contractor ; and 
 if the public were to pay him a higher price than that 
 demanded, it would not ensure any advantage to the 
 men employed by him, as their wages depend upon the 
 amount of competition for employment amongst them- 
 selves. 
 
 " I am, Sir, your most obedient servant, 
 
 "H. G. WARD. 
 
 "W. SHAW, Esq." 
 
 Oh most impotent conclusion, however officially 
 cautious, and "philosophically" correct! Even if 
 the wages did depend entirely on the amount of 
 competition, on whom does the amount of compe- 
 tition depend ? Merely on the gross numbers of
 
 Cheap Clothes and Nasty 93 
 
 the workmen? Somewhat, too, one would think, 
 on the system according to which the labor and 
 the wages are distributed. But right or wrong, is 
 it not a pleasant answer for the poor working tail- 
 ors, and one likely to increase their faith, hope, and 
 charity towards the present commercial system, and 
 those who deny the possibility of any other? 
 
 "The Government," says another tailor at the 
 same meeting, " had really been the means of 
 reducing prices in the tailoring trade to so low a 
 scale that no human being, whatever his industry, 
 could live and be happy in his lot. The Govern- 
 ment were really responsible for the first introduc- 
 tion of female labor. He would clearly prove 
 what he had stated. He would refer first to the 
 army clothing. Our soldiers were comfortably 
 clothed, as they had a right to be ; but surely the 
 men who made the clothing which was so comfort- 
 able, ought to be paid for their labor so as to be 
 able to keep themselves comfortable and their fami- 
 lies virtuous. But it was in evidence that the 
 persons working upon army clothing could not, 
 upon an average, earn more than I s. a day. Another 
 Government department, the post-office, afforded 
 a considerable amount of employment to tailors ; 
 but those who worked upon the post-office clothing 
 earned, at the most, only is. 6d. a day. The police 
 clothing was another considerable branch of tailor- 
 ing; this, like the others, ought to be paid for at 
 living prices ; but the men at work at it could only 
 earn is. 6d. a day, supposing them to work hard 
 all the time, fourteen or fifteen hours. The Custom 
 House clothing gave about the same prices. Now, 
 all these sorts of work were performed by time 
 workers, who, as a natural consequence of the
 
 94 Cheap Clothes and Nasty 
 
 wages they received, were the most miserable of 
 human beings. Husband, wife, and family all 
 worked at it; they just tried to breathe upon it; 
 to live it never could be called. Yet the same Gov- 
 ernment which paid such wretched wages, called 
 upon the wretched people to be industrious, to be 
 virtuous, and happy. How was it possible, what- 
 ever their industry, to be virtuous and happy? 
 The fact was, the men who, at the slack season, 
 had been compelled to fall back upon these kinds 
 of work, became so beggared and broken down 
 by it, notwithstanding the assistance of their wives 
 and families, that they were never able to rise out 
 of it." 
 
 And now comes the question What is to be 
 done with these poor tailors, to the number of 
 between fifteen and twenty thousand? Their' con- 
 dition, as it stands, is simply one of ever-increas- 
 ing darkness and despair. The system which is 
 ruining them is daily spreading, deepening. While 
 we write, fresh victims are being driven by penury 
 into the slop-working trade, fresh depreciations of 
 labor are taking place. Like Ulysses's com- 
 panions in the cave of Polyphemus, the only 
 question among them is, to scramble so far back 
 as to have a chance of being eaten at last. Before 
 them is ever-nearing slavery, disease, and starva- 
 tion. What can be done? 
 
 First this can be done. That no man who calls 
 himself a Christian no man who calls himself a 
 man shall ever disgrace himself by dealing at 
 any show-shop or slop-shop. It is easy enough 
 to know them. The ticketed garments, the im- 
 pudent puffs, the trumpery decorations, pro- 
 claim them, every one knows them at first
 
 Cheap Clothes and Nasty 95 
 
 sight. He who pretends not to do so is simply 
 either a fool or a liar. Let no man enter them 
 they are the temples of Moloch their thresh- 
 olds are rank with human blood. God's curse 
 is on them, and on those who, by support- 
 ing them, are partakers of their sins. Above all, 
 let no clergyman deal at them. Poverty and 
 many clergymen are poor doubly poor, because, 
 society often requires them to keep up the dress 
 of gentlemen on the income of an artisan; because, 
 too, the demands on their charity are quadruple 
 those of any other class yet poverty is no 
 excuse. The thing is damnable not Christianity 
 only, but common humanity cries out against it. 
 Woe to those who dare to outrage in private the 
 principles which they preach in public ! God is 
 not mocked ; and His curse will find out the priest 
 at the altar, as well as the nobleman in his castle. 
 
 But it is so hard to deprive the public of the 
 luxury of cheap clothes ! Then let the public 
 look out for some other means of procuring that 
 priceless blessing. If that, on experiment, be 
 found impossible if the comfort of the few be 
 forever to be bought by the misery of the 
 many if civilization is to benefit every one 
 except the producing class then this world is 
 truly the devil's world, and the sooner so ill- 
 constructed and infernal a machine is destroyed 
 by that personage, the better. 
 
 But let, secondly, a dozen, or fifty, or a hundred 
 journeymen say to one another: " It is competition 
 that is ruining us, and competition is division, dis- 
 union, every man for himself, every man against his 
 brother. The remedy must be in association, \ 
 co-operation, self-sacrifice for the sake of one
 
 96 Cheap Clothes and Nasty 
 
 another. We can work together at the honor- 
 able tailor's workshop we can work and live 
 together in the sweater's den for the profit of our 
 employers; why should we not work and live 
 together in our own workshops, or our own homes, 
 for our own profit? The journeymen of the hon- 
 orable trade are just as much interested as the slop- 
 workers in putting down sweaters and slop-sellers, 
 since their numbers are constantly decreasing, so 
 that their turn must come some day. Let them, if 
 no one else does, lend money to allow us to set up 
 a workshop of our own, a shop of our own. If 
 the money be not lent, still let us stint and strain 
 ourselves to the very bone, if it were only to raise 
 one sweater's security-money, which one of us 
 should pay into the slop-seller's hands, in his own 
 name, but on behalf of all: that will at least save 
 one sweater's profit out of our labor, and bestow 
 it upon ourselves; and we will not spend that 
 profit, but hoard it, till we have squeezed out all 
 the sweaters one by one. Then we will open our 
 common shop, and sell at as low a price as the 
 cheapest of the show-shops. We can do this, 
 by the abolition of sweaters' profits, by the using, 
 as far as possible, of one set of fires, lights, rooms, 
 kitchens, and wash-houses, above all, by being 
 true and faithful to one another, as all partners 
 should be. And, then, all that the master slop- 
 sellers had better do, will be simply to vanish and 
 become extinct." 
 
 And again, let one man, or half a 'dozen men 
 arise, who believe that the world is not the devil's 
 world at all, but God's : that the multitude of the 
 people is not, as Malthusians aver, the ruin, but 
 as Solomon believed, " the strength of the rulers " ;
 
 Cheap Clothes and Nasty 97 
 
 that men are not meant to be oeasts of prey, eat- 
 ing one another up by competition, as in some 
 confined pike pond, where the great pike, having 
 despatched the little ones, begin to devour each 
 other, till one overgrown monster is left alone to 
 die of starvation. Let a few men who have money, 
 and believe that, arise to play the man. 
 
 Let them help and foster the growth of associa- 
 tion by all means. Let them advise the honor- 
 able tailors, while it is time, to save themselves 
 from being degraded into slop -sellers by admitting 
 their journeymen to a share in profits. Let 
 them encourage the journeymen to compete with 
 Nebuchadnezzar and Co. at their own game. Let 
 them tell those journeymen that the experiment is 
 even now being tried, and, in many instances suc- 
 cessfully, by no less than one hundred and four 
 associations of journeymen in Paris. Let them 
 remind them of that Great Name which the Pari- 
 sian " ouvrier " so often forgets of Him whose 
 everlasting Fatherhood is the sole ground of all 
 human brotherhood, whose wise and loving will is 
 the sole source of all perfect order and govern- 
 ment. Let them, as soon as an association is 
 formed, provide for them a properly ventilated 
 workshop, and let it out to the associate tailors at 
 a low, fair rent. I believe that they will not lose 
 by it because it is right. God will take care of 
 their money. The world, it comes out now, is so 
 well ordered by Him, that model lodging-houses, 
 public baths, wash-houses, insurance offices, all 
 pay a reasonable profit to those who invest money 
 in them perhaps associate workshops may do 
 the same. At all events, the owners of these show- 
 shops realize a far higher profit than need be, while
 
 98 Cheap Clothes and Nasty 
 
 the buildings required for a tailoring establishment 
 are surely not more costly than those absurd plate- 
 glass fronts, and brass scroll-work chandeliers, and 
 puffs, and paid poets. A large house might thus 
 be taken, in some central situation, the upper 
 floors of which might be fitted up as model lodg- 
 ing-rooms for the tailor's trade alone. The draw- 
 ing-room floor might be the work-room; on the 
 ground floor the shop ; and, if possible, a room of 
 call or registration office for unemployed journey- 
 men, and a reading-room. Why should not this 
 succeed, if the owners of the house and the workers 
 who rent it are only true to one another? Every 
 tyro in political economy knows that association 
 involves a saving both of labor and of capital. 
 Why should it not succeed, when every one 
 connected with the establishment, landlords and 
 workmen, will have an interest in increasing its 
 prosperity, and none whatever in lowering the 
 wages of any party employed? 
 
 But above all, so soon as these men are found 
 working together for common profit, in the spirit 
 of mutual self-sacrifice, let every gentleman and 
 every Christian, who has ever dealt with, or could 
 ever have dealt with, Nebuchadnezzar and Co., or 
 their fellows, make it a point of honor and con- 
 science to deal with the associated workmen, and 
 get others to do the like. It is by securing custom, 
 far more than by gifts or loans of money, that we 
 can help the operatives. We should but hang a 
 useless burden of debt round their necks by 
 advancing capital, without affording them the 
 means of disposing of their produce. 
 
 Be assured, that the finding of a tailors' model 
 lodging-house, work-rooms, and shop, and the
 
 Cheap Clothes and Nasty 99 
 
 letting out of the two latter to an association, would 
 be a righteous act to do. If the plan does not 
 pay, what then? only a part of the money can be 
 lost ; and to have given that to an hospital or an 
 almshouse would have been called praiseworthy 
 and Christian charity; how much more to have 
 spent it not in the cure, but in the prevention of 
 evil in making almshouses less needful, and les- 
 sening the number of candidates for the hospital ! 
 
 Regulations as to police order, and temperance, 
 the workmen must, and, if they are worthy of the 
 name of free men, they can organize for them- 
 selves. Let them remember that an association 
 of labor is very different from an association of 
 capital. The capitalist only embarks his money 
 on the venture ; the workman embarks his time 
 that is, much at least of his life. Still more differ- 
 ent is the operatives' association from the single 
 capitalist, seeking only to realize a rapid fortune, 
 and then withdraw. The association knows no 
 withdrawal from business ; it must grow in length 
 and in breadth, outlasting rival slop-sellers, swal- 
 lowing up all associations similar to itself, and 
 which might end by competing with it. " Mo- 
 nopoly ! " cries a free-trader, with hair on end. 
 Not so, good friend; there will be no real free 
 trade without association. Who tells you that 
 tailors' associations are to be the only ones? 
 
 Some such thing, as I have hinted, might surely 
 be done. Where there is a will there is a way. 
 No doubt there are difficulties Howard and 
 Elizabeth Fry, too, had their difficulties. Brindley 
 and Brunei did not succeed at the first trial. It is 
 the sluggard only who is always crying, " There is 
 a lion in the streets." Be daring trust in God,
 
 ioo Cheap Clothes and Nasty 
 
 and He will fight for you ; man of money, whom 
 these words have touched, godliness has the prom- 
 ise of this life, as well as of that to come. The 
 thing must be done, and speedily ; for if it be not 
 done by fair means, it will surely do itself by foul. 
 The continual struggle of competition, not only in 
 the tailors' trade, but in every one which is not, 
 like the navigator's or engineer's, at a premium 
 from its novel and extraordinary demand, will 
 weaken and undermine more and more the masters, 
 who are already many of them speculating on 
 borrowed capital, while it will depress the work- 
 men to a point at which life will become utterly 
 intolerable ; increasing education will serve only 
 to make them the more conscious of their own 
 misery; the boiler will be strained to bursting 
 pitch, till some jar, some slight crisis, suddenly 
 directs the imprisoned forces to one point, and 
 then 
 
 What then? 
 
 Look at France, and see. 
 
 PARSON LOT.
 
 I HAVE addressed this preface to the young 
 gentlemen of the University, first, because it 
 is my duty to teach such of them as will hear me, 
 Modern History ; and I know no more important 
 part of Modern History than the condition and the 
 opinions of our own fellow-countrymen, some of 
 which are set forth in this book. 
 
 Next, I have addressed them now, because I 
 know that many of them, at various times, have 
 taken umbrage at certain scenes of Cambridge life 
 drawn in this book. I do not blame them for 
 having done so. On the contrary, I have so far 
 acknowledged the justice of their censure, that 
 while I have altered hardly one other word in this 
 book, I have re-written all that relates to Cam- 
 bridge life. 
 
 Those sketches were drawn from my own recol- 
 lections of 1838-1842. Whether they were over- 
 drawn is a question between me and men of my 
 own standing. 
 
 But the book was published in 1849; and I am 
 assured by men in whom I have the most thorough 
 confidence, that my sketches had by then at least 
 become exaggerated and exceptional, and there- 
 fore, as a whole, untrue ; that a process of purifica-
 
 102 Preface 
 
 tion was going on rapidly in the University ; and 
 that I must alter my words if I meant to give the 
 workingmen a just picture of her. 
 
 Circumstances took the property and control of 
 the book out of my hand, and I had no opportunity 
 of reconsidering and of altering the passages. 
 Those circumstances have ceased, and I take the 
 first opportunity of altering all which my friends 
 tell me should be altered. 
 
 But even if, as early as 1849, I had not been 
 told that I must do so, I should have done so of my 
 own accord, after the experiences of 1861. I have 
 received at Cambridge a courtesy and kindness 
 from my elders, a cordial welcome from my co- 
 equals, and an earnest attention from the under- 
 graduates with whom I have come in contact, 
 which would bind me in honor to say nothing 
 publicly against .my University, even if I had 
 aught to say. But I have naught I see at Cam- 
 bridge nothing which does not gain my respect 
 for her present state and hope for her future. In- 
 creased sympathy between the old and young, in- 
 creased intercourse between the teacher and the 
 taught, increased freedom and charity of thought, 
 and a steady purpose of internal self-reform and 
 progress, seem to me already bearing good fruit, 
 by making the young men regard their University 
 with content and respect. And among the young 
 men themselves, the sight of their increased ear- 
 nestness and highmindedness, increased sobriety 
 and temperance, combined with a manliness not in- 
 ferior to that of the stalwart lads of twenty years 
 ago, has made me look upon my position among 
 them as most noble, my work among them as most 
 hopeful, and made me sure that no energy which
 
 Preface 103 
 
 I can employ in teaching them will ever have been 
 thrown away. 
 
 Much of this improvement seems to me due to 
 the late High-Church movement; much to the in- 
 fluence of Dr. Arnold; much to that of Mr. 
 Maurice ; much to the general increase of civiliza- 
 tion throughout the country : but whatever be the 
 causes of it, the fact is patent ; and I take delight 
 in thus expressing my consciousness of it. 
 
 Another change I must notice in the tone of 
 young gentlemen, not only at Cambridge, but 
 throughout Britain, which is most wholesome and 
 most hopeful. I mean their altered tone in speak- 
 ing to and of the laboring classes. Thirty years 
 ago, and even later, the young men of the labor- 
 ing classes were " the cads," " the snobs," " the 
 blackguards" ; looked on with a dislike, contempt, 
 and fear, which they were not backward to return, 
 and which were but too ready to vent themselves 
 on both sides in ugly words and deeds. That 
 hateful severance between the classes was, I be- 
 lieve, an evil of recent growth, unknown to old 
 England. From the middle ages, up to the latter 
 years of the French war, the relation between the 
 English gentry and the laborers seems to have 
 been more cordial and wholesome than in any 
 other country of Europe. But with the French 
 Revolution came a change for the worse. The 
 Revolution terrified too many of the upper, and 
 excited too many of the lower classes; and the 
 stern Tory system of repression, with its bad habit 
 of talking and acting as if " the government " and 
 " the people " were necessarily in antagonism, 
 caused ever-increasing bad blood. Besides, the 
 old feudal ties between class and class, employer
 
 1 04 Preface 
 
 and employed, had been severed. Large masses 
 of working people had gathered in the manufactur- 
 ing districts in savage independence. The agri- 
 cultural laborers had been debased by the abuses 
 of the old Poor-law into a condition upon which 
 one looks back now with half-incredulous horror. 
 Meanwhile the distress of the laborers became 
 more and more severe. Then arose Luddite mobs, 
 meal mobs, farm riots, riots everywhere ; Captain 
 Swing and his rickburners, Peterloo " massacres," 
 Bristol conflagrations, and all the ugly sights and ru- 
 mors which made young lads, thirty or forty years 
 ago, believe (and not so wrongly) that " the masses " 
 were their natural enemies, and that they might 
 have to fight, any year, or any day, for the safety 
 of their property and the honor of their sisters. 
 
 How changed, thank God ! is all this now. Be- 
 fore the influence of religion, both Evangelical and 
 Anglican; before the spread of those liberal prin- 
 ciples, founded on common humanity and justice, 
 the triumph of which we owe to the courage and 
 practical good sense of the Whig party; before 
 the example of a Court, virtuous, humane, and be- 
 neficent; the attitude of the British upper classes 
 has undergone a noble change. There is no aris- 
 tocracy in the world, and there never has been one, 
 as far as I know, which has so honorably repented, 
 and brought forth fruits meet for repentance; 
 which has so cheerfully asked what its duty was, 
 that it might do it. It is not merely enlightened 
 statesmen, philanthropists, devotees, or the work- 
 ing clergy, hard and heartily as they are working, 
 who have set themselves to do good as a duty 
 specially required of them by creed or by station. 
 In the generality of younger laymen, as far as I
 
 Preface 105 
 
 can see, a humanity (in the highest sense of the 
 word) has been awakened, which bids fair, in an- 
 other generation, to abolish the last remnants of 
 class prejudices and class grudges. The whole 
 creed of our young gentlemen is becoming more 
 liberal, their demeanor more courteous, their lan- 
 guage more temperate. They inquire after the 
 welfare, or at least mingle in the sports of the 
 laboring man, with a simple cordiality which was 
 unknown thirty years ago ; they are prompt, the 
 more earnest of them, to make themselves of use 
 to him on the ground of a common manhood, if 
 any means of doing good are pointed out to them ; 
 and that it is in any wise degrading to " associate 
 with low fellows," is an opinion utterly obsolete, 
 save perhaps among a few sons of squireens in re- 
 mote provinces, or of parvenus who cannot afford 
 to recognize the class from whence they themselves 
 have risen. In the army, thanks to the purifying 
 effect of the Crimean and Indian wars, the same 
 altered tone is patent. Officers feel for and with 
 their men, talk to them, strive to instruct and 
 amuse them more and more year by year; and 
 as a proof that the reform has not been forced on 
 the officers by public opinion from without, but is 
 spontaneous and from within, another instance of 
 the altered mind of the aristocracy the improve- 
 ment is greatest in those regiments which are offi- 
 cered by men of the best blood ; and in care for 
 and sympathy with their men, her Majesty's Foot- 
 guards stands first of all. God grant that the 
 friendship which exists there between the leaders 
 and the led may not be tested to the death amid 
 the snowdrift or on the battlefield ; but if it be so, 
 I know too that it will stand the test.
 
 I 
 
 1 06 Preface 
 
 But if I wish for one absolute proof of the 
 changed relation between the upper and the lower 
 classes, I have only to point to the volunteer 
 movement. In 1803, in the face of the most real 
 and fatal danger, the Addington ministry was afraid 
 of allowing volunteer regiments, and Lord Eldon, 
 while pressing the necessity, could use as an argu- 
 ment that if the people did not volunteer for the 
 Government, they would against it. So broad was 
 even then the gulf between the governed and the 
 governors. How much broader did it become in 
 after years ! Had invasion threatened us at any 
 period between 1815 and 1830, or even later, would 
 any ministry have dared to allow volunteer regi- 
 ments? Would they have been justified in doing 
 so, even if they had dared? 
 
 And now what has come to pass, all the world 
 knows: but all the world should know likewise 
 that it never would have come to pass save for 
 not merely the late twenty years of good govern- 
 ment in State, twenty years of virtue and liberality 
 in the Court, but the late twenty years of in- 
 creasing rightmindedness in the gentry, who have 
 now their reward in finding that the privates in the 
 great majority of corps prefer being officered by 
 men of a rank socially superior to their own. And 
 as good always breeds fresh good, so this volunteer 
 movement, made possible by the goodwill between 
 classes, will help in its turn to increase that good- 
 will. Already, by the performance of a common 
 duty, and the experience of a common humanity, 
 these volunteer corps are become centres of cor- 
 diality between class and class; and gentleman, 
 tradesman, and workman, the more they see of 
 each other, learn to like, to trust, and to befriend
 
 Preface 107 
 
 each other more and more ; a good work in which 
 I hope the volunteers of the University of Cam- 
 bridge will do their part like men and gentlemen ; 
 when, leaving this University, they become each of 
 them, as they ought, an organizing point for fresh 
 volunteers in their own districts. 
 
 I know (that I may return to Cambridge) no 
 better example of the way in which the altered 
 tone of the upper classes and the volunteer move- 
 ment have acted and re-acted upon each other, 
 than may be seen in the Cambridge Working 
 Men's College, and its volunteer rifle corps, the 
 8th Cambridgeshire. 
 
 There we have what perhaps could not have 
 existed, what certainly did not exist twenty years 
 ago a school of a hundred men or more, taught 
 for the last eight years gratuitously by men of the 
 highest attainments in the University; by a dean 
 to whom, I believe, the success of the attempt 
 is mainly owing; by professors, tutors, prizemen, 
 men who are now head-masters of public schools, 
 who have given freely to their fellow-men knowl- 
 edge which has cost them large sums of money 
 and the heavy labor of years. Without insulting 
 them by patronage, without interfering with their 
 religious opinions, without tampering with their in- 
 dependence in any wise, but simply on the ground 
 of a common humanity, they have been helping to 
 educate these men, belonging for the most part, I 
 presume, to the very class which this book sets 
 forth as most unhappy and most dangerous the 
 men conscious of unsatisfied and unemployed in- 
 tellect. And they have their reward in a practical 
 and patent form. Out of these men a volunteer 
 corps is organized, officered partly by themselves,
 
 io8 Preface 
 
 partly by gentlemen of the University ; a nucleus 
 of discipline, loyalty, and civilization for the whole 
 population of Cambridge. 
 
 A noble work this has been, and one which may 
 be the parent of works nobler still. It is the first 
 instalment of, I will not say a debt, but a duty, 
 which the Universities owe to the working classes. 
 I have tried to express in this book what I know 
 were, twenty years ago, the feelings of clever work- 
 ingmen, looking upon the superior educational 
 advantages of our class. I cannot forget, any 
 more than the workingman, that the Universities 
 were not founded exclusively, or even primarily, 
 for our own class ; that the great mass of students 
 in the middle ages were drawn from the lower 
 classes, and that sizarships, scholarships, exhibi- 
 tions, and so forth, were founded for the sake of 
 those classes, rather than of our own. How the 
 case stands now, we all know. I do not blame the 
 Universities for the change. It has come about, I 
 think, simply by competition. The change began, 
 I should say, in the sixteenth century. Then, after 
 the Wars of the Roses, and the revival of letters, 
 and the dissolution of the monasteries, the younger 
 sons of gentlemen betook themselves to the pur- 
 suit of letters, fighting having become treasonable, 
 and farming on a small scale difficult (perhaps 
 owing to the introduction of large sheep-farms, 
 which happened in those days), while no monastic 
 orders were left to recruit the Universities, as they 
 did continually through the middle ages, from that 
 laboring class to which they and their scholars 
 principally belonged. 
 
 So the gentlemen's sons were free to compete 
 against the sons of workingmen; and by virtue
 
 Preface 109 
 
 of their superior advantages they beat them out of 
 the field. We may find through the latter half of 
 the sixteenth and the beginning of the seventeenth 
 centuries, bequest after bequest for the purpose of 
 stopping this change, and of enabling poor men's 
 sons to enter the Universities ; but the tendency 
 was too strong to be effectually resisted then. Is 
 it too strong to be resisted now? Does not the 
 increased civilization and education of the working 
 classes call on the Universities to consider whether 
 they may not now try to become, what certainly 
 they were meant to be, places of teaching and 
 training for genius of every rank, and not merely 
 for that of young gentlemen? Why should not 
 wealthy Churchmen, in addition to the many good 
 deeds in which they employ their wealth nowadays, 
 found fresh scholarships and exhibitions, confined 
 to the sons of workingmen? If it be asked, how 
 can they be so confined? what simpler method 
 than that of connecting them with the National 
 Society, and bestowing them exclusively on lads 
 who have distinguished themselves in our National 
 Schools? I believe that money spent in such a 
 way would be well spent both for the Nation, the 
 Church, and the University. As for the introduc- 
 tion of such a class of lads lowering the tone of 
 the University, I cannot believe it. There is room 
 enough in Cambridge for men of every rank. 
 There are still, in certain colleges, owing to cir- 
 cumstances which I should be very sorry to see 
 altered, a fair sprinkling of young men who, at 
 least before they have passed through a Cambridge 
 career, would not be called well bred. But they 
 do not lower the tone of the University; the tone 
 of the University raises them. Wherever there
 
 1 1 o Preface 
 
 is intellectual power, good manners are easily 
 acquired; the public opinion of young men ex- 
 presses itself so freely, and possibly coarsely, that 
 priggishness and forwardness (the faults to which 
 a clever National School pupil would be most 
 prone) are soon hammered out of any Cambridge 
 man ; and the result is, that some of the most dis- 
 tinguished and most popular men in Cambridge, 
 are men who have " risen from the ranks." All 
 honor to them for having done so. But if they 
 have succeeded so well, may there not be hundreds 
 more in England who would succeed equally? and 
 would it not be as just to the many as useful to 
 the University, in binding her to the people, and 
 the people to her, to invent some method for giv- 
 ing those hundreds a fair chance? 
 
 I earnestly press this suggestion (especially at 
 the present time of agitation among Churchmen 
 on the subject of education) upon the attention, 
 not of the University itself, but of those wealthy 
 men who wish well both to the University and to 
 the people. Not, I say, of the University : it is 
 not from her that the proposal must come, but 
 from her friends outside. She is doing her best 
 with the tools which she has; fresh work will 
 require fresh tools, and I trust that such will be 
 some day found for her. 
 
 I have now to tell those of them who may read 
 this book, that it is not altogether out of date. 
 
 Those political passions, the last outburst of 
 which it described, have, thank God, become mere 
 matter of history by reason of the good govern- 
 ment and the unexampled prosperity of the last 
 twelve years: but fresh outbursts of them are 
 always possible in a free country, whenever there
 
 Preface 1 1 1 
 
 is any considerable accumulation of neglects and 
 wrongs ; and meanwhile it is well indeed it is 
 necessary for every student of history to know 
 what manner of men they are who become revolu- 
 tionaries, and what causes drive them to revolution ; 
 that they may judge discerningly and charitably 
 of their fellow-men, whenever they see them rising, 
 however madly, against the powers that be. 
 
 As for the social evils described in this book, 
 they have been much lessened in the last few 
 years, especially by the movement for sanitary 
 reform : but I must warn young men that they are 
 not eradicated; that, for instance, only last year, 
 attention was called by this book to the working 
 tailors in Edinburgh, and their state was found, I 
 am assured, to be even more miserable than that 
 of the London men in 1848. And I must warn 
 them also that social evils, like dust and dirt, have 
 a tendency to reaccumulate perpetually; so that 
 however well this generation may have swept their 
 house (and they have worked hard and honestly 
 at it), the rising generation will have assuredly in 
 twenty years' time to sweep it over again. 
 
 One thing more I have to say, and that very 
 earnestly, to the young men of Cambridge. They 
 will hear a " conservative reaction " talked of as 
 imminent, indeed as having already begun. They 
 will be told that this reaction is made more cer- 
 tain by the events now passing in North America; 
 they will be bidden to look at the madnesses of an 
 unbridled democracy, to draw from them some 
 such lesson as the young Spartans were to draw from 
 the drunken Helots, and to shun with horror any 
 further attempts to enlarge the suffrage. 
 
 But if they have learnt (as they should from the
 
 1 1 2 Preface 
 
 training of this University) accuracy of thought and 
 language, they will not be content with such vague 
 general terms as " conservatism " and " democ- 
 racy": but will ask themselves If this conser- 
 vative reaction is at hand, what things is it likely 
 to conserve; and still more, what ought it to con- 
 serve? If the violences and tyrannies of American 
 democracy are to be really warnings to us, then 
 in what points does American democracy coincide 
 with British democracy? For so far and no 
 farther can one be an example or warning for the 
 other. 
 
 And looking, as they probably will under the 
 pressure of present excitement, at the latter ques- 
 tion first, they will surely see that no real anal- 
 ogy would exist between American and English 
 democracy, even were universal suffrage to be 
 granted to-morrow. 
 
 For American democracy, being merely arithmo- 
 cratic, provides no representation whatsoever for the 
 more educated and more experienced minority, and 
 leaves the conduct of affairs to the uneducated and 
 inexperienced many, with such results as we see. 
 But those results are, I believe, simply impossible in 
 a country which possesses hereditary monarchy 
 and a House of Lords, to give not only voice, but 
 practical power to superior intelligence and 
 experience. Mr. J. S. Mill, Mr. Stapleton, and 
 Mr. Hare have urged of late the right of minorities 
 to be represented as well as majorities, and have 
 offered plans for giving them a fair hearing. That 
 their demands are wise, as well as just, the present 
 condition of the Federal States proves but too 
 painfully. But we must not forget meanwhile, 
 that the minorities of Britain are not altogether
 
 Preface 113 
 
 unrepresented. In a hereditary monarch who has 
 the power to call into his counsels, private and 
 public, the highest intellect of the land; in a 
 House of Lords not wholly hereditary, but re- 
 cruited perpetually from below by the most suc- 
 cessful (and therefore, on the whole, the most 
 capable) personages ; in a free press, conducted in 
 all its most powerful organs by men of character 
 and of liberal education, I see safeguards against any 
 American tyranny of numbers, even if an enlarge- 
 ment of the suffrage did degrade the general tone 
 of the House of Commons as much as some expect. 
 
 As long, I believe, as the throne, the House of 
 Lords, and the press are what, thank God, they 
 are, so long will each enlargement of the suffrage 
 be a fresh source not of danger, but of safety ; for 
 it will bind the masses to the established order of 
 things by that loyalty which springs from content; 
 from the sense of being appreciated, trusted, dealt 
 with not as children, but as men. 
 
 There are those who will consider such lan- 
 guage as this especially ill-timed just now, in the 
 face of strikes and trades' union outrages. They 
 point to these things as proofs of the unfitness of 
 workmen for the suffrage ; they point especially to 
 the late abominable murder at Sheffield, and ask, 
 not without reason, would you give political power 
 to men who would do that? 
 
 Now that the Sheffield murder was in any wise 
 planned or commanded by the trades' unions in 
 general, I do not believe ; nor, I think, does any 
 one else who knows aught of the British workman. 
 If it was not, as some of the Sheffield men say, a 
 private act of revenge, it was the act of only one 
 or two trades' unions of that town, which are 
 
 Vol. Ill 6
 
 H4 Preface 
 
 known ; and their conduct has been already 
 reprobated and denounced by the other trades' 
 unions of England. But there is no denying that 
 the case as against the Trades' Unions is a heavy 
 one. It is notorious that they have in past years 
 planned and commanded illegal acts of violence. 
 It is patent that they are too apt, from a false 
 sense of class-honor, to connive at such now, 
 instead of being, as they ought to be, the first to 
 denounce them. The workmen will not see, that 
 by combining in societies for certain purposes, 
 they make those societies responsible for the good 
 and lawful behavior of all their members, in all 
 acts tending to further those purposes, and are 
 bound to say to every man joining the trades' 
 union : " You shall do nothing to carry out the 
 objects which we have in view, save what is allowed 
 by British Law." They will not see that they are 
 outraging the first principles of justice and free- 
 dom, by dictating to any man what wages he 
 should receive, what master he shall work for, or 
 any other condition which interferes with his rights 
 as a free agent. 
 
 But, in the face of these facts (and very painful 
 and disappointing they are to me), I will ask the 
 upper classes : Do you believe that the average of 
 trades' union members are capable of such vil- 
 lanies as that at Sheffield? Do you believe that 
 the average of them are given to violence or illegal 
 acts at all, even though they may connive at such 
 acts in their foolish and hasty fellows, by a false 
 class-honor, not quite unknown, I should say, in 
 certain learned and gallant professions? Do you 
 fancy that there are not in these trades' unions, 
 tens of thousands of loyal, respectable, rational,
 
 Preface 1 1 5 
 
 patient men, as worthy of the suffrage as any 
 average borough voter? If you do so, you really 
 know nothing about the British workman. At 
 least, you are confounding the workman of 1861 
 with the workman of 1831, and fancying that he 
 alone, of all classes, has gained nothing by the in- 
 creased education, civilization, and political expe- 
 rience of thirty busy and prosperous years. You 
 are unjust to the workman ; and more, you are un- 
 just to your own class. For thirty years past, 
 gentlemen and ladies of all shades of opinion have 
 been laboring for and among the working classes, 
 as no aristocracy on earth ever labored before; 
 and do you suppose that all that labor has been 
 in vain ? That it has bred in the working classes 
 no increased reverence for law, no increased con- 
 tent with existing institutions, no increased confi- 
 dence in the classes socially above them? If so, 
 you must have as poor an opinion of the capabil- 
 ities of the upp^r lasses, as you have of those of 
 the lower. 
 
 So far from the misdoings of trades' unions 
 being an argument against the extension of the 
 suffrage, they are, in my opinion, an argument for 
 it. I know that I am in a minority just now. I 
 know that the common whisper is now, not es- 
 pecially of those who look for a conservative re- 
 action, that these trades' unions must be put 
 down by strong measures : and I confess that I 
 hear such language with terror. Punish, by all 
 means, most severely, all individual offences 
 against individual freedom, or personal safety; 
 but do not interfere, surely, with the trades' 
 unions themselves. Do not try to bar these men 
 of their right as free Englishmen to combine, if
 
 1 1 6 Preface 
 
 they choose, for what they consider their own 
 benefit. Look upon these struggles between em- 
 ployers and employed as fair battles, in which, by 
 virtue of the irreversible laws of political economy, 
 the party who is in the right is almost certain to 
 win ; and interfere in no wise, save to see fair play, 
 and lawful means used on both sides alike. If you 
 do more ; if you interfere in any wise with the 
 trades' unions themselves, you will fail, and fail 
 doubly. You will not prevent the existence of 
 combinations: you will only make them secret, 
 dark, revolutionary : you will demoralize the work- 
 ingman thereby as surely as the merchant is de- 
 moralized by being converted into a smuggler; 
 you will heap up indignation, spite, and wrath 
 against the day of wrath ; and finally, to complete 
 your own failure, you will drive the workingman 
 to demand an extension of the suffrage, in tones 
 which will very certainly get a hearing. He cares, 
 or seems to care, little about the suffrage now, just 
 because he thinks that he can best serve his own 
 interests by working these trades' unions. Take 
 from him that means of redress (real or mistaken, 
 no matter), and he will seek redress in a way in 
 which you wish him still less to seek it, by 
 demanding a vote and obtaining one. 
 
 That consummation, undesirable as it may seem 
 to many, would perhaps be the best for the peace 
 of the trades. These trades' unions, still tainted 
 with some of the violence, secrecy, false political 
 economy which they inherit from the evil times of 
 1830-1840, last on simply, I believe, because the 
 workman feels that they are his only organ, that he 
 has no other means of making his wants and his 
 opinions known to the British Government. Had
 
 Preface 117 
 
 he a vote, he believes (and I believe with him) he 
 could send at least a few men to Parliament who 
 would state his case fairly in the House of Com- 
 mons, and would not only render a reason for him, 
 but hear reason against him, if need were. He 
 would be content with free discussion if he could 
 get that. PL is the feeling that he cannot get it 
 that drives him often into crooked and dark ways. 
 If any answer, that the representatives whom he 
 would choose would be merely noisy demagogues, 
 I believe them to be mistaken. No one can have 
 watched the Preston strike, however much he may 
 have disapproved, as I did, of the strike itself, 
 without seeing from the temper, the self-restraint, 
 the reasonablen ss, the chivalrous honor of the 
 men, that they were as likely to choose a worthy 
 member for the House of Commons as any town 
 constituency in England ; no one can have watched 
 the leaders of the workingmen for the last ten 
 years without finding among them men capable of 
 commanding the attention and respect of the House 
 of Commons, not merely by their eloquence, sur- 
 prising as that is, but by their good sense, good 
 feeling, and good breeding. 
 
 Some training at first, some rubbing off of 
 angles, they might require; though two at least 
 I know, who would require no such training, and 
 who would be ornaments to any House of Com- 
 mons ; the most inexperienced of the rest would 
 not give the House one-tenth the trouble which is 
 given by a certain clique among the representa- 
 tives of the sister Isle ; and would, moreover, learn 
 his lesson in a week, instead of never learning it at 
 all, like some we know too well. Yet Catholic 
 emancipation has pacified Ireland, though it has
 
 1 1 8 Preface 
 
 brought into the House an inferior stamp of mem- 
 bers : and much more surely would an extension 
 of the suffrage pacify the trades, while it would 
 bring into the House a far superior stamp of mem- 
 ber to those who compose the clique of which I 
 have spoken. 
 
 But why, I hear some one say impatiently, talk 
 about this subject of all others at this moment, 
 when nobody, not even the working classes, cares 
 about a reform bill ? 
 
 Because I am speaking to young men who have 
 not yet entered public life ; and because I wish 
 them to understand, that just because the question 
 of parliamentary reform is in abeyance now, it will 
 not be in abeyance ten years or twenty years 
 hence. The question will be revived ere they are 
 in the maturity of their manhood ; and they had 
 best face that certain prospect, and learn to judge 
 wisely and accurately on the subject before they 
 are called on, as they will be, to act upon it. If it 
 be true that the present generation has done all 
 that it can do, or intends to do, towards the suf- 
 frage (and I have that confidence in our present 
 rulers that I would submit without murmuring to 
 their decision on the point), it is all the more in- 
 cumbent on the rising generation to learn how to 
 do (as assuredly they will have to do) the work 
 which their fathers have left undone. The ques- 
 tion may remain long in abeyance, under the in- 
 fluence of material prosperity such as the present; 
 or under the excitement of a war, as in Pitt's time ; 
 but let a period of distress or disaster come, and it 
 will be re-opened as of yore. The progress to- 
 wards institutions more and more popular may be 
 slow, but it is sure. Whenever any class has con-
 
 Preface 119 
 
 ceived the hope of being fairly represented, it is 
 certain to fulfil its own hopes, unless it employs, 
 or provokes, violence impossible in England. The 
 thing will be. Let the young men of Britain take 
 care that it is done rightly when it is done. 
 
 And how ought it to be done? That will de- 
 pend upon any circumstances now future and 
 uncertain. It will depend upon the pace at which 
 sound education spreads among the working 
 classes. It will depend, too, very much I fear 
 only too much, upon the attitude of the upper 
 classes to the lower, in this very question of 
 trades' unions and of strikes. It will depend 
 upon their attitude toward the unrepresented 
 classes during the next few years, upon this very 
 question of extended suffrage. And, therefore, I 
 should advise, I had almost said entreat, any 
 young men over whom I have any influence, to 
 read and think freely and accurately upon the 
 subject ; taking, if I may propose to them a text- 
 book, Mr. Mill's admirable treatise on " Represen- 
 tative Government." As for any theory of my own, 
 if I had one I should not put it forward. How it 
 will not be done, I can see clearly enough. It 
 will not be done well by the old charter. It will 
 not be done well by merely lowering the money 
 qualification of electors. But it may be done 
 well by other methods beside; and I can trust 
 the freedom and soundness of the English mind to 
 discover the best method of all, when it is needed. 
 
 Let, therefore, this " conservative reaction " 
 which I suspect is going on in the minds of many 
 young men at Cambridge, consider what it has to 
 conserve. It is not asked to conserve the throne. 
 That, thank God, can take good care of itself. Let
 
 1 20 Preface 
 
 it conserve the House of Lords ; and that will be 
 conserved just in proportion as the upper classes 
 shall copy the virtues of royalty; both of him 
 who is taken from us, and of her who is left. Let 
 the upper classes learn from them that the just 
 and wise method of strengthening their political 
 power is to labor after that social power, which 
 comes only by virtue and usefulness. Let them 
 make themselves, as the present Sovereign has 
 made herself, morally necessary to the people; 
 and then there is no fear of their being found polit- 
 ically unnecessary. No other course is before 
 them, if they wish to make their " conservative 
 reaction " a permanent, even an endurable fact. If 
 any young gentlemen fancy (and some do) that 
 they can strengthen their class by making any 
 secret alliance with the Throne against the masses, 
 then they will discover rapidly that the sovereigns 
 of the House of Brunswick are grown far too wise, 
 and far too noble-hearted, to fall once more into 
 that trap. If any of them (and some do) fancy 
 that they can better their position by sneering, 
 whether in public or in their club, at a reformed 
 House of Commons and a free press, they will 
 only accelerate the results which they most dread, 
 by forcing the ultra-liberal party of the House, 
 and, what is even worse, the most intellectual and 
 respectable portion of the press, to appeal to 
 the people against them; and if again they are 
 tempted (as too many of them are) to give up 
 public life as becoming too vulgar for them, and 
 prefer ease and pleasure to the hard work and 
 plain-speaking of the House of Commons; then 
 they will simply pay the same penalty for laziness 
 and fastidiousness which has been paid by the
 
 Preface r 2 1 
 
 Spanish aristocracy ; and will discover that if they 
 think their intellect unnecessary to the nation, the 
 nation will rapidly become of the same opinion, 
 and go its own way without them. 
 
 But if they are willing to make themselves, as 
 they easily can, the best educated, the most trust- 
 worthy, the most virtuous, the most truly liberal- 
 minded class of the commonweal; if they will 
 set themselves to study the duties of rank and 
 property, as of a profession to which they are 
 called by God, and the requirements of which they 
 must fulfil ; if they will acquire, as they can easily, 
 a sound knowledge both of political economy and 
 of the social questions of the day ; if they will be 
 foremost with their personal influence in all good 
 works ; if they will set themselves to compete on 
 equal terms with the classes below them, and, as 
 they may, outrival them : then they will find that 
 those classes will receive them not altogether on 
 equal terms; that they will accede to them a 
 superiority, undefined, perhaps, but real and prac- 
 tical enough to conserve their class and their rank, 
 in every article for which a just and prudent man 
 would wish. 
 
 But if any young gentlemen look forward (as I 
 fear a few do still) to a conservative reaction of 
 any other kind than this ; to even the least return 
 to the Tory maxims and methods of George the 
 Fourth's time ; to even the least stoppage of what 
 the world calls progress which I should define 
 as the putting in practice the results of inductive 
 science; then do they, like King Picrochole in 
 Rabelais, look for a kingdom which shall be re- 
 stored to them at the coming of the Cocqcigrues. 
 The Cocqcigrues are never coming; and none
 
 122 Preface 
 
 know that better than the present able and mod- 
 erate leaders of the Conservative party ; none will 
 be more anxious to teach that fact to their young 
 adherents, and to make them swim with the great 
 stream, lest it toss them contemptuously ashore 
 upon its banks, and go on its way unheeding. 
 
 Return to the system of 1800-1830 is, I thank 
 God, impossible. Even though men's hearts 
 should fail them, they must onward, they know 
 not whither : though God does know. The bigot 
 who believes in a system, and not in the living 
 God ; the sentimentalist, who shrinks from facts 
 because they are painful to his taste ; the sluggard, 
 who hates a change because it disturbs his ease ; 
 the simply stupid person, who cannot use his eyes 
 and ears : all these may cry feebly to the world to 
 do what it has never done since its creation 
 stand still awhile, that they may get their breaths. 
 But the brave and honest gentleman who be- 
 lieves that God is not the tempter and deceiver, 
 but the father and the educator of man he will 
 not shrink, even though the pace may be at 
 moments rapid, the path be at moments hid by 
 mist; for he will believe that freedom and knowl- 
 edge, as well as virtue, are the daughters of the 
 Most High ; and he will follow them and call on 
 the rest to follow them, whithersoever they may 
 lead ; and will take heart for himself and for his 
 class, by the example of that great Prince who is 
 of late gone home. For if, like that most royal 
 soul, he and his shall follow with single eye and 
 steadfast heart, freedom, knowledge, and virtue; 
 then will he and his be safe, as royalty is safe in 
 England now, because both God and man have 
 need thereof.
 
 PREFACE 
 
 ADDRESSED TO THE WORKINGMEN OF 
 GREAT BRITAIN 
 
 WRITTEN IN 1854 
 
 MY FRIENDS Since I wrote this book 
 five years ago, I have seen a good deal 
 of your class, and of their prospects. Much that I 
 have seen has given me great hope; much has 
 disappointed me ; nothing has caused me to alter 
 the opinions here laid down. 
 
 Much has given me hope; especially in the 
 North of England. I believe that there, at least, 
 exists a mass of prudence, self-control, genial and 
 sturdy manhood, which will be England's reserve- 
 force for generations yet to come. The last five 
 years, moreover, have certainly been years of prog- 
 ress for the good cause. The great drag upon it 
 namely, demagogism has crumbled to pieces 
 of its own accord ; and seems now only to exhibit 
 itself in anilities like those of the speakers who 
 inform a mob of boys and thieves that wheat has 
 lalely been thrown into the Thames to keep up 
 prices, or advise them to establish, by means 
 hitherto undiscovered, national granaries, only 
 possible under the despotism of a Pharaoh. Since 
 the loth of April, 1848 (one of the most lucky 
 days which the English workman ever saw), the
 
 124 Preface 
 
 trade of the mob-orator has dwindled down to 
 such last shifts as these, to which the workingman 
 sensibly seems merely to answer, as he goes quietly 
 about his business, " Why will you still keep talk- 
 ing, Signer Benedick? Nobody marks you." 
 
 But the loth of April, 1848, has been a beneficial 
 crisis, not merely in the temper of the working- 
 men, so called, but in the minds of those who are 
 denominated by them " the aristocracy." There is 
 no doubt that the classes possessing property have 
 been facing, since 1848, all social questions with 
 an average of honesty, earnestness, and good 
 feeling which has no parallel since the days of 
 the Tudors, and that hundreds and thousands of 
 " gentlemen and ladies " in Great Britain now are 
 saying, " Show what we ought to do to be just to 
 the workmen, and we will do it, whatsoever it costs." 
 They may not be always correct (though they 
 generally are so) in their conceptions of what 
 ought to be done ; but their purpose is good and 
 righteous ; and those who hold it are daily increas- 
 ing in number. The love of justice and mercy 
 toward the handicraftsman is spreading rapidly, as 
 it never did before in any nation upon earth ; and 
 if any man still represents the holders of property, 
 as a class, as the enemies of those whom they em- 
 ploy, desiring their slavery and their ignorance, I 
 believe that he is a liar and a child of the devil, 
 and that he is at his father's old work, slandering 
 and dividing between man and man. These words 
 may be severe : but they are deliberate ; and work- 
 ingmen are, I hope, sufficiently accustomed to hear 
 me call a spade a spade, when I am pleading for 
 them, to allow me to do the same when I am plead- 
 ing to them-
 
 Preface 125 
 
 Of the disappointing experiences which I have 
 had I shall say nothing, save in as far as I can, by 
 alluding to them, point out to the workingman 
 the causes which still keep him weak : but I am 
 bound to say that those disappointments have 
 strengthened my conviction that this book, in the 
 main, speaks the truth. 
 
 I do not allude, of course, to the thoughts and 
 feelings of the hero. They are compounded of 
 right and wrong, and such as I judged (and work- 
 ingmen whom I am proud to number among my 
 friends have assured me that I judged rightly) that 
 a workingman of genius would feel during the 
 course of his self-education. These thoughts and 
 feelings (often inconsistent and contradictory to 
 each other), stupid or careless or ill-willed per- 
 sons have represented as my own opinions, having, 
 as it seems to me, turned the book upside down 
 before they began to read it. I am bound to pay 
 the workingmen, and their organs in the press, 
 the compliment of saying that no such misrepre- 
 sentations proceeded from them. However deeply 
 some of them may have disagreed with me, all of 
 them, as far as I have been able to judge, had 
 sense to see what I meant ; and so, also, have the 
 organs of the High-Church party, to whom, differ- 
 ing from them on many points, I am equally 
 bound to offer my thanks for their fairness. But, 
 indeed, the way in which this book, in spite of its 
 crudities, has been received by persons of all 
 ranks and opinions, who, instead of making me an 
 offender for a word, have taken the book heartily 
 and honestly, in the spirit and not in the letter, 
 has made me most hopeful for the British mind, 
 and given me a strong belief that, in spite of all
 
 126 Preface 
 
 foppery, luxury, covetousness, and unbelief, the 
 English heart is still strong and genial, able and 
 willing to do and suffer great things, as soon as the 
 rational way of doing and suffering them becomes 
 plain. Had I written this book merely to please 
 my own fancy, this would be a paltry criterion, at 
 once illogical and boastful; but I wrote it, God 
 knows, in the fear of God, that I might speak 
 what seems to me the truth of God. I trusted in 
 Him to justify me, in spite of my own youth, 
 inexperience, hastiness, clumsiness; and He has 
 done it ; and, I trust, will do it to the end. 
 
 And now, what shall I say to you, my friends, 
 about the future? Your destiny is still in your 
 own hands. For the last seven years you have let 
 it slip through your fingers. If you are better off 
 than you were in 1848, you owe it principally to 
 those laws of political economy (as they are called), 
 which I call the brute natural accidents of supply 
 and demand, or to the exertions which have been 
 made by upright men of the very classes whom 
 demagogues taught you to consider as your nat- 
 ural enemies. Pardon me if I seem severe ; but, 
 as old Aristotle has it, " Both parties being my 
 friends, it is a sacred duty to honor truth first." 
 And is this not the truth? How little have the 
 workingmen done to carry out that idea of as- 
 sociation in which, in 1848-1849, they were all 
 willing to confess their salvation lay. Had the 
 money which was wasted in the hapless Preston 
 strike been wisely spent in relieving the labor 
 market by emigration, or in making wages more 
 valuable by enabling the workman to buy from co- 
 operative stores and mills his necessaries at little 
 above cost price, how much sorrow and heart-burn-
 
 Preface 1 27 
 
 ing might have been saved to the iron trades. Had 
 the real English endurance and courage which was 
 wasted in that strike been employed in the cause 
 of association, the men might have been, ere now, 
 far happier than they are ever likely to be, without 
 the least injury to the masters. What, again, has 
 been done toward developing the organization of 
 the trades' unions into its true form, association 
 for distribution, from its old, useless, and savage 
 form of association for the purpose of resistance 
 to masters a war which is at first sight hopeless, 
 even were it just, because the opposite party holds 
 in his hand the supplies of his foe as well as his 
 own, and therefore can starve him out at his 
 leisure? What has been done, again, toward 
 remedying the evils of the slop system, which this 
 book especially exposed? The true method for 
 the workingmen, if they wished to save their 
 brothers and their brothers' wives and daughters 
 from degradation, was to withdraw their custom 
 from the slop-sellers, and to deal, even at a tem- 
 porary increase of price, with associate workmen. 
 Have they done so? They can answer for them- 
 selves. In London (as in the country towns), the 
 paltry temptation of buying in the cheapest mar- 
 ket has still been too strong for the laboring man. 
 In Scotland and in the North of England, thank 
 God, the case has been very different; and to the 
 North I must look still, as I did when I wrote 
 " Alton Locke," for the strong men in whose hands 
 lies the destiny of the English handicraftsman. 
 
 God grant that the workmen of the South of 
 England may bestir themselves ere it be too late, 
 and discover that the only defence against want 
 is self-restraint ; the only defence against slavery,
 
 128 Preface 
 
 obedience to rule; and that, instead of giving 
 themselves up, bound hand and foot, by their own 
 fancy for a " freedom " which is but selfish and con- 
 ceited license, to the brute accidents of the com- 
 petitive system, they may begin to organize among 
 themselves associations for buying and selling the 
 necessaries of life, which may enable them to 
 weather the dark season of high prices and stagna- 
 tion, which is certain, sooner or later, to follow in 
 the footsteps of war. 
 
 On politics I have little to say. My belief re- 
 mains unchanged that true Christianity, and true 
 monarchy also, are not only compatible with, but 
 require as their necessary complement, true free- 
 dom for every man of every class; and that the 
 charter, now defunct, was just as wise and as right- 
 eous a " reform bill" as any which England had 
 yet had, or was likely to have. But I frankly say 
 that my experience of the last five years gives 
 me little hope of any great development of the true 
 democratic principle in Britain, because it gives me 
 little sign that the many are fit for it. Remember 
 always that democracy means a government not 
 merely by numbers of isolated individuals, but by 
 a Demos by men accustomed to live in Demoi, 
 or corporate bodies, and accustomed, therefore, to 
 the self-control, obedience to law, and self-sacrific- 
 ing public spirit, without which a corporate body 
 cannot exist : but that a " democracy " of mere 
 numbers is no democracy, but a mere brute " arith- 
 mocracy," which is certain to degenerate into an 
 " ochlocracy," or government by the mob, in which 
 the numbers have no real share : an oligarchy of 
 the fiercest, the noisiest, the rashest, and the most 
 shameless, which is surely swallowed up either by
 
 Preface 129 
 
 a despotism, as in France, or, as in Athens, by utter 
 national ruin, and helpless slavery to a foreign in- 
 vader. Let the workmen of Britain train them- 
 selves in the corporate spirit, and in the obedience 
 and self-control which it brings, as they easily can 
 in associations, and bear in mind always that only 
 he who can obey is fit to rule; and then, when they 
 are fit for it, the charter may come, or things, I 
 trust, far better than the charter; and till they 
 have done so, let them thank the just and merciful 
 Heavens for keeping out of their hands any power, 
 and for keeping off their shoulders any responsi- 
 bility, which they would not be able to use aright. 
 I thank God heartily, this day, that I have no share 
 in the government of Great Britain ; and I advise 
 my working friends to do the same, and to believe 
 that, when they are fit to take their share therein, 
 all the powers of earth cannot keep them from 
 taking it ; and that, till then, happy is the man who 
 does the duty which lies nearest him, who educates 
 his family, raises his class, performs his daily work 
 as to God and to his country, not merely to his em- 
 ployer and himself; for it is only he that is faith- 
 ful over a few things who will be made, or will be 
 happy in being made, ruler over many things. 
 
 Yours ever, 
 
 C. K.
 
 ALTON LOCKE 
 
 TAILOR AND POET 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 A POET'S CHILDHOOD 
 
 1AM a Cockney among Cockneys. Italy and 
 the Tropics, the Highlands and Devonshire, I 
 know only in dreams. Even the Surrey Hills, of 
 whose loveliness I have heard so much, are to me 
 a distant fairyland, whose gleaming ridges I am 
 worthy only to behold afar. With the exception 
 of two journeys, never to be forgotten, my knowl- 
 edge of England is bounded by the horizon which 
 enriches Richmond Hill. 
 
 My earliest recollections are of a suburban 
 street; of its jumble of little shops and little ter- 
 races, each exhibiting some fresh variety of capri- 
 cious ugliness ; the little scraps of garden before 
 the doors, with their dusty, stunted lilacs and bal- 
 sam poplars, were my only forests ; my only wild 
 animals, the dingy, merry sparrows, who quarrelled 
 fearlessly on my window-sill, ignorant of trap or 
 gun. From my earliest childhood, through long 
 nights of sleepless pain, as the midnight bright- 
 ened into dawn, and the glaring lamps grew pale,
 
 132 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 I used to listen, with pleasant awe, to the ceaseless 
 roll of the market-wagons, bringing up to the 
 great city the treasures of the gay green country, 
 the land of fruits and flowers, for which I have 
 yearned all my life in vain. They seemed to my 
 boyish fancy mysterious messengers from another 
 world : the silent, lonely night, in which they were 
 the only moving things, added to the wonder. I 
 used to get out of bed to gaze at them, and envy 
 the coarse men and sluttish women who attended 
 them, their labor among verdant plants and rich 
 brown mould, on breezy slopes, under God's own 
 clear sky. I fancied that they learnt what I knew 
 I should have learnt there ; I knew not then that 
 " the eye only sees that which it brings with it 
 the power of seeing." When will their eyes be 
 opened? When will priests go forth into the 
 highways and the hedges, and preach to the 
 ploughman and the gypsy the blessed news, that 
 there too, in every thicket and fallow-field, is the 
 house of God, there, too, the gate of Heaven? 
 
 I do not complain that I am a Cockney. That, 
 too, is God's gift. He made me one, that I might 
 learn to feel for poor wretches who sit stifled in 
 reeking garrets and workrooms, drinking in disease 
 with every breath, bound in their prison-house 
 of brick and iron, with their own funeral pall 
 hanging over them, in that canopy of fog and 
 poisonous smoke, from their cradle to their grave. 
 I have drunk of the cup of which they drink. 
 And so I have learnt if, indeed, I have learnt 
 to be a poet a poet of the people. That honor, 
 surely, was worth buying with asthma, and rickets, 
 and consumption, and weakness, and worst of 
 all to me with ugliness. It was God's purpose
 
 A Poet's Childhood 1 3 3 
 
 about me ; and, therefore, all circumstances com- 
 bined to imprison me in London. I used once, 
 when I worshipped circumstance, to fancy it my 
 curse, Fate's injustice to me, which kept me from 
 developing my genius, asserting my rank among 
 poets. I longed to escape to glorious Italy, or 
 some other southern climate, where natural beauty 
 would have become the very element which I 
 breathed ; and yet, what would have come of 
 that? Should I not, as nobler spirits than I have 
 done, have idled away my life in Elysian dreams, 
 singing out like a bird into the air, inarticulately, 
 purposeless, for mere joy and fulness of heart; 
 and taking no share in the terrible questionings, 
 the terrible strugglings of this great, awful, blessed 
 time feeling no more the pulse of the great 
 heart of England stirring me? I used, as I said, to 
 call it the curse of circumstance that I was a sickly, 
 decrepit Cockney. My mother used to tell me 
 that it was the cross which God had given me to 
 bear. I know now that she was right there. She 
 used to say that my disease was God's will. I do 
 not think, though, that she spoke right there also. 
 I think that it was the will of the world and of the 
 devil, of man's avarice and laziness and ignorance. 
 And so would my readers, perhaps, had they seen 
 the shop in the city where I was born and nursed, 
 with its little garrets reeking with human breath, 
 its kitchens and areas with noisome sewers. A 
 sanitary reformer would not be long in guessing 
 the cause of my unhealthiness. He would not re- 
 buke me nor would she, sweet soul ! now that 
 she is at rest and bliss for my wild longings to 
 escape, for my envying the very flies and sparrows 
 their wings that I might flee miles away into the
 
 134 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 country, and breathe the air of heaven once, and 
 die. I have had my wish. I have made two jour 
 neys far away into the country, and they have 
 been enough for me. 
 
 My mother was a widow. My father, whom I 
 cannot recollect, was a small retail tradesman in 
 the city. He was unfortunate ; and when he died, 
 my mother came down, and lived penuriously 
 enough, I knew not how till I grew older, down in 
 that same suburban street. She had been brought 
 up an Independent. After my father's death she 
 became a Baptist, from conscientious scruples. 
 She considered the Baptists, as I do, as the only 
 sect who thoroughly embody the Calvinistic doc- 
 trines. She held it, as I do, an absurd and im- 
 pious thing for those who believe mankind to be 
 children of the devil till they have been con- 
 sciously " converted," to baptize unconscious in- 
 fants and give them the sign of God's mercy on 
 the mere chance of that mercy being intended for 
 them. When God had proved by converting 
 them, that they were not reprobate and doomed to 
 hell by His absolute and eternal will, then, and not 
 till then, dare man baptize them into His name. 
 She dared not palm a presumptuous fiction on 
 herself, and call it " charity." So, though we had 
 both been christened during my father's lifetime, 
 she purposed to have us rebaptized, if ever that 
 happened which, in her sense of the word, never 
 happened, I am afraid, to me. 
 
 She gloried in her dissent ; for she was sprung 
 from old Puritan blood, which had flowed again 
 and again beneath the knife of Star-Chamber 
 butchers, and on the battlefields of Naseby and 
 Sedgemoor. And on winter evenings she used to
 
 A Poet's Childhood 135 
 
 sit with her Bible on her knee, while I and my 
 little sister Susan stood beside her and listened 
 to the stories of Gideon and Barak, and Samson 
 and Jephthah, till her eye kindled up, and her 
 thoughts passed forth from that old Hebrew time 
 home into those English times which she fancied, 
 and not untruly, like them. And we used to 
 shudder, and yet listen with a strange fascination, 
 as she told us how her ancestor called his seven 
 sons off their small Cambridge farm, and horsed 
 and armed them himself to follow behind Crom- 
 well, and smite kings and prelates with "the sword 
 of the Lord and of Gideon." Whether she were 
 right or wrong, what is it to me ? What is it now 
 to her, thank God? But those stories, and the 
 strict, stern, Puritan education, learnt from the 
 Independents and not the Baptists, which accom- 
 panied them, had their effect on me, for good and 
 ill. 
 
 My mother moved by rule and method; by 
 God's law, as she considered, and that only. 
 She seldom smiled. Her word was absolute. 
 She never commanded twice, without punishing. 
 And yet there were abysses of unspoken tender- 
 ness in her, as well as clear, sound, womanly sense 
 and insight. But she thought herself as much 
 bound to keep down all tenderness as if she had 
 been some ascetic of the middle ages so do 
 extremes meet ! It was " carnal," she considered. 
 She had as yet no right to have any " spiritual 
 affection " for us. We were still " children of wrath 
 and of the devil," not yet " convinced of sin," 
 " converted, born again." She had no more spirit- 
 ual bond with us, she thought, than she had with 
 a heathen or a Papist She dared not even pray
 
 136 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 for our conversion, earnestly as she prayed on 
 every other subject. For though the majority of 
 her sect would have done so, her clear logical 
 sense would yield to no such tender inconsistency. 
 Had it not been decided from all eternity? We 
 were elect, or we were reprobate. Could her 
 prayers alter that? If He had chosen us, He 
 would call us in His own good time; and, if 
 
 not Only again and again, as I afterwards 
 
 discovered from a journal of hers, she used to 
 beseech God with agonized tears to set her mind 
 at rest by revealing to her His will towards us. 
 For that comfort she could at least rationally 
 pray. But she received no answer. Poor, beloved 
 mother! If thou couldst not read the answer, 
 written in every flower and every sunbeam, written 
 in the very fact o r our existence here at all, what 
 answer would have sufficed thee? 
 
 And yet, with all this, she kept the strictest 
 watch over our morality. Fear, of course, was 
 the only motive she employed ; for how could 
 our still carnal understandings be affected with 
 love to God? And love to herself was too paltry 
 and temporary to be urged by one who knew that 
 her life was uncertain, and who was always trying 
 to go down to the deepest eternal ground and 
 reason of everything, and take her stand upon 
 that. So our god, or gods rather, till we were 
 twelve years old, were hell, the rod, the ten com- 
 mandments, and public opinion. Yet under them, 
 not they, but something deeper far, both in her 
 and us, preserved us pure. Call it natural charac- 
 ter, conformation of the spirit, conformation of 
 the brain, if you like, if you are a scientific man 
 and a phrenologist. I never yet could dissect and
 
 A Poet's Childhood 137 
 
 map out my own being, or my neighbor's, as you 
 analysts do. To me, I myself, ay, and each person 
 round me, seem one inexplicable whole ; to take 
 away a single faculty whereof is to destroy the 
 harmony, the meaning, the life of all the rest. 
 That there is a duality in us a lifelong battle 
 -between flesh and spirit we all, alas ! know well 
 enough ; but which is flesh and which is spirit, 
 what philosophers in these days can tell us? Still 
 less had we two found out any such duality or 
 discord in ourselves ; for we were gentle and obe- 
 dient children. The pleasures of the world did 
 not tempt us. We did not know of their exist- 
 ence; and no foundlings educated in a nunnery 
 ever grew up in a more virginal and spotless inno- 
 cence if ignorance be such than did Susan 
 and I. 
 
 The narrowness of my sphere of observation 
 only concentrated the faculty into greater strength. 
 The few natural objects which I met and they, 
 of course, constituted my whole outer world (for 
 art and poetry were tabooed both by my rank and 
 my mother's sectarianism, and the study of human 
 beings only develops itself as the boy grows into 
 the man) these few natural objects, L say, I 
 studied with intense keenness. I knew every leaf 
 and flower in the little front garden ; every cab- 
 bage and rhubarb plant in Battersea fields was 
 wonderful and beautiful to me. Clouds and water 
 I learned to delight in, from my occasional lin- 
 gerings on Battersea bridge, and yearning west- 
 ward looks toward the sun setting above rich 
 meadows and wooded gardens, to me a forbidden 
 El Dorado. 
 
 I brought home wild-flowers and chance beetles 
 
 Vol. Ill 7
 
 138 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 and butterflies, and pored over them, not in the 
 spirit of a naturalist, but of a poet. They were to 
 me God's angels shining in coats of mail and fairy 
 masquerading dresses. I envied them their beauty, 
 their freedom. At last I made up my mind, in the 
 simple tenderness of a child's conscience, that it 
 was wrong to rob them of the liberty for which I 
 pined, to take them away from the beautiful 
 broad country whither I longed to follow them ; 
 and I used to keep them a day or two, and then, 
 regretfully, carry them back, and set them loose 
 on the first opportunity, with many compunctions 
 of heart, when, as generally happened, they had 
 been starved to death in the meantime. 
 
 They were my only recreations after the hours 
 of the small day-school at the neighboring chapel, 
 where I learnt to read, write, and sum ; except, 
 now and then, a London walk, with my mother 
 holding my hand tight the whole way. She would 
 have hoodwinked me, stopped my ears with cotton, 
 and led me in a string, kind, careful soul ! if 
 it had been reasonably safe on a crowded pave- 
 ment, so fearful was she lest I should be polluted 
 by some chance sight or sound of the Babylon 
 which sjie feared and hated almost as much as 
 she did the Bishops. 
 
 The only books which I knew were the " Pil- 
 grim's Progress " and the Bible. The former was 
 my Shakespeare, my Dante, my Vedas, by which 
 I explained every fact and phenomenon of life. 
 London was the City of Destruction, from which I 
 was to flee ; I was Christian ; the Wicket of the 
 Way of Life I had strangely identified with the 
 turnpike at Battersea bridge end ; and the rising 
 ground of Mortlake and Wimbledon was the Land
 
 A Poet's Childhood 139 
 
 of Beulah the Enchanted Mountains of the Shep- 
 herds. If I could once get there I was saved : a 
 carnal view, perhaps, and a childish one ; but 
 there was a dim meaning and human reality in it 
 nevertheless. 
 
 As for the Bible, I knew nothing of it really, 
 beyond the Old Testament. Indeed, the life of 
 Christ had little chance of becoming interesting to 
 me. My mother had given me formally to under- 
 stand that it spoke of matters too deep for me ; 
 that " till converted, the natural man could not 
 understand the things of God " : and I obtained 
 little more explanation of it from the two unintel- 
 ligible, dreary sermons to which I listened every 
 dreary Sunday, in terror lest a chance shuffle of 
 my feet, or a hint of drowsiness, natural result 
 of the stifling gallery and glaring windows and gas 
 lights, should bring down a lecture and a, punish- 
 ment when I returned home. Oh, those " Sab- 
 baths ! " days, not of rest, but utter weariness, 
 when the beetles and the flowers were put by, and 
 there was nothing to fill up the long vacuity but 
 books of which I could not understand a word : 
 when play, laughter, or even a stare out of window 
 at the sinful, merry, Sabbath-breaking prome- 
 naders were all forbidden, as if the commandment 
 had run, " In it thou shalt- take no manner of 
 amusement, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter." 
 By what strange ascetic perversion has that got to 
 mean " keeping holy the Sabbath Day"? 
 
 Yet there was an hour's relief in the evening, 
 when either my mother told us Old Testament 
 stories, or some preacher or two came in to supper 
 after meeting; and I used to sit in the corner and 
 listen to their talk; not that I understood a word.
 
 140 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 but the mere struggle to understand the mere 
 watching my mother's earnest face my pride in 
 the reverent flattery with which the worthy men 
 addressed her as " a mother in Israel," were enough 
 to fill up the blank for me till bedtime. 
 
 Of " vital Christianity " I heard much ; but, with 
 all my efforts, could find out nothing. Indeed, it 
 did not seem interesting enough to tempt me to 
 find out much. It seemed a set of doctrines, be- 
 lieving in which was to have a magical effect on 
 people, by saving them from the everlasting tor- 
 ture due to sins and temptations which I had never 
 felt. Now and then, believing, in obedience to my 
 mother's assurances, and the solemn prayers of the 
 ministers about me, that I was a child of hell, and 
 a lost and miserable sinner, I used to have accesses 
 of terror, and fancy that I should surely wake next 
 morning in everlasting flames. Once I put my 
 finger a moment into the fire, as certain Papists, 
 and Protestants too, have done, not only to them- 
 selves, but to their disciples, to see if it would be 
 so very dreadfully painful ; with what conclusions 
 the reader may judge. . . . Still, I could not keep 
 up the excitement. Why should I? The fear of 
 pain is not the fear of sin, that I know of; and, 
 indeed, the thing was unreal altogether in my case, 
 and my heart, my common sense, rebelled against 
 it again and again ; till at last I got a terrible whip- 
 ping for taking my little sister's part, and saying 
 that if she was to die, so gentle, and obedient, 
 and affectionate as she was, God would be very 
 unjust in sending her to hell-fire, and that I was 
 quite certain He would do no such thing unless 
 He were the Devil : an opinion which I have since 
 seen no reason to change. The confusion between
 
 A Poet's Childhood 141 
 
 the King of Hell and the King of Heaven has 
 cleared up, thank God, since then ! 
 
 So I was whipped and put to bed the whip- 
 ping altering my secret heart just about as much 
 as the dread of hell-fire did. 
 
 I speak as a Christian man an orthodox 
 Churchman (if you require that shibboleth). Was 
 I so very wrong? What was there in the idea of 
 religion which was represented to me at home to 
 captivate me? What was the use of a child's hear- 
 ing of " God's great love manifested in the scheme 
 of redemption," when he heard, in the same breath, 
 that the effects of that redemption were practically 
 confined only to one human being out of a thou- 
 sand, and that the other nine hundred and ninety- 
 nine were lost and damned from their birth-hour 
 to all eternity not only by the absolute will and 
 reprobation of God (though that infernal blas- 
 phemy I heard often enough), but also, putting 
 that out of the question, by the mere fact of being 
 born of Adam's race? And this to a generation 
 to whom God's love shines out in every tree and 
 flower and hedge-side bird; to whom the daily 
 discoveries of science are revealing that love in 
 every microscopic animalcule which peoples the 
 stagnant pool ! This to workingmen, whose crav- 
 ing is only for some idea which shall give equal 
 hopes, claims, and deliverances, to all mankind 
 alike ! This to workingmen, who, in the smiles 
 of their innocent children, see the heaven which 
 ihey have lost the messages of baby-cherubs, 
 made in God's own image ! This to me, to whom 
 every butterfly, every look at my little sister, con- 
 tradicted the lie ! You may say that such thoughts 
 were too deep for a child ; that I am ascribing to
 
 142 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 my boyhood the scepticism of my manhood ; but 
 it is not so ; and what went on in my mind goes 
 on in the minds of thousands. It is the cause of 
 the contempt into which not merely sectarian 
 Protestantism, but Christianity altogether, has 
 fallen in the minds of the thinking workmen. 
 Clergymen who anathematize us for wandering 
 into Unitarianism you, you have driven us 
 thither. You must find some explanation of the 
 facts of Christianity more in accordance with the 
 truths which we do know, and will live and die for, 
 or you can never hope to make us Christians ; or, 
 if we do return to the true fold, it will be as I 
 returned, after long, miserable years of darkling 
 error, to a higher truth than most of you have yet 
 learned to preach. 
 
 But those old Jewish heroes did fill my whole 
 heart and soul. I learnt from them lessons which 
 I never wish to unlearn. Whatever else I saw 
 about them, this I saw, that they were patriots, 
 deliverers from that tyranny and injustice from 
 which the child's heart "child of the devil" 
 though you may call him instinctively, and, as 
 I believe, by a divine inspiration, revolts. Moses 
 leading his people out of Egypt; Gideon, Barak, 
 and Samson, slaying their oppressors ; David, hid- 
 ing in the mountains from the tyrant, with his little 
 band of those who had fled from the oppressions 
 of an aristocracy of Nabals ; Jehu, executing God's 
 vengeance on the kings they were my heroes, 
 my models ; they mixed themselves up with the 
 dim legends about the Reformation martyrs, Crom- 
 well and Hampden, Sidney and Monmouth, which 
 I had heard at my mother's knee. Not that the 
 perennial oppression of the masses, in all ages and
 
 A Poet's Childhood 143 
 
 countries, had yet risen on me as an awful, tortur- 
 ing, fixed idea. I fancied, poor fool ! that tyranny 
 was the exception, and not the rule. But it was 
 the mere sense of abstract pity and justice which 
 was delighted in me. I thought that these were 
 old fairy tales, such as never need be realized 
 again. I learnt otherwise in after years. 
 
 I have often wondered since, why all cannot read 
 the same lesson as I did in those old Hebrew 
 Scriptures that they, of all books in the world, 
 have been wrested into proofs of the divine right 
 of kings, the eternal necessity of slavery ! But the 
 eye only sees what it brings with it the power of 
 seeing. The upper classes, from their first day 
 at school, to their last day at college, read of 
 nothing but the glories of Salamis and Marathon, 
 of freedom and of the old republics. And what 
 comes of it? No more than their tutors know 
 will come of it, when they thrust into the boys' 
 hands books which give the lie in every page to 
 their own political superstitions. 
 
 But when I was just turned of thirteen, an 
 altogether new fairyland was opened to me by some 
 missionary tracts and journals, which were lent to 
 my mother by the ministers. Pacific coral islands 
 and volcanoes, cocoa-nut groves and bananas, 
 graceful savages with paint and feathers what an 
 El Dorado ! How I devoured them and dreamt 
 of them, and went there in fancy, and preached 
 small sermons as I lay in my bed at night to Tahi- 
 tians and New Zealanders, though I confess my 
 spiritual eyes were, just as my physical eyes would 
 have been, far more busy with the scenery than 
 with the souls of my audience. However, that 
 was the place for me, I saw clearly. And one day,
 
 144 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 I recollect it well, in the little dingy, foul, reeking, 
 twelve foot square back-yard, where huge smoky 
 party-walls shut out every breath of air and almost 
 all the light of heaven, I had climbed up between 
 the waterbutt and the angle of the wall for the 
 purpose of fishing out of the dirty fluid which lay 
 there, crusted with soot and alive with insects, to 
 be renewed only three times in the seven days, 
 some of the great larvae and kicking monsters 
 which made up a large item in my list of wonders : 
 all of a sudden the horror of the place came over 
 me; those grim prison-walls above, with their 
 canopy of lurid smoke ; the dreary, sloppy, broken 
 pavement; the horrible stench of the stagnant 
 cesspools ; the utter want of form, color, life, in the 
 whole place, crushed me down, without my being 
 able to analyze my feelings as I can now; and 
 then came over me that dream of Pacific Islands, 
 and the free, open sea ; and I slid down from my 
 perch, and bursting into tears threw myself upon 
 my knees in the court, and prayed aloud to God 
 to let me be a missionary. 
 
 Half fearfully I let out my wishes to my mother 
 when she came home. She gave me no answer; 
 but, as I found out afterwards, too late, alas ! 
 for her, if not for me, she, like Mary, had " laid 
 up all these things, and treasured them in her 
 heart." 
 
 You may guess, then, my delight when, a few 
 days afterwards, I heard that a real live missionary 
 was coming to take tea with us. A man who had 
 actually been in New Zealand ! the thought was 
 rapture. I painted him to myself over and over 
 again ; and when, after the first burst of fancy, I 
 recollected that he might possibly not have adopted
 
 A Poet's Childhood 145 
 
 the native costume of that island, or, if he had, 
 that perhaps it would look too strange for him to 
 wear it about London, I settled within myself that 
 he was to be a tall, venerable-looking man, like the 
 portraits of old Puritan divines which adorned our 
 day-room ; and as I had heard that " he was power- 
 ful in prayer," I adorned his right hand with that 
 mystic weapon " all-prayer," with which Christian, 
 when all other means have failed, finally van- 
 quishes the fiend which instrument, in my mind, 
 was somewhat after the model of an infernal sort 
 of bill or halbert all hooks, edges, spikes, and 
 crescents which I had passed, shuddering, once, 
 in the hand of an old suit of armor in Wardour 
 Street. 
 
 He came and with him the two ministers who 
 often drank tea with my mother ; both of whom, 
 as they played some small part in the drama of 
 my after-life, I may as well describe here. The 
 elder was a little, sleek, silver-haired old man, 
 with a blank, weak face, just like a white rabbit. 
 He loved me, and I loved him too, for there were 
 always lollipops in his pocket for me and Susan. 
 Had his head been equal to his heart! but what 
 has been was to be and the dissenting clergy, 
 with a few noble exceptions among the Indepen- 
 dents, are not the strong men of the day none 
 knew that better than the workmen. The old 
 man's name was Bowyer. The other, Mr. Wig- 
 ginton, was a younger man ; tall, grim, dark, 
 bilious, with a narrow forehead, retreating sud- 
 denly from his eyebrows up to a conical peak of 
 black hair over his ears. He preached " higher 
 doctrine," i. e. more fatalist and antinomian than 
 his gentler colleague, and, having also a sten-
 
 146 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 torian voice, was much the greater favorite at 
 the chapel. I hated him and if any man ever 
 deserved hatred, he did. 
 
 Well, they came. My heart was in my mouth 
 as I opened the door to them, and sank back 
 again to the very lowest depths of my inner man 
 when my eyes fell on the face and figure of the 
 missionary a squat, red-faced, pig-eyed, low- 
 browed man, with great soft lips that opened back 
 to his very ears : sensuality, conceit, and cunning 
 marked on every feature an innate vulgarity, 
 from which the artisan and the child recoil with 
 an instinct as true, perhaps truer, than that of the 
 courtier, showing itself in every tone and motion 
 I shrank into a corner, so crestfallen that I 
 could not even exert myself to hand round the 
 bread and butter, for which I got duly scolded 
 afterwards. Oh ! that man ! how he bawled and 
 contradicted, and laid down the law, and spoke to 
 my mother in a fondling, patronizing way, which 
 made me, I knew not why, boil over with jealousy 
 and indignation. How he filled his teacup half 
 full of the white sugar to buy which my mother 
 had curtailed her yesterday's dinner how he 
 drained the few remaining drops of the three- 
 pennyworth of cream, with which Susan was steal- 
 ing off to keep it as an unexpected treat for my 
 mother at breakfast the next morning how he 
 talked of the natives, not as St. Paul might of his 
 converts, but as a planter might of his slaves; 
 overlaying all his unintentional confessions of his 
 own greed and prosperity, with cant, flimsy enough 
 for even a boy to see through, while his eyes were 
 not blinded with the superstition that a man must 
 be pious who sufficiently interlards his speech with
 
 A Poet's Childhood 147 
 
 a jumble of old English picked out of our transla- 
 tion of the New Testament. Such was the man 
 I saw. I don't deny that all are not like him. I 
 believe there are noble men of all denominations, 
 doing their best according to their light, all over 
 the world ; but such was the one I saw and the 
 men who were sent home to plead the missionary 
 cause, whatever the men may be like who stay 
 behind and work, are, from my small experience, 
 too often such. It appears to me to be the rule 
 that many of those who go abroad as missionaries, 
 go simply because they are men of such inferior 
 powers and attainments that if they stayed in 
 England they would starve. 
 
 Three parts of his conversation, after all, was 
 made up of abuse of the missionaries of the 
 Church of England, not for doing nothing, but 
 for being so much more successful than his own 
 sect; accusing them, in the same breath, of being 
 just of the inferior type of which he was himself, 
 and also of being mere University fine gentlemen. 
 Really, I do not wonder, upon his own showing, 
 at the savages preferring them to him ; and I was 
 pleased to hear the old white-headed minister 
 gently interpose at the end of one of his tirades 
 "We must not be jealous, my brother, if the 
 Establishment has discovered what we, I hope, 
 shall find out some day, that it is not wise to draft 
 our missionaries from the offscouring of the min- 
 istry, and serve God with that which costs us 
 nothing except the expense of providing for them 
 beyond seas." 
 
 There was somewhat of a roguish twinkle in the 
 old man's eye as he said it, which emboldened me 
 to whisper a question to him.
 
 148 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 " Why is it, sir, that in olden times the heathens 
 used to crucify the missionaries and burn them, 
 and now they give them beautiful farms, and build 
 them houses, and carry them about on their backs ? " 
 
 The old man seemed a little puzzled, and so did 
 the company, to whom he smilingly retailed my 
 question. 
 
 As nobody seemed inclined to offer a solution, 
 I ventured one myself. 
 
 " Perhaps the heathens are grown better than 
 they used to be?" 
 
 " The heart of man," answered the tall, dark 
 minister, " is, and ever was, equally at enmity with 
 God." 
 
 " Then, perhaps," I ventured again, " what the 
 missionaries preach now is not quite the same 
 as what the missionaries used to preach in St. 
 Paul's time, and so the heathens are not so angry 
 at it?" 
 
 My mother looked thunder at me, and so did all 
 except my white-headed friend, who said, gently 
 enough 
 
 " It may be that the child's words come from 
 God." 
 
 Whether they did or not, the child took very 
 good care to speak no more words till he was 
 alone with his mother; and then finished off that 
 disastrous evening by a punishment for the inde- 
 cency of saying, before his little sister, that he 
 thought it " a great pity the missionaries taught 
 black people to wear ugly coats and trousers; 
 they must have looked so much handsomer run- 
 ning about with nothing on but feathers and 
 strings of shells." 
 
 So the missionary dream died out of me, by a
 
 A Poet's Childhood 149 
 
 foolish and illogical antipathy enough; though, 
 after all, it was a child of my imagination only, not 
 of my heart ; and the fancy, having bred it, was 
 able to kill it also. And David became my ideal. 
 To be a shepherd-boy, and sit among beautiful 
 mountains, and sing hymns of my own making, and 
 kill lions and bears, with now and then the chance 
 of a stray giant what a glorious life ! And if 
 David slew giants with a sling and a stone, why 
 should not I? at all events, one ought to know 
 how ; so I made a sling out of an old garter and 
 some string, and began to practise in the little 
 back-yard. But my first shot broke a neighbor's 
 window, value sevenpence, and the next flew back 
 in my face, and cut my head open ; so I was sent 
 supperless to bed for a week, till the sevenpence 
 had been duly saved out of my hungry stomach 
 and, on the whole, I found the hymn-writing side 
 of David's character the more feasible ; so I tried, 
 and with much brains-beating, committed the fol- 
 lowing lines to a scrap of dirty paper. And it was 
 strangely significant, that in this, my first attempt, 
 there was an instinctive denial of the very doctrine 
 of " particular redemption," which I had been 
 hearing all my life, and an instinctive yearning 
 after the very Being in whom I had been told I 
 had " no part nor lot " till I was " converted." 
 Here they are. I am not ashamed to call them 
 doggerel though they be an inspiration from 
 Him of whom they speak. If not from Him, good 
 readers, from whom ? 
 
 Jesus, He loves one and all ; 
 Jesus, He loves children small ; 
 Their souls are sitting round His feet, 
 On high, before His mercy-seat
 
 150 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 When on earth He walked in shame, 
 Children small unto Him came ; 
 At His feet they knelt and prayed, 
 On their heads His hands He laid. 
 
 Came a spirit on them then, 
 Greater than of mighty men ; 
 A spirit gentle, meek, and mild, 
 A spirit good for king and child. 
 
 Oh ! that spirit give to me, 
 Jesus, Lord, where'er I be ! 
 So 
 
 But I did not finish them, not seeing very clearly 
 what to do with that spirit when I obtained it ; for, 
 indeed, it seemed a much finer thing to fight ma- 
 terial Apollyons with material swords of iron, like 
 my friend Christian, or to go bear and lion hunting 
 with David, than to convert heathens by meekness 
 at least, if true meekness was at all like that of 
 the missionary whom I had lately seen. 
 
 I showed the verses in secret to my little sister. 
 My mother heard us singing them together, and 
 extorted, grimly enough, a confession of the 
 authorship. I expected to be punished for them 
 (I was accustomed weekly to be punished for all 
 sorts of deeds and words, of the harmfulness of 
 which I had not a notion). It was, therefore, an 
 agreeable surprise when the old minister, the next 
 Sunday evening, patted my head, and praised me 
 for them. 
 
 " A hopeful sign of young grace, brother," said 
 he to the dark tall man. " May we behold here 
 an infant Timothy ! " 
 
 " Bad doctrine, brother, in that first line bad 
 doctrine, which I am sure he did not learn from 
 our excellent sister here. Remember, my boy,
 
 A Poet's Childhood 151 
 
 henceforth, that Jesus does not love one and all 
 not that I am angry with you. The carnal mind 
 cannot be expected to understand divine things, 
 any more than the beasts that perish. Nevertheless, 
 the blessed message of the Gospel stands true, that" 
 Christ loves none but His Bride, the Church. His 
 merits, my poor child, extend to none but the 
 elect. Ah ! my dear sister Locke, how delightful 
 to think of the narrow way of discriminating grace ! 
 How it enhances the believer's view of his own 
 exceeding privileges, to remember that there be 
 few that be saved ! " 
 
 I said nothing. I thought myself only too lucky 
 to escape so well from the danger of having done 
 anything out of my own head. But somehow 
 Susan and I never altered it when we sang it to 
 ourselves. 
 
 I thought it necessary, for the sake of those who 
 might read my story, to string together these few 
 scattered recollections of my boyhood, to give, 
 as it were, some sample of the cotyledon leaves of 
 my young life-plant, and of the soil in which it took 
 root, ere it was transplanted but I will not fore- 
 stall my sorrows. After all, they have been but 
 types of the woes of thousands who " die and give 
 no sign." Those to whom the struggles of every, 
 even the meanest, human being are scenes of an 
 awful drama, every incident of which is to be 
 noted with reverent interest, will not find them void 
 of meaning; while the life which opens in my next 
 chapter is, perhaps, full enough of mere dramatic 
 interest (and whose life is not, were it but truly 
 written?) to amuse merely as a novel. Ay, grim 
 and real is the action and suffering which begins
 
 152 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 with my next page, as you yourself would have 
 found, high-born reader (if such chance to light 
 upon this story), had you found yourself at fifteen, 
 after a youth of convent-like seclusion, settled, 
 apparently for life in a tailor's workshop. 
 
 Ay laugh ! we tailors can quote poetry as 
 well as make your court-dresses 
 
 You sit in a cloud and sing, like pictured angels, 
 And say the world runs smooth while right below 
 Welters the black fermenting heap of griefs 
 Whereon your state is built. . . .
 
 CHAPTER II 
 THE TAILOR'S WORKROOM 
 
 HAVE you done laughing ! Then I will tell 
 you how the thing came to pass. 
 My father had a brother, who had steadily risen 
 in life, in proportion as my father fell. They had 
 both begun life in a grocer's shop. My father 
 saved enough to marry, when of middle age, a 
 woman of his own years, and set up a little shop, 
 where there were far too many such already, in the 
 hope to him, as to the rest of the world, quite 
 just and innocent of drawing away as much as 
 possible of his neighbors' custom. He failed, 
 died as so many small tradesmen do of bad 
 debts and a broken heart, and left us beggars. 
 His brother, more prudent, had, in the meantime, 
 risen to be foreman; then he married, on the 
 strength of his handsome person, his master's 
 blooming widow ; and rose and rose, year by year, 
 till, at the time of which I speak, he was owner of 
 a first-rate grocery establishment in the City, and a 
 pleasant villa near Herne Hill, and had a son, a 
 year or two older than myself, at King's College, 
 preparing for Cambridge and the Church that 
 being nowadays the approved method of convert- 
 ing a tradesman's son into a gentleman, whereof 
 let artisans, and gentlemen also, take note.
 
 154 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 My aristocratic readers if I ever get any, 
 which I pray God I may may be surprised at 
 so great an inequality of fortune between two 
 cousins ; but the thing is common in our class. In 
 the higher ranks, a difference in income implies 
 none in education or manners, and the poor " gen- 
 tleman " is a fit companion for dukes and princes 
 thanks to the old usages of Norman chivalry, 
 which after all were a democratic protest against 
 the sovereignty, if not of rank, at least of money. 
 The knight, however penniless, was the prince's 
 equal, even his superior, from whose hands he 
 must receive knighthood ; and the " squire of low 
 degree," who honorably earned his spurs, rose also 
 into that guild, Avhose qualifications, however bar- 
 baric, were still higher ones than any which the 
 pocket gives. But in the commercial classes 
 money most truly and fearfully " makes the man." 
 A difference in income, as you go lower, makes 
 more and more difference in the supply of the 
 common necessaries of life ; and worse in edu- 
 cation and manners, in all which polishes the man, 
 till you may see often, as in my case, one cousin a 
 Cambridge undergraduate, and the other a tailor's 
 journeyman. 
 
 My uncle one day came down to visit us, resplen- 
 dent in a black velvet waistcoat, thick gold chain, 
 and acres of shirt-front; and I and Susan were 
 turned to feed on our own curiosity and awe in the 
 back-yard, while he and my mother were closeted 
 together for an hour or so in the living-room. 
 When he was gone, my mother called me in, and 
 with eyes which would have been tearful had she 
 allowed herself such a weakness before us, told me 
 very solemnly and slowly, as if to impress upon me
 
 The Tailor's Workroom 155 
 
 the awfulness of the matter, that I was to be sent 
 to a tailor's workrooms the next day. 
 
 And an awful step it was in her eyes, as she laid 
 her hands on my head and murmured to herself, 
 " Behold, I send you forth as a lamb in the midst 
 of wolves. Be ye, therefore, wise as serpents, and 
 harmless as doves." And then, rising hastily to 
 conceal her own emotion, fled upstairs, where we 
 could hear her throw herself on her knees by the 
 bedside, and sob piteously. 
 
 That evening was spent dolefully enough, in a 
 sermon of warnings against all manner of sins and 
 temptations, the very names of which I had never 
 heard, but to which, as she informed me, I was 
 by my fallen nature altogether prone; and right 
 enough was she in so saying, though, as often 
 happens, the temptations from which I was in 
 real danger were just the ones of which she had 
 no notion fighting more or less extinct Satans, 
 as Mr. Carlyle says, and quite unconscious of the 
 real, modern, man-devouring Satan close at her 
 elbow. 
 
 To me, in spite of all the terror which she tried 
 to awaken in me, the change was not unwelcome ; 
 at all events, it promised me food for my eyes and 
 my ears, some escape from the narrow cage in 
 which, though I hardly dare confess it to myself, I 
 was beginning to pine. Little I dreamt to what a 
 darker cage I was to be translated ! Not that I 
 accuse my uncle of neglect or cruelty, though the 
 thing was altogether of his commanding. He was 
 as generous to us as society required him to be. 
 We were entirely dependent on him, as my mother 
 told me then for the first time, for support. And 
 had he not a right to dispose of my person, having
 
 156 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 bought it by an allowance to my mother of five-and- 
 twenty pounds a year? I did not forget that fact; 
 the thought of my dependence on him rankled in 
 me, till it almost bred hatred in me to a man who 
 had certainly never done or meant anything to me 
 but in kindness. For what could he make me but 
 a tailor or a shoemaker ? A pale, consumptive, 
 rickety, weakly boy, all forehead and no muscle 
 have not clothes and shoes been from time imme- 
 morial the appointed work of such ? The fact that 
 that weakly frame is generally compensated by a 
 proportionally increased activity of brain, is too 
 unimportant to enter into the calculations of the 
 great King Laissez-faire. Well, my dear Society, 
 it is you that suffer for the mistake, after all, more 
 than we. If you do tether your cleverest artisans 
 on tailors' shopboards and cobblers' benches, and 
 they as sedentary folk will fall a thinking, and 
 come to strange conclusions thereby, they really 
 ought to be much more thankful to you than you 
 are to them. If Thomas Cooper had passed his 
 first five-and-twenty years at the plough tail instead 
 of the shoemaker's awl, many words would have 
 been left unsaid which, once spoken, workingmen 
 are not likely to forget. 
 
 With a beating heart I shambled along by my 
 mother's side next day to Mr. Smith's shop, in a 
 street off Piccadilly ; and stood by her side, just 
 within the door, waiting till some one would con- 
 descend to speak to us, and wondering when the 
 time would come when I, like the gentleman who 
 skipped up and down the shop, should shine 
 glorious in patent-leather boots, and a blue satin 
 tie sprigged with gold. 
 
 Two personages, both equally magnificent, stood
 
 The Tailor's Workroom 157 
 
 talking with their backs to us ; and my mother, in 
 doubt, like myself, as to which of them was the 
 tailor, at last summoned up courage to address the 
 wrong one, by asking if he were Mr. Smith. 
 
 The person addressed answered by a most 
 polite smile and bow, and assured her that he had 
 not that honor ; while the other he-he'ed, evi- 
 dently a little flattered by the mistake, and then 
 uttered in a tremendous voice these words 
 
 " I have nothing for you, my good woman go. 
 Mr. Elliot ! how did you come to allow these people 
 to get into the establishment? " 
 
 " My name is Locke, sir, and I was to bring my 
 son here this morning." 
 
 "Oh ah! Mr. Elliot, see to these persons. 
 As I was saying, my lard, the crimson velvet suit, 
 about thirty-five guineas. By the bye, that coat 
 ours? I thought so idea grand and light 
 masses well broken very fine chiaroscuro about 
 the whole an aristocratic wrinkle just above the 
 hips which I flatter myself no one but myself 
 and my friend Mr. Cooke really do understand. 
 The vapid smoothness of the door dummy, my 
 lard, should be confined to the regions of the 
 Strand. Mr. Elliot, where are you? Just be so 
 good as to show his lardship that lovely new thing 
 in drab and blue fonct. Ah! your lardship can't 
 wait. Now, my good woman, is this the young 
 man ? " 
 
 " Yes," said my mother: " and and God 
 deal so with you, sir, as you deal with the widow 
 and the orphan." 
 
 " Oh ah that will depend very much, I 
 should say, on how the widow and the orphan 
 deal with me. Mr. Elliot, take this person into
 
 158 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 the office and transact the little formalities with 
 her. Jones, take the young man upstairs to the 
 workroom." 
 
 I stumbled after Mr. Jones up a dark, narrow, 
 iron staircase till we emerged through a trap-door 
 into a garret at the top of the house. I recoiled 
 with disgust at the scene before me ; and here I was 
 to work perhaps through life! A low lean-to 
 room, stifling me with the combined odors of hu- 
 man breath and perspiration, stale beer, the sweet 
 sickly smell of gin, and the sour and hardly less dis- 
 gusting one of new cloth. On the floor, thick with 
 dust and dirt, scraps of stuff and ends of thread, sat 
 some dozen haggard, untidy, shoeless men, with a 
 mingled look of care and recklessness that made 
 me shudder. The windows were tight closed to 
 keep out the cold winter air; and the condensed 
 breath ran in -streams down the panes, chequering 
 the dreary outlook of chimney-tops and smoke. 
 The conductor handed me over to one of the men. 
 
 " Here, Crossthwaite, take this younker and 
 make a tailor of him. Keep him next you, and 
 prick him up with your needle if he shirks." 
 
 He disappeared down the trap-door, and mechan- 
 ically, as if in a dream, I sat down by the man 
 and listened to his instructions, kindly enough 
 bestowed. But I did not remain in peace two 
 minutes. A burst of chatter rose as the foreman 
 vanished, and a tall, bloated, sharp-nosed young 
 man next me bawled in my ear 
 
 " I say, young 'un, fork out the tin and pay your 
 footing at Conscrumption hospital." 
 
 " What do you mean? " 
 
 " Ain't he just green? Down with the stumpy 
 a tizzy for a pot of half-and-half."
 
 The Tailor's Workroom 159 
 
 " I never drink beer." 
 
 " Then never do," whispered the man at my side ; 
 " as sure as hell 's hell, it 's your only chance." 
 
 There was a fierce, deep earnestness in the tone 
 which made me look up at the speaker, but the 
 other instantly chimed in 
 
 " Oh, yer don't, don't yer, my young Father 
 Mathy? then yer '11 soon learn it here if yer want 
 to keep yer victuals down." 
 
 " And I have promised to take my wages home 
 to my mother." 
 
 " Oh criminy ! hark to that, my coves ! here 's a 
 chap as is going to take the blunt home to his 
 mammy." 
 
 " 'T ain't much of it the old un '11 see," said an- 
 other. " Ven yer pockets it at the Cock and Bottle, 
 my kiddy, yer won't find much of it left o' Sunday 
 mornings." 
 
 "Don't his mother know he's out?" asked 
 another, " and won't she know it 
 
 Ven he 's sitting in his glory 
 Half-price at the Victory. 
 
 Oh! no, ve never mentions her her name is 
 never heard. Certainly not, by no means. Why 
 should it?" 
 
 " Well, if yer won't stand a pot," quoth the tall 
 man, " I will, that 's all, and blow temperance. ' A 
 short life and a merry one,' says the tailor 
 
 The ministers talk a great deal about port, 
 And they makes Cape wine very dear, 
 
 But blow their hi's if ever they tries 
 To deprive a poor cove of his beer. 
 
 Here, Sam, run to the Cock and Bottle for a pot 
 of half-and-half to my score."
 
 160 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 A thin, pale lad jumped up and vanished, while 
 my tormentor turned to me 
 
 " I say, young 'un, do you know why we 're 
 nearer heaven here than our neighbors?" 
 
 " I should n't have thought so," answered I, with 
 a nalvett which raised a laugh, and dashed the tall 
 man for a moment. 
 
 " Yer don't? then I'll tell yer. A cause we're 
 a top of the house in the first place, and next 
 place yer '11 die here six months sooner nor if yer 
 worked in the room below. Ain't that logic and 
 science, Orator? " appealing to Crossthwaite. 
 
 "Why?" asked I. 
 
 " A cause you get all the other floors' stinks up 
 here as well as your own. Concentrated essence 
 of man's flesh, is this here as you 're a breathing. 
 Cellar workroom we calls Rheumatic ward, because 
 of the damp. Groundfloor's Fever ward them 
 as don't get typhus gets dysentery, and them as 
 don't get dysentery gets typhus your nose 'd 
 tell yer why if you opened the back windy. First 
 floor's Ashmy ward don't you hear'um now 
 through the cracks in the boards, a puffing away 
 like a nest of young locomotives? And this here 
 most august and uppercrust cockloft is the Con- 
 scrumptive hospital. First you begins to cough, 
 then you proceeds to expectorate spittoons, as 
 you see, perwided free gracious for nothing 
 fined a kivarten if you spits on the floor 
 
 Then your cheeks they grows red, and your nose it grows 
 
 thin, 
 And your bones they stick out, till they comes through your 
 
 skin: 
 
 and then, when you Ve sufficiently covered the poor 
 dear shivering bare backs of the hairystocracy
 
 The Tailor's Workroom 161 
 
 Die, die, die, 
 
 Away you fly, 
 
 Your soul is in the sky ! 
 
 as the hinspired Shakespeare wittily remarks." 
 
 And the ribald lay down on his back, stretched 
 himself out, and pretended to die in a fit of cough- 
 ing, which last was, alas ! no counterfeit, while 
 poor I, shocked and bewildered, let my tears fall 
 fast upon my knees. 
 
 " Fine him a pot ! " roared one, " for talking about 
 kicking the bucket. He's a nice young man to 
 keep a cove's spirits up, and talk about ' a short 
 life and a merry one.' Here comes the heavy. 
 Hand it here to take the taste of that fellow's talk 
 out of my mouth." 
 
 " Well, my young 'un," recommenced my tor- 
 mentor, " and how do you like your company? " 
 
 " Leave the boy alone," growled Crossthwaite ; 
 "don't you see he 's crying? " 
 
 " Is that anything good to eat ? Give me some 
 on it if it is it'll save me washing my face." 
 And he took hold of my hair and pulled my head 
 back. 
 
 " I '11 tell you what, Jemmy Downes," said Cross- 
 thwaite, in a voice which made him draw back, 
 " if you don't drop that, I '11 give you such a taste 
 of my tongue as shall turn you blue." 
 
 " You 'd better try it on then. Do only just 
 now if you please." 
 
 " Be quiet, you fool ! " said another. " You 're 
 a pretty fellow to chaff the orator. He'll slang 
 you up the chimney afore you can get your 
 shoes on." 
 
 " Fine him a kivarten for quarrelling," cried 
 another; and the bully subsided into a minute's 
 
 Vol. Ul8
 
 162 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 silence, after a sotto voce " Blow temperance, and 
 blow all Chartists, say I ! " and then delivered him- 
 self of his feelings in a doggerel song 
 
 " Some folks leads coves a dance, 
 With their pledge of temperance, 
 
 And their plans for donkey sociation ; 
 
 And their pockets full they crams 
 By their patriotic flams, 
 
 And then swears 't is for the good of the nation. 
 
 " But I don't care two inions 
 
 For political opinions, 
 
 While I can stand my heavy and my quartern; 
 For to drown dull care within, 
 In baccy, beer, and gin, 
 Is the prime of a working-tailor's fortin ! 
 
 There 's common sense for yer now ; hand the pot 
 here." 
 
 I recollect nothing more of that day, except that 
 I bent myself to my work with assiduity enough to 
 earn praises from Crossthwaite. It was to be done, 
 and I did it. The only virtue I ever possessed (if 
 virtue it be) is the power of absorbing my whole 
 heart and mind in the pursuit of the moment, how- 
 ever dull or trivial, if there be good reason why it 
 should be pursued at all. 
 
 I owe, too, an apology to my readers for intro- 
 ducing all this ribaldry. God knows, it is as little 
 to my taste as it can be to theirs, but the thing 
 exists; and those who live, if not by, yet still 
 beside such a state of things, ought to know what 
 the men are like to whose labor, ay, life blood, 
 they owe their luxuries. They are " their brothers' 
 keepers," let them deny it as they will. Thank God, 
 many are finding that out; and the morals of the 
 working tailors, as well as of other classes of arti-
 
 The Tailor's Workroom 163 
 
 sans, are rapidly improving : a change which has 
 been brought about partly by the wisdom and kind- 
 ness of a few master tailors, who have built work- 
 shops fit for human beings, and have resolutely 
 stood out against the iniquitous and destructive 
 alterations in the system of employment. Among 
 them I may, and will, whether they like it or not, 
 make honorable mention of Mr. Willis, of St. 
 James's Street, and Mr. Stultz, of Bond Street. 
 
 But nine-tenths of the improvement has been 
 owing, not to the masters, but to the men them- 
 selves; and who among them, my aristocratic 
 readers, do you think, have been the great preach- 
 ers and practisers of temperance, thrift, charity, 
 self-respect, and education. Who ? shriek not 
 in your Belgravian saloons the Chartists; the 
 communist Chartists : upon whom you and your 
 venal press heap every kind of cowardly execra- 
 tion and ribald slander. You have found out many 
 things since Peterloo ; add that fact to the number. 
 
 It may seem strange that I did not tell my 
 mother into what a pandemonium I had fallen, 
 and got her to deliver me ; but a delicacy, which 
 was not all evil, kept me back; I shrank from 
 seeming to dislike to earn my daily bread, and 
 still more from seeming to object to what she had 
 appointed for me. Her will had been always law ; 
 it seemed a deadly sin to dispute it. I took for 
 granted, too, that she knew what the place was 
 like, and that, therefore, it must be right for me. 
 And when I came home at night, and got back to 
 my beloved missionary stories, I gathered materials 
 enough to occupy my thoughts during the next 
 day's work, and make me blind and deaf to all the 
 evil around me. My mother, poor dear creature,
 
 164 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 would have denounced my day-dreams sternly 
 enough, had she known of their existence; but 
 were they not holy angels from heaven? guardians 
 sent by that Father, whom I had been taught not 
 to believe in, to shield my senses from pollution? 
 
 I was ashamed, too, to mention to my mother 
 the wickedness which I saw and heard. With the 
 delicacy of an innocent boy, I almost imputed the 
 very witnessing of it as a sin to myself; and soon 
 I began to be ashamed of more than the mere 
 sitting by and hearing. I found myself gradually 
 learning slang-insolence, laughing at coarse jokes, 
 taking part in angry conversations ; my moral tone 
 was gradually becoming lower ; but yet the habit 
 of prayer remained, and every night at my bed- 
 side, when I prayed to " be converted and made a 
 child of God," I prayed that the same mercy might 
 be extended to my fellow-workmen, " if they be- 
 longed to the number of the elect." Those prayers 
 may have been answered in a wider and deeper 
 sense than I then thought of. 
 
 But, altogether, I felt myself in a most distracted, 
 rudderless state. My mother's advice I felt daily 
 less and less inclined to ask. A gulf was opening 
 between us; we were moving in two different 
 worlds, and she saw it, and imputed it to me as 
 a sin ; and was the more cold to me by day, and 
 prayed for me (as I knew afterwards) the more 
 passionately while I slept. But help or teacher I 
 had none. I iknew not that I had a Father in 
 heaven. How could He be my Father till I was 
 converted ? I was a child of the Devil, they told 
 me ; and now and then I felt inclined to take them 
 at their word, and behave like one. No sympa- 
 thizing face looked on me out of the wide heaven
 
 The Tailor's Workroom 165 
 
 off the wide earth, none. I was all boiling with 
 new hopes, new temptations, new passions, new 
 sorrows, and " I looked to the right hand and to 
 the left, and no man cared for my soul." 
 
 I had felt myself from the first strangely drawn 
 towards Crossthwaite, carefully as he seemed to 
 avoid me, except to give me business directions 
 in the workroom. He alone had shown me any 
 kindness, and he, too, alone was untainted with the 
 sin around him. Silent, moody, and preoccupied, 
 he was yet the king of the room. His opinion was 
 always asked, and listened to. His eye always 
 cowed the ribald and the blasphemer; his songs, 
 when he rarely broke out into merriment, were 
 always rapturously applauded. Men hated, and 
 yet respected him. I shrank from him at first, 
 when I heard him called a Chartist ; for my dim 
 notions of that class were, that they were a very 
 wicked set of people, who wanted to kill all the 
 soldiers, and policemen and respectable people, and 
 rob all the shops of their contents. But, Chartist 
 or none, Crossthwaite fascinated me. I often found 
 myself neglecting my work to study his face. I 
 liked him, too, because he was as I was small, 
 pale, and weakly. He might have been five-and- 
 twenty; but his looks, like those of too many a 
 workingman, were rather those of a man of forty. 
 Wild gray eyes gleamed out from under huge 
 knitted brows, and a perpendicular wall of brain, 
 too large for his puny body. He was not only, I 
 soon discovered, a water-drinker, but a strict " vege- 
 tarian " also ; to which, perhaps, he owed a great 
 deal of the almost preternatural clearness, volu- 
 bility, and sensitiveness of his mind. But whether 
 from his ascetic habits, or the unhealthiness of his
 
 1 66 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 trade, the marks of ill-health were upon him ; and 
 his sallow cheek and ever-working lip proclaimed 
 too surely 
 
 The fiery soul which, working out its way, 
 Fretted the pigmy body to decay; 
 And o'er informed the tenement of clay. 
 
 I longed to open my heart to him. Instinctively 
 I felt that he was a kindred spirit. Often, turning 
 round suddenly in the workroom, I caught him 
 watching me with an expression which seemed to 
 say, " Poor boy, and art thou too one of us? 
 Hast thou too to fight with poverty and guideless- 
 ness, and the cravings of an unsatisfied intellect, as 
 I have done ! " But when I tried to speak to him 
 earnestly, his manner was peremptory and repel- 
 lent. It was well for me that so it was well for 
 me, I see now, that it was not from him my mind 
 received the first lessons in self-development. For 
 guides did come to me in good time, though not 
 such, perhaps, as either my mother or my reader 
 would have chosen for me. 
 
 My great desire now was to get knowledge. By 
 getting that I fancied, as most self-educated men 
 are apt to do, I should surely get wisdom. Books, 
 I thought, would tell me all I needed. But where 
 to get the books ? And which ? I had exhausted 
 our small stock at home; I was sick and tired, 
 without knowing why, of their narrow conventional 
 view of everything. After all, I had been reading 
 them all along, not for their doctrines but for their 
 facts, and knew not where to find more, except in 
 forbidden paths. I dare not ask my mother for 
 books, for I dare not confess to her that religious 
 ones were just what I did not want; and all his-
 
 The Tailor's Workroom 167 
 
 tory, poetry, science, I had been accustomed to 
 hear spoken of as " carnal learning, human philos- 
 ophy," more or less diabolic and ruinous to the 
 soul. So, as usually happens in this life " By 
 the law was the knowledge of sin " and unnatural 
 restrictions on the development of the human spirit 
 only associated with guilt of conscience what ought 
 to have been an innocent and necessary blessing. 
 
 My poor mother, not singular in her mistake, 
 had sent me forth, out of an unconscious paradise 
 into the evil world, without allowing me even the 
 sad strength which comes from eating of the tree 
 of knowledge of good and evil; she expected in 
 me the innocence of the dove, as if that was possi- 
 ble on such an earth as this, without the wisdom of 
 the serpent to support it. She forbade me strictly 
 to stop and look into the windows of print shops, 
 and I strictly obeyed her. But she forbade me, 
 too, to read any book which I had not first shown 
 her; and that restriction, reasonable enough in the 
 abstract, practically meant, in the case of a poor 
 boy like myself, reading no books at all. And 
 then came my first act of disobedience, the parent 
 of many more. Bitterly have I repented it, and 
 bitterly been punished. Yet, strange contradic- 
 tion ! I dare not wish it undone. But such is the 
 great law of life. Punished for our sins we surely 
 are ; and yet how often they become our blessings, 
 teaching us that which nothing else can teach us ! 
 Nothing else ? One says so. Rich parents, I sup- 
 pose, say so, when they send their sons to public 
 schools " to learn life." We workingmen have too 
 often no other teacher than our own errors. But 
 surely, surely, the rich ought to have been able to 
 discover some mode of education in which knowl-
 
 1 68 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 edge may be acquired without the price of con- 
 science. Yet they have not; and we must not 
 complain of them for not giving such a one to the 
 working man when they have not yet even given 
 it to their own children. 
 
 In a street through which I used to walk home- 
 ward was an old bookshop, piled and fringed out- 
 side and in with books of every age, size, and 
 color. And here I at last summoned courage to 
 stop, and timidly and stealthily taking out some 
 volume whose title attracted me, snatch hastily a 
 few pages and hasten on, half fearful of being 
 called on to purchase, half ashamed of a desire 
 which I fancied every one else considered as un- 
 lawful as my mother did. Sometimes I was lucky 
 enough to find the same volume several days run- 
 ning, and to take up the subject where I had left it 
 off; and thus I contrived to hurry through a great 
 deal of " Childe Harold," " Lara," and the " Cor- 
 sair " a new world of wonders to me. They fed, 
 those poems, both my health and my diseases; 
 while they gave me, little of them as I could un- 
 derstand, a thousand new notions about scenery 
 and man, a sense of poetic melody and luxuriance 
 as yet utterly unknown. They chimed in with all 
 my discontent, my melancholy, my thirst after 
 any life of action and excitement, however frivo- 
 lous, insane, or even worse. I forgot the Corsair's 
 sinful trade in his free and daring life ; rather, I 
 honestly eliminated the bad element in which, 
 God knows, I took no delight and kept the 
 good one. However that might be, the innocent 
 guilty pleasure grew on me day by day. Inno- 
 cent, because human guilty, because disobe- 
 dient. But have I not paid the penalty?
 
 The Tailor's Workroom 169 
 
 One evening, however, I fell accidentally on a 
 new book " The Life and Poems of J. Bethune." 
 I opened the story of his life became interested, 
 absorbed and there I stood, I know not how 
 long, on the greasy pavement, heedless of the 
 passers who thrust me right and left, reading by 
 the flaring gas-light that sad history of labor, sor- 
 row, and death. How the Highland cotter, in 
 spite of disease, penury, starvation itself, and the 
 daily struggle to earn his bread by digging and 
 ditching, educated himself how he toiled unceas- 
 ingly with his hands how he wrote his poems in 
 secret on dirty scraps of paper and old leaves of 
 books how thus he wore himself out, manful and 
 godly, " bating not a jot of heart or hope," till the 
 weak flesh would bear no more; and the noble 
 spirit, unrecognized by the lord of the soil, returned 
 to God who gave it. I seemed to see in his history 
 a sad presage of my own. If he, stronger, more 
 self-restrained, more righteous far than ever I 
 could be, had died thus unknown, unassisted, in 
 the stern battle with social disadvantages, what 
 must be my lot? 
 
 And tears of sympathy, rather than of selfish 
 fear, fell fast upon the book. 
 
 A harsh voice from the inner darkness of the 
 shop startled me. 
 
 " Hoot, laddie, ye '11 better no spoil my books 
 wi' greeting ower them." 
 
 I replaced the book hastily, and was hurrying 
 on, but the same voice called me back in a more 
 kindly tone. 
 
 " Stop a wee, my laddie. I 'm no angered wi' ye. 
 Come in, and we '11 just ha* a bit crack thegither." 
 
 I went in, for there was a geniality in the tone
 
 170 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 to which I was unaccustomed, and something whis- 
 pered to me the hope of an adventure, as indeed 
 it proved to be, if an event deserves that name 
 which decided the course of my whole destiny. 
 
 " What war ye greeting about, then ? What was 
 the book?" 
 
 " ' Bethune's Life and Poems,' sir," I said. " And 
 certainly they did affect me very much." 
 
 " Affect ye? Ah, Johnnie Bethune, puir fellow! 
 Ye maunna take on about sic like laddies, or ye '11 
 greet your e'en out o' your head. It's mony a 
 braw man beside Johnnie Bethune has gane John- 
 nie Bethune's gate." 
 
 Though unaccustomed to the Scotch accent, I 
 could make out enough of this speech to be in no 
 wise consoled by it. But the old man turned the 
 conversation by asking me abruptly my name, and 
 trade, and family. 
 
 "Hum, hum, widow, eh? puir body! work at 
 Smith's shop, eh ? Ye '11 ken John Crossthwaite, 
 then? ay? hum, hum ; an' ye 're desirous o' reading 
 books? vara weel let's see your cawpabilities." 
 
 And he pulled me into the dim light of the little 
 back window, shoved back his spectacles, and 
 peering at me from underneath them, began, to 
 my great astonishment, to feel my head all 
 over. 
 
 " Hum, hum, a vara gude forehead vara gude 
 indeed. Causative organs large, perceptive ditto. 
 Imagination superabundant mun be heeded. 
 Benevolence, conscientiousness, ditto, ditto. Cau- 
 tion no that large might be developed," with 
 a quiet chuckle, " under a gude Scot's education. 
 Just turn your head into profile, laddie. Hum, 
 hum. Back o' the head a'thegither defective.
 
 The Tailor's Workroom 171 
 
 Firmness sma' love of approbation unco big. 
 Beware o* leeing, as ye live ; ye '11 need it. Philo- 
 progenitiveness gude. Ye '11 be fond o' bairns, 
 I'm guessing?" 
 
 "Of what?" 
 
 " Children, laddie, children." 
 
 "Very," answered I, in utter dismay at what 
 seemed to me a magical process for getting at all 
 my secret failings. 
 
 " Hum, hum ! Amative and combative organs 
 sma' a general want o' healthy animalism, as my 
 freen' Mr. Deville wad say. And ye want to read 
 books?" 
 
 I confessed my desire, without, alas ! confessing 
 that my mother had forbidden it. 
 
 " Vara weel ; then books I '11 lend ye, after I Ve 
 had a crack wi' Crossthwaite aboot ye, gin I find 
 his opinion o' ye satisfactory. Come to me the 
 day after to-morrow. An' mind, here are my rules : 
 a' damage done to a book to be paid for, or na 
 mair books lent; ye '11 mind to take no books 
 without leave ; specially ye '11 mind no to read in 
 bed o' nights, industrious folks ought to be 
 sleepin' betimes, an' I 'd no be a party to burning 
 puir weans in their beds ; and lastly, ye '11 observe 
 not to read mair than five books at once." 
 
 I assured him that I thought such a thing impos- 
 sible; but he smiled in his saturnine way, and 
 said 
 
 " We '11 see this day fortnight. Now, then, I Ve 
 observed ye for a month past over that aristocratic 
 Byron's poems. And I'm willing to teach the 
 young idea how to shoot but no to shoot itself; 
 so ye '11 just leave alane that vinegary, soul-destroy- 
 ing trash, and I '11 lend ye, gin I hear a gude re-
 
 172 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 port of ye, ' The Paradise Lost,' o' John Milton 
 a gran' classic model ; and for the doctrine o' 't 
 it 's just aboot as gude as ye '11 hear elsewhere the 
 noo. So gang your gate, and tell John Cross- 
 thwaite, privately, auld Sandy Mackaye wad like 
 to see him the morn's night." 
 
 I went home in wonder and delight. Books! 
 books ! books ! I should have my fill of them at 
 last. And when I said my prayers at night, I 
 thanked God for this unexpected boon ; and then 
 remembered that my mother had forbidden it. 
 That thought checked the thanks, but not the 
 pleasure. Oh, parents ! are there not real sins 
 enough in the world already, without your defiling 
 it, over and above, by inventing new ones?
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 SANDY MACKAYE 
 
 day fortnight came, and the old 
 
 A Scotchman's words came true. Four books 
 of his I had already, and I came in to borrow a 
 fifth ; whereon he began with a solemn chuckle 
 
 "Eh, laddie, laddie, I Ve been treating ye as the 
 grocers do their new prentices. They first gie the 
 boys three days' free warren among the figs and 
 the sugar-candy, and they get scunnered wi' sweets 
 after that. Noo, then, my lad, ye 've just been 
 reading four books in three days and here 's a 
 fifth. Ye '11 no open this again." 
 
 "Oh! " I cried, piteously enough, "just let me 
 finish what I am reading. I'm in the middle 
 of such a wonderful account of the Hornitos of 
 Jurullo." 
 
 " Hornets or wasps, a swarm o* them ye 're like 
 to have at this rate ; and a very bad substitute ye '11 
 find them for the Attic bee. Now tak' tent. I 'm 
 no in the habit of speaking without deliberation, 
 for it saves a man a great deal of trouble in chang- 
 ing his mind. If ye canna traduce to me a page o' 
 Virgil by this day three months, ye read no more 
 o' my books. Desultory reading is the bane o' lads. 
 Ye maun begin with self-restraint and method, my 
 man, gin ye intend to gie yoursel' a liberal cduca-
 
 174 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 tion. So I'll just mak* you a present of an auld 
 Latin grammar, and ye maun begin where your 
 betters ha' begun before you." 
 
 " But who will teach me Latin? " 
 
 " Hoot, man ! who '11 teach a man anything except 
 himsel ' ? It 's only gentlefolks and puir aristocrat 
 bodies that go to be spoilt wi' tutors and peda- 
 gogues, cramming and loading them wi' knowledge, 
 as ye 'd load a gun, to shoot it all out again, just as 
 it went down, in a college examination, and forget 
 all aboot it after." 
 
 " Ah ! " I sighed, " if I could have gone to college ! " 
 
 " What for, then ? My father was a Hieland 
 farmer, and yet he was a weel learned man : and 
 ' Sandy, my lad,' he used to say, ' a man kens 
 just as much as he 's taught himsel', and na mair. 
 So get wisdom ; and wi' all your getting, get un- 
 derstanding.' And so I did. And mony 's the 
 Greek exercise I 've written in the cowbyres. And 
 mony 's the page o' Virgil, too, I Ve turned into 
 good Dawric Scotch to ane that 's dead and gane, 
 poor hizzie, sitting under the same plaid, with the 
 sheep feeding round us, up among the hills, look- 
 ing out ower the broad blue sea, and the wee haven 
 wi' the fishing cobles " 
 
 There was a long solemn pause. I cannot tell 
 why, but I loved the man from that moment ; and 
 I thought, too, that he began to love me. Those 
 few words seemed a proof of confidence, perhaps 
 all the deeper, because accidental and unconscious. 
 
 I took the Virgil which he lent me, with Hamil- 
 ton's literal translation between the lines, and an 
 old tattered Latin grammar; I felt myself quite a 
 learned man actually the possessor of a Latin 
 book ! I regarded as something almost miraculous
 
 Sandy Mackaye 
 
 the opening of this new field for my ambition. Not 
 that I was consciously, much less selfishly, ambi- 
 tious. I had no idea as yet to be anything but a 
 tailor to the end ; to make clothes, perhaps in a 
 less infernal atmosphere, but still to make clothes 
 and live thereby. I did not suspect that I possessed 
 powers above the mass. My intense longing after 
 knowledge had been to me like a girl's first love 
 a thing to be concealed from every eye to be 
 looked at askance even by myself, delicious as it 
 was, with holy shame and trembling. And thus it 
 was not cowardice merely, but natural modesty, 
 which put me on a hundred plans of concealing my 
 studies from my mother, and even from my sister. 
 
 I slept in a little lean-to garret at the back of the 
 house, some ten feet long by six wide. I could 
 just stand upright against the inner wall, while the 
 roof on the other side ran down to the floor. 
 There was no fireplace in it, or any means of 
 ventilation. No wonder I coughed all night ac- 
 cordingly, and woke about two every morning 
 with choking throat and aching head. My mother 
 often said that the room was " too small for a 
 Christian to sleep in, but where could she get a 
 better?" 
 
 Such was my only study. I could not use it as 
 such, however, at night without discovery ; for my 
 mother carefully looked in every evening, to see 
 that my candle was out. But when my kind cough 
 woke me, I rose, and creeping like a mouse about 
 the room for my mother and sister slept in the 
 next chamber, and every sound was audible 
 through the narrow partition I drew my darling 
 books out from under a board of the floor, one 
 end of which I had gradually loosened at odd
 
 176 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 minutes, and with them a rushlight, earned by 
 running on messages, or by taking bits of work 
 home, and finishing them for my fellows. 
 
 No wonder that with this scanty rest, and this 
 complicated exertion of hands, eyes, and brain, 
 followed by the long dreary day's work of the 
 shop, my health began to fail ; my eyes grew 
 weaker and weaker ; my cough became more 
 acute ; my appetite failed me daily. My mother 
 noticed the change, and questioned me about it, 
 affectionately enough. But I durst not, alas ! tell 
 the truth. It was not one offence, but the arrears 
 of months of disobedience which I should have 
 had to confess; and so arose infinite false ex- 
 cuses, and petty prevarications, which embittered 
 and clogged still more my already overtasked 
 spirit. About my own ailments formidable as 
 I believed they were I never had a moment's 
 anxiety. The expectation of early death was as 
 unnatural to me as it is, I suspect, to almost all. I 
 die? Had I not hopes, plans, desires, infinite? 
 Could I die while they were unfulfilled? Even now, 
 I do not believe I shall die yet. I will not believe 
 it but let that pass. 
 
 Yes, let that pass. Perhaps I have lived long 
 enough longer than many a gray-headed man. 
 
 There is a race of mortals who become 
 Old in their youth, and die ere middle age. 
 
 And might not those days of mine then have 
 counted as months ? those days when, before 
 starting forth to walk two miles to the shop at six 
 o'clock in the morning, I sat some three or four 
 hours shivering on my bed, putting myself into 
 cramped and painful postures, not daring even to
 
 Sandy Mackaye 177 
 
 cough, lest my mother should fancy me unwell, 
 and come in to see me, poor dear soul ! my eyes 
 aching over the page, my feet wrapped up in the 
 bedclothes, to keep them from the miserable pain 
 of the cold ; longing, watching, dawn after dawn, 
 for the kind summer mornings, when I should 
 need no candlelight. Look at the picture awhile, 
 ye comfortable folks, who take down from your 
 shelves what books you like best at the moment, 
 and then lie back, amid prints and statuettes, to 
 grow wise in an easy-chair, with a blazing fire and 
 a camphine lamp. The lower classes uneducated ! 
 Perhaps you would be so too, if learning cost you 
 the privation which it costs some of them. 
 
 But this concealment could not last. My only 
 wonder is, that I continued to get whole months 
 of undiscovered study. One morning, about four 
 o'clock, as might have been expected, my mother 
 heard me stirring, came in, and found me sitting 
 crosslegged on my bed, stitching away, indeed, 
 with all my might, but with a Virgil open before 
 me. 
 
 She glanced at the book, clutched it with one 
 hand and my arm with the other, and sternly 
 asked 
 
 "Where did you get this heathen stuff?" 
 
 A lie rose to my lips ; but I had been so gradu- 
 ally entangled in the loathed meshes of a system 
 of concealment, and consequent prevarication, that 
 I felt as if one direct falsehood would ruin forever 
 my fast-failing self-respect, and I told her the 
 whole truth. She took the book and left the room. 
 It was Saturday morning, and I spent two miser- 
 able days, for she never spoke a word to me till 
 the two ministers had made their appearance, and
 
 178 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 drank their tea on Sunday evening : then at last 
 she opened 
 
 " And now, Mr. Wigginton, what account have 
 you of this Mr. Mackaye, who has seduced my 
 unhappy boy from the paths of obedience?" 
 
 " I am sorry to say, madam," answered the dark 
 man, with a solemn snuffle, " that he proves to be 
 a most objectionable and altogether unregenerate 
 character. He is, as I am informed, neither more 
 nor less than a Chartist, and an open blasphemer." 
 
 " He is not ! " I interrupted angrily. " He has 
 told me more about God, and given me better 
 advice, than any human being, except my mother." 
 
 " Ah ! madam, so thinks the unconverted heart, 
 ignorant that the god of the Deist is not the God 
 of the Bible a consuming fire to all but His 
 beloved elect; the god of the Deist, unhappy 
 youth, is a mere self-invented, all-indulgent phan- 
 tom a will-o'-the-wisp, deluding the unwary, as 
 he has deluded you, into the slough of carnal 
 reason and shameful profligacy." 
 
 "Do you mean to call me a profligate?" I re- 
 torted fiercely, for my blood was up, and I felt I 
 was fighting for all which I prized in the world : 
 " if you do, you lie. Ask my mother when I ever 
 disobeyed her before? I have never touched a 
 drop of anything stronger than water; I have 
 slaved over-hours to pay for my own candle, I 
 have ! I have no sins to accuse myself of, and 
 neither you nor any person know of any. Do you 
 call me a profligate because I wish to educate 
 myself and rise in life?" 
 
 " Ah ! '* groaned my poor mother to herself, 
 "still unconvinced of sin!" 
 
 " The old Adam, my dear madam, you see,
 
 Sandy Mackaye 179 
 
 standing, as he always does, on his own filthy rags 
 of works, while all the imaginations of his heart 
 are only evil continually. Listen to me, poor 
 sinner " 
 
 " I will not listen to you," I cried, the accumu- 
 lated disgust of years bursting out once and for 
 all, " for I hate and despise you, eating my poor 
 mother here out of house and home. You are 
 one of those who creep into widows' houses, and 
 for pretence make long prayers. You, sir, I will 
 hear," I went on, turning to the dear old man who 
 had sat by shaking his white locks with a sad and 
 puzzled air, " for I love you." 
 
 " My dear sister Locke," he began, " I really 
 think sometimes that is, ahem with your leave, 
 brother I am almost disposed but I should 
 wish to defer to your superior zeal yet, at the 
 same time, perhaps, the desire for information, 
 however carnal in itself, may be an instrument in 
 the Lord's hands you know what I mean. I 
 always thought him a gracious youth, madam, 
 did n't you ? And perhaps I only observe it in 
 passing the Lord's people among the dissenting 
 connections are apt to undervalue human learning 
 as a means of course, I mean, only as a means. 
 It is not generally known, I believe, that our 
 reverend Puritan patriarchs, Howe and Baxter, 
 Owen and many more, were {not altogether unac- 
 quainted with heathen authors ; nay, that they may 
 have been called absolutely learned men. And 
 some of our leading ministers are inclined no 
 doubt they will be led rightly in so important a 
 matter to follow the example of the Indepen- 
 dents in educating their young ministers, and turn- 
 ing Satan's weapons of heathen mythology against
 
 180 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 himself, as St. Paul is said to have done. My dear 
 boy, what books have you now got by you of Mr. 
 Mackaye's?" 
 
 " Milton 's ' Poems ' and a Latin Virgil." 
 
 " Ah ! " groaned the dark man ; " will poetry, 
 will Latin save an immortal soul?" 
 
 " I '11 tell you what, sir ; you say yourself that it 
 depends on God's absolute counsel whether I am 
 saved or not. So, if I am elect, I shall be saved 
 whatever I do ; and if I am not, I shall be damned 
 whatever I do ; and in the meantime you had bet- 
 ter mind your own business, and let me do the best 
 I can for this life, as the next is all settled for me." 
 
 This flippant, but after all not unreasonable 
 speech, seemed to silence the man; and I took 
 the opportunity of running upstairs and bringing 
 down my Milton. The old man was speaking as 
 I re-entered. 
 
 " And you know, my dear madam, Mr. Milton 
 was a true converted man, and a Puritan." 
 
 " He was Oliver Cromwell's secretary," I added. 
 
 "Did he teach you to disobey your mother?" 
 asked my mother. 
 
 I did not answer ; and the old man, after turn- 
 ing over a few leaves, as if he knew the book well, 
 looked up. 
 
 " I think, madam, you might let the youth keep 
 these books, if he will promise, as I am sure he 
 will, to see no more of Mr. Mackaye." 
 
 I was ready to burst out crying, but I made up 
 my mind and answered 
 
 " I must see him once again, or he will think 
 me so ungrateful. He is the best friend that I 
 ever had, except you, mother. Besides, I do not 
 know if he will lend me any, after this."
 
 Sandy Mackaye 181 
 
 My mother looked at the old minister, and then 
 gave a sullen assent. 
 
 " Promise me only to see him once but I can- 
 not trust you. You have deceived me once, Alton, 
 and you may again ! " 
 
 " I shall not, I shall not," I answered proudly. 
 " You do not know me " and I spoke true. 
 
 " You do not know yourself, my poor dear fool- 
 ish child ! " she replied and that was true too. 
 
 " And now, dear friends," said the dark man, 
 " let us join in offering up a few words of special 
 intercession." 
 
 We all knelt down, and I soon discovered that 
 by the special intercession was meant a string of 
 bitter and groundless slanders against poor me, 
 twisted into the form of a prayer for my conver- 
 sion, " if it were God's will." To which I responded 
 with a closing " Amen," for which I was sorry 
 afterwards, when I recollected that it was said in 
 merely insolent mockery. But the little faith I 
 had was breaking up fast not altogether, surely, 
 by my own fault. 1 
 
 At all events, from that day I was emancipated 
 
 1 The portraits of the minister and the missionary are surely 
 exceptions to their class, rather than the average. The Baptists 
 have had their Andrew Fuller and Robert Hall, and among 
 missionaries Dr. Carey, and noble spirits in plenty. But such 
 men as those who excited Alton Locke's disgust are to be met 
 with, in every sect ; in the Church of England, and in the Church 
 of Rome. And it is a real and fearful scandal to the young, to 
 see such men listened to as God's messengers, in spite of their 
 utter want of any manhood or virtue, simply because they are 
 " orthodox," each according to the shibboleths of his hearers, and 
 possess that vulpine " discretion of dulness," whose miraculous 
 might Dean Swift sets forth in his " Essay on the Fates of Clergy- 
 men." Such men do exist, and prosper ; and as long as they are 
 allowed to do so, Alton Lockes will meet them, and be scandalized 
 by them. ED.
 
 1 82 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 from modern Puritanism. The ministers both 
 avoided all serious conversation with me ; and my 
 mother did the same; while, with a strength of 
 mind, rare among women, she never alluded to 
 the scene of that Sunday evening. It was a rule 
 with her never to recur to what was once done 
 and settled. What was to be, might be prayed 
 over. But it was to be endured in silence; yet 
 wider and wider ever from that time opened the 
 gulf between us. 
 
 I went trembling the next afternoon to Mackaye 
 and told my story. He first scolded me severely 
 for disobeying my mother. " He that begins o' 
 that gate, laddie, ends by disobeying God and his 
 ain conscience. Gin ye 're to be a scholar, God 
 will make you one and if not, ye '11 no mak' 
 yoursel' ane in spite o' Him and His command- 
 ments." And then he filled his pipe and chuckled 
 away in silence ; at last he exploded in a horse- 
 laugh. 
 
 "So ye gied the ministers a bit o' yer mind? 
 ' The deil 's amang the tailors ' in gude earnest, 
 as the sang says. There 's Johnnie Crossthwaite 
 kicked the Papist priest out o' his house yestreen. 
 Puir ministers, it 's ill times wi' them ! They gang 
 about keckling and screighing after the working 
 men, like a hen that's hatched ducklings, when 
 she sees them tak' the water. Little Dunkeld' c 
 coming to London sune, I 'm thinking. 
 
 Hech ! sic a parish, a parish, a parish ; 
 
 Hech ! sic a parish as little Dunkeld ! 
 
 They hae stickit the minister, hanged the precentor, 
 
 Dung down the steeple, and drucken the bell." 
 
 " But may I keep the books a little while, Mr. 
 Mackaye? "
 
 Sandy Mackaye 183 
 
 " Keep them till ye die, gin ye will. What is 
 the worth o' them to me? What is the worth o* 
 anything to me, puir auld deevil, that ha' no half 
 a dizen years to live at the furthest. God bless 
 ye, my bairn ; gang hame, and mind your mither, 
 or it 's little gude books '11 do ye."
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 TAILORS AND SOLDIERS 
 
 1WAS now thrown again utterly on my own re- 
 sources. I read and re-read Milton's " Poems " 
 and Virgil's " ^Eneid " for six more months at every 
 spare moment; thus spending over them, I sup- 
 pose, all in all, far more time than most gentlemen 
 have done. I found, too, in the last volume of 
 Milton, a few of his select prose works : the " Are- 
 opagitica," the " Defence of the English People," 
 and one or two more, in which I gradually began 
 to take an interest; and, little of them as I could 
 comprehend, I was awed by their tremendous 
 depth and power, as well as excited by the utterly 
 new trains of thought into which they led me. 
 Terrible was the amount of bodily fatigue which 
 I had to undergo in reading at every spare mo- 
 ment, while walking to and fro from my work, 
 while sitting up, often from midnight till dawn, 
 stitching away to pay for the tallow-candle which 
 I burnt, till I had to resort to all sorts of uncom- 
 fortable contrivances for keeping myself awake, 
 even at the expense of bodily pain Heaven for- 
 bid that I should weary my readers by describing 
 them ! Young men of the upper classes, to whom 
 study pursue it as intensely as you will is 
 but the business of the day, and every spare
 
 Tailors and Soldiers 185 
 
 moment relaxation, little you guess the frightful 
 drudgery undergone by a man of the people who 
 has vowed to educate himself, to live at once 
 two lives, each as severe as the whole of yours, 
 to bring to the self-imposed toil of intellectual 
 improvement a body and brain already worn out 
 by a day of toilsome manual labor. I Jid it. 
 God forbid, though, that I should take credit to 
 myself for it. Hundreds more have do ie it, with 
 still fewer advantages than mine. Hundreds more, 
 an ever-increasing army of martyrs, are doing it 
 at this moment: of some of them, too, perhaps 
 you may hear hereafter. 
 
 I had read through Milton, as I said, again and 
 again; I had got out of him all that my youth 
 and my unregulated mind enabled me to get. I 
 had devoured, too, not without profit, a large old 
 edition of " Fox's Martyrs," which the venerable 
 minister lent me, and now I was hungering again 
 for fresh food, and again at a loss where to find 
 it. 
 
 I was hungering, too, for more than information 
 for a friend. Since my intercourse with Sandy 
 Mackaye had been stopped, six months had 
 passed without my once opening my lips to any 
 human being upon the subjects with which my 
 mind was haunted day and night I wanted to 
 know more about poetry, history, politics, philoso- 
 phy all things in heaven and earth. But, above 
 all, I wanted a faithful and sympathizing ear into 
 which to pour all my doubts, discontents, and as- 
 pirations. My sister Susan, who was one year 
 younger than myself, was growing into a slender, 
 pretty, hectic girl of sixteen. But she was al- 
 together a devout Puritan. She had just gone 
 
 Vol. Ill
 
 1 86 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 through the process of conviction of sin and con- 
 version ; and being looked upon at the chapel as 
 an especially gracious professor, was either unable 
 or unwilling to think or speak on any subject, 
 except on those to which I felt a growing distaste. 
 She had shrunk from me, too, very much, since 
 my ferocious attack that Sunday evening on the 
 dark minister, who was her special favorite. I 
 remarked it, and it was a fresh cause of unhappi- 
 ness and perplexity. 
 
 At last I made up my mind, come what would, 
 to force myself upon Crossthwaite. He was the 
 only man whom I knew who seemed able to help 
 me ; and his very reserve had invested him with 
 a mystery, which served to heighten my imagina- 
 tion of his powers. I waylaid him one oay coming 
 out of the workroom to go home, and plunged at 
 once desperately into the matter. 
 
 " Mr. Crossthwaite, I want to speak to you. I 
 want to ask you to advise me." 
 
 " I have known that a long time." 
 
 " Then why did you never say a kind word to 
 me ? " 
 
 " Because I was waiting to see whether you were 
 worth saying a kind word to. It was but the 
 other day, remember, you were a bit of a boy. 
 Now, I think, I may trust you with a thing or two. 
 Besides, I wanted to see whether you trusted me 
 enough to ask me. Now you Ve broke the ice at 
 last, in with you, head and ears, and see what you 
 can fish out." 
 
 " I am very unhappy " 
 
 " That 's no new disorder that I know of." 
 
 " No ; but I think the reason I am unhappy is 
 a strange one ; at least, I never read of but one
 
 Tailors and Soldiers 187 
 
 person else in the same way. I want to educate 
 myself, and I can't." 
 
 " You must have read precious little, then, if you 
 think yourself in a strange way. Bless the boy's 
 heart ! And what the dickens do you want to be 
 educating yourself for, pray ? " 
 
 This was said in a tone of good-humored ban- 
 ter, which gave me courage. He offered to walk 
 homewards with me; and as I shambled along 
 by his side, I told him all my story and all my 
 griefs. 
 
 I never shall forget that walk. Every house, 
 tree, turning, which we passed that day on our 
 way, is indissolubly connected in my mind with 
 some strange new thought which arose in me just 
 at each spot ; and recurs, so are the mind and the 
 senses connected, as surely as I repass it. 
 
 I had been telling him about Sandy Mackaye. 
 He confessed to an acquaintance with him ; but 
 in a reserved and mysterious way, which only 
 heightened my curiosity. 
 
 We were going through the Horse Guards, and 
 I could not help lingering to look with wistful 
 admiration on the huge mustachioed war-machines 
 who sauntered about the courtyard. 
 
 A tall and handsome officer, blazing in scarlet 
 and gold, cantered in on a superb horse, and, dis- 
 mounting, threw the reins to a dragoon as grand 
 and gaudy as himself. Did I envy him? Well 
 I was but seventeen. And there is something 
 noble to the mind, as well as to the eye, in the 
 great strong man, who can fight a completeness, 
 a self-restraint, a terrible sleeping power in him. 
 As Mr. Carlyle says, " A soldier, after all, is one 
 of the few remaining realities of the age. All
 
 1 88 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 other professions almost promise one thing, and 
 perform alas ! what ? But this man promises 
 to fight, and does it; and, if he be told, will 
 veritably take out a long sword and kill me." 
 
 So thought my companion, though the mood in 
 which he viewed the fact was somewhat different 
 from my own. 
 
 "Come on," he said, peevishly clutching me by 
 the arm; "what do you want dawdling? Are you 
 a nursery-maid, that you must stare at those red- 
 coated butchers?" And a deep curse followed. 
 
 " What harm have they done you ? " 
 
 " I should think I owed them turn enough." 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " They cut my father down at Sheffield, per- 
 haps with the very swords he helped to make, 
 because he would not sit still and starve, and see 
 us starving around him, while those who fattened 
 on the sweat of his brow, and on those lungs of 
 his, which the sword-grinding dust was eating out 
 day by day, were wantoning on venison and cham- 
 pagne. That 's the harm they Ve done me, my 
 chap ! " 
 
 " Poor fellows ! they only did as they were 
 ordered, I suppose." 
 
 " And what business have they to let themselves 
 be ordered ? What right, I say what right has 
 any free, reasonable soul on earth, to sell himself 
 for a shilling a day to murder any man, right or 
 wrong even his own brother or his own father 
 just because such a whiskered, profligate jacka- 
 napes as that officer, without learning, without any 
 god except his own looking-glass and his opera- 
 dancer a fellow who, just because he is born a 
 gentleman, is set to command gray-headed men
 
 Tailors and Soldiers 189 
 
 before he can command his own meanest passions. 
 Good heavens ! that the lives of free men should 
 be entrusted to such a stuffed cockatoo ; and that 
 free men should be such traitors to their country, 
 traitors to their own flesh and blood, as to sell 
 themselves, for a shilling a day and the smirks of 
 the nursery-maids, to do that fellow's bidding ! " 
 
 " What are you a-grumbling here about, my 
 man ? gotten the cholera ? " asked one of the 
 dragoons, a huge, stupid-looking lad., 
 
 "About you, you young long-legged cut- 
 throat," answered Crossthwaite, " and all your crew 
 of traitors." 
 
 " Help, help, coomrades o' mine ! " quoth the 
 dragoon, bursting with laughter ; " I 'm gaun be 
 moorthered wi' a little booy that 's gane mad, and 
 toorned Chartist." 
 
 I dragged Crossthwaite off; for what was jest 
 to the soldiers, I saw, by his face, was fierce 
 enough earnest to him. We walked on a little, 
 in silence. 
 
 " Now," I said, " that was a good-natured fellow 
 enough, though he was a soldier. You and he 
 might have cracked many a joke together, if you 
 did but understand each other ; and he was a 
 countryman of yours, too." 
 
 " I may crack something else besides jokes with 
 him some day," answered he, moodily. 
 
 " Ton my word, you must take care how you 
 do it. He is as big as four of us." 
 
 "That vile aristocrat, the old Italian poet 
 what 's his name ? Ariosto ay ! he knew 
 which quarter the wind was making for, when he 
 said that firearms would be the end of all your 
 old knights and gentlemen in armor, that hewed
 
 190 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 down unarmed innocents as if they had been 
 sheep. Gunpowder is your true leveller dash 
 physical strength ! A boy 's a man with a musket 
 in his hand, my chap ! " 
 
 " God forbid," I said, " that I should ever be 
 made a man of in that way, or you either. I do 
 not think we are quite big enough to make fight- 
 ers ; and if we were, what have we got to fight 
 about?" 
 
 "Big enough to make fighters?" said he, half 
 to himself; "or strong enough, perhaps? or 
 clever enough? and yet Alexander was a little 
 man, and the Petit Caporal, and Nelson, and Caesar, 
 too ; and so was Saul of Tarsus, and weakly he was 
 into the bargain. ALsop was a dwarf, and so was 
 Attila; Shakespeare was lame; Alfred, a rickety 
 weakling ; Byron, clubfooted ; so much for body 
 versus spirit brute force versus genius genius." 
 
 I looked at him ; his eyes glared like two balls 
 of fire. Suddenly he turned to me. 
 
 " Locke, my boy, I Ve made an ass of myself, 
 and got into a rage, and broken a good old resolu- 
 tion of mine, and a promise that I made to my dear 
 little woman bless her ! and said things to you 
 that you ought to know nothing of for this long 
 time; but those red-coats always put me beside 
 myself. God forgive me ! " And he held out his 
 hand to me cordially. 
 
 " I can quite understand your feeling deeply on 
 one point," I said, as I took it, " after the sad story 
 you told me ; but why so bitter on all ? What is 
 there so very wrong about things, that we must 
 begin fighting about it?" 
 
 "Bless your heart, poor innocent! What is 
 wrong? what is not wrong? Wasn't there
 
 Tailors and Soldiers 191 
 
 enough in that talk with Mackaye, that you told 
 me of just now, to show anybody that, who can 
 tell a hawk from a hand-saw?" 
 
 "Was it wrong in him to give himself such 
 trouble about the education of a poor young 
 fellow, who has no tie on him, who can never repay 
 him?" 
 
 "No; that's just like him. He feels for the 
 people, for he has been one of us. He worked in 
 a printing-office himself many a year, and he 
 knows the heart of the workingman. But he 
 did n't tell you the whole truth about education. 
 He dare n't tell you. No one who has money 
 dare speak out his heart; not that he has much 
 certainly ; but the cunning old Scot that he is, he 
 lives by the present system of things, and he won't 
 speak ill of the bridge which carries him over 
 till the time comes." 
 
 I could not understand whither all this tended, 
 and walked on silent and somewhat angry, at hear- 
 ing the least slight cast on Mackaye. 
 
 " Don't you see, stupid?" he broke out at last. 
 " What did he say to you about gentlemen being 
 crammed by tutors and professors? Have not you 
 as good a right to them as any gentleman ? " 
 
 " But he told me they were no use that every 
 man must educate himself." 
 
 " Oh ! all very fine to tell you the grapes are 
 sour, when you can't reach them. Bah, lad ! 
 Can't you see what comes of education ? that any 
 dolt, provided he be a gentleman, can be doctored 
 up at school and college, enough to make him 
 play his part decently his mighty part of ruling 
 us, and riding over our heads, and picking our 
 pockets, as parson, doctor, lawyer, member of
 
 192 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 parliament while we you now, for instance 
 cleverer than ninety-nine gentlemen out of a hun- 
 dred, if you had one-tenth the trouble taken with 
 you that is taken with every pig-headed son of an 
 aristocrat " 
 
 " Am I clever?" asked I, in honest surprise. 
 
 "What! haven't you found that out yet? 
 Don't try to put that on me. Don't a girl 
 know when she 's pretty, without asking her 
 neighbors? " 
 
 " Really, I never thought about it." 
 
 " More simpleton you. Old Mackaye has, at all 
 events ; though, canny Scotchman that he is, he '11 
 never say a word to you about it, yet he makes no 
 secret of it to other people. I heard him the 
 other day telling some of our friends that you were 
 a thorough young genius." 
 
 I blushed scarlet, between pleasure and a new 
 feeling; was it ambition? 
 
 " Why, have n't you a right to aspire to a college 
 education as any do-nothing canon there at the 
 abbey, lad?" 
 
 " I don't know that I have a right to anything." 
 
 " What, not become what Nature intended you to 
 become ? What has she given you brains for, but 
 to be educated and used ? Oh ! I heard a fine 
 lecture upon that at our club the other night 
 There was a man there a gentleman, too, but a 
 thoroughgoing people's man, I can tell you, Mr. 
 O'Flynn. What an orator that man is, to be sure ! 
 The Irish ^Eschines, I hear they call him in Con- 
 ciliation Hall. Is n't he the man to pitch into the 
 mammonites ? ' Gentlemen and ladies,' says he, 
 ' how long will a diabolic society ' no, an effete 
 society it was ' how long will an effete, cmascu-
 
 Tailors and Soldiers 193 
 
 late, and effeminate society, in the diabolic selfish- 
 ness of its eclecticism, refuse to acknowledge what 
 my immortal countryman, Burke, calls the " Dei 
 voluntatem in rebus revelatam " the revelation of 
 Nature's will in the phenomena of matter? The 
 cerebration of each is the prophetic sacrament of 
 the yet undeveloped possibilities of his mentation. 
 The form of the brain alone, and not the posses- 
 sion of the vile gauds of wealth and rank, constitute 
 man's only right to education to the glories of 
 art and science. Those beaming eyes and roseate 
 lips beneath me proclaim a bevy of undeveloped 
 Aspasias, of embryo Cleopatras, destined by 
 Nature, and only restrained by man's injustice 
 from ruling the world by their beauty's eloquence. 
 Those massive and beetling brows, gleaming with 
 the lambent flames of patriotic ardor what is 
 needed to unfold them into a race of Shakespeares 
 and of Gracchi, ready to proclaim with sword and 
 lyre the divine harmonies of liberty, equality, and 
 fraternity, before a quailing universe ? ' ' 
 
 " It sounds very grand," replied I, meekly ; 
 " and I should like very much certainly to have a 
 good education. But I can't see whose injustice 
 keeps me out of one if I can't afford to pay for it." 
 
 "Whose? Why, the parsons', to be sure. 
 They Ve got the monopoly of education in Eng- 
 land, and they get their bread by it at their public 
 schools and universities ; and of course it 's their 
 interest to keep up the price of their commodity, 
 and let no man have a taste of it who can't pay 
 down handsomely. And so those aristocrats of 
 college dons go on rolling in riches, and fellow- 
 ships, and scholarships, that were bequeathed by 
 the people's friends in old times, just to educate
 
 194 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 poor scholars like you and me, and give us our 
 rights as free men." 
 
 " But I thought the clergy were doing so much 
 to educate the poor. At least, I hear all the dis- 
 senting ministers grumbling at their continual 
 interference." 
 
 " Ay, educating them to make them slaves and 
 bigots. They don't teach them what they teach 
 their own sons. Look at the miserable smattering 
 of general information just enough to serve as 
 sauce for their great first and last lesson of ' Obey 
 the powers that be ' whatever they be ; leave us 
 alone in our comforts, and starve patiently; do, 
 like good boys, for it 's God's will. And then, if a 
 boy does show talent in school, do they help him 
 up in life? Not they; when he has just learnt 
 enough to whet his appetite for more, they turn 
 him adrift again, to sink and drudge to do his 
 duty, as they call it, in that state of life to which 
 society and the devil have called him." 
 
 "But there are innumerable stories of great 
 Englishmen who have risen from the lowest 
 ranks." 
 
 " Ay ; but where are the stories of those who 
 have not risen of all the noble geniuses who 
 have ended in desperation, drunkenness, starvation, 
 suicide, because no one would take the trouble of 
 lifting them up, and enabling them to walk in the 
 path which Nature had marked out for them? 
 Dead men tell no tales; and this old whited 
 sepulchre, society, ain't going to turn informer 
 against itself." 
 
 " I trust and hope," I said sadly, " that if God 
 intends me to rise, He will open the way for me ; 
 perhaps the very struggles and sorrows of a poor
 
 Tailors and Soldiers 195 
 
 genius may teach him more than ever wealth and 
 prosperity could." 
 
 " True, Alton, my boy ! and that 's my only 
 comfort. It does make men of us, this bitter 
 battle of life. We workingmen, when we do 
 come out of the furnace, come out, not tinsel and 
 papier mache', like those fops of red-tape states- 
 men, but steel and granite, Alton, my boy that 
 has been seven times tried in the fire: and woe 
 to the papier macho" gentleman that runs against 
 us! But," he went on sadly, " for one who comes 
 safe through the furnace, there are a hundred who 
 crack in the burning. You are a young bear, my 
 boy, with all your sorrows before you ; and you '11 
 find that a workingman's training is like the Red 
 Indian children's. The few who are strong enough 
 to stand it grow up warriors ; but all those who 
 are not fire-and-water-proof by nature just die, 
 Alton, my lad, and the tribe thinks itself well 
 rid of them." 
 
 So that conversation ended. But it had im- 
 planted in my bosom a new seed of mingled good 
 and evil, which was destined to bear fruit, precious 
 perhaps as well as bitter. God knows, it has hung 
 on the tree long enough. Sour and harsh from 
 the first, it has been many a year in ripening. 
 But the sweetness of the apple, the potency of the 
 grape, as the chemists tell us, are born out of acid- 
 ity a developed sourness. Will it be so with 
 my thoughts ? Dare I assert, as I sit writing here, 
 with the wild waters slipping past the cabin win- 
 dows, backwards and backwards ever, every plunge 
 of the vessel one forward leap from the old world 
 worn-out world I had almost called it, of sham 
 civilization and real penury dare I hope ever to
 
 196 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 return and triumph? Shall I, after all, lay my 
 bones among my own people, and hear the voices 
 of freemen whisper in my dying ears? 
 
 Silence, dreaming heart ! Sufficient for the day 
 is the evil thereof and the good thereof also. 
 Would that I had known that before ! Above all, 
 that I had known it on that night, when first the 
 burning thought arose in my heart, that I was 
 unjustly used ; that society had not given me my 
 rights. It came to me as a revelation, celestial- 
 infernal, full of glorious hopes of the possible 
 future in store for me through the perfect develop- 
 ment of all my faculties ; and full, too, of fierce 
 present rage, wounded vanity, bitter grudgings 
 against those more favored than myself, which 
 grew in time almost to cursing against the God 
 who had made me a poor untutored workingman, 
 and seemed to have given me genius only to keep 
 me in a Tantalus hell of unsatisfied thirst. 
 
 Ay, respectable gentlemen and ladies, I will 
 confess all to you you shall have, if you enjoy 
 it, a fresh opportunity for indulging that supreme 
 pleasure which the press daily affords you of 
 insulting the classes whose powers most of you 
 know as little as you do their sufferings. Yes; 
 the Chartist poet is vain, conceited, ambitious, 
 uneducated, shallow, inexperienced, envious, fero- 
 cious, scurrilous, seditious, traitorous. Is your 
 charitable vocabulary exhausted ? Then ask your- 
 selves, how often have you yourself honestly re- 
 sisted and conquered the temptation to any one of 
 these sins, when it has come across you just once 
 in a way, and not as they came to me, as they 
 come to thousands of the workingmen, daily and 
 hourly, " till their torments do, by length of time,
 
 Tailors and Soldiers 197 
 
 become their elements "_? What, are we covetous 
 too ? Yes ! And if those who have, like you, 
 still covet more, what wonder if those who have 
 nothing covet something? Profligate too? Well, 
 though that imputation as a generality is utterly 
 calumnious, though your amount of respectable 
 animal enjoyment per annum is a hundred times 
 as great as that of the most self-indulgent artisan, 
 yet, if you had ever felt what it is to want, not 
 only every luxury of the senses, but even bread to 
 eat, you would think more mercifully of the man 
 who makes up by rare excesses, and those only of 
 the limited kinds possible to him, for long intervals 
 of dull privation, and says in his madness, " Let us 
 eat and drink, for to-morrow we die ! " We have 
 our sins, and you have yours. Ours may be the 
 more gross and barbaric, but yours are none the 
 less damnable ; perhaps all the more so, for being 
 the sleek, subtle, respectable, religious sins they 
 are. You are frantic enough, if our part of the 
 press calls you hard names, but you cannot see 
 that your part of the press repays it back to us 
 with interest. We see those insults, and feel them 
 bitterly enough ; and cio not forget them, alas ! 
 soon enough, while they pass unheeded by your 
 delicate eyes, as trivial truisms. Horrible, unprin- 
 cipled, villainous, seditious, frantic, blasphemous 
 are epithets, of course, when applied to to how 
 large a portion of the English people, you will 
 some day discover to your astonishment. When 
 will that come, and how? In thunder, and storm, 
 and garments rolled in blood? Or like the dew 
 on the mown grass, and the clear shining of the 
 sunlight after April rain? 
 
 Yes, it was true. Society had not given me my
 
 198 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 rights. And woe unto the man on whom that 
 idea, true or false, rises lurid, filling all his thoughts 
 with stifling glare, as of the pit itself. Be it true, 
 be it false, it is equally a woe to believe it ; to have 
 to live on a negation; to have to worship for 
 our only idea, as hundreds of thousands of us 
 have this day, the hatred of the things which are. 
 Ay, though one of us here and there may die in 
 faith, in sight of the promised land, yet is it not 
 hard, when looking from the top of Pisgah into 
 " the good time coming," to watch the years 
 slipping away one by one, and death crawling 
 nearer and nearer, and the people wearying them- 
 selves in the fire for very vanity, and Jordan not 
 yet passed, the promised land not yet entered? 
 While our little children die around us, like lambs 
 beneath the knife, of cholera and typhus and con- 
 sumption, and all the diseases which the good 
 time can and will prevent; which, as science has 
 proved, and you the rich confess, might be pre- 
 vented at once, if you dared to bring in one bold 
 and comprehensive measure, and not sacrifice 
 yearly the lives of thousands to the idol of vested 
 interest, and a majority in the House. Is it not 
 hard to men who smart beneath such things to 
 help crying aloud "Thou cursed Moloch-Mam- 
 mon, take my life if thou wilt ; let me die in the 
 wilderness, for I have deserved it ; but these little 
 ones in mines and factories, in typhus-cellars, and 
 Tooting pandemoniums, what have they done? If 
 not in their fathers' cause, yet still in theirs, were 
 it so great a sin to die upon a barricade ? " 
 
 Or after all, my working brothers, is it true of 
 our promised land, even as of that Jewish one of 
 old, that the priests' feet must first cross the mystic
 
 Tailors and Soldiers 199 
 
 stream into the good land and large which God 
 has prepared for us? 
 
 Is it so indeed ? Then in the name of the Lord 
 of Hosts, ye priests of His, why will ye not awake, 
 and arise, and go over Jordan, that the people of 
 the Lord may follow you ?
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 THE SCEPTIC'S MOTHER 
 
 MY readers will perceive, from what I have 
 detailed, that I was not likely to get any 
 positive ground of comfort from Crossthwaite ; 
 and from within myself there was daily less and 
 less hope of any. Daily the struggle became more 
 intolerable between my duty to my mother and 
 my duty to myself that inward thirst for mental 
 self-improvement, which, without any clear con- 
 sciousness of its sanctity or inspiration, I felt, and 
 could not help feeling, that I must follow. No 
 doubt it was very self-willed and ambitious of me 
 to do that which rich men's sons are flogged for 
 not doing, and rewarded with all manner of prizes, 
 scholarships, fellowships for doing. But the nine- 
 teenth year is a time of life at which self-will is apt 
 to exhibit itself in other people besides tailors; 
 and those religious persons who think it no sin to 
 drive their sons on through classics and mathe- 
 matics, in hopes of gaining them a station in life, 
 ought not to be very hard upon me for driving my- 
 self on through the same path without any ^uch 
 selfish hope of gain though perhaps the very fact 
 of my having no wish or expectation of such advan- 
 tage will constitute in their eyes my sin and folly, 
 and prove that I was following the dictates merely of
 
 The Sceptic's Mother 201 
 
 a carnal lust, and not of a proper worldly prudence. 
 I really do not wish to be flippant or sneering. I 
 have seen the evil of it as much as any man, in 
 myself and in my own class. But there are excuses 
 for such a fault in the workingman. It does sour 
 and madden him to be called presumptuous and 
 ambitious for the very same aspirations which are 
 lauded up to the skies in the sons of the rich 
 unless, indeed, he will do one little thing, and so 
 make his peace with society. If he will desert his 
 own class ; if he will try to become a sham gentle- 
 man, a parasite, and, if he can, a mammonite, the 
 world will compliment him on his noble desire to 
 " rise in life" He will have won his spurs, and be 
 admitted into that exclusive pale of knighthood, 
 beyond which it is a sin to carry arms even in self- 
 defence. But if the working genius dares to be 
 true to his own class to stay among them to 
 regenerate them to defend them to devote his 
 talents to those among whom God placed him and 
 brought him up then he is a demagogue, the 
 incendiary, the fanatic, the dreamer. So you would 
 have the monopoly of talent, too, exclusive world- 
 lings? And yet you pretend to believe in the 
 miracle of Pentecost, and the religion that was 
 taught by the carpenter's Son, and preached across 
 the world by fishermen ! 
 
 I was several times minded to argue the question 
 out with my mother, and assert for myself the same 
 independence of soul which I was now earning for 
 my body by my wages. Once I had resolved to 
 speak to her that very evening; but, strangely 
 enough, happening to open the Bible, which, alas ! 
 I did seldom at that time, my eye fell upon the 
 chapter where Jesus, after having justified to His
 
 202 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 parents His absence in the Temple, while hearing 
 the doctors and asking them questions, yet went 
 down with them to Nazareth after all, and was 
 subject unto them. The story struck me vividly 
 as a symbol of my own duties. But on reading 
 further, I found more than one passage which 
 seemed to me to convey a directly opposite lesson, 
 where His mother and His brethren, fancying Him 
 mad, attempted to interfere with His labors, and 
 asserting their family rights as reasons for retaining 
 Him, met with a peremptory rebuff. I puzzled 
 my head for some time to find out which of the 
 two cases was the more applicable to my state of 
 self-development. The notion of asking for teach- 
 ing from on high on such a point had never crossed 
 me. Indeed, if it had, I did not believe sufficiently 
 either in the story or in the doctrines connected 
 with it, to have tried such a resource. And so, as 
 may be supposed, my growing sell-conceit decided 
 for me that the latter course was the fitting one. 
 
 And yet I had not energy to carry it out. I was 
 getting so worn out in body and mind from con- 
 tinual study and labor, stinted food and want of 
 sleep, that I could not face the thought of an ex- 
 plosion, such as I knew must ensue, and I lingered 
 on in the same unhappy state, becoming more and 
 more morose in manner to my mother, while I was 
 as assiduous as ever in all filial duties. But I had 
 no pleasure in home. She seldom spoke to me. 
 Indeed, there was no common topic about which 
 we could speak. Besides, ever since that fatal 
 Sunday evening, I saw that she suspected me and 
 watched me. I had good reason to believe that 
 she set spies upon my conduct. Poor dear mother ! 
 God forbid that I should accuse thee for a single
 
 The Sceptic's Mother 203 
 
 care of thine, for a single suspicion even, prompted 
 as they all were by a mother's anxious love. I 
 would never have committed these things to paper, 
 hadst thou not been far beyond the reach or hear- 
 ing of them ; and only now, in hopes that they 
 may serve as a warning, in some degree to mothers, 
 but ten times more to children. For I sinned 
 against thee, deeply and shamefully, in thought 
 and deed, while thou didst never sin against me ; 
 though all thy caution did but hasten the fatal 
 explosion which came, and perhaps must have 
 come, under some form or other, in any case. 
 
 I had been detained one night in the shop till 
 late ; and on my return my mother demanded, in a 
 severe tone, the reason of my stay ; and on my 
 telling her, answered as severely that she did not 
 believe me; that she had too much reason to 
 suspect that I had been with bad companions. 
 
 " Who dared to put such a thought into your 
 head?" 
 
 She " would not give up her authorities, but she 
 had too much reason to believe them." 
 
 Again I demanded the name of my slanderer, 
 and was refused it. And then I burst out, for the 
 first time in my life, into a real fit of rage with her. 
 I cannot tell how I dared to say what I did, but I 
 was weak, nervous, irritable my brain excited 
 beyond all natural tension. Above all, I felt that 
 she was unjust to me ; and my good conscience, as 
 well as my pride, rebelled. 
 
 "You have never trusted me," I cried, "you 
 have watched me " 
 
 " Did you not deceive me once already ? " 
 
 " And if I did," I answered, more and more 
 excited, " have I not slaved for you, stinted myself
 
 204 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 of clothes to pay your rent? Have I not run to 
 and fro for you like a slave, while I knew all the 
 time you did not respect me or trust me ? If you 
 had only treated me as a child and an idiot, I could 
 have borne it. But you have been thinking of me 
 all the while as an incarnate fiend dead in tres- 
 passes and sins a child of wrath and .the devil. 
 What right have you to be astonished if I should 
 do my father's works?" 
 
 "You may be ignorant of vital religion," she 
 answered ; " and you may insult me. But if you 
 make a mock of God's Word, you leave my house. 
 If you can laugh at religion, you can deceive me." 
 
 The pent-up scepticism of years burst forth. 
 
 " Mother," I said, " don't talk to me about reli- 
 gion, and election, and conversion, and all that 
 I do 't believe one word of it. Nobody does, ex- 
 cept good kind people (like you, alas ! I was 
 going to say, but the devil stopped the words at 
 my lips) who must needs have some reason to 
 account for their goodness. That Bowyer he 's 
 a soft heart by nature, and as he is, so he does 
 religion has had nothing to do with that, any more 
 than it has with that black-faced, canting scoundrel 
 who has been telling you lies about me. Much his 
 heart is changed. He carries sneak and slanderer 
 written in his face and sneak and slanderer he 
 will be, elect or none. Religion? Nobody be- 
 lieves in it. The rich don't ; or they would n't fill 
 their churches up with pews, and shut the poor 
 out, all the time they are calling them brothers. 
 They believe the gospel ? Then why do they leave 
 the men who make their clothes to starve in such 
 hells on earth as our workroom ? No more do the 
 tradespeople believe in it; or they wouldn't go
 
 The Sceptic's Mother 205 
 
 home from sermon to sand the sugar, and put sloe- 
 leaves in the tea, and send out lying puffs of their 
 vamped-up goods, and grind the last farthing out 
 of the poor creatures who rent their wretched 
 stinking houses. And as for the workmen they 
 laugh at it all, I can tell you. Much good religion 
 is doing for them ! You may see it 's fit only for 
 women and children for go where you will, 
 church or chapel, you see hardly anything but 
 bonnets and babies ! I don't believe a word of it, 
 once and for all. I 'm old enough to think for 
 myself, and a free-thinker I will be, and believe 
 nothing but what I know and understand." 
 
 I had hardly spoken the words, when I would 
 have given worlds to recall them but it was to 
 be and it was. 
 
 Sternly she looked at me full in the face, till my 
 eyes dropped before her gaze. Then she spoke 
 steadily and slowly 
 
 " Leave this house this moment. You are no 
 son of mine henceforward. Do you think I will 
 have my daughter polluted by the company of an 
 infidel and a blasphemer?" 
 
 " I will go," I answered fiercely ; " I can get my 
 own living, at all events ! " And before I had time 
 to think, I had rushed upstairs, packed up my 
 bundle, not forgetting the precious books, and 
 was on my way through the frosty, echoing streets, 
 under the cold glare of the winter's moon. 
 
 I had gone perhaps half a mile, when the thought 
 of home rushed over me the little room where I 
 had spent my life the scenes of all my childish 
 joys and sorrows which I should never see again, 
 for I felt that my departure was forever. Then I 
 longed to see my mother once again not to
 
 206 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 speak to her for I was at once too proud and 
 too cowardly to do that but to have a look at 
 her through the window. One look for all the 
 while, though I was boiling 'over with rage and 
 indignation, I felt that it was all on the surface 
 that in the depths of our hearts I loved her and she 
 loved me. And yet I wished to be angry, wished 
 to hate her. Strange contradiction of the flesh and 
 spirit ! 
 
 Hastily and silently I retraced my steps to the 
 house. The gate was padlocked. I cautiously 
 stole over the palings to the window the shutter 
 was closed and fast. I longed to knock I lifted 
 my hand to the door, and dare not : indeed, I knew 
 that it was useless, in my dread of my mother's 
 habit of stern determination. That room that 
 mother I never saw again. I turned away ; sick- 
 ened at heart, I was clambering back again, look- 
 ing behind me towards the window, when I felt a 
 strong grip on my collar, and turning round, had 
 a policeman's lantern flashed in my face. 
 
 " Hullo, young 'un, and what do you want here?" 
 with a strong emphasis, after the fashion of police- 
 men, on all his pronouns. 
 
 " Hush ! or you '11 alarm my mother ! " 
 
 " Oh ! eh ! Forgot the latch-key, you sucking 
 Don Juan, that's it, is it? Late home from the 
 Victory?" 
 
 I told him simply how the case stood, and en- 
 treated him to get me a night's lodging, assuring 
 him that my mother would not admit me, or I ask 
 to be admitted. 
 
 The policeman seemed puzzled, but after scratch- 
 ing his hat in lieu of his head for some seconds 
 replied
 
 The Sceptic's Mother 207 
 
 " This here is the dodge you goes outside and 
 lies down on the kerb-stone ; whereby I spies you 
 a-sleeping in the streets, contrary to Act o' Parlia- 
 ment ; whereby it is my duty to take you to the 
 station-house ; whereby you gets a night's lodging 
 free gracious for nothing, and company perwided 
 by her Majesty." 
 
 " Oh, not to the station-house ! " I cried in shame 
 and terror. 
 
 " Werry well ; then you must keep moving all 
 night continually, whereby you avoids the hact; 
 or else you goes to a twopenny-rope shop and 
 gets a lie down. And your bundle you 'd best 
 leave at my house. Twopenny-rope society a'n't 
 particular. I'm going off my beat; you walk 
 home with me and leave your traps. Everybody 
 knows me Costello, V 21, that's my number." 
 
 So on I went with the kind-hearted man, who 
 preached solemnly to me all the way on the fifth 
 commandment. But I heard very little of it ; for 
 before I had proceeded a quarter of a mile, a 
 deadly faintness and dizziness came over me, I 
 staggered, and fell against the railings. 
 
 " And have you been drinking, arter all ? " 
 
 " I never a drop in my life nothing but 
 
 bread-and-water this fortnight." 
 
 And it was true. I had been paying for my 
 own food, and had stinted myself to such an ex- 
 tent, that between starvation, want of sleep, and 
 over-exertion, I was worn to a shadow, and the 
 last drop had filled the cup ; the evening's scene 
 and its consequences had been too much for me, 
 and in the middle of an attempt to explain matters 
 to the policeman, I dropped on the pavement, 
 bruising my face heavily.
 
 208 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 He picked me up, put me under one arm and 
 my bundle under the other, and was proceeding 
 on his march, when three men came rollicking up. 
 
 " Hullo, Poleax Costello What 's that? Work 
 for us? A demp unpleasant body? " 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Bromley, sir ! Hope you 're well, sir ! 
 Werry rum go this here, sir ! I finds this cove in 
 the streets. He says his mother turned him out 
 o' doors. He seems very fair spoken, and very 
 bad in he's head, and very bad in he's chest, and 
 very bad in he's legs, he does. And I can't 
 come to no conclusions respecting my conduct 
 in this here case, nohow ! " 
 
 " Memorialize the Health of Towns Commission," 
 suggested one. 
 
 " Bleed him in the great toe," said the second. 
 
 " Put a blister on the back of his left eyeball," 
 said a third. 
 
 " Case of male asterisks," observed the first. " Rj. 
 Aquae pumpis purae quantum suff. Applicatur 
 exter6 pro re nata. J. Bromley, M.D., and don't 
 he wish he may get through ! " 
 
 " Tip us your daddle, my boy," said the second 
 speaker. " I '11 tell you what, Bromley, this fel- 
 low 's very bad. He 's got no more pulse than 
 the Pimlico sewer. Run in into the next pot'us. 
 Here you lay hold of him, Bromley that last 
 round with the cabman nearly put my humerus 
 out." 
 
 The huge, burly, pea-jacketed medical student 
 for such I saw at once he was laid hold of 
 me on the right tenderly enough, and walked me 
 off between him and the policeman. 
 
 I fell again into a faintness, from which I was 
 awakened by being shoved through the folding-
 
 The Sceptic's Mother 209 
 
 doors of a gin-shop, into a glare of light and 
 hubbub of blackguardism, and placed on a settle, 
 while my conductor called out 
 
 " Pots round, Mary, and a go of brandy hot with, 
 for the patient. Here, young 'un, toss it off, it'll 
 make your hair grow." 
 
 I feebly answered that I never had drunk any- 
 thing stronger than water. 
 
 " High time to begin, then ; no wonder you 're 
 so ill. Well, if you won't, I '11 make you " 
 
 And taking my head under his arm, he seized 
 me by the nose, while another poured the liquor 
 down my throat and certainly it revived me at 
 once. 
 
 A drunken drab pulled another drunken drab 
 off the settle to make room for the " poor young 
 man " ; and I sat there with a confused notion 
 that something strange and dreadful had happened 
 to me, while the party drained their respective 
 quarts of porter, and talked over the last boat- 
 race with the Leander. 
 
 "Now then, genTmen," said the policeman, "if 
 you think he 's recovered, we'll take him home to 
 his mother ; she ought for to take him in, surely." 
 
 " Yes, if she has as much heart in her as a dried 
 walnut." 
 
 But I resisted stoutly; though I longed to vin- 
 dicate my mother's affection, yet I could not face 
 her. I entreated to be taken to the station-house ; 
 threatened, in my desperation, to break the bar 
 glasses, which, like Doll Tearsheet's abuse, only 
 elicited from the policeman a solemn " Very well " ; 
 and under the unwonted excitement of the brandy, 
 struggled so fiercely, and talked so incoherently, 
 that the medical students interfered. 
 
 Vol. Ill 10
 
 210 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 " We shall have this fellow in phrenitis, or laryn- 
 gitis, or dothenenteritis, or some other itis, before 
 long, if he 's aggravated." 
 
 " And whichever it is, it '11 kill him. He has no 
 more stamina left than a yard of pump water." 
 
 " I should consider him chargeable to the parish," 
 suggested the bar-keeper. 
 
 " Exactually so, my Solomon of licensed victual- 
 lers. Get a workhouse order for him, Costello." 
 
 " And I should consider, also, sir," said the li- 
 censed victualler, with increased importance, " hav- 
 ing been a guardian myself, and knowing the 
 hact, as the parish could n't refuse, because they're 
 in power to recover all hexpenses out of his 
 mother." 
 
 " To be sure ; it 's all the unnatural old witch's 
 fault." 
 
 " No, it is not," said I, faintly. 
 
 " Wait till your opinion 's asked, young 'un. Go 
 kick up the authorities, policeman." 
 
 " Now, I '11 just tell you how that '11 work, gem- 
 men," answered the policeman, solemnly. " I goes 
 to the overseer werry good sort o' man but 
 he 's in bed. I knocks for half an hour. He puts 
 his nightcap out o' windy, and sends me to the 
 relieving-officer. Werry good sort o' man he too ; 
 but he 's in bed. I knocks for another half-hour. 
 He puts his nightcap out o' windy sends me to 
 the medical officer for a certificate. Medical offi- 
 cer 's gone to a midwifery case. I hunts him for an 
 hour or so. He 's got hold of a babby with three 
 heads, or summat else; and two more women 
 a-calling out for him like blazes. ' He '11 come to- 
 morrow morning.' Now, I just axes your opinion 
 of that there most procrastinationest go."
 
 The Sceptic's Mother 211 
 
 The big student, having cursed the parochial 
 authorities in general, offered to pay for my night's 
 lodging at the public-house. The good man of the 
 house demurred at first, but relented on being re- 
 minded of the value of a medical student's custom : 
 whereon, without more ado, two of- the rough dia- 
 monds took me between them, carried me upstairs, 
 undressed me, and put me to bed, as tenderly as if 
 they had been women. 
 
 " He '11 have the tantrums before morning, I 'm 
 afraid," said one. 
 
 " Very likely to turn to typhus," said the other. 
 
 " Well, I suppose it's a horrid bore, but 
 
 What must be must ; man is but dust, 
 
 If you can't get crumb, you must just eat crust. 
 
 Send me up a go of hot with, and I '11 sit up with 
 him till he 's asleep, dead, or better." 
 
 " Well, then, I '11 stay too ; we may just as well 
 make a night of it here as well as anywhere else." 
 
 And he pulled a short black pipe out of his 
 pocket, and sat down to meditate with his feet on 
 the hobs of the empty grate ; the other man went 
 down for the liquor ; while I, between the brandy 
 and exhaustion, fell fast asleep, and never stirred 
 till I woke the next morning with a racking head- 
 ache, and saw the big student standing by my bed- 
 side, having, as I afterwards heard, sat by me till 
 four in the morning. 
 
 " Hullo, young 'un, come to your senses? 
 Headache, eh? Slightly comato-crapulose? We'll 
 give you some soda and sal-volatile, and I '11 pay for 
 your breakfast." 
 
 And so he did, and when he was joined by his 
 companions on their way to St. George's, they were
 
 2 1 2 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 very anxious, having heard my story, to force a few 
 shillings on me " for luck," which, I need not say, I 
 peremptorily refused, assuring them that I could 
 and would get my own living, and never take a 
 farthing from any man. 
 
 " That 's a plucky dog, though he 's a tailor," I 
 heard them say, as, after overwhelming them with 
 thanks, and vowing, amid shouts of laughter, to 
 repay them every farthing I had cost them, I took 
 my way, sick and stunned, towards my dear old 
 Sandy Mackaye's street. 
 
 Rough diamonds indeed ! I have never met you 
 again, but I have not forgotten you. Your early 
 life may be a coarse, too often a profligate one 
 but you know the people, and the people know 
 you : and your tenderness and care, bestowed with- 
 out hope of repayment, cheers daily many a poor 
 soul in hospital wards and fever-cellars to meet 
 its reward some day at the people's hands. You 
 belong to us at heart, as the Paris barricades can 
 tell. Alas ! for the society which stifles in after-life 
 too many of your better feelings, by making you 
 mere flunkeys and parasites, dependent for your 
 livelihood on the caprices and luxuries of the 
 rich.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 THE DULWICH GALLERY 
 
 SANDY MACKAYE received me in a charac- 
 teristic way growled at me for half an hour 
 for quarrelling with my mother, and when I was at 
 my wits' end, suddenly offered me a bed in his 
 house and the use of his little sitting-room and, 
 bliss too great to hope ! of his books also ; and 
 when I talked of payment, told me to hold my 
 tongue and mind my own business. So I settled 
 myself at once ; and that very evening he installed 
 himself as my private tutor, took down a Latin 
 book, and set me to work on it. 
 
 " An' mind ye, laddie," said he, half in jest and 
 half in earnest, " gin I find ye playing truant, and 
 reading a' sorts o' nonsense instead of minding the 
 scholastic methods and proprieties, I '11 just bring 
 ye in a bill at the year's end o' twa guineas a week 
 for lodgings and tuition, and tak' the law o' ye ; so 
 mind and read what I tell ye. Do you compre- 
 hend noo? " 
 
 I did comprehend, and obeyed him, determining 
 to repay him some day and somehow how I 
 did not very clearly see. Thus I put myself more 
 or less into the old man's power; foolishly enough 
 the wise world will say. But I had no suspicion 
 in my character; and I could not look at those
 
 214 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 keen gray eyes, when, after staring into vacancy 
 during some long preachment, they suddenly 
 flashed round at me, and through me, full of fun 
 and quaint thought, and kindly earnestness, and 
 fancy that man less honest than his face seemed to 
 proclaim him. 
 
 By the bye, I have as yet given no description 
 of the old eccentric's abode an unpardonable 
 omission, I suppose, in these days of Dutch paint- 
 ing and Boz. But the omission was correct, both 
 historically and artistically, for I had as yet only 
 gone to him for books, books, nothing but books ; 
 and I had been blind to everything in his shop 
 but that fairyland of shelves, filled, in my simple 
 fancy, with inexhaustible treasures, wonder-working, 
 omnipotent, as the magic seal of Solomon. 
 
 It was not till I had been settled and at work 
 for several nights in his sanctum, behind the shop, 
 that I began to become conscious what a strange 
 den that sanctum was. 
 
 It was so dark, that without a gaslight no one 
 but he could see to read there, except on very 
 sunny days. Not only were the shelves which 
 covered every inch of wall crammed with books 
 and pamphlets, but the little window was blocked 
 up with them, the floor was piled with bundles of 
 them, in some places three feet deep, apparently 
 in the wildest confusion though there was some 
 mysterious order in them which he understood, 
 and symbolized, I suppose, by the various strange 
 and ludicrous nicknames on their tickets for he 
 never was at fault a moment if a customer asked 
 for a book, though it were buried deep in the 
 chaotic stratum. Out of this book alluvium a hole 
 seemed to have been dug near the fireplace, just
 
 The Dulwich Gallery 215 
 
 big enough to hold his arm-chair and a table, 
 book-strewn like everything else, and garnished 
 with odds and ends of MSS., and a snuffer-tray 
 containing scraps of half-smoked tobacco, " pipe- 
 dottles," as he called them, which were carefully 
 resmoked over and over again, till nothing but ash 
 was left. His whole culinary utensils for he 
 cooked as well as ate in this strange hole were 
 an old rusty kettle, which stood on one hob, and 
 a blue plate, which, when washed, stood on the 
 other. A barrel of true Aberdeen meal peered 
 out of a corner, half buried in books, and a " keg o' 
 whusky, the gift o' freens," peeped in like case out 
 of another. 
 
 This was his only food. " It was a' poison," he 
 used to say " in London. Bread full o' alum and 
 bones, and sic filth meat overdriven till it was 
 a' braxy water sopped wi' dead men's juice. 
 Naething was safe but gude Scots parrich and 
 Athol brose." He carried his water-horror so far 
 as to walk some quarter of a mile every morning 
 to fill his kettle at a favorite pump. " Was he a 
 cannibal, to drink out o' that pump hard-by, right 
 under the kirkyard ? " But it was little he either 
 ate or drank he seemed to live upon, tobacco. 
 From four in the morning till twelve at night, the 
 pipe never left his lips, except when he went into 
 the outer shop. " It promoted meditation, and 
 drove awa' the lusts o' the flesh. Ech ! it was 
 worthy o' that auld tyrant, Jamie, to write his 
 counter-blast to the poor man's freen ! The hypo- 
 crite ! to gang preaching the virtues o' evil-savored 
 smoke ' ad daemones abigendos,' and then rail 
 again tobacco, as if it was no as gude for the 
 purpose as auld rags and horn shavings ! "
 
 216 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 Sandy Mackaye had a great fancy for political 
 caricatures, rows of which, there being no room 
 for them on the walls, hung on strings from the 
 ceiling like clothes hung out to dry and among 
 them dangled various books to which he had taken 
 an antipathy, principally High Tory and Ben- 
 thamite, crucified, impaled through their covers, 
 and suspended in all sorts of torturing attitudes. 
 Among them, right over the table, figured a copy 
 of Icon Basilike dressed up in a paper shirt, all 
 drawn over with figures of flames and devils, and 
 surmounted by a peaked paper cap, like a victim 
 at an auto-da-fe". And in the midst of all this chaos 
 grinned from the chimney-piece, among pipes and 
 pens, pinches of salt and scraps of butter, a tall cast 
 of Michael Angelo's well-known skinless model 
 his pristine white defaced by a cap of soot upon 
 the top of his scalpless skull, and every muscle 
 and tendon thrown into horrible relief by the dirt 
 which had lodged among the cracks. There it 
 stood, pointing with its ghastly arm towards the 
 door, and holding on its wrist a label with the 
 following inscription 
 
 Here stand I, the workingman, 
 Get more off me if you can. 
 
 I questioned Mackaye one evening about those 
 hanged and crucified books, and asked him if he 
 ever sold any of them. 
 
 " Ou, ay," he said : " if folks are fools enough to 
 ask for them, I '11 just answer a fool according to 
 his folly." 
 
 " But," I said, " Mr. Mackaye, do you think it 
 right to sell books of the very opinions of which 
 you disapprove so much? "
 
 The Dulwich Gallery 217 
 
 " Hoot, laddie, it's just a spoiling o' the Egyp- 
 tians; so mind yer book, and dinna tak in hand 
 cases o' conscience for ither folk. Ye '11 ha' wark 
 eneugh wi' yer ain before ye 're dune." 
 
 And he folded round his knees his Joseph's coat, 
 as he called it, an old dressing-gown with one plaid 
 sleeve, and one blue one, red shawl-skirts, and a 
 black broadcloth back, not to mention innumer- 
 able patches of every imaginable stuff and color, 
 filled his pipe, and buried his nose in " Harrington's 
 Oceana." He read at least twelve hours every day 
 of his life, and that exclusively old history and 
 politics, though his favorite books were Thomas 
 Carlyle's works. Two or three evenings in the 
 week, when he had seen me safe settled at my 
 studies, he used to disappear mysteriously for 
 several hours, and it was some time before I found 
 out, by a chance expression, that he was attending 
 some meeting or committee of workingmen. I 
 begged him to take me there with him. But I was 
 stopped by a laconic answer 
 
 " When ye 're ready." 
 
 "And when shall I be ready, Mr. Mackaye?" 
 
 " Read yer book till I tell ye." 
 
 And he twisted himself into his best coat, which 
 had once been black, squeezed on his little Scotch 
 cap, and went out. 
 
 I now found myself, as the reader may suppose, 
 in an element far more congenial to my literary 
 tastes, and which compelled far less privation of 
 sleep and food in order to find time and means for 
 reading; and my health began to mend from the 
 very first day. But the thought of my mother 
 haunted me ; and Mackaye seemed in no hurry to
 
 2i 8 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 let me escape from it, for he insisted on my writ- 
 ing to her in a penitent strain, informing her of 
 my whereabouts, and offering to return home if 
 she should wish it. With feelings strangely min- 
 gled between the desire of seeing her again and 
 the dread of returning to the old drudgery of sur- 
 veillance, I sent the letter, and waited the whole 
 week without any answer. At last, one evening, 
 when I returned from work, Sandy seemed in a 
 state of unusual exhilaration. He looked at me 
 again and again, winking and chuckling to himself 
 in a way which showed me that his good spirits 
 had something to do with my concerns: but he 
 did not open on the subject till I had settled to my 
 evening's reading. Then, having brewed himself 
 an unusually strong mug of whisky-toddy, and 
 brought out with great ceremony a clean pipe, he 
 commenced. 
 
 " Alton, laddie, I Ve been fiechting Philistines 
 for ye the day." 
 
 " Ah ! have you heard from my mother? " 
 
 " I wadna say that exactly ; but there 's been a 
 gran bailie body wi* me that calls himsel' your 
 uncle, and a braw young callant, a bairn o' his, 
 I 'm thinking," 
 
 " Ah ! that 's my cousin George ; and tell me 
 do tell me, what you said to them." 
 
 " Ou that '11 be mair concern o' mine than o' 
 yourn. But ye 're no going back to your mither." 
 
 My heart leapt up with joy ; there is no deny- 
 ing it and then I burst into tears. 
 
 "And she won't see me? Has she really cast 
 me off? " 
 
 "Why, that'll be verra much as ye prosper, 
 I 'm thinking. Ye 're an unaccreedited hero, the
 
 The Dulwich Gallery 219 
 
 noo, as Thomas Carlyle has it. ' But gin ye do 
 weel by yoursel',' saith the Psalmist, ' ye '11 find a' 
 men speak well o' ye' if ye gang their gate. 
 But ye 're to gang to see your uncle at his shop 
 o' Monday next, at one o'clock. Now stint your 
 greeting, and read awa'." 
 
 On the next Monday I took a holiday, the first 
 in which I had ever indulged myself; and having 
 spent a good hour in scrubbing away at my best 
 shoes and Sunday suit, started, in fear and trem- 
 bling, for my uncle's " establishment." 
 
 I was agreeably surprised, on being shown into 
 the little back office at the back of the shop, to 
 meet with a tolerably gracious reception from the 
 good-natured Mammonite. He did not shake 
 hands with me, it is true ; was I not a poor re- 
 lation? But he told me to sit down, commended 
 me for the excellent character which he had of me 
 both from my master and Mackaye, and then en- 
 tered on the subject of my literary tastes. He 
 heard I was a precious clever fellow. No wonder, 
 I came of a clever stock ; his poor dear brother 
 had plenty of brains for everything but business. 
 " And you see, my boy" (with a glance at the big 
 ledgers and busy shop without), " I knew a thing 
 or two in my time, or I should not have been here. 
 But without capital, / think brains a curse. Still 
 we must make the best of a bad matter; and if 
 you are inclined to help to raise the family name 
 not that I think much of book writers myself 
 poor starving devils, half of them but still peo- 
 ple do talk about them and a man might get a 
 snug thing as newspaper editor, with interest; or 
 clerk to something or other always some new 
 company in the wind now and I should have no
 
 220 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 objection, if you seemed likely to do us credit, to 
 speak a word for you. I 've none of your mother's 
 confounded puritanical notions, I can tell you; 
 and, what 's more, I have, thank Heaven, as fine a 
 city connection as any man. But you must mind 
 and make yourself a good accountant learn 
 double entry on the Italian method that 's a 
 good practical study ; and if that old Sawney is soft 
 enough to teach you other things gratis, he may as 
 well teach you that too. I '11 bet he knows some- 
 thing about it the old Scotch fox. There now 
 that '11 do there 's five shillings for you 
 mind you don't lose them and if I hear a good 
 account of you, why, perhaps but there 's no use 
 making promises." 
 
 At this moment a tall handsome young man, 
 whom I did not at first recognize as my cousin 
 George, swung into the office, and shook me cor- 
 dially by the hand. 
 
 " Hullo, Alton, how are you? Why, I hear 
 you 're coming out as a regular genius breaking 
 out in a new place, upon my honor ! Have you 
 done with him, governor?" 
 
 " Well, I think I have. I wish you 'd have a 
 talk with him, my boy. I 'm sorry I can't see 
 more of him, but I have to meet a party on busi- 
 ness at the West-end at two, and Alderman Tum- 
 bril and family dine with us this evening, don't 
 they? I think our small table will be full." 
 
 " Of course it will. Come along with me, and 
 we'll have a chat in some quiet out-of-the-way 
 place. This city is really so noisy that you can't 
 hear your own ears, as our dean says in lecture." 
 
 So he carried me off, down back streets and 
 alleys, a little puzzled at the extreme cordiality of
 
 The Dulwich Gallery 221 
 
 his manner. Perhaps it sprung, as I learned after- 
 ward to suspect, from his consistent and perpetual 
 habit of ingratiating himself with every one whom 
 he approached. He never cut a chimney-sweep if 
 he knew him. And he found it pay. The children 
 of this world are in their generation wiser than the 
 children of light. 
 
 Perhaps it sprung also, as I began to suspect in 
 the first hundred yards of our walk, from the desire 
 of showing off before me the university clothes, 
 manners, and gossip, which he had just brought 
 back with him from Cambridge. 
 
 I had not seen him more than three or four 
 times in my life before, and then he appeared to 
 me merely a tall, handsome, conceited, slangy boy. 
 But I now found him much improved in all ex- 
 ternals at least. He had made it his business, I 
 knew, to perfect himself in all athletic pursuits 
 which were open to a Londoner. As he told me 
 that day he found it pay, when one got among 
 gentlemen. Thus he had gone up to Cambridge a 
 capital skater, rower, pugilist and billiard player. 
 Whether or not that last accomplishment ought to 
 be classed in the list of athletic sports, he contrived, 
 by his own account, to keep it in that of paying 
 ones. In both these branches he seemed to 
 have had plenty of opportunities of distinguishing 
 himself at college ; and his tall, powerful figure 
 showed the fruit of these exercises in a stately and 
 confident, almost martial, carriage. Something 
 jaunty, perhaps swaggering, remained still in his 
 air and dress, which yet sat not ungracefully on 
 him ; but I could see that he had been mixing in 
 society more polished and artificial than that to 
 which we had either of us been accustomed, and in
 
 222 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 his smart Rochester, well-cut trousers, and delicate 
 French boots, he excited, I will not deny it, my 
 boyish admiration and envy. 
 
 " Well," he said, as soon as we were out of the 
 shop, "which way? Got a holiday? And how 
 did you intend to spend it?" 
 
 " I wanted very much," I said meekly, " to see 
 the pictures at the National Gallery." 
 
 "Oh! ah! pictures don't pay; but, if you like 
 
 much better ones at Dulwich that V the 
 place to go to you can see the others any day 
 
 and at Dulwich, you know, they Ve got why, 
 let me see " And he ran over half a dozen out- 
 landish names of painters, which, as I have never 
 again met with them, I am inclined on the whole to 
 consider as somewhat extemporaneous creations. 
 However, I agreed to go. 
 
 " Ah ! capital very nice quiet walk, and con- 
 venient for me very little out of my way home. 
 I '11 walk there with you." 
 
 " One word for your neighbor and two for 
 yourself," thought I; but on we walked. To see 
 good pictures had been a long-cherished hope of 
 mine. Everything beautiful in form or color was 
 beginning of late to have an intense fascination for 
 me. I had, now that I was emancipated, gradually 
 dared to feed my greedy eyes by passing stares 
 into the print-shop windows, and had learnt from 
 them a thousand new notions, new emotions, new 
 longings after beauties of Nature, which seemed 
 destined never to be satisfied. But pictures, above 
 all, foreign ones, had been in my mother's eyes, 
 Anathema, Maranatha, as vile Popish and Pagan 
 vanities, the rags of the scarlet woman no less than 
 the surplice itself and now, when it came to the
 
 The Dulwich Gallery 223 
 
 point, I hesitated at an act of such awful disobe- 
 dience, even though unknown to her. My cousin, 
 however, laughed down my scruples, told me I 
 was out of leading-strings now, and, which was true 
 enough, that it was " a . . . deal better to amuse 
 oneself in picture galleries without leave, than live 
 a life of sneaking and lying under petticoat govern- 
 ment, as all home-birds were sure to do in the long- 
 run." And so I went on, while my cousin kept up 
 a running fire of chat the whole way, intermixing 
 shrewd, bold observations upon every woman who 
 passed, with sneers at the fellows of the college to 
 which we were going their idleness and luxury 
 the large grammar-school which they were 
 bound by their charter to keep up, and did not 
 and hints about private interest in high quarters, 
 through which their wealthy uselessness had been 
 politely overlooked, when all similar institutions in 
 the kingdom were subject to the searching exami- 
 nation of a government commission. Then there 
 were stories of boat-races and gay noblemen, 
 breakfast parties, and lectures on Greek plays 
 flavored with a spice of Cambridge slang, all 
 equally new to me glimpses into a world of 
 wonders, which made me feel, as I shambled along 
 at his side, trying to keep step with his strides, 
 more weakly and awkward and ignorant than 
 ever. 
 
 We entered the gallery. I was in a fever of 
 expectation. 
 
 The rich sombre light of the rooms, the rich 
 heavy warmth of the stove-heated air, the brilliant 
 and varied coloring and gilded frames which 
 embroidered the walls, the hushed earnestness of a 
 few artists, who were copying, and the few visitors
 
 224 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 who were lounging from picture to picture, struck 
 me at once with mysterious awe. But my atten- 
 tion was in a moment concentrated on one figure 
 opposite to me at the farthest end. I hurried 
 straight towards it. When I had got half-way up 
 the gallery I looked round for my cousin. He 
 had turned aside to some picture of a Venus which 
 caught my eye also, but which, I remember now, 
 only raised in me then a shudder and a blush, and a 
 fancy that the clergymen must be really as bad as 
 my mother had taught me to believe, if they could 
 allow in their galleries pictures of undressed 
 women. I have learnt to view such things differ- 
 ently now, thank God. I have learnt that to the 
 pure all things are pure. I have learnt the mean- 
 ing of that great saying the foundation of all art, 
 as well as all modesty, all love, which tells us how 
 " the man and his wife were both naked, and not 
 ashamed." But this book is the history of my 
 mental growth; and my mistakes as well as my 
 discoveries are steps in that development, and may 
 bear a lesson in them. 
 
 How I have rambled ! But as that day was the 
 turning-point of my whole short life, I may be ex- 
 cused for lingering upon every feature of it. 
 
 Timidly but eagerly, I went up to the picture, 
 and stood entranced before it. It was Guido's St. 
 Sebastian. All the world knows the picture, and 
 all the world knows, too, the defects of the master, 
 though in this instance he seems to have risen 
 above himself, by a sudden inspiration, into that 
 true naturalness, which is the highest expression 
 of the spiritual. But the very defects of the pic- 
 ture, its exaggeration, its theatricality, were espe- 
 cially calculated to catch the eye of a boy awaking
 
 The Dulwich Gallery 225 
 
 out of the narrow dulness of Puritanism. The 
 breadth and vastness of light and shade upon those 
 manly limbs, so grand and yet so delicate, stand- 
 ing out against the background of lurid night, the 
 helplessness of the bound arms, the arrow quiver- 
 ing in the shrinking side, the upturned brow, the 
 eyes in whose dark depths enthusiastic faith 
 seemed conquering agony and shame, the parted 
 lips, which seemed to ask, like those martyrs in 
 the Revelations, reproachful, half-resigned, " O 
 Lord, how long? " Gazing at that picture since, 
 I have understood how the idolatry of painted 
 saints could arise in the minds even of the most 
 educated, who were not disciplined by that stern 
 regard for fact which is or ought to be the 
 strength of Englishmen. I have understood the 
 heart of that Italian girl, whom some such picture 
 of St. Sebastian, perhaps this very one, excited, as 
 the Venus of Praxiteles the Grecian boy, to hope- 
 less love, madness, and death. Then I had never 
 heard of St. Sebastian. I did not dream of any 
 connection between that, or indeed any picture, 
 and Christianity ; and yet, as I stood before it, I 
 seemed to be face to face with the ghosts of my 
 old Puritan forefathers, to see the spirit which sup- 
 ported them on pillories and scaffolds the spirit 
 of that true St. Margaret, the Scottish maiden 
 whom Claverhouse and his soldiers chained to a 
 post on the sea-sands to die by inches in the rising 
 tide, till the sound of her hymns was slowly 
 drowned in the dash of the hungry leaping waves. 
 My heart swelled within me, my eyes seemed 
 bursting from my head with the intensity of my 
 gaze, and great tears, I knew not why, rolled 
 slowly down my face.
 
 226 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 A woman's voice close to me, gentle yet of 
 deeper tone than most, woke me from my trance. 
 
 " You seem to be deeply interested in that 
 picture?" 
 
 I looked round, yet not at the speaker. My 
 eyes before they could meet hers, were caught by 
 an apparition the most beautiful I had ever yet 
 beheld. And what what have I seen equal to 
 her since? Strange, that I should love to talk of 
 her. Strange, that I fret at myself now because I 
 cannot set down on paper line by line, and hue by 
 
 hue, that wonderful loveliness of which But no 
 
 matter. Had I but such an imagination as Pe- 
 trarch, or rather, perhaps, had I his deliberate cold 
 self-consciousness, what volumes of similes and 
 conceits I might pour out, connecting that peerless 
 face and figure with all lovely things which heaven 
 and earth contain. As it is, because I cannot say 
 all, I will say nothing, but repeat to the end again 
 and again, Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful, beyond 
 all statue, picture, or poet's dream. Seventeen 
 slight but rounded, a masque and features delicate 
 and regular, as if fresh from the chisel of Praxiteles 
 I must try to describe after all, you see a skin 
 of alabaster (privet-flowers, Horace and Ariosto 
 would have said, more true to Nature), stained 
 with the faintest flush; auburn hair, with that 
 peculiar crisped wave seen in the old Italian pic- 
 tures, and the warm, dark hazel eyes which so 
 often accompany it ; lips like a thread of vermilion, 
 somewhat too thin, perhaps but I thought little 
 of that then ; with such perfect finish and grace in 
 every line and hue of her features and her dress, 
 down to the little fingers and nails, which showed 
 through her thin gloves, that she seemed to my
 
 The Dulwich Gallery 227 
 
 fancy fresh from the innermost chamber of some 
 enchanted palace, "where no air of heaven could 
 visit her cheek too roughly." I dropped my eyes 
 quite dazzled. The question was repeated by a 
 lady who stood with her, whose face I remarked 
 then as I did to the last, alas ! too little ; 
 dazzled at the first by outward beauty, perhaps 
 because so utterly unaccustomed to it. 
 
 " It is indeed a wonderful picture," I said 
 timidly. " May I ask what is the subject of 
 it?" 
 
 " Oh ! don't you know? " said the young beauty, 
 with a smile that thrilled through me. " It is St. 
 Sebastian." 
 
 "I I am very much ashamed," I answered, 
 coloring up, " but I do not know who St. Sebas- 
 tian was. Was he a Popish saint? " 
 
 A tall, stately old man, who stood with the two 
 ladies, laughed kindly. "No, not till they made 
 him one against his will ; and at the same time, by 
 putting him into the mill which grinds old folks 
 young again, converted him from a grizzled old 
 Roman tribune into the young Apollo of Popery." 
 
 " You will puzzle your hearer, my dear uncle," 
 said the same deep-toned woman's voice which 
 had first spoken to me. "As you volunteered 
 the saint's name, Lillian, you shall also tell his 
 history." 
 
 Simply and shortly, with just feeling enough to 
 send through me a fresh thrill of delighted interest, 
 without trenching the least on the most stately 
 reserve, she told me the well-known history of the 
 saint's martyrdom. 
 
 If I seem minute in my description, let those 
 who read my story remember that such courteous
 
 228 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 dignity, however natural, I am bound to believe, 
 it is to them, was to me an utterly new excellence 
 in human nature. All my mother's Spartan noble- 
 ness of manner seemed unexpectedly combined 
 with all my little sister's careless ease. 
 
 " What a beautiful poem the story would make ! " 
 said I, as soon as I recovered my thoughts. 
 
 "Well spoken, young man," answered the old 
 gentleman. " Let us hope that your seeing a sub- 
 ject for a good poem will be the first step towards 
 your writing one." 
 
 As he spoke, he bent on me two clear gray eyes, 
 full of kindliness, mingled with practised discern- 
 ment. I saw that he was evidently a clergyman ; 
 but what his tight silk stockings and peculiar hat 
 denoted I did not know. There was about him 
 the air of a man accustomed equally to thought, 
 to men, and to power. And I remarked somewhat 
 maliciously, that my cousin, who had strutted up 
 towards us on seeing me talking to two ladies, the 
 instant he caught sight of those black silk stockings 
 and that strange hat, fell suddenly in countenance, 
 and sidling off somewhat meekly into the back- 
 ground, became absorbed in the examination of a 
 Holy Family. 
 
 I answered something humbly, I forget what, 
 which led to a conversation. They questioned me 
 as to my name, my mother, my business, my 
 studies; while I revelled in the delight of stolen 
 glances at my new-found Venus Victrix, who was 
 as forward as any of them in her questions and her 
 interest. Perhaps she enjoyed, at least she could 
 not help seeing, the admiration for herself which I 
 took no pains to conceal. At last the old man cut 
 the conversation short by a quiet " Good morning,
 
 The Dulwich Gallery 229 
 
 sir," which astonished me. I had never heard 
 words whose tone was so courteous and yet so 
 chillingly peremptory. As they turned away, he 
 repeated to himself once or twice, as if to fix them 
 in his mind, my name and my master's, and awoke 
 in me, perhaps too thoughtlessly, a tumult of vain 
 hopes. Once and again the beauty and her com- 
 panion looked back towards me, and seemed talk- 
 ing of me, and my face was burning scarlet, when 
 my cousin swung up in his hard, off-hand way. 
 
 " By Jove, Alton, my boy ! you 're a knowing 
 fellow. I congratulate you ! At your years, in- 
 deed ! to rise a dean and two beauties at the first 
 throw, and hook them fast ! " 
 
 " A dean I " I said, in some trepidation. 
 
 " Ay, a live dean did n't you see the cloven 
 foot sticking out from under his shoe-buckle? 
 What news for your mother! What will the 
 ghosts of your grandfathers to the seventh genera- 
 tion say to this, Alton? Colloquying in Pagan 
 picture galleries with shovel-hatted Philistines ! 
 And that's not the worst, Alton," he ran on. 
 " Those daughters of Moab those daughters ot 
 Moab " 
 
 " Hold your tongue," I said, almost crying with 
 vexation. 
 
 " Look there, if you want to save your good 
 temper. There, she is looking back again not at 
 poor me, though. What a lovely girl she is ! and 
 a real lady I'air noble the rael genuine grit, as 
 Sam Slick says, and no mistake. By Jove, what a 
 face! what hands! what feet! what a figure in 
 spite of crinolines and all abominations ! And 
 did n't she know it? And did n't she know that you 
 knew it too?" And he ran on descanting coarsely
 
 230 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 on beauties which I dared not even have profaned 
 by naming, in a way that made me, I knew not 
 why, mad with jealousy and indignation. She 
 seemed mine alone in all the world. What right 
 had any other human being, above all, he, to dare 
 to mention her? I turned again to my St. Sebas- 
 tian. That movement only brought on me a fresh 
 volley of banter. 
 
 " Oh, that 's the dodge, is it, to catch intellectual 
 fine ladies ? to fall into an ecstatic attitude before 
 a picture But then we must have Alton's genius, 
 you know, to find out which the fine pictures are. 
 I must read up that subject, by the by. It might 
 be a paying one among the dons. For the present, 
 here goes in for an attitude. Will this do, Alton ? " 
 And he arranged himself admiringly before the 
 picture in an attitude so absurd and yet so grace- 
 ful, that I did not know whether to laugh at him 
 or hate him. 
 
 " At all events," he added dryly, " it will be as 
 good as playing the Evangelical at Carus's tea- 
 parties, or taking the sacrament regularly for fear 
 one's testimonials should be refused." And then 
 he looked at me, and through me, in his intense, 
 confident way, to see that his hasty words had not 
 injured him with me. He used to meet one's eye 
 as boldly as any man I ever saw ; but it was not 
 the simple gaze of honesty and innocence, but an 
 imperious, searching look, as if defying scrutiny. 
 His was a true mesmeric eye, if ever there was 
 one. No wonder it worked the miracles it did. 
 
 " Come along," he said, suddenly seizing my 
 arm. " Don't you see they're leaving? Out of the 
 gallery after them, and get a good look at the 
 carriage and the arms upon it. I saw one standing
 
 The Dulwich Gallery 231 
 
 there as we came in. It may pay us you, that is 
 to know it again." 
 
 We went out, I holding him back, I knew not 
 why, and arrived at the outer gate just in time to 
 see them enter the carriage and drive off. I gazed 
 to the last, but did not stir. 
 
 "Good boy," he said, "knowing still. If you 
 had bowed, or showed the least sign of recognition, 
 you would have broken the spell." 
 
 But I hardly heard what he said, and stood 
 gazing stupidly after the carriage as it disappeared. 
 I did not know then what had happened to me. 
 I know now, alas ! too well.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 FIRST LOVE 
 
 TRULY I said, I did not know what had hap- 
 pened to me. I did not attempt to analyze 
 the intense, overpowering instinct which from that 
 moment made the lovely vision I had seen the 
 lode-star of all my thoughts. Even now, I can 
 see nothing in those feelings of mine but simple 
 admiration idolatry, if you will of physical 
 beauty. Doubtless there was more doubtless 
 I had seen pretty faces before, and knew that 
 they were pretty, but they had passed from my 
 retina, like the prints of beauties which I saw in 
 the shop windows, without exciting a thought 
 even a conscious emotion of complacency. But 
 this face did not pass away. Day and night I saw 
 it, just as I had seen it in the gallery. The same 
 playful smile the same glance alternately turned 
 to me, and the glowing picture above her head 
 and that was all I saw or felt. No child ever 
 nestled upon its mother's shoulder with feelings 
 more celestially pure, than those with which I 
 counted over day and night each separate linea- 
 ment of that exceeding loveliness. Romantic? 
 extravagant? Yes; if the world be right in calling 
 a passion romantic just in proportion as it is not 
 merely hopeless, but pure and unselfish, drawing
 
 First Love 233 
 
 its delicious power from no hope or faintest desire 
 of enjoyment, but merely from simple delight in 
 its object then my passion was most romantic. 
 I never thought of disparity in rank. Why should 
 I? That could not blind the eyes of my imagina- 
 tion. She was beautiful, and that was all, and all 
 in all to me ; and had our stations been exchanged, 
 and more than exchanged ; had I been King Co- 
 phetua, or she the beggar-maid, I should have 
 gloried in her just as much. 
 
 Beloved sleepless hours, which I spent in pictur- 
 ing that scene to myself, with all the brilliance of 
 fresh recollection ! Beloved hours ! how soon you 
 pass away! Soon soon my imagination began 
 to fade ; the traces of her features on my mind's 
 eye became confused and dim; and then came 
 over me the fierce desire to see her again, that I 
 might renew the freshness of that charming image. 
 Thereon grew up an agony of longing an agony 
 of weeks, and months, and years. Where could 
 I find that face again? was my ruling thought 
 from morning till eve. I knew that it was hope- 
 less to look for her at the gallery where I had first 
 seen her. My only hope was, that at some place 
 of public resort at the West End I might catch, if 
 but for a moment, an inspiring glance of that 
 radiant countenance. I lingered round the Burton 
 Arch and Hyde Park Gate but in vain. I 
 peered into every carriage, every bonnet that 
 passed me in the thoroughfares in vain. I stood 
 patiently at the doors of exhibitions and concerts, 
 and playhouses, to be shoved back by policemen, 
 and insulted by footmen but in vain. Then I 
 tried the fashionable churches, one by one ; and 
 sat in the free seats, to listen to prayers and ser- 
 
 Vol. Ill 11
 
 234 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 mons, not a word of which, alas ! I cared to under- 
 stand, with my eyes searching carefully every pew 
 and gallery, face by face ; always fancying, in self- 
 torturing waywardness, that she might be just in 
 the part of the gallery which I could not see. Oh ! 
 miserable days of hope deferred, making the heart 
 sick ! Miserable gnawing of disappointment with 
 which I returned at nightfall, to force myself down 
 to my books ! Equally miserable rack of hope on 
 which my nerves were stretched every morning 
 when I rose, counting the hours till my day's 
 work should be over, and my mad search begin 
 again ! At last " my torment did by length of 
 time become my element." I returned steadily as 
 ever to the studies which I had at first neglected, 
 much to Mackaye's wonder and disgust; and a 
 vain hunt after that face became a part of my 
 daily task, to be got through with the same dull, 
 sullen effort with which all I did was now trans- 
 acted. 
 
 Mackaye, I suppose, at first, attributed my 
 absences and idleness to my having got into bad 
 company. But it was some weeks before he 
 gently enough told me his suspicions, and they 
 were answered by a burst of tears, and a pas- 
 sionate denial, which set them at rest forever. 
 But I had not courage to tell him what was the 
 matter with me. A sacred modesty, as well as 
 a sense of the impossibility of explaining my 
 emotions, held me back. I had a half-dread, too, 
 to confess the whole truth, of his ridiculing a fancy, 
 to say the least, so utterly impracticable ; and my 
 only confidant was a picture in the National Gal- 
 lery, in one of the faces of which I had discovered 
 some likeness to my Venus ; and there I used to
 
 First Love 235 
 
 go and stand at spare half hours, and feel the 
 happier for staring and staring, and whispering 
 to the dead canvas the extravagances of my 
 idolatry. 
 
 But soon the bitter draught of disappointment 
 began to breed harsher thoughts in me. Those 
 fine gentlemen who rode past me in the park, who 
 rolled by in carriages, sitting face to face with 
 ladies, as richly dressed, if not as beautiful, as she 
 was they could see her when they liked why 
 not I ? What right had their eyes to a feast denied 
 to mine? They, too, who did not appreciate, 
 adore that beauty as I did for who could wor- 
 ship her like me ? At least they had not suffered 
 for her as I had done ; they had not stood in rain 
 and frost, fatigue, and blank despair watching 
 watching month after month ; and I was making 
 coats for them ! The very garment I was stitch- 
 ing at, might, in a day's time, be in her presence 
 touching her dress; and its wearer bowing, and 
 smiling, and whispering he had not bought that 
 bliss by watching in the rain. It made me mad 
 to think of it. 
 
 I will say no more about it. That is a period of 
 my life on which I cannot even now look back 
 without a shudder. 
 
 At last, after perhaps' a year or more, I sum- 
 moned up courage to tell my story to Sandy 
 Mackaye, and burst out with complaints more par- 
 donable, perhaps, than reasonable. 
 
 " Why have I not as good a right to speak to 
 her, to move in the same society in which she 
 moves, as any of the fops of the day? Is it be- 
 cause these aristocrats are more intellectual than 
 I? I should not fear to measure brains against
 
 236 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 most of them now ; and give me the opportunities 
 which they have, and I would die if I did not out- 
 strip them. Why have I not those opportunities? 
 Is that fault of others to be visited on me? Is it 
 because they are more refined than I ? What right 
 have they, if this said refinement be so necessary a 
 qualification, a difference so deep that, without 
 it, there is to be an everlasting gulf between man 
 and man what right have they to refuse to let me 
 share in it, to give me the opportunity of acquiring 
 it?" 
 
 " Wad ye ha' them set up a dancing academy for 
 workingmen, wi' ' manners tocht here to the lower 
 classes ' ? They '11 no break up their ain monopoly ; 
 trust them for it! Na: if ye want to get amang 
 them, I '11 tell ye the way o' 't. Write a book o' 
 poems, and ca' it ' A Voice fra' the Goose, by a 
 working Tailor ' and then why, after a dizen 
 years or so of starving and scribbling for your 
 bread, ye '11 ha' a chance o' finding yoursel' a lion, 
 and a flunkey, and a licker o' trenchers ane that 
 jokes for his dinner, and sells his soul for a fine 
 leddy's smile till ye presume to think they 're in 
 earnest, and fancy yoursel' a man o' the same blude 
 as they, and fa' in love wi' one o' them and then 
 they '11 teach you your level, and send ye off to 
 gauge whusky like Burns) or leave ye to die in a 
 ditch as they did wi' puir Thorn." 
 
 " Let me die, anywhere or anyhow, if I can but - 
 be near her see her " 
 
 " Married to anither body? and nursing anither 
 body's bairns. Ah boy, boy do ye think that 
 was what ye were made for ; to please yersel' wi' a 
 woman's smiles, or e'en a woman's kisses or to 
 please yersel' at all? How do ye expect ever to
 
 First Love 237 
 
 be happy, or strong, or a man at a', as long as ye 
 go on looking to enjoy yersel' yersel' ? I ha' 
 tried it. Mony was the year I looked for naught 
 but my ain pleasure, and got it too, when it 
 was a' 
 
 Sandy Mackaye, bonny Sandy Mackaye, 
 
 There he sits singing the lang simmer's day; 
 
 Lassies gae to him, 
 
 And kiss him, and woo him 
 
 Na bird is sa merry as Sandy Mackaye. 
 
 An' muckle good cam' o' 't. Ye may fancy I 'm 
 talking like a sour, disappointed auld carle. But I 
 tell ye nay. I've got that's worth living for, 
 though I am downhearted at times, and fancy a' 's 
 wrong, and there 's na hope for us on earth, we be 
 a' sic liars a' liars, I think : ' a universal liars- 
 rock substrawtum,' as Mr. Carlyle says. I 'm a 
 great liar often mysel', especially when I 'm pray- 
 ing. Do ye think I 'd live on here in this meeser- 
 able crankit auld bane-barrel o' a body, if it was not 
 for The Cause, and for the puir young fellows that 
 come in to me whiles to get some book-learning 
 about the gran" auld Roman times, when folks 
 didna care for themselves, but for the nation, and 
 a man counted wife and bairns and money as dross 
 and dung, in comparison wi' the great Roman city, 
 that was the mither o' them a', and wad last on, 
 free and glorious, after they and their bairns were 
 a' dead thegither? Hoot, man ! If I had na The 
 Cause to care for and to work for, whether I ever 
 see it triumphant on earth or no I 'd just tak' 
 the cauld-water-cure off Waterloo-bridge, and 
 mak' mysel a case for the Humane Society." 
 
 "And what is The Cause?" I asked. 
 
 "Wud I tell ye? We want no ready-made
 
 238 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 freens o' The Cause. I dinna hauld wi' thae 
 French indoctrinating pedants, that took to stick 
 free opinions into a man as ye 'd stick pins into a 
 pincushion, to fa' out again the first shake. Na 
 The Cause must find a man, and tak' hauld o' him, 
 willy-nilly, and grow up in him like an inspiration, 
 till he can see nocht but in the light o' 't. Puir 
 bairn ! " he went on, looking with a half-sad, half- 
 comic face at me "puir bairn like a young 
 bear, wi' a' your sorrows before ye! This time 
 seven years ye '11 ha' no need to come speering and 
 questioning what The Cause is, and the gran' 
 cause, and the only cause worth working for on 
 the earth o' God. And noo gang your gate, and 
 mak' fine feathers for foul birds. I 'm gaun whar 
 ye '11 be ganging too, before lang." 
 
 As I went sadly out of the shop, he called me 
 back. 
 
 " Stay a wee, bairn ; there 's the Roman History 
 for ye. There ye '11 read what The Cause is, and 
 how they that seek their ain are no worthy 
 thereof." 
 
 I took the book, and found in the legends of 
 Brutus, and Codes, and Scaevola, and the retreat 
 to the Mons Sacer, and the Gladiator's war, what 
 The Cause was, and forgot awhile in those tales of 
 antique heroism and patriotic self-sacrifice my own 
 selfish longings and sorrows. 
 
 But, after all, the very advice which was meant to 
 cure me of those selfish longings, only tended, by 
 diverting me from my living outward idol, to turn my 
 thoughts more than ever inward, and tempt them to 
 feed on their own substance. I passed whole days 
 on the workroom floor in brooding silence my
 
 First Love 239 
 
 mind peopled with an incoherent rabble of phan- 
 tasms patched up from every object of which I had 
 ever read. I could not control my day-dreams ; 
 they swept me away with them over sea and land, 
 and into the bowels of the earth. My soul escaped 
 on every side from my civilized dungeon of brick 
 and mortar, into the great free world from which my 
 body was debarred. Now I was the corsair in the 
 pride of freedom on the dark blue sea. Now I 
 wandered in fairy caverns among the bones of 
 primaeval monsters. I fought at the side of Leon- 
 idas, and the Maccabee who stabbed the Sultan's 
 elephant, and saw him crushed beneath its falling 
 bulk. Now I was a hunter in tropic forests I 
 heard the parrots scream, and saw the humming- 
 birds flit on from gorgeous flower to flower. 
 Gradually I took a voluntary pleasure in calling up 
 these images, and working out their details into 
 words with all the accuracy and care for which my 
 small knowledge gave me materials. And as the 
 self-indulgent habit grew on me, I began to live 
 two lives one mechanical and outward, one in- 
 ward and imaginative. The thread passed through 
 my fingers without my knowing it; I did my work 
 as a machine might do it. The dingy stifling 
 room, the wan faces of my companions, the scanty 
 meals which I snatched, I saw dimly, as in a dream. 
 The tropics, and Greece, the imaginary battles 
 which I fought, the phantoms into whose mouths I 
 put my thoughts, were real and true to me. They 
 met me when I woke they floated along beside 
 me as I walked to work they acted their fantas- 
 tic dramas before me through the sleepless hours 
 of night. Gradually certain faces among them 
 became familiar certain personages grew into
 
 240 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 coherence, as embodiments of those few types of 
 character which had struck me the most, and 
 played an analogous part in every fresh fantasia. 
 Sandy Mackaye's face figured incongruously enough 
 as Leonidas, Brutus, a Pilgrim Father ; and gradu- 
 ally, in spite of myself, and the fear with which I 
 looked on the recurrence of that dream, Lillian's 
 figure re-entered my fairyland. I saved her from a 
 hundred dangers ; I followed her through dragon- 
 guarded caverns and the corridors of magic cas- 
 tles ; I walked by her side through the forests of 
 the Amazon. . . . 
 
 And now I began to crave for some means of 
 expressing these fancies to myself. While they 
 were mere thoughts, parts of me, they were unsat- 
 isfactory, however delicious. I longed to put 
 them outside me, that I might look at them and 
 talk to them as permanent independent things. 
 First I tried to sketch them on the whitewashed 
 walls of my garret, on scraps of paper begged from 
 Mackaye, or picked up in the workroom. But 
 from my ignorance of any rules of drawing, they 
 were utterly devoid of beauty, and only excited 
 my disgust. Besides, I had thoughts as well as 
 objects to express thoughts strange, sad, wild, 
 about my own feelings, my own destiny, and draw- 
 ing could not speak them for me. 
 
 Then I turned instinctively to poetry : with its 
 rules I was getting rapidly conversant. The mere 
 desire of imitation urged me on, and when I tried, 
 the grace of rhyme and metre covered a thousand 
 defects. I tell my story, not as I saw it then, but 
 as I see it now. A long and lonely voyage, with 
 its monotonous days and sleepless nights its 
 sickness and heart-loneliness, has given me oppor-
 
 First Love 241 
 
 tunities for analyzing my past history which were 
 impossible then amid the ceaseless in-rush of new 
 images, the ceaseless ferment of their re-combina- 
 tion, in which my life was passed from sixteen to 
 twenty-five. The poet, I suppose, must be a seer 
 as long as he is a worker, and a seer only. He 
 has no time to philosophize to "think about 
 thinking," as Goethe, I have somewhere read, says 
 that he never could do. It is too often only in 
 sickness and prostration and sheer despair, that the 
 fierce veracity and swift digestion of his soul can 
 cease, and give him time to know himself and 
 God's dealings with him ; and for that reason it is 
 good for him, too, to have been afflicted. 
 
 I do not write all this to boast of it ; I am ready 
 to bear sneers at my romance my day-dreams 
 my unpractical habits of mind, for I know that 
 I deserve them. But such was the appointed 
 growth of my uneducated mind; no more un- 
 healthy a growth, if I am to believe books, than 
 that of many a carefully trained one. High-born 
 geniuses, they tell me, have their idle visions as 
 well as we workingmen ; and Oxford has seen of 
 late years as wild Icarias conceived as ever were 
 fathered by a red Republic. For, indeed, we have 
 the same flesh and blood, the same God to teach 
 us, the same devil to mislead us, whether we 
 choose to believe it or not. But there were ex- 
 cuses for me. We Londoners are not accustomed 
 from our youth to the poems of a great democratic 
 genius, as the Scotchmen are to their glorious 
 Burns. We have no chance of such an early 
 acquaintance with poetic art as that which enabled 
 John Bethune, one of the great unrepresented 
 the starving Scotch day-laborer, breaking stones
 
 242 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 upon the parish roads, to write at the age of 
 seventeen such words as these 
 
 Hail, hallow'd evening ! sacred hour to me 1 
 Thy clouds of gray, thy vocal melody, 
 Thy dreamy silence oft to me have brought 
 A sweet exchange from toil to peaceful thought. 
 Ye purple heavens ! how often has my eye, 
 Wearied with its long gaze on drudgery, 
 Look'd up and found refreshment in the hues 
 That gild thy vest with coloring profuse ! 
 
 O, evening gray 1 how oft have I admired 
 Thy airy tapestry, whose radiance fired 
 The glowing minstrels of the olden time, 
 Until their very souls flow'd forth in rhyme. 
 And I have listened, till my spirit grew 
 Familiar with their deathless strains, and drew 
 From the same source some portion of the glow 
 Which fill'd their spirits, when from earth below 
 They scann'd thy golden imagery. And I 
 Have consecrated thee, bright evening sky, 
 My fount of inspiration ; and I fling 
 My spirit on thy clouds an offering 
 To the great Deity of dying day, 
 Who hath transfused o'er thee his purple ray. 
 
 After all, our dreams do little harm to the rich. 
 Those who consider Chartism as synonymous with 
 devil-worship, should bless and encourage them, 
 for the very reason for which we workingmen 
 ought to dread them ; for, quickened into prurient 
 activity by the low, novel-mongering press, they 
 help to enervate and besot all but the noblest 
 minds among us. Here and there a Thomas 
 Cooper, sitting in Stafford gaol, after a youth spent 
 in cobbling shoes, vents his treasures of classic and 
 historic learning in a " Purgatory of Suicides ;" or a 
 Prince becomes the poet of the poor, no less for 
 having fed his boyish fancy with "The Arabian
 
 First Love 243 
 
 Nights " and the " Pilgrim's Progress." But, with 
 the most of us, sedentary and monotonous occupa- 
 tions, as has long been known, create of themselves 
 a morbidly meditative and fantastic turn of mind. 
 And what else, in Heaven's name, ye fine gentle- 
 men what else can a workingman do with his 
 imagination, but dream? What else will you let 
 him do with it, oh ye education-pedants, who fancy 
 that you can teach the masses as you would drill 
 soldiers, every soul alike, though you will not be- 
 stir yourselves to do even that? Are there no 
 differences of rank God's rank, not man's 
 among us? You have discovered, since your 
 schoolboy days, the fallacy of the old nomencla- 
 ture which civilly classed us altogether as " the 
 snobs," " the blackguards " ; which even so 
 strong is habit tempted Burke himself to talk of 
 us as " the swinish multitude." You are finding 
 yourselves wrong there. A few more years' expe- 
 rience, not in miseducating the poor, but in watch- 
 ing the poor really educate themselves, may teach 
 you that we are not all by nature dolts and idiots ; 
 that there are differences of brain among us, just 
 as great as there is between you ; and that there 
 are those among us whose education ought not to 
 end, and will not end, with the putting off of the 
 parish cap and breeches; whom it is cruelty, as 
 well as folly, to toss back into the hell of mere 
 manual drudgery, as soon as you have if, indeed, 
 you have been even so bountiful as that excited 
 in them a new thirst of the intellect and imagina- 
 tion. If you provide that craving with no whole- 
 some food, you at least have no right to blame it if 
 it shall gorge itself with poison. 
 
 Dare for once to do a strange thing, and let
 
 244 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 yourself be laughed at ; go to a workman's meet- 
 ing a Chartist meeting, if you will; and look 
 honestly at the faces and brows of those so-called 
 incendiaries, whom your venal caricaturists have 
 taught you to believe a mixture of cur-dog and 
 baboon we, for our part, shall not be ashamed to 
 show foreheads against your laughing House of 
 Commons and then say, what employment can 
 those men find in the soulless routine of mechani- 
 cal labor for the mass of brain which they almost 
 universally possess? They must either dream or 
 agitate ; perhaps they are now learning how to do 
 both to some purpose. 
 
 But I have found, by sad experience, that there 
 is little use in declamation. I had much better 
 simply tell my story, and leave my readers to 
 judge of the facts, if, indeed, they will be so far 
 courteous as to believe them.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 LIGHT IN A DARK PLACE 
 
 SO I made my first attempt at poetry need I 
 say that my subject was the beautiful Lillian? 
 And need I say, too, that I was as utterly disgusted 
 at my attempt to express her in words, as I had 
 been at my trial with the pencil ? It chanced also, 
 that after hammering out half a dozen verses, I met 
 with Mr. Tennyson's poems; and the unequalled 
 sketches of women that I found there, while they 
 had, with the rest of the book, a new and abiding 
 influence on my mind, were quite enough to show 
 me my own fatal incompetency in that line. I 
 threw my verses away, never to resume them. 
 Perhaps I proved thereby the depth of my affec- 
 tion. Our mightiest feelings are always those 
 which remain most unspoken. The most intense 
 lovers and the greatest poets have generally, I 
 think, written very little personal love-poetry, while 
 they have shown in fictitious characters a knowl- 
 edge of the passion too painfully intimate to be 
 spoken of in the first person. 
 
 But to escape from my own thoughts, I could 
 not help writing something; and to escape from 
 my own private sorrows, writing on some matter 
 with which I had no personal concern. And so, 
 after much casting about for subjects, " Childe
 
 246 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 Harold " and the old missionary records contrived 
 to celebrate a spiritual wedding in my brain, of 
 which anomalous marriage came a proportionately 
 anomalous offspring. 
 
 My hero was not to be a pirate, but a pious 
 sea-rover, who, with a crew of saints, or at least 
 uncommonly fine fellows, who could be very manly 
 and jolly, and yet all be good Christians, of a 
 somewhat vague and latitudinarian cast of doctrine 
 (for my own was becoming rapidly so), set forth 
 under the red-cross flag to colonize and convert 
 one of my old paradises, a South Sea Island. 
 
 I forget most of the lines they were probably 
 great trash, but I hugged them to my bosom as a 
 young mother does her first child. 
 
 'T was sunset in the lone Pacific world, 
 The rich gleams fading in the western sky ; 
 Within the still lagoon the sails were furled, 
 The red-cross flag alone was flaunting high. 
 
 Before them was the low and palm-fringed shore, 
 
 Behind, the outer ocean's baffled roar. 
 
 After which valiant plunge in medias res, came a 
 great lump of deception, after the manner of 
 youths of the island, and the white houses, and 
 the banana groves, and above all, the single vol- 
 cano towering over the whole, which 
 
 Shaking a sinful isle with thundering shocks, 
 Reproved the worshippers of stones and stocks. 
 
 Then how a line of foam appears on the lagoon, 
 which is supposed at first to be a shoal of fish, but 
 turns out to be a troop of naked island beauties, 
 swimming out to the ship. The decent missiona- 
 ries were certainly guiltless of putting that into my
 
 Light in a Dark Place 247 
 
 head, whether they ever saw it or not a great 
 many things happening in the South Seas of which 
 they find it convenient to say nothing. I think I 
 picked it up from Wallis, or Cook, or some other 
 plain-spoken voyager. 
 
 The crew gaze in pardonable admiration, but the 
 hero, in a long speech, reproves them for their 
 lightmindedness, reminds them of their sacred mis- 
 sion, and informs them that 
 
 The soldiers of the cross should turn their eyes 
 From carnal lusts and heathen vanities ; 
 
 beyond which indisputable assertion I never got; 
 for this being about the fiftieth stanza, I stopped 
 to take breath a little ; and reading and re-reading, 
 patching and touching continually, grew so accus- 
 tomed to my bantling's face, that, like a mother, I 
 could not tell whether it was handsome or hideous, 
 sense or nonsense. I have since found out that the 
 true plan, for myself at least, is to write off as much 
 as possible at a time, and then lay it by and forget it 
 for weeks if I can, for months. After that, on re- 
 turning to it, the mind regards it as something alto- 
 gether strange and new, and can, or rather ought to, 
 judge of it as it would of the work of another pen. 
 
 But really, between conceit and disgust, fancying 
 myself one day a great new poet, and the next a 
 mere twaddler, I got so puzzled and anxious, that I 
 determined to pluck up courage, go to Mackaye, 
 and ask him to solve the problem for me. 
 
 " Hech, sirs, poetry ! I Ve been expecting it. I 
 suppose it 's the appointed gate o' a workman's in- 
 tellectual life that same lust o' versification. 
 Aweel, aweel, let's hear." 
 
 Blushing and trembling, I read my verses aloud
 
 248 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 in as resonant and magniloquent a voice as I could 
 command. I thought Mackaye's upper lip would 
 never stop lengthening, or his lower lip protruding. 
 He chuckled intensely at the unfortunate rhyme 
 between " shocks " and " stocks." Indeed, it kept 
 him in chuckling matter for a whole month after- 
 wards ; but when I had got to the shoal of naked 
 girls, he could bear no more, and burst out 
 
 " What the deevil ! is there no harlotry and idol- 
 atry here in England, that ye maun gang speering 
 after it in the Cannibal Islands? Are ye gaun to 
 be like they puir aristocrat bodies, that wad suner 
 hear an Italian dog howl than an English nightin- 
 gale sing, and winna harken to Mr. John Thomas 
 till he calls himself Giovanni Thomasino ; or do ye 
 tak yoursel' for a singing-bird, to go all your days 
 tweedle-dum-deeing out into the lift, just for the 
 lust o' hearing your ain clan clatter? Will ye be a 
 man or a lintie ? Coral Islands ? Pacific ? What 
 do ye ken aboot Pacifies ? Are ye a cockney or a 
 Cannibal Islander? Dinna stand there, ye gowk, 
 as fusionless as a docken, but tell me that 1 Whaur 
 do ye live ? " 
 
 " What do you mean, Mr. Mackaye ? " asked I, 
 with a doleful and disappointed visage. 
 
 " Mean why, if God had meant ye to write 
 aboot Pacifies, He 'd ha' put ye there and be- 
 cause He means ye to write aboot London town, 
 He 's put ye there and gien ye an unco sharp 
 taste o' the ways o't; and I'll gie ye anither. 
 Come along wi' me." 
 
 And he seized me by the arm, and hardly giving 
 me time to put on my hat, marched me out into 
 the streets, and away through Clare Market to 
 St. Giles's.
 
 Light in a Dark Place 249 
 
 It was a foul, chilly, foggy Saturday night. 
 From the butchers' and greengrocers' shops the 
 gas-lights flared and flickered, wild and ghastly, 
 over haggard groups of slipshod dirty women, 
 bargaining for scraps of stale meat and frost-bitten 
 vegetables, wrangling about short weight and bad 
 quality. Fish-stalls and fruit-stalls lined the edge 
 of the greasy pavement, sending up odors as foul 
 as the language of sellers and buyers. Blood and 
 sewer water crawled from under doors and out of 
 spouts, and reeked down the gutters among offal, 
 animal and vegetable, in every stage of putre- 
 faction. Foul vapors rose from cow-sheds and 
 slaughter-houses, and the doorways of undrained 
 alleys, where the inhabitants carried the filth out 
 on their shoes from the back-yard into the court, 
 and from the court up into the main street ; while 
 above, hanging like cliffs over the streets those 
 narrow, brawling torrents of filth, and poverty, and 
 sin, the houses with their teeming load of life 
 were piled up into the dingy, choking night. A 
 ghastly, deafening, sickening sight it was. Go, 
 scented Belgravian ! and see what London is ! and 
 then go to the library which God has given thee 
 one often fears in vain and see what science says 
 this London might be ! 
 
 " Ay," he muttered to himself, as he strode 
 along, "sing awa; get yoursel' wi' child wi' pretty 
 fancies and gran' words, like the rest o' the poets, 
 and gang to hell for it." 
 
 "To hell, Mr. Mackaye?" 
 
 " Ay, to a verra real hell, Alton Locke, laddie 
 a warse ane than ony fiends' kitchen, or subterra- 
 nean Smithfield that ye '11 hear o' in the pulpits 
 the hell on earth o' being a flunkey, and a hum-
 
 250 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 bug, and a useless peacock, wasting God's gifts on 
 your ain lusts and pleasures and kenning it 
 and not being able to get oot o' it, for the chains 
 o' vanity and self-indulgence. I 've warned ye. 
 Now look there " 
 
 He stopped suddenly before the entrance of 
 a miserable .alley 
 
 " Look ! there 's not a soul down that yard 
 but 's either beggar, drunkard, thief, or warse. 
 Write anent that ! Say how you saw the mouth 
 o' hell, and the twa pillars thereof at the entry 
 the pawnbroker's shop o' one side, and the gin 
 palace at the other twa monstrous deevils, eat- 
 ing up men, and women, and bairns, body and 
 soul. Look at the jaws o' the monsters, how they 
 open and open, and swallow in anither victim and 
 anither. Write anent that." 
 
 " What jaws, Mr. Mackaye ? " 
 
 " They faulding-doors o' the gin shop, goose. 
 Are na they a mair damnable man-devouring idol 
 than ony red-hot statue o' Moloch, or wicker 
 Gogmagog, wherein thae auld Britons burnt their 
 prisoners? Look at thae bare-footed bare-backed 
 hizzies, with their arms roun' the men's necks, and 
 their mouths full o' vitriol and beastly words! 
 Look at that Irishwoman pouring the gin down 
 the babbie's throat! Look at that rough o' a 
 boy gaun out o' the pawnshop, where he 's been 
 pledging the handkerchief he stole the morning, 
 into the gin-shop, to buy beer poisoned wi' grains 
 o' paradise, and cocculus indicus, and saut, and a' 
 damnable, maddening, thirst-breeding, lust-breed- 
 ing drugs ! Look at that girl that went in wi' 
 a shawl on her back and cam' out wi'out ane! 
 Drunkards frae the breast ! harlots frae the
 
 Light in a Dark Place 251 
 
 cradle ! damned before they 're born ! John 
 Calvin had an inkling o' the truth there, I'm 
 a'most driven to think, wi' his reprobation deevil's 
 doctrines ! " 
 
 " Well but Mr. Mackaye, I know nothing 
 about these poor creatures." 
 
 " Then ye ought. What do ye ken anent the 
 Pacific? Which is maist to your business? thae 
 bare-backed hizzies that play the harlot o' the 
 other side o' the warld, or these these thou- 
 sands o' bare-backed hizzies that play the harlot 
 o' your ain side made out o' your ain flesh and 
 blude? You a poet! True poetry, like true 
 charity, my laddie, begins at name. If ye '11 be a 
 poet at a', ye maun be a cockney poet ; and while 
 the cockneys be what they be, ye maun write, like 
 Jeremiah of old, o' lamentation and mourning and 
 woe, for the sins o' your people. Gin you want 
 to learn the spirit o' a people's poet, down wi' 
 your Bible and read thae auld Hebrew prophets; 
 gin ye wad learn the style, read your Burns frae 
 morning till night ; and gin ye 'd learn the matter, 
 just gang after your nose, and keep your eyes 
 open, and ye '11 no miss it." 
 
 " But all this is so so unpoetical." 
 
 " Hech ! Is there no the heeven above them 
 there, and the hell beneath them ? and God frown- 
 ing, and the deevil grinning? No poetry there! 
 Is no the verra idea of the classic tragedy defined 
 to be, man conquered by circumstance? Canna 
 ye see it there? And the verra idea of the mod- 
 ern tragedy, man conquering circumstance? and 
 I '11 show you that, too in mony a garret where 
 no eye but the gude God's enters, to see the pa- 
 tience, and the fortitude, and the self-sacrifice, and
 
 252 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 the luve stronger than death, that 's shining in thae 
 dark places o' the earth. Come wi' me, and see." 
 We went on through a back street or two, and 
 then into a huge, miserable house, which, a hun- 
 dred years ago, perhaps, had witnessed the luxury, 
 and rung to the laughter of some one great fash- 
 ionable family, alone there in their glory. Now 
 every room of it held its family, or its group of 
 families a phalanstery of all the fiends ; its 
 grand staircase, with the carved balustrades rot- 
 ting and crumbling away piecemeal, converted 
 into a common sewer for all its inmates. Up 
 stair after stair we went, while wails of children, 
 and curses of men, steamed out upon the hot 
 stifling rush of air from every doorway, till, at the 
 topmost story, we knocked at a garret door. We 
 entered. Bare it was of furniture, comfortless, 
 and freezing cold ; but, with the exception of the 
 plaster dropping from the roof, and the broken 
 windows, patched with rags and paper, there was 
 a scrupulous neatness about the whole, which con- 
 trasted strangely with the filth and slovenliness 
 outside. There was no bed in the room no 
 table. On a broken chair by the chimney sat a 
 miserable old woman, fancying that she was warm- 
 ing her hands over embers which had long been 
 cold, shaking her head, and muttering to herself, 
 with palsied lips, about the guardians and the 
 workhouse; while upon a few rags on the floor 
 lay a girl, ugly, small-pox marked, hollow-eyed, 
 emaciated, her only bedclothes the skirt of a 
 large handsome new riding-habit, at which two 
 other girls, wan and tawdry, were stitching busily, 
 as they sat right and left of her on the floor. The 
 old woman took no notice of us as we entered ;
 
 Light in a Dark Place 253 
 
 but one of the girls looked up, and, with a pleased 
 gesture of recognition, put her finger up to her 
 lips, and whispered, " Ellen 's asleep." 
 
 " I 'm not asleep, dears," answered a faint un- 
 earthly voice ; " I was only praying. Is that Mr. 
 Mackaye?" 
 
 " Ay, my lassies ; but ha' ye gotten na fire the 
 nicht?" 
 
 " No," said one of them, bitterly, " we Ve earned 
 no fire to-night, by fair trade or foul either." 
 
 The sick girl tried to raise herself up and speak, 
 but was stopped by a frightful fit of coughing and 
 expectoration, as painful, apparently, to the sufferer 
 as it was, I confess, disgusting even to me. 
 
 I saw Mackaye slip something into the hand of 
 one of the girls, and whisper, " A half-hundred of 
 coals ; " to which she replied, with an eager look 
 of gratitude that I never can forget, and hurried 
 out. Then the sufferer, as if taking advantage of 
 her absence, began to speak quickly and eagerly. 
 
 " Oh, Mr. Mackaye dear, kind Mr. Mackaye 
 do speak to her ; and do speak to poor Lizzy 
 here ! I 'm not afraid to say it before her, because 
 she 's more gentle like, and has n't learnt to say 
 bad words yet but do speak to them, and tell 
 them not to go the bad way, like all the rest. Tell 
 them it '11 never prosper. I know it is want that 
 drives them to it, as it drives all of us but tell 
 them it 's best to starve and die honest girls, than 
 to go about with the shame and the curse of God 
 on their hearts, for the sake of keeping this poor, 
 miserable, vile body together a few short years 
 more in this world o' sorrow. Do tell them, Mr. 
 Mackaye." 
 
 " I 'm thinking," said he, with the tears running
 
 254 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 down his old withered face, " ye '11 mak a better 
 preacher at that text than I shall, Ellen." 
 
 "Oh, no, no; who am I, to speak to them? 
 it 's no merit o' mine, Mr. Mackaye, that the Lord 's 
 kept me pure through it all. I should have been 
 just as bad as any of them, if the Lord had not 
 kept me out of temptation in His great mercy, by 
 making me the poor, ill-favored creature I am. 
 From that time I was burnt when I was a child, 
 and had the small-pox afterwards, oh ! how sinful 
 I was, and repined and rebelled against the Lord ! 
 And now I see it was all His blessed mercy to 
 keep me out of evil, pure and unspotted for my 
 dear Jesus, when He comes to take me to Himself. 
 I saw Him last night, Mr. Mackaye, as plain as I 
 see you now, all in a flame of beautiful white fire, 
 smiling at me so sweetly ; and He showed me the 
 wounds in His hands and His feet, and He said, 
 'Ellen, my own child, those that suffer with me 
 here, they shall be glorified with me hereafter, for 
 I 'm coming very soon to take you home.' " 
 
 Sandy shook his head at all this with a strange 
 expression of face, as if he sympathized and yet 
 disagreed, respected and yet smiled at the shape 
 which her religious ideas had assumed; and I 
 remarked in the meantime that the poor girl's 
 neck and arm were all scarred and distorted, 
 apparently from the effects of a burn. 
 
 " Ah," said Sandy, at length, " I tauld ye ye were 
 the better preacher of the two ; ye 've mair com- 
 fort to gie Sandy than he has to gie the like o' ye. 
 But how is the wound in your back the day? " 
 
 Oh, it was wonderfully better ! the doctor had 
 come and given her such blessed ease with a great 
 thick leather he had put under it, and then she did
 
 Light in a Dark Place 255 
 
 not feel the boards through so much. " But oh, 
 Mr. Mackaye, I 'm so afraid it will make me live 
 longer to keep me away from my dear Saviour. 
 And there 's one thing, too, that 's breaking my 
 heart, and makes me long to die this very minute, 
 even if I did n't go to heaven at all, Mr. Mackaye." 
 (And she burst out crying, and between her sobs 
 it came out, as well as I could gather, that her 
 notion was, that her illness was the cause of keep- 
 ing the girls in " the bad way" as she called it.) 
 " For Lizzy here, I did hope that she had repented 
 of it after all my talking to her ; but since I 've 
 been so bad, and the girls have had to keep me 
 most o' the time, she 's gone out of nights just as 
 bad as ever." 
 
 Lizzy had hid her face in her hands the greater 
 part of this speech. Now she looked up passion- 
 ately, almost fiercely 
 
 " Repent I have repented I repent of it 
 every hour I hate myself, and hate all the world 
 because of it ; but I must I must ; I cannot see 
 her starve, and I cannot starve myself. When she 
 first fell sick she kept on as long as she could, 
 doing what she could, and then between us we 
 only earned three shillings a week, and there was 
 ever so much to take off for fire, and twopence for 
 thread, and fivepence for candles; and then we 
 were always getting fined, because they never gave 
 us out the work till too late on purpose, and then 
 they lowered prices again; and now Ellen can't 
 work at all, and there's four of us with the old 
 lady, to keep off two's work that could n't keep 
 themselves alone." 
 
 " Does n't the parish allow the old lady any- 
 thing?" I ventured to ask.
 
 256 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 "They used to allow half-a-crown for a bit; and 
 the doctor ordered Ellen things from the parish, 
 but it is n't half of 'em she ever got ; and when the 
 meat came, it was half times not fit to eat, and 
 when it was her stomach turned against it. If she 
 was a lady she 'd be cockered up with all sorts of 
 soups and jellies, and nice things, just the minute 
 she fancied 'em, and lie on a water bed instead of 
 the bare floor and so she ought ; but where 's 
 the parish '11 do that? And the hospital would n't 
 take her in because she was incurable; and, be- 
 sides, the old 'un would n't let her go nor into 
 the union neither. When she 's in a good-humor 
 like, she'll sit by her by the hour, holding her 
 hand and kissing of it, and nursing of it, for all the 
 world like a doll. But she won't hear of the work- 
 house ; so now, these last three weeks, they takes 
 off all her pay, because they says she must go into 
 the house, and not kill her daughter by keeping her 
 out as if they warn't a-killing her themselves." 
 
 "No workhouse no workhouse ! " said the old 
 woman, turning round suddenly, in a clear, lofty 
 voice. " No workhouse, sir, for an officer's 
 daughter ! " 
 
 And she relapsed into her stupor. 
 
 At that moment the other girl entered with the 
 coals but without staying to light the fire, ran 
 up to Ellen with some trumpery dainty she had 
 bought, and tried to persuade her to eat it. 
 
 "We have been telling Mr. Mackaye everything," 
 said poor Lizzy. 
 
 "A pleasant story, isn't it? Oh! if that fine 
 lady, as we 're making that riding-habit for, would 
 just spare only half the money that goes to dress- 
 ing her up to ride in the park, to send us out to
 
 Light in a Dark Place 257 
 
 the colonies, wouldn't I be an honest girl there? 
 maybe an honest man's wife! Oh, my God, 
 would n't I slave my fingers to the bone to work 
 for him ! Would n't I mend my life then ! I 
 couldn't help it it would be like getting into 
 heaven out of hell. But now we must we 
 must, I tell you. I shall go mad soon, I think, or 
 take to drink. When I passed the gin-shop down 
 there just now, I had to run like mad for fear I 
 
 should go in; and if I once took to that Now 
 
 then, to work again. Make up the fire, Mrs. , 
 
 please do." 
 
 And she sat down, and began stitching frantically 
 at the riding-habit, from which the other girl had 
 hardly lifted her hands or eyes for a moment 
 during our visit. 
 
 We made a motion as if to go. 
 
 " God bless you," said Ellen ; " come again soon, 
 dear Mr. Mackaye." 
 
 " Good-bye," said the elder girl ; " and good-night 
 to you. Night and day 's all the same here we 
 must have this home by seven o'clock to-morrow 
 morning. My lady 's going to ride early, they say, 
 whoever she may be, and we must just sit up all 
 night. It 's often we have n't had our clothes off 
 for a week together, from four in the morning till 
 two the next morning sometimes stitch, stitch, 
 stitch. Somebody's wrote a song about that 
 I'll learn to sing it it'll sound fitting-like up 
 here." 
 
 " Better sing hymns," said Ellen. 
 
 "Hymns for ?" answered the other, and 
 
 then burst out into that peculiar, wild, ringing, 
 fiendish laugh has my reader never heard it? 
 
 I pulled out two or three shillings which I pos- 
 
 Vol. Ill 12
 
 258 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 sessed, and tried to make the girls take them, for 
 the sake of poor Ellen. 
 
 " No ; you 're a workingman, and we won't 
 feed on you you '11 want it some day all the 
 trade 's going the same way as we, as fast as ever 
 it can ! " 
 
 Sandy and I went down the stairs. 
 
 " Poetic element? Yon lassie, rejoicing in her 
 disfigurement and not her beauty like the nuns 
 of Peterborough in auld time is there na poetry 
 there? That puir lassie, dying on the bare boards, 
 and seeing her Saviour in her dreams, is there na 
 poetry there, callant? That auld body owre the 
 fire, wi' her ' an officer's dochter,' is there na 
 poetry there? That ither, prostituting hersel' to 
 buy food for her freen is there na poetry there ? 
 tragedy 
 
 With hues as when some mighty painter dips 
 His pen in dyes of earthquake and eclipse. 
 
 Ay, Shelley's gran', always gran'; but Fact is 
 grander God and Satan are grander. All around 
 ye, in every gin shop and costermonger's cellar are 
 God and Satan at death grips ; every garret is a 
 haill Paradise Lost or Paradise Regained; and 
 will ye think it beneath ye to be the ' People's 
 Poet'?"
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 POETRY AND POETS 
 
 IN the history of individuals, as well as in that of 
 nations, there is often a period of sudden 
 blossoming a short luxuriant summer, not with- 
 out its tornadoes and thunder-glooms, in which all 
 the buried seeds of past observation leap forth to- 
 gether into life, and form, and beauty. And such 
 with me were the two years that followed. I 
 thought I talked poetry to myself all day long. 
 I wrote nightly on my return from work. I am 
 astonished, on looking back, at the variety and 
 quantity of my productions during that short time. 
 My subjects were intentionally and professedly 
 cockney ones. I had taken Mackaye at his word. 
 I had made up my mind, that if I had any poetic 
 power, I must do my duty therewith in that station 
 of life to which it had pleased God to call me, and 
 look at everything simply and faithfully as a Lon- 
 don artisan. To this, I suppose, is to be attributed 
 the little geniality and originality for which the 
 public have kindly praised my verses a geniality 
 which sprung, not from the atmosphere whence I 
 drew, but from the honesty and single-mindedness 
 with which, I hope, I labored. Not from the 
 atmosphere, indeed, that was ungenial enough; 
 crime and poverty, all-devouring competition, and
 
 260 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 hopeless struggles againt Mammon and Moloch, 
 amid the roar of wheels, the ceaseless stream of 
 pale, hard faces, intent on gain, or brooding over 
 woe ; amid endless prison walls of brick, beneath 
 a lurid, crushing sky of smoke and mist. It was 
 a dark, noisy, thunderous element that London 
 life; a troubled sea that cannot rest, casting up 
 mire and dirt ; resonant of the clanking of chains, 
 the grinding of remorseless machinery, the wail of 
 lost spirits from the pit. And it did its work upon 
 me; it gave a gloomy coloring, a glare as of 
 some Dantean " Inferno," to all my utterances. It 
 did not excite me or make me fierce I was too 
 much inured to it but it crushed and saddened 
 me ; it deepened in me that peculiar melancholy 
 of intellectual youth, which Mr. Carlyle has chris- 
 tened forever by one of his immortal nicknames 
 " Wertherism" ; I battened on my own melan- 
 choly. I believed, I loved to believe, that every 
 face I passed bore the traces of discontent as deep 
 as was my own and was I so far wrong ? Was 
 I so far wrong either in the gloomy tone of 
 my own poetry? Should not a London poet's 
 work just now be to cry, like the Jew of old, about 
 the walls of Jerusalem, " Woe, woe to this city " ? 
 Is this a time to listen to the voices of singing men 
 and singing women ? or to cry, " Oh ! that my 
 head were a fountain of tears, that I might weep 
 for the sins of my people " ? Is it not noteworthy, 
 also, that it is in this vein that the London poets 
 have always been greatest? Which of poor Hood's 
 lyrics have an equal chance of immortality with 
 "The Song of the Shirt" and "The Bridge of 
 Sighs," rising, as they do, right out of the depths 
 of that inferno, sublime from their very simplicity?
 
 Poetry and Poets 261 
 
 Which of Charles Mackay's lyrics can compare for 
 a moment with the Eschylean grandeur, the terrible 
 rhythmic lilt of his " Cholera Chant"? 
 
 Dense on the stream the vapors lay, 
 Thick as wool on the cold highway; 
 Spungy and dim each lonely lamp 
 Shone o'er the streets so dull and damp; 
 The moonbeams could not pierce the cloud 
 That swathed the city like a shroud ; 
 There stood three shapes on the bridge alone, 
 Three figures by the coping-stone ; 
 Gaunt and tall and undefined, 
 Spectres built of mist and wind. 
 
 I see his footmarks east and west 
 
 I hear his tread in the silence fall 
 
 He shall not sleep, he shall not rest 
 
 He comes to aid us one and all. 
 
 Were men as wise as men might be, 
 
 They would not work for you, for me, 
 
 For him that cometh over the sea ; 
 
 But they will not hear the warning voice: 
 
 The Cholera comes, Rejoice ! rejoice I 
 
 He shall be lord of the swarming town ! 
 
 And mow them down, and mow them down I 
 
 Not that I neglected, on the other hand, every 
 means of extending the wanderings of my spirit 
 into sunnier and more verdant pathways. If I had 
 to tell the gay ones above of the gloom around 
 me, I had also to go forth into the sunshine, to 
 bring home if it were but a wild-flower garland to* 
 those that sit in darkness and the shadow of death. 
 That was all that I could offer them. The reader 
 shall judge, when he has read this book throughout, 
 whether I did not at last find for them something 
 better than even all the beauties of nature.
 
 262 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 But it was on canvas, and not among realities, 
 that I had to choose my garlands ; and therefore 
 the picture galleries became more than ever my 
 favorite haunt, I was going to say ; but, alas ! 
 it was not six times a year that I got access to 
 them. Still, when once every May I found my- 
 self, by dint of a hard-saved shilling, actually 
 within the walls of that to me enchanted palace, 
 the Royal Academy exhibition Oh, ye rich ! 
 who gaze round you at will upon your prints and 
 pictures, if hunger is, as they say, a better sauce 
 than any Ude invents, and fasting itself may be- 
 come the handmaid of luxury, you should spend, 
 as I did perforce, weeks and months shut out from 
 every glimpse of nature, if you would taste her 
 beauties, even on canvas, with perfect relish and 
 childish self-abandonment. How I loved and 
 blessed those painters! how I thanked Creswick 
 for every transparent shade-chequered pool ; Field- 
 ing, for every rain-clad down ; Cooper, for every 
 knot of quiet cattle beneath the cool gray willows ; 
 Stanfield, for every snowy peak, and sheet of foam- 
 fringed sapphire each and every one of them a 
 leaf out of the magic book which else was ever 
 closed to me. Again, I say, how I loved and blest 
 those painters ! On the other hand, I was not neg- 
 lecting to read as well as to write poetry ; and, to 
 speak first of the highest, I know no book, always 
 excepting Milton, which at once so quickened and 
 exalted my poetical view of man and his history, 
 as that great prose poem, the single epic of modern 
 days, Thomas Carlyle's " French Revolution." Of 
 the general effect which his works had on me, I 
 shall say nothing : it was the same as they have had, 
 thank God, on thousands of my class and of every
 
 Poetry and Poets 263 
 
 other. But that book above all first recalled me 
 to the overwhelming and yet ennobling knowledge 
 that there was such a thing as Duty ; first taught 
 me to see in history not the mere farce-tragedy of 
 man's crimes and follies, but the dealings of a 
 righteous Ruler of the universe, whose ways are 
 in the great deep, and whom the sins and errors, 
 as well as the virtues and discoveries of man, must 
 obey and justify. 
 
 Then, in a happy day, I fell on Alfred Tenny- 
 son's poetry, and found there, astonished and de- 
 lighted, the embodiment of thoughts about the 
 earth around me which I had concealed, because I 
 fancied them peculiar to myself. Why is it that the 
 latest poet has generally the greatest influence over 
 the minds of the young? Surely not for the mere 
 charm of novelty? The reason is that he, living 
 amid the same hopes, the same temptations, the 
 same sphere of observation as they, gives utterance 
 and outward form to the very questions which, 
 vague and wordless, have been exercising their 
 hearts. And what endeared Tennyson especially 
 to me, the workingman, was, as I afterwards dis- 
 covered, the altogether democratic tendency of his 
 poems. True, all great poets are by their office 
 democrats ; seers of man only as man ; singers of 
 the joys, the sorrows, the aspirations common to 
 all humanity ; but in Alfred Tennyson there is an 
 element especially democratic, truly levelling ; not 
 his political opinions, about which I know nothing, 
 and care less, but his handling of the trivial every- 
 day sights and sounds of nature. Brought up, as 
 I understand, in a part of England which possesses 
 not much of the picturesque, and nothing of that 
 which the vulgar call sublime, he has learnt to sec
 
 264 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 that in all nature, in the hedgerow and the sand- 
 bank, as well as in the alp peak and the ocean 
 waste, is a world 01 true sublimity, a minute 
 infinite, an ever fertile garden of poetic images, 
 the roots of which are in the unfathomable and the 
 eternal, as truly as any phenomenon which aston- 
 ishes and awes the eye. The descriptions of the 
 desolate pools and creeks where the dying swan 
 floated, the hint of the silvery marsh mosses by 
 Mariana's moat, came to me like revelations. I 
 always knew there was something beautiful, won- 
 derful, sublime, in those flowery dykes of Battersea 
 Fields; in the long gravelly sweeps of that lone 
 tidal shore ; and here was a man who had put them 
 into words for me ! This is what I call democratic 
 art the revelation of the poetry which lies in 
 common things. And surely all the age is tend- 
 ing in that direction : in Landseer and his dogs 
 in Fielding and his downs, with a host of noble 
 fellow-artists and in all authors who have really 
 seized the nation's mind, from Crabbe and Burns 
 and Wordsworth to Hood and Dickens, the great 
 tide sets ever onward, outward, towards that which 
 is common to the many, not that which is exclu- 
 sive to the few towards the likeness of Him who 
 causes His rain to fall on the just and the unjust, 
 and His sun to shine on the evil and the good ; 
 who knoweth the cattle upon a thousand hills, and 
 all the beasts of the field are in His sight. 
 
 Well I must return to my story. And here 
 some one may ask me, " But did you not find this 
 true spiritual democracy, this universal knowledge 
 and sympathy, in Shakespeare above all other 
 poets?" It may be my shame to have to confess 
 it; but though I find it now, I did not then. I do
 
 Poetry and Poets 265 
 
 not think, however, my case is singular: from 
 what I can ascertain, there is, even with regularly 
 educated minds, a period of life at which that 
 great writer is not appreciated, just on account of 
 his very greatness; on account of the deep and 
 large experience which the true understanding of 
 his plays requires experience of man, of history, 
 of art, and above all of those sorrows whereby, as 
 Hezekiah says, and as I have learnt almost too 
 well "whereby men live, and in all which is 
 the life of the spirit." At seventeen, indeed, I 
 had devoured Shakespeare, though merely for the 
 food to my fancy which his plots and incidents 
 supplied, for the gorgeous coloring of his scenery: 
 but at the period of which I am now writing, I had 
 exhausted that source of mere pleasure; I was 
 craving for more explicit and dogmatic teaching 
 than any which he seemed to supply; and for 
 three years, strange as it may appear, I hardly 
 ever looked into his pages. Under what circum- 
 stances I afterwards recurred to his exhaustless 
 treasures, my readers shall in due time be 
 told. 
 
 So I worked away manfully with such tools and 
 stock as I possessed, and of course produced, at 
 first, like all young writers, some sufficiently ser- 
 vile imitations of my favorite poets. 
 
 "Ugh!" said Sandy, "wha wants mongrels 
 atween Burns and Tennyson? A gude stock 
 baith: but gin ye 'd cross the breed ye maun unite 
 the spirits, and no the manners, o' the men. Why 
 maun ilk a one the noo steal his neebor's barnacles, 
 before he glints out o* windows? Mak a style for 
 yoursel', laddie; ye 're na mair Scots hind than ye 
 are Lincolnshire laird : sae gang yer ain gate and
 
 266 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 leave them to gang theirs ; and just mak a gran', 
 brode, simple, Saxon style for yoursel'." 
 
 " But how can I, till I know what sort of a style 
 it ought to be?" 
 
 " Oh ! but yon 's amazing like Tom Sheridan's 
 answer to his father. ' Tom/ says the auld man, 
 'I'm thinking ye maun tak a wife.' 'Verra 
 weel, father,' says the puir skellum ; ' and wha's 
 wife shall I tak? ' Wha's style shall I tak? say all 
 the callants the noo. Mak a style as ye would 
 mak a wife, by marrying her a' to yoursel' ; and 
 ye '11 nae mair ken what 's your style till it 's made, 
 then ye '11 ken what your wife 's like till she 's been 
 mony a year by your ingle." 
 
 " My dear Mackaye," I said, " you have the most 
 unmerciful way of raising difficulties, and then leav- 
 ing poor fellows to lay the ghost for themselves." 
 
 " Hech, then, I 'm a'thegither a negative teacher, 
 as they ca' it in the new lallans. I '11 gang out o* 
 my gate to tell a man his kye are laired, but I 'm 
 no obligated thereby to pu' them out for him. 
 After a', nae man is rid o' a difficulty till he 's 
 conquered it single-handed for himsel': besides, 
 I'm na poet, mair's the gude hap for you." 
 
 "Why, then?" 
 
 " Och, och ! they 're puir, feckless, crabbit, un- 
 practical bodies, they poets ; but if it 's your doom, 
 ye maun dree it; and I 'm sair afeard ye ha' gotten 
 the disease o' genius, mair's the pity, and maun 
 write, I suppose, willy-nilly. Some folks' booels 
 are that made o' catgut, that they canna stir with- 
 out chirruping and screeking." 
 
 However, astro fercitus, I wrote on ; and in 
 about two years and a half had got together 
 " Songs of the Highways" enough to fill a small
 
 Poetry and Poets 267 
 
 octavo volume, the circumstances of whose birth 
 shall be given hereafter. Whether I ever attained 
 to anything like an original style, readers must 
 judge for themselves the readers of the same 
 volume I mean, for I have inserted none of those 
 poems in this my autobiography;' first, because it 
 seems too like puffing my own works; and next, 
 because I do not want to injure the as yet not over 
 great sale of the same. But, if any one's curiosity 
 is so far excited that he wishes to see what I have 
 accomplished, the best advice which I can give 
 him is, to go "forth, and buy all the workingmen's 
 poetry which has appeared during the last twenty 
 years, without favor or exception; among which 
 he must needs, of course, find mine, and also, I am 
 happy to say, a great deal which is much better 
 and more instructive than mine.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 HOW FOLKS TURN CHARTISTS 
 
 r I ^HOSE who read my story onjy for amuse- 
 A ment, I advise to skip this chapter. Those, 
 on the other hand, who really wish to ascertain 
 what workingmen actually do suffer to see 
 whether their political discontent has not its roots, 
 not merely in fanciful ambition, but in misery and 
 slavery most real and agonizing those in "whose 
 eyes the accounts of a system, or rather barbaric 
 absence of all system, which involves starvation, 
 nakedness, prostitution, and long imprisonment in 
 dungeons worse than the cells of the Inquisition, 
 will be invested with something at least of tragic 
 interest, may, I hope, think it worth their while to 
 learn how the clothes which they wear are made, 
 and listen to a few occasional statistics, which, 
 though they may seem to the wealthy mere lists 
 of dull figures, are to the workmen symbols of 
 terrible physical realities of hunger, degradation, 
 and despair. 1 
 
 1 Facts still worse than those which Mr. Locke's story contains 
 have been made public by the " Morning Chronicle " in a series of 
 noble letters on " Labor and the Poor " ; which we entreat all 
 Christian people to " read, mark, leam, and inwardly digest." 
 " That will be better for them," as Mahomet, in similar cases, 
 used to say.
 
 How Folks Turn Chartists 269 
 
 Well: one day our employer died. He had 
 been one of the old sort of fashionable West-End 
 tailors in the fast decreasing honorable trade; 
 keeping a modest shop, hardly to be distinguished 
 from a dwelling-house, except by his name on the 
 window blinds. He paid good prices for work, 
 though not as good, of course, as he had given 
 twenty years before, and prided himself upon 
 having all his work done at home. His work- 
 rooms, as I have said, were no elysiums ; but still, 
 as good, alas ! as those of three tailors out of four. 
 He was proud, luxurious, foppish; but he was 
 honest and kindly enough, and did many a gen- 
 erous thing by men who had been long in his 
 employ. At all events, his journeymen could live 
 on what he paid them. 
 
 But his son, succeeding to the business, deter- 
 mined, like Rehoboam of old, to go ahead with 
 the times. Fired with the great spirit of the nine- 
 teenth century at least with that one which is 
 vulgarly considered its especial glory he resolved 
 to make haste to be rich. His father had made 
 money very slowly of late ; while dozens, who had 
 begun business long after him, had now retired to 
 luxurious ease and suburban villas. Why should 
 he remain in the minority? Why should he 
 not get rich as fast as he could? Why should 
 he stick to the old, slow-going, honorable trade? 
 Out of some four hundred and fifty West-End 
 tailors, there were not one hundred left who 
 were old-fashioned and stupid enough to go on 
 keeping down their own profits by having all their 
 work done at home and at first-hand. Ridicu- 
 lous scruples ! The government knew none such. 
 Were not the army clothes, the post-office clothes,
 
 270 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 the policemen's clothes, furnished by contractors 
 and sweaters, who hired the work at low prices, 
 and let it out again to journeymen at still lower 
 ones? Why should he pay his men two shillings 
 where the government paid them one? Were 
 there not cheap houses even at the West End, 
 which had saved several thousands a year merely 
 by reducing their workmen's wages? And if the 
 workmen chose to take lower wages, he was not 
 bound actually to make them a present of more 
 than they asked for? They would go to the 
 cheapest market for anything they wanted, and so 
 must he. Besides, wages had really been quite 
 exorbitant. Half his men threw each of them as 
 much money away in gin and beer yearly, as 
 would pay two workmen at cheap house. Why 
 was he to be robbing his family of comforts to pay 
 for their extravagance? And charging his cus- 
 tomers, too, unnecessarily high prices it was 
 really robbing the public! 
 
 Such, I suppose, were some of the arguments 
 which led to an official announcement, one Satur- 
 day night, that our young employer intended to 
 enlarge his establishment, for the purpose of com- 
 mencing business in the " show-trade " ; and that, 
 emulous of Messrs. Aaron, Levi, and the rest of 
 that class, magnificent alterations were to take 
 place in the premises, to make room for which our 
 workrooms were to be demolished, and that for 
 that reason for of course it was only for that 
 reason all work would in future be given out, to 
 be made up at the men's own homes. 
 
 Our employer's arguments, if they were such as 
 I suppose, were reasonable enough according to 
 the present code of commercial morality. But,
 
 How Folks Turn Chartists 271 
 
 strange to say, the auditory, insensible to the 
 delight with which the public would view the 
 splendid architectural improvements with taste 
 too grovelling to appreciate the glories of plate- 
 glass shop-fronts and brass scroll work too self- 
 ish to rejoice, for its own sake, in the beauty of 
 arabesques and chandeliers, which, though they 
 never might behold, the astonished public would 
 
 with souls too niggardly to leap for joy at the 
 thought that gents would henceforth buy the regis- 
 tered guanaco vest, and the patent elastic omni- 
 seasonum paletdt half-a-crown cheaper than ever 
 
 or that needy noblemen would pay three-pound- 
 ten instead of five pounds for their footmen's 
 liveries received the news, clod-hearted as they 
 were, in sullen silence, and actually, when they got 
 into the street, broke out into murmurs, perhaps 
 into execrations. 
 
 "Silence!" said Crossthwaite ; "walls have 
 ears. Come down to the nearest house of call, 
 and talk it out like men, instead of grumbling in 
 the street like fish-fags." 
 
 So down we went. Crossthwaite, taking my 
 arm, strode on in moody silence once mutter- 
 ing to himself bitterly 
 
 " Oh, yes ; all right and natural ! What can 
 the little sharks do but follow the big ones?" 
 
 We took a room, and Crossthwaite coolly saw 
 us all in; and locking the door, stood with his 
 back against it. 
 
 " Now then, mind, ' One and all,' as the Cornish- 
 men say, and no preaching. If any man is scoun- 
 drel enough to carry tales, I '11 " 
 
 "Do what?" asked Jemmy Downes, who had 
 settled himself on the table, with a pipe and a
 
 272 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 pot of porter. " You arn't the king of the Can- 
 nibal Islands, as I know of, to cut a cove's head 
 off?" 
 
 " No ; but if a poor man's prayer can bring 
 God's curse down upon a traitor's head it may 
 stay on his rascally shoulders till it rots." 
 
 " If ifs and ans were pots and pans. Look at 
 Shechem Isaacs, that sold penknives in the streets 
 six months ago, now a-riding in his own carriage, 
 all along of turning sweater. If God's curse is 
 like that I '11 be happy to take any man's share 
 of it." 
 
 Some new idea seemed twinkling in the fellow's 
 cunning bloated face as he spoke. I, and others 
 also, shuddered at his words; but we all forgot 
 them a moment afterwards, as Crossthwaite began 
 to speak. 
 
 " We were all bound to expect this. Every work- 
 ing tailor must come to this at last, on the present 
 system; and we are only lucky in having been 
 spared so long. You all know where this will end 
 in the same misery as fifteen thousand out of 
 twenty thousand of our class are enduring now. 
 We shall become the slaves, often the bodily pris- 
 oners, of Jews, middle-men, and sweaters, who draw 
 their livelihood out of our starvation. We shall 
 have to face, as the rest have, ever decreasing 
 prices of labor, ever increasing profits made out 
 of that labor by the contractors who will employ 
 us arbitrary fines, inflicted at the caprice of hire- 
 lings the competition of women, and children, 
 and starving Irish our hours of work will increase 
 one-third, our actual pay decrease to less than 
 one-half; and in all this we shall have no hope, 
 no chance of improvement in wages, but ever
 
 How Folks Turn Chartists 273 
 
 more penury, slavery, misery, as we are pressed 
 on by those who are sucked by fifties almost by 
 hundreds yearly, out of the honorable trade in 
 which we were brought up, into the infernal system 
 of contract work, which is devouring our trade and 
 many others, body and soul. Our wives will be 
 forced to sit up night and day to help us our 
 children must labor from the cradle without chance 
 of going to school, hardly of breathing the fresh air 
 of heaven, our boys, as they grow up, must turn 
 beggars or paupers our daughters, as thousands 
 do, must eke out their miserable earnings by pros- 
 titution. And after all, a whole family will not 
 gain what one of us had been doing, as yet, single- 
 handed. You know there will be no hope for us. 
 There is no use appealing to government or parlia- 
 ment. I don't want to talk politics here. I shall 
 keep them for another place. But you can recol- 
 lect as well as I can, when a deputation of us went 
 up to a member of parliament one that was 
 reputed a philosopher, and a political economist, 
 and a liberal and set before him the ever-increas- 
 ing penury and misery of our trade, and of those 
 connected with it ; you recollect his answer that, 
 however glad he would be to help us, it was im- 
 possible he could not alter the laws of nature 
 that wages were regulated by the amount of com- 
 petition among the men themselves, and that it 
 was no business of government, or any one else, 
 to interfere in contracts between the employer and 
 employed, that those things regulated themselves 
 by the laws of political economy, which it was 
 madness and suicide to oppose. He may have 
 been a wise man. I only know that he was a rich 
 one. Every one speaks well of the bridge which
 
 274 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 carries him over. Every one fancies the laws 
 which fill his pockets to be God's laws. But I say 
 this, If neither government nor members of par- 
 liament can help us, we must help ourselves. 
 Help yourselves, and heaven will help you. Com- 
 bination among ourselves is the only chance. 
 One thing we can do sit still." 
 
 " And starve ! " said some one. 
 
 " Yes, and starve ! Better starve than sin. I 
 say, it is a sin to give in to this system. It is a sin to 
 add our weight to the crowd of artisans who are now 
 choking and strangling each other to death, as the 
 prisoners did in the black hole of Calcutta. Let 
 those who will turn beasts of prey, and feed upon 
 their fellows; but let us at least keep ourselves 
 pure. It may be the law of political civilization, 
 the law of nature, that the rich should eat up the 
 poor, and the poor eat up each other. Then I 
 here rise up and curse that law, that civilization, 
 that nature. Either I will destroy them, or they 
 shall destroy me. As a slave, as an increased 
 burden on my fellow-sufferers, I will not live. So 
 help me God ! I will take no work home to my 
 house ; and I call upon every one here to combine, 
 and to sign a protest tp that effect" 
 
 " What 's the use of that, my good Mr. Cross- 
 thwaite ? " interrupted some one, querulously. 
 " Don't you know what came of the strike a few 
 years ago, when this piecework and sweating 
 first came in? The masters made fine promises, 
 and never kept 'em ; and the men who stood out 
 had their places filled up with poor devils who 
 were glad enough to take the work at any price 
 just as ours will be. There's no use kicking 
 against the pricks. All the rest have come to
 
 How Folks Turn Chartists 275 
 
 it, and so must we. We must live somehow, and 
 half a loaf is better than no bread; and even 
 that half loaf will go into other men's mouths, 
 if we don't snap at it at once. Besides, we can't 
 force others to strike. We may strike and starve 
 ourselves, but what 's the use of a dozen striking 
 out of 20,000? " 
 
 " Will you sign the protest, gentlemen, or not?" 
 asked Crossthwaite, in a determined voice. 
 
 Some half-dozen said they would if the others 
 would. 
 
 " And the others won't Well, after all, one man 
 must take the responsibility, and I am that man. 
 I will sign the protest by myself. I will sweep a 
 crossing I will turn cress-gatherer, rag-picker; 
 I will starve piecemeal, and see my wife starve 
 with me ; but do the wrong thing I will not ! The 
 Cause wants martyrs. If I must be one, I must." 
 
 All this while my mind had been undergoing a 
 strange perturbation. The notion of escaping that 
 infernal workroom, and the company I met there 
 of taking my work home, and thereby, as I 
 hoped, gaining more time for study, at least 
 having my books on the spot ready at every odd 
 moment was most enticing. I had hailed the 
 proposed change as a blessing to me, till I heard 
 Crossthwaite's arguments not that I had not 
 known the facts before; but it had never struck 
 me till then that it was a real sin against my class 
 to make myself a party in the system by which 
 they were allowing themselves (under temptation 
 enough, God knows) to be enslaved. But now I 
 looked with horror on the gulf of penury before 
 me, into the vortex of which not only I, but my 
 whole trade, seemed irresistibly sucked. I thought,
 
 276 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 with shame and remorse, of the few shillings which 
 I had earned at various times by taking piecework 
 home, to buy my candles for study. I whispered 
 my doubts to Crossthwaite, as he sat, pale and 
 determined, watching the excited and querulous 
 discussions among the other workmen. 
 
 "What? So you expect to have time to read? 
 Study after sixteen hours a day stitching? Study, 
 when you cannot earn money enough to keep you 
 from wasting and shrinking away day by day? 
 Study, with your heart full of shame and indigna- 
 tion, fresh from daily insult and injustice? Study, 
 with the black cloud of despair and penury in front 
 of you? Little time, or heart, or strength, will 
 you have to study, when you are making the same 
 coats you make now, at half the price." 
 
 I put my name down beneath Crossthwaite's, on 
 the paper which he handed me, and went out with 
 him. 
 
 " Ay," he muttered to himself, " be slaves 
 what you are worthy to be, that you will be ! 
 You dare not combine you dare not starve 
 you dare not die and therefore you dare not be 
 free ! Oh ! for six hundred men like Barbaroux's 
 Marseillois ' who knew how to die ' ! " 
 
 " Surely, Crossthwaite, if matters were properly 
 represented to the government, they would not, 
 for their own existence's sake, to put conscience 
 out of the question, allow such a system to con- 
 tinue growing." 
 
 " Government government? You a tailor, and 
 not know that government are the very authors of 
 this system ! Not to know that they first set the 
 example, by getting the army and navy clothes 
 made by contractors, and taking the lowest tenders?
 
 How Folks Turn Chartists 277 
 
 Not to know that the police clothes, the postmen's 
 clothes, the convicts' clothes, are all contracted 
 for on the same infernal plan, by sweaters, and 
 sweaters' sweaters, and sweaters' sweaters' sweaters, 
 till government work is just the very last, lowest 
 resource to which a poor starved-out wretch be- 
 takes himself to keep body and soul together? 
 Why, the government prices, in almost every 
 department, are half, and less than half, the very 
 lowest living price. I tell you, the careless in- 
 iquity of government about these things will come 
 out some day. It will be known, the whole 
 abomination, and future generations will class it 
 with the tyrannies of the Roman emperors and 
 the Norman barons. Why, it's a fact, that the 
 colonels of the regiments noblemen, most of 
 them make their own vile profit out of us tail- 
 ors out of the pauperism of the men, the slavery 
 of the children, the prostitution of the women. 
 They get so much a uniform allowed them by 
 government to clothe the men with ; and then 
 then, they let out the jobs to the contractors at 
 less than half what government give them, and 
 pocket the difference. And then you talk of ap- 
 pealing to government." 
 
 " Upon my word," I said bitterly, " we tailors 
 seem to owe the army a double grudge. They 
 not only keep under other artisans, but they help 
 to starve us first, and then shoot us, if we com- 
 plain too loudly." 
 
 " Oh, ho ! your blood 's getting up, is it? Then 
 you 're in the humor to be told what you have 
 been hankering to know so long where Mackaye 
 and I go at night. We '11 strike while the iron 's 
 hot, and go down to the Chartist meeting at "
 
 278 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 " Pardon me, my dear fellow," I said. " I can- 
 not bear the thought of being mixed up in con- 
 spiracy perhaps, in revolt and bloodshed. Not 
 that I am afraid. Heaven knows I am not. But 
 I am too much harassed, miserable, already. I 
 see too much wretchedness around me, to lend my 
 aid in increasing the sum of suffering, by a single 
 atom, among rich and poor, even by righteous 
 vengeance." 
 
 "Conspiracy? Bloodshed? What has that to 
 do with the Charter? It suits the venal mam- 
 monite press well enough to jumble them together, 
 and cry ' Murder, rape, and robbery,' whenever 
 the six points are mentioned ; but they know, and 
 any man of common sense ought to know, that the 
 Charter is just as much an open political question 
 as the Reform Bill, and ten times as much as 
 Magna Charta was, when it got passed. What 
 have the six points, right or wrong, to do with the 
 question whether they can be obtained by moral 
 force, and the pressure of opinion alone, or require 
 what we call ulterior measures to get them carried? 
 Come along ! " 
 
 So with him I went that night. 
 
 "Well, Alton! where was the treason and mur- 
 der? Your nose must have been a sharp one, to 
 smell out any there. Did you hear anything that 
 astonished your weak mind so very exceedingly, 
 after all?" 
 
 "The only thing that did astonish me was to 
 hear men of my own class and lower still, per- 
 haps some of them speak with such fluency and 
 eloquence. Such a fund of information such 
 excellent English where did they get it all ? "
 
 How Folks Turn Chartists 279 
 
 "From the God who knows nothing about 
 ranks. They're the unknown great the unac- 
 credited heroes, as Master Thomas Carlyle would 
 say whom the flunkeys aloft have not acknowl- 
 edged yet though they'll be forced to, some 
 day, with a vengeance. Are you convinced, once 
 for all?" 
 
 " I really do not understand political questions, 
 Crossthwaite." 
 
 " Does it want so very much wisdom to under- 
 stand the rights and the wrongs of all that? Are 
 the people represented? Are you represented? 
 Do you feel like a man that 's got any one to fight 
 your battle in parliament, my young friend, eh?" 
 
 "I'm sure I don't know " 
 
 "Why, what in the name of common sense 
 what interest or feeling of yours or mine, or any 
 man's you ever spoke to, except the shopkeeper, 
 do Aldermen A or Lord C D repre- 
 sent? They represent property and we have 
 none. They represent rank we have none. 
 Vested interests we have none. Large capitals 
 those are just what crush us. Irresponsibility 
 of employers, slavery of the employed, competi- 
 tion among masters, competition among workmen, 
 that is the system they represent they preach it, 
 they glory in it. Why, it is the very ogre that is 
 eating us all up. They are chosen by the few, 
 they represent the few, and they make laws for the 
 many and yet you don't know whether or not 
 the people are represented ! " 
 
 We were passing by the door of the Victoria 
 Theatre; it was just half-price time and the 
 beggary and rascality of London were pouring in 
 Do their low amusement, from the neighboring gin
 
 280 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 palaces and thieves' cellars. A herd of ragged 
 boys, vomiting forth slang, filth, and blasphemy, 
 pushed past us, compelling us to take good care of 
 our pockets. 
 
 " Look there ! look at the amusements, the train- 
 ing, the civilization, which the government permits 
 to the children of the people ! These licensed 
 pits of darkness, traps of temptation, profligacy, 
 and ruin, triumphantly yawning night after night 
 and then tell me that the people who see their 
 children thus kidnapped into hell are represented 
 by a government who licenses such things ! " 
 
 " Would a change in the franchise care that? " 
 
 "Household suffrage mightn't but give us 
 the Charter, and we '11 see about it ! Give us the 
 Charter, and we '11 send workmen into parliament 
 that shall soon find out whether something better 
 can't be put in the way of the ten thousand boys 
 and girls in London who live by theft and prosti- 
 tution, than the tender mercies of the Victoria 
 a pretty name ! They say the Queen 's a good 
 woman and I don't doubt it. I wonder often if 
 she knows what her precious namesake here is 
 like." 
 
 " But really, I cannot see how a mere change in 
 representation can cure such things as that." 
 
 "Why, didn't they tell us, before the Reform 
 Bill, that extension of the suffrage was to cure 
 everything? And how can you have too much of 
 a good thing? We've only taken them at their 
 word, we Chartists. Have n't all politicians been 
 preaching for years that England's national great- 
 ness was all owing to her political institutions 
 to Magna Charta, and the Bill of Rights, and rep- 
 resentative parliaments, and all that? It was but
 
 How Folks Turn Chartists 281 
 
 the other day I got hold of some Tory paper, that 
 talked about the English constitution, and the 
 balance of queen, lords, and commons, as the ' Tal- 
 ismanic palladium ' of the country. 'Gad, we '11 
 see if a move onward in the same line won't better 
 the matter. If the balance of classes is such a 
 blessed thing, the sooner we get the balance equal, 
 the better; for it's rather lopsided just now, no 
 one can deny. So, representative institutions are 
 the talismanic palladium of the nation, are they? 
 The palladium of the classes that have them, I 
 dare say ; and that 's the very best reason why the 
 classes that have n't got 'em should look out for 
 the same palladium for themselves. What's sauce 
 for the gander is sauce for the goose, is n't it? 
 We'll try we'll see whether the talisman they 
 talk of has lost its power all of a sudden since '32 
 
 whether we can't rub the magic ring a little for 
 ourselves and call up genii to help us out of the 
 mire, as the shopkeepers and the gentlemen have 
 done." 
 
 From that night I was a Chartist, heart and soul 
 
 and so were a million and a half more of the 
 best artisans in England at least, I had no rea- 
 son to be ashaned of my company. Yes ; I too, 
 like Crossthwaite, took the upper classes at their 
 word ; bowed down to the idol of political institu- 
 tions, and pinned my hopes of salvation on " the 
 possession of one ten-thousandth part of a talker 
 in the national palaver." True, I desired the 
 Charter, at first (as I do, indeed, at this moment), 
 as a means to glorious ends not only because it 
 would give a chance of elevation, a free sphere of 
 action, to lowly worth and talent ; but because it 
 
 Vol. Ill 13
 
 282 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 was the path to reforms social, legal, sanatory, 
 educational to which the veriest Tory cer- 
 tainly not the great and good Lord Ashley 
 would not object. But soon, with me, and I am 
 afraid with many, many more, the means became, 
 by the frailty of poor human nature, an end, an 
 idol in itself. I had so made up my mind that it 
 was the only method of getting what I wanted, 
 that I neglected, alas ! but too often, to try the 
 methods which lay already by me. " If we had 
 but the Charter " was the excuse for a thousand 
 lazinesses, procrastinations. " If we had but the 
 Charter " I should be good, and free, and happy. 
 Fool that I was ! It was within, rather than with- 
 out, that I needed reform. 
 
 And so I began to look on man (and too many 
 of us, I am afraid, are doing so) as the creature 
 and puppet of circumstances of the particular 
 outward system, social or political, in which he 
 happens to find himself. An abominable heresy, 
 no doubt; but, somehow, it appears to me just 
 the same as Benthamites, and economists, and 
 high-churchmen, too, for that matter, have been 
 preaching for the last twenty years with great 
 applause from their respective parties. One set 
 informs the world that it is to be regenerated by 
 cheap bread, free trade, and that peculiar form of 
 the " freedom of industry " which, in plain lan- 
 guage, signifies "the despotism of capital"; and 
 which, whatever it means, is merely some outward 
 system, circumstance, or " dodge " about man, and 
 not in him. Another party's nostrum is more 
 churches, more schools, more clergymen excel- 
 lent things in their way better even than cheap 
 bread, or free trade, provided only that they are
 
 How Folks Turn Chartists 283 
 
 excellent that the churches, schools, clergymen, 
 are good ones. But the party of whom I am 
 speaking seem to us workmen to consider the 
 quality quite a secondary consideration, compared 
 with the quantity. They expect the world to be 
 regenerated, not by becoming more a Church 
 none would gladlier help them in bringing that 
 about than the Chartists themselves, paradoxical 
 as it may seem but by being dosed somewhat 
 more with a certain " Church system," circum- 
 stance, or " dodge." For my part, I seem to have 
 learnt that the only thing to regenerate the world 
 is not more of any system, good or bad, but simply 
 more of the Spirit of God. 
 
 About the supposed omnipotence of the Charter, 
 I have found out my mistake. I believe no more 
 in " Morison's-Pill-remedies," as Thomas Carlyle 
 calls them. Talismans are worthless. The age of 
 spirit-compelling spells, whether of parchment or 
 carbuncle, is past if, indeed, it ever existed. 
 The Charter will no more make men good, than 
 political economy, or the observance of the Church 
 Calendar a fact which we workingmen, I really 
 believe, have, under the pressure of wholesome 
 defeat and God-sent affliction, found out sooner 
 than our more " enlightened " fellow-idolaters. 
 But at that time, as I have confessed already, we 
 took our betters at their word, and believed in 
 Morison's Pills. Only, as we looked at the world 
 from among a class of facts somewhat different 
 from theirs, we differed from them proportionably 
 as to our notions of the proper ingredients in the 
 said Pill. 
 
 ... 
 
 But what became of our protest?
 
 284 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 It was received and disregarded. As for 
 turning us off, we had, de facto, like Coriolanus, 
 banished the Romans, turned our master off. All 
 the other hands, some forty in number, submitted 
 and took the yoke upon them, and went down into 
 the house of bondage, knowing whither they went. 
 Every man of them is now a beggar, compared 
 with what he was then. Many are dead in the 
 prime of life of consumption, bad food and lodg- 
 ing, and the peculiar diseases of our trade. Some 
 have not been heard of lately we fancy them 
 imprisoned in some sweaters' dens but thereby 
 hangs a tale, whereof more hereafter. 
 
 But it was singular, that every one of the six 
 who had merely professed their conditional readi- 
 ness to sign the protest, were contumeliously dis- 
 charged the next day, without any reason being 
 assigned. It was evident that there had been a 
 traitor at the meeting; and every one suspected 
 Jemmy Downes, especially as he fell into the new 
 system with suspiciously strange alacrity. But it 
 was as impossible to prove the offence against him 
 as to punish him for it. Of that wretched man, 
 too, and his subsequent career, I shall have some- 
 what to say hereafter. Verily, there is a God who 
 judgeth the earth ! 
 
 But now behold me and my now intimate and 
 beloved friend, Crossthwaite, with nothing to do 
 
 a gentleman-like occupation; but unfortunately, 
 in our class, involving starvation. What was to 
 be done? We applied for work at several " hon- 
 orable shops"; but at all we received the same 
 answer. Their trade was decreasing the public 
 ran daily more and more to the cheap show-shops 
 
 and they themselves were forced, in order to
 
 How Folks Turn Chartists 285 
 
 compete with these latter, to put more and more 
 of their work out at contract prices. Facilis descen- 
 sus Averni! Having once been hustled out of 
 the serried crowd of competing workmen, it was 
 impossible to force our way in again. So, a week 
 or ten days past, our little stocks of money were 
 exhausted. I was down-hearted at once; but 
 Crossthwaite bore up gaily enough. 
 
 " Katie and I can pick a crust together without 
 snarling over it. And, thank God, I have no chil- 
 dren, and never intend to have, if I can keep true 
 to myself, till the good times come." 
 
 " Oh ! Crossthwaite, are not children a bless- 
 ing?" 
 
 " Would they be a blessing to me now? No, my 
 lad. Let those bring slaves into the world who 
 will ! I will never beget children to swell the num- 
 bers of those who are trampling each other down 
 in the struggle for daily bread, to minister in ever- 
 deepening poverty and misery to the rich man's 
 luxury perhaps his lust." 
 
 " Then you believe in the Malthusian doctrines? " 
 
 " I believe them to be an infernal lie, Alton 
 Locke; though good and wise people like Miss 
 Martineau may sometimes be deluded into preach- 
 ing them. I believe there 's room on English soil 
 for twice the number there is now ; and when we 
 get the Charter we'll prove it; we'll show that God 
 meant living human heads and hands to be bless- 
 ings and not curses, tools and not burdens. But in 
 such times as these, let those who have wives be as 
 though they had none as St. Paul said, when he 
 told his people under the Roman Emperor to be 
 above begetting slaves and martyrs. A man of the 
 people should keep himself as free from encum-
 
 286 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 brances as he can just now. He will find it all the 
 more easy to dare and suffer for the people, when 
 their turn comes " 
 
 And he set his teeth firmly, almost savagely. 
 
 " I think I can earn a few shillings, now and then, 
 by writing for a paper I know of. If that won't do, 
 I must take up agitating for a trade, and live by 
 spouting, as many a Tory member as well as 
 Radical ones do. A man may do worse, for he 
 may do nothing. At all events, my only chance 
 now is to help on the Charter; for the sooner it 
 comes the better for me. And if I die why, the 
 little woman won't be long in coming after me, I 
 know that well ; and there 's a tough business got 
 well over for both of us ! " 
 
 " Hech," said Sandy, 
 
 " To every man 
 Death comes but once a life 
 
 as my countryman, Mr. Macaulay, says, in thae 
 gran' Roman ballants o' his. But for ye, Alton, 
 laddie, ye 're owre young to start off in the people's 
 church meelitant, sae just bide wi' me, and the 
 barrel o' meal in the corner there winna waste, nae 
 mair than it did wi' the widow o' Zarephath ; a tale 
 which coincides sae weel wi' the everlasting right- 
 eousness, that I'm at times no inclined to consider 
 it a'thegither mythical." 
 
 But I, with thankfulness which vented itself 
 through my eyes, finding my lips alone too narrow 
 for it, refused to eat the bread of idleness. 
 
 " Aweel, then, ye '11 just mind the shop, and dust 
 the books whiles ; I 'm getting auld and stiff, and 
 ha' need o' help i' the business." 
 
 "No," I said; "you say so out of kindness;
 
 How Folks Turn Chartists 287 
 
 but if you can afford no greater comforts than 
 these, you cannot afford to keep me in addition 
 to yourself." 
 
 " Hech, then ! How do ye ken that the auld 
 Scot eats a' he makes? I was na born the spend- 
 ing side o' Tweed, my man. But gin ye daur, why 
 dinna ye pack up your duds, and yer poems wi' 
 them, and gang till your cousin i' the university? 
 he'll surely put you in the way o' publishing them. 
 He 's bound to it by blude ; and there 's na shame 
 in asking him to help you towards reaping the 
 fruits o' yer ain labors. A few punds on a bond 
 for repayment when the addition was sauld, noo, 
 I 'd do that for mysel' ; but I 'm thinking ye 'd 
 better try to get a list o' subscribers. Dinna 
 mind your independence ; it 's but spoiling the 
 Egyptians, ye ken, and the bit ballants will be 
 their money's worth, I '11 warrant, and tell them a 
 wheen facts they're no that weel acquentit wi'. 
 Hech? Johnnie, my Chartist?" 
 
 "Why not go to my uncle?" 
 
 " Puir sugar-and- spice-selling bailie body ! is 
 there aught in his ledger about poetry, and the 
 incommensurable value o' the products o' genius? 
 Gang till the young scholar ; he 's a canny one, 
 too, and he '11 ken it to be worth his while to fash 
 himsel' a wee anent it." 
 
 So I packed up my little bundle, and lay awake 
 all that night in a fever of expectation about the 
 as yet unknown world of green fields and woods 
 through which my road to Cambridge lay.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 "THE YARD WHERE THE GENTLEMEN LIVE" 
 
 I MAY be forgiven, surely, if I run somewhat 
 into detail about this my first visit to the 
 country. 
 
 I had, as I have said before, literally never been 
 farther afield than Fulham or Battersea Rise. One 
 Sunday evening, indeed, I had got as far as Wands- 
 worth Common ; but it was March, and, to my ex- 
 treme disappointment, the heath was not in flower. 
 
 But, usually, my Sundays had been spent entirely 
 in study ; which to me was rest, so worn out were 
 both my body and my mind with the incessant 
 drudgery of my trade, and the slender fare to 
 which I restricted myself. Since I had lodged with 
 Mackaye certainly my food had been better. I 
 had not required to stint my appetite for money 
 wherewith to buy candles, ink, and pens. My 
 wages, too, had increased with my years, and alto- 
 gether I found myself gaining in strength, though I 
 had no notion how much I possessed till I set forth 
 on this walk to Cambridge. 
 
 It was a glorious morning at the end of May ; 
 and when I escaped from the pall of smoke which 
 hung over the city, I found the sky a sheet of 
 cloudless blue. How I watched for the ending of 
 the rows of houses, which lined the road for miles 
 the great roots of London, running far out into
 
 "Where the Gentlemen Live" 289 
 
 the country, up which poured past me an end- 
 less stream of food and merchandise and human 
 beings the sap of the huge metropolitan life- 
 tree ! How each turn of the road opened a fresh 
 line of terraces or villas, till hope deferred made 
 the heart sick, and the country seemed like the 
 place where the rainbow touches the ground, or 
 the El Dorado of Raleigh's Guiana settler always 
 a little farther off! How between gaps in the 
 houses, right and left, I caught tantalizing glimpses 
 of green fields, shut from me by dull lines of high- 
 spiked palings! How I peeped through gates 
 and over fences at trim lawns and gardens, and 
 longed to stay, and admire, and speculate on the 
 name of the strange plants and gaudy flowers; 
 and then hurried on, always expecting to find 
 something still finer ahead something really 
 worth stopping to look at till the houses thick- 
 ened again into a street, and I found myself, to my 
 disappointment, in the midst of a town ! And then 
 more villas and palings ; and then a village ; 
 when would they stop, those endless houses? 
 
 At last they did stop. Gradually the people 
 whom I passed began to look more and more 
 rural, and more toil-worn and ill-fed. The houses 
 ended, cattle-yards and farm-buildings appeared; 
 and right and left, far away, spread the low rolling 
 sheet of green meadows and cornfields. Oh, the 
 joy ! The lawns with their high elms and firs, the 
 green hedgerows, the delicate hue and scent of 
 the fresh clover-fields, the steep clay banks where 
 I stopped to pick nosegays of wild-flowers, and 
 became again a child, and then recollected my 
 mother, and a walk with her on the river bank 
 towards the Red House and hurried on again,
 
 290 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 but could not be unhappy, while my eyes ranged 
 free, for the first time in my life, over the chequered 
 squares of cultivation, over glittering brooks, and 
 hills quivering in the green haze, while above 
 hung the skylarks, pouring out their souls in 
 melody. And then, as the sun grew hot, and the 
 larks dropped one by one into the growing corn, 
 the new delight of the blessed silence ! I listened 
 to the stillness ; for noise had been my native ele- 
 ment; I had become in London quite unconscious 
 of the ceaseless roar of the human sea, casting up 
 mire and dirt. And now, for the first time in my 
 life, the crushing, confusing hubbub had flowed 
 away, and left my brain calm and free. How I 
 felt at that moment a capability of clear, bright 
 meditation, which was as new to me, as I believe 
 it would have been to most Londoners in my posi- 
 tion. I cannot help fancying that our unnatural 
 atmosphere of excitement, physical as well as 
 moral, is to blame for very much of the working- 
 man's restlessness and fierceness. As it was, I felt 
 that every step forward, every breath of fresh air, 
 gave me new life. I had gone fifteen miles before 
 I recollected that, for the first time for many 
 months, I had not coughed since I rose. 
 
 So on I went, down the broad, bright road, 
 which seemed to beckon me forward into the un- 
 known expanses of human life. 
 
 The world was all before me, where to choose, 
 
 and I saw it both with my eyes and my imagina- 
 tion, in the temper of a boy broke loose from 
 school. My heart kept holiday. I loved and 
 blessed the birds which flitted past me, and the 
 cows which lay dreaming on the sward. I recol-
 
 "Where the Gentlemen Live" 291 
 
 lect stopping with delight at a picturesque descent 
 into the road, to watch a nursery-garden, full of 
 roses of every shade, from brilliant yellow to dark- 
 est purple ; and as I wondered at the innumerable 
 variety of beauties which man's art had developed 
 from a few poor and wild species, it seemed to me 
 the most delightful life on earth, to follow in such 
 a place the primeval trade of gardener Adam; to 
 study the secrets of the flower-world, the laws of 
 soil and climate ; to create new species, and gloat 
 over the living fruit of one's own science and per- 
 severance. And then I recollected the tailor's 
 shop, and the Charter, and the starvation, and the 
 oppression which I had left behind, and ashamed 
 of my own selfishness, went hurrying on again. 
 
 At last I came to a wood the first real wood 
 that I had ever seen ; not a mere party of stately 
 park trees growing out of smooth turf, but a real 
 wild copse ; tangled branches and gray stems fallen 
 across each other; deep, ragged underwood of 
 shrubs, and great ferns like princes' feathers, and 
 gay beds of flowers, blue and pink and yellow, 
 with butterflies flitting about them, and trailers 
 that climbed and dangled from bough to bough 
 a poor commonplace bit of copse, I daresay, in the 
 world's eyes, but to me a fairy wilderness of beau- 
 tiful forms, mysterious gleams and shadows, teem- 
 ing with manifold life. As I stood looking wistfully 
 over the gate, alternately at the inviting vista of 
 the green-embroidered path, and then at the grim 
 notice over my head, " All trespassers prose- 
 cuted," a young man came up the ride, dressed in 
 velveteen jacket and leather gaiters, sufficiently 
 bedrabbled with mud. A fishing-rod and basket 
 bespoke him some sort of destroyer, and I saw in
 
 292 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 a moment that he was " a gentleman." After all, 
 there is such a thing as looking like a gentleman. 
 There are men whose class no dirt or rags could 
 hide, any more than they could Ulysses. I have 
 seen such men in plenty among workmen, too; 
 but, on the whole, the gentlemen by whom I do 
 not mean just now the rich have the superiority 
 in that point. But not, please God, forever. Give 
 us the same air, water, exercise, education, good 
 society, and you will see whether this " haggard- 
 ness," this " coarseness," etc. etc., for the list is too 
 long to specify, be an accident, or a property, of 
 the man of the people. 
 
 " May I go into your wood ? " asked I at a ven- 
 ture, curiosity conquering pride. 
 
 " Well ! what do you want there, my good 
 fellow?" 
 
 " To see what a wood is like I never was in 
 one in my life." 
 
 "Humph! well you may go in for that, and . 
 welcome. Never was in a wood in his life - poor 
 devil ! " 
 
 " Thank you ! " quoth I. And I slowly clam- 
 bered over the gate. He put his hand carelessly 
 on the top rail, vaulted over it like a deer, and then 
 turned to stare at me. 
 
 " Hullo ! I say I forgot don't go far in, 
 or ramble up and down, or you '11 disturb the 
 pheasants." 
 
 I thanked him again for what license he had 
 given me went in, and lay down by the path- 
 side. 
 
 Here, I suppose, by the rules of modern art, a 
 picturesque description of the said wood should 
 follow ; but I am the most incompetent person in
 
 "Where the Gentlemen Live" 293 
 
 the world to write it. And, indeed, the whole 
 scene was so novel to me, that I had no time to 
 analyze ; I could only enjoy. I recollect lying on 
 my face and fingering over the delicately cut 
 leaves of the weeds, and wondering whether the 
 people who lived in the country thought them as 
 wonderful and beautiful as I did ; and then I 
 recollected the thousands whom I had left behind, 
 who, like me, had never seen the green face of 
 God's earth ; and the answer of the poor gamin in 
 St. Giles's, who, when he was asked what the 
 country was, answered, " The yard where the gen- 
 tlemen live when they go out of town " significant 
 that, and pathetic ; then I wondered whether 
 the time would ever come when society would be 
 far enough advanced to open to even such as he a 
 glimpse, if it were only once a year, of the fresh, 
 clean face of God's earth ; and then I became 
 aware of a soft mysterious hum, above and around 
 me, and turned on my back to look whence it pro- 
 ceeded, and saw the leaves gold green and trans- 
 parent in the sunlight, quivering against the deep 
 heights of the empyrean blue ; and hanging in the 
 sunbeams that pierced the foliage, a thousand in- 
 sects, like specks of fire, that poised themselves 
 motionless on thrilling wings, and darted away, 
 and returned to hang motionless again ; and I 
 wondered what they ate, and whether they thought 
 about anything, and whether they enjoyed the sun- 
 light; and then that brought back to me the 
 times when I used to lie dreaming in my crib on 
 summer mornings, and watched the flies dancing 
 reels between me and the ceiling ; and that 
 again brought the thought of Susan and my 
 mother ; and I prayed for them not sadly I
 
 294 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 could not be sad there ; and prayed that we 
 might all meet again some day and live happily 
 together; perhaps in the country, where I could 
 write poems in peace; and then, by degrees, my 
 sentences and thoughts grew incoherent, and in 
 happy, stupid animal comfort, I faded away into a 
 heavy sleep, which lasted an hour or more, till I 
 was awakened by the efforts of certain enterprising 
 great black and red ants, who were trying to found 
 a small Algeria in my left ear. 
 
 I rose and left the wood, and a gate or two on, 
 stopped again to look at the same sportsman fish- 
 ing in a clear silver brook. I could not help 
 admiring with a sort of childish wonder the grace- 
 ful and practised aim with which he directed his 
 tiny bait, and called up mysterious dimples on the 
 surface, which in a moment increased to splashings 
 and strugglings of a great fish, compelled, as if by 
 some invisible spell, to follow the point of the 
 bending rod till he lay panting on the bank. I 
 confess, in spite of all my class prejudices against 
 "game-preserving aristocrats," I almost envied the 
 man ; at least I seemed to understand a little of the 
 universally attractive charms which those same 
 outwardly contemptible field sports possess; the 
 fresh air, fresh fields and copses, fresh running 
 brooks, the exercise, the simple freedom, the ex- 
 citement just sufficient to keep alive expectation 
 and banish thought. After all, his trout produced 
 much the same mood in him as my turnpike-road 
 did in me. And perhaps the man did not go fish- 
 ing or shooting every day. The laws prevented 
 him from shooting, at least, all the year round; so 
 sometimes there might be something in which he 
 made himself of use. An honest, jolly face too he
 
 "Where the Gentlemen Live" 295 
 
 had not without thought and strength in it. 
 "Well, it is a strange world," said I to myself, 
 "where those who can, need not; and those who 
 cannot, must ! " 
 
 Then he came close to the gate, and I left it just 
 in time to see a little group arrive at it a woman 
 of his own rank, young, pretty, and simply dressed, 
 with a little boy, decked out as a Highlander, on 
 a shaggy Shetland pony, which his mother, as I 
 guessed her to be, was leading. And then they all 
 met, and the little fellow held up a basket of pro- 
 visions to his father, who kissed him across the 
 gate, and hung his creel of fish behind the saddle, 
 and patted the mother's shoulder, as she looked up 
 lovingly and laughingly in his face. Altogether, 
 
 a joyous, genial bit of nature? Yes, nature. 
 
 Shall I grudge simple happiness to the few, be- 
 cause it is as yet, alas ! impossible for the many. 
 
 And yet the whole scene contrasted so painfully 
 with me with my past, my future, my dreams, 
 my wrongs, that I could not look at it; and with 
 a swelling heart I moved on all the faster be- 
 cause I saw they were looking at me and talking 
 of me, and the fair wife threw after me a wistful, 
 pitying glance, which I was afraid might develop 
 itself into some offer of food or money a thing 
 which I scorned and dreaded, because it involved 
 the trouble of a refusal. 
 
 Then, as I walked on once more, my heart 
 smote me. If they had wished to be kind, why 
 had I grudged them the opportunity of a good 
 deed? At all events, I might have asked their 
 advice. In a natural and harmonious state, when 
 society really means brotherhood, a man could 
 go up to any stranger, to give and receive, U not
 
 296 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet. 
 
 succor, yet still experience and wisdom : and was 
 I not bound to tell them what I knew, was sure 
 that they did not know? Was I not bound to 
 preach the cause of my class wherever I went? 
 Here were kindly people who, for aught I knew, 
 would do right the moment they were told where 
 it was wanted ; if there was an accursed artificial 
 gulf between their class and mine, had I any right 
 to complain of it, as long as I helped to keep it up 
 by my false pride and surly reserve? No! I 
 would speak my mind henceforth I would testify 
 of what I saw and knew of the wrongs, if not of 
 the rights of the artisan, before whomsoever I 
 might come. Oh ! valiant conclusion of half an 
 hour's self-tormenting scruples ! How I kept it, 
 remains to be shown. 
 
 I really fear that I am getting somewhat trivial 
 and prolix; but there was hardly an incident in 
 my two days' tramp which did not give me some 
 small fresh insight into the terra incognita of the 
 country; and there may be those among my 
 readers, to whom it is not uninteresting to look, 
 for once, at even the smallest objects with a cock- 
 ney workman's eyes. 
 
 Well, I trudged on and the shadows length- 
 ened, and I grew footsore and tired; but every 
 step was new, and won me forward with fresh 
 excitement for my curiosity. 
 
 At one village I met a crowd of little, noisy, 
 happy boys and girls pouring out of a smart new 
 Gothic schoolhouse. I could not resist the temp- 
 tation of snatching a glance through the open 
 door. I saw on the walls maps, music, charts, and 
 pictures. How I envied those little urchins! A 
 solemn, sturdy elder, in a white cravat, evidently
 
 " Where the Gentlemen Live " 297 
 
 the parson of the parish, was patting children's 
 heads, taking down names, and laying down the 
 law to a shrewd, prim young schoolmaster. 
 
 Presently, as I went up the village, the clergy- 
 man strode past me, brandishing a thick stick and 
 humming a chant, and joined a motherly-looking 
 wife, who, basket on arm, was popping in and out 
 of the cottages, looking alternately serious and 
 funny, cross and kindly I suppose, according to 
 the sayings and doings of the folks within. 
 
 " Come," I thought, " this looks like work at 
 least." And as I went out of the village, I accosted 
 a laborer, who was trudging my way, fork on 
 shoulder, and asked him if that was the parson 
 and his wife? 
 
 I was surprised at the difficulty with which I got 
 into conversation with the man; at his stupidity, 
 feigned or real, I could not tell which; at the 
 dogged, suspicious reserve with which he eyed 
 me, and asked me whether I was " one of they 
 parts?" and whether I was a Londoner, and what 
 I wanted on the tramp, and so on, before he 
 seemed to think it safe to answer a single ques- 
 tion. He seemed, like almost every laborer I ever 
 met, to have something on his mind ; to live in a 
 state of perpetual fear and concealment. When, 
 however, he found I was both a cockney and a 
 passer-by, he began to grow more communicative, 
 and told me, " Ees that were the parson, sure 
 enough." 
 
 " And what sort of a man was he? " 
 
 " Oh ! he was a main kind man to the poor ; 
 leastwise, in the matter of visiting 'em, and praying 
 with 'em, and getting 'em to put into clubs, and 
 such like ; and his lady too. Not that there was
 
 298 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 any fault to find with the man about money 
 but 't was n't to be expected of him." 
 
 " Why, was he not rich? " 
 
 " Oh, rich enough to the likes of us. But 
 his own tithes here aren't more than a thirty 
 pounds we hears tell ; and if he had n't summat 
 of his own, he could n't do not nothing by the 
 poor ; as it be, he pays for that ere school all to 
 his own pocket, next part. All the rest o' the 
 tithes goes to some great lord or other they say 
 he draws a matter of a thousand a year out of the 
 parish, and not a foot ever he sot into it ; and that 's 
 the way with a main lot o' parishes, up and down." 
 
 This was quite a new fact to me. " And what 
 sort of folks were the parsons all round? " 
 
 " Oh, some of all sorts, good and bad. About 
 six and half a dozen. There 's two or three nice 
 young gentlemen come'd round here now, but 
 they're all what's-'em-arcall it? some sort o' 
 papishes ; leastwise, they has prayers in the 
 church every day, and does n't preach the Gospel, 
 nohow, I hears by my wife, and she knows all 
 about it, along of going to meeting. Then there 's 
 one over there-away, as had to leave his living 
 he knows why. He got safe over seas. If he had 
 been a poor man, he 'd been in ... gaol, safe 
 enough, and soon enough. Then there 's two or 
 three as goes a-hunting not as I sees no harm in 
 that ; if a man 's got plenty of money, he ought to 
 enjoy himself, in course : but still he can't be 
 here and there too, to once. Then there 's two or 
 three as is bad in their healths, or thinks them- 
 selves so or else has livings summer' else ; and 
 they lives summer' or others, and has curates. 
 Main busy chaps is they curates, always, and
 
 " Where the Gentlemen Live " 299 
 
 wonderful hands to preach ; but then, just as they 
 gets a little knowing like at it, and folks gets to 
 like ' em, and run to hear 'em, off they pops to 
 summat better ; and in course they 're right to do 
 so; and so we country-folks get naught but the 
 young colts, afore they 're broke, you see." 
 
 " And what sort of a preacher was his parson? " 
 
 " Oh, he preached very good Gospel, not that 
 he went very often himself, acause he could n't 
 make out the meaning of it; he preached too 
 high, like. But his wife said it was uncommon 
 good Gospel ; and surely when he come to visit a 
 body, and talked plain English like, not sermon- 
 ways, he was a very pleasant man to hear, and his 
 lady uncommon kind to nurse folk. They sot up 
 with me and my wife, they two did, two whole 
 nights, when we was in the fever, afore the officer 
 could get us a nurse." 
 
 " Well," said I, " there are some good parsons 
 left." 
 
 " Oh, yes ; there 's some very good ones each 
 one after his own way ; and there 'd be more on 
 'em, if they did but know how bad we laborers 
 was off. Why, bless ye, I mind when they was 
 very different. A new parson is a mighty change 
 for the better, mostwise, we finds. Why, when I 
 was a boy, we never had no schooling. And now 
 mine goes and learns singing, and jobrafy, and 
 ciphering, and sich like. Not that I sees no good 
 in it. We was a sight better off in the old times, 
 when there weren't no schooling. Schooling 
 harn't made wages rise, nor preaching neither." 
 
 " But surely," I said, " all this religious knowl- 
 edge ought to give you comfort, even if you are 
 badly off."
 
 300 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 " Oh ! religion 's all very well for them as has 
 time for it- and a very good thing we ought all 
 to mind our latter end. But I don't see how a 
 man can hear sermons with an empty belly; and 
 there 's so much to fret a man, now, and he 's so 
 cruel tired coming home o' nights, he can't nowise 
 go to pray a lot, as gentlefolks does." 
 
 " But are you so ill off ? " 
 
 " Oh ! he 'd had a good harvesting enough ; but 
 then he owed all that for he's rent ; and he's club 
 money was n't paid up, nor he's shop. And then, 
 with he's wages " (I forget the sum under ten 
 shillings) " how could a man keep his mouth 
 full, when he had five children ! And then, 
 folks is so unmarciful I'll just tell you what 
 they says to me, now, last time I was over at the 
 board " 
 
 And thereon he rambled off into a long jumble of 
 medical officers, and relieving-officers, and Farmer 
 This, and Squire That, which indicated a mind as 
 ill-educated as discontented. He cursed or rather 
 grumbled at for he had not spirit, it seemed, to 
 curse anything the new poor law ; because it 
 " ate up the poor, flesh and bone " bemoaned the 
 " old law " when " the vestry was forced to give 
 a man whatsomdever he axed for, and if they 
 did n't, he 'd go to the magistrates and make 'em, 
 and so sure as a man got a fresh child, he went and 
 got another loaf allowed him next vestry, like a 
 Christian ; " and so turned through a gate, and 
 set to work forking up some weeds on a fallow, 
 leaving me many new thoughts to digest. 
 
 That night, I got to some town or other, and 
 there found a night's lodging, good enough for a 
 walking traveller.
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 CAMBRIDGE 
 
 WHEN I started again next morning, I found 
 myself so stiff and footsore, that I could 
 hardly put one leg before the other, much less 
 walk upright. I was really quite in despair, before 
 the end of the first mile ; for I had no money to 
 pay for a lift on the coach, and I knew, besides, 
 that they would not be passing that way for several 
 hours to come. So, with aching back and knees, I 
 made shift to limp along, bent almost double, and 
 ended by sitting down for a couple of hours, and 
 looking about me, in a country which would have 
 seemed dreary enough, I suppose, to any one but 
 a freshly liberated captive, such as I was. At last 
 I got up and limped on, stiffer than ever from my 
 rest, when a gig drove past me towards Cambridge, 
 drawn by a stout cob, and driven by a tall, fat, 
 jolly-looking farmer, who stared at me as he passed, 
 went on, looked back, slackened his pace, looked 
 back again, and at last came to a dead stop, and 
 hailed me in a broad nasal dialect 
 
 " Whor be ganging, then, boh? " 
 
 " To Cambridge." 
 
 " Thew 'st na git there that gate. Be'est thec 
 honest man ? " 
 
 " I hope so," said I, somewhat indignantly.
 
 302 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 "What's trade?" 
 
 " A tailor," I said. 
 
 " Tailor ! guide us ! Tailor a-tramp ? Bar n't 
 accoostomed to tramp, then? " 
 
 " I never was out of London before," said I, 
 meekly, for I was too worn-out to be cross 
 lengthy and impertinent as this cross-examination 
 seemed. 
 
 " Oi '11 gie thee lift ; dee yow joomp in. Gae on, 
 powney ! Tailor, then ! Oh ! ah ! tailor, saith he." 
 
 I obeyed most thankfully, and sat crouched 
 together, looking up out of the corner of my eyes 
 at the huge tower o broadcloth by my side, and 
 comparing the two red shoulders of mutton which 
 held the reins with my own wasted, white, woman- 
 like fingers. 
 
 I found the old gentleman most inquisitive. He 
 drew out of me all my story questioned me 
 about the way " Lunnon folks " lived and whether 
 they got ony shooting or " pattening" whereby 
 I found he meant skating and broke in, every 
 now and then, with ejaculations of childish wonder, 
 and clumsy sympathy, on my accounts of London 
 labor and London misery. 
 
 " Oh, father, father ! I wonders they bears it. 
 Us'n in the fens would n't stand that likes. They 'd 
 riot, and riot, and riot, and tak' oot the dook-gunes 
 to un they would, as they did five-and-twenty 
 year agone. Never to goo ayond the housen ! 
 never to goo ayond the housen ! Kill me in a three 
 months, that would bor', then ! " 
 
 " Are you a farmer ? " I asked, at last, thinking 
 that my turn for questioning was come. 
 
 " I bean't varmer ; I be yooman born. Never 
 paid rent in moy life, nor never wool. I farms my
 
 Cambridge 303 
 
 own land, and my vathers avore me, this ever so 
 mony hoondred year. I 've got the swoord of 'em 
 to home, and the helmet that they fut with into 
 the wars, then when they chopped off the king's 
 head what was the name of um? " 
 
 "Charles the First?" 
 
 "Ees that's the booy. We was Parliament 
 side true Britons all we was, down into the fens, 
 and Oliver Cromwell, as dug Botsham lode, to the 
 head of us. Yow coom down to Metholl, and I '11 
 shaw ye a country. I '11 shaw 'ee some'at like 
 bullocks to call, and some'at like a field o' beans 
 I wool none o' this here darned ups and 
 downs o' hills" (though the country through which 
 we drove was flat enough, I should have thought, 
 to please any one), " to shake a body's victuals out 
 of his inwards all so flat as a barn's floor, for 
 vorty mile on end there 's the country to live 
 in 1 and vour sons or was vour on 'em every 
 one on 'em fifteen stone in his shoes, to patten 
 again' any man from Whit'sea Mere to Denver 
 Sluice, for twenty pounds o' gold ; and there 's the 
 money to lay down, and let the man as dare cover 
 it, down with his money, and on wF his pattens, 
 thirteen-inch runners, down the wind, again' either 
 a one o' the bairns ! " 
 
 And he jingled in his pockets a heavy bag of 
 gold, and winked, and chuckled, and then suddenly 
 checking himself, repeated in a sad, dubious tone, 
 two or three times, " Vour on 'em there was 
 vour on 'em there was; " and relieved his feelings 
 by springing the pony into a canter till he came to 
 a public-house, where he pulled up, called for a 
 pot of hot ale, and insisted on treating me. I 
 assured him that I never drank fermented liquors.
 
 304 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 "Aw? Eh? How can yow do that then? Die 
 o' cowd i' the fen, that gate, yow would. Love ye 
 then ! they as dinnot tak 1 spirits down thor, tak' 
 their pennord o' elevation, then women-folk 
 especial." 
 
 "What's elevation?" 
 
 " Oh ! ho ! ho ! yow goo into druggist's shop 
 o' market-day, into Cambridge, and you '11 see the 
 little boxes, doozens and doozens, a' ready on the 
 counter; and never a ven-man's wife goo by, but 
 what calls in for her pennord o' elevation, to last 
 her out the week. Oh ! ho ! ho ! Well, it keeps 
 women-folk quiet, it do ; and it 's mortal good 
 agin ago pains." 
 
 "But what is it?" 
 
 " Opium, bor' alive, opium ! " 
 
 "But doesn't it ruin their health? I should 
 think it the very worst sort of drunkenness." 
 
 " Ow, well, yow moi soy that mak'th 'em cruel 
 thin then, it do ; but what can bodies do i' th' ago ? 
 But it's a bad thing, it is. Harken yow to me. 
 Didst ever know one called Porter, to yowr trade? " 
 
 I thought a little, and recollected a man of that 
 name, who had worked with us a year or two 
 before a great friend of a certain scatter-brained 
 Irish lad, brother of Crossthwaite's wife. 
 
 " Well, I did once, but I have lost sight of him 
 twelve months, or more." 
 
 The old man faced sharp round on me, swinging 
 the little gig almost over, and then twisted himself 
 back again, and put on a true farmer-like look of 
 dogged, stolid reserve. We rolled on a few min- 
 utes in silence. 
 
 " Dee yow consider, now, that a mon mought 
 be lost, like, into Lunnon?"
 
 Cambridge 305 
 
 How lost?" 
 
 " Why, yow told o' they sweaters dee yow 
 think a mon might get in wi' one o' they, and they 
 that mought be looking for un not to vind un?" 
 
 " I do, indeed. There was a friend of that man 
 Porter got turned away from our shop, because 
 he would n't pay some tyrannical fine for being 
 saucy, as they called it, to the shopman ; and he 
 went to a sweater's and then to another ; and 
 his friends have been tracking him up and down 
 this six months, and can hear no news of him." 
 
 " Aw ! guide us ! And what'n, think yow, be 
 gone wi' un? " 
 
 " I am afraid he has got into one of those dens, 
 and has pawned his clothes, as dozens of them do, 
 for food, and so can't get out." 
 
 " Pawned his clothes for victuals ! To think o' 
 that, noo ! But if he had work, can't he get 
 victuals?" 
 
 " Oh ! " I said, " there 's many a man who, after 
 working seventeen or eighteen hours a day, Sun- 
 days and all, without even time to take off his 
 clothes, finds himself brought in in debt to his 
 tyrant at the week's end. And if he gets no work, 
 the villain won't let him leave the house ; he has 
 to stay there starving, on the chance of an hour's 
 job. I tell you, I 've known half a dozen men 
 imprisoned in that way, in a little dungeon of a 
 garret, where they had hardly room to stand 
 upright, and only just space to sit and work 
 between their beds, without breathing the fresh 
 air, or seeing God's sun, for months together, with 
 no victuals but a few slices of bread-and-butter, 
 and a little slop of tea, twice a day, till they were 
 starved to the very bone." 
 
 Vol. Ill 14
 
 306 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 " Oh, my God ! my God ! " said the old man, in 
 a voice which had a deeper tone of feeling than 
 mere sympathy with others' sorrow was likely to 
 have produced. There was evidently something 
 behind all these inquiries of his. I longed to ask 
 him if his name, too, was not Porter. 
 
 "Aw yow knawn Billy Porter? What was a 
 like? Tell me, now what was a like, in the 
 Lord's name! what was a like unto?" 
 
 " Very tall and bony," I answered. 
 
 " Ah ! sax feet, and more ? and a yard across ? 
 
 but a was starved, a was a' thin, though, maybe, 
 when yow sawn un ? and beautiful fine hair, 
 had n't a, like a lass's ? " 
 
 " The man I knew had red hair," quoth I. 
 
 " Ow, ay, an' that it wor, red as a rising sun, and 
 the curls of un like gowlden guineas ! And thou 
 knew'st Billy Porter ! To think o' that, noo." 
 
 Another long silence. 
 
 " Could you find un, dee yow think, noo, into 
 Lunnon? Suppose, now, there was a mon 'ud gie 
 
 maybe five pund ten pund twenty pund, 
 
 by twenty pund down, for to ha* him brocht 
 
 home safe and soun' Could yow do 't, bor' ? I 
 zay, could yow do't?" 
 
 " I could do it as well without the money as 
 with, if I could do it at all. But have you no 
 guess as to where he is?" 
 
 He shook his head sadly. 
 
 " We that 's to zay, they as wants un hav' n't 
 heerd tell of un vor this three year three year 
 
 coom Whitsuntide as ever was " And he 
 
 wiped his eyes with his cuff. 
 
 " If you will tell me all about him, and where he 
 was last heard of, I will do all I can to find him."
 
 Cambridge 307 
 
 " Will ye, noo? will ye? The Lord bless ye for 
 zaying that." And he grasped my hand in his 
 great iron fist, and fairly burst out crying. 
 
 "Was he a relation of yours?" I asked gently. 
 
 " My bairn my bairn my eldest bairn. Din- 
 not yow ax me no moor dinnot then, bor'. Gie 
 on, yow powney, and yow goo leuk vor un." 
 
 Another long silence. 
 
 " I 've a been to Lunnon, looking vor un." 
 
 Another silence. 
 
 " I went up and down, up and down, day and 
 night, day and night, to all pot-houses as I could 
 zee ; vor, says I, he was a'ways a main chap to 
 drink, he was. Oh, deery me ! and I never cot 
 zight on un and noo I be most spent, I be." 
 
 And he pulled up at another public-house, and 
 tried this time a glass of brandy. He stopped, I 
 really think, at every inn between that place and 
 Cambridge, and at each tried some fresh com- 
 pound; but his head seemed, from habit, utterly 
 fire-proof. 
 
 At last, we neared Cambridge, and began to 
 pass groups of gay horsemen, and then those 
 strange caps and gowns ugly and unmeaning 
 remnant of obsolete fashion. 
 
 The old man insisted on driving me up to the 
 
 gate of College, and there dropped me, after 
 
 I had given him my address, entreating me to 
 " vind the bairn, and coom to zee him down to 
 Metholl. But dinnot go ax for Farmer Porter 
 they's all Porters there away. You ax for 
 Wooden-house Bob that 's me ; and if I bar n't 
 to home, ax for Mucky Billy that 's my brawther 
 we're all gotten our names down to ven; and if 
 he bar n't to home, yow ax for Frog-hall that 's
 
 308 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 where my sister do live ; and they '11 all veed ye, 
 and lodge ye, and welcome come. We be all like 
 one, doon in the ven ; and do ye, do ye, vind my 
 bairn ! " And he trundled on, down the narrow 
 street. 
 
 I was soon directed, by various smart-looking 
 servants, to my cousin's rooms: and after a few 
 mistakes, and wandering up and down noble 
 courts and cloisters, swarming with gay young 
 men, whose jaunty air and dress seemed strangely 
 out of keeping with the stern antique solemnity of 
 the Gothic buildings around, I espied my cousin's 
 name over a door; and, uncertain how he might 
 receive me, I gave a gentle, half-apologetic knock, 
 which was answered by a loud " Come in ! " and I 
 entered on a scene even more incongruous than 
 anything I had seen outside. 
 
 " If we can only keep away from Jesus as far as 
 the corner, I don't care." 
 
 " If we don't run into that first Trinity before 
 the willows, I shall care with a vengeance." 
 
 " If we don't it 's a pity," said my cousin. 
 " Wadham ran up by the side of that first Trinity 
 yesterday, and he said that they were as well 
 gruelled as so many posters, before they got to 
 the stile." 
 
 This unintelligible, and to my inexperienced 
 ears, irreverent conversation, proceeded from half 
 a dozen powerful young men, in low-crowned 
 sailors' hats and flannel trousers, some in striped 
 jerseys, some in shooting-jackets, some smoking 
 cigars, some beating up eggs in sherry; while 
 my cousin, dressed like a fancy waterman, sat 
 on the back of a sofa, puffing away at a huge 
 meerschaum.
 
 Cambridge 309 
 
 " Alton ! why, what wind on earth has blown 
 you here?" 
 
 By the tone, the words seemed rather an inquiry 
 as to what wind would be kind enough to blow me 
 back again. But he recovered his self-possession 
 in a moment. 
 
 " Delighted to see you ! Where 's your port- 
 manteau? Oh left it at the Bull! Ah! I see. 
 Very well, we '11 send the gyp for it in a minute, 
 and order some luncheon. We 're just going down 
 to the boat-race. Sorry I can't stop, but we shall 
 all be fined not a moment to lose. I '11 send 
 you in luncheon as I go through the butteries ; 
 then, perhaps, you 'd like to come down and see 
 the race. Ask the gyp to tell you the way. Now, 
 then, follow your noble captain, gentlemen to 
 glory and a supper." And he bustled out with 
 his crew. 
 
 While I was staring about the room, at the 
 jumble of Greek books, boxing-gloves, and lus- 
 cious prints of pretty women, a shrewd-faced, smart 
 man entered, much better dressed than myself. 
 
 "What would you like, sir? Ox-tail soup, 
 sir, or gravy-soup, sir? Stilton cheese, sir, or 
 Cheshire, sir? Old Stilton, sir, just now." 
 
 Fearing lest many words might betray my rank 
 and, strange to say, though I should not have 
 been afraid of confessing myself an artisan before 
 the " gentlemen " who had just left the room, I 
 was ashamed to have my low estate discovered, 
 and talked over with his compeers, by the flunkey 
 who waited on them I answered, "Anything I 
 really don't care," in as aristocratic and off-hand 
 a tone as I could assume. 
 
 " Porter or ale, sir?"
 
 310 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 " Water," without a " thank you," I am ashamed 
 to say, for I was not at that time quite sure whether 
 it was well-bred to be civil to servants. 
 
 The man vanished, and reappeared with a savory 
 luncheon, silver forks, snowy napkins, smart plates 
 I felt really quite a gentleman. 
 
 He gave me full directions as to my " way to 
 the boats, sir " ; and I started out much refreshed ; 
 passed through back streets, dingy, dirty, and 
 profligate-looking enough ; out upon wide mead- 
 ows, fringed with enormous elms ; across a ferry ; 
 through a pleasant village, with its old gray church 
 and spire; by the side of a sluggish river, alive 
 with wherries. I had walked down some mile or 
 so, and just as I heard a cannon, as I thought, fire 
 at some distance, and wondered at its meaning, I 
 came to a sudden bend of the river, with a church- 
 tower hanging over the stream on the opposite 
 bank, a knot of tall poplars, weeping willows, rich 
 lawns, sloping down to the water's side, gay with 
 bonnets and shawls ; while, along the edge of the 
 stream, light, gaudily painted boats apparently 
 waited for the race, altogether the most brilliant 
 and graceful group of scenery which I had beheld 
 in my little travels. I stopped to gaze ; and among 
 the ladies on the lawn opposite, caught sight of a 
 figure my heart leapt into my mouth ! Was it 
 she at last ? It was too far to distinguish features ; 
 the dress was altogether different but was it not 
 she? I saw her move across the lawn, and take 
 the arm of a tall, venerable-looking man ; and his 
 dress was the same as that of the Dean, at the 
 Dulwich Gallery was it ? was it not ? To have 
 found her, and a river between us ! It was ludi- 
 crously miserable miserably ludicrous. Oh, that
 
 Cambridge 311 
 
 accursed river, which barred me from certainty, 
 from bliss! I would have plunged across but 
 there were three objections first, that I could not 
 swim; next, what could I do when I had crossed? 
 and thirdly, it might not be she after all. 
 
 And yet I was certain instinctively certain 
 that it was she, the idol of my imagination for 
 years. If I could not see her features under that 
 little white bonnet, I could imagine them there ; 
 they flashed up in my memory as fresh as ever. 
 Did she remember my features, as I did hers ? 
 Would she know me again ? Had she ever even 
 thought of me, from that day to this ? Fool ! But 
 there I stood, fascinated, gazing across the river, 
 heedless of the racing*-boats, and the crowd, and 
 the roar that was rushing up to me at the rate 
 of ten miles an hour, and in a moment more, had 
 caught me, and swept me away with it, whether I 
 would or not, along the towing-path, by the side 
 of the foremost boats. 
 
 And yet, after a few moments, I ceased to won- 
 der either at the Cambridge passion for boat- 
 racing, or at the excitement of the spectators. 
 " Honi soit qui mal y pense" It was a noble sport 
 
 a sight such as could only be seen in England 
 
 some hundred of young men, who might, if 
 they had chosen, have been lounging effeminately 
 about the streets, subjecting themselves voluntarily 
 to that intense exertion, for the mere pleasure 
 of toil. The true English stuff came out there; 
 I felt that in spite of all my prejudices the 
 stuff which has held Gibraltar and conquered at 
 Waterloo which has created a Birmingham and 
 a Manchester, and colonized every quarter of the 
 globe that grim, earnest, stubborn energy, which,
 
 312 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 since the days of the old Romans, the English 
 possess alone of all the nations of the earth. I 
 was as proud of the gallant young fellows as if 
 they had been my brothers of their courage 
 and endurance (for one could see that it was no 
 child's-play, from the pale faces, and panting lips), 
 their strength and activity, so fierce and yet so 
 cultivated, smooth, harmonious, as oar kept time 
 with oar, and every back rose and fell in concert 
 and felt my soul stirred up to a sort of sweet mad- 
 ness, not merely by the shouts and cheers of the 
 mob around me, but by the loud, fierce pulse of the 
 row-locks, the swift whispering rush of the long 
 snake-like eight oars, the swirl and gurgle of the 
 water in their wake, the grim, breathless silence of 
 the straining rowers. My blood boiled over, and 
 fierce tears swelled into my eyes ; for I, too, was 
 a man, and an Englishman ; and when I caught 
 sight of my cousin, pulling stroke to the second 
 boat in the long line, with set teeth and flashing 
 eyes, the great muscles on his bare arms springing 
 up into knots at every rapid stroke, I ran and 
 shouted among the maddest and the foremost. 
 
 But I soon tired, and, footsore as I was, began to 
 find my strength fail me. I tried to drop behind, 
 but found it impossible in the press. At last, quite 
 out of breath, I stopped ; and instantly received a 
 heavy blow from behind, which threw me on my 
 face ; and a fierce voice shouted in my ear, " Con- 
 found you, sir ! don't you know better than to do 
 that?" I looked up, and saw a man twice as big 
 as myself sprawling over me, headlong down the 
 bank, toward the river, whither I followed him, but 
 alas ! not on my feet, but rolling head over heels. 
 On the very brink he stuck his heels into the turf,
 
 Cambridge 313 
 
 and stopped dead, amid a shout of, " Well saved, 
 Lynedale ! " I did not stop ; but rolled into some 
 two-feet water, amid the laughter and shouts of the 
 men. 
 
 I scrambled out, and limped on, shaking with 
 wet and pain, till I was stopped by a crowd which 
 filled the towing-path. An eight-oar lay under 
 the bank, and the men on shore were cheering and 
 praising those in the boat for having "'bumped," 
 which word I already understood to mean, win- 
 ning a race. 
 
 Among them, close to me, was the tall man who 
 had upset me ; and a very handsome, high-bred 
 looking man he was. I tried to slip by, but he 
 recognized me instantly, and spoke. 
 
 " I hope I did n't hurt you much. Really, when 
 I spoke so sharply, I did not see that you were 
 not a gownsman ! " 
 
 The speech, as I suppose now, was meant cour- 
 teously enough. It indicated that though he might 
 allow himself liberties with men of his own class, 
 he was too well bred to do so with me. But in 
 my anger I saw nothing but the words, " not a 
 gownsman." Why should he see that I was not a 
 gownsman? Because I was shabbier? (and my 
 clothes, over and above the ducking they had had, 
 were shabby) ; or more plebeian in appearance 
 (whatsoever that may mean)? or wanted some 
 thing else, which the rest had about them, and I 
 had not? Why should he know that I was not a 
 gownsman? I did not wish, of course, to be a 
 gentleman, and an aristocrat; but I was nettled, 
 nevertheless, at not being mistaken for one; and 
 answered, sharply enough 
 
 " No matter whether I am hurt or not. It
 
 314 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 serves me right for getting among you cursed 
 aristocrats." 
 
 " Box the cad's ears, Lord Lynedale," said a dirty 
 fellow with a long pole a cad himself, I should 
 have thought. 
 
 " Let him go home and ask his mammy to hang 
 him out to dry," said another. 
 
 The Lord (for so I understood he was) looked 
 at me with an air of surprise and amusement, 
 which may have been good-natured enough in 
 him, but did not increase the good-nature in me. 
 
 "Tut, tut, my good fellow. I really am very 
 sorry for having upset you. Here 's half-a-crown 
 to cover damages." 
 
 " Better give it me than a muff like that," 
 quoth he of the long pole ; while I answered, sur- 
 lily enough, that I wanted neither him nor his 
 money, and burst through the crowd toward Cam- 
 bridge. I was so shabby and plebeian, then, that 
 people actually dare offer me money !. Intolerable ! 
 
 The reader may say that I was in a very un- 
 wholesome and unreasonable frame of mind. 
 
 So I was. And so would he have been in my 
 place.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE LOST IDOL FOUND 
 
 ON my return, I found my cousin already at 
 home, in high spirits at having, as he in- 
 formed me, " bumped the first Trinity." I excused 
 myself for my dripping state, simply by saying 
 that I had slipped into the river. To tell him the 
 whole of the story, while the fancied insult still 
 rankled fresh in me, was really too disagreeable 
 both to my memory and my pride. 
 
 Then came the question, " What had brought 
 me to Cambridge?" I told him all, and he seemed 
 honestly to sympathize with my misfortunes. 
 
 " Never mind ; we '11 make it all right somehow. 
 Those poems of yours you must let me have 
 them and look over them ; and I daresay I shall 
 persuade the governor to do something with them. 
 After all, it 's no loss for you ; you could n't have 
 got on tailoring much too sharp a fellow for 
 that; you ought to be at college, if one could 
 only get you there. These sizarships, now, were 
 meant for just such cases as yours clever fel- 
 VDWS who could not afford to educate themselves ; 
 if we could only help you to one of them, 
 now " 
 
 " You forget that in that case," said I, with 
 something like a sigh, " I should have to become 
 a member of the Church of England."
 
 316 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 " Why, no ; not exactly. Though, of course, if 
 you want to get all out of the university which you 
 ought to get, you must do so at last." 
 
 " And pretend to believe what I do not ; for 
 the sake of deserting my own class, and pandering 
 to the very aristocrats, whom " 
 
 " Hullo ! " and he jumped with a hoarse laugh. 
 " Stop that till I see whether the door is sported. 
 Why, you silly fellow, what harm have the aristo- 
 crats, as you call them, ever done you ? Are they 
 not doing you good at this moment? Are you 
 not, by virtue of their aristocratic institutions, 
 nearer having your poems published, your genius 
 recognized, etc. etc., than ever you were before ? " 
 
 " Aristocrats? Then you call yourself one ? " 
 
 " No, Alton, my boy ; not yet," said he, quietly 
 and knowingly. " Not yet : but I have chosen 
 the right road, and shall end at the road's end ; 
 and I advise you for really, as my cousin, I wish 
 you all success, even for the mere credit of the 
 family, to choose the same road likewise." 
 
 "What road?" 
 
 " Come up to Cambridge, by hook or by crook, 
 and then take orders." 
 
 I laughed scornfully. 
 
 " My good cousin, it is the only method yet 
 discovered for turning a snob (as I am, or was) 
 into a gentleman ; except putting him into a 
 heavy cavalry regiment. My brother, who has no 
 brains, preferred the latter method. I, who flatter 
 myself that I have some, have taken the former." 
 The thought was new and astonishing to me, and 
 I looked at him in silence while he ran on 
 
 " If you are once a parson, all is safe. Be you 
 who you may before, from that moment you are a
 
 The Lost Idol Found 317 
 
 gentleman. No one will offer an insult. You are 
 good enough for any man's society. You can 
 dine at any nobleman's table. You can be friend, 
 confidant, father confessor, if you like, to the high- 
 est women in the land ; and if you have person, 
 manners, and common sense, marry one of them 
 into the bargain, Alton, my boy." 
 
 "And it is for that that you will sell your soul 
 to become a hanger-on of the upper classes, in 
 sloth and luxury?" 
 
 "Sloth and luxury? Stuff and nonsense! I 
 tell you that after I have taken orders, I shall have 
 years and years of hard work before me; con- 
 tinual drudgery of serving tables, managing chari- 
 ties, visiting, preaching, from morning till night, 
 and after that often from night to morning again. 
 Enough to wear out any but a tough constitution, 
 as I trust mine is. Work, Alton, and hard work, 
 is the only way nowadays to rise in the church, as 
 in other professions. My father can buy me a 
 living some day: but he can't buy me success, 
 
 notoriety, social position, power " and he 
 
 stopped suddenly, as if he had been on the point 
 of saying something more which should not have 
 been said. 
 
 " And this," I said, " is your idea of a vocation 
 for the sacred ministry? It is for this, that you, 
 brought up a dissenter, have gone over to the 
 Church of England?" 
 
 " And how do you know " and his whole tone 
 of voice changed instantly into what was meant, 
 I suppose, for a gentle seriousness and reverent 
 suavity " that I am not a sincere member of the 
 Church of England? How do you know that I 
 may not have loftier plans and ideas, though I may
 
 3 1 8 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 not choose to parade them to every one, and 
 give that which is holy to the dogs ? " 
 
 "I am the dog, then?" I asked, half amused, 
 for I was too curious about his state of mind to be 
 angry. 
 
 " Not at all, my dear fellow. But those great 
 men to whom we (or at least I) owe our conver- 
 sion to the true Church, always tell us (and you 
 will feel yourself how right they are) not to parade 
 religious feelings; to look upon them as sacred 
 things, to be treated with that due reserve which 
 springs from real reverence. You know, as well as 
 I, whether that is the fashion of the body in which 
 we were, alas ! brought up. You know, as well as 
 I, whether the religious conversation of that body 
 has heightened your respect for sacred things." 
 
 " I do, too well." And I thought of Mr. Wig- 
 ginton and my mothers tea parties. 
 
 " I daresay the vulgarity of that school has, ere 
 now, shaken your faith in all that was holy?" 
 
 I was very near confessing that it had: but a 
 feeling came over me, I knew not why, that my 
 cousin would have been glad to get me into his 
 power, and would therefore have welcomed a con- 
 fession of infidelity. So I held my tongue. 
 
 " I can confess," he said, in the most confiden- 
 tial tone, " that it had for a time that effect on me. 
 I have confessed it, ere now, and shall again and 
 again, I trust. But I shudder to think of what 
 I might have been believing or disbelieving now, 
 if I had not in a happy hour fallen in with Mr. 
 Newman's sermons, and learnt from them, and 
 from his disciples, what the Church of England 
 really was ; not Protestant, no ; but Catholic in 
 the deepest and highest sense."
 
 The Lost Idol Found 319 
 
 "So you are one of these new Tractarians? 
 You do not seem to have adopted yet the ascetic 
 mode of life, which I hear they praise up so 
 highly." 
 
 " My dear Alton, if you have read, as you have, 
 your Bible, you will recollect a text which tells you 
 not to appear to men to fast. What I do or do not 
 do in the way of self-denial, unless I were actually 
 profligate, which I give you my sacred honor I 
 am not, must be a matter between Heaven and 
 myself." 
 
 There was no denying that truth ; but the 
 longer my cousin talked the less I trusted in him 
 I had almost said the less I believed in him. 
 Ever since the tone of his voice had changed so 
 suddenly, I liked him less than when he was hon- 
 estly blurting out his coarse and selfish ambition. 
 I do not think he was a hypocrite. I think he 
 believed what he said, as strongly as he could 
 believe anything. He proved afterwards that he 
 did so, as far as man can judge man, by severe 
 and diligent parish work: but I cannot help doubt- 
 ing at times, if that man ever knew what believ- 
 ing meant. God forgive him ! In that, he is no 
 worse than hundreds more who have never felt the 
 burning and shining flame of intense conviction, 
 of some truth rooted in the inmost recesses of the 
 soul, by which a man must live, for which he 
 would not fear to die. 
 
 And therefore I listened to him dully and care- 
 lessly; I did not care to bring objections, which 
 arose thick and fast, to everything he said. He 
 tried to assure me and did so with a great deal 
 of cleverness that this Tractarian movement was 
 not really an aristocratic, but a democratic one i
 
 320 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 that the Catholic Church had been in all ages the 
 church of the poor; that the clergy were com- 
 missioned by Heaven to vindicate the rights of 
 the people, and to stand between them and the 
 tyranny of Mammon. I did not care to answer 
 him that the " Catholic Church " had always been 
 a church of slaves, and not of free men; that 
 the clergy had in every age been the enemies 
 of light, of liberty ; the oppressors of their flocks ; 
 and that to exalt a sacerdotal caste over other 
 aristocracies, whether of birth or wealth, was 
 merely to change our tyrants. When he told me 
 that a clergyman of the Established Church, if he 
 took up the cause of the working classes, might 
 be the boldest and surest of all allies, just because, 
 being established, and certain of his income, he 
 cared not one sixpence what he said to any man 
 alive, I did not care to answer him, as I might 
 And more shame upon the clergy that, having the 
 safe vantage-ground which you describe, they dare 
 not use it like men in a good cause, and speak 
 their minds, if forsooth no one can stop them from 
 so doing. In fact, I was distrustful, which I had a 
 right to be, and envious also ; but if I had a right to 
 be that, I was certainly not wise, nor is any man, 
 in exercising the said dangerous right as I did, and 
 envying my cousin and every man in Cambridge. 
 
 But that evening, understanding that a boating 
 supper, or some jubilation over my cousin's vic- 
 tory, was to take place in his rooms, I asked leave 
 to absent myself and I do not think my cousin 
 felt much regret at giving me leave and wan- 
 dered up and down the King's Parade, watching 
 the tall gables of King's College Chapel, and the 
 classic front of the Senate House, and the stately
 
 The Lost Idol Found 321 
 
 tower of St. Mary's, as they stood, stern and silent, 
 bathed in the still glory of the moonlight, and con- 
 trasting bitterly the lot of those who were educated 
 under their shadow to the lot which had befallen 
 me. 1 
 
 " Noble buildings ! " I said to myself, " and noble 
 institutions ! given freely to the people, by those 
 who loved the people, and the Saviour who 
 died for them. They gave us what they had, 
 those mediaeval founders: whatsoever narrowness 
 * of mind or superstition defiled their gift was not 
 their fault, but the fault of their whole age. The 
 best they knew they imparted freely, and God will 
 reward them for it. To monopolize those institu- 
 tions for the rich, as is done now, is to violate both 
 the spirit and the letter of the foundations; to 
 restrict their studies to the limits of middle-aged 
 Romanism, their conditions of admission to those 
 fixed at the Reformation, is but a shade less wrong- 
 ful. The letter is kept the spirit is thrown away. 
 You refuse to admit any who are not members of 
 the Church of England, say, rather, any who will 
 not sign the dogmas of the Church of England, 
 whether they believe a word of them or not. Use- 
 less formalism! which lets through the reckless, 
 the profligate, the ignorant, the hypocritical, and 
 only excludes the honest and the conscientious, 
 and the mass of the intellectual workingmen. 
 And whose fault is it that THEY are not members 
 of the Church of England? Whose fault is it, I 
 
 1 It must be remembered that these impressions of, and com- 
 ments on the universities are not my own. They are simply what 
 clever workingmen thought about them from 1845 to 1850; a 
 period at which I had the fullest opportunities for knowing the 
 thoughts of workingmen.
 
 322 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 ask? Your predecessors neglected the lower or- 
 ders, till they have ceased to reverence either you 
 or your doctrines, you confess that, among your- 
 selves, freely enough. You throw the blame of 
 the present wide-spread dislike to the Church of 
 England, on her sins during "the godless eigh- 
 teenth century." Be it so. Why are those sins to 
 be visited on us? Why are we to be shut out 
 from the universities, which were founded for us, 
 because you have let us grow up, by millions, 
 heathens and infidels, as you call us? Take away 
 your subterfuge ! It is not merely because we are 
 bad churchmen that you exclude us, else you 
 would be crowding your colleges, now, with the 
 talented poor of the agricultural districts, who, as 
 you say, remain faithful to the church of their 
 fathers. But are there six laborers' sons educat- 
 ing in the universities at this moment? No! the 
 real reason for our exclusion, churchmen or not, is, 
 because we are poor because we cannot pay your 
 exorbitant fees, often, as in the case of bachelors 
 of arts, exacted for tuition which is never given, 
 and residence which is not permitted because 
 we could not support the extravagance which you 
 not only permit, but encourage because by your 
 own unblushing confession, it insures the univer- 
 sity ' the support of the aristocracy.' " 
 
 "But, on religious points, at least, you must 
 abide by the statutes of the university." 
 
 Strange argument, truly, to be urged literally 
 by English Protestants in possession of Roman 
 Catholic bequests ! If that be true in the letter, as 
 well as in the spirit, you should have given place 
 long ago to the Dominicans and the Franciscans. 
 In the spirit it is true, and the Reformers acted on it
 
 The Lost Idol Found 323 
 
 when they rightly converted the universities to the 
 uses of the new faith. They carried out the spirit 
 of the founders' statutes by making the universities 
 as good as they could be, and letting them share 
 in the new light of the Elizabethan age. But was 
 the sum of knowledge, human and divine, perfected 
 at the Reformation? Who gave the Reformers, 
 or you, who call yourselves their representatives, 
 a right to say to the mind of man, and to the 
 teaching of God's Spirit, " Hitherto, and no 
 farther " ? Society and mankind, the children of 
 the Supreme, will not stop growing for your dog- 
 mas much less for your vested interests ; and 
 the righteous law of mingled development and 
 renovation, applied in the sixteenth century, must 
 be reapplied in the nineteenth ; while the spirits of 
 the founders, now purged from the superstitions 
 and ignorances of their age, shall smile from 
 heaven, and say, " So would we have had it, if we 
 had lived in the great nineteenth century, into 
 which it has been your privilege to be born." 
 
 But such thoughts soon passed away. The 
 image which I had seen that afternoon upon the 
 river banks had awakened imperiously the frantic 
 longings of past years ; and now it reascended its 
 ancient throne, and tyrannously drove forth every 
 other object, to keep me alone with its own tan- 
 talizing and torturing beauty. I did not think 
 about her No; I only stupidly and steadfastly 
 stared at her with my whole soul and imagination, 
 through that long sleepless night; and, in spite of 
 the fatigue of niy journey, and the stiffness pro- 
 ceeding from my fall and wetting, I lay tossing till 
 the early sun poured into my bedroom window. 
 Then I arose, dressed myself, and went out to
 
 324 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 wander up and down the streets, gazing at one 
 splendid building after another, till I found the 
 gates of King's College open. I entered eagerly, 
 through a porch which, to my untutored taste, 
 seemed gorgeous enough to form the entrance to 
 a fairy palace, and stood in the quadrangle, riveted 
 to the spot by the magnificence of the huge chapel 
 on the right. 
 
 If I had admired it the night before, I felt in- 
 clined to worship it this morning, as I saw the lofty 
 buttresses and spires, fretted with all their gor- 
 geous carving, and " storied windows richly dight," 
 sleeping in the glare of the newly risen sun, and 
 throwing their long shadows due westward down 
 the sloping lawn, and across the river which 
 dimpled and gleamed below, till it was lost among 
 the towering masses of crisp elms and rose-gar- 
 landed chestnuts in the rich gardens beyond. 
 
 Was I delighted ? Yes and yet no. There is 
 a painful feeling in seeing anything magnificent 
 which one cannot understand. And perhaps it 
 was a morbid sensitiveness, but the feeling was 
 strong upon me that I was an interloper there 
 out of harmony with the scene and the system 
 which had created it ; that I might be an object of 
 unpleasant curiosity, perhaps of scorn (for I had 
 not forgotten the nobleman at the boat-race), 
 amid those monuments of learned luxury. Per- 
 haps, on the other hand, it was only from the in- 
 stinct which makes us seek for solitude under the 
 pressure of intense emotions, when we have 
 neither language to express them to ourselves, nor 
 loved one in whose silent eyes we may read kin- 
 dred feelings a sympathy which wants no words. 
 Whatever the cause was, when a party of men, in
 
 The Lost Idol Found 325 
 
 their caps and gowns, approached me down the 
 dark avenue which led into the country, I was 
 glad to shrink for concealment behind the weep- 
 ing-willow at the foot of the bridge, and slink off 
 unobserved to breakfast with my cousin. 
 
 We had just finished breakfast, my cousin was 
 lighting his meerschaum, when a tall figure passed 
 the window, and the taller of the noblemen, whom 
 I had seen at the boat-race, entered the room with 
 a packet of papers in his hand. 
 
 " Here, Locule mi ! my pocket-book or rather, 
 to stretch a bad pun till it bursts, my pocket-dic- 
 tionary I require the aid of your benevolently 
 squandered talents for the correction of these 
 proofs. I am, as usual, both idle and busy this 
 morning ; so draw pen, and set to work for me." 
 
 " I am exceedingly sorry, my lord," answered 
 George, in his most obsequious tone, " but I must 
 work this morning with all my might. Last night, 
 recollect, was given to triumph, Bacchus, and 
 idleness." 
 
 " Then find some one who will do them for me, 
 my Ulysses polumechane, polutrope, panurge." 
 
 " I shall be most happy" (with a half-frown and 
 a wince) "to play Panurge to your lordship's 
 Pantagruel, on board the new yacht." 
 
 " Oh, I am perfect in that character, I suppose? 
 And is she after all, like Pantagruel's ship, to be 
 loaded with hemp ? Well, we must try two or three 
 milder cargoes first. But come, find me some 
 starving genius some graeculus esuriens " 
 
 " Who will ascend to the heaven of your lord- 
 ship's eloquence for the bidding? " 
 
 " Five shillings a sheet there will be about two 
 of them, I think, in the pamphlet."
 
 326 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 " May I take the liberty of recommending my 
 cousin here? " 
 
 "Your cousin?" And he turned to me, who 
 had been examining with a sad and envious eye 
 the contents of the book-shelves. Our eyes met, 
 and first a faint blush, and then a smile of recogni- 
 tion, passed over his magnificent countenance. 
 
 " I think I had I am ashamed that I cannot 
 say the pleasure, of meeting him at the boat-race 
 yesterday." 
 
 My cousin looked inquiringly and vexed at us 
 both. The nobleman smiled. 
 
 " Oh, the fault was mine, not his." 
 
 " I cannot think," I answered, " that you have 
 any reasons to remember with shame your own 
 kindness and courtesy. As for me," I went on bit- 
 terly, " I suppose a poor journeyman tailor, who 
 ventures to look on at the sports of gentlemen, 
 only deserves to be run over." 
 
 " Sir," he said, looking at me with a severe and 
 searching glance, "your bitterness is pardonable 
 but not your sneer. You do not yourself think 
 what you say, and you ought to know that I think 
 it still less than yourself. If you intend your irony 
 to be useful, you should keep it till you can use it 
 courageously against the true offenders." 
 
 I looked up at him fiercely enough, but the placid 
 smile which had returned to his face disarmed me. 
 
 "Your class," he went on, "blind yourselves and 
 our class as much by wholesale denunciations of 
 us, as we, alas ! who should know better, do by 
 wholesale denunciations of you. As you grow 
 older, you will learn that there are exceptions to 
 every rule." 
 
 "And yet the exception proves the rule."
 
 The Lost Idol Found 327 
 
 " Most painfully true, sir. But that argument is 
 two-edged. For instance, am I to consider it the 
 exception or the rule when I am told that you, a 
 journeyman tailor, are able to correct these proofs 
 forme?" 
 
 " Nearer the rule, I think, than you yet 
 fancy." 
 
 " You speak out boldly and well ; but how can 
 you judge what I may please to fancy? At all 
 events, I will make trial of you. There are the 
 proofs. Bring them to me by four o'clock this 
 afternoon, and if they are well done, I will pay 
 you more than I should do to the average hack- 
 writer, for you will deserve more." 
 
 I took the proofs; he turned to go, and by a 
 side-look at George beckoned him out of the 
 room. I heard a whispering in the passage ; and 
 I do not deny that my heart beat high with new 
 hopes, as I caught unwillingly the words 
 
 " Such a forehead ! such an eye ! such a 
 contour of feature as that ! Locule mi that 
 boy ought not to be mending trousers." 
 
 My cousin returned, half laughing, half angry. 
 
 " Alton, you fool, why did you let out that you 
 were a snip ? " 
 
 " I am not ashamed of my trade." 
 
 " I am, then. However, you 've done with it 
 now ; and if you can't come the gentleman, you 
 may as well come the rising genius. The self- 
 educated dodge pays well just now ; and after all, 
 you've hooked his lordship thank me for that. 
 But you '11 never hold him, you impudent dog, if 
 you pull so hard on him" he went on, putting 
 his hands into his coat-tail pockets, and sticking 
 himself in front of the fire, like the Delphic Python-
 
 328 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 ess upon the sacred tripod, in hopes, I suppose, 
 of some oracular afflatus " You will never hold 
 him, I say, if you pull so hard on him. You 
 ought to ' my lord ' him for months yet, at least. 
 You know, my good fellow, you must take every 
 possible care to pick up what good breeding you 
 can, if I take the trouble to put you in the way of 
 good society, and tell you where my private birds'- 
 nests are, like the green schoolboy some poet or 
 other talks of." 
 
 " He is no lord of mine," I answered, " in any 
 sense of the word, and therefore I shall not call 
 him so." 
 
 " Upon my honor ! here is a young gentleman 
 who intends to rise in the world, and then com- 
 mences by trying to walk through the first post he 
 meets ! Noodle ! can't you do like me, and get 
 out of the carts' way when they come by? If you 
 intend to go ahead, you must just dodge in and 
 out like a dog at a fair. ' She stoops to conquer ' 
 is my motto, and a precious good one too." 
 
 " I have no wish to conquer Lord Lynedale, and 
 so I shall not stoop to him." 
 
 " I have, then ; and to very good purpose, too. 
 I am his whetstone, for polishing up that classical 
 wit of his on, till he carries it into Parliament to 
 astonish the country squires. He fancies himself 
 a secondjjroethe, I hav' n't forgot his hitting at me, 
 before a large supper-party, with a certain epigram 
 of that old turkeycock's about the whale having 
 his unmentionable parasite and the great man 
 likewise. Whale, indeed ! I bide my time, Alton, 
 my boy I bide my time ; and then let your 
 grand aristocrat look out ! If he does not find the 
 supposed whale-unmentionable a good stout hold-
 
 The Lost Idol Found 329 
 
 ing harpoon, with a tough line to it, and a long 
 one, it's a pity, Alton, my boy ! " 
 
 And he burst into a coarse laugh, tossed himself 
 down on the sofa, and re-lighted his meerschaum. 
 
 " He seemed to me," I answered, " to have a 
 peculiar courtesy and liberality of mind towards 
 those below him in rank." 
 
 " Oh ! he had, had he? Now, I '11 just put you 
 up to a dodge. He intends to come the Mirabeau 
 fancies his mantle has fallen on him prays be- 
 fore the fellow's bust, I believe, if one knew the 
 truth, for a double portion of his spirit ; and there- 
 fore it is a part of his game to ingratiate himself 
 with all pot-boy-dom, while at heart he is as 
 proud, exclusive an aristocrat, as ever wore noble- 
 man's hat. At all events, you may get something 
 out of him, if you play your cards well or, 
 rather, help me to play mine ; for I consider him 
 as my property, and you only as my aide-de- 
 camp." 
 
 "I shall play no one's cards," I answered sulk- 
 ily. " I am doing work fairly, and shall be fairly 
 paid for it, and keep my own independence." 
 
 " Independence hey-day ! Have you forgot- 
 ten that, after all, you are my guest, to call it 
 by the mildest term ? " 
 
 " Do you upbraid me with that? " I said, start- 
 ing up. "Do you expect me to live on your 
 charity, on condition of doing your dirty work? 
 You do not know me, sir. I leave your roof 
 this instant ! " 
 
 " You do not ! " answered he, laughing loudly, 
 as he sprang over the sofa, and set his back 
 against the door. " Come, come, you Will-o'-the- 
 wisp, as full of flights, and fancies, and vagaries, 
 
 Vol. Ill 15
 
 330 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 as a sick old maid ! can't you see which side your 
 bread is buttered? Sit down, I say! Don't you 
 know that I 'm as good-natured a fellow as ever 
 lived, although I do parade a little Gil Bias moral- 
 ity now and then, just for fun's sake? Do you 
 think I should be so open with it, if I meant any- 
 thing very diabolic? There sit down, and don't 
 go into King Cambyses's vein, or Queen Hecuba's 
 tears either, which you seem inclined to do." 
 
 " I know you have been very generous to me," I 
 said penitently ; " but a kindness becomes none 
 when you are upbraided with it." 
 
 " So say the copy-books I deny it. At all 
 events, I '11 say no more ; and you shall sit down 
 there, and write as still as a mouse till two, while I 
 tackle this never-to-be-enough-by-unhappy-third- 
 years'-men-execrated Griffin's Optics." 
 
 At four that afternoon, I knocked, proofs in 
 hand, at the door of Lord Lynedale's rooms in the 
 King's Parade. The door was opened by a little 
 elderly groom, gray-coated, gray-gaitered, gray- 
 haired, gray-visaged. He had the look of a re- 
 spectable old family retainer, and his exquisitely 
 neat groom's dress gave him a sort of interest in 
 my eyes. Class costumes, relics though they are 
 of feudalism, carry a charm with them. They are 
 symbolic, definitive ; they bestow a personality on 
 the wearer, which satisfies the mind, by enabling it 
 instantly to classify him, to connect him with a 
 thousand stories and associations; and to my 
 young mind, the wiry, shrewd, honest, grim old 
 serving-man seemed the incarnation of all the 
 wonders of Newmarket, and the hunting-kennel, 
 and the steeple-chase, of which I had read, with
 
 The Lost Idol Found 331 
 
 alternate admiration and contempt, in the news- 
 papers. He ushered me in with a good breeding 
 which surprised me ; without insolence to me, or 
 servility to his master; both of which I had been 
 taught to expect. 
 
 Lord Lynedale bade me very courteously sit 
 down while he examined the proofs. I looked 
 round the low-wainscoted apartment, with its nar- 
 row mullioned windows, in extreme curiosity. 
 What a real nobleman's abode could be like, was 
 naturally worth examining, to one who had, all his 
 life, heard of the aristocracy as of some mythic 
 Titans whether fiends or gods, being yet a 
 doubtful point altogether enshrined on "cloudy 
 Olympus," invisible to mortal ken. The shelves 
 were gay with morocco, Russia leather, and gild- 
 ing not much used, as I thought, till my eye 
 caught one of the gorgeously bound volumes lying 
 on the table in a loose cover of polished leather 
 a refinement of which poor I should never have 
 dreamt. The walls were covered with prints, which 
 soon turned my eyes from everything else, to 
 range delighted over Landseers, Turners, Roberts's 
 Eastern sketches, the ancient Italian masters ; and 
 I recognized, with a sort of friendly affection, an 
 old print of my favorite St. Sebastian, in the Dul- 
 wich Gallery. It brought back to my mind a 
 thousand dreams and a thousand sorrows. Would 
 those dreams be ever realized? Might this new 
 acquaintance possibly open some pathway towards 
 their fulfilment? some vista towards the attain- 
 ment of a station where they would, at least, be 
 less chimerical? And at that thought, my heart 
 beat loud with hope. The room was choked up 
 with chairs and tables, of all sorts of strange
 
 332 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 shapes and problematical uses. The floor was 
 strewed with skins of bear, deer, and seal. In a 
 corner lay hunting-whips, and fishing-rods, foils, 
 boxing-gloves, and gun-cases ; while over the 
 chimney-piece, an array of rich Turkish pipes, all 
 amber and enamel, contrasted curiously with quaint 
 old swords and daggers bronze classic casts, 
 upon Gothic oak brackets, and fantastic scraps of 
 continental carving. On the centre table, too, 
 reigned the same rich profusion, or if you will, 
 confusion MSS., " Notes in Egypt,' "Goethe's 
 Walverwandschaften," " Murray's Hand-books," 
 and " Plato's Republic." What was there not 
 there? And I chuckled inwardly, to see how 
 "Bell's Life in London" and the " Ecclesiologist " 
 had, between them, got down " McCulloch on Taxa- 
 tion," and were sitting, arm-in-arm, triumphantly 
 astride of him. Everything in the room, even to the 
 fragrant flowers in a German glass, spoke of a trav- 
 elled and cultivated luxury manifold tastes and 
 powers of self-enjoyment and self-improvement, 
 which Heaven forgive me if I envied, as I looked 
 upon them. If I, now, had had one-twentieth part 
 of those books, prints, that experience of life, not 
 to mention that physical strength and beauty, 
 which stood towering there before the fire so 
 simple, so utterly unconscious of the innate noble- 
 ness and grace which shone out from every motion 
 of those stately limbs and features all the deli- 
 cacy which blood can give, combined, as one does 
 sometimes see, with the broad strength of the pro- 
 letarian so different from poor me ! and so dif- 
 ferent, too, as I recollected with perhaps a savage 
 pleasure, from the miserable, stunted specimens of 
 over-bred imbecility whom I had often passed in
 
 The Lost Idol Found 333 
 
 London ! A strange question that of birth ! and 
 one in which the philosopher, in spite of himself, 
 must come to democratic conclusions. For, after 
 all, the physical and intellectual superiority of the 
 high-born is only preserved, as it was in the old 
 Norman times, by the continual practical abnega- 
 tion of the very caste-lie on which they pride them- 
 selves by continual renovation of their race, by 
 intermarriage with the ranks below them. The 
 blood of Odin flowed in the veins of Norman Wil- 
 liam ; true and so did the tanner's of Falaise ! 
 
 At last he looked up and spoke courteously 
 
 " I 'm afraid I have kept you long ; but now, 
 here is for your corrections, which are capital. I 
 have really to thank you for a lesson in writing 
 English." And he put a sovereign into my hand. 
 
 " I am very sorry," said I, " but I have no 
 change." 
 
 "Never mind that. Your work is well worth 
 the money." 
 
 " But," I said, " you agreed with me for five 
 
 shillings a sheet, and 1 do not wish to be 
 
 rude, but I cannot accept your kindness. We 
 workingmen make a rule of abiding by our wages, 
 and taking nothing which looks like " 
 
 " Well, well and a very good rule it is. I sup- 
 pose, then, I must find out some way for you to 
 earn more. Good afternoon." And he motioned 
 me out of the room, followed me downstairs, and 
 turned off towards the college gardens. 
 
 I wandered up and down, feeding my greedy 
 eyes, till I found myself again upon the bridge 
 where I had stood that morning, gazing with 
 admiration and astonishment at a scene which I 
 have often expected to see painted or described,
 
 334 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 and which, nevertheless, in spite of its unique 
 magnificence, seems strangely overlooked by those 
 who cater for the public taste, with pen and pencil. 
 The vista of bridges, one after another spanning 
 the stream ; the long line of great monastic palaces, 
 all unlike, and yet all in harmony, sloping down 
 to the stream, with their trim lawns and ivied walls, 
 their towers and buttresses; and opposite them, 
 the range of rich gardens and noble timber trees, 
 dimly seen through which, at the end of the gor- 
 geous river avenue, towered the lofty buildings of 
 St John's. The whole scene, under the glow of a 
 rich May afternoon, seemed to me a fragment out 
 of " The Arabian Nights " or Spenser's " Fairy 
 Queen." I leaned upon the parapet, and gazed, 
 and gazed, so absorbed in wonder and enjoyment, 
 that I was quite unconscious, for some time, that 
 Lord Lynedale was standing by my side, engaged 
 in the same employment. He was not alone. 
 Hanging on his arm was a lady, whose face, it 
 seemed to me, I ought to know. It certainly was 
 one not to be easily forgotten. She was beautiful, 
 but with the face and figure rather of a Juno than 
 a Venus dark, imperious, restless the lips al- 
 most too firmly set, the brow almost too massive 
 and projecting a queen, rather to be feared than 
 loved but a queen still, as truly royal as the 
 man into whose face she was looking up with 
 eager admiration and delight, as he pointed out to 
 her eloquently the several beauties of the land- 
 scape. Her dress was as plain as that of any 
 Quaker; but the grace of its arrangement, of 
 every line and fold, was enough, without the help 
 of the heavy gold bracelet on her wrist, to pro- 
 claim her a fine lady ; by which term, I wish to
 
 The Lost Idol Found 335 
 
 express the result of that perfect education in taste 
 and manner, down to every gesture, which Heaven 
 forbid that I, professing to be a poet, should un- 
 dervalue. It is beautiful; and therefore I wel- 
 come it, in the name of the Author of all beauty. 
 I value it so highly, that I would fain see it extend, 
 not merely from Belgravia to the tradesman's villa, 
 but thence, as I believe it one day will, to the la- 
 borer's hovel and the needlewoman's garret. 
 
 Half in bashfulness, half in the pride which 
 shrinks from anything like intrusion, I was moving 
 away; but the nobleman, recognizing me with a 
 smile and a nod, made some observation on the 
 beauty of the scene before us. Before I could 
 answer, however, I saw that his companion's eyes 
 were fixed intently on my face. 
 
 " Is this," she said to Lord Lynedale, " the 
 young person of whom you were speaking to me 
 just now? I fancy that I recollect him, though, I 
 daresay, he has forgotten me." 
 
 If I had forgotten the face, that voice, so pecu- 
 liarly rich, deep, and marked in its pronunciation 
 of every syllable, recalled her instantly to my 
 mind. It was the dark lady of the Dulwich 
 Gallery ! 
 
 " I met you, I think," I said, " at the picture 
 gallery at Dulwich, and you were kind enough, 
 
 and and some persons who were with you, to 
 
 talk to me about a picture there." 
 
 " Yes ; Guide's St. Sebastian. You seemed 
 fond of reading then. I am glad to see you at 
 college." 
 
 I explained that I was not at college. That led 
 to fresh gentle questions on her part, till I had 
 given her all the leading points of my history.
 
 336 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 There was nothing in it of which I ought to have 
 been ashamed. 
 
 She seemed to become more and more inter- 
 ested in my story, and her companion also. 
 
 " And have you tried to write? I recollect my 
 uncle advising you to try a poem on St Sebastian. 
 It was spoken, perhaps, in jest; but it will not, I 
 hope, have been labor lost, if you have taken it 
 in earnest" 
 
 " Yes I have written on that and on other 
 subjects, during the last few years." 
 
 " Then, you must let us see them, if you have 
 them with you. I think my uncle, Arthur, might 
 like to look over them; and if they were fit for 
 publication, he might be able to do something to- 
 wards it." 
 
 " At all events," said Lord Lynedale, " a self- 
 educated author is always interesting. Bring any 
 of your poems, that you have with you, to the 
 Eagle this afternoon, and leave them there for 
 Dean Winnstay; and to-morrow morning, if you 
 have nothing better to do, call there between ten 
 and eleven o'clock." 
 
 He wrote me down the dean's address, and nod- 
 ding a civil good morning, turned away with his 
 queenly companion, while I stood gazing after him, 
 wondering whether all noblemen and high-born 
 ladies were like "them in person and in spirit a 
 question which, in spite of many noble exceptions, 
 some of them well known and appreciated by the 
 workingmen, I am afraid must be answered in the 
 negative. 
 
 I took my MSS. to the Eagle, and wandered out 
 once more, instinctively, among those same mag- 
 nificent trees at the back of the colleges, to enjoy
 
 The Lost Idol Found 337 
 
 the pleasing torment of expectation. " My uncle ! " 
 was he the same old man whom I had seen at the 
 gallery; and if so, was Lillian with him? Deli- 
 cious hope ! And yet, what if she was with him 
 what to me? But yet I sat silent, dreaming, all 
 the evening, and hurried early to bed not to 
 sleep, but to lie and dream on and on, and rise 
 almost before light, eat no breakfast, and pace up 
 and down, waiting impatiently for the hour at which 
 I was to find out whether my dream was true. 
 
 And it was true ! The first object I saw, when I 
 entered the room, was Lillian, looking more beau- 
 tiful than ever. The child of sixteen had blos- 
 somed into the woman of twenty. The ivory and 
 vermilion of the complexion had toned down to- 
 gether into still richer hues. The dark hazel eyes 
 shone with a more liquid lustre. The figure had 
 become more rounded, without losing a line of 
 that fairy lightness, with which her light morning- 
 dress, with its delicate French semi-tones of color, 
 gay and yet not gaudy, seemed to harmonize. 
 The little plump jewelled hands the transparent 
 chestnut hair, banded round the beautiful oval 
 masque the tiny feet, which, as Suckling has it, 
 
 Underneath her petticoat 
 
 Like little mice peeped in and out 
 
 I could have fallen down, fool that I was ! and 
 
 worshipped what? I could not tell then, for 
 
 I cannot tell even now. 
 
 The dean smiled recognition, bade me sit down, 
 and disposed my papers, meditatively, on his knee. 
 I obeyed him, trembling, choking my eyes de- 
 vouring my idol forgetting why I had come 
 seeing nothing but her listening for nothing but
 
 338 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 the opening of those lips. I believe the dean was 
 some sentences deep in his oration, before I be- 
 came conscious thereof. 
 
 " And I think I may tell you, at once, that 
 
 I have been very much surprised and gratified with 
 them. They evince, on the whole, a far greater 
 acquaintance with the English classic-models, and 
 with the laws of rhyme and melody, than could 
 have been expected from a young man of your 
 class macte virtute puer. Have you read any 
 Latin?" 
 
 "A little." And I went on staring at Lillian, 
 who looked up, furtively, from her work, every 
 now and then, to steal a glance at me, and set my 
 poor heart thumping still more fiercely against my 
 side. 
 
 "Very good; you will have the less trouble, 
 then, in the preparation for college. You will 
 find out for yourself, of course, the immense dis- 
 advantages of self-education. The fact is, my dear 
 lord " (turning to Lord Lynedale), " it is only use- 
 ful as an indication of a capability of being edu- 
 cated by others. One never opens a book written 
 by workingmen, without shuddering at a hundred 
 faults of style. However, there are some very 
 tolerable attempts among these especially the 
 imitations of Milton's ' Comus.' " 
 
 Poor I had by no means intended them as imi- 
 tations ; but such, no doubt, they were. 
 
 " I am sorry to see that Shelley has had so much 
 influence on your writing. He is a guide as irregu- 
 lar in taste as unorthodox \n doctrine; though 
 there are some pretty things in him now and then. 
 And you have caught his melody tolerably here, 
 now "
 
 The Lost Idol Found 339 
 
 " Oh, that is such a sweet thing ! " said Lillian. 
 " Do you know, I read it over and over last night, 
 and took it upstairs with me. How very fond of 
 beautiful things you must be, Mr. Locke, to be 
 able to describe so passionately the longing after 
 them." 
 
 That voice once more ! It intoxicated me, so 
 that I hardly knew what I stammered out some- 
 thing about workingmen having very few oppor- 
 tunities of indulging the taste for I forget what 
 I believe I was on the point of running off into 
 some absurd compliment, but I caught the dark 
 lady's warning eye on me. 
 
 " Ah, yes ! I forgot. I daresay it must be a 
 very stupid life. So little opportunity, as he says. 
 What a pity he is a tailor, papa ! Such an un- 
 imaginative employment! How delightful it would 
 be to send him to college and make him a clergy- 
 man ! " 
 
 Fool that I was 1 I fancied what did I not 
 fancy? never seeing how that very "he" bespoke 
 the indifference the gulf between us. I was not 
 a man an equal ; but a thing a subject, who 
 was to be talked over, and examined, and made 
 into something like themselves, of their supreme 
 and undeserved benevolence. 
 
 " Gently, gently, fair lady ! We must not be as 
 headlong as some people would kindly wish to be. 
 If this young man really has a proper desire to rise 
 into a higher station, and I find him a fit object to 
 be assisted in that praiseworthy ambition, why, I 
 think he ought to go to some training college ; St 
 Mark's, I should say, on the whole, might, by its 
 strong Church principles, give the best antidote to 
 any little remaining taint of sansculottism. You
 
 34 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 understand me, my lord ? And, then, if he dis- 
 tinguished himself there, it would be time to think 
 of getting him a sizarship." 
 
 " Poor Pegasus in harness ! " half smiled, half 
 sighed, the dark lady. 
 
 "Just the sort of youth," whispered Lord Lyne- 
 dale, loud enough for me to hear, " to take out with 
 us to the Mediterranean as secretary s'il y avait 
 la de la morale, of course " 
 
 Yes and of course, too, the tailor's boy was 
 not expected to understand French. But the most 
 absurd thing was, how everybody, except perhaps 
 the dark lady, seemed to take for granted that I 
 felt myself exceedingly honored, and must con- 
 sider it, as a matter of course, the greatest pos- 
 sible stretch of kindness thus to talk me over, and 
 settle everything for me, as if I was not a living 
 soul, but a plant in a pot. Perhaps they were 
 not unsupported by experience. I suppose too 
 many of us would have thought it so ; there are 
 flunkeys in all ranks, and to spare. Perhaps the 
 true absurdity was the way in which I sat, de- 
 mented, inarticulate, staring at Lillian, and only 
 caring for any word which seemed to augur a 
 chance of seeing her again ; instead of saying, as 
 I felt, that I had no wish whatever to rise above 
 my station ; no intention whatever of being sent 
 to training schools or colleges, or anywhere else 
 at the expense of other people. And therefore it 
 was that I submitted blindly, when the dean, who 
 looked as kind, and was really, I believe, as kind 
 as ever was human being, turned to me with a 
 solemn authoritative voice 
 
 " Well, my young friend, I must say that I am, 
 on the whole, very much pleased with your per-
 
 The Lost Idol Found 341 
 
 formance. It corroborates, my dear lord, the as- 
 sertion, for which I have been so often ridiculed, 
 that there are many real men, capable of higher 
 things, scattered up and down among the masses. 
 Attend to me, sir ! " (a hint which I suspect I very 
 much wanted). "Now, recollect; if it should be 
 hereafter in our power to assist your prospects in 
 life, you must give up, once and for all, the bitter 
 tone against the higher classes, which I am sorry 
 to see in your MSS. As you know more of the 
 world, you will find that the poor are not by any 
 means as ill-used as they are taught, in these days, 
 to believe. The rich have their sorrows too no 
 one knows it better than I " (and he played pen- 
 sively with his gold pencil-case) " and good and 
 evil are pretty equally distributed among all ranks, 
 by a just and merciful God. I advise you most 
 earnestly, as you value your future success in life, 
 to give up reading those unprincipled authors, 
 whose aim is to excite the evil passions of the 
 multitude ; and to shut your ears betimes to the 
 extravagant calumnies of demagogues, who make 
 tools of enthusiastic and imaginative minds for 
 their own selfish aggrandizement. Avoid politics ; 
 the workman has no more to do with them than 
 the clergyman. We are told, on divine authority, 
 to fear God and the king, and meddle not with 
 those who are given to change. Rather put be- 
 fore yourself the example of such a man as the 
 excellent Dr. Brown, one of the richest and most 
 respected men of the university, with whom I hope 
 to have the pleasure of dining this evening and 
 yet that man actually, for several years of his life, 
 worked at a carpenter's bench ! " 
 
 I too had something to say about all that. I
 
 342 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 too knew something about demagogues and work- 
 ingmen: but the sight of Lillian made me a 
 coward ; and I only sat silent as the thought 
 flashed across me, half ludicrous, half painful, by 
 its contrast, of another who once worked at a car- 
 penter's bench, and fulfilled His mission not by 
 an old age of wealth, respectability, and port wine ; 
 but on the Cross of Calvary. After all, the worthy 
 old gentleman gave me no time to answer. 
 
 " Next I think of showing these MSS. to my 
 publisher, to get his opinion as to whether they 
 are worth printing just now. Not that I wish you 
 to build much on the chance. It is not necessary 
 that you should be a poet. I should prefer mathe- 
 matics for you, as a methodic discipline of the 
 intellect. Most active minds write poetry, at a 
 certain age I wrote a good deal, I recollect, 
 myself. But that is no reason for publishing. 
 This haste to rush into print is one of the bad 
 signs of the times a symptom of the unhealthy 
 activity which was first called out by the French 
 Revolution. In the Elizabethan age, every de- 
 cently educated gentleman was able, as a matter 
 of course, to indite a sonnet to his mistress's eye- 
 brow, or an epigram on his enemy; and yet he 
 never dreamt of printing them. One of the few 
 rational things I have met with, Eleanor, in the 
 works of your very objectionable pet Mr. Carlyle 
 though indeed his style is too intolerable to 
 have allowed me to read much is the remark 
 that ' speech is silver * ' silvern ' he calls it, pe- 
 dantically ' while silence is golden.' " 
 
 At this point of the sermon, Lillian fled from 
 the room, to my extreme disgust. But still th 
 old man prosed
 
 The Lost Idol Found 343 
 
 " I think, therefore, that you had better stay 
 with your cousin for the next week. I hear from 
 Lord Lynedale that he is a very studious, moral, 
 rising young man ; and I only hope that you will 
 follow his good example. At the end of the week 
 I shall return home, and then I shall be glad to 
 see more of you at my house at D , about 
 mites from this place. Good morning." 
 
 I went, in rapture at the last announcement 
 and yet my conscience smote me. I had not 
 stood up for the workingmen. I had heard them 
 calumniated, and held my tongue but I was to 
 see Lillian. I had let the dean fancy I was willing 
 to become a pensioner on his bounty that I was 
 a member of the Church of England, and willing 
 to go to a Church Training School but I was to 
 see Lillian. I had lowered myself in my own eyes 
 but I had seen Lillian. Perhaps I exaggerated 
 my own offences : however that may be, love soon 
 silenced conscience, and I almost danced into my 
 cousin's rooms on my return. 
 
 > 
 
 That week passed rapidly and happily. I was 
 half amused with the change in my cousin's 
 demeanor. I had evidently risen immensely in 
 his eyes; and I could not help applying, in my 
 heart, to him, Mr. Carlyle's dictum about the valet 
 species how they never honor the unaccredited 
 hero, having no eye to find him out till properly 
 accredited, and countersigned, and accoutred with 
 full uniform and diploma by that great god, Pub- 
 lic Opinion. I saw through the motive of his new- 
 fledged respect for me and yet encouraged it; 
 for it flattered my vanity. The world must forgive 
 me. It was something for the poor tailor to find
 
 344 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 himself somewhat appreciated at last, even out- 
 wardly. And besides, this sad respect took a 
 form which was very tempting to me now 
 though the week before it was just the one which 
 I should have repelled with scorn. George became 
 very anxious to lend me money, to order me 
 clothes at his own tailor's, and set me up in various 
 little toilette refinements, that I might make a 
 respectable appearance at the dean's. I knew that 
 he consulted rather the honor of the family, than 
 my good ; but I did not know that his aim was 
 also to get me into his power ; and I .refused more 
 and more weakly at each fresh offer, and at last 
 consented, in an evil hour, to sell my own inde- 
 pendence, for the sake of indulging my love- 
 dream, and appearing to be what I was not. 
 
 I saw little of the University men ; less than I 
 might have done; less, perhaps, than I ought to 
 have done. My cousin did not try to keep me 
 from them ; they, whenever I met them, did not 
 shrink from me, and were civil enough: but I 
 shrank from them. My cousin attributed my 
 reserve to modesty, and praised me for it in his 
 coarse fashion: but he was mistaken. Pride, 
 rather, and something very like envy, kept me 
 silent. Always afraid (at that period of my 
 career) of young men of my own age, I was 
 doubly afraid of these men; not because they 
 were cleverer than I, for they were not, but be- 
 cause I fancied I had no fair chance with them ; 
 they had opportunities which I had not, read and 
 talked of books of which I knew nothing; and 
 when they did touch on matters which I fancied I 
 understood, it was from a point of view so different 
 from mine, that I had to choose, as I thought.
 
 The Lost Idol Found 345 
 
 between standing up alone to be baited by the 
 whole party, or shielding myself behind a proud 
 and somewhat contemptuous silence. I looked on 
 them as ignorant aristocrats; while they looked 
 on me, I verily believe now, as a very good sort of 
 fellow, who ought to talk well, but would not ; and 
 went their way carelessly. The truth is, I did 
 envy those men. I did not envy them their learn- 
 ing ; for the majority of men who came into my 
 cousin's room had no learning to envy, being 
 rather brilliant and agreeable men than severe 
 students ; but I envied them their opportunities of 
 learning; and envied them just as much their 
 opportunities of play their boating, their cricket, 
 their football, their riding, and their gay confident 
 carriage, which proceeds from physical health and 
 strength, and which I mistook for the swagger of 
 insolence ; while Parker's Piece, with its games, 
 was a sight which made me grind my teeth, when 
 I thought of the very different chance of physical 
 exercise which falls to the lot of a London artisan. 
 And still more did I envy them when I found 
 that many of them combined, as my cousin did, 
 this physical exercise with really hard mental 
 work, and found the one help the other. It was 
 bitter to me whether it ought to have been so 
 or not to hear of prizemen, wranglers, fellows of 
 colleges, as first-rate oars, boxers, football players ; 
 and my eyes once fairly filled with tears, when, 
 after the departure of a little fellow no bigger or 
 heavier than myself, but with the eye and the gait 
 of a gamecock, I was informed that he was " bow- 
 oar in the University eight, and as sure to be 
 senior classic next year as he has a head on his 
 shoulders." And I thought of my nights of study
 
 346 Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet 
 
 in the lean-to garret, and of the tailor's workshop, 
 and of Sandy's den, and said to myself bitter 
 words, which I shall not set down. Let gentlemen 
 readers imagine them for themselves; and judge 
 rationally and charitably of an unhealthy work- 
 ingman like me, if his tongue be betrayed, at 
 moments, to envy, hatred, malice, and all un- 
 charitableness. 
 
 However, one happiness I had books. I read 
 in my cousin's room from morning till night. He 
 gave me my meals hospitably enough: but dis- 
 appeared every day about four to " hall " ; after 
 which he did not reappear till eight, the interval 
 being taken up, he said, in " wines " and an hour 
 of billiards. Then he sat down to work, and read 
 steadily and well till twelve, while I, nothing loath, 
 did the same ; and so passed, rapidly enough, my 
 week at Cambridge. 
 
 END OF VOL. I.
 
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