THE LIFE Ol 
 JAMES THOMSON 
 
 ("B.V.") 
 HENRY S. SALT
 
 SAN DIEGO
 
 THE LIFE 
 
 OF 
 
 JAMES THOMSON ("B.V.")
 
 JAMES THOMSON 
 From a crayon drawing by Rowland Holyoake
 
 THE LIFE 
 
 OF 
 
 JAMES THOMSON ("B.V.") 
 
 BY 
 
 HENEY S. SALT, 
 
 AtJTHOB OP " THE LIFE OF HENBT DAVID THOBEAU,' 
 " PEBCY BTS8HE SHELLEY," ETC. 
 
 REVISED EDITION 
 
 LONDON : 
 WATTS & CO., 
 
 JOHNSON'S COURT, FLEET STREET, E.G. 
 1914
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 NOTE TO REVISED EDITION - vii 
 
 PREFACE TO ORIGINAL EDITION - 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 YOUTH 1 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 ARMY SCHOOLMASTER - 16 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 LIFE IN LONDON - 36 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 VISITS TO AMERICA AND SPAIN 57 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 " THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT " - 74 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 "SEVEN SONGLESS YEARS" - 94 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 BETWEEN LEICESTER AND LONDON - 112 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 LAST DAYS - ' - 132 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 PESSIMIST AND POET - - 144 
 INDEX - 167
 
 NOTE TO KEVISED EDITION 
 
 IN preparing the Life of James Thomson for a new 
 edition, I have re-read many of the press-notices and 
 criticisms published during the past twenty-five 
 years, in the hope of correcting my own judgment by 
 the general literary verdict. From the sympathetic 
 comments of a few writers who were personally 
 intimate with Thomson I have indeed learnt much ; 
 but, as a rule, the reviewers seem to have been dis- 
 qualified for forming a just estimate of him by the 
 dislike or timidity with which they regarded what was 
 heretical and unpopular in his career. One thing is 
 evident from the various opinions that have been 
 expressed about him that his reputation is heavily 
 weighted by his republicanism, his atheism, his 
 pessimism, not to mention the inherited malady of 
 which, like many less unorthodox thinkers, he was 
 a victim. 
 
 The tragic side of Thomson's life, it must be 
 vii
 
 viii NOTE TO EEVISED EDITION 
 
 owned, is by no means pleasant reading for a pleasure- 
 loving public. I regret it. I wish it were a less 
 sombre story that has to be told. But what is a 
 conscientious biographer to do ? Eeally, the view 
 that some worthy persons seem to take of the 
 biographical function is rather disquieting ; as in the 
 case of a former landlady of the poet on whom I 
 was once rash enough to call the only instance in 
 which I found an unfriendly recollection of him. 
 He was gone, she said, sourly regarding me, as if 
 she resented any mention of her impecunious lodger ; 
 he had " passed away," and that was all she could 
 tell me. But if I wished to write the life of a truly 
 good man, a cheerful Christian, and an earnest 
 teetotaler (here she looked at me dubiously, as if 
 sceptical of my powers), there was- her dear 
 departed husband. Such was the alternative set 
 before me. Appalled at the prospect, I hastily 
 excused myself and fled. 
 
 The scanty recognition which Thomson gained as 
 a poet was and still is absurdly out of proportion 
 to his merits ; but as a set-off to the neglect of the 
 many was the welcome of the few ; and among those 
 who warmly praised his poetry were George Eliot, 
 George Meredith, the Kossettis, Herman Melville,
 
 NOTE TO REVISED EDITION ix 
 
 E. C. Stedman, and the earlier Swinburne. I say 
 the earlier Swinburne, because Mr. Swinburne after- 
 wards came to the conclusion that his judgment as 
 e xpressed to Mr. W. M. Eossetti had been " too 
 favourable," and that a first reading of Weddah and 
 Om-el-Bonain had excited in him "a somewhat 
 extravagant and uncritical enthusiasm." l 
 
 But of all estimates of Thomson none is so 
 interesting as George Meredith's. In his opinion 
 Thomson's pessimism was injurious to his poetry, 
 and the writing of The City of Dreadful Night did 
 its author no good, inasmuch as he there embodied 
 his "gloomy images" in a permanent form, which 
 in turn affected him and made him more and more 
 despondent. 2 
 
 However that may be, it cannot be admitted 
 that Thomson's pessimism is, to lovers of great 
 poetry, a bar to the enjoyment of his verse. What 
 is supremely well done must give artistic pleasure, 
 as what is ill done must give pain ; and in the 
 " builded desolation " of Thomson's chief work we 
 
 1 So he wrote to me in a letter (July 21, 1888) in which he declined to allow 
 his former letter, addressed to Mr. W. M. Bossetti in 1880, to be published. 
 With regard to his earlier opinion of Thomson's narrative poem, see p. 117 
 of this book. 
 
 3 I quote the substance of what Mr. Meredith said to me in conversation. 
 See also what he wrote in a letter dated February 2, 1891, which has lately 
 been reprinted in the Letters of George Meredith.
 
 x NOTE TO EEVISED EDITION 
 
 have the most powerful presentment in English 
 poetry of pessimistic thought. "Bright achieve- 
 ment," as Mr. Meredith wrote, " was plucked out of 
 the most tragic life in our literature." Bright 
 achievement perhaps, but not great achievement 
 with The City of Dreadful Night to be appraised. 
 
 H. S. S. 
 
 May, 1914.
 
 PREFACE TO ORIGINAL EDITION 
 
 I COULD wish that the duty of writing this biography 
 had been entrusted to one who had enjoyed the 
 advantage of personal acquaintance with James 
 Thomson. As, however, no such biographer was 
 forthcoming, I have done my best to put together 
 the scattered records already published, and to collect 
 such further information as could still be obtained. 
 It has been my object to avoid all fancy portraiture, 
 and to give a clear and reliable narrative of the main 
 facts of Thomspn's life, allowing his letters as much 
 as possible to tell their own tale, and quoting in 
 many cases the actual words of those who have 
 recorded their personal reminiscences. 
 
 I gratefully acknowledge the cordial help I have 
 received from a large number of Thomson's friends 
 and correspondents. To Mr. Bertram Dobell, in 
 particular, I owe my best thanks for his untiring 
 kindness and good will, and for the loan of numerous
 
 xii PKEFACE TO OEIGINAL EDITION 
 
 letters and -manuscript poems. Mr. Percy Holyoake 
 generously placed at my service his interesting 
 collection of Thomson's papers, including the diaries 
 kept between 1874 and 1881, without which this 
 biography could hardly have been written. I am 
 indebted to Mrs. John Thomson, Mr. J. W. Barrs, 
 Mrs. Pelluet, Mr. W. M. Eossetti, Mrs. Greig, Mrs. 
 Bradlaugh Bonner, and Mrs. James Potterton for 
 the use of letters, notebooks, and other documents, 
 and for information about certain points in 
 Thomson's life and character. For further assist- 
 ance of various kinds I have to thank Mr. John 
 Grant, Mr. and Mr^T. E. Wright, Mr. George 
 Meredith, Mr. William Sharp, Mr. H. Hood-Barrs, 
 Mrs. George Duncan, Mr. Charles Duncan, Mr. W. 
 Weller, Mr. G. W. Foote, Mr. Charles Bradlaugh, 
 Mr. W. E. Jaques, Mr. G. J. Harney, Mr. Byron 
 Webber, Mr. A. A. Thomson, Mr. Thomas Carson, 
 Mrs. Birkmyre, Mr. C. A. Watts, the Eev. C. M. 
 Barnes, Dr. E. Garnett, and Mr. F. Potterton. 
 
 H. S. S.
 
 CHAPTER I 
 YOUTH 
 
 JAMES THOMSON, the second poet of that name one 
 who, in spite of his present comparative obscurity, is 
 perhaps destined to take rank hereafter among the 
 foremost writers of the age in which he lived was born 
 at Port Glasgow on November 23, 1834, of Scotch 
 parentage on both sides. His father, James Thomson, 
 who was the son of a Scotch weaver and a native of 
 Pitlochry, is said to have been a clever man in many 
 ways, with a strong talent for mechanics. He was a 
 sailor, and, being devotedly attached to his profession, 
 attained a good position in the merchant service ; he is 
 described by those who knew him personally as a 
 delightful companion, bright and cheerful in disposition, 
 reading and reciting well, fond of music, and singing 
 a good song in congenial society. On January 12, 1834, 
 he was married, in London, to Sarah Kennedy, a deeply 
 religious woman of the Irvingite faith, whose nature, 
 unlike that of her husband, seems .to have been of a 
 somewhat melancholy cast ; though she was a most 
 affectionate wife and mother. Their family consisted of 
 James, the eldest child, 1 a daughter born in 1836, or 
 
 1 Extract verbatim from old parish registers in the Eegister House, 
 Edinburgh :" James Thomson, mariner in Port Glasgow, and Sarah 
 Kennedy his spouse, had a lawful son, born November 23, 1834, and 
 baptised February 28, 1835, called James." I agree with Mr. Dqbell as to 
 the absurdity of the "floating rumour" referred to by Mr. William Sharp 
 in the Academy of April 13, 1889, " which attributes Thomson's paternity 
 elsewhere than to the obscure sea-captain" i.e., to Bulwer Lytton, whom 
 Thomson described as " one of the most thorough and hollow humbugs of 
 the age, false and flashy in everything." 
 
 1 B
 
 2 YOUTH 
 
 thereabouts, who died three years later ; and a second 
 son, John, born in 1842. The religious training which 
 James received in his childhood was of the strictest 
 kind ; forty years later he had still a vivid recollection 
 of having to commit to memory what was known as the 
 "Assembly's Shorter Catechism," and of the dismal 
 feelings with which he looked forward to the longer task 
 that was to follow. 
 
 In 1840 an accident occurred which had an important 
 influence on the boy's career. His father, who was then 
 chief officer of the ship Eliza Stewart of Greenock, was 
 entirely disabled by a paralytic stroke while on a distant 
 voyage, and was rendered helpless for the rest of his 
 life, the family being thus suddenly thrown into dis- 
 tressed circumstances. It has been said that their fall 
 in the social scale was owing to intemperance on the 
 part of the father ; this, however, is strongly denied by 
 surviving relatives and friends, and no evidence of such 
 habits is discoverable, except that Thomson once told 
 a friend, in after years, that intemperance ran in the 
 family, and that " nearly all the members of it who ' had 
 brains,' especially a gifted aunt of his, fell victims to 
 its power." J However this may have been, the paralytic 
 stroke was the immediate and direct cause of the mis- 
 fortunes that followed ; and in 1842 we find the family 
 residing at various addresses in the east of London, and 
 deprived of their former comfort and internal happiness. 
 Through the kindness of friends, especially a Mr. James 
 Boyd, of Burgess Hill, an old fellow-townsman of Mrs. 
 Thomson's, an application was made in August, 1842, 
 for the admission of James to the Eoyal Caledonian 
 Asylum, and on December 1 the boy was elected by 
 
 1 Progress, April, 1884.
 
 YOUTH 3 
 
 vote, having been previously certified to be " in every 
 particular in a good state of health." Shortly after his 
 admission to the asylum his mother died a blow which 
 he undoubtedly felt very severely, though he seldom 
 mentioned it and his younger brother was taken to 
 Glasgow by an aunt. The father lived till 1853, but, as 
 his health and mental powers were seriously affected by 
 his illness, he could no longer take charge of his sons ; 
 and thus it came about that James was left practically 
 without relatives, or at least without any who were 
 willing to help him. But he was not friendless; for 
 during the time he stayed at the Asylum, and some 
 years afterwards, he was a constant visitor at the house 
 of Mr. William Gray, an old friend of his parents, in 
 whose family he regularly spent his holidays, and was 
 treated with great kindness and hospitality. In a letter 
 written to his sister-in-law, Mrs. John Thomson, in the 
 last year of his life, in answer to a request for some 
 information concerning his parents and childhood, 
 Thomson has put on record the following reminiscences, 
 though for .the most part he was extremely reticent, 
 even to his closest friends, on the subject of his family 
 relations : 
 
 I was just past eight years old and at the school when mother died, 
 so I can only give you very early impressions. These are, that 
 father and mother were very happy together when he was at home, 
 until, when I was about six, he returned from his last voyage 
 paralyzed in the right side, the result, as I understand, of a week 
 of terrible storm, during which time he was never able to change 
 his drenched clothes. Before then I think he was a good husband 
 and a kind father ; her I always remember as a loving mother and 
 wife. He may have been a bit gay, in the sense of liking a social 
 song and glass, being, I believe, much better looking and more 
 attractive in company than either of his sons. She was more 
 serious, and pious too, following Irving from the Kirk when he was 
 driven out. I remember well living's portrait under yellow gauze,
 
 4 YOUTH 
 
 and some books of his on the interpretation of prophecy, which I 
 used to read for the imagery. The paralysis at first unhinged 
 father's mind, and he had some fits of violence ; more generally 
 his temper was strange, disagreeable, not to be depended upon. 
 I remember him taunting her with being his elder. Mother must 
 have had a sad time of it for a year or so. His mental perturba- 
 tions settled down into a permanent weakness of mind, not amount- 
 ing to imbecility, but very, very diSerent, I should say, from his 
 former brightness and decision. Before I went to the school he used 
 to take me to chapels where the members of the congregation ejacu- 
 lated groaning responses to the minister's prayer, and to small 
 meetings in a private room where the members detailed their 
 spiritual experiences of the week. Good, bad, or indifferent, these 
 were not the sort of things with which he had anything to do in 
 his days of soundness. The right hand remained useless, but the 
 leg had gradually grown strong enough to walk well, though with 
 an awkward dragging pace. 
 
 I think mother, who was mystically inclined with Edward Irving, 
 had also a cloud of melancholy overhanging her ; first, perhaps, 
 from the death of her favourite brother, John Parker Kennedy, 
 drowned on the Goodwin Sands ; then probably deepened by the 
 death of my little sister, of whom I remember being devotedly fond, 
 when she was about three and myself five, of measles caught from 
 me. Had she or someone else lived, I might have been worth 
 something ; but, on the whole, I sincerely judge that it was well for 
 both to die when they did, and I would not, for my own selfish 
 comfort, call them back if I could. At first I would doubtless have 
 done so, but not for many years past. 
 
 We had also good friends, mother and daughter, named Smith, 
 whom I knew still some years on in my schooldays, and then lost 
 sight of. Speaking generally, you know far more of my family than 
 I do, who have been Ishmael in the desert from my childhood. 
 
 It has been generally assumed by those who have 
 written about Thomson that the two most prominent 
 traits of his character were inherited from his parents, 
 the emotional and imaginative temperament being traced 
 to his mother; to his father the constitutional dipso- 
 mania which was the cause, or at any rate the aggrava- 
 tion, of the gloom of his closing years. One can only
 
 YOUTH 5 
 
 speculate vaguely on such a subject as this, since where 
 so little is positively known of either parent it would be 
 rash to speak with assurance. This much, however, may 
 be confidently stated at the outset, and will become more 
 and more evident as we follow the story of Thomson's 
 life, that his nature was a compound of two diverse and 
 warring elements a light-hearted gaiety and rich sensu- 
 ous capacity for enjoyment being set side by side with 
 a constitutional and ever-deepening melancholia. Much 
 that may seem incongruous and contradictory in the 
 following narrative must be ascribed to this fact, in 
 which, too, may be found the explanation of the different 
 impressions made by Thomson's character on different 
 friends and acquaintances. 
 
 At the early period of which I am now speaking the 
 germ of melancholy was wholly imperceptible and unsus- 
 pected. We cannot doubt that the sudden break-up of 
 his home life was a heavy grief which left its mark on 
 his character ; but there is no ground for regarding 
 Thomson's boyhood as that of a mere neglected orphan 
 and " institution-child," or for supposing that the eight 
 years he spent at the Caledonian Asylum were nothing 
 but a time of solitude or unhappiness. Among his 
 schoolfellows his especial " chum " was Mr. George 
 Duncan, 1 whose elder brother, Mr. Charles Duncan, 
 remembered Thomson, a fine, clever, high-spirited boy, 
 taking the lead among his companions both in the 
 schoolroom and the playground, and thoroughly popular 
 with all who knew him. He was first clarionet in the 
 school band ; and it is said that on one occasion, when 
 the boys had performed at an entertainment given at the 
 Chelsea Hospital, Jenny Lind, who was present, was 
 
 i Late of Madras Educational Department ; died 1886.
 
 6 YOUTH 
 
 induced, at Thomson's request, to sing to the boys by 
 way of making them a fair return for their efforts on her 
 behalf. 
 
 On August 2, 1850, Thomson left the Caledonian 
 Asylum, and was admitted as a monitor at the " Model 
 School," Eoyal Military Asylum, Chelsea. Owing to his 
 powerful memory and great natural abilities, he had 
 made unusually rapid progress in his studies ; in mathe- 
 matics especially he showed that he possessed talents of 
 no common order. He was now close upon sixteen 
 years of age, and the question of his future profession 
 had been decided in favour of a schoolmastership in the 
 army, for which it was necessary first to qualify at 
 Chelsea. It had been his own wish to obtain a clerk- 
 ship in some bank or mercantile office ; but as he had no 
 resources he was compelled to take the advice of his 
 teachers at the Caledonian Asylum, and to enter the 
 profession in which he could most quickly earn a liveli- 
 hood. His schoolfellow, George Duncan, accompanied 
 him to Chelsea, where he soon made other good friends, 
 among whom he was known familiarly as "Jimmy"; 
 the title of "little Thomson" was also applied to him 
 in order to distinguish him from a taller namesake. At 
 Chelsea, as at the Caledonian Asylum, he rapidly proved 
 his superiority as a scholar ; and stories were long related 
 by his surviving schoolmates how, when the other mem- 
 bers of his class were anxious to throw a veil over their 
 own deficiencies, they would beg Thomson to put forward 
 " something stiff " in the form of a mathematical problem, 
 to which he would opportunely invite the master's atten- 
 tion, and so occupy his time. His literary tastes were 
 also very remarkable, both in their choice and scope, for 
 a boy of his age ; for he was already well versed in many 
 of the masterpieces of Swift, Fielding, Smollett, Sterne,
 
 YOUTH 7 
 
 De Foe, De Quincey, and other favourite authors. It 
 was about the time of his admission to the Chelsea 
 military school ihat he became a reader of Shelley. " I 
 and a chum," he wrote in a letter of 1874, " used to read 
 and hugely admire Byron when I was about fifteen ; but 
 a year or so later, when I was about sixteen, I fell under 
 the dominion of Shelley, to whom I have been loyal ever 
 since." This intense love of reading was retained by 
 Thomson to the end of his life, and we shall more than 
 once have occasion to note how eager he was to induce 
 others to take a like pleasure in literature. 
 
 The following account of Thomson in his youth is 
 given by Mrs. Greig, who, as Miss Agnes Gray, had 
 known him intimately when he used to spend his 
 holidays at her father's house between 1842 and 1852 : 
 
 Being several years younger than James, I cannot recollect much 
 about him as a boy ; but I remember we always thought him 
 wonderfully clever, very nice-looking, and very gentle, grave, and 
 kind. He was always most willing to attend to our whims ; but 
 my eldest sister was his especial favourite. Her will seemed always 
 law to him. She was gay as he was grave ; but whatever Helen 
 
 said or did won approbation from him Previous to going (to 
 
 Ireland) he earnestly requested that my sister might be allowed to 
 correspond with him, a request which my parents thought it wiser to 
 refuse. I was allowed, however, to do so ; and although his letters 
 came few and far between, I always welcomed and appreciated them. 1 
 He used to endeavour to guide my tastes and give me good advice 
 as to the books I should read, sending me Charlotte Bronte's Life 
 and Letters, Mrs. Browning's Aurora Leigh, some poems by Robert 
 Browning, and a few other books. 
 
 The departure for Ireland, referred to in the above 
 passage, marks the next stage and a very important 
 one, as it happened in Thomson's career. Before a 
 student was enlisted as an army schoolmaster, it was 
 
 1 Some of these letters are given in Chap. II.
 
 8 YOUTH 
 
 customary for him to serve for twelve or eighteen 
 months as an assistant-teacher, in order to gain some 
 practical knowledge of his profession. Thomson was 
 accordingly sent from Chelsea, on August 5, 1851, to 
 the Garrison of Ballincollig, a village lying about five 
 miles from Cork, amid picturesque scenery. His position 
 here was that of a pupil and master in one, and his duties 
 consisted in teaching in the regimental school under the 
 direction and supervision of the regular garrison-master, 
 whose name was Joseph Barnes. Mr. Barnes was a 
 self-educated man, of strong native sense and kindly 
 disposition, with whom Thomson soon became a 
 favourite, and in whose family he was treated, as he 
 has himself recorded, "with great and rare kindness." 
 Both Mr. and Mrs. Barnes felt the warmest affection 
 and admiration for their brilliant and accomplished 
 young assistant, who at the early age of seventeen 
 was already qualified to discharge the duties of a 
 teacher; and "Co" (for "Precocious") was the pet 
 name by which he was known in their house. It is 
 said that at one time, when Mrs. Barnes was ill, and 
 Mr. Barnes happened to be absent from home, Thomson 
 taught in the schoolroom at Ballincollig, holding Mrs. 
 Barnes's child on one arm, and with his disengaged hand 
 writing on the blackboard. As late as 1862, ten years 
 after he left Ballincollig, we find him addressing a series 
 of six sonnets to these friends, and speaking with grateful 
 recollection of Mr. Barnes as " a man of genial heart and 
 liberal mind "; and of Mrs. Barnes as the " second mother 
 of my orphaned youth." 
 
 It was at Ballincollig, in 1851, that Thomson first 
 became acquainted with Charles Bradlaugh, and formed 
 a close friendship with him which lasted for more than 
 twenty-three years. Mr. Bradlaugh, who was Thomson's
 
 YOUTH 9 
 
 senior by one or two years, had enlisted in the army 
 about the time when Thomson was sent to Ballincollig ; 
 and the two young men, in spite of their marked diversity 
 of temperament the iconoclast and the idealist, the man 
 of action and the man of thought were soon intimately 
 associated. They read together, and talked together ; and 
 sometimes, when Mr. Bradlaugh was on picket duty, 
 Thomson would walk up and down with him on a fine 
 summer's night discussing in a friendly way the various 
 subjects, social, political, or religious, in which they were 
 both interested. Their opinions at this time differed 
 very considerably ; but there was no attempt, on one 
 side or the other, to effect anything in the nature of 
 a conversion ; each was content to state his own views, 
 without any thought of urging them on the acceptance 
 of his companion. 
 
 We now come to a most important incident in 
 Thomson's life, about which much has been written, 
 though there is a great lack of detailed information. 
 It was at Mrs. Barnes's house that he first met the 
 beautiful young girl whose love he won, and whose 
 sudden death was the heaviest calamity he ever endured. 
 In the sonnets addressed to Mr. and Mrs. Barnes he 
 thus alludes to his early love and bereavement : 
 
 Indeed you set me in a happy place, 
 
 Dear for itself and dearer much for you, 
 And dearest still for one life-crowning grace 
 
 Dearest, though infinitely saddest too : 
 For there my own Good Angel took my hand, 
 
 And filled my soul with glory of her eyes, 
 And led me through the love-lit Faerie Land 
 
 Which joins our common world to Paradise. 
 How soon, how soon, God called her from my side, 
 
 Back to her own celestial sphere of day ! 
 And ever since she ceased to be my Guide,
 
 10 YOUTH 
 
 I reel and stumble on life's solemn way ; 
 Ah, ever since her eyes withdrew their light 
 I wander lost in blackest stormy night. 
 
 This girl, the object of Thomson's devoted attachment, 
 was the daughter of the armourer-sergeant of a regiment 
 then stationed in the garrison at Ballincollig ; her name 
 was Matilda Weller, and she was somewhat younger 
 than Thomson himself, being about fourteen at the time 
 of which I speak. 1 She was afterwards described by 
 Mrs. Barnes as resembling Eva St. Glair in Uncle Tom's 
 Cabin, so that the following passage from that novel may 
 be taken as giving at least a general idea of her appearance 
 and bearing : 
 
 Her form was the perfection of childish beauty, without it>usual 
 chubbiness and squareness of outline. There was about it an 
 undulating and aerial grace, such as one might dream of for some 
 mythic and allegorical being. Her face was remarkable, less for its 
 perfect beauty of feature than for a singular and dreamy earnest- 
 ness of expression, which made the ideal start when they looked 
 at her, and by which the dullest and most literal were impressed, 
 without knowing why. The shape of her head and the turn of 
 her neck and bust were peculiarly noble, and the long golden- 
 brown hair that floated like a cloud around it, the deep spiritual 
 gravity of her violet-blue eyes, shaded by heavy fringes of golden- 
 brown, all marked her out from other children, and made everyone 
 
 turn and look after her as she glided hither and thither Always 
 
 dressed in white, she seemed to move like a shadow through all sorts 
 of places without contracting spot or stain. 
 
 Such was Matilda Weller, as she lived in Mrs. Barnes's 
 recollection ; and a very similar picture is given of her 
 by Thomson himself in the autobiographical poem entitled 
 Vane's Story : 
 
 For thought retraced the long sad years 
 
 Of pallid smiles and frozen tears 
 
 Back to a certain festal night, 
 
 i In a daguerreotype, taken about 1850, she had the appearance almost of 
 a child.
 
 YOUTH 11 
 
 A whirl and blaze of swift delight, 
 When we together danced, we two 1 
 
 I live it all again ! Do you 
 
 Remember how I broke down quite 
 
 In the mere polka? Dressed in white, 
 
 A loose pink sash around your waist, 
 
 Low shoes across the instep laced, 
 
 Your moon-white shoulders glancing through 
 
 Long yellow ringlets dancing too, 
 
 You were an Angel then ; as clean 
 
 From earthly dust-speck, as serene 
 
 And lovely and above my love, 
 
 As now in your far world above. 
 
 When one considers their extreme youth at the time 
 (Thomson could only have been in his eighteenth year) 
 it may seem strange that there should have been any 
 actual engagement between them ; but it must be 
 remembered, on the other hand, that Thomson's nature 
 was an altogether exceptional one, and that both in 
 feeling and experience he was far in advance of his 
 years. The story has sometimes been regarded as an 
 exaggeration, or even a myth ; but there is no doubt 
 that the facts as above narrated are substantially 
 correct. 
 
 On January 16, 1853, Thomson returned from Ballin- 
 collig to the " Normal School " at Chelsea, as routine 
 demanded a further course of study before he could be 
 appointed to the post which, as a matter of fact, he was 
 already quite capable of filling. His prospects at this 
 time looked brighter than at any other period of his life, 
 before or after. He had already acquired a considerable 
 stock of knowledge, and no slight experience of the 
 world ; he had made many excellent friends ; he had 
 won the love of a beautiful girl ; and he was about to 
 receive an appointment which would at least enable 
 him to earn a competent living. His rich and genial
 
 12 YOUTH 
 
 nature, no less, than his rare intellectual faculties, seemed 
 to mark him out at this opening period of his career as 
 one eminently qualified to be happy, prosperous, and 
 beloved. 
 
 A few months later the blow had fallen. In July, 
 1853, a letter reached him at Chelsea with the news of 
 Matilda's illness ; the next day he learned that she was 
 dead. 1 This was a crisis in his fate on which, as far as 
 is known, he uttered no word in his after-life, even to 
 his most intimate associates ; but those who knew the 
 depth and intensity of his nature could feel how great 
 his grief must have been. He was not unacquainted 
 with death ; for, as we have seen, he had lost his only 
 sister when he was a child of five years, and his mother 
 when he was eight ; but this was a still deeper and more 
 fatal wound. It is said that Mr. Barnes received a 
 letter from a friend at Chelsea, asking him what could 
 be amiss with Thomson, as he had not tasted food for 
 three days ; another account records that he " lay about 
 in the windows " of the Military Training College in 
 silent grief and solitude. There can be no doubt not 
 only that his sorrow was overwhelming at the time, 
 but that it left its traces on his whole subsequent 
 career. To what extent this early bereavement can 
 be considered the cause of his later pessimism and un- 
 happiness is a more subtle question, which it is easier 
 to raise than to decide. Thomson himself seems on rare 
 occasions to have expressed, in confidence, to one or 
 two friends a belief that his calamities were due to this 
 source; 2 and such is the purport of some pathetic auto- 
 biographical stanzas which he wrote in 1878 under the 
 title of JT had a Love, in which he speculates fondly 
 
 1 She died at Cahir, Tipperary, July 19, 1853. 
 
 2 Note the reference to this point in the letter quoted on p. 4.
 
 YOUTH 13 
 
 on what might have been, if the hand of death had been 
 averted. The following stanza is expressive of this 
 mood : 
 
 You would have kept me from the desert sands 
 
 Bestrewn with bleaching bones, 
 And led me through the friendly fertile lands, 
 
 And changed my weary moans 
 To hymns of triumph and enraptured love, 
 And made our earth as rich as Heaven above. 
 
 On the other hand, there are equally noticeable 
 passages in which he more philosophically regards his 
 own unhappiness as the inevitable result of his destiny ; 
 and it is contended with great force by some of those 
 who knew him that, being the victim of an inherited 
 melancholia, he would in any case have seen his life 
 grow dark around him as time went on. " I do not agree 
 with Mr. Dobell," says Mr. Foote, " in regarding this 
 bereavement as the cause of his life-long misery. She 
 was, I hold, merely the peg on which he hung his 
 raiment of sorrow ; without her, another object might 
 have served the same purpose. He carried with him 
 his proper curse, constitutional melancholia." 
 
 But while we fully recognize the force of this reason- 
 ing, we are compelled to believe, at the same time, that 
 it was the death of this young girl that, above all other 
 single circumstances, fostered and developed the malady 
 to which Thomson was predisposed, and that in this 
 sense, at least, it was a cause of his subsequent despond- 
 ency. Nor need we be much surprised at the fact that 
 some of his early friends noticed no change in his out- 
 ward demeanour, and found him no less gay a comrade 
 than heretofore, for he was by nature extremely reticent 
 on all personal subjects, and on this particular point 
 it was to be expected that he would set a special guard
 
 14 YOUTH 
 
 upon his lips. " His wounds," says Mr. Dobell, speak- 
 ing of a period later by more than twenty years, " were 
 not the less painful because he did not exhibit them in 
 public, and of their deep and permanent character I 
 once had a striking proof. We were talking together 
 lightly and cheerfully enough, when a casual remark 
 which I made chanced to recall the memory of his lost 
 love. Well do I remember the effect upon him, how 
 his voice changed, and how tears started to his eyes ! " 
 It would, I think, be as unfair to Thomson to assume 
 that he was only lightly and transiently affected by the 
 sudden death of the girl he loved as to make the con- 
 trary mistake of attributing to him the weakness of 
 allowing his whole life to be wrecked by his bereavement. 
 So Thomson, burying in his heart the grief which 
 he felt none the less acutely, lived out the rest of 
 his time at the Chelsea Military School ; and was still 
 regarded by his comrades as a genial, lovable, thoroughly 
 genuine character, though even now possessed of a 
 certain pride and hauteur, and capable at times of show- 
 ing strong resentment against any injury or slight. He 
 was a Eadical ; and his keen, eager intellect was apt to 
 make him impatient of the restraints imposed by 
 authority. He doubtless felt, what indeed was true 
 enough, that his further stay at the Asylum was wholly 
 unnecessary ; and he is said to have made the governor 
 of the school indignant by asking to be excused the 
 remainder of his course, though his request seems to 
 have been partly granted by the shortening of the 
 required term. His namesake and fellow-student at 
 Chelsea, Mr. A. A. Thomson, remembered " Jimmy " as 
 a high-spirited, pleasure-loving companion, finding matter 
 for merriment under the most unpromising conditions, 
 and so far from being a pessimist in those days that
 
 YOUTH 15 
 
 he was wont to laugh at the philosophy of " old 
 Schopenhauer." 
 
 It must not be supposed from his impatience of the 
 ordinary scholastic routine that he was idle at this time ; 
 on the contrary, it is probable that he did much hard 
 reading during this second stay at Chelsea all the more, 
 perhaps, since his mind needed a distraction from the 
 remembrance of his calamity. " He had," it has been 
 well remarked, " the Scotch square-headedness. He was 
 strong in brain and of well-knit frame, a hard thinker, 
 and a good endurer. His early life was that of stiff 
 head-work (in which he excelled), and none too much 
 luxury." ' His self-taught mastery of languages remains 
 to be spoken of in the next chapter ; but we may feel 
 sure that his literary tastes were pretty well formed 
 before he left Chelsea, and he had already become 
 acquainted with the reading-room at the British 
 Museum, which he frequented so much in later life. 
 Reticent though he was at this time to such an extent 
 that it was said " you might talk to him for half-an-hour 
 and he would only smile on you " he was nevertheless 
 a good speaker, and took a prominent part in the School 
 Debating Society and in all literary and social discussion. 
 
 His religious views had been considerably modified 
 since the time when he was grounded in Presbyterian 
 theology ; for, while still retaining the chief tenets of the 
 faith in which he had been brought up, he had now 
 entered into a dubious and transitional stage of thought, 
 from which he did not altogether emerge till several 
 years later. On August 7, 1854, about the time of the 
 commencement of the Crimean War, he was finally 
 enlisted as an army schoolmaster, being then just under 
 twenty years of age. 
 
 l Secular Review, June 24, 1882.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 AEMY SCHOOLMASTER 
 
 THE first post to which Thomson was appointed was 
 in connection with a South Devon Militia Eegiment, at 
 Plymouth a difficult and trying position among a dull, 
 rough set of men, for which he was hardly suited, his 
 finer qualities being entirely thrown away. From 1855 
 to 1856 he was at Alder shot 1 with the Rifle Brigade ; 
 and here, though successful enough with his educational 
 duties, he was unfortunate in not winning the favour of 
 the commanding officer not, as it appears, from any 
 fault or failing on his part, beyond the fact that his high 
 spirit was not sufficiently amenable to the imperious and 
 exacting manner of the officer in question. An army 
 schoolmaster, it should here be mentioned, was regarded 
 as a soldier, and not as a civilian ; he wore the uniform 
 of the regiment to which he was attached, and was 
 obliged to conform to the regular military discipline ; his 
 position, however, was to a certain extent undefined, 
 inasmuch as his treatment depended a good deal on the 
 personal feeling of his superiors, who had it in their 
 power to be either courteous or supercilious as the case 
 might be. The routine of schoolwork consisted in teach- 
 ing the children in the morning and the soldiers in the 
 afternoon ; at times, too, the schoolmaster was liable to 
 be asked to give extra tuition to some more zealous or 
 
 1 Thomson's earliest extant letter is addressed to Mr. Bradlaugh from 
 North Camp, Aldershot, January 29. 1856. 
 
 16
 
 AEMY SCHOOLMASTEE 17 
 
 more backward pupil a service which Thomson was 
 always prompt to perform. That he felt any keen 
 interest in his profession it would be rash to assert ; 
 for the daily drudgery of the schoolroom could not 
 have been congenial to his subtle intellect ; while, good 
 comrade though he was, there must have been times 
 when he longed for some more sympathetic society than 
 that of the camp and barrack-room. Nevertheless, there 
 is no reason to doubt that he discharged his duties as a 
 schoolmaster successfully and conscientiously ; and he 
 certainly possessed two qualities which are of the utmost 
 value to a teacher a methodical and painstaking habit 
 and the power of simple and lucid expression. A friend, 
 whose daughter received some lessons in modern lan- 
 guages from Thomson many years after he had left the 
 army, was struck by the admirable method in which he 
 conveyed the instruction. 
 
 In the summer of 1856 Thomson was removed from 
 Aldershot, and, having been sent to Ireland, was after- 
 wards attached to the 55th Foot, with which regiment 
 he remained as long as he continued to serve in the 
 army. For the next four years he was stationed either 
 in Dublin or the Curragh Camp ; and it was while he 
 was at the former place, in 1856, that he made the 
 acquaintance of Mr. John Grant, also an army school- 
 master, with whom he was on terms of intimacy during 
 nearly all the rest of his life. Mr. Grant had been a 
 fellow-student with Thomson at Chelsea in 1854, but, 
 being his junior by some years, had not then been 
 brought into contact with him ; he had also heard 
 anecdotes from Mr. Barnes of Thomson's intellectual 
 prowess and originality of character ; so that his interest 
 was already awakened before they had actually met. 
 The records of Thomson's army life are very scanty, 
 
 c
 
 18 AEMY SCHOOLMASTER 
 
 like those of his youth ; but by means of the reminis- 
 cences of one or two intimate friends, a few letters 
 which have fortunately been preserved, and some of the 
 early poems, we are able to form a fairly clear notion of 
 him as he then was. 
 
 The popularity which he had enjoyed among his 
 comrades at Chelsea did not desert him in the army, 
 and he was generally liked and respected by those who 
 knew him. He took considerable interest in various 
 social movements for the recreation or instruction of 
 the soldiers, would give lectures on subjects with which 
 he was familiar, and act as showman during the exhibi- 
 tion of a magic-lantern, a part which he performed to 
 the full satisfaction of his audience. He was also a good 
 athlete, being strong and hardy in frame, and was known 
 as a skilful rower and a powerful walker, often trudging 
 with his friend Grant to and fro between Dublin and the 
 Curragh Camp, and other long distances. Nor was his 
 love of reading diminished by his educational duties, 
 which fortunately left him leisure in the evenings for 
 the self-instruction to which he still devoted himself 
 with characteristic industry. He had dropped the study 
 of mathematics, in spite of his great talent in that 
 direction, after leaving Chelsea ; but, being by nature an 
 excellent linguist, he set to work to acquire a knowledge 
 of modern languages, beginning with German soon after 
 1854. His method of learning was of the severest and 
 most rigorous kind, with no attempt at gilding the 
 educational pill; first the grammar as a preparatory 
 step, then one of the authors whom he wished to read, 
 no matter how hard the style and idiom, to be puzzled 
 out with no other assistance than .that of a dictionary. 1 
 
 1 "His way of teaching himself Italian was simple: he went to hear an 
 Italian opera, bought a book of the words, and studied each word down to 
 its origin" (Obituary notice by P. B. Marston, Atlieneeum, June 10, 1882).
 
 ARMY SCHOOLMASTER 19 
 
 On this system he taught himself German, French, 
 Italian, and a fair amount of Spanish ; also a little 
 Latin and Greek, though he does not seem to have 
 spent much time on the latter. Meantime he was still 
 adding diligently to his knowledge of English literature ; 
 and it was about 1856 that he began to be a serious 
 student of Robert Browning, with whose earlier works, 
 as well as those of George Meredith, he had become 
 acquainted by a sort of unerring literary instinct which 
 always led him to what was most vital and vigorous 
 even before he left the military school. By this time he 
 had himself felt strongly the instinct towards authorship, 
 and had written many poems ; these, however, with one 
 or two exceptions, he subsequently destroyed. 
 
 Yet, happy and contented as Thomson might have 
 seemed at this period to a casual observer, or even to 
 those associates who knew him only as the quick-witted 
 and genial comrade, and not as the idealist and bereaved 
 lover, there is ample proof that he was already expe- 
 riencing a mood of deep dissatisfaction and despondency. 
 In some stanzas written at Dublin on his twenty-third 
 birthday (November 23, 1857) he seems to be divided 
 between the torpor of his grief in the past and the linger- 
 ing hope of yet effecting something in the future : 
 
 Oh, for the flushed excitement of keen strife 1 
 For mountains, gulfs, and torrents in my way, 
 
 With perils, anguish, fear, and strugglings rife I 
 For friends and foes, for love and hate in fray 
 
 And not this lone base flat of torpid life 1 
 
 So weary did he feel, at times, of the monotony of his 
 profession, and so eagerly did he crave for a more active 
 life, that he even discussed with his friend John Grant 
 a plan of deserting from the army and going to sea. 
 Reasons that may partly account for this state of
 
 20 AEMY SCHOOLMASTER 
 
 feeling will readily suggest themselves to readers of the 
 foregoing narrative ; the loss of love, followed, or perhaps 
 preceded, by the loss of religious faith without, as yet, 
 the substitution of any philosophic conviction was in 
 itself a terrible ordeal for a man of Thomson's intense 
 sensibility, who above all things yearned for a rich, full 
 life of domestic love and external action, for some 
 certitude to lean upon, whether in the present or in a 
 future existence. But now a fatal melancholy was 
 beginning little by little to creep over his nature, which 
 had seemed at first, and still seemed to outward obser- 
 vation, to be altogether joyous and light-hearted ; already 
 his mind had begun to ponder those pessimistic thoughts 
 which were afterwards summed up in the burden of his 
 greatest and most sombre poem, " Dead Love, dead 
 Faith, dead Hope." 
 
 But, in addition to these despondent promptings, 
 another and still more fatal tendency was now mani- 
 festing itself a tendency which, in the opinion of those 
 who had the best means of judging, was inherited and 
 constitutional in its origin, though doubtless it was 
 aroused and accentuated by circumstances of grief and 
 disappointment. Intemperance, the bane of Thomson's 
 later career, was unknown to him up to about 1855 ; 
 but from that date onward he gradually became liable 
 to its power ; not in the sense that it became an 
 ordinary habit of his life his true nature, as witnessed 
 by his friends and expressed in his writings, is a proof 
 to the contrary but rather a periodic disease, against 
 which he struggled hard, and often for many months 
 successfully, but never so as to shake it off altogether. 
 
 Thomson's friendship with his old school-fellow 
 George Duncan had continued unbroken when they 
 both left Chelsea, and after his friend's marriage, in
 
 AKMY SCHOOLMASTEE 21 
 
 1855, he regularly spent his holidays at Mr. and Mrs. 
 Duncan's house, until their departure to India in 1860. 
 " It was like coming," writes Mrs. Duncan, in some 
 interesting reminiscences of Thomson, "to a brother 
 and sister, for he was dearer to us than a friend. Often 
 afterwards did we talk of him and his great talents, and 
 how he dreamed away the time, happy and contented 
 with his Shelley. He had also frequent fits of melan- 
 choly years ago ; these my husband said were caused 
 by his brooding over the death of a young and lovely 
 girl whom he loved most devotedly : .in fact, more as a 
 saint than a mortal. A correspondence was kept up, 
 and the friendship also, after we went out to India ; and 
 if we wanted anything done in England, ' Jimmy ' was 
 always the one to do it." 
 
 Another friend with whom Thomson was intimate 
 during his stay in Ireland, and with whom he after- 
 wards corresponded, was Mr. James Potterton, also 
 an army schoolmaster. They had studied German 
 together at the Curragh Camp, and Thomson's letters 
 sometimes enclosed copies of his translations from 
 Heine, on which he invited his friend's criticism and 
 advice ; at other times were cast in the form of verse 
 of a free, familiar, doggerel style in which the 
 writer opens his heart on the subject of his army life, 
 the gossip of the camp, the drudgery of the school- 
 room, and the philosophy which rendered it all endur- 
 able. Here is a specimen which may throw light on the 
 feelings with which Thomson regarded his educational 
 profession : 
 
 And if now and then a curse (too intense for this light verse) 
 Should be gathering in one's spirit when he thinks of how he lives, 
 With a constant tug and strain knowing well it's all in vain 
 Pumping muddy information into unretentive sieves :
 
 22 AEMY SCHOOLMASTEE 
 
 Let him stifle back the curse, which but makes the matter worse, 
 And by tugging on in silence earn his wages if he can ; 
 For the blessed eve and night are his own yet, and he might 
 Fix sound bottoms in these sieves too, were he not so weak a man. 
 
 These lines were written at Dublin in May, 1858, at 
 which time Thomson was just about to move from 
 the Ship Street to the Eichmond Barracks. A couple 
 of months later we come to the first of a very in- 
 teresting series of letters (or, rather, the first of those 
 preserved, for some earlier ones must have been lost) 
 addressed to Miss Agnes Gray, whose reminiscences 
 of Thomson's schooldays have already been quoted. 
 These letters are not only good specimens of Thomson's 
 letter- writing, but also afford us a glimpse into his life 
 as " dominie," and throw light indirectly on many points 
 in his character his love of literature, and eagerness to 
 encourage other students ; his taste for music and 
 dancing ; his precise, methodical habit of mind, which 
 shows itself not only in the lucidity of expression, but 
 in the clear, bold penmanship, and his sympathy with 
 the poor and suffering. 
 
 To Miss Agnes Gray. 
 
 Richmond Barracks, Dublin, 
 
 July 16, 1858. 
 
 DEAR AGNES, You are graciously pleased to laugh at me again 
 concerning my many apologies for delay in writing ; it seems to 
 me, however, that a young lady who can find no better excuse for 
 a three or four months' silence than chronic laziness should be well 
 occupied in considering and repenting her own deplorable condition. 
 I feared that my evil criticisms on your poetry had given you 
 offence. But I think I may safely promise should you favour me 
 with any more specimens to be less stingy of my invaluable praise 
 to each successive one ; for you will be writing better and better 
 year by year. 
 
 Woe is me ! that I could not join your delightful " forest trip," 
 which I trust you enjoyed even beyond your expectations. Pray
 
 AEMY SCHOOLMASTER 23 
 
 let me partake of your pleasure by giving me a long description of 
 it. You will thus, too, increase your own pleasure in the recollec- 
 tion by making that recollection more vivid ; not to speak of the 
 excellent exercise which will be afforded your descriptive powers. 
 
 By the bye, your humble servant has spent since (six ?) weeks in 
 another barracks since he had the honour of writing you last, and 
 is now attached to the 55th Foot. Whither this noble corps will 
 be sent no one just now ventures to guess. Lately, vague rumours 
 were afloat of its speedy transportation to India. Probably, how- 
 ever, a tender Government would preserve the precious dominie at 
 home, even when banishing his regiment. 
 
 With regard to the piano, I shall be indeed rejoiced to hear you 
 playing some fine day, but, for myself, I am utterly innocent of 
 the art. 
 
 With kind love to Father and Mother and all, I remain your 
 sincere friend, 
 
 JAS. THOMSON. 
 
 To the Same. 
 
 Richmond Barracks, Dublin, 
 
 May 14, 1859. 
 
 I take the liberty of sending you by this post two volumes 
 
 of verse which fell into my hands some time back. The author, 
 Robert Browning, is about the strongest and manliest of our living 
 poets. His wife (nee Elizabeth Barrett Barrett, to adopt the style 
 of wedding-cards) is beyond all comparison the greatest of English 
 poetesses those whose works are published, I mean. I happen to 
 have her last book, and will send it to you some day. You will 
 probably not care for these poems at first ; but they are worth your 
 study, and you may find, as I did, that they improve much with 
 longer acquaintance. If I might school you a bit, I should order 
 you always to look up in a dictionary what words you don't 
 understand, and always to puzzle over difficult passages until 
 they become either perfectly clear or thoroughly hopeless. No 
 lazy reading will ever master a masterly writer. Should you care 
 enough for Browning to wish thoroughly to comprehend him, 
 I shall of course be happy to render you what little assistance 
 may be in my power towards the clearing up of obscurities. The 
 final poem, you will perceive, is addressed to his wife. To the best 
 of my remembrance he used not to write so large a proportion of
 
 24 AEMY SCHOOLMASTEE 
 
 love-poetry aforetime ; his marriage must do its best to excuse the 
 poor fellow for his present extravagance in that article. My notion 
 was that your poets, though always fluttering about Love like 
 moths about a rushlight, generally took good care not to singe 
 seriously their precious selves. This unfortunate Mr. Browning, 
 however, seems to have flung himself headlong into the flame, 
 determined to get burnt up wings and all. 
 
 I have lately heard from John. He is in Manchester now with 
 an Uncle John who is a station-master (railway) there. My 
 brother is a clerk in the service of the same company. He is 
 well, and seems to like well his situation. Cousin Charles from 
 Glasgow has also written, and we have agreed to correspond 
 regularly. 
 
 How are all your studies and accomplishments progressing? 
 Have you mastered French, German, and Italian yet ? You must 
 play the piano for us some day after the style of Miss Arabella 
 Goddard. Perhaps you have heard that young lady? I heard 
 and saw her some time back, and for two or even three full days 
 continued in love with her pure face and splendid music. She 
 seldom practises any of the modern namby-pamby songs and flashy 
 dances, but is devoted to the great and solid pieces of such masters 
 as Mozart, Beethoven, Mendelssohn, etc. There is an excellent 
 example for you ! If your gentleman of the magnificent laughter 
 is as riant as ever, you may perhaps be so kind as to send me a few 
 of his jolliest cachinnations in your next for the amusement of a 
 dull evening. As it is now very late, and I am considerably tired, 
 you are now supposing you to have toiled so far about to have 
 the pleasure of ending this. 
 
 To the Same. 
 
 Curragh Camp, Kildare, 
 
 June 27, 1859. 
 
 DEAR AGNES, Your kind letter would have been answered ere 
 now, had we not when it arrived been in daily expectation of a 
 move. The move has come, and we are now fairly settled in this 
 Camp. Imagine an undulating sea of grass, here and there rising 
 into hillocks, and spotted with patches of flowerless furze. In the 
 midst, on a slightly elevated ridge, stretches for about a mile the 
 Camp, consisting of ten squares of dingy red huts each square 
 holding a regiment with a somewhat irregular accompaniment of 
 canteens, wash-houses, hospitals, huts for the staff, etc. The
 
 AEMY SCHOOLMASTER 25 
 
 squares are lettered from A to K, my much ill-used initial, the J, 
 being considered unworthy of a place. In the centre of a line, 
 chosen probably as about the highest spot, stand the Church, the 
 Chapel (Roman Catholic), and the Clock-tower; at the extremities 
 are the white tents of Artillery and Dragoons. It is a fine place 
 for freedom and expanse, and in itself much pleasanter than 
 Aldershot, though I could wish to be there for the sake of its 
 nearness to London. Aldershot is set amidst dark heath, the 
 Curragh amidst green grass ; and the difference is like that 
 between cloudy and sunshiny weather. It is good to get out here 
 from a town. The sky is seen, not in patches, but broad, complete, 
 and sea-like ; the distance where low blue hills float in the horizon 
 is also sea-like, and the uncorrupted air sweeps over us broad and 
 free as an ocean. Last night, for instance, it blew a stiffish gale. 
 Well, the gusts came with a broad rush and sway against the broad 
 school-hut as billows come against a ship's side. The rattling of 
 the windows, the creaking of the window-cords, the sound as of 
 sails flapping, might have made a squeamish stomach sea-sick. 
 I almost fancied that my hut had got under weigh ; and hoped 
 that if so it would drift down the Irish Sea, through the Channel, 
 and up the Thames to London. What a pity it held its anchor 
 fast ! I have very good quarters for the Camp, better probably 
 than most of the officers. Two rooms, one of them papered, 
 forming the end of the school-hut, are something to boast of for 
 an habitation. 
 
 The Camp is now about full. Between two and three miles off 
 is the village of Newbridge, a cavalry station. Here and there 
 together the troops must number nearly ten thousand men. So 
 that with the assistance of those in Dublin we ought to be able to 
 get up a good " Field-day " or Review for her Majesty, should she 
 come over, as is expected. Lord Seaton, the Commander-in-Chief 
 for Ireland, is here, with all sorts of generals, staff officers, and 
 aides-de-camp. I wish you could have seen the whole division the 
 other day as they marched past before the great man. The Horse 
 Artillery careering as if their guns were cabs and carriages ; the 
 more sober Foot Artillery and Military Train ; the Scots Greys 
 with their bearskins like mounted Guardsmen ; the Royal Dragoons, 
 brass-helmeted ; the 5th or Irish Lancers looking splendid, like the 
 chivalry of old, with lances erect, and each topped with its red-and- 
 white pennon ; then regiment after regiment of infantry, including 
 a battalion of the Fusilier Guards ; each corps marching past to the
 
 26 AEMY SCHOOLMASTEE 
 
 music of its own band, the Fusiliers having their bagpipes. Then 
 there were aides-de-camp and regimental field officers galloping 
 about in all directions, swift and brilliant as butterflies : mere 
 butterflies, perhaps, many of them, but very pleasant and exciting 
 to look at. 
 
 What do you mean by that strange description of Helen, with 
 its mocking conclusion, "I rather think it would be strange if 
 true "? If you wrote it to bewilder me, you have almost succeeded. 
 I picture Miss Helen as an extremely fashionable and pretty young 
 lady, accustomed to London Tavern Balls and similar aristocratic 
 assemblies ; rather coquettish because she has so many admirers, 
 and loving fun no less than when we used to romp at blind man's 
 buff together. Which is the correct portrait yours or mine ? 
 However, to revenge myself for your mystification in this matter, 
 I am going to ill-use your last epistle. Do you know that, good as 
 it is, it is shamefully careless in spelling and punctuation, and not 
 quite so correct as it ought to be in grammatical construction ? 
 Most of these errors are evidently not of ignorance, but of careless- 
 ness. Will you pardon my thus assuming the schoolmaster over 
 you ; and consider that I am a dried-up, pedantic, finical old 
 dominie, fit for nothing else but school drudgery ? 
 
 By the bye, I did not Zend but send the rhyme books, and trust 
 that you will oblige me by not troubling me with them again. 
 A nomadic soldier can't afford to carry about many books with 
 him ; they are more bother than they are worth. Besides, there 
 are large libraries now at almost every military station ; each 
 having enough good books (amidst much heavy lumber sacred to 
 the moths) to satisfy a moderate man for the year or so of his 
 probable stay. But you need not fear to try my patience with as 
 many questions as you please. 
 
 To the Same. 
 
 (Fragment undated.) 
 
 As I, like you, detest crossing, I trench upon another sheet. As 
 I am on the subject of books, it may be worth while to remark that 
 if Mr. Gray still takes in periodicals as of old, he cannot get a 
 better and cheaper one than the Cornhill Magazine. It is a 
 monthly, costs only a shilling, is edited by Thackeray, and the 
 writing is first-class. 
 
 Our present Regimental Rumour says that we shall soon go to 
 Aldershot (which will be London for me), and then to Australia
 
 AEMY SCHOOLMASTEE 27 
 
 Melbourne. I shall return to England abounding in nuggets in 
 that case. The sooner we go the better. I am eager to be in the 
 position of the Jacobite in the gude old Scotch song : 
 
 " He turned him right and round about 
 
 Upon the Irish shore ; 
 He gave his bridle-rein a shake, 
 With adieu for evermore, 
 
 My dear, 
 Adieu for evermore ! " 
 
 The difference will be that he was going to, and I shall be 
 escaping from banishment. 
 
 Pray write soon and comfort my dolefulness. Your sincere 
 friend, JAMES THOMSON. 
 
 Thomson's expectation of being sent to Melbourne 
 was not realized ; but at the beginning of June, 1860, 
 his regiment was transferred from the Curragh Camp to 
 Aldershot. 
 
 " We start," he writes to his friend Mr. Potterton, 
 " on Monday or Tuesday, going in two vessels from 
 Dublin to Portsmouth, thence to Aldershot. Packing 
 up has commenced ; no more school ; no more mess ; 
 no more nothing. Woe unto my friends, for sorely 
 shall I sponge upon them in these days. Have you 
 heard of George Duncan's mishaps ? The ship in 
 which he with his family had secured an uncommonly 
 cheap and comfortable berth, got on to the Arklow 
 sands, and poor George was in considerable danger. 
 This ship is done for, or materially injured. He must 
 
 go out alone now, and by the overland route As 
 
 I have other letters to write this evening, I let you off 
 with this brief infliction." 
 
 While Thomson was at Aldershot, in I860, he paid 
 a visit to his old friends the Grays, whom he had not 
 seen for several years. The following is the account 
 given by Mrs. Greig :
 
 28 . AEMY SCHOOLMASTER 
 
 At last he wrote saying that he was to have a fortnight's 
 holiday, and would pay us a visit. We were all excitement at 
 his coming. I had previously informed him in one of my letters 
 that Helen had become a Ragged School teacher, and in reply he 
 said he could not imagine a creature so bright, and in his remem- 
 brance so beautiful, being arrayed in sombre habiliments and 
 acting such a character. When he arrived, Helen met him in the 
 most demure manner possible, and kept up the deception, or 
 rather tried to do so, for he was not to be deceived. Two days 
 after his arrival, when he was sitting reading, she suddenly sent 
 something flying at his head, at which he started up, saying, "Ah ! 
 I have just been quietly waiting for this ! You have been acting a 
 part which does not become you, but you have now resumed your 
 true character, and are the Helen of old." During this visit we 
 thought him much altered in appearance and manners; indeed, we 
 were somewhat disappointed. He was by no means so manly- 
 looking as when he left London, and was painfully silent and 
 depressed. He went from us with the intention of again going 
 to Aldershot ; but from that day until Mr. Maccall mentioned him 
 to us we never once heard of him. Ever since we have felt greatly 
 puzzled to account for his singular conduct. 
 
 It is difficult to suggest any adequate cause for 
 Thomson's dejection during this visit, or for his failure 
 to keep up a friendship which had long been very dear 
 to him. That he was not ungrateful or forgetful of the 
 kindness which the Grays had shown him is proved by 
 some remarks which he made in a letter to his sister- 
 in-law written in the last year of his life, in which 
 he speaks of their services to him after his mother's 
 death. Mr. William Maccall's essays on Thomson 1 
 bear witness to the same grateful recollection. " It 
 was at their house," he says, " and as the playmate of 
 their children, that James Thomson spent his happiest 
 days. Those days he seemed in his letters to me never 
 tired of recalling. I often pressed him to renew his 
 relations with the hospitable friends of his childhood, 
 
 1 James Thomson, Laureate of Pessimism.
 
 AEMY SCHOOLMASTER 29 
 
 who were as willing as in the past to welcome him. 
 But his constitutional shyness, or some other cause, 
 hindered him from gratifying a desire which evidently 
 stirred his being very deeply." It is possible that 
 Thomson's discontinuance of his visits to Mr. Gray's 
 house after 1860 was due to a revival of his early 
 affection for Miss Helen Gray, with whom, it will be 
 remembered, he had earnestly desired to correspond, and 
 who was now engaged to be married. It is known that 
 he still treasured many years afterwards a purse which 
 she had worked and given to him ; and it is noticeable 
 that among his early poems there is one named 
 " Meeting Again," which is dated September, I860, 
 and may perhaps refer to this occasion. It may be, 
 however, that Thomson's conduct was merely an 
 instance of that eccentric tendency to sudden fancies 
 and changes to which many poets have been prone, 
 and from which he was by no means exempt. 
 
 Thomson's regiment, the 55th Foot, remained at 
 Aldershot for about a year. Here are a few extracts 
 from his letters to Mr. James Potterton during this 
 period : 
 
 Aldershot, October 11, 1860. Why are you not here, my 
 friend, to partake with me of the German feast, which we prepared 
 so laboriously on the green Curragh ? We would plunge headlong 
 into Latin this winter, and emerge Ciceronic next summer. My 
 friends are away, and the heart is taken out of me. What fun in 
 finding some exquisite German sentence, when there is no one 
 
 whom I can bore with it? Do you remember one beautiful day 
 
 in March, when you, Bob, and I went strolling over the Curragh 
 between eleven and one ? The larks we heard that day for the first 
 time ; it was the first (and almost the last) fine day this year ? 
 The long quiet sheep-studded glen, beginning out by the little 
 police-barrack ? The lady and gentleman we saw at archery in the 
 hollow beneath our square? I found the other day some verses 
 [the punning stanzas entitled " Arch Archery "] made that evening,
 
 30 ARMY SCHOOLMASTER 
 
 and have finished them into the trifle which I herewith send you. 
 The day is marked with a white stone in the calendar of my memory. 
 You will understand that I am so poor in letter-worthiness that 
 
 I have to take refuge in doggerel We will try to meet at 
 
 Christmas. I write in haste, not for want of time, but because of 
 a most restive mood which is leaping, kicking, doing " caprioles, 
 lavoltas, and demivolts," with such infernal agility that the rider, 
 Common-sense, must infallibly soon be thrown. 
 
 Aldershot, November 21, I860. Lectured last night on English 
 History as showman of certain magic-lantern slides. They were 
 pretty well done, and I knew a little of the subjects ; so the speech 
 came rather trippingly from the tongue. With practice of a 
 preliminary hundred or so, I might become able to give a not 
 intolerable lecture. But who would willingly undergo such prac- 
 tice, even if it made perfect ? News none. Have just scrawled to 
 Mr. Barnes, and am going to devote a special P.S. to your most 
 affectionate regards. 
 
 Aldershot, March 22, 1861. You know of course that Le Mar 
 has got the Chelsea berth, to the exclusion of unworthy me. Grant 
 has failed to get the Hibernian one, being too late in his applica- 
 tion I have been reading fairly in my noble Schiller, but have 
 
 attempted no translation. How are you prospering with yours and 
 the Beineke ? I wish I had a fellow-Christian to read with in the 
 evenings ; for the mess strongly attracts a poor solitary, and plays 
 the deuce with his studies. Having nothing original to write 
 about, I send you some more Heine, to put you in my debt for 
 something. 
 
 In the spring or summer of the following year (1861) 
 Thomson accompanied his regiment to Jersey. Here he 
 seems to have spent a pleasant, uneventful year, and 
 made the acquaintance, among others, of Mr. George 
 Julian Harney, the well-known Chartist, then editor of 
 the Jersey Independent, to which journal he contributed 
 some translations from Heine, and of Mr. Byron Webber, 
 who was acting as sub-editor, both of whom remembered 
 him as quiet, cultivated, unassuming, and reticent. The 
 numerous letters written by Thomson to Mr. Bradlaugh
 
 AEMY SCHOOLMASTER 31 
 
 between 1852 and 1862, many of which were from 
 Jersey, have unfortunately been destroyed ; and the 
 same fate has overtaken those addressed to Mr. and 
 Mrs. Barnes. While he stayed in Jersey, he wrote a 
 great part of the narrative poem entitled " Ronald and 
 Helen," in which are many fine descriptions of the 
 coast scenery. In a letter to his sister-in-law, written 
 many years later, he thus alludes to Jersey : " You are 
 right in thinking it a very pretty place, with very fine 
 cows (they are all tethered as they graze in the lush 
 valley-bottoms), and with delightful lanes, fringed with 
 rich ferns, whereon the apple-blossom falls in warm 
 flakes like a shower of summer snow. It has also the 
 most wonderful magic-working mists I ever saw any- 
 where." A small note-book, dated 1861-62, contains 
 similar evidence of Thomson's enjoyment of this sojourn 
 in Jersey. In May, 1862, his regiment returned to 
 Portsmouth. 
 
 These years of service in the army, however unsuitable 
 the life may have been in many respects to one who was 
 becoming more and more conscious of his poetic calling, 
 had at least brought him one great advantage which he 
 might otherwise have missed. Had he settled down at 
 once to a city clerkship, he would have seen but little 
 of natural scenery and open-air life ; but now, by his 
 wanderings to and fro between Devonshire, Ireland, 
 Aldershot, and the Channel Isles, he had found oppor- 
 tunities for becoming intimate with Nature in many of 
 her wildest aspects with seas and skies, hills and plains, 
 lakes, rivers, and forests. It would be difficult to 
 exaggerate the importance of this influence on his 
 poetic style ; for idealist and dreamer though he was 
 in this early period, he was nevertheless gifted with 
 very keen powers of observation, and was laying by the
 
 32 AEMY SCHOOLMASTEE 
 
 material, at this time, for much that is splendid and 
 picturesque in his poetry. 
 
 The prevailing characteristics of his early poems are 
 their intense ideality and passionate reverence for beauty 
 and love, together with a chastened tone of pathos and 
 resignation, and belief in the mysterious but over-ruling 
 providence of God. "The Fadeless Bower" (1858), for 
 example, is full of a young man's tender dreams and 
 regretful imaginings. It is a "vision of the long-ago," 
 a reminiscence of that moment when, in a place and 
 scene fixed for ever in his memory, he had confessed his 
 love and learnt that he was loved in return. 
 
 I have this moment told my love ; 
 
 Kneeling, I clasp her hands in mine ; 
 She does not speak, she does not move ; 
 
 The silent answer is divine. 
 The flood of rapture swells till breath 
 Is almost tranced in deathless death. 
 
 A still more beautiful effort in the same mood is 
 "Bertram to the Lady Geraldine" (1857), a rhapsody 
 instinct with passionate feeling which finds utterance in 
 language of the richest melody. In " The Lord of the 
 Castle of Indolence " (1859) we have a poem written in 
 a strongly optimistic mood, and steeped to the full in 
 that natural tranquillity and sensuous repose with which 
 Thomson was largely endowed ; and here, perhaps, of all 
 his early writings, we find the greatest grasp, concen- 
 tration, and self-control. 
 
 While others fumed and schemed and toiled in vain 
 To mould the world according to their mood, 
 He did by might of perfect faith refrain 
 From any part in such disturbance rude. 
 The world, he said, indeed is very good, 
 Its Maker surely wiser far than we ;
 
 ARMY SCHOOLMASTER 33 
 
 Feed soul and flesh upon its bounteous food, 
 Nor fret because of ill ; All- good is He, 
 And worketh not in years but in Eternity. 
 
 On the other hand, this youthful period is not 
 unmarked by pessimism, as in the " Poe-like verses," 
 as they have rightly been called, of the anguished 
 "Mater Tenebrarum" (1859), and in the maturer thoughts 
 and more solemn harmonies of the stanzas " To our 
 Ladies of Death" (1861), suggestive of the influence of 
 De Quincey. Still earlier (1857) is " The Doom of a 
 City," a sort of first study for " The City of Dreadful 
 Night," which, though not distinguished by the stern 
 power and conciseness of its successor, can claim many 
 striking passages full of imaginative passion, and is 
 nothing less than an extraordinary production for a 
 youth of twenty-three. Few of Thomson's poems, 
 indeed, could surpass for sheer splendour of conception 
 and imagery the strange and pathetic stanzas from 
 which the following are taken : 
 
 As one who in the morning-shine 
 
 Reels homeward, shameful, wan, adust, 
 Prom orgies wild with fiery wine 
 
 And reckless sin and brutish lust ; 
 And sees a doorway open wide, 
 
 And then the grand Cathedral space ; 
 And hurries in to crouch and hide 
 
 His trembling frame, his branded face. 
 
 He sees the world-wide morning flame 
 
 Through windows where in glory shine 
 The saints who fought and overcame, 
 
 The martyrs who made death divine ; 
 He sees pure women bent in prayer, 
 
 Communing low with God above ; 
 Too pure ! What right has he to share 
 
 Their silent feast of sacred love ?
 
 34 AEMY SCHOOLMASTER 
 
 Of the many poems that he wrote before he left the 
 army, some ten or twelve found publication in Tait's 
 Edinburgh Magazine between 1858 and I860, under the 
 signature " Crepusculus," the first published being " The 
 Fadeless Bower," which appeared in July, 1858. In 
 1858 and 1859 he also contributed some prose essays to 
 the London Investigator, a paper edited by his friend 
 Mr. Bradlaugh, chief among which were his " Notes on 
 Emerson " and " A Few Words about Burns." It was 
 in the London Investigator that he first used the signature 
 of " B. V.," by which he was afterwards so well known 
 to the readers of the National Reformer. " Bysshe 
 Vanolis " (it was thus appended in full to one or two 
 early contributions) was a nom de plume adopted out of 
 reverence for Shelley and Novalis, Vanolis being an 
 anagram of the latter name. From 1860 Thomson 
 became a contributor both in verse and prose to the 
 National Reformer, which was established by Mr. 
 Bradlaugh in that year ; but this subject may be 
 fittingly reserved for the next chapter. It is sufficient 
 to note here that his attention was now fully turned to 
 literature, and that in no case would he have been likely 
 to remain much longer in the army, though, as it has 
 happened, his departure was accelerated by an unfore- 
 seen incident. ' 
 
 In 1862, when his regiment was at Portsmouth, it 
 chanced that Thomson went on a visit to a fellow 
 schoolmaster at Aldershot, and in the course of a stroll 
 in the neighbourhood of the camp one of the party, out 
 of bravado or for a wager, swam out to a boat which 
 was moored on a pond where bathing was prohibited. 
 An officer demanded the names of those present, and, on 
 this being refused, further altercation followed, with the 
 result that a court-martial was held on the recalcitrant
 
 AEMY SCHOOLMASTEE 35 
 
 schoolmasters. No real blame seems to have attached 
 to Thomson, but he paid the penalty of being one of the 
 incriminated party, and was discharged from the service 
 on October 30, 1862. His life in the army, as we have 
 seen, had not been altogether a congenial one, but it had 
 also its proportion of pleasure and good companionship ; 
 and, looking back on it afterwards through an interval of 
 twelve or fifteen years, he could say to a friend that " it 
 had comprised some of his happiest days."
 
 CHAPTEE III 
 LIFE IN LONDON 
 
 WHEN Thomson left the army his position might have 
 been a somewhat precarious one but for the ready 
 assistance and welcome hospitality of his friend Mr. 
 Bradlaugh, who not only obtained him a clerkship 
 in a solicitor's office of which he was then acting as 
 manager, but also offered him a home in his own family 
 an offer which he willingly accepted. He lived in Mr. 
 Bradlaugh's house at Tottenham for several years, 
 during which time their intimacy was very close and 
 affectionate, Thomson being regarded and treated in 
 every way as one of the family, and beloved by every 
 member of the household. Nor, indeed, was this any 
 exception to the general rule of his life ; for one of the 
 most signal proofs of the lovableness of his nature was 
 his power of attracting the interest and friendship of all 
 those with whom he came in contact. Few men or 
 women were insensible to his quick, natural sympathy 
 and delicate tact ; with children he was always and 
 instantaneously a favourite. He had soon gained the 
 complete confidence and affection of Mr. Bradlaugh's 
 children, one of whom, in some delightful reminiscences 1 
 of this friendship, has given us a good insight into the 
 sunnier and brighter aspect of Thomson's character as 
 
 1 "Childish Recollections of James Thomson," by Mrs. Bradlaugh 
 Bonner. in Our Corner, August and September, 1886. See also the Life 
 of Charles Bradlaugh, 1894 (1, 111-13), by the same writer. 
 
 36
 
 LIFE IN LONDON 37 
 
 he then appeared " trim and neat, with a smile on eye 
 and lip ; a genial, merry friend and companion." The 
 following passage is quoted from her account : 
 
 He lived in our house for some years, and was beloved by 
 every one in it. He came when I was about five or six years old, 
 and my earliest recollection of him is of sitting on his knee and 
 asking him to make an " ugly face " for me. First he refused ; and 
 when, after renewed and vehement entreaties, he complied, I was 
 so terrified that I incontinently fled upstairs. 
 
 My sister was his " Sunday baby " ; on Sunday afternoons she 
 was installed in state on his knee, while my brother and I sat 
 more humbly at his feet, to listen with breathless interest while 
 he told us wonderful tales of brave knights and fair ladies, boundless 
 seas, high mountains, and wide-stretching prairies. Sometimes the 
 summons to tea would break off our story at a vital point, and then 
 the next Sunday afternoon we would clamour for the end. We of 
 course thought he first read his tales out of books, as we did ours, 
 and it was greatly to our surprise when he laughed and said he had 
 forgotten it, he must tell us a new one. As we grew a little older 
 he told us the stories of the operas, whistling or singing some of 
 the airs to us. I have never seen "Fidelio," yet he told us the 
 story of it so dramatically that the scenes could hardly be impressed 
 more vividly upon my memory if I had seen them acted instead of 
 merely listening to his description. 
 
 On Sunday mornings he mostly took us for long walks. We 
 lived at Park then, and he would take us to Edmonton to see 
 Charles Lamb's grave or Enfield, or Chingford, or if as occa- 
 sionally happened my father came too, our walk was across the 
 Tottenham Marshes, to give our old favourite, Bruin, a swim. 
 
 Here, too, is a vivid picture of Bradlaugh and his 
 friend : 
 
 The two would sit in my father's little "den" or study, and 
 
 smoke and while the smoke slowly mounted up and by degrees 
 
 so filled the room that they could scarce see each other's faces 
 across the table, they would talk philosophy, politics, or literature. 
 I can see them now, in some ways a strangely assorted pair, as they 
 sat in that little room lined with books ; at the far side of the table 
 the poet and dreamer, with his head thrown back and with the 
 stem of his pipe never far from his lips, his face almost lost in the
 
 38 LIFE IN LONDON 
 
 blue clouds gently and lazily curling upwards ; and here, near the 
 fireplace, my father, essentially a man to whom to think, to plan, 
 was to do, sitting in careless comfort in his big uncushioned oaken 
 chair. 1 
 
 But though this happier side of Thomson's nature is 
 well worthy of attention, it must not be forgotten that 
 the gloomy side existed also, however little he might let 
 it appear in his manner or conversation. The very 
 capacity for enjoyment which he possessed in so large 
 a degree implied a corresponding capacity for suffering ; 
 for, as one of his critics has truly remarked, ' it is a 
 fallacy to believe that it is men constitutionally sombre, 
 habitually sad, who are the supreme sufferers ; the 
 supreme sufferers are the men who have a profound 
 relish of existence." Such relish Thomson certainly 
 possessed, but it is equally certain that at the commence- 
 ment of his London life his views had already settled 
 down from a vague mood of alternate despondency and 
 hopefulness into a state of confirmed pessimism, this 
 change in his internal convictions being almost contem- 
 poraneous with the change in his profession and manner 
 of living. It was not without a severe struggle and much 
 pain of heart that he had broken away from his early 
 religious belief ; but having once done so, he was far too 
 honest and fearless a thinker to take refuge in any half- 
 way house of intellectual sophistry, however comfortable 
 to his feelings such a sojourn might have been ; he was 
 determined to look what he considered the facts of 
 existence fairly in the face, at whatever cost to his own 
 mental happiness. 
 
 But necessitarian and pessimist though he was, he 
 had not lost any of his native energy and power of 
 strenuous application, and the first ten or twelve years 
 
 1 Life of Charles BracLlaugTi, 1, 112.
 
 LIFE IN LONDON 39 
 
 of his London life were marked by the production of his 
 best, most varied, and most characteristic work. Except 
 for his fits of intemperance, his methodical ways and 
 clearness of mind would have made him an excellent 
 man of business ; while his strongly democratic opinions 
 and keen sympathy with every kind of free thought 
 caused him to take a close interest in the secular move- 
 ment of which the National Reformer was the chief 
 organ. His part, however, was more that of a brilliant 
 free-lance than of a recognized leader ; for his intense 
 individuality, coupled with his almost cynical disbelief 
 in the possibility of any real progress, must always have 
 prevented his giving himself heart and soul to a " cause." 
 He worked, as he himself avowed, on the side of liberty 
 and freethought, not because he believed in the ultimate 
 triumph of those principles, but simply because he was 
 prompted thereto by a natural instinct and inclination. 
 His hatred of all fuss and sham, and his impatience of 
 the occasional " clap-trap " and false sentiment not wholly 
 separable from any popular movement, made him at times 
 a sarcastic critic of his own party no less than of his 
 adversaries. He was, however, strongly in sympathy 
 with all genuine revolutionary efforts witness his 
 beautiful and stirring lines on " A Polish Insurgent." l 
 
 Under the signature of "B. V." he now contributed 
 frequently to the National Reformer ; and a large propor- 
 tion of his most spirited writings, both in verse and prose, 
 may be found in the columns of that journal between 
 1862 and 1874. That his chance of literary fame was 
 jeopardized, or at any rate retarded, by his connection 
 with the Freethought party can hardly admit of doubt. 
 
 1 In 1863 Mr. Bradlaugh obtained for him the appointment of Secretary 
 to the Polish Committee, but his inherited curse of intemperance seized 
 him, and at a critical moment be disappeared. Life of Charles Bradlaugh.
 
 40 LIFE IN LONDON 
 
 But it should be remembered, on the other hand, that, 
 together with the drawback of this position, he secured 
 an important advantage the opportunity of giving the 
 freest possible play to his own powers, without being 
 compelled to adapt his writings to suit the popular pre- 
 judices. " For me," he says in one of his letters, with 
 reference to the National Reformer, " its supreme merit 
 consists in the fact that I can say in it what I like how 
 I like ; and I know not another periodical in Britain 
 which would grant me the same liberty or license." 
 If, therefore, Thomson was a loser as regards literary 
 interests from his Secularist connections, he was intel- 
 lectually a gainer in being able, though a poor man, to 
 follow unmolested the bent of his own genius ; and 
 English literature thus received a valuable addition, in an 
 age when virility of thought was not too common, from the 
 works of a poet who refused to be cramped by any con- 
 ventional formula, and was not afraid to express the 
 utmost conclusions to which his speculations led him. 
 
 It has been said of Thomson that " in time to come 
 the critic of these years will look back wonderingly upon 
 the figure of the somewhat solitary poet who belonged to 
 no special community or brotherhood in art." 1 Both in 
 his life and literary work there was a remarkable indivi- 
 duality and apartness. He was possessed of none of the 
 advantages usually enjoyed by the poet, artist, and man of 
 letters a liberal education, cultured ease, and immunity 
 from the petty cares and ever-present anxiety of earning 
 one's daily bread ; on the contrary, his education was 
 wholly self-acquired in the face of constant poverty and 
 the drudgery of an uncongenial profession. He was a 
 poet, endowed with a poet's wide sympathy and lofty 
 
 1 P. B. Marston, Athenceum, June 10, 1882.
 
 LIFE IN LONDON 41 
 
 aspiration ; but he was at the same time a battler and a 
 struggler with all that is meanest and most harassing in 
 commonplace life ; and indifferent though he was to 
 fame, in the ordinary sense, he could not but repine 
 inwardly at the thraldom of a lot which checked and 
 thwarted his best endeavours. But his soldier's training 
 now stood him in good stead, enabling him to bear with 
 stern and silent endurance whatever fate might have in 
 store : 
 
 Over me pass the days and months and years 
 Like squadrons and battalions of the foe 
 
 Trampling with thoughtless thrusts and alien jeers 
 Over a wounded soldier lying low ; 
 
 He grips his teeth, or flings them words of scorn 
 
 To mar their triumph ; but the while, outworn, 
 Inwardly craves for death to end his woe. 1 
 
 Many of the poems and essays written during these years 
 and published in the National Reformer are full of auto- 
 biographical interest to those who read them aright. 
 Two of them in especial, " Vane's Story " and " A Lady 
 of Sorrow," contain, in poetry and prose respectively, an 
 idealized version of the story of the poet's life and the 
 secret of his pessimistic creed ; while in both of these, as 
 in other writings, he reverts fondly to the memory of his 
 lost love, transfigured now into the guardian spirit with 
 whom, in his great loneliness in the midst of the gloomy 
 city, he holds rapt and sacred communion. In the place 
 of the idealism and richness of tone which marked the 
 earlier writings, we now note the prevalence of a half- 
 serious, half-humorous mood, accompanied by more 
 maturity of thought and more boldness of speculation, 
 but expressed with less verbal ornament and less 
 deliberate elaboration of style a change in literary 
 
 1 "To our Ladies of Death," 1861.
 
 42 LIFE IN LONDON 
 
 method which corresponds with the change in the 
 actual circumstances of Thomson's life and in the 
 tendency of his opinions. In "Vane's Story," and other 
 poems of the same class, we see him emancipated from 
 every trace of conventionality, and playing fantastically 
 with his own views of life, now grave, now gay, as the 
 case may be, and sometimes both at once. 
 
 " Vane's Story " (1864), which is the earliest of 
 Thomson's three masterpieces, and disputes with 
 " Weddah and Om-el-Bonain " for the honour of being 
 second only to the " City of Dreadful Night," is at once 
 fantastic, speculative, and autobiographical, dealing freely 
 with natural and supernatural elements, yet offering at 
 the same time, as Mr. Dobell remarks in his Memoir, as 
 candid and complete an autobiography as was ever 
 written, as, for example, in the singularly pathetic and 
 beautiful allegory of the Fountain : 
 
 There was a Fountain long ago, 
 
 A fountain of perpetual flow, 
 
 Whose purest springlets had their birth 
 
 Deep in the bosom of the earth. 
 
 Its joyous wavering silvery shaft 
 
 To all the beams of morning laughed, 
 
 Its steadfast murmurous crystal column 
 
 Was loved by all the moonbeams solemn ; 
 
 Prom morn to eve it fell again 
 
 A singing many- jewelled rain, 
 
 From eve to morn it charmed the hours 
 
 With whispering dew and diamond showers ; 
 
 Crown'd many a day with sunbows bright, 
 
 With moonbows halo'd many a night ; 
 
 And so kept full its marble urn 
 
 All fringed with fronds of greenest fern, 
 
 O'er which with timeless love intent 
 
 A pure white marble Goddess leant. 
 
 It may be gathered, even from these few opening lines,
 
 LIFE IN LONDON 43 
 
 that the Fountain is typical of Thomson's own life-course 
 at first flowing freely and joyously under the influences 
 of love ; then, by a sudden change, left silent and stagnant 
 for years of loneliness and desolation, yet ever ready to 
 leap forth afresh to the light in moments of rapturous 
 resurrection and renewed vitality. The history of his life 
 and poetry is faithfully rendered under this simple yet 
 effective poetical figure, perhaps even more faithfully 
 than the poet himself could at that time have realized or 
 intended. 
 
 The experiences of London life (it should be remem- 
 bered that Thomson had known London from childhood, 
 and had learnt its lessons well) contributed largely to 
 the construction and imagery of these poems and prose- 
 phantasies, so profoundly gloomy in tone and so intensely 
 pessimistic in doctrine ; while insomnia, a curse from 
 which he suffered acutely at times, was an aggravation 
 of his suffering. The references in his poems to sleepless 
 hours should by no means be overlooked by those who 
 would understand his pessimism ; for such lines as 
 the following, from the " City of Dreadful Night," were 
 founded on the experience of many previous years : 
 
 The City is of Night, but not of Sleep ; 
 
 There sweet sleep is not for the weary brain ; 
 The pitiless hours like years and ages creep, 
 
 A night seems termless hell 
 
 Yet, during these very years, this same pessimist, in 
 some rare moment of rapturous joy and spiritual exalta- 
 tion, could sing strains of such pure unalloyed happiness 
 as has been felt and expressed by few other poets : 
 
 Let my voice ring out and over the earth, 
 
 Through all the grief and strife, 
 With a golden joy in a silver mirth : 
 Thank God for Life !
 
 44 LIFE IN LONDON 
 
 Let my voice swell out through the great abyss 
 
 To the azure dome above, 
 With a chord of faith in the harp of bliss : 
 Thank God for Love ! 
 
 The two Idylls of Cockaigne, " Sunday at Hampstead " 
 and " Sunday up the Eiver " (1865), consist of a series of 
 idyllic pictures, by " a very humble member of the great 
 and noble London mob." They indicate the high tide of 
 Thomson's spirits in holiday season ; yet it would be a 
 mistake to regard the descriptions as autobiographical, 
 since they are in the main dramatic. Their charm lies 
 not only in the beauty of the poems themselves, which, 
 with their varying metres, admirably portray the varying 
 moods and humours of the holiday-maker's mind, but 
 also in their conjunction of the most boisterous Bohemian 
 humour with an undertone of true and deep feeling, 
 which redeems them from the danger of lapsing into mere 
 badinage and vulgarity. Of the lyrical pieces that are 
 scattered through both these idylls, none, perhaps, is 
 more beautiful than the following from the " Sunday at 
 Hampstead": 
 
 As we rush, as we rush in the Train, 
 
 The trees and the houses go wheeling back, 
 But the starry heavens above the plain 
 Come flying on our track. 
 
 All the beautiful stars of the sky, 
 
 The silver doves of the forest of Night, 
 Over the dull earth swarm and fly, 
 Companions of our flight. 
 
 We will rush ever on without fear ; 
 
 Let the goal be far, the flight be fleet ! 
 For we carry the Heavens with us, Dear, 
 
 While the Earth slips from our feet ! 
 
 On the whole, however, " Sunday up the Eiver " is 
 distinctly the finer of the two poems, both in delicacy of
 
 LIFE IN LONDON 45 
 
 thought and completeness of workmanship. ' ' Sunday 
 up the Eiver,' " wrote Herman Melville, " contrasting 
 with the ' City of Dreadful Night,' is like a Cuban 
 humming bird, beautiful in fairy tints, flying against the 
 tropic thunderstorm." 
 
 From 1862 to 1869 there is little actual record of 
 Thomson's, doings. In October, 1866, he ceased to be 
 an inmate of Mr. Bradlaugh's house, and took lodgings 
 for himself in the Pimlico district, first in Denbigh 
 Street, then at 69 Warwick Street, a house occupied by 
 two maiden ladies named Spurway, and afterwards at 
 240 Vauxhall Bridge Eoad, where he stayed from 1869 
 till 1872. In November, 1869, there is an entry in a 
 fragmentary diary with reference to " Sunday up the 
 Eiver," which appeared in Fraser's Magazine for October 
 of that year. This was one of the few occasions on 
 which Thomson's poetry gained admission into any but 
 Secularist periodicals his " only production in reputable 
 society," as he called it the acceptance in this case 
 being partly due to the favourable judgment of Charles 
 Kingsley. Thomson thus recorded the event in his 
 diary : 
 
 October, 1869. " Up the Eiver ; an Idyll of Cockaigne," 
 accepted by Froude for Fraser's Magazine, appears. 
 
 November 19. Breakfasted with Froude, who has just returned 
 from Ireland, and is alone at present. Found him very cordial 
 and homely, so that I was quite at my ease. Found an early 
 opportunity to tell him about my having written a good deal for 
 the N. B. Had thought this might shock him, but he took this 
 quite as a matter of course. Lent me Spinoza in French (Emile 
 Saisset's trans., with Introduction and Life) and four vols. of Tieck's 
 Phantasms. Spent more than two hours with him in quite frank 
 chat. 
 
 That this year, 1869, had been, for some reason or 
 other which cannot now be conjectured, a more than
 
 46 LIFE IN LONDON 
 
 usually unhappy one for Thomson, may be gathered 
 from the following entry : 
 
 Sunday, November 4, 1869. Burned all my old papers, manu- 
 scripts, and letters, save the book MSS, which have been already 
 in great part printed. It took me five hours to burn them, guarding 
 against chimney on fire, and keeping them thoroughly burning. I 
 was sad and stupid scarcely looked into any ; had I begun reading 
 them, I might never have finished their destruction. All the 
 letters ; those which I had kept for twenty years, those which I had 
 kept for more than sixteen. I felt myself like one who, having 
 climbed half-way up a long rope (35 on the 23rd inst.), cuts off 
 all beneath his feet ; he must climb on , and can never touch the 
 old earth again without a fatal fall. The memories treasured in 
 the letters can never, at least in great part, be revived in my life 
 again, nor in the lives of the friends yet living who wrote them. 
 But after this terrible year, I could do no less than consume the 
 past. I can now better face the future, come in what guise it may. 
 
 It is a relief to turn from these despondent musings 
 and forebodings to Thomson's correspondence with the 
 Bradlaughs, with whom he still maintained most cordial 
 relations, though not living in their family. 
 
 To Mrs. Bradlaugh. 
 
 240 Vauxhall Bridge Road, Pimlico, S.W., 
 
 November 16, 1869. 
 
 DEAE MBS. BRADLAUGH, As Grant tells me you want a copy of 
 last month's Fraser, I have great pleasure in forwarding you one. 
 You will find the article, "Suggestions on Academical Organisa- 
 tion," very interesting, as also Bonamy Price's reply to the article 
 on " Currency," July, 1869 ; I would also commend as worthy the 
 most careful study the paper on Professor Tyndall's " Theory of 
 Comets." 
 
 I was surprised to find in the magazine a lot of verses which I 
 remember being offered to Mr. B. three or four years ago for the 
 N. R., and which he wisely refused. The editor of Fraser must 
 have been very soft when he accepted them. He was having his 
 holiday in Ireland at the time, and perhaps had taken too much 
 punch when he happened to read them.
 
 LIFE IN LONDON 47 
 
 Having at last had my noble portrait taken, I enclose the least 
 bad copy I can pick out. With love to all, yours faithfully, 
 
 JAMES THOMSON. 
 
 P.S. The portrait would have doubtless had a much more 
 benevolent expression but for the fact that I had to wait a full 
 hour while a lady was having her beautiful baby taken. Baby had 
 four expositions (I think they call them), Mamma making wonder- 
 ful efforts to secure its steadfastness, and the photographic artist 
 making the most comical whistlings and chirpings with the notion 
 that these would conduce to the same great end. I am happy to 
 believe that baby winked or started or spoiled the business some- 
 how through all four expositions. The artist at length, ashamed 
 to keep me waiting any longer, told Mamma that the gentleman 
 below must be done before they had another try at triumphant 
 baby. You will doubtless discover all the amiability of that hour 
 in my expression. 
 
 240 Vauxhall Bridge Road, London, S.W., 
 
 October 28, 1871. 
 
 DEAR MRS. BRADLAUGH, This morning I sent by book-post 
 Thalberg's arrangement of " Home, sweet Home, "as desired by Alice. 
 The price is only one-half what appears marked. I had my sister- 
 in-law in town for three or four days the week before last. She is 
 a quaint little creature, whom I feel inclined to like. Unfortunately 
 I couldn't have any quiet chat with her, as she had come to meet 
 her mother and friends, who had been having a month in the Isle 
 of Wight, and the said friends consisted of one widow, two old 
 maids, and one young maid. Fancy me going to Drury Lane with 
 five of them under my charge ! I did it with the utmost coolness 
 and self-possession, I can assure you. Sister-in-law is not very 
 strong, and I think brother is not very strong either. 
 
 I spent an evening at Turner Street last week with Hypatia. 
 Mr. B. came in before I left, looking better, I think, than I had 
 ever seen him since I came to London. He appeared as though he 
 could have supped off a creature the size of me, and not have been 
 troubled with indigestion if he had eaten it all. 
 
 I saw Austin [Holyoake] last evening. His wife has a regular 
 engagement now at Sadler's Wells, and has been very well spoken 
 of in the London daily papers under the name of Miss Alice Austin. 1 
 Curiously enough, the manager's wife acts in her maiden name, 
 
 1 Mrs. Austin Holyoake, afterwards Mrs. Theodore Wright.
 
 48 LIFE IN LONDON 
 
 and this is Emma Austin. I thought this was Mrs. Bayston 
 at first. 
 
 Yesterday T got a letter from Grant. He says that he has 
 written twice to you without an answer. A pretty creature you 
 are to grumble about people not writing to you, when you never 
 reply if they do. And you have no writing at all to do except in 
 the way of letters, while some persons I know have to write morn- 
 ing, noon, and night, till pen and ink make them feel sea-sick. 
 
 Hoping you are all well, with love and best wishes, Yours truly, 
 
 JAMES THOMSON. 
 
 The above letters contain references to several of 
 Thomson's best friends. There is also mention, in some 
 of the letters addressed to Mrs. Bradlaugh, of Mr. 
 W. E. Jaques, who had made Thomson's acquaint- 
 ance through being engaged in the same office ; his 
 name often occurs in the diaries of a later date, and 
 Thomson frequently spent Sundays at his house. Mr. 
 Austin Holyoake was a sub-editor of the National 
 Reformer, which was printed at his offices in Johnson's 
 Court, and, being thus associated with Thomson in 
 journalistic work, he soon became one of his dearest and 
 most valued friends. Of his younger brother, John, who 
 was now married, Thomson saw but little, their only 
 meetings being on such occasions as that referred to 
 above, when his brother and sister-in-law paid short 
 visits to London. The two brothers had been parted 
 early in life through the sudden breaking-up of their 
 home, and while the one had lived chiefly in Ireland or 
 London, the other had been engaged in business in 
 Scotland and the north of England, so that their paths 
 lay far apart. To his sister-in-law, whom he first saw 
 in 1867, Thomson took a strong liking, and was inclined 
 to open his heart about his own concerns more than he 
 usually did to his correspondents. Here are some 
 extracts from two letters written to her in 1872 :
 
 LIFE IN LONDON 49 
 
 To Mrs. John Thomson. 
 
 240 Vauxhall Bridge Road, S.W., 
 
 January 1, 1872, 
 
 I hadn't time to write more to you the other day, and since 
 then I have been so stupid (even much more stupid than usual) 
 with a thick cold in the head that I have been afraid to write, lest 
 you should be forced to judge that either I had gone out of my 
 mind or my mind had gone out of me the one case being about as 
 bad as the other, I suppose. As an additional pleasantness I have 
 had a sore throat, which indeed suffered me to eat (with suffering), 
 but would not allow me to smoke. This deprivation proved so 
 heavy a calamity that I have sometimes caught myself pondering 
 whether life is really worth having when one cannot smoke in the 
 long dull evenings. If you are not a smoker yourself, you can 
 scarcely imagine the anguish ; but try to think how you would feel 
 if you were not permitted for a whole twelvemonth to go shopping, 
 or even to peep into the windows where dresses and bonnets are 
 enshrined for the ardent adoration of the fair sex. However, 
 having been able to smoke this evening, I feel bound to write, 
 although still (as you will have discovered long before reaching this 
 line) prodigiously stupid. 
 
 What made you, wilful little woman, send unto me gold- 
 rimmed eyeglasses ? Did you think they would give my nose and 
 the rest of my countenance an air of respectability and dignity, and 
 even perhaps make me look rather venerable ? But it was kind of 
 you to write on Christmas Day itself, though how you could 
 compose your mind to the task, if you dined at home, and were 
 burthened with the anxiety of how the sacred pudding would turn 
 out, baffles my comprehension. I hope it turned out better than 
 the similar work of a friend of mine, who told me that when a 
 young private soldier it came to his turn to be cook for the company 
 on Christmas Day. He managed to make the precious thing pretty 
 well, he asserts ; but forgetting that puddings are in the habit of 
 swelling with monstrous self-importance as they approach the state 
 of perfection which fits them for the festive board, he did tie up 
 that poor creature in its cloth as if he wanted to strangle it in its 
 very infancy. The consequence was that the pudding, after short 
 struggles, succeeded in bursting its bonds asunder, and my friend, 
 to his great astonishment, found that he had succeeded in producing 
 a sort of rich plum-pudding broth. When his comrades came to 
 
 E
 
 50 LIFE IN LONDON 
 
 cast eyes on this wonderful mess, they looked much more ready to 
 devour him than it, and I believe they never trusted to his uncon- 
 trolled genius for a pudding again. 
 
 You think I have left Mr. B., and wonder what I am about, and 
 I often wonder myself. Mr. B. gave up city business altogether 
 more than eighteen months ago, in order to devote himself solely 
 to the great business of illuminating the benighted intellect of this 
 nation on social, political, and religious matters. For some time 
 after he left I did nothing, an occupation which would suit me 
 exceedingly well, and for which I have fine natural talents that 
 I have taken care to cultivate to the best of my abilities. That is, 
 would suit me extremely well on a fortune, or in a semi-tropical 
 climate, but here, without money, it is a luxury too ethereal for 
 my taste. Afterwards, I did some work in a printing office, reading 
 proofs, revising, etc.; and as to this I will only say that if ever you 
 have the misfortune to be condemned to penal servitude, and they 
 offer to commute the sentence for such work in a printing office, 
 you had far better stick to the penal servitude. I then became 
 secretary pro tern, to one of the thousand companies which came 
 into being last year, and in some very hard commercial campaign- 
 ing have already had two companies killed under me. I am at 
 present astride a third, which may carry me out safely or may not ; 
 it has received three or four shot and sabre wounds already, but 
 seems tough and tenacious of life. By the bye, our slain companies 
 brought no one down but the riders ; our friendly foes the share- 
 holding public having received all their money back. As I was 
 nearly thirty when I came to London, I could not go through the 
 regular course in any business, and have had to seize whatever 
 honest chance offered. Perhaps some fine day I shall turn up a 
 trump and win a good stake ; it is much more probable that I 
 shan't. In the meantime, having no one to look to but myself, I 
 quietly take things as they come, and quietly let things go as they 
 ' go, fortifying myself with that saying of the philosopher that it 
 matters not in this vale of tears whether we wipe our eyes with a 
 silk or cotton handkerchief, or blink through tortoiseshell or gold- 
 rimmed eyeglasses. Perhaps the said philosopher had himself the 
 silk handkerchief and gold-rimmed glasses, or perhaps he did not 
 use a handkerchief nor wear eyeglasses, and was thus enabled to be 
 so philosophical on the subject. Not that I need to wipe my eyes 
 in this vale of tears, for I always find the prospect either much too 
 sad or much too comical for weeping.
 
 LIFE IN LONDON 51 
 
 To the Same. 
 
 9 240 Vauxhall Bridge Road, 
 
 March 13, 1872. 
 
 What has kept me so long from answering your last kind letter 
 I really don't know. Very likely my intense sympathy with the 
 Prince of Wales in his illness, and my frantic joy at his recovery, 
 made me incapable of thinking of anything else. Now that he is 
 safe and on the Continent, I can attend a little to the ordinary 
 affairs of life. 
 
 Were you dazzled by the blazing descriptions of our Metropolitan 
 Thanksgiving, you other poor provincials ? As for me, I kept out 
 of it all as well as I could. It drove me from the Strand and Fleet 
 Street to the Embankment for a week or so in going to and coming 
 from the City ; for time was lost, clothes were in danger, and even 
 limbs were not safe, with carpenters, painters, roughs, badauds, 
 noise, hurry, and confusion in full possession of the route. On the 
 solemn and sublime day itself I went to a concert far away from 
 the multitude, and in the evening stopped at home reading a moral 
 French novel. So much for my part in the Thanksgiving. But 
 I promise you that when I hear that yourself and John are quite 
 well and hearty, he about half as stout as the Tichborne claimant, 
 and you devouring chops and beefsteaks with alacrity, I will have 
 private rejoicings and an illumination of my own lamp and fire in 
 celebration of the happy news. 
 
 So you are rather glad that I am no longer with B., exposed to 
 the contagion of his dreadful heresies. To tell you the truth, I 
 don't think that there's a pin to choose between his opinions as 
 to things in general and my own ; only while he considers his 
 opinions of the utmost importance, and is unwearied in the profit- 
 able task of trying to convert the world to them, I care very little 
 for mine, and don't believe the world capable of being benefited 
 much by having any opinion whatever preached to it. But you 
 must not blame him or anybody for my wicked opinions, which 
 I have arrived at by the mere force of my own evil nature, influenced 
 very little by the opinions of others. The Sunday-school views of 
 this life and dissolving views of a life hereafter proved quite unsatis- 
 factory to this philosopher many years ago. 
 
 It may occur to the reader to inquire why, if Thomson 
 was so often in pecuniary straits, hi did not turn his
 
 52 LIFE IN LONDON 
 
 literary talent to account as a journalist. As a matter 
 of fact, a chance of this sort had been offered him a few 
 
 
 
 years earlier, for in 1864 he had written two or three 
 articles for the Daily Telegraph. 1 But his spirit was too 
 uncompromising, and his individuality too distinct, to 
 allow him any chance of permanent success on the 
 ordinary lines of journalism ; he could not, and would 
 not, write "to order"; and poor though he was, he 
 valued his own intellectual liberty above any prize the 
 world could offer him. " Hackwork of a certain kind," 
 says Mr. Theodore Wright, " he was glad enough to do 
 to keep body and soul together ; but no amount of money 
 would have induced him to write contrary to his convic- 
 tions." So unwilling was he to accommodate his 
 writings to the temper of his readers that one of his 
 articles was found to be too audacious even for the 
 National Reformer. At a later period (to be mentioned 
 in due course) he was able to get remunerative literary 
 work more on his own terms ; but at that time he was 
 hampered by other and less creditable disqualifications. 
 
 In 1872 began Thomson's correspondence with Mr. 
 W. M. Eossetti, to whom, as a well-known critic holding 
 liberal views, he had sent a copy of his narrative poem, 
 " Weddah and Om-el-Bonain." The following is Mr. 
 Eossetti's account of their first meeting and his impres- 
 sions of Thomson : 
 
 Towards February, 1872, I received by post the numbers of the 
 National Reformer containing the poem of " Weddah and Om-el- 
 Bonain," signed "B. V." I knew at the time nothing of any 
 sort about B. V. I read the poem, and thought it excellent. 
 I remember that same evening my brother called upon me and 
 
 1 It is said that the editor was so pleased with one of these articles that 
 he offered Thomson a retaining fee to write occasionally "like that." 
 "When the proprietor and the contributor were separating," says Mr. 
 Foote (National Reformer), " the man of business said with a serious air, 
 'By the way, Mr. Thomson, can you write pathos?' That was enough."
 
 LIFE IN LONDON 53 
 
 saw the poem lying about, and asked me about it. I replied that 
 it was certainly a work of very unusual value. My brother looked 
 at it, and said, "Yes, I see you are right. One ought to know 
 something about the author." I wrote to " B. V." at the office of 
 the National Reformer, expressing my high opinion of the poem, 
 and referring to my brother's as well, and Thomson then replied to 
 me. Soon afterwards I called at his lodgings (in Vauxhall Bridge 
 Road) to leave him a copy of my edition of Shelley, but did not 
 find him in. 
 
 In April, 1873, I asked him to call on me if his convenience 
 allowed. He came one evening, when the only person at home 
 with me was my elder sister (authoress of " A Shadow of Dante"). 
 I saw him partly alone and partly in my sister's company. Thomson 
 was a rather small man say hardly five feet six in height with 
 sufficiently regular features, bright eyes, and at that time a cheerful, 
 pleasant manner. There was (but only, I think, in later years) a 
 rather peculiar expression in his mouth ; something of a per- 
 manently pained expression, along with a settled half -smile, caustic 
 but not cynical, not " put on," but adopted as part of his attitude 
 towards the world. I had expected to find him rather of the type 
 of the intellectual working-man, but did not find this to be the 
 fact ; he seemed to me more of the " city clerk," or minor man of 
 business with literary tastes. His manners were good, free from 
 nervousness, pretension, or self-assertion. He talked extremely 
 well, and without, I think, any symptom of defective education, 
 except that his h's were sometimes less aspirated than they should 
 be. Not that he dropped his h's, and he certainly never inserted 
 them when they ought not to come. There was no trace of the 
 Scotchman in his pronunciation. We passed a pleasant evening, 
 and I can recollect that my sister, who was a religious devotee, 
 received an agreeable impression from his conversation which 
 shows that he knew when to keep his strong opinions to himself. 
 
 As Thomson's opinions on religious, political, and other subjects 
 did not, in essentials, differ much from mine, he was under no 
 restriction in saying what he liked. However, he never said in 
 my presence anything against religion which could be considered 
 offensive in manner or tending to ribaldry. His talks with me 
 may have been principally on literary matters : he was quite as 
 ready to listen as to talk, and his conversation was in no degree 
 pragmatic or controversial. I never saw him out of temper, 
 vehement, or noticeably gloomy ; his demeanour mostly (so far
 
 54 LIFE IN LONDON 
 
 as I saw it) was that of a man of habitually low spirits, who did 
 not allow these to affect his manner in society or the tone of his 
 conversation. 
 
 The whole of my personal acquaintance with Thomson may have 
 amounted to some half-dozen interviews. I don't remember what 
 may have been the last date when I met him ; probably not later 
 than 1878. He and I were always on the best terms ; and we had 
 occasion to correspond every now and then up to, I daresay, a couple 
 of years preceding his death. 
 
 His correspondence with Mr. W. M. Eossetti, which 
 deals largely with the subject of the text of Shelley, 
 contains some of Thomson's best and most characteristic 
 letters, the first two of which may bring this chapter to 
 a conclusion : 
 
 240 Vauxhall Bridge Eoad, S.W., 
 
 February 8, 1872. 
 
 DEAR SIR, Mr. Bradlaugh has forwarded me your letter of the 
 4th inst., and I know not how to thank you for your very generous 
 expression of approval of the " Weddah and Om-el-Bonain." In 
 sending you this piece I had indeed some slight hope of obtaining 
 the verdict of so distinguished and competent a judge, but I chiefly 
 intended it as a sort of apology for my very inadequate notice 
 in the National Reformer last March of your popular edition of 
 Shelley, written at the request of my friend Mr. Bradlaugh when 
 I had no leisure for anything like a fair attempt to examine and 
 discuss that work properly. Feeling not at all contented with such 
 treatment of Shelley and yourself, I was anxious to show that your 
 too offhand critic was nevertheless a genuine lover of the poet to 
 whom you have devoted so much worthy labour, and a serious 
 student of poetry. 
 
 To clear up your doubt, permit me to state that no living writer 
 can have much less reputation than myself, who am simply known 
 to some readers of the National Reformer as "B. V.," the author 
 of many pieces and scraps in prose and verse which have appeared 
 in that periodical during the last seven years or so. And I am 
 bound in honesty to confess that some of those pieces were among 
 the most wicked and blasphemous which even Mr. Bradlaugh ever 
 published. The only production in reputable society which I can 
 cite in my favour is " Sunday up the Eiver ; an Idyll of Cockaigne,"
 
 LIFE IN LONDON 55 
 
 which Mr. Froude inserted in Fraser's Magazine for October, 1869, 
 and which he and Mr. Kingsley thought very good. The " Weddah 
 and Om-el-Bonain " Mr. Froude rejected, finding the story beautiful, 
 and the treatment excellent in arrangement and conception, but 
 deficient in melody of versification, in smoothness and sweetness, 
 much less finished in style than the "Idyll." Both pieces have 
 been refused by four or five of our chief magazines to which they 
 were sent. 
 
 I hope you will pardon me for saying so much about myself, as 
 I have only done so because your letter seemed to indicate a desire 
 to know something on the subject. 
 
 The praise of two such men as yourself and your brother, 
 however much kindliness may have tempered your judgment, 
 is very valuable to me, and I am truly grateful for the generous 
 promptitude and cordiality with which you have rendered it to an 
 obscure stranger. 
 
 While to the public I wish to remain anonymous as a writer, 
 I have no wish to shroud myself from persons I esteem, and am 
 happy to sign myself your obliged and faithful servant, 
 
 JAMES THOMSON. 
 
 240 Vauxhall Bridge Road, S.W., 
 
 March 2, 1872. 
 
 DEAR SIR, I have to thank you for your very kind letter of the 
 25th ult., and for your too liberal offer of a copy of your complete 
 edition of Shelley. While I do not like to refuse the honour of this 
 gift from you, I must really protest against your attacking me 
 suddenly with so valuable a present on such insignificant and 
 unintentional provocation. It is one among the works of our 
 higher literature, which during the last three or four years I have 
 put off reading, waiting for more settled leisure to study them as 
 they ought to be studied. I will do my best to profit by it, and 
 should any notes occur to me which I can think worth your 
 attention, will submit them to you frankly. 
 
 I regret that you have been put to the trouble of procuring the 
 number of Fraser, which I could not offer to send you, having no 
 copy left. Your judgment on the relative merits of the " Idyll " 
 and " Weddah " confirms my own. I was aware that the former 
 as a piece of pure pleasantness was more smooth and easy in style 
 than the latter, but I knew also that the latter in its style as 
 dictated by the nature of the story was honestly wrought out to
 
 56 LIFE IN LONDON 
 
 the best of my ability, and was comparatively a serious bit of work. 
 By the bye, the " Idyll," as I wrote it, had two more joints to its 
 tail, ending thus after some points to mark the transition : 
 
 What time is it, dear, now ? 
 
 We are in the year now 
 Of the New Creation One million, two or three. 
 
 But where are we now, Love ? 
 
 We are, as I trow, Love, 
 In the Heaven of Heavens upon the Crystal Sea. 
 
 And may mortal sinners 
 
 Care for carnal dinners 
 In your Heaven of Heavens, New Era millions three ? 
 
 Ob, if their boat gets stranding 
 
 Upon some Richmond landing, 
 They're thirsty as the desert and hungry as the sea ! 
 These two stanzas, though of little worth in themselves, had the 
 merit in my eyes of bringing back the piece at last to the sober 
 realities of pleasant Cockaigne ; but Mr. Froude and (as he informed 
 me) Mr. Kingsley were so strongly in favour of its evanishing in 
 the sentimental infinite that I submitted to them, not without 
 reluctance. Whether you will agree with those gentlemen or with 
 myself on this point, I, of course, cannot divine. 
 
 I have a parcel of leaves of the National Reformer containing 
 most of my contributions to that paper, kept by me for the purpose 
 of reference, which I shall, of course, be happy to send you if you 
 care to turn them over, glancing into any that may seem not with- 
 out interest. They would give you a much more ample and accurate 
 knowledge of me than you can have gathered from two select poems, 
 and would probably enough considerably lower me in your opinion ; 
 but I have not the slightest wish to seem to you at all better than 
 I am, and would, indeed (if I know myself), rather be under than 
 over estimated. You will also, I trust, understand that I have not 
 the least desire to abuse your kindness by asking you, or expecting 
 you, to read a single line of my writing, or express any opinion 
 thereon, except as your own good pleasure may move you. Your 
 criticism, whether favourable or adverse, would be very highly 
 valued by me, but I cannot doubt that you have literary matters 
 much more important than anything of mine to occupy your leisure. 
 Hoping that you will find in the nature of our correspondence an 
 excuse for my again writing to you so much about myself, I am, 
 dear Sir, yours very respectfully, JAMES THOMSON.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 VISITS TO AMEKICA AND SPAIN 
 
 IN the spring of 1872 Thomson's residence in London 
 was interrupted by a visit to America, undertaken in 
 the service of the " Champion Gold and Silver Mines 
 Company," of which he was then Secretary. Towards 
 the end of April he received instructions from the 
 directors to proceed at once to Colorado, in order to 
 undertake the correspondence at the mines, and send 
 home weekly reports on the condition and prospects 
 of the Company's property. He accordingly started 
 from London on April 27, and arrived at Central City, 
 Colorado, on May 15. During the seven months that 
 he stayed among the Eocky Mountains" the big 
 vertebrae of this longish backbone of America," as 
 he calls them he kept two diaries, in one of which 
 are entered the details of his business transactions, 
 in the other his private jottings, descriptions of scenery, 
 records of expeditions, and notes of racy American 
 anecdotes heard during his travels. After ten years 
 spent in London, this recurrence to a free, healthy, 
 open-air life, with long walks and rides across mountain- 
 tracks " rough jaunts," to quote his own phrase and 
 plenty of bathing, fishing, and out-door recreation, must 
 have been a welcome experience ; while the insight, now 
 for the first time obtained, into the grandest natural 
 scenery of mid-ocean and snow-mountains was not lost 
 on the observant eye of the poet. 
 
 57
 
 58 VISITS TO AMEEICA AND SPAIN 
 
 How keenly he appreciated the grandeur of the 
 mountain scenery, and how minutely he observed what 
 he saw, is shown by many entries in his diary, of which 
 the following may be taken as specimens : 
 
 Tuesday, June 11, 1872. Walked as far as head of Virginia 
 Canon. Near the Divide, with a snow-covered triple mountain 
 right opposite, found a little unenclosed cemetery on the stony slope, 
 not unpathetic in the solitude. Thin grass and weeds are the only 
 growth just there. To the S.W., under the afternoon sun, a gentle 
 hill shining green with the cotton wood aspens and darker firs, 
 ridging eastward into promontory brown and sombre with thin firs. 
 In front, down the canon, beyond Idaho, the ridges of hills and 
 mountains swelling obliquely from left to right, the right being 
 S.W. They were dark green with brown patches, and the highest 
 bore some thin sprinkling of snow. Immense cloud-shadows, black 
 and irregular, lay upon them. They swell obliquely through one 
 rounded mountain into two high sharp scalped peaks, with many 
 foldings and dells. Behind were white clouds massed and in round 
 
 islets, and the blue sky Turning back towards Central, green 
 
 slopes and gulch with shanties and mills. Right and left firs and 
 cottonwoods. These are the small bright green firs which turn 
 yellow and russet in needle and apple, and then, seen with sun 
 behind them, look like withered ferns similarly seen, burning gold 
 and red. Beyond, a long massy hill-wall, brown and dark green 
 with pines. Beyond still, a high sharp mountain on right, brown 
 and dark green. Leftwards, a keen steep range, accentuated and 
 abrupt in outline, with white gleaming precipices on the highest 
 left. 
 
 Thursday, June 13, 1872. Heavyish rain last night. Clouds 
 this morning ; no dust. Started for Idaho soon after nine. Half- 
 way from Missouri City to Divide, front and rear saw white clouds 
 seething over the crests of the hills and overlapping far down. The 
 right-hand hills from Central clear with strange pale-green stony 
 gleams. Some rain and hail-drops, then the sun breaking out in 
 blue, high overhead. Two or three kinds pretty yellow flowers by 
 the wayside. White convolvulus-like flowers, but with dull 
 brownish centre-boss, on wrinkle-leaved bush, so inter-wreathed 
 with a bush of smooth light-green finely-serrated leaves, that it was 
 
 difficult at first to know which owned the flowers At Idaho 
 
 between eleven and twelve. Very wet afternoon.
 
 VISITS TO AMERICA AND SPAIN 59 
 
 Friday, June 14, 1872. Lovely bright morning. Everything so 
 green after the rain. Idaho, with its hills and booming brown 
 creek under the large sky, about as beautiful a place as I ever saw. 
 Walked up the canon, catching up coach, keeping behind it, and 
 then up a long way ahead . Pine piney bluff on right soon after 
 leaving Idaho. The hills and mountains never the same for five 
 minutes together in form, colour, or expression ; the shadows 
 shifting, the forms varying, the lights changing, the colours running 
 through a hundred different shades. Enjoyed my walk very much, 
 and thought with a certain vigour as I used to think. 
 
 During the week ending July 20 Thomson had a short 
 but sharp attack of " mountain fever," which he describes 
 as " a kind of crisis in the process of acclimatization out 
 here, which the doctor and others tell me most persons 
 pass through who stay for any length of time." " Felt 
 at death's door," he writes, " Wednesday and Thursday : 
 down and up with a steep run, for I managed (though 
 with great difficulty) to dress and walk about a little on 
 Sunday. Illness very expensive out here, besides the 
 lonesomeness, every little common service and thing 
 having to be paid for. Some fellows kind in calling and 
 watching." 
 
 The fullest and most graphic account of the place of 
 Thomson's sojourn is that given in a long letter to Mr. 
 W. M. Eossetti : 
 
 Central City, Colorado, U.S.A., 
 
 August 5, 1872. 
 
 DEAR SIR, Your letter of the 28th April reached me here about 
 a fortnight since, having been forwarded by a friend. I cannot say 
 anything about the Shelley notes now, as the only books I could 
 find room for in my portmanteau were the Globe Shakespeare and 
 Pickering's diamond Dante (with Gary's version squeezed in for the 
 notes and general assistance). But I hope on my return to resume 
 the attentive reading of your Shelley, and to send you any remarks 
 upon it which may occur to me and seem worth sending. Your 
 liberal reception of the few already sent would encourage me to pro- 
 ceed even were I not impelled by so strong an interest in the subject.
 
 60 VISITS TO AMEEICA AND SPAIN 
 
 Mr. Bradlaugh promised to forward you a copy of the National 
 Reformer containing a pier.e of verse called "In the Room," which 
 I left behind me. I learn that it appeared in the issue for May 19th, 
 but don't know whether you received a copy or not. 
 
 From the close of your letter I gather that you somewhat mis- 
 apprehended what I said about my business trip. When I wrote to 
 the effect that I was going in search of the heathen Chinee in the 
 Rocky Mountains, I did not mean to convey that I was about to 
 start for China. I believed that John Chinaman had already 
 swarmed thus far east from California, and was alluding to the 
 popular poem by Bret Harte, a writer who seems to me capable of 
 doing really excellent work, and some of whose poems and sketches 
 I am very fond of. As to the Chinese, they have not got here yet, 
 with the exception of four or five who are male laundresses (the 
 proper masculine for this feminine noun I am quite ignorant of), 
 and whom I never see. 
 
 I have been out here since the 12th May, having left London on the 
 27th April, but have seen very little of the country as yet, business 
 confining me to this place. I am hoping to have some trips around 
 shortly. Every village out here is termed a city ; this Central with 
 Blackhawk and Nevada, the three virtually forming one straggling 
 town, numbers between four and five thousand people. Of these 
 the great majority are miners, perhaps a thousand being Cornish- 
 men, who earn from $3 to $4 a day wages, and much more when 
 they take leases or work by contract. The stores are well stocked, 
 but nearly everything is very dear. The working miner can get 
 most of the mere necessaries of life almost as cheap as at home ; the 
 comforts and little luxuries are so priced that I find living here twice 
 or three times as expensive. A small glass of English beer costs 
 twenty-five cents, or say a shilling currency. To get your boots 
 blacked (I always clean my own) you pay twenty-five cents ; but 
 then they get a " Dolly Varden shine," and are wrought upon by 
 a "Boot Artist." A " tonsorialist " very naturally charges seventy- 
 five cents, or three shillings, for cutting your hair ; etc., etc., etc. 
 We have churches, chapels, schools, and a new large hotel, in 
 which a very polite dancing party assembled the other evening. 
 This week we are to have a concert, and also a lecture on the 
 Darwinian Theory, admission one dollar. We have a theatre, in 
 which we now and then have actors. The old rough days, with 
 their perils and excitement, are quite over ; the "City " is civilized 
 enough to be dull and commonplace, while not yet civilized enough
 
 VISITS TO AMEEICA AND SPAIN 61 
 
 to be sociable and pleasant. There are no beggars, and petty 
 larceny is almost unknown ; storekeepers extort your money 
 blandly and quietly, and the large larceny of selling mines at 
 preposterous prices makes the people despise all larceny that is 
 petty. You might as well carry a revolver between Euston Square 
 and Somerset House as here. I brought one, under persuasion, 
 and have never taken it out of the bag. 
 
 This Central City is the headquarters of gold-mining in Colorado 
 Territory ; but it has been very dull for some time past, the working 
 of most of the large mines having been suspended, in some cases 
 through want of capital, in others through litigation (mines are 
 wonderful breeders of lawsuits), and in others because the ores are 
 not rich enough to pay the enormous charges for haulage and 
 reduction and smelting out here, though they would be of immense 
 value in an old country. However, a railroad connecting with the 
 whole east is now within ten miles of us, and is being pushed on 
 rapidly, so things are likely to improve ere long. 
 
 The houses, chiefly of wood, and some of them pretty enough in 
 themselves, though spoiled by their surroundings, are huddled and 
 scattered along the bottom and slopes of a winding ravine, inter- 
 mingled with prospect-holes, primitive log-huts, mill-sheds, of 
 which many are idle, fragments of machinery that proved useless 
 from the first, heaps of stones and poor ores, and all sorts of 
 rubbish. No one has ever cleared up anything here ; the streets 
 and roads are usually many inches deep in dust, which the rare 
 heavy rains and the more frequent turning on of some foul sluice 
 make mud which is very abominable unto one who cleaneth his 
 own boots. Men dig a shaft shallow or deep, and leave it gaping 
 for anyone to tumble into. Trees are cut down, and the stumps all 
 left to make night-wandering safe and agreeable. The hills sur- 
 rounding us have been flayed of their grass and scalped of their 
 timber ; and they are scarred and gashed and ulcerated all over 
 from past mining operations ; so ferociously does little man scratch 
 at the breasts of his great calm mother when he thinks that jewels 
 are there hidden. The streams running down the ravines, or, as 
 they say here, the creeks running down the gulches, are thick with 
 pollution from the washing of dirt and ores. 
 
 We are 8,300 feet above the level of the sea, and 3,000 feet above 
 Denver, which lies about forty miles eastward. The highest peaks 
 of the Rocky Mountains hereabout are 14,000 feet ; we are among 
 the foothills. To get out of the city in any direction one must
 
 62 VISITS TO AMEEIOA AND SPAIN 
 
 climb for a considerable distance. These foothills are distributed 
 remarkably amongst the snowy ranges of the mountains, curtain 
 beyond curtain, fold within fold, twisting and heaving inextricably. 
 Those immediately around the city are of flat, tame curves, as if 
 crouching to their abject mercenary doom ; but beyond there are 
 keen crests and daring serrated contours, green with firs and 
 cottonwood-aspens or nobly dark with pines ; and one massy range 
 ends in a promontory whose scarped, precipitous upper flank gleams 
 grand and savage in its stony nakedness, like the gleaming of set 
 white teeth in some swart Titanic barbarian. Some of the loftier 
 hillsides are as smooth meadows ; but their grass at this season can 
 scarcely be distinguished through the multitudinous flames and 
 broad blaze of countless species of wild flowers, nearly all of the 
 most positive intense colours scarlet, crimson, purple, azure, 
 yellow, white. Few of them remind me of English flowers, and 
 the people here (if I may judge by the few I have asked) don't seem 
 to know their names. From these higher hills one gets magnificent 
 views vast billowy land-seas, with dense woods and deep ravines 
 and exquisite emerald dells, whereon and whereover sleep and 
 sweep immense shadows, and of all shades, even at noonday, from 
 bright green to solid black ; beyond, a crescent of the mountains, 
 some with broad fields or deep furrows of snow, some sheathed 
 wholly with this white splendour ; eastwards towards the plains, 
 what the keenest eye cannot distinguish from a distant sea-line, 
 faint or dark-blue, level to the horizon, with pale streaks like the 
 shadows of clouds and long shoals and the haze of evaporation. 
 The sky is wonderfully pure azure, or deep, burning blue; the 
 clouds are large and white ; however hot the sun, there are cool, 
 fresh breezes on these hills. There are few birds, and they scarcely 
 sing. Butterflies abound, some of them almost as brilliant as the 
 flowers. Crickets keep up a continual song like the whistling of 
 the wind through reeds ; and one species take long jumps and 
 short, rapid flights, making such a rattle with some bodily 
 machinery that one can scarcely believe it comes from so small 
 a creature. 
 
 The nights are always cool, and mosquitoes there are none. 
 Snakes or any other vermin I have not heard of. One would 
 have to go some distance now to find any wild animals such as 
 bears and cougars. 
 
 I don't think that I have been out a single night, however cool 
 and clear, with moon and stars, without seeing frequent lightnings
 
 VISITS TO AMERICA AND SPAIN 63 
 
 play up from behind the surrounding hills. Almost every day we 
 have a slight shower. On the day of my arrival we had a hailstorm 
 with thunder as we drove up the canon, the largest stones being 
 quite as big as good-sized walnuts. Our horses were so nervous 
 that we had to unhitch and hold them. A few days after they had 
 snow, thunder, and lightning all together among the same hills. 
 Occasional waterspouts sweep away bridges and destroy roads for 
 miles. I have seen from here a terrible storm raging over the 
 plains, dead-silent through remoteness ; white lightnings momen- 
 tarily surging up, veiling the stars, making the lower clouds 
 ghostly, striking pale reflections from clouds at the zenith ; and 
 these broad sheets of white light were seamed and riven by intense 
 darting lines of forked lightning, zigzag, vertical, transverse, oblique. 
 
 We have no dew here at night ; one can lie out in a .blanket 
 between earth and sky with perfect safety and comfort. 
 
 Six miles from us is Idaho, the pleasantest place I have yet seen 
 in the mountains. Going to it you ascend about a thousand feet in 
 three miles to the Divide (and climbing on foot tests your wind in 
 this thin, pure air), and then descend about 1,800 feet in three 
 miles, winding down Virginia Canon, whose hill-walls range from 
 six to twelve hundred feet in height, and are still well-wooded with 
 firs and pines. The roadway is good, wild -flowers abound, and a 
 clear rill runs down with you all the way. 
 
 Idaho, which its boldly prophetic inhabitants call the Saratoga 
 of the West, and which is just now full of visitors, lies comfortably 
 at large on the level floor of a broad and long valley. The houses 
 are of wood, shingle-roofed, most of them neat, many of them 
 pretty. The hills around rise to the height of a thousand feet, 
 and, as little mining has been attempted on them, they are 
 delightfully green, and their timber has not been felled. Between 
 them, southwards, you see the scalped heads of two mountains 
 (until lately covered with snow) reckoned about 11,000 feet high, 
 with a lower rounded height between ; these are the Old Chief, the 
 Squaw, and the Pappoose. Westwards also you glimpse snowy 
 mountains. A stream, rapid and broad in summer after the rains 
 and melting of the snows, runs from west to east through the 
 midst of the village the whole length of the valley. Excellent 
 trout have been caught in it. Two creeks join it from the south in 
 this valley. There is a hot-water spring impregnated with soda 
 and sulphur, which feeds private and swimming baths. There is 
 a cold spring chemically allied to it, which people drink with faith
 
 64 VISITS TO AMEEICA AND SPAIN 
 
 or hope, and which to me tastes like seltzer- water bewitched. 
 There are beautiful walks and rides in all directions. I reckon 
 that this village of Idaho or Idaho Springs will indeed ere long be 
 one of the fashionable holiday resorts of America. Gray's Peak, 
 over 14,000 feet, is within twenty-four miles of it. A good horse- 
 trail goes right up to the scalped crest of Old Chief, a distance of 
 about eight miles. 
 
 I have chatted with the man who first struck Virginia Canon and 
 found the Idaho Creek (South Clear Creek) through the dense 
 woods which filled the valley, and caught fine trout for himself 
 and fellow-prospectors. This was in "59. Men used to make 
 marvellous sums by mining and gold- washing then, and pay 
 marvellous prices for the necessaries of life. For some years 
 existence was pretty rough, though never perhaps half so wild 
 as in California during the early days of its gold-fever. 
 
 I was told in Idaho (by a Justice of the Peace, too) of a couple of 
 men who were on terms of shoot at sight, of whom one tried to 
 avoid and the other sought a meeting. At length the latter attained 
 his desire, and in the "difficulty" which ensued was shot by the 
 other ; who was tried, but got off clear, as the evidence was not 
 considered perfect. The dead man had $64 odd in his pockets ; so 
 it was resolved to give him a decent burial. They stopped the 
 funeral procession at a store, drank to his salvation out of his own 
 money, and also took a bottle of whisky with them to the burial- 
 place, that they might be not altogether without comfort when they 
 had finally deposited him in the earth. Both deserved shooting, 
 said the Justice of the Peace, philosophically ; and himself was one 
 of the funeral party. 
 
 In a tobacconist's here, among specimens of ore, is an object 
 labelled "Burr from the pine-tree on which Pennsyltuck was 
 hanged." Pennsyltuck was so called because Pennsylvania and 
 Kentucky somehow shared the honour of raising him. He was a 
 bad lot, so bad that the citizens at length determined to promptly 
 relieve him and themselves of his noxious existence. Accordingly, 
 without any tedious legal preliminaries, they took him forth and 
 hanged him on a pine-tree, and there left him. As the night was 
 very cold, someone suggested that it was doubtful whether Penn- 
 syltuck met his death by strangulation or freezing. As the 
 citizens, on cool reflection, thought it wise to discourage Lynch- 
 law, they generally agreed to consider that he had been frozen to 
 death.
 
 VISITS TO AMEBICA AND SPAIN 65 
 
 As to the drinking, one anecdote (true or not) will suffice. An 
 officer sent out to cater for some division of the army in the West 
 returned with six waggon-loads of whisky and one of provisions. 
 The commanding officer, having overhauled the stock, cried out : 
 " What the hell shall we do with all these provisions ? " 
 
 I did not intend to inflict all this nonsense upon you ; but, having 
 begun to write, it seemed queer to send a mere note five or six 
 thousand miles and not say something about this country ; so, 
 having leisure, I let my pen run away with me. Fortunately, you 
 are not in any way called upon to read what I was not called upon 
 to write. 
 
 I may be here for two or three months yet, for all I know. I am, 
 dear Sir, yours truly, JAMES THOMSON. 
 
 " First snow here of the season " is the entry in the 
 diary for September 24th. "Felt it drifting in on me 
 in bed, with rough flaws of wind. Up at 7.30 ; bath. 
 Snow over hills and houses in patches. Walked top of 
 our hill before breakfast. Keen N.W. wind. After- 
 wards bright mid-day, but keen." At this time Thom- 
 son had no information as to the intended date of his 
 return, though he had already convinced himself, and 
 informed the directors, of the unsoundness of the Com- 
 pany's speculations and the uselessness of his making 
 a prolonged stay. The negotiations he had been carry- 
 ing on as the Company's representative had not been 
 concluded without much discussion and the exhibition 
 of some hostility by the parties with whom he had to 
 deal ; mention is made in the diary, for instance, of a 
 person bearing the ominous name of Stalker, who " had 
 been to the bank drunk, swearing that he would not 
 give way an inch, and saying that he only wanted a 
 shot-gun and the other parties in reach, and he would 
 soon find the best way of settling the matter." The 
 matter, however, was finally settled without bloodshed ; 
 and on December 28th Thomson started for Denver and 
 
 F
 
 66 VISITS TO AMEEICA AND SPAIN 
 
 Chicago on his way home, arriving in London towards 
 the end of January, 1873. The expenses incurred during 
 his journey and stay at Central City were of course 
 defrayed by the Company ; but of a considerable sum of 
 money, which he contended was due to him as salary, 
 only a small part was paid, the engagement having 
 apparently been made by word of mouth, and without 
 the formal sanction of the directors. In spite of this 
 disappointment a serious one for a poor man Thom- 
 son's American trip was one of his most satisfactory 
 and agreeable experiences, and one which he always 
 remembered with pleasure. The following passages of 
 a letter 1 written to a friend in England sum up his 
 opinion of the Americans as a nation, and bear testimony 
 to his own enjoyment of travelling : 
 
 I think we must forgive the Americans a good deal of vulgarity 
 and arrogance for some generations yet. They are intoxicated with 
 their vast country and its vaster prospects. Besides, we of the old 
 country have sent them for years past, and are still sending them, 
 our half-starved and ignorant millions. The Americans of the 
 War of Independence were really a British race, and related to the 
 old country as a Greek colony to its mother city or state. But the 
 Americans of to-day are only a nation in that they instinctively 
 adore their Union. All the heterogeneous ingredients are seething 
 in the cauldron with plenty of scum and air-bubbles atop. In a 
 century or two they may get stewed down into homogeneity 
 a really wholesome and dainty dish, not to be set before a king 
 though, I fancy. I resisted the impression of the mere material 
 vastitude as long as possible, but found its influence growing on me 
 week by week ; for it implies such vast possibilities of moral and 
 intellectual expansion. They are starting over here with all our 
 experience and culture at their command, without any of the 
 obsolete burdens and impediments which in the course of a 
 thousand years have become inseparable from our institutions, and 
 with a country which will want more labour and more people for 
 many generations to come. 
 
 1 Published in the Secular Review, July 15. 1882.
 
 VISITS TO AMEEICA AND SPAIN 67 
 
 I am quite well again. Though never, perhaps, very strong, 
 and rarely so well as to feel mere existence a delight (as to a really 
 healthy person it must be ; no inferior condition, in my opinion, 
 deserves the name of health), I am seldom what we call unwell. 
 When travelling about I always find myself immensely better than 
 when confined to one place. With money, I believe I should never 
 have a home, but be always going to and fro on the earth, and 
 walking up and down in it, like him of whom I am one of the 
 children. 
 
 After Thomson's return to London from Colorado he 
 again stayed in the Vauxhall Bridge Eoad, at No. 230, 
 a few doors from his former lodgings. The following 
 
 letters were written at this time : 
 
 i 
 
 To Mr. W. M. Bossetti. 
 
 April 2, 1873. 
 
 DEAR SIR, Although I returned from my American trip about 
 two months since, I have been so unsettled and occupied with 
 a thousand nothings that I have scarcely looked at a book since 
 my return. 
 
 I have at length managed to go pretty carefully through The 
 Witch of Atlas and Epipsychidion, and herewith I send you a few 
 notes thereon, which you must take for what they are worth. 
 Although they are naturally very much like the notes of a reader 
 for the press, whose special business it is to hunt out faults and 
 ignore merits, you may be assured that I duly appreciate the great 
 improvements you have made in the text. 
 
 While agreeing with you in ranking The Witch of Atlas very 
 high, I cannot agree with you in preferring it to the Epipsychidion. 
 It has always seemed to me that Shelley never soared higher than 
 in this poem, which I find full of supreme inspiration. It is his 
 Vita Nuova, tender and fervid and noble as Dante's ; and his 
 premature death has deprived us of the befitting Divina Commedia 
 which should have followed. 
 
 I am considerably ashamed to speak of anything of my own in 
 this connection ; but as I believe my little piece In the Room was 
 sent to you, I take the liberty of forwarding a corrected copy, that, 
 having it at all, you may have it as I wrote it. Yours very respect- 
 fully, JAMES THOMSON.
 
 68 VISITS TO AMEEICA AND SPAIN 
 
 April 22, 1873. 
 
 DEAE SIR, Please accept my thanks for the kind invitation 
 with which you have honoured me. I shall be very glad to make 
 your personal acquaintance, and will call upon you at Euston 
 Square next Friday evening about eight o'clock, unless you inform 
 me in the meanwhile that that time will not suit you. 
 
 As we are likely to meet soon, I will not here discuss one or two 
 matters mentioned in your letter, which can be much more easily 
 settled by word of mouth than by writing. 
 
 Permit me, however, to take this opportunity of making a few 
 remarks by way of apology, which I feel may be needed for such 
 notes as I am sending you on Shelley. 
 
 1. I never until reading your edition saw any notes on the text, 
 save those of Mr. Garnett in the Relics, and am still quite ignorant 
 of whatever critical comments and discussions have been published, 
 except such as are indicated in your notes. Nor have I ever known 
 personally any reader of Shelley with whom to compare notions on 
 the subject ; in fact, I have only come across two people in my 
 life who gave signs of real intelligent interest in the poetry of 
 Shelley, or, indeed, in any really great poetry, as poetry. I am 
 thus only too likely to vex you with discussion of points long since 
 settled, and with such wrongheaded notions as are the fungi of 
 seclusion. 
 
 2. Having been used for many years to read his works in editions 
 obviously corrupt, I have naturally taken many more and much 
 greater liberties in guessing at true readings than I should have 
 dreamed of doing had the editions been decently correct. The 
 certainty of numerous errors made the text throughout uncertain. 
 
 3. On the other hand, I have naturally come to love, by usage 
 and old association, certain readings in which I divined no error, 
 in which there was nothing manifestly wrong ; and am thus 
 reluctant to yield them for others, which I might have recognized 
 as decidedly superior had the opportunity been offered at first of 
 choosing between these and those. 
 
 4. Knowing that you intend the utmost attainable accuracy, 
 I make notes on many points, and some of these very minute, 
 merely to indicate faint doubts, or shadows of doubts, and not 
 with the least idea of shaking the text where authoritative I, 
 irresponsible, challenge and challenge freely ; with you (as I never 
 forget) rests the responsibility of vigilantly guarding intact all that 
 can be guarded.
 
 VISITS TO AMERICA AND SPAIN 69 
 
 Explanations too large for notes so small ! Let me conclude by 
 cordially congratulating you that your good work must save genera- 
 tions of students of Shelley from countless perplexities and errors 
 into which so many of us have hitherto inevitably fallen. Yours 
 truly, JAMES THOMSON. 
 
 Thomson's stay in London was a very short one, for 
 in the following July he obtained, through Mr. Brad- 
 laugh's assistance, the post of special correspondent to 
 the New York World in Spain, where the Carlists were 
 then in insurrection against a Republican Government. 
 In a letter of July 20 he thus refers to his new engage- 
 ment : " I am called on suddenly to start for Spain as 
 correspondent of the New York World by the represen- 
 tative of that journal here. It is rather sharp irony of 
 fate that one like me should be attached to Carlist head- 
 quarters, full of clericalism and legitimacy. It is my 
 first experiment as a correspondent for a journal." 
 Thomson started from London on July 22, and his 
 Carlist passport is dated July 30, 1873. Our knowledge 
 of his adventures in Spain is chiefly derived from the 
 account which he published two and a half years later 
 in the pages of the Secularist (March and April, 1876) 
 under the title of " Carlist Reminiscences." 
 
 Having crossed the French and Spanish frontier on 
 August 1, about twenty miles from Bayonne, at which 
 place the scene of the Carlist junta he had already 
 passed some days, he made his way with a party of 
 volunteers and correspondents through the mountains 
 of Navarre, until they joined the royal army at Lacunza 
 on August 6. After this he was nearly a month at 
 headquarters, with many opportunities of seeing and 
 some of conversing with Don Carlos and his staff. " I 
 cannot say," he writes, " that he shone in conversation, 
 except by his frank kindliness. His utterance was thick
 
 70 VISITS TO AMEEICA AND SPAIN 
 
 and slow, and he did not give sign of either ability or 
 energy. On the whole, he seemed to me an amiable 
 man of somewhat phlegmatic temperament, who would 
 be much happier as a country gentleman with his wife 
 and three children, than leading the advance-guard or 
 forlorn-hope of the Eestoration." It had been expected 
 that the Carlists would make a bold, and perhaps a 
 successful, dash on Madrid ; but there was a long and 
 disappointing delay, and for a long time, as Thomson 
 remarks, it was chiefly " Vivas and bell-ringing," as they 
 loitered in the friendly district of the Basques. 
 
 In the meanwhile our business appeared to be rather a military 
 
 promenade than serious warfare The common routine for some 
 
 days was healthy if unexciting. Your assistente or attendant, a 
 young fellow waiting for a rifle, called you early in the morning 
 with the concise " Tocau" (equal to Tocado ! "It has sounded ! "), 
 and you jumped up in the dawn, dusk, or dark. You washed and 
 dressed as you would, and ere you had finished he brought you 
 a cup of very thick chocolate, with two or three fingers of bread, 
 and a glass of water to drink after as a preventive of bile. We 
 marched till about noon, with a halt of some minutes about ten 
 for a bite and a sup, for which we reserved from the previous 
 evening's meal. As we approached our noonday halting place, the 
 assistentes (bat-men or bow-men, as they would be called in the 
 English service) were hurried off to buy up anything to be got in 
 the way of eggs, milk, vegetables, fruit ; it was a race organized 
 
 by keenly competitive stomachs The assistants prepared the 
 
 midday meal, which we called breakfast, as best they might, 
 generally with what utensils they could seize and secure amidst 
 a fierce scramble, and with a strictly limited share of a fire of 
 
 wood on a stone floor Two of us who had been in the States 
 
 used to plead for some Maize, but our masterful servants shook 
 
 their heads and said it was only good for the beasts Breakfast 
 
 over, came a smoke, with a cup of coffee and a glass of anisau 
 (spirit tinctured with anise) or agua ardiente (an inferior white 
 brandy), if we were in luck. Then we all disposed ourselves for 
 the siesta ; on a bed on the floor, or in the open air if we could 
 find grass and shade, or even if we could find shade without grass.
 
 VISITS TO AMEEICA AND SPAIN 71 
 
 At about four or five we resumed our march, reaching our resting- 
 place at nightfall. Then came the bother about billets ; one 
 attendant looked to the horses, and the other set about the solemn 
 
 and sacred work of preparing dinner After dinner, if not very 
 
 late, we went to some neighbouring quarters, or other men came 
 to ours, for a chat and smoke, and perchance a glass. If the 
 resting-place was largish, we had decent beds in curtained alcoves ; 
 if not, we had mattresses on the floor, and in either case we slept 
 the sleep of the just. 
 
 On August 14 the Carlist army entered Puente de la 
 Eeyna, where they were entertained with a bullfight and 
 other performances. On the 19th and following days 
 Thomson was a witness of some desultory fighting in 
 and about Estella, resulting in the capture of the town 
 by the Carlists ; and on the 30th he was at Viana, on 
 the Ebro, where, with his fellow correspondents, he saw 
 and enjoyed a contest "more like a frolic of schoolboys 
 than a serious fight." Here his " Eeminiscences " break 
 off rather abruptly, with a warm tribute of admiration 
 to the gallantry and loyal devotion of the Carlists in 
 general and of the Basque nation in particular. 
 
 Early in September, as we learn from a pencilled note- 
 book, Thomson was prostrated by a sunstroke, being 
 laid up for three days at Alsasua, and again for ten days 
 at San Esteban. During this prostration, as he after- 
 wards told a friend, he worked out in his mind a portion 
 of the City of Dreadful Night. In the meanwhile the 
 London agent of the New York World, from whom he 
 had received his appointment and instructions, had 
 already written him a letter, dated August 4, request- 
 ing him to make arrangements for returning to London 
 in about ten days' time, and to correspond during those 
 ten days with greater frequency than he had hitherto 
 done. On September 3 Thomson received the expected 
 letter of recall, from which it appears that he had only
 
 72 VISITS TO AMEEICA AND SPAIN 
 
 contributed three letters to the New York World during 
 the month he had then spent in Spain, with which the 
 agents of that journal were naturally dissatisfied. He 
 arrived in London on September 23, after an absence 
 of two months ; and, in consequence of his failure to 
 supply a larger amount of information, the salary of 5 
 per week, which had been guaranteed him when he 
 started, was withheld by the proprietors of the New 
 York World. Thomson, on his part, declared that he 
 wrote to the best of his opportunities and abilities, " in 
 circumstances which (especially at first) were very dis- 
 advantageous." " I sent word," he adds, " of every event 
 of even the slightest importance which came to my know- 
 ledge ; and it was not my fault that during my stay the 
 important combats and movements which had been 
 expected did not take place." Thus Thomson's journey 
 in Spain, like his journey to America, resulted in con- 
 siderable pecuniary disappointment. In the second case, 
 however, it certainly seems that the loss was mainly due 
 to his own remissness, and not, as on the former occasion, 
 to the fault of others. His disgrace was a cause of much 
 annoyance to Mr. Bradlaugh, on whose recommendation 
 he had been sent out. 
 
 On the day after his arrival in London, Thomson 
 addressed the following letter to his sister-in-law : 
 
 230 Vauxhall Bridge Road, 
 
 September 24, 1873. 
 
 MY DEAR JULIA, This is to inform you that I arrived home, 
 or at least chez moi, last night. You will be a little sorry, perhaps, 
 to learn that in that dreadful war in Spain I have got wounded 
 with a cold in the left eye. It is not yet extracted, but the doctors 
 hope that it will not prove fatal. I have to wear a green shade or 
 blinker, which scarcely sets off to advantage my great personal 
 beauty ; in fact, I doubt whether the features of Apollo himself 
 could struggle successfully with a green eye-shade. The funniest
 
 VISITS TO AMERICA AND SPAIN 73 
 
 thing is, that my right eye, being unaccustomed to independent 
 action, continually wants to shut itself up in sympathy with the 
 left (just as a young piano-player finds that his two hands want to 
 do the same thing, while he wants them to do things which are 
 very different), so that in the streets I am in constant danger of 
 becoming an inverted sleep-walker eyes shut awake instead of 
 eyes open asleep. 
 
 I have another fearful wound, but this also the faculty do not 
 consider fatal. My horse and I used to have a daily contest as to 
 whether he should be bridled or not. Although every morning the 
 result proved to him that he must bear the bridle, he had such a 
 bad memory, or was so incurably stubborn, that he always renewed 
 the struggle on the next. In one of these ever- recurring battles he 
 managed, or I mismanaged, to knock my thumb against something 
 which cut and flayed it a little. Such are my war-wounds worse 
 than fell to the lot of most warriors in Spain. You must therefore 
 imagine your poor brother with a white linen bandage round his 
 right thumb, and a verdant shade over his left eye an affecting 
 picture. You must be hard-hearted indeed if you do not weep and 
 mourn for him.
 
 CHAPTER V 
 "THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT" 
 
 ToWAEDS the close of 1873 Thomson's position and 
 prospects were far from satisfactory. Not only had he 
 made no profit by his journey to Spain, but he returned 
 from that country in extremely depressed spirits and in 
 a wretched state of health, with a severe cold in his left 
 eye which for some weeks incapacitated him for reading 
 and writing or any sort of business ; while, to add to his 
 troubles, he was unable to get the promise of any employ- 
 ment at home. He thus wrote on November 24 to Miss 
 Alice Bradlaugh, from his old address in the Vauxhall 
 Bridge Road : " My eye is quite well again, thank you. 
 I only want now some good employment for it and its 
 fellow. The time was very tedious during the weeks it 
 remained bad, as I could hardly read, write, smoke, or 
 do anything but lounge indoors unoccupied. Mr. Girard 
 (of the New York World) has now no work for an 
 assistant, and I have not managed to get hold of any- 
 thing in the City yet, though of course I have been 
 making every effort." After some time Thomson suc- 
 ceeded in obtaining a secretaryship to another commer- 
 cial company, but this also collapsed after a few months. 
 His old friend and schoolmate, George Duncan, who had 
 returned from Madras on a visit in 1873, and had met 
 Thomson in London after an absence of thirteen years, 
 was much concerned by the change he observed in him 
 towards the end of this year and the beginning of the
 
 "THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT" 75 
 
 next. We find him, however, in November able to 
 interest himself once more in literary matters, and 
 resuming his Shelley correspondence with Mr. W. M. 
 Bossetti : 
 
 230 Vauxhall Bridge Road, S.W., 
 
 November 12, 1873. 
 
 DEAR SIR, Towards the end of July last I sent you rough notes 
 on the "Minor Poems and Fragments," excepting the Triumph of 
 Life. On this I herewith enclose some remarks. It is a poem 
 which has always been a particular favourite of mine, and suggests 
 questions which nothing less than an essay could indicate. Here 
 I touch only on the text. It has been pure pleasure to follow 
 again the unique terza rima; liquid, sinuous, continuous, a full- 
 flowing river of music and light. 
 
 I think with a piece left unfinished like this you might venture 
 upon obvious metrical rectifications, which do not affect the sense, 
 just as you have ventured upon obvious grammatical ditto. 
 
 I hope you enjoyed your Italian holiday. I thoroughly enjoyed 
 Navarre, but was recalled too soon, because Republicans and 
 Monarchists wouldn't kill each other wholesale, the unfeeling 
 wretches ! Yours truly, JAMES THOMSON. 
 
 The New Year the first two weeks of which were 
 spent with the Bradlaughs at Midhurst, " a pleasant 
 fortnight," as he records in his diary was destined to 
 be in many ways an important one to Thomson, and 
 especially by the publication of The City of Dreadful 
 Night. The diaries which, with the occasional omission 
 of a few weeks, he kept from this time to within eight 
 months of his death, have fortunately been preserved, 
 with the single exception of that for 1875. They are 
 very characteristic of his observant nature and methodical 
 habits, containing, amid a variety of matter, concise daily 
 notes of his literary work as projected or completed; 
 books read ; letters received and answered ; friends 
 visited, or seen at his own lodgings ; the direction of his 
 afternoon stroll ; the place and nature of his meals ; and
 
 76 "THE CITY OF DEEADFUL NIGHT" 
 
 the manner of spending the evening. An account is kept 
 of the -sums received in payment of literary work (after 
 1875), and of the expense incurred for lodging, clothes, 
 etc. A special feature of the diaries is the regularity 
 with which the state of the weather is recorded, no 
 aspects of sky-scenery, bright or gloomy, being lost upon 
 the senses and spirits of this dweller in his own city of 
 darkness. 
 
 The ordinary routine of Thomson's London life has 
 been thus described by Mr. Dobell: "In London he 
 lodged in one narrow room, which was bedroom and 
 sitting-room in one, and where he could hardly help 
 feeling a sense of poverty and isolation. A morning 
 spent at the British Museum, an afternoon walk through 
 the streets, and an evening passed in reading or writing : 
 such was the usual course of his daily life in London. 
 Visits to or from his few London friends sometimes 
 varied the monotony of his existence ; and now and then 
 he would go to a concert, or to the Italian Opera, for he 
 was passionately fond of music." On the whole, the 
 impression conveyed by the diaries is that Thomson, as 
 regards outward circumstances, led a far less solitary and 
 friendless life than has usually been supposed ; for in 
 London, as in the army, his genial and gentle disposition 
 never failed to win him good and faithful friends. At 
 the time of which I am now writing, his Sundays were 
 usually spent at the house of his friend Mr. Jaques ; he 
 was fond of going to the Monday Popular Concerts with 
 his old comrade John Grant ; he would sometimes, but 
 more rarely, go for a day's expedition into the country ; 
 and there were few days on which he was left altogether 
 without some friendly society, one of his most frequent 
 visitors in 1874 and thereabouts being Fred Hollett, a 
 former fellow-lodger, whose name often occurs in the
 
 "THE CITY OF DEEADFUL NIGHT" 77 
 
 diaries of this date. The statements subsequently made, 
 to the effect that it was during " a period of friendlessness 
 and suffering, and while actually trudging through 
 London at night, that he wrote his City of Dreadful 
 Night," are decidedly exaggerated and misleading ; though 
 the mental suffering which he endured was grievous 
 enough. 
 
 At the beginning of 1874 he was putting the finishing 
 touches to his great poem, previous to its appearance in 
 the National Reformer. The following letter addressed 
 to Mr. W. M. Eossetti at this time is an instance of how 
 Thomson could jest grimly on the humorous side of very 
 serious subjects : 
 
 230 Vauxhall Bridge Road, 
 
 January 30, 1874. 
 
 DEAR SIR, I am much obliged to you for your generous deter- 
 mination to bring my work into notice, but, should you refer to me 
 at all, would prefer to be mentioned simply as B.V. 
 
 I write just now principally to ask a favour. Though knowing 
 about nothing of art, I have long been profoundly impressed by the 
 " Melancholy " of Diirer, and my sole engraving is a copy of that 
 work signed Johan Wiricx, 1602, which, I am glad to find, Scott 
 describes as admirable. Wishing to bring this great figure into a 
 poem, and rapidly enumerating the accessories which help to identify 
 it, I find myself bothered by the animal prone at her feet. Ruskin 
 in one place terms this a wolf, and in another a sleeping wolf-hound. 
 Scott does not characterize it, I think. 
 
 For myself, I have been used to consider it probably a sheep, 
 and as dead, not sleeping ; in fact, a creature awaiting dissection, 
 and suggesting anatomy as among the pursuits of the labouring 
 and studious Titaness. 
 
 Can you, who are an art-adept, resolve the question, and tran- 
 quilize my agitated mind ? 
 
 Hoping that your Blake and all other work is proceeding well, 
 I remain, yours truly, JAMES THOMSON. 
 
 My animal stanza runs thus : 
 
 Words cannot picture her ; but all men know 
 That solemn sketch the pure sad artist wrought
 
 78 "THE CITY OF DKEADFUL NIGHT" 
 
 Three centuries and three score years ago, 
 
 With phantasies of his peculiar thought : 
 The instruments of carpentry and science 
 Scattered ahout her feet, in strange alliance 
 With the poor creature for dissection brought. 
 
 Must I, as Buskin dictates, change this last into, 
 
 With the keen wolf-hound sleeping undistraught 
 (a villainous makeshift) ? 
 
 " Wet, coldish morning," writes Thomson in his diary 
 for April 4. " Not up till past one o'clock. Wet all day. 
 Then wrote away at Whitman, finishing in a fashion 
 draught of biographical sketch, as well as going through 
 last two parts of City of Night. Walked with Fred 
 before and after dinner. Walked self after tea. Imagina- 
 tion deeply stirred." 
 
 The City of Dreadful Night, the poem referred to in 
 the above letter and extract, was, as Thomson has him- 
 self described it, " the outcome of a good deal of sleepless 
 hypochondria suffered at various periods." " About half 
 of it," he says, " not the first half as it now stands, was 
 written in 1870 ; and then it was not touched tih 1 1873, 
 when I roughly finished it, licking the whole into shape 
 at the beginning of the present year." It was the crown 
 and consummation of his pessimistic poetry ; the fullest 
 and most powerful expression of that gloomy mood which 
 for many weary years had been gradually gaining the 
 ascendency in his mind. The seeds of pessimistic 
 thought, at first latent in his nature, had been quickened 
 and ripened by a long course of calamity and error, and 
 the fruit was now apparent in the spirit of deliberate, 
 measured, relentless despondency which inspired The 
 City of Dreadful Night. It has been called an opium 
 poem, and on the strength of this assertion some writers 
 have spoken of Thomson as an habitual opium-eater.
 
 " THE CITY OF DEEADFUL NIGHT " 79 
 
 This, I believe, is a mistake ; for, though there is some 
 evidence that he had now and then taken opium, 1 it 
 seems certain that he did this only by way of an 
 occasional experiment, and that the practice never 
 obtained a hold on him. There is, moreover, a solidity 
 of grasp and firmness of outline about The City of 
 Dreadful Night which does not seem to warrant the idea 
 that it owed any part of its origin to the use of 
 opium. 
 
 The City of Dreadful Night has been generally accepted 
 as the masterpiece of its author, and rightly ; for if this 
 poem does not take its place amidst the permanent works 
 of English literature, it is difficult to believe that any of 
 Thomson's writings will do so. It has not the rapturous 
 idealism of the early poems, nor the brilliant fancy of 
 Vane's Story ; but it has, in far greater measure, the 
 massive strength and reality of a great allegorical work ; 
 we feel in reading it that we are in the presence of one 
 who has not only been profoundly moved by the mys- 
 teries of existence, but has seen what he has felt, as only 
 a great poet can see it ; and who, moreover, is gifted with 
 the rare poetical faculty of translating his visions into 
 words which impress themselves on the mind of the 
 reader with all the vividness and intensity of a picture. 
 Much of the imagery and even phraseology of The City 
 of Dreadful Night may be found in the prose phantasy 
 A Lady of Sorrow, written as early as 1864, the third 
 part of which, entitled The Shadow, is in fact scarcely 
 less than a prose counterpart of the poem. How clearly 
 Thomson had already realized the conception of the 
 gloomy city and its doleful inhabitants may be seen from 
 the following passage : "And I wandered about the city, 
 
 1 Mr. Bradlaugh told me this. On the other hand, Mr. Poote is confident 
 that Thomson did not take opium during the period of their friendship.
 
 80 "THE CITY OF DBEADFUL NIGHT" 
 
 the vast metropolis, which was become as a vast necro- 
 polis Desolate indeed I was, although ever and anon, 
 
 here and there, in wan, haggard faces, in wrinkled brows, 
 in thin, compressed lips, in drooping frames, in tremulous 
 gestures, in glassy, hopeless eyes, I detected the tokens 
 of brotherhood, I recognized my brethren in the great 
 Freemasonry of Sorrow." 
 
 The street-lamps burn amidst the baleful glooms, 
 Amidst the soundless solitudes immense 
 
 Of ranged mansions dark and still as tombs. 
 The silence which benumbs or strains the sense 
 
 Fulfils with awe the soul's despair unweeping : 
 
 Myriads of habitants are ever sleeping, 
 Or dead, or fled from nameless pestilence ! 
 
 Yet as in some necropolis you find 
 Perchance one mourner to a thousand dead, 
 
 So there ; worn faces that look deaf and blind 
 Like tragic masks of stone. With weary tread, 
 
 Each wrapt in his own doom, they wander, wander, 
 
 Or sit foredone and desolately ponder 
 Through sleepless hours with heavy drooping head. 
 
 In March, 1874, The City of Dreadful Night began to 
 appear in the National Beformer, and ran through four 
 numbers. 1 It at once attracted more attention than any 
 of Thomson's other writings, was recognized as a very 
 remarkable work, not only by Secularists, but in wider 
 literary circles, and received notices from the Spectator 
 and the Academy. The latter article, which was very 
 favourable, caused quite a series of applications to be 
 made at the office of the National Beformer for the 
 numbers containing the poem by the unknown " B. V."; 
 these, however, were already out of print, so that for the 
 six years that elapsed before The City of Dreadful Night 
 was published in book form, persons who wished to read 
 
 1 The dates of these were March 22, April 12 and 26, May 17, 1874.
 
 "THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT" 81 
 
 it had to take a good deal of preliminary trouble. 
 Emerson and Longfellow, among others, expressed a 
 desire to see it, when its fame had reached America 
 a few months later. Several critics praised the poem 
 very highly ; among these were Mr. W. M. Rossetti, to 
 whom Thomson had sent a copy, and the blind poet, 
 Philip Bourke Marston. " I hope " thus the latter 
 wrote to Thomson in 1875 "when your poems come 
 out, I may have an opportunity of expressing publicly 
 the deep admiration I have for your work, which seems 
 to me powerful, beautiful, and masterly, and full of deep 
 and beautiful sympathy with the sad race of men. Few 
 poems in these days have more impressed me." But the 
 most gratifying encouragement which Thomson received 
 was the letter addressed to him by George Eliot, to whom 
 he had sent a copy of The City of Dreadful Night : 
 
 George Eliot to B.V. 
 
 The Priory, 21 North Bank, Regent's Park, 
 
 May 30, 1874. 
 
 DEAR POET, I cannot rest satisfied without telling you that 
 my mind responds with admiration to the distinct vision and grand 
 utterance in the poem which you have been so good as to send me. 
 
 Also, I trust that an intellect formed by so much passionate 
 energy as yours will soon give us more heroic strains with a wider 
 embrace of human fellowship in them such as will be to the 
 labourers of the world what the odes of Tyrtseus were to the 
 Spartans, thrilling them with the sublimity of the social order 
 and the courage of resistance to all that would dissolve it. To 
 accept life and write much fine poetry is to take a very large share 
 in the quantum of human good, and seems to draw with it neces- 
 sarily some recognition, affectionate and even joyful, of the mani- 
 fold willing labours which have made such a lot possible. Yours 
 sincerely, M. E. LEWES. 
 
 The following letter was written by Thomson in 
 reply : 
 
 G
 
 82 "THE CITY OF DKEADFUL NIGHT" 
 
 60 Tachbrook Street, S.W., 
 
 June 18, 1874. 
 
 DEAR MADAM, Having been absent for several days, I am only 
 now able to thank you for your very kind letter, for your generous 
 expression of praise, and for your yet more generous trust, though 
 this, I fear, will prove to be misplaced. 
 
 I have no Byronic quarrel with my fellows, whom I find all alike 
 crushed under the iron yoke of Fate, and few of whom I can deem 
 worse than myself, while so many are far better, and I certainly 
 have an affectionate and even joyful recognition of the willing 
 labours of those who have striven to alleviate our lot, though I 
 cannot see that all their efforts have availed much against the 
 primal curse of our existence. Has the world been the better or the 
 worse for the life of even such a man as Jesus ? I cannot judge ; 
 but I fear on the whole considerably the worse. None the less I can 
 love and revere his memory. A physician saves a life, and he does 
 well ; yet perchance it were better for the patient himself and for 
 others that he now died. But it is not for me to introduce such 
 thoughts to you. 
 
 I ventured to send you a copy of the verses (as I ventured to send 
 another to Mr. Carlyle) because I have always read, whether rightly 
 or wrongly, through all the manifold beauty and delightfulness of 
 your works, a character and an intellectual destiny akin to that 
 grand and awful Melancholy of Albrecht Diirer which dominates 
 the City of my poem. 
 
 I cannot conclude without expressing to you my gratitude for 
 many hours of exquisite enjoyment. I am, Madam, with profound 
 respect, yours sincerely, JAMES THOMSON (B. V.). 
 
 60 Tachbrook Street, S.W., 
 
 June 20, 1874. 
 
 DEAR MADAM, In my note of Thursday I omitted to qualify, 
 as I intended, the general statements by the distinct admission of 
 what, however, is in all likelihood quite obvious that the poem in 
 question was the outcome of much sleepless hypochondria. I am 
 aware that the truth of midnight does not exclude the truth of 
 noonday, though one's nature may lead him to dwell in the former 
 rather than the latter. Pray pardon me for troubling you on so 
 small a matter. Yours very respectfully, JAMES THOMSON. 
 
 We must now turn back for a while to the brighter 
 and more playful side of Thomson's character, as shown
 
 "THE CITY OF DKEADFUL NIGHT" 83 
 
 in his letters to his two friends, Alice and Hypatia 
 Bradlaugh, to whom, during his recent visit to Midhurst, 
 he had given the nicknames of Fatima and Lina. "After 
 all your Parisian experience," he wrote in November, 
 1873, " I think you ought to write me in French. It 
 would be good practice. I was obliged to talk French 
 (in my terrible fashion) while in Spain. You would 
 have laughed to hear me sometimes ; still more at my 
 Spanish." It was accordingly agreed that the corre- 
 spondence should henceforth be carried on in French. 
 
 230 Vauxhall Bridge Road, 
 
 Fe"vrier 21, 1874. 
 
 MES CHERES PETITES FILLES, Je vous dois mille remer- 
 ciments pour vos bonnes lettres, et je vous aurais crit plus t6t si 
 je n'aurais pas 4t4 tres affair^ depuis 1'Election. Je vous remercie 
 pour les flours cueilles par Mile. Fatima et envoyees par Mile. Lina ; 
 la senteur des violettes etait charmante. Mais pourquoi done Lina, 
 n'e"crit elle pas en fran9ais ? Elle le peut faire assez bien, pourtant. 
 Peut-etre parcequ'elle ne se portait pas bien ce jour-la. J'espere que 
 cette mechante migraine ne la tourmente pas encore. 
 
 M. Austin Holyoake reste chez lui, et je suis occupe tous les jours 
 en lui aidant comme je le puis, & faire ses comptes, etc. II est tres 
 faible, mais je ne crois pas que sa sant est pis, quoique elle n'est 
 guere mieux, & cause de son sejour en ville. L'autre jour un me'decin 
 Eminent est venu le voir et 1'a tres soigneusement examine 1 . Vous 
 apprendrez avec regrette qu'il ne donna pas d'espoir de gue"rison. 
 On ne peut pas faire pour lui, a-t-il dit, que de procurer qu'il meure 
 le plus lentement et avec le moins de souffrance possible. C'est un 
 mot triste pour sa famille et ses amis. 
 
 Dimanche dernier j'ai din6 chez M. J . Le soir on a fait de 
 
 la musique et nous avons danse" gaiment, Madame J et moi ; 
 
 elle portait les pantoufles de Monsieur, parce que ses bottines la 
 genaient. Elle n'est point bdgeule, cette bonne dame la. 
 
 Je crains beaucoup que vous ne sortez pas pour fumer tous les 
 soirs, comme vous avez fait jadis, quand j'e"tais aussi heureux d'etre 
 chez vous. Moi, je garde toujours mon brule-gueule, et je fume avec 
 une regularite religieuse ; mais c'est tout autre chose, et infiniment 
 moins gai, que de fumer seul chez soi au lieu de fumer en se
 
 84 "THE CITY OF DKEADFUL NIGHT" 
 
 promenant aveo deux jeunes filles, bonnes, jolies, spirituelles et 
 charmantes. 
 
 Comme vous rirez de mon pauvre baragouinage f rancais ! de"test- 
 able, miserable, atroce, honteux, etc 1 (Voil& que je fais comme 
 Fatima quand elle ecrivait des exercises, en y mettant tous les 
 adjectifs possibles.) Moi, je m'en ris, et sans gene, moi-meTae. 
 Ecrivez-moi bientot, je vous prie. Votre tres-humble et tres- 
 respectueux serviteur, JACQUES THOMSON. 
 
 230 Vauxhall Bridge Eoad, 
 
 Mars 10, 1874. 
 
 MA CHERE FATIMA, Je serai enchante" d'aller avec vous et 
 Mile. Lina chez tante Eliza dimanche prochain, et je ferai un 
 grand effort sur moi-meme mais un effort vraiment effroyable et 
 he'roique & fin d'arriver a la grande Salle dans la Vieille Rue a onze 
 heures le matin (s'il fait beau temps ce jour-la, bien entendu) ; 
 quelle heure matinale pour le dimanche ! 
 
 Si j'ai montre" votre lettre a M. Grant, c'etait parce qu'elle etait 
 si bonne et si spirituelle. Je ne crois pas que vous en etes vraiment 
 fachee, quoique vous dites. Mais ne vous avisez pas de montrer la 
 mienne a personne ; ca serait cruel. 
 
 Je ne puis pas e"crire plus loin, je suis tout gele" de froid. Je vous 
 baise la main, a vous et a votre confrere (c'est a dire, votre con-soeur) 
 dans le secretariat. Adieu ! JACQUES THOMSON. 
 
 The illness of his dear friend Austin Holyoake, men- 
 tioned in the above letters, was a constant grief and 
 anxiety to Thomson during the first three months of 
 this year; "Austin's, in and out," and "Austin's, all 
 week," being frequent entries in his diary. The death 
 of his friend on April 10 was a severe blow to him, 
 though the loss had long been foreseen. The funeral 
 took place on the 17th, at Highgate Cemetery, Thomson 
 being one of those who stood round the grave the very 
 grave which he himself was destined afterwards to share. 
 On the day after Austin Holyoake's death Thomson had 
 said farewell to another of his most intimate companions. 
 " With Grant," he notes in his diary, " to see George 
 Duncan for last time, he starting for Madras on
 
 " THE CITY OF DEEADFUL NIGHT " 85 
 
 Monday." Five years later Mr. Duncan was again in 
 London for a short visit, but owing to an error as to 
 Thomson's whereabouts the friends did not then meet, 
 and never afterwards found another opportunity. 
 
 These losses were in some measure mitigated by the 
 acquisition of new friends, mostly owing to the publica- 
 tion of The City of Dreadful Night. Thomson's corre- 
 spondence with Mr. Bertram Dobell began in this 
 manner, and resulted in a friendship which continued 
 to the end of his life. 
 
 James Thomson to Bertram Dobell. 
 
 17 Johnson's Court, Fleet Street, E.G., 
 
 April 9, 1874. 
 
 DEAR SIR, I have just received from Mr. Bradlaugh your note 
 about myself, and hasten to thank you heartily for your very 
 generous expression of approval of my writings. While I have 
 neither tried nor cared to win any popular applause, the occasional 
 approbation of an intelligent and sympathetic reader cheers me on 
 a somewhat lonely path. 
 
 You must not blame Mr. Bradlaugh for the delay in continuing 
 my current contribution to his paper. He is my very dear friend, 
 and always anxious to strain a point in my favour ; but as an editor 
 he must try to suit his public, and the great majority of these care 
 nothing for most of what I write. As for this City of Dreadful 
 Night, it is so alien from common thought and feeling that I 
 knew well (as stated in the Proem) that scarcely any readers would 
 care for it, and Mr. B. tells me that he has received three or four 
 letters energetically protesting against its publication in the N. E., 
 yours, I think, being the only one praising it. Moreover, we must 
 not forget that there is probably no other periodical in the kingdom 
 which would accept such writings, even were their literary merits 
 far greater than they are. 
 
 I address from the office of the N. B., because I am just now 
 rather unsettled, and not sure what will be my private address for 
 some time to come. While preferring to remain anonymous for the 
 public, I have no reason to hide my name from such correspondents 
 as yourself. I am, dear Sir, yours truly, 
 
 JAMES THOMSON (B. v.).
 
 86 "THE CITY OF DKEADFUL NIGHT" 
 
 To the Same. 
 
 60 Tachbrook Street, 
 
 June 24, 1874. 
 
 DEAE SIB, I have found out what set some people calling for 
 my " City." I had a letter from Bossetti the day before yesterday 
 in which he asked me whether I had seen a notice in the Academy, 
 treating my poem with distinguished respect. He himself writes in 
 that paper, but had nothing to do with the notice in question, nor 
 does he know who wrote it. 1 Yesterday I got the number (that for 
 June 6). The paragraph leads off the notes on magazine articles, 
 coming under the head of " Notes and News," and certainly does me 
 more than justice, especially as compared with Leopardi. They 
 also quote complete the twentieth section about the Sphinx and the 
 Angel. But I daresay you are in the way of getting to see the 
 paper 
 
 I have just written to the editor of the Academy, thanking him 
 and his critic, and saying that it seems to me a very brave act, on 
 the part of a respectable English periodical, to spontaneously call 
 attention to an atheistical writing (less remote than, say, Lucretius), 
 treating it simply and fairly on its literary merits, without obloquy 
 or protesting cant. Yours truly, JAMES THOMSON. 
 
 On asking Thomson why he did not bring out his 
 poems in book form, and on learning that he was unable 
 to do so because he had not the means of paying for the 
 publication, Mr. Dobell, who for more than ten years 
 had been a reader and admirer of " B.V.'s " writings in 
 the National Reformer, and was fully convinced of the 
 writer's genius, generously determined to take the risk on 
 himself. The following extracts from Thomson's letters 
 have reference to this proposal, and to its enforced 
 abandonment ; after which there ensued a long and dis- 
 appointing search for a publisher who should be willing 
 to accept the responsibility of bringing out such heterodox 
 works : 
 
 May 18, 1874. I duly received your letter with estimate for 
 printing and binding, and yesterday I had the opportunity of 
 
 1 Miss Edith Simcox is understood to have been the writer.
 
 " THE CITY OF DKEADFUL NIGHT " 87 
 
 talking over the matter with Mr. Bradlaugh. He thinks with you 
 that the experiment is worth trying. I still fear that you will 
 be disappointed in your expectation of even a very moderate success. 
 However, if you wish to make a venture, and would prefer to make 
 it with something of mine, I am quite willing, so far as I am con- 
 cerned, though if you suffer any loss through your association with 
 me I shall much regret it. 
 
 Your proposed terms of profits, if any, after repayment of your 
 expenses, to be divided equally between us, I accept as fair ; in fact, 
 as you may remember, I suggested the same in our conversation. 
 All I ask in addition is, that a few copies shall be reserved for me, 
 as there are friends to whom I should like to present them. 
 
 October 17, 1874. I say again, as I have said from the first, that 
 it will be more than imprudent on your part, and will certainly 
 cause regret to me, if you at all strain your resources in order to 
 publish the poems. I regret much that business has not gone so 
 well with you of late as you expected, and I do hope you will take 
 good heed ere risking funds on a venture which is not at all neces- 
 sary, and which it seems to me is at least as likely to fail as 
 succeed. 
 
 On April 13 Thomson had left his lodgings in Vauxhall 
 Bridge Eoad and moved to a Mrs. Baxter's, at 60 Tach- 
 brook Street, Pimlico, where he remained for the next 
 eighteen months. The following extracts are from his 
 letters to his sister-in-law : 
 
 April 18, 1874. Please note that I have changed my address, 
 moving, however, but a very short distance, as this neighbourhood 
 suits me. I do not yet know whether I shall stay here long ; but 
 the house is nice and clean, and the landlady seems a very decent 
 body. As inscrutable destiny decides that I am to lodge with 
 married women and old maids alternately, I am with a family 
 woman this time, though I have really not yet learnt whether the 
 husband is dead or living. 
 
 Friendly regards to your parents ; much love to their lazy little 
 daughter and their son-in-law who is so assiduous, being of the race 
 of the Thomsons. I guess that we are all lineally descended from 
 my namesake, the childless architect of the Castle of Indolence. As 
 for you, your ancestor must have been a Bruce, who, having
 
 88 " THE CITY OF DEEADFUL NIGHT " 
 
 watched the spider make a couple of attempts, yawned and thought 
 the animal very stupid to exert itself so much, and fell fast asleep 
 before it could make a third, and never awoke until all the wars 
 were over, and Bannockburn was an ancient tradition. 
 
 July 27, 1874. You cruel little women, to call longing for 
 holidays "insane"! As for me, I am always " insanely " longing 
 for holidays in hot weather. As soon as the glass reaches 70 in the 
 shade, my pure conscience finds work of any kind very sinful, and 
 thorough idlesse the only way to sanctification and beatification. 
 And yet I have to work ; this is a wicked world, and also "a mad 
 world, my masters," as the old playwright has it. 
 
 As to Lilian in Bulwer Lytton's " Strange Story," I know nothing 
 at all of that lay-figure. When I was even younger than you are 
 still, I read some of that book-wright's romances, and became 
 enduringly convinced that he was one of the most thorough and 
 hollow humbugs of the age ; false and flashy in everything ; with 
 pinchbeck poetry, pinchbeck philosophy, pinchbeck learning, 
 pinchbeck sentiment ; stealing whatever good thing he could lay 
 his hands on, and making it a bad thing as he uttered it. So you 
 won't persuade me to think of you in connection with his Lilian of 
 "A Strange Story." No ; but if you keep very very good, and 
 write me many many nice letters, I may think of you in connection 
 with the lady of Shelley's " Sensitive Plant," or her to whom he 
 sent " Lines with a Guitar." Bead these poems (if you haven't 
 them, may I send them to you?), and then you will see how you 
 are thought of by Your lazy brother, JAMES THOMSON. 
 
 A visit of his brother and sister-in-law to London is 
 recorded in the diary for September, 1874. During this 
 same summer he had begun to correspond with Mr. 
 William Maccall, to whom he had once been introduced 
 at Mr. Bradlaugh's office. The correspondence originated 
 in Thomson's discovery that Mr. Maccall was an old 
 friend of the Grays, with whom he had himself been so 
 intimate in his youth, though he had not visited them 
 since 1860. Mr. Charles Watts, who acted as sub- 
 editor of the National Reformer, and Mr. G. W. Foote, 
 another friend whose acquaintance Thomson made about 
 this time, are referred to in the following letter :
 
 " THE CITY OF DKEADFUL NIGHT " 89 
 
 To Mrs. Eradlaugh. 
 
 60 Tachbrook Street, S.W., 
 
 November 29, 1874. 
 MY DEAR MRS. BRADLAUGH, I have rather less than more 
 
 news to send you than you have to send me. Grant and I go to 
 the concerts on Monday evenings, and that is my only dissipa- 
 tion just now, except that I have had a couple of suburban strolls 
 with young Foote. Grant, as you say, does not look well, and I 
 fear that he is not so. The redoubtable Kenneth I haven't yet 
 seen, not having called at the barracks since that tall grenadier 
 returned to town. 
 
 I am sorry indeed for poor Hypatia with her teeth and headaches. 
 She must be very careful in pronouncing the most Germanic of the 
 Germanic words, else they will certainly twist and tug out what 
 sound teeth she has left. As for the German round-about 
 sentences, as they give people who are well the headache, they 
 ought, on the homoeopathic system, to cure those who have it. We 
 shall see how they affect her. By the bye, it seems that I frightened 
 les chores petites enfants by saying that the grammar would do for 
 the first year or two of their studies. I meant to speak, not of the 
 grammar, but of the dictionary : when they get on a certain way 
 in the language, they will want one with more idioms in it. If 
 they want full directions for acquiring German, they had better 
 refer to Hans Breitmann (whose book, I believe, their papa gave 
 them), who has an excellent poem on the subject : 
 
 " Whilst dou learn die Deutsche Sprache ? 
 
 Denn set it on your card, 
 Dat all the nouns have shenders, 
 
 Und de shenders all are hard." 
 
 There is to be an amateur performance for the benefit of the 
 Secular or some such club at the Bang's Gross Theatre on the 
 15th December, Tuesday. Mr. and Mrs. Watts, Othello and 
 Desdemona ; Mr. Foote and Mrs. Holyoake, lago and Emilia. I 
 saw a sort of first rehearsal the other evening, but only a few persons 
 were there, and they had different acting editions of the drama ; so 
 I soon came away. 
 
 I should be very glad to come to see you all at Christmas, but I 
 fear that I must put off my visit until after B.'s return from 
 America. Besides the writing, there is a good deal to do at the 
 office. The responsibility of the acting editorship weigheth heavily
 
 90 "THE CITY OF DKEADFUL NIGHT" 
 
 on Watts' shoulders as yet ; Atlas with the world on his back was 
 nothing to him. 
 With love to all, and hoping you are well, Yours truly, 
 
 JAMES THOMSON. 
 
 To Mr. Bertram Dobell. 
 
 60 Tachbrook Street, S.W., 
 
 November 16, 1874. 
 
 DEAR SIR, Many thanks for the books, which I shall look 
 through as I have leisure. I should have called on you ere this 
 had I been less occupied. Now that the weather is cold, I do my 
 writing and reading more in the evenings, and two of these are 
 taken up by Johnson's Court, while a third (the Monday) I dedicate 
 to St. James's Hall. Let me know freely when you want any or all 
 of your books back, and I will send them at once. 
 
 If you like chamber music, and can spare the time, I shall be 
 happy to meet you any Monday at St. James's Hall. I usually go 
 with a friend [Mr. Grant] , another melomaniac. You get Orchestra 
 ticket, Piccadilly entrance, and get to Orchestra from Piccadilly 
 Place, a narrow passage a few steps farther on. Be careful not to 
 fall into the abomination of the Christy Minstrels, who are in the 
 Minor Hall ! Concert commences at eight. I usually get there 
 about seven, as the doors- are open, and one can sit and read or 
 chat while waiting. In the Orchestra you can easily see whether 
 a friend is present, and get beside him. Yours truly, 
 
 JAMES THOMSON. 
 
 On Thomson's birthday, November 23, 1874, there is 
 the following significant and pathetic entry : " Forty 
 years old to-day. Cold ; third day of fog. Congenial 
 natal weather. No marvel one is obscure, dismal, 
 bewildered, and melancholy." The year which was just 
 drawing to its close had been a memorable one in 
 Thomson's lifetime, as having witnessed the publication 
 of his most characteristic poem ; but it had also deprived 
 him of two of his most valued friends, while to himself 
 it was the beginning of a downward course of deepening 
 poverty, diminishing vigour, ill-health, despondency, and 
 disappointment. 

 
 11 THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT " 91 
 
 The diary for 1875 is unfortunately lost, the chief 
 available record for this period being the letters to Mr. 
 Dobell, which are in great measure concerned with 
 Thomson's vain attempts to secure the publication of 
 a volume of his poems. In the early months of this 
 year he was in severe pecuniary straits, and his troubles 
 were increased in the summer by the severance of his 
 long connection with the National Eeformer, in which 
 so many of his best writings, both in verse and prose, 
 had been published during the preceding twelve or 
 fourteen years. The following extracts, taken from his 
 letters to Mr. Dobell, will explain the course of events : 
 
 January 18, 1875. I'm still on the staff of the noble N. R., but 
 have been crowded out of late. C. B. and Ajax [Mrs. Besant] take 
 up much room, and we wanted to bring in other things. I'm always 
 willing to give way, especially when doing so saves me from writing 
 nonsense. I resume in next week's number. 
 
 April 17, 1875. Your former note came too late for me to let 
 you know that I am always late on Wednesdays. On that night 
 the N. R. goes to press ; I am not done with it till about nine, 
 Watts till about eleven ; so he and I, with a few others, generally 
 spend an hour or two together after nine, waiting for the first 
 proof. 
 
 May 18, 1875. You may tell anyone you like my name, as the 
 N. R. people and B. haven't in the least respected the anonymity. 
 I shall put my name to the volume if published. As to my position, 
 I don't want strangers to know that I am somewhat hard up ; it's 
 none of their business. They may know that I help and contribute 
 in the N. R. for aught I care. I don't do any more "Jottings," 1 
 simply two or three columns on one or two topics of the day, a 
 sermon or religious meeting, or any nonsense of the sort. Philip 
 Bourke Marston has been at the office wanting a copy of the " City," 
 and Miss Mathilde Blind has been asking B. for loan of all my 
 pieces, in order to draw attention to them in some German 
 periodical. 
 
 1 The "Jottings," occasional notes in the National Reformer, were 
 written by Thomson, under the signature "X.," from the middle of 1874 to 
 the date of this extract. They are full of characteristic humour and 
 pungency.
 
 92 "THE CITY OF DEEADFUL NIGHT" 
 
 July 9, 1875. I have since been reflecting on the matter [a con- 
 ditional offer of publication] , and am inclined to take a reasonable 
 number of copies, should they make this an essential condition, as 
 it is so important to me to procure publication. I believe that a 
 good many would be disposed of through advertisement in the 
 N. R. I am quite off this now, B. having taken the first oppor- 
 tunity of terminating our connection, which I myself had only 
 submitted to for some time past because it afforded me mere sub- 
 sistence. So I must get other engagements at once, and a published 
 volume would be of immense service to me. Of course B. could 
 not refuse my advertisement, nor do I suppose that he would charge 
 for it even now, seeing that he had all the verses for nothing ; but 
 I should send it to the office in the ordinary way of business. 
 
 August 24, 1875. Foote and George Jacob Holyoake hope to 
 start a good Secular weekly, price twopence, soon, with a guarantee 
 fund to secure its existence for three years. Mr. H. will not be 
 able to do much work on it, but his name is very influential with 
 many old Secularists who don't like B.'s hammer-and-tongs style. 
 Some good writers would contribute gratis at first ; it being under- 
 stood that all shall be paid as early as possible. I go in for this 
 new paper thoroughly, of course, not caring to be gagged at the 
 pleasure of Mr. B. 
 
 This rupture of an intimate friendship of more than 
 twenty years' standing is a subject on which it would 
 be profitless and painful to dwell. The striking dis- 
 similarity of character between the two friends would in 
 itself be sufficient to account for their final disagreement, 
 when each had gradually settled down to a separate 
 course of his own, and when new interests were arising 
 to accentuate their differences. Mr. Bradlaugh, who 
 had certainly shown much kindness and forbearance to 
 Thomson for a long period, was naturally annoyed at 
 the increasing irregularities and want of self-govern- 
 ment which marked the conduct of his friend ; while 
 Thomson, on his part, strongly resented certain features 
 of Mr. Bradlaugh's later policy ; so that the breach 
 which ensued, deplorable as it was between two such old
 
 "THE CITY OF DKEADFUL NIGHT" 93 
 
 comrades, was probably inevitable, and was hastened 
 by the influence now exercised by Mrs. Besant's per- 
 sonality. After their parting in 1875, Thomson never 
 met Mr. Bradlaugh again, except once or twice for the 
 formal discussion of some details of business ; and there 
 is no doubt that the cessation of his friendship and 
 correspondence with Mr. Bradlaugh's family was a great 
 grief to him. " Evening party at Hall of Science," he 
 enters in his diary for January 27, 1876. " Alice and 
 Hypatia there with C. B. First time of seeing the 
 girls that I could not speak." ] 
 
 It is pleasant, however, to note that on the occasion 
 of Mr. Bradlaugh's expulsion from the House of Com- 
 mons, more than five years later (August 3, 1881), 
 Thomson was among the crowd, and was so moved by 
 the sight that his companions had to restrain him by 
 force from rushing to his old friend's assistance. " Men 
 of all kinds were present in the crowd of Mr. Bradlaugh's 
 supporters that day," says Mr. J. H. MacCarthy in his 
 England under Gladstone. " One man at least deserves 
 special consideration James Thomson, true poet and 
 brilliant writer ; author of The City of Dreadful Night, 
 a poem whose profound pessimism is illumined by a 
 melancholy beauty, and of some even more valuable 
 songs of the joys and pleasures of the poor. Thomson 
 had been of old a friend and follower of Mr. Bradlaugh ; 
 their ways of thought had varied of late, and their paths 
 had separated ; but here, in the moment of difficulty, 
 Thomson came to do all he could for the cause which 
 he believed to be just the cause of his old friend." 
 
 1 See the Life of Charles Bradlaugh, by Hypatia Bradlaugh Bonner ; 
 1, 113 ; II, 287.
 
 CHAPTEE VI 
 " SEVEN SONGLESS YEAES " 
 
 FOE seven years after the publication of The City of 
 Dreadful Night " seven songless years," as he himself 
 described them Thomson ceased to produce poetry, his 
 writing, with the rare exception of an occasional lyric 
 or political piece, being now altogether critical and 
 journalistic. As he had no longer any secretaryship in 
 the City from which he could gain a livelihood, he was 
 henceforth dependent altogether on his literary work, 
 and, the National Beformer having now failed him, he 
 was forced to look afield for fresh employment. It was 
 for this reason he was so anxious to issue a volume of 
 his poems, hoping that a wider reputation would bring 
 him more opportunities of obtaining work. In this 
 attempt he was for several years unsuccessful, but he 
 was fortunate in finding two journals to which he could 
 contribute freely, and from one of which he received 
 most substantial remuneration. The establishment of 
 the Secularist, a weekly paper, which commenced on 
 January 1, 1876, has already been alluded to, and is 
 further mentioned in a letter to Mr. W. M. Eossetti : 
 
 12 Gower Street, W.C., 
 
 December 21, 1875. 
 
 DEAR SIR, I believe a prospectus was sent you some time ago 
 of the Secularist, a Liberal weekly Review, price twopence, edited 
 by G. J. Holyoake and G. W. Foote, of which the first number will 
 appear on the 1st January. I shall be one of the regular contri- 
 butors. Would it be troubling you too much to ask you to send 
 
 94
 
 " SEVEN SONGLESS YEAES " 95 
 
 a note of this for insertion in the Academy ? The Secularist will 
 be advertised in that paper next Saturday. 
 
 Mr. Holyoake has always differed from Mr. Bradlaugh in main- 
 taining that Secularism is a practical rule of life, and as such quite 
 distinct from Atheism and all other merely speculative systems ; 
 and many of us are at one with Mr. Holyoake on this matter. 
 Yours truly, JAMES THOMSON. 
 
 The joint-editorship of the Secularist continued only 
 for a few weeks, for differences soon arose between the 
 two editors, and on February 26 Mr. G. J. Holyoake's 
 withdrawal was announced, and the paper was thence- 
 forth conducted by Mr. Foote, until, in June, 1877, it 
 was merged in the Secular Review. During the eighteen 
 months that it lasted Thomson contributed largely to 
 the pages of the Secularist under the old signature of 
 " B. V." His writings ranged over a wide variety of 
 subjects, religious, social, and literary ; a few of his 
 poems, written at an earlier date, were also included, 
 and many of his translations from Heine, as well as 
 a series of essays on that author, to whom he was 
 devotedly attached. He also took a prominent part in 
 the warfare which raged for some time between the 
 adherents of the National Reformer and the Secularist. 
 
 The other journal to which Thomson became a con- 
 tributor was Cope's Tobacco Plant, a monthly periodical, 
 edited, on behalf of a well-known firm of Liverpool 
 tobacco merchants, by Mr. John Fraser, to whom 
 Thomson had obtained an introduction through Mr. 
 William Maccall. The fact of Cope's Tobacco Plant being 
 primarily a trade-advertising sheet is apt to give a 
 wrong impression as to its literary value, for in reality 
 it contained many articles of a high order, being, as 
 Thomson himself described it, " one of the most daring 
 and original publications of the day," a periodical
 
 96 "SEVEN SONGLESS YEAES" 
 
 " which actually loves literature, though it has to make 
 this subordinate to the Herb Divine." To one whose 
 love of literature was almost equalled by his love of 
 smoking, the task of writing for the Tobacco Plant was 
 a congenial one ; it moreover offered him two great 
 advantages, both of which he could hardly have obtained 
 elsewhere a regular source of income, and a medium 
 by which he could give independent form to his views, 
 for he was allowed by Mr. Eraser to have almost his 
 own way with the purely literary matter of the Tobacco 
 Plant, " My work on it," he wrote a few years later, 
 " is chiefly of the hack order ; the ' Tobacco Legislation, 
 signed ' Sigvat,' the last two or three ' Mixtures ' 1 
 (former Mixer having lately died) ; sometimes a literary 
 article signed ' J. T.,' the ' Smoke-Eoom Table ' notices 
 of English Men of Letters. The editor is an admirable 
 one to have dealings with ; payment is fair and regular ; 
 I have not to violate my conscience by writing what 
 I don't believe, for I do believe in Tobacco, the sole 
 article necessary to salvation in the Cope creed. On 
 the whole, one earns a little money in this way not more 
 wearisomely and rather more honourably than in any 
 other just now open to me." From his first contribu- 
 tion in September, 1875, until the discontinuance of the 
 Tobacco Plant in 1881, Thomson wrote for it pretty 
 regularly, and always spoke of the connection with 
 pleasure and gratitude. 
 
 At the beginning of 1876 we thus find Thomson 
 entering on a fresh period of his life ; and in addition 
 to being engaged on new work, he was now settled in 
 new lodgings in another quarter of London. 
 
 1 " Cope's Mixture " was the name given to a column or so of miscel- 
 laneous notes in each number of the Tobacco Plant.
 
 " SEVEN SONGLESS YEAES " 97 
 
 To Mr. Bertram Dobell. 
 
 35 Alfred Street, Gower Street, W.C., 
 
 December 15, 1875. 
 
 DEAR SIR, I have delayed answering your letter partly because 
 I have been busy and unsettled, partly because I wished to consult 
 about the publication by subscription suggested by Mr. Bullen and 
 yourself. All things considered, I would rather wait unpublished 
 than adopt this mode ; but I thank you none the less for your kind 
 offer in connection with it. 
 
 You will note changed address at top. I only moved on Monday, 
 and don't know that I shall stay here, but at any rate I shall settle 
 in this neighbourhood for a time, as I want to be near Foote for 
 the Secularist business, and also near the British Museum for the 
 Reading Room. I am, yours truly, JAMES THOMSON. 
 
 In these lodgings at 35 Alfred Street (or 7 Huntley 
 Street, as the house was afterwards re-named) Thomson 
 stayed till a few weeks before his death, and was treated 
 with much kindness and consideration by the house- 
 keeper, Miss Scott, who did all that was in her power 
 for his health and comfort. Mr. Foote, with whom 
 Thomson was closely associated at this time, was living 
 at 12 Gower Street, the house of Mr. T. E. Wright, who 
 had married the widow of Mr. Austin Holyoake. Thom- 
 son was thus within reach of his most intimate friends ; 
 indeed, during the last six years of his life he was less 
 a visitor than an inmate of the Wrights' house, being 
 regarded with the deepest esteem and affection by Mr. 
 and Mrs. Wright and their family. The course of his 
 life for the next few years was quiet and uneventful, the 
 entries in the diary relating chiefly to his work for the 
 Tobacco Plant ; frequent walks with Mr. Foote or Mr. 
 Percy Holyoake, the son of his old friend Austin ; and 
 pleasant evenings with the Wrights, when the time was 
 spent in music, billiards, or conversation. On Sundays 
 he was usually with the Wrights, or with his old friend 
 
 H
 
 8 "SEVEN SONGLESS YEARS" 
 
 Mr. Jaques ; but he had now lost sight to a great extent 
 of his earlier set of friends and old army comrades. For 
 several years he seems to have been only twice out of 
 London, these occasions being his attendance at a 
 stormy Conference of the Secular Society at Leeds, on 
 June 4, 1876, and a four days' visit on Secular affairs 
 to Leicester in the following September, when he was 
 accompanied by Mr. Foote. Few letters written at this 
 period have been preserved, except some to Mr. Dobell 
 concerning literary matters and the proposed publication 
 of a volume. 
 
 To Mr. Bertram Dobell. 
 
 35 Alfred Street, Gower Street, W.C., 
 
 Sunday, January 9, 1876. 
 
 DEAR SlK, I have been half-a-dozen times on the point of 
 replying to your last, but something or other has hitherto prevented 
 me. First, accept my sincere thanks for your kind offer, which 
 fortunately I need not take advantage of. I have, of course, still 
 ground to make, but the Secularist and Tobacco Plant keep me 
 going for the present. 
 
 With regard to Mr. Bullen's criticisms on " Our Ladies of Death " 
 criticisms which really flatter me, as any man's work is really 
 praised by such examination I must hold myself right. The 
 only English Dictionary I have by me is a school one, but as such 
 little likely to venture on neologisms ; moreover, it is very good of 
 its kind, being Reid's of Edinburgh. This gives Sombre, Sombrous, 
 dark, gloomy ; Tenebrous, Tenebrious, dark, gloomy, obscure (and, 
 of course, Tenebrious implies Tenebriously) ; Ruth, pity, sorrow ; 
 Ruthful, merciful, sorrowful ; Ruthfully, sadly, sorrowfully. The 
 huge Worcester Webster, into which I looked a day or two after 
 your letter came, agrees as to tenebrious and ruth ; I forgot to look 
 in it for sombrous. But as to ruth, I used it in the common sense 
 of pity, not that of sadness and sorrow. When I wrote 
 
 " My life but bold 
 In jest and laugh to parry hateful ruth," 
 
 I meant to parry the pity of others, not to parry my own sadness, 
 which, indeed, jest and laugh must intensify instead of parrying.
 
 " SEVEN SONGLESS YEAES " 99 
 
 My thought was much like that of Beatrice, "The Cenci," Act v, 
 
 so. 3 : 
 
 " Shall the light multitude 
 Fling at their choice curses or faded pity, 
 Sad funeral flowers to deck a living corpse, 
 Upon us as we pass, to pass away?" 
 
 And from the light, indifferent multitude, as you must know, curses 
 even are less unwelcome than pity when we are profoundly suffering. 
 I looked into the Dictionaries, not knowing whether their authority 
 would sustain or condemn me, as I am used to trust in careful 
 writing to my own sense of what is right ; this, naturally, having 
 been modified and formed by reading of good authors. Even had 
 the Dictionaries condemned me, I should in these cases have been 
 apt to assert my own correctness ; in many others I should be ready 
 to yield without contest. In The City of Dreadful Night I used 
 tenebrous instead of tenebrious ; just as good writers use, as it 
 happens to suit them, either funeral or funereal, sulphurous or 
 sulphureous (Shelley often in "Hellas "), etc. You will think that 
 I have troubled you with very many words on a very little matter. 
 As it is now just 11 p.m., and I have much to do to-morrow, I will 
 conclude in pity for myself if not in ruth for you. With best 
 wishes, yours truly, JAMES THOMSON. 
 
 The following extracts are from the same correspon- 
 dence : 
 
 June 21, 1877. I find it hopeless to attempt publishing before, 
 at earliest, winter coming on. I hope to stir in the matter 
 September or October. 
 
 I will call on you one of these evenings with your two books. Will 
 you forward by book post a copy of Garth Wilkinson's " Human 
 Body and its Connection with Man " to Mr. John Fraser ? He 
 writes that he will be glad of it. I will settle for book and postage 
 when I see you, and he will settle with me. 
 
 I shall probably do an article or two for Watts and Foote on your 
 " Alger's Eastern Poetry ": it would form a good introduction to a 
 series on Omar Khayyam which I have in my heart to accomplish 
 some day. Note my new address (7 Huntley Street). It is the 
 same house as before, only they have renamed and renumbered the 
 street.
 
 100 " SEVEN SONGLESS YEABS " 
 
 February 12, 1878. I expected to give you a call long ere this ; 
 but Praser put off answering my inquiries as to the Christmas or 
 New Year card the Pilgrimage after Chaucer, as misinterpreted by 
 Stothard and other matters, and when at length he did write 
 seemed so urgent about the Pilgrimage that I put on full steam, 
 spinning out from seventy to a hundred lines a day, for the thing 
 had to be done in rhyme (a long way) after Chaucer too. I have 
 
 called at 's about poems. He told me that trade was so 
 
 depressed that they are withholding several works ready for publica- 
 tion. If the damned Dizzy suspense be over, and trade improved, 
 will be happy to see me on the subject in June, when they make 
 their arrangements for works or chief works to be brought out in 
 the following season, wkich, as you doubtless know, begins with 
 November. There would be no fair chance for a volume now. So 
 I must wait once more. 
 
 November 18, 1878. I am very sorry but scarcely surprised that 
 things are not very flourishing with you just now. You are 
 correct in supposing that it is ditto with me. With the natural 
 depression of trade infinitely aggravated during the past two years 
 by the infernal impolicy of our Jewish-Jingo misgovernment, it 
 cannot be well with anybody but arm-manufacturers, Exchange 
 speculators, and Hebrew adventurers ; and things seem likely to 
 grow much worse before they grow better The "Improvisa- 
 tions" 1 ! shall be delighted to see. It is so scarce that I have 
 never yet been able to come across it, and have never seen any 
 mention of it save that by Eossetti in his supplementary chapter 
 (a very fine one) to the "Life of Blake." It is not even in the 
 British Museum, having been printed for private circulation only, 
 if I remember aright. I should think it would be a real treasure 
 to any of Wilkinson's few admirers ; for, as you know, the fewer 
 devotees of any man or thing, the more enthusiastic. 
 
 December 23, 1878. Just lately, and in these days, I am pretty 
 busy for Fraser ; and well for me that it is so, for I have not earned 
 a penny save from him the whole year. There is more work to do 
 on the Tobacco Duties ; and also verse and prose for the Christmas 
 card, but not so much as last year, nor offering such genial oppor- 
 tunities and associations as " Chaucer's Canterbury Pilgrims." 
 The subject this time is the " Pursuit of Diva Nicotina," in imita- 
 tion of Sir Noel Paton's " Pursuit of Pleasure." Paton is a good 
 
 1 Improvisations from the Spirit, by Dr. Garth Wilkinson.
 
 11 SEVEN SONGLESS YEAES " 101 
 
 painter and poet too, but of the ascetic-pietistic school, or with 
 strong leanings to it. 
 
 The indefinite postponement of the publication of his 
 poems was a very serious misfortune to Thomson for 
 more than one reason ; for it interposed a ruinous delay 
 in the realization of his literary prospects, at a time 
 when a little encouragement and lightening of the load 
 of his poverty would have been an inestimable boon, and 
 thus disheartened him for all further creative effort. 
 That most of the publishers to whom he applied should 
 have candidly told him that they were not disposed to 
 become responsible for his volume was indeed no matter 
 for surprise ; for, as he himself wrote in reference to this 
 subject, " verse by an unknown man is always a drug in 
 the market, and when it is atheistic it is a virulently 
 poisonous drug, with which respectable publishers would 
 rather have nothing to do." But he had good reason to 
 complain of other and less justifiable delays, caused by 
 the inconsiderate vacillation of certain publishers who 
 held out promises which they afterwards declined to 
 perform. " This is bad treatment ; four months and 
 more lost," he writes in his diary in February, 1877, 
 when he found himself once again cut adrift. 
 
 In July, 1879, through Mr. Foote's introduction, 
 Thomson became engaged in a correspondence with Mr. 
 George Meredith, for whose genius he had long felt and 
 expressed the utmost admiration ; and he had now the 
 great satisfaction of learning that his own writings were 
 held in high esteem by one whose good opinion he 
 probably valued above that of any living critic. " I am 
 glad," wrote Mr. Meredith, " to be in personal communica- 
 tion with you. The pleasant things you have written of 
 me could not be other than agreeable to a writer. I
 
 102 " SEVEN SONGLESS YEABS " 
 
 that you had the rare deep love of literature ; rare at all 
 times, and in our present congestion of matter almost 
 extinguished ; which led you to recognize any effort to 
 produce the worthiest. But when a friend unmasked 
 your initials, I was flattered. For I had read The City 
 of Dreadful Night, and to be praised by the author of 
 that poem would strike all men able to form a judgment 
 upon eminent work as a distinction." 
 
 It was apparently about this same time, or perhaps 
 a little earlier, that Thomson became personally 
 acquainted with Philip Bourke Marston, with whom 
 he had already corresponded from 1875 ; and the 
 acquaintance soon ripened into a warm friendship. 
 There was a natural bond of union between the two 
 poets in the similarity of their destiny, each of them 
 being gifted with an extreme sensibility and strong 
 aspirations ; while each had been bereaved in early 
 manhood, and was spending the remainder of a dis- 
 appointed life in a " city of darkness " of his own. 
 
 In the meantime, on January 1, 1879, there had 
 been started, under Mr. Foote's editorship, a monthly 
 magazine named The Liberal, to which Thomson was an 
 occasional contributor, one of his papers being a series of 
 articles on Dr. Garth Wilkinson's Improvisations from the 
 Spirit, under the title of "A Strange Book." Towards 
 the end of the year, however, disagreements which had 
 gradually been arising between Thomson and Mr. Foote 
 became so acute as to prevent their further intimacy ; 
 after which rupture the Tobacco Plant was for some time 
 the only paper for which Thomson wrote, and the sole 
 quarter to which he could look for the earning of his 
 livelihood. Thus ended his connection with Secularist 
 journalism, a connection that had extended over a period 
 of some fifteen or sixteen years.
 
 " SEVEN SONGLESS YEARS " 103 
 
 To Mr. Bertram Dobell. 
 
 7 Huutley Street, Gower Street, W.C., 
 
 Sunday, October 19, 1879. 
 
 DEAR SIR, I can still but barely manage to keep head over 
 water sometimes sinking under for a bit. You see what I do for 
 Cope. I have not succeeded in getting any other work except on 
 Tlie Liberal, and this is of small value. I thank you for keeping 
 the Whitman for me : I sold it with other books when hard up. In 
 the meantime I have the latest 2 vol. edition in hand from Fraser, 
 who has requested some articles on him, when Tobacco Legislation, 
 &c., will allow. I mean to begin him now in the evenings at home, 
 as the Legislation can be done only in the Museum. He may 
 occupy such intervals in the paper as did the Wilson and Hogg, 
 both done by request : the " Richard Feverel " was on my own 
 suggestion. George Meredith, to whom I sent a copy, wrote me 
 a very flattering, because very high-minded, letter. He has seen 
 the " City," and, though by no means sanguine with such a public 
 as ours, he thinks it should float a volume. The admiration of so 
 many excellent literary judges really surprises me. 
 
 All this about myself because I have nothing else to write about, 
 going nowhere and seeing no one. Yours truly, 
 
 JAMES THOMSON. 
 
 The following extracts are taken from Thomson's diary 
 for 1879 : 
 
 Wednesday, Jan. 1. Morning dull and mild. Aftn. wet & 
 mild. Night, sharp sleety hail or icy sleet. Morng. Letter from 
 Fraser. Cigars, P.0.0. and Proofs. Morng. & evg. (till 10.15), 
 Proofs. Aftn. posted Proofs, Ire. & formal receipt, with thanks, 
 &c. Not a bad beginning of the year. Wrote all morng. without 
 fire, so mild. 
 
 Wednesday, Jan. 8. Bitter easterly. Some sun. Morng. & evg. 
 fair copy Memorial: then Blue Book & Financl. Refm. Almk., 
 1879. Aftn., Walk about Soho. (Coal scuttle ; after three years !) 
 Moon keen as crystal, sky pale & cloudless, stars few and dim, 
 ground like iron, wind like a razor. 
 
 Sat., Jan. 11. (To Wm. Maccall.) How is one to discover or 
 invent a phrenometer or psychometer by which to regulate one's 
 writings to the capacities of the average " intelligent reader " ! 
 
 Monday, Feb. 17. Fog Morng. Some sun mid-day. Wet evg.
 
 104 "SEVEN SONGLESS YEAKS" 
 
 Cool. N.W. Morng., Up late, dawdled. (Poor strange cat in 
 back coal-cellar and under kitchen since Saty. morng.) Aftn., 
 Stroll Oxford St.; also before dinner. Evg., Reading Erasme : 
 Eloge de la Folie (Biblio : Nationale). Slight bilious indigestion. 
 Listless & sleepy. Beer early for early bed. 
 
 Ash Wednesday, Feb. 26. Cold. N.E. wind ; glum ; snow in 
 the air, slight powder falling. Morng., To B. M. Shut. Did my 
 Commination Service alone ; cursing the idiots who close such a 
 place on such a day. Stroll before dinner. Aftn., Gower St. 
 Evg., Writing bit Wen of Letters. Beading Goldsmith. Coals (1) 
 full. 
 
 Friday, Feb. 28. The dull rheumatic pains shoulders & right 
 arm continue ; slight, but I rather fear after father. 
 
 Sunday, March 2. Queer dream morng. Condemned to death 
 for sort of manslaughter on one who deserved it for wronging 
 another. No remorse, no fear, some perplexity as to chance of 
 commutn. to imprisonment for life. Some trouble on awaking to 
 make sure it had been a dream. 
 
 Thursday, June 19. Trousselle handed me old silver tankard 
 (which I left with poor Mrs. B.), & a note from Alice. 1 
 
 Tuesday, July 1. Heavy rain with gale, almost incessant till 
 4 p.m. Brief clear up, then shower, then clear. At 9 (dusk) great 
 ragged rack to N. sweeping from W., across very pale blue skimmed- 
 milk sky, & beneath it the brickdust-yellow rift ominous of storm. 
 1st of July, & no summer yet 1 
 
 Thursday, Aug. 14. Have got into bad way of waking two or 
 three hours before I want to get up (before 5 or 6), & being unable 
 to sleep afterwards. Hence I arise weary at last ; and am very 
 drowsy after tea, when I want to read or write. This morng. awoke 
 at 5.40 ; this evg. had to lie down, & slept from 6.30 to 8.30, losing 
 two good hours. 
 
 Saturday, Sept. 6. Dim, dreamy, misty, brooding day. Red 
 beamless sun. Very languid. Morng., B.M. After, stroll with 
 G. W. F. ; met in coffee-house. Evg., dawdled and strolled. 
 
 Saturday, Nov. 1. Athenceum; openg. article on Egoist. The 
 first critique on any of George Meredith's books I have ever come 
 across, in which the writer showed thorough knowledge of his works, 
 and anything like an adequate apprec. of his wonderful genius. 
 
 1 See Life of Charles Bradlaugh, by Hypatia Bradlaugh Bonner, 1, 113.
 
 " SEVEN SONGLESS YEARS " 105 
 
 Saturday, Nov. 8. Atlienauni, advt. of Egoist : cordial praise 
 from Atlienm., Pall Mall, Spectr., Examr. At length ! Encourg. ! 
 A man of wonderful genius, and a splendid writer, may hope to obtn. 
 something like recogn. after working hard for thirty years, dating 
 from his majority ! 
 
 Thursday, Nov. 27. Cold but fine ; 10 P.M. thaw yet cold ; 
 moon high in orange halo of immense high thin pale or dim grey 
 cloud, drifting from east. 
 
 Friday, Nov. 28. Pretty fair day, cold, Moon thick yellow 
 halo ; immense rack of pale grey cloud, united, but with large 
 curves, sailing from east. 
 
 Saturday, Nov. 29. Fair, cold, N.E. Moon clear in deep azure 
 or turquoise, not transparent. 
 
 Friday, Dec. 5. Cold, slight snow ; fine morng., livid day. 
 Snowing pretty heavily at night (9 P.M.). Morng. B. M. Readg. 
 tor Raleigh. Aftn., Adeline (French). Evg. Thackeray (Trollope's). 
 (Picked just twenty-one sticks out of my grate fire laid by chare- 
 woman Lizzie ; the rest being quite enough to light the fire ! The 
 prodigal poor !) 
 
 Sunday, Dec. 14. Mr. R yesterday ; Ire. from mother to 
 
 live with his cousin, a lonely widow & religious. He in consterna- 
 tion ; I won't stop ; I'll be back in a fortnight. And to-morrow is 
 Sunday! (despair). 
 
 Christmas Day. Black fog mid-day, and until night. Morng. 
 (late) answg. Fraser's with receipt. Dined Gower St. Billiards, 
 &c. Evg. Home 12.20 or so. Bed past one. 
 
 Wednesday, Dec. 31. Saw Old Year out and New Year in at 
 Mitchell's ; with Wrights, &c. Cards, whist, and Vingt-un. 
 
 Mention of ill-health occurs rather frequently in the 
 diaries of this period, and it is certain that a decided 
 change for the worse was taking place in Thomson's 
 condition, and that his constitution, strong and hardy 
 though it was at the outset, was gradually giving way 
 under the terrible strain to which it had so long been 
 subjected. If a decline of this sort, which under the 
 circumstances must sooner or later have been inevit- 
 able, is to be traced back to any particular time, we
 
 106 " SEVEN SONGLESS YEARS " 
 
 should probably be justified in regarding the visit to 
 Spain in 1873 as the date of the commencement of 
 disquieting symptoms. In February, 1876, when he 
 already had reason to be concerned about his health, 
 he was further shaken by a very severe fall, which kept 
 him indoors for some days, and threatened rather serious 
 consequences. In the autumn of the following year he 
 was troubled a good deal by insomnia ; " my old friend " 
 he calls it in the diary. In 1879 the signs of failing 
 health were still more frequent ; for, in addition to the 
 symptoms recorded in the above extracts (it will be seen 
 from the entry for February 28 that he was apprehensive 
 of a paralytic stroke as in the case of his father), we 
 find him suffering from a " queer catching pain " in the 
 back and a painful constriction at the chest, " over and 
 about the heart," and other similar ailments. With 
 this decrease of physical strength he had lost somewhat 
 of his mental nerve, promptitude, and vigour even the 
 handwriting, once so characteristic in its extreme regu- 
 larity and firmness of outline, had now begun to show 
 traces of increasing debility. 
 
 That this change was due in great measure to his fits 
 of intemperance is beyond doubt ; at the same time 
 it must in justice be noted that these excesses were 
 periodic, not habitual a recurrent disease against which 
 his true nature struggled, albeit unsuccessfully, with 
 loathing and detestation. " He was not," writes one 
 who knew him intimately during these very years, 
 "a toper; on the contrary, he was a remarkably tem- 
 perate man, both in eating and drinking. His intem- 
 perate fits came on periodically, like other forms of 
 'madness ; and naturally as he grew older and weaker 
 they lasted longer, and the lucid intervals became 
 shorter. The fits were invariably preceded by several
 
 " SEVEN SONGLESS YEAKS " 107 
 
 days of melancholy, which deepened and deepened until 
 intolerable. Then he flew to the alcohol, so naturally 
 and unconsciously that when he returned to sanity 
 he could seldom remember the circumstances of his 
 collapse." ] 
 
 " After the fit had spent itself," says another friend, 3 " would 
 come a dreary week of feebleness and self-abhorrence, then return- 
 ing health would bring back the normal Thomson, and a few 
 months of work would be the prelude to another attack. No 
 mortal ever strove against an overpowering disease more grimly 
 than Thomson, and when friends were to be pained by his suc- 
 cumbing to the mania it was always combated and repulsed to 
 the last moment. His absolute abandonment during these attacks 
 was sufficient to attest their nature, and no more pregnant illustra- 
 tion of the metamorphosis he underwent could well be found than 
 the remark made by his landlord's children on one such occasion. 
 Thomson was naturally very loving with children, and children 
 invariably returned his affection. Once, when he came back to his 
 rooms in Huntley Street in the fulness of the change wrought by 
 his excesses, the children went to the door to admit him, but closed 
 it again and went to their father, telling him that ' Mr. Thomson's 
 wicked brother was at the door '; and for some time they could not 
 recognise ' our Mr. Thomson ' in the figure of the dipsomaniac 
 claiming his name." 
 
 During the years that followed the publication of 
 The City of Dreadful Night Thomson's pessimistic 
 creed remained unaltered darker it could hardly have 
 become than in that poem. 
 
 " Thomson's life," says Mr. Foote, " inclined him to a pessimistic 
 view of nature, yet it must not be supposed that his philosophy 
 was merely a matter of temperament. He was little of a cynic 
 and less of a misanthrope, and you could not have inferred his 
 philosophy from his ordinary conversation. He was naturally 
 chary of talking about his ideas, even to his intimate friends, but 
 when he broke through his customary reticence he spoke with the 
 quiet gravity of intense conviction. I well remember the first time 
 
 1 Mr. G. W. Foote's article in Progress, April, 1884. 2 Mr. J. W. Barrs.
 
 108 "SEVEN SONGLESS YEARS" 
 
 he ever conversed with me on the subject. It was a still summer's 
 evening, and we sat together on the Thames Embankment at 
 Chelsea. We smoked and chatted for a long time, and, growing 
 more and more communicative under the influence of that tender 
 sunset, we gradually sank into the depths. I found his pessimism 
 as stubborn as adamant. It was not a mood, but a philosophy, 
 the settled conviction of a keen spectator of the great drama of 
 life. He admitted that he had no special reason to scorn his 
 fellows ; on the contrary, he had met many good friends, who had 
 treated him ' better than he deserved.' But all that was beside 
 the question. He denied the reality of progress in the world ; 
 there was revolution, but no forward movement ; the balance of 
 good and evil remained through all changes unchanged ; and 
 eventually the human race, with all its hopes and fears, its virtues 
 and crimes, its triumphs and failures, would be swept into oblivion. 
 In conclusion he quoted Shakespeare, a very rare thing with him ; 
 and he rose from his seat with Prospero's matchless words upon 
 his lips." 
 
 We can well believe that these pessimistic convictions 
 were in great part the result of some constitutional 
 tendency to melancholia ; though in studying the develop- 
 ment of Thomson's unhappiness it is impossible to 
 distinguish with any certainty between consequence and 
 cause. " What," asks the writer of the passage just 
 quoted, " could the fulfilment of one dream have availed 
 against this curse ? It haunted him like a fiend. It 
 stayed for no invitation and consulted no convenience. 
 It often left him free and happy in untoward circum- 
 stances, and beckoned him forth to bondage and misery 
 as he sat at the feast or glowed with pleasure in the 
 revel." Yet there were many hours when his mind 
 recurred fondly to this " one dream," in the belief that 
 its realization might have averted his subsequent mis- 
 fortunes and errors. On three consecutive evenings in 
 September, 1878, he was engaged in writing the auto- 
 biographical stanzas already alluded to, commencing
 
 " SEVEN SONGLESS YEARS " 109 
 
 I had a Love." " Actually got writing verses again ! " 
 he notes in his diary ; " but hard and harsh ; more truth 
 than poetry." It was one of Thomson's last injunctions 
 that these verses should not be published, since he con- 
 sidered them to be merely a rough draft, though written 
 with all the solemnity of one who was "like a man 
 making his will at the gates of Death." But while 
 penning these lines he felt that the fresh creative im- 
 pulse arisen within him might be the throes, not of 
 death, but of " some new birth that gives the lethal 
 illusion " from which we see that even at this date the 
 spark of hope was not wholly and utterly extinguished. 
 And if his pessimism had failed to obliterate the memory 
 of his own love, as little had it affected his intense 
 sympathy and pity for all suffering humanity. 
 
 "He sympathized," says Mr. Foote, "with all self-sacrifice, all 
 lofty aspiration, and in particular with all suffering. This last 
 emotion was often betrayed by a look rather than expressed in 
 words. I vividly remember being with him once on a popular 
 holiday at the Alexandra Palace. We were seated on the grass, 
 watching the shifting groups of happy forms, and exchanging appre- 
 ciative or satirical remarks. Suddenly I observed my companion's 
 gaze fixed on a youth who limped by with a pleasant smile on his 
 face, but too obviously beyond hope of ever sharing in the full 
 enjoyment of life. Thomson's eye followed him until he passed 
 out of sight, and the next moment our eyes met. I shall never 
 forget the gentle sadness of that look, its beautiful sympathy that 
 transcended speech and made all words poor." 
 
 Meanwhile Thomson still continued to exhibit all his 
 old gaiety and sprightliness in congenial society, and his 
 powers of conversation are described by all who knew 
 him as being singularly brilliant. Here is a graphic 
 account of his appearance and manner at the period 
 with which we are now concerned : 
 
 His personal appearance told in his favour. He was of the
 
 110 "SEVEN SONGLESS YEARS" 
 
 medium height, well built, and active. He possessed that striking 
 characteristic sometimes found in mixed races black hair and 
 beard, and grey-blue eyes. The eyes were fine and wonderfully 
 expressive. They were full of shifting light, soft grey in some 
 moods, and deep blue in others. They contained depth within 
 depth ; and when he was moved by strong passion they widened 
 and flashed with magnetic power. When not suffering from 
 depression he was the life of the company. He was the most 
 brilliant talker I ever met, and at home in all societies ; a fine 
 companion in a day's walk, and a shining figure at the festive 
 table or in the social drawing-room. But you enjoyed his con- 
 versation most when you sat with him alone, taking occasional 
 draughts of our national beverage, and constantly burning the 
 divine weed. 1 
 
 Thomson remained to the last an inveterate smoker, 
 a constant worshipper at the shrine of the tobacco-saint 
 whose martyrdom and apotheosis he so humorously 
 described in verse. 2 It was his habit, as he has told 
 us in his " Stray Whiffs from an Old Smoker " (the first 
 article he contributed to the Tobacco Plant), to smoke 
 during the intervals of his literary work, but not when 
 actually writing. " There are some," he says, " who 
 can smoke with enjoyment and profit ivhen writing : this 
 I cannot do, when the writing requires reflection ; for 
 either the thought is distracted by the smoke, or the 
 fire goes out in the interest of the thought. But how 
 delightful and inspiring are a few whiffs in the pausing 
 spaces, when the brain teems with new ideas gradually 
 assuming form, and the palate yearns for the tobacco 
 savour with a thirst as keen as the water-thirst of the 
 desert." 
 
 But a higher charm in which Thomson found the 
 purest consolation for the sorrow and trials of his life 
 was the charm of music. In one of his " Jottings " in 
 
 1 Q. W. Foote, in Progress, April, 1882. 
 
 3 "Pilgrimage to St. Nicotine of the Holy Herb."
 
 "SEVEN SONGLESS YEAES" 111 
 
 the National Reformer in 1874 he had declared that the 
 Monday Popular Concerts at St. James's Hall had for 
 some years yielded him more pure delight than all the 
 other public entertainments of London put together. 
 " There Beethoven," he added, " is King of Kings and 
 Lord of Lords ; on his forehead broods the frown of 
 thunder, but his smile is so ravishing and sweet that 
 naught can compare with it save the tenderness in 
 sternness of Dante the Divine ; with Handel and Bach, 
 Mozart and Haydn, Weber and Mendelssohn, throned 
 high but less loftily _around him ; with Hummel and 
 Dussek, Tartini and Scarlatti, Spohr, Chopin, Hiller, 
 and their peers, as satraps of provinces ; and lastly, at 
 his very feet, that notable and but recently discovered 
 pair of shoes, Schubert and Schumann whereof the 
 former is indeed lovely, but too large and lax ; while 
 the latter, with its stiff embroidery, is of such shape and 
 size that I for one cannot yet wear it with pleasure." 
 The same worship of Beethoven as the supreme musician 
 is expressed in " He Heard Her Sing," a poem full of 
 sustained melody which gives proof in every line of a 
 passionate love of music. 
 
 Such was the course of Thomson's life during the 
 period of his journalistic and critical work for the 
 Secularist, Liberal, and Tobacco Plant. The " seven 
 songless years " did not reach their full termination 
 till the autumn of 1881 ; but the publication of the 
 long-projected volumes, which took place before that 
 date, is an event that demands the commencement of 
 a new chapter.
 
 CHAPTEE VII 
 BETWEEN LEICESTEE AND LONDON 
 
 IT was in 1880, after six years of disappointment and 
 delay, that Thomson had the satisfaction of seeing the 
 issue of his first volume of poems. The publication, 
 thus at last secured, was due to the untiring zeal and 
 energy of his friend Mr. Dobell, who, by a fortunate 
 application to Messrs. Eeeves and Turner, succeeded 
 in making the arrangement that the book should be 
 forthwith published at his and their joint expense. 
 The following is the note in Thomson's diary for 
 March 4: "Dobell having arranged with Mr. Eeeves 
 for publication of a small tentative volume (six full 
 sheets = 192 pages ; exclusive of Title-pages, Dedication, 
 and Contents), Eeeves put it at once to press with 
 Messrs. Ballantyne, Hanson, & Co., Edinbro'. On 
 Thursday, 4th March, 1880, I got first proof of 16 pp. 
 Volume to be entitled The City of Dreadful Night, and 
 other Poems." 
 
 To Mr. W. M. Rossetti. 
 
 7 Huntley Street, Gower Street, W.C., 
 
 March 6, 1880. 
 
 DEAR SIB, I enclose a very brief Shelley article, not because it 
 has any intrinsic worth (which it has not), but because you are 
 interested in anything, however minute, relating to him. Also, as 
 a bit of fun, another on the Burns of Principal Shairp, with which 
 you may sympathize, as you have no doubt seen that extraordinary 
 Professor of Poetry's lecture on Shelley in Fraser. What a shame- 
 less nudity he would have discerned in Adam and Eve in Paradise ! 
 
 112
 
 BETWEEN LEICESTER AND LONDON 113 
 
 At length I have actually in the press a small tentative volume, 
 " The City of Dreadful Night, and other Poems. By James 
 Thomson (B. V.)-" " Weddah " I reserve to lead off another, should 
 the success of the present be sufficient to encourage another. I was 
 bound to start with the "City," it being already better known than 
 any other, and having been noticed in the Academy and Spectator 
 (hostile) as well as by yourself, and also mentioned in the Athenceum 
 and Notes and Queries. Before I sent you (and you alone) the 
 " Weddah," none of my pieces had been sent to anyone : I allowed 
 them to drift away in the obscure unpoetical world of the National 
 Reformer, pretty careless as to their fate, for I did not then look 
 forward to literature as a profession. 
 
 The Tobacco Plant has requested some articles on Walt Whitman, 
 and I have already sent on the first. When the publication (which 
 is sometimes long delayed) is far enough advanced I shall take the 
 liberty of asking you for the latest news of him his health and 
 general condition. I will send you the articles when they appear. 
 
 Hoping that yourself and family are well, Yours truly, 
 
 JAMES THOMSON. 
 
 To the Same. 
 
 7 Huntley Street, Gower Street, W.C., 
 
 Wednesday, April 7, 1880. 
 
 DEAR SIR, Herewith a copy of my first little book, which you 
 must please accept as having done more both in public and in 
 private than anyone else to prepare the way for it. If it fails, the 
 failure will have to be charged to its own demerits, not to the 
 default of excellent introductions. 
 
 The first batch of copies came yesterday (from Edinburgh), and 
 Beeves advertises in Saturday's papers, as the electoral storm will 
 have pretty nearly blown itself out by the end of this week. 
 
 I was not aware that you get the Tobacco Plant ; would have sent 
 it to you myself had I thought you would care for it. 
 
 I had proof of first Whitman article, but it is not in this month's 
 number, of which a copy reached me this morning. Thank you for 
 the details as to health and condition ; I will write again for 
 information when the articles are near the end. You saw Buskin's 
 order for five sets of W.'s volumes, with the characteristic note? 
 Yours truly, JAMES THOMSON. 
 
 Whitman wrote to Fraser of the Plant that he never smokes ; but 
 added tha.t he likes to carry good cigars for his friends, 
 
 I
 
 114 BETWEEN LEICESTER AND LONDON 
 
 This volume, which, as may be seen from the above 
 letter, was published early in April, gained on the whole 
 a very encouraging reception, the most notable feature of 
 which was an article headed " A New Poet," which 
 appeared in the Fortnightly Beview. 
 
 That considerable hostility should be manifested in 
 some quarters against a writer of such unpopular con- 
 nections and unorthodox opinions was, of course, to be 
 expected, and Thomson was not a man who would allow 
 himself to be greatly troubled by such adverse criticism. 
 "The reviewers" so George Meredith had written to 
 him in 1879 " are not likely to give you satisfaction. 
 But read them, nevertheless, if they come in your way. 
 The humour of a situation that allots the pulpit to them, 
 and (for having presumed to make an appearance) the 
 part of Devil to you, will not fail of consolation. My 
 inclination is to believe that you will find free-thoughted 
 men enough to support you." This forecast was fully 
 verified by the result ; for many of Thomson's critics 
 recognized that his volume, in spite of its novelty of 
 tone, was the work of a true poet. George Meredith 
 himself wrote as follows : 
 
 Box Hill, Dorking, 
 
 April 27, 1880. 
 
 DEAR SIR, I will not delay any longer to write to you on the 
 subject of your book, though I am not yet in a condition to do 
 justice either to the critic or the poet, for, owing to the attack I 
 suffered under last year, I have been pensioned off all work of any 
 worth of late ; and in writing to you about this admirable and 
 priceless book of verse I have wished to be competent to express my 
 feeling for your merit, and as much as possible the praise of such 
 rarely equalled good work. My friends could tell you that I am 
 a critic hard to please. They say that irony lurks in my eulogy. 
 I am not in truth frequently satisfied by verse. Well, I have gone 
 through your volume, and partly a second time, and I have not 
 found the line I would propose to recast, I have found many pages
 
 BETWEEN LEICESTER AND LONDON 115 
 
 that no other English poet could have written. Nowhere is the 
 verse feeble, nowhere is the expression insufficient ; the majesty of 
 the line has always its full colouring, and marches under a banner. 
 And you accomplish this effect with the utmost sobriety, with 
 absolute self-mastery. I have not time at present to speak of the 
 City of Melencolia. There is a massive impressiveness in it that 
 goes beyond Diirer, and takes it into upper regions where poetry is 
 the sublimation of the mind of man, the voice of our highest. 
 What might have been said contra poet, I am glad that you should 
 have forestalled and answered in " Philosophy " very wise writing. 
 I am in love with the dear London lass who helped you to the 
 " Idyll of Cockaigne." You give a zest and new attraction to 
 Hampstead Heath. Yours very faithfully, 
 
 GEOEQE MEREDITH. 
 
 Nor was it only in a literary sense that the book was 
 well received ; for its financial success was sufficient to 
 warrant the preparation of a second volume. " Arranging 
 and preparing materials," writes Thomson in the diary 
 on August 17, " for another vol. as requested by Dobell 
 and Reeves. R., unasked, handed me cheque for 10 on 
 a/c of first vol., which he reckons has already paid its 
 expenses, & of whose profitable success both he and D. 
 feel sure. Other publishers all firm that no vol. of verse, 
 however good, can now pay its expenses, unless bearing 
 one of three or four famous or popular names. Yet this 
 vol. by an unknown writer, & burdened with the heavy 
 dead weight of the sombre and atheistical & generally 
 incomprehensible ' City of Dreadful Night,' has paid its 
 expenses." Thomson might well feel gratified at this 
 prosperous result, after the mortification of so many 
 disappointments and rebuffs ; but it is sad to think what 
 invaluable poetical work he may have been prevented 
 from accomplishing owing to the long discouragement of 
 this six years' delay. Already a more hopeful tone is 
 observable in the diary for 1880, though he did not actually 
 recommence the writing of poetry until the following year.
 
 116 BETWEEN LEICESTER AND LONDON 
 
 On June 29 he had his first meeting with Mr. George 
 Meredith, who had invited him to spend a day with him 
 at Dorking. " Last Tuesday," writes Thomson in a letter 
 dated July 1, " I spent with Meredith : a real red-letter 
 day in all respects. He is one of those personalities who 
 need fear no comparisons with their best writings." 
 Thomson's friendship and correspondence with Philip 
 Marston were also fully maintained during this period ; 
 while through the kindness of such friends as Mr. W. M. 
 Rossetti and Miss Mathilde Blind he had made many 
 other literary acquaintances. Meantime his intimacy 
 with the Wrights continued as close as ever, and it was 
 at their house that he still spent most of his spare hours ; 
 he also walked frequently with Mr. Percy Holyoake, 
 who, during the last few years of Thomson's life, was one 
 of his most constant companions. " Splendid weather 
 all week since Sunday " is the entry on August 14. 
 " Several times to Regent's Park ; never before found it 
 so beautiful." In the autumn, however, we again find 
 mention of ill-health, as in the following letter to Mr. 
 Dobell: 
 
 7 Huntley Street, Gower Street, W.C., 
 
 Saturday, October 9, 1880. 
 
 DEAR SIR, Yours with Westminster Review notice to hand. 
 I hava been going through the notices, marking what shall be 
 printed on fly-leaf. I am engaged to dine with Mr. Beeves to- 
 morrow, but have written not to wait or alter his hours for me, 
 because if it is as wet as to-day I shall scarcely venture. The bitter 
 nor'-easter of Saturday night gave me a chill that kept me in all 
 Sunday (this is why I didn't give you a call). Since then we have 
 had but one decent day, and I have had hints of rheumatism. As 
 an agreeable addition, I have now a slight cold in the left eye, the 
 eye which kept me from reading, writing, and smoking, five long 
 weeks some years ago. So I must be careful. 
 
 I hope to be at Museum all the mornings next week (you can 
 always see me there by inquiring), but at home all the evenings
 
 BETWEEN LEICESTER AND LONDON 117 
 
 from tea-time, say 4.30 or 5 unless I cannot go to Mr. Beeves' to- 
 morrow, and so call one evening in the Strand. Yours truly, 
 
 JAMES THOMSON. 
 
 In October, 1880, appeared Thomson's second volume 
 of verse, entitled Vane's Story, Weddah and Om-el-Bonain, 
 and other Poems, which was also well received in literary 
 circles. High praise was specially awarded to the narra- 
 tive poem " Weddah and Om-el-Bonain," for which Mr. 
 W. M. Eossetti had expressed his admiration eight years 
 before a judgment which was now endorsed by the 
 opinions of Mr. Meredith and Mr. Swinburne, the latter 
 of whom characterized the poem as marked by " forthright 
 triumphant power." It is founded on an Arabic story 
 given in the " De 1' Amour " of De Stendhal ; but 
 Thomson's modest remark that the French original 
 merits a better English " version " than his own is likely 
 to be somewhat misleading, as it suggests the idea that 
 he merely transcribed De Stendhal's narrative, whereas 
 the latter is comprised within two pages of the "De 
 1'Amour," and gives merely the briefest outline of the 
 events recorded. The full development of the story, with 
 the addition of many new and important touches, is 
 therefore entirely the work of. Thomson himself. " The 
 ' Weddah and Om-el-Bonain,' " wrote Herman Melville 
 to an English friend, " gave me more pleasure than any- 
 thing of modern poetry that I have seen a long while. 
 The fable and the verse are alike supremely beautiful. 
 It is exactly the kind of gem which some of Keats 's 
 poems are." 
 
 To Mr. W. M. Eossetti. 
 
 1 Huntley Street, Gower Street, W.C., 
 
 Wednesday, December 15, 1880. 
 
 DEAR SIB, I am much obliged to you for sending me Mr. 
 Swinburne's remarks on the " Weddah." When you next write to
 
 118 BETWEEN LEICESTEE AND LONDON 
 
 him will you please say that I count the value of such generous 
 praise from such a poet simply inestimable ? It immensely surpasses 
 the most sanguine expectations I could have cherished had I known 
 that he was going to give out any opinion at all on the poem. 
 
 I am also very much gratified by Mrs. Rossetti's sympathy with 
 " Vane's Story," a piece too wild and capricious for most minds to 
 follow. It is in fact a piece of pure phantasy, wherein I threw the 
 reins on the neck of Pegasus and let him go whither he would. 
 Hence I purposely made the title equivocal to the ear. Writing 
 simply for my own pleasure, I enjoyed the writing. 
 
 My own intention, as you will readily believe, was to start the 
 volume with "Weddah." But the publishers represented that 
 many would be deterred by such an out-of-the-way title, that there 
 would be all sorts of blundering and confusion in the orders, and 
 that people in general are shy of asking for a book whose title they 
 don't exactly know how to pronounce. As these appeared valid 
 business arguments, I reluctantly yielded the first place to the 
 fantastic "Vane," keeping, however, "Weddah" on the title-page. 
 
 I have been very unwell for a considerable time, and have only 
 just now been able to resume and finish what was nearly completed 
 before my illness, the preparation of a volume of prose requested by 
 the publishers. It contains merely reprints, mostly from the 
 National Reformer ; but careful revision was required, and there 
 was, and still is, some difficulty in the selection. However, 
 I hope the first half of the matter will be in the hands of the 
 printers by about Monday, and the other within a week after. But 
 you need not mention the subject until we are further advanced. 
 
 Pray tender my respects to Mrs. Bossetti, and kiss for me the 
 miraculous little lady who at four and a half could listen to several 
 pages of the "City of Dreadful Night." Yours truly, 
 
 JAMES THOMSON. 
 
 Thomson spent Christmas at the house of Mr. Wright, 
 with whom, a few days later, he attended the funeral of 
 George Eliot at Highgate Cemetery. It was agreed, 
 early in 1881, that he should produce a critical study 
 of George Eliot's writings, to be published by Messrs. 
 Eeeves and Turner ; but the work proceeded very slowly, 
 and was abandoned after two or three months in favour 
 of a book on Heine a project which also fell through.
 
 BETWEEN LEICESTEE AND LONDON 119 
 
 These matters are referred to in the following extracts 
 from the letters to Mr. Dobell : 
 
 January 5, 1881. With Mr. Wright and Percy I went to George 
 Eliot's funeral. It was wretched tramping through the slush, and 
 then standing in the rain for about threequarters of an hour, with 
 nothing to see but dripping unbrellas. I was disappointed by 
 there being any chapel service at all. At the grave old Dr. Sadler 
 mumbled something, of which only two or three words could be 
 distinguished by us only a couple of yards behind him. 
 
 Jamiary 10, 1881. As you mean to call to-morrow with the 
 N. R. volume for 1865, 1 will keep in all the morning for you. We 
 can talk more to the purpose about your proposals as to Geo. Eliot 
 and Heine in half an hour than we could write in half a month. 
 I may say at once that I am willing to attempt both ; the former, 
 as you suggest, without my usual signature (unless such a hurried 
 essay to catch the moment as it flies contents me better nd much 
 better than it is likely to do), and for a stated sum ; the latter to 
 be done more deliberately, with my name and on such terms as 
 may best suit us both. 
 
 February 2, 1881. "Geo. Eliot" is starting slowly; I shall 
 doubtless get on better, as to speed, when I have fairly plunged 
 into it. I have been interrupted by an Address in colloquial rhyme 
 for the opening of the New Hall of the Leicester Secular Society 
 Club and Institute, on Sunday, March 6. Mrs. Theodore Wright 
 is to deliver it. The Committee is very pleased with it. There 
 are good men in Leicester who have done liberal service, and I was 
 most hospitably entertained there in the Secularist time, so I could 
 not refuse their invitation to furnish an Address and be present on 
 the occasion. 
 
 On Saturday, March 5, Thomson travelled with Mr. 
 and Mrs. Wright to Leicester, in which neighbourhood 
 he stayed till Wednesday of the following week, being 
 present on the Sunday at the opening of the Secular 
 Hall, and enjoying the hospitality of several Leicester 
 
 friends. 
 
 Saturday, March 5. Aftn. with Mr. and Mrs. T. R. W., to 
 Leicester by 3.30 train. Mr. Michael Wright met us and took us 
 home. 
 
 Sunday, March 6. Three services. Heavy crush after. Over-
 
 120 BETWEEN LEICESTER AND LONDON 
 
 flow service in Club Boom, evg. Mrs. W., after quadruple recitn. 
 Address (very nicely printed, and not sold until after her morng. 
 delivery), was repeatg. it and listeng. to speeches all night. I slept 
 the sleep of the just. 
 
 Monday. M. Wright drove us to Quorn, with Miss Holyoake. 
 Factories Floods Remains Abbey Woodhouse Beacon Hill and 
 Budden Wood. Evg. soiree. 
 
 Tiiesday. To Gimson's House and Factory. Dinner party at 
 M. W.'s. Prosperity to New Hall in champagne. Mr. Barrs drove 
 us to his place, round by Braunstone Wood (nightingales in summer) 
 and ruins Kirby Castle. His sister. Nice place & grounds. 
 
 Wedy, Train at 12.20 to London. Very pleasant visit. All of 
 us plus Adeline and Percy must go in summer. 
 
 After his return to London from this short holiday 
 he was occupied some time in correcting the proof- 
 sheets of the volume of his prose essays, which was 
 published in the spring of this year. The monotony, 
 however, of his London life was soon again broken by 
 another and longer visit to Leicester, where he was the 
 guest of Mr. J. W. Barrs, whose acquaintance he had 
 recently made, and who quickly became one of his 
 trustiest and most intimate friends. " To Leicester," 
 he writes on June 4, " with the Wrights and Adeline. 
 Myself kept out of town seven weeks one week at 
 Quorndon with Phil Wright and brothers ; three days 
 in Leicester with Mr. Michael Wright ; one day with 
 Mr. Gimson ; all the other five and a half weeks with 
 the Barrs at Forest Edge, Kirby Muxloe, four miles out 
 of Leicester. Unbounded hospitality ; splendid holiday." 
 There are several letters written during this visit, and 
 dated from Leicester or Quorndon. 
 
 To Mr. Bertram Dobell. 
 C/o Mr. J. W. Barrs, Forest Edge, Kirby Muxloe, 
 
 near Leicester, Monday, June 21, 1881. 
 DEAB SIB, When you called at my place last Tuesday, they
 
 BETWEEN LEICESTER AND LONDON 121 
 
 might have told you that I was not only out, but out of town. I 
 came down to Leicester with the Wrights and Adeline the Saturday 
 before Whit-Sunday. Percy was already down, and had been a 
 fortnight, so I thought I would return soon, and did not bother 
 about letters. But he found this place so pleasant that he prolonged 
 his stay till last Friday. I had a note from him yesterday, enclos- 
 ing yours and another, in which he tells me that he called in 
 passing, as arranged, on Mr. Beeves in the Strand and told him of 
 my whereabouts. 
 
 We are here four miles from Leicester, with railway station a 
 few minutes off, in a pleasant villa, surrounded by shrubbery, 
 lawn, meadow, and kitchen garden. Host and hostess (sister) are 
 kindness itself, as are all other Leicester friends. We lead the 
 most healthy of lives, save for strong temptations to over-feeding 
 on excellent fare, and host's evil and powerfully contagious habit 
 of sitting up till about 2 a.m. smoking and reading or chatting. 
 I now leave him to his own wicked devices at midnight or as soon 
 after as possible. Despite the showery weather we have had good 
 drives and walks (country all green and well- wooded) , jolly little 
 picnics, and lawn-tennis ad infinitum (N.B. Lawn-tennis even 
 more than lady's fine pen responsible for the uncouthness of this 
 scrawl). In brief, we have been so busy with enjoyment that this 
 is the first note I have accomplished (or begun) in the seventeen 
 days. I say we, because Adeline is still here. She leaves about 
 end of week, and I shall then spend a week at Quorndon, where 
 three of Mr. Wright's sons live managing the factories there. 
 Thence I return here for two or three days, and perhaps shall have 
 two or three with old Mr. Wright in Leicester before homing. You 
 see I mean to have a good holiday before setting to work again 
 
 Hoping that yourself and family are all well, and with friendly 
 regards to Mr. Beeves and his, Yours truly, 
 
 JAMES THOMSON. 
 
 To Mr. Percy Holyoake. 
 
 Forest Edge, 
 Wednesday, July 6, 1881. 
 
 DEAR PERCY, Thanks for forwarding the book. I have written 
 this morning to say why it was not sent by myself. This morning 
 is wet and gusty, after three splendid blazing days. Saturday we 
 drove vid Melton to Belvoir ; Sunday and morning of Monday in 
 grounds and Castle, Monday afternoon drove back. Cousin Dick
 
 122 BETWEEN LEICESTER AND LONDON 
 
 can tell "you all about the shady alleys and arbours, and all the 
 sunny terraces and slopes, from the pit of despair to declaration 
 covert and fix-the-day secret bower. The subject is too young and 
 tender for my rusty old pen. 
 
 Adeline and yourself will be glad to learn that the tennis-court 
 is being beaten flat after the rain. With a good rolling it will be 
 in first-rate condition. Certain terrible omens this morning make 
 us think that the duel has been fought with happily fatal result to 
 the man who hasn't written as he was bound to do if able. Before 
 midnight, lightnings ; afterwards, myself locked out of the house 
 by a base conspiracy ; after midnight, storms of rain ; at 1.30 Jack 
 wet through, ringing for admission after an hour in the spinney, 
 not listening to the nightingale, but vainly waiting for the rain to 
 cease ; at breakfast, as already recorded, no letter for Dick ; then 
 the brass tray in the hall fell down, knocking over candlestick and 
 candle (meaning Dick's hopes extinguished) ; then a heap of books 
 fell down in breakfast -room without apparent cause (meaning that 
 Dick is quite floored). These last ominous incidents painfully 
 remind me of my father's sword in our ancestral hall falling with 
 a clash to the ground when any fearful catastrophe is about to 
 happen to our ancient House. J. T. 
 
 The visit to Belvoir Castle alluded to in this letter was 
 afterwards celebrated by Thomson in the stanzas headed 
 "At Belvoir," which were published among his post- 
 humous poems. It will be noted that even at this late 
 period of his life he still retained, under favourable 
 conditions, his natural vivacity, high spirits, and brilliant 
 conversational powers. " Whatever," says Mr. Barrs, 
 " has been said or written of his charm of manner and 
 conversation has not and cannot give a just representa- 
 tion of them. Few men have known so delightful a 
 friend, and his hilarity could equal his sombreness when 
 in congenial company. One could hardly say more to 
 anyone who knows The City of Dreadful Night. The 
 poem, 'At Belvoir,' recalls three days of incessant mirth 
 and midsummer pleasure, Thomson being chief jester." 
 
 " Home at length from Forest Edge," writes Thomson
 
 BETWEEN LEICESTER AND LONDON 123 
 
 in his diary on July 23. " Seven weeks' holiday, most of 
 it thoroughly enjoyable. Made fair progress in lawn- 
 tennis. Man could not have kinder hosts." The follow- 
 ing letters were written from his old lodgings in Huntley 
 Street to his hostess at Forest Edge : 
 
 To Miss Barrs. 
 1 Huntley Street, Gower Street, W.C., 
 
 Saturday, August 6, 1881. 
 
 DEAR MISS BARRS, Thanks for h'chief, and more for note. 
 You will think me, not unjustly, a bore for writing so soon ; but 
 I happen to be at home to-day with nothing particular to do, and 
 rather unwell inside. I had to run about a good deal yesterday, 
 and find that temperature was registered 84 in shade. My real 
 Museum work recommences Monday. 
 
 I have been clearing off some arrears of correspondence. Finding 
 when I called at Beeves' (my publisher) that George Meredith had 
 been there lately and enquiring after me, I took occasion to write 
 him a note on Thursday about a little matter I had before lazily 
 thought of writing about. My conscience, which, as you have 
 doubtless perceived already, is always my only law, forbade me 
 conclude without putting in some lines to the following effect 
 (words pretty exact) : 
 
 " I found a man in Leicester who has all the works of yourself 
 and Browning, and appreciates them. Need I say that I gave him 
 the grasp of friendship ? I preached you to the dearest little Lady 
 [What impudence ! you cry] , and fairly fascinated her with Lucy 
 and Mrs. Berry. Richard she heartily admired in the headlong 
 imperiousness of his love, and you will be as grieved as I was to 
 learn that she could not be brought to even the faintest moral 
 reprobation of his unscrupulous fibbing (as in the cases of going to 
 hear the popular preacher, and introducing to his uncle ' Miss 
 Lcetitia Thomson ') ; while she exulted heartlessly in the tremen- 
 dous threshing of poor faithful Benson. Such are women, even 
 the best ! But neither she nor any other woman, and scarcely any 
 man, will ever forgive you the cruel cruel ending." 
 
 Such is the judgment your own wicked judgment has brought 
 upon you. As I have no reply this morning, Mr. M. may be off 
 holiday -making (people have the queerest infatuation for holidays 
 in these times : they ought to know that work is much pleasanter
 
 124 BETWEEN LEICESTER AND LONDON 
 
 as well as nobler than idleness see my moral essays on " Indo- 
 lence " and "A National Reformer in the Dog-days ") ; but even if 
 he is now in vacation (i.e., emptiness !) your punishment can be 
 delayed only for a month or two. Therefore tremble in the mean- 
 time. Should he demand your name in order to publicly denounce 
 you, of course I shall feel conscientiously bound to give it. And if 
 he has not yet gone off, or having been off has returned, I may have 
 to spend a day with him ; and then what a terrible tale I shall 
 have to tell by word of mouth ! 
 
 7 Huntley Street, Gower Street, London, W.C., 
 
 Thursday, September 15, 1881. 
 
 DEAR MISS BARES, Pray thank brother Jack for letter received 
 
 this morning Jack kindly asks me to come down to pay a last 
 
 tribute of respect to Mr. W.'s memory. I shall certainly do so if 
 I can manage it, when I learn that the end is come. I would 
 promise it absolutely, but I have a lot of work to do between now 
 and Christmas ; too much already, I fear, and I may have some 
 more. Last night I received proof of Part I. of certain notes on the 
 structure of Shelley's " Prometheus Unbound," which I had sent to 
 the AtheiHzum by way of an introduction, in the hope of getting 
 some occasional employment on that paper. Ask Jack whether he 
 read the "Reminiscences of George Borrow," by Theodore Watts, in 
 the last two numbers of the Afhenawn. I found the second part 
 very interesting, Borrow being an old special favourite of mine. 
 
 Tuesday I spent with George Meredith at Box Hill ; a quiet, 
 pleasant day, cloudy but rainless, with some sunshine and blue sky 
 in the afternoon. We had a fine stroll over Mickleham Downs, 
 really parklike, with noble yew-trees and many a mountain-ash 
 (rowan, we Scots call it) glowing with thick clusters of red berries 
 
 but you have some at Forest Edge We had some good long chat, 
 
 in which you may be sure that Forest Edge and its inmates, as well 
 as certain Leicester people, figured. M. read me an unpublished 
 poem of considerable length, which, so far as I can judge by a 
 single hearing (not like reading at one's leisure), is very fine, and 
 ought to be understood even by that laziest and haziest of animals, 
 the general reader. He says that having suspended work on a novel, 
 poems began to spring up in his mind, and I am glad that he thinks 
 of bringing out a new collection. 
 
 Jack tells me that he has all "Omar Khayyam," four hundred 
 lines, by heart. Tell him from me that he is a prodigy, and
 
 BETWEEN LEICESTER AND LONDON 125 
 
 profoundly impresses me with a sense of my own ineptitude. For, 
 long as I have read " Omar," I don't think I could repeat half-a- 
 dozen verses without book. 
 
 Friendly regards to all friends there from all friends here. With 
 best wishes, yours truly, JAMES THOMSON. 
 
 Thomson's prose volume, entitled Essays and Phan- 
 tasies, which had been issued in April of this year, had 
 not achieved the same measure of success as the pre- 
 ceding volumes of poetry, though here and there a critic 
 recognized that his prose style bore the marks of genius 
 no less surely than his verse. On the whole he had 
 certainly no reason to be dissatisfied with the reception 
 accorded to the three volumes he had published ; but the 
 necessity of obtaining some regular literary occupation 
 was now becoming more urgent, as Cope's Tobacco Plant, 
 which for over five years had been his pecuniary main- 
 stay, was discontinued early in 1881, a loss which he felt 
 very severely. Through Mr. Meredith's introduction he 
 had an interview in October with Mr. John Morley, who 
 was then editor of the Pall Mall Gazette and the 
 Fortnightly Review, and an excellent chance of jour- 
 nalistic and literary work seemed to be thus opened to 
 him. But, unfortunately, by this time, when he was at 
 length offered the sort of writing which he had for years 
 been vainly desiring, he had passed the point when he 
 could be depended on for the punctual and regular 
 execution of any given piece of work, so that his hopes 
 of forming a connection with a daily journal were of 
 necessity doomed to disappointment. He was therefore 
 compelled to turn his attention to magazine articles and 
 other branches of literature, in which, being able to 
 choose his own time and manner of writing, he met with 
 more success. He was a good deal occupied this summer 
 with two essays on Robert Browning's 'poems, one of
 
 126 BETWEEN LEICESTER AND LONDON 
 
 which was printed by the Browning Society, the other 
 in the Gentleman's Magazine. "As my longish Heine 
 work is just now interrupted by a bit of shortish 
 Browning" so he wrote in August to Forest Edge 
 " I have half a mind to punish you by the infliction of 
 my presence for a fortnight. But then you are too 
 careless, I fear, to have sets of Cardinal Newman, 
 Carlyle, and Buskin, which may be needed for com- 
 parison or contrast." 
 
 To Mrs. John Thomson. 
 
 1 Huntley Street, Gower Street, 
 
 October 18, 1881. 
 
 I enjoyed myself immensely at Forest Edge, near Leicester, and 
 came back several years younger than I went down. They kept me 
 there and in the neighbourhood seven weeks, and then I could only 
 get away with extreme difficulty, and on a pledge to go again at 
 Christmas ; and they began urging me to come down before I was 
 back three weeks, saying that I could get all the books I wanted 
 down there, which was nearly true, and could work there as well as 
 here, which was very far from true, the society and recreations 
 being much too tempting. I have very rarely met with such liberal 
 kindness even from old friends, and I have had three or four as good 
 as a man could wish ; and the Leicester people knew very little of 
 me personally, welcoming me for the sake of my beautiful and pious 
 books and articles. 
 
 These books have brought me a little money directly, which I 
 scarcely hoped for, as two of them are in verse and all three of them 
 are full of the most unpopular heresies. What I did hope for they 
 now seem about bringing me ; that is, enough reputation to secure 
 work which was denied to the mere anonymous heterodox journalist. 
 We shall soon see. 
 
 I enclose prospectus new Browning Society. They, or rather 
 Furnivall, not only made me a member, but put me on the Com- 
 mittee, and set me down for a paper on January 27, without my 
 consent or knowledge. True, they sent me a proof of the first issue, 
 in which I might have cancelled my name for Committee and paper, 
 but I was then at Leicester, and my people, taking it for an ordinary 
 circular, did not think it worth sending on. So my protest when
 
 BETWEEN LEICESTER AND LONDON 127 
 
 I returned was too late, and behold me engaged. Miss Hickey, 
 the Hon. Sec., told me on Sunday that they have now fifty-nine 
 members ; all doubtless highly respectable people barring myself, 
 so I shall be in good company. 
 
 Behold full measure, pressed down, heaped up, and over-flowing, 
 in magnanimous contrast to your stingy scribbles. 
 
 SAINT JAMES. 
 
 There is no entry in Thomson's diary later than 
 October, 1881, the few remaining months of his life 
 being spent chiefly at Leicester. After his return to 
 London in July he had received more than one press- 
 ing invitation to pay a second visit to Forest Edge ; but 
 for some time he was detained by stress of work. In 
 November, however, we find him again among his 
 hospitable Leicester friends. 
 
 To Mr. Percy Holyoake. 
 
 Forest Edge, Leicester, 
 Wednesday, November 16, 1881. 
 
 DEAR PERCY, Here begin the Chronicles of the Edge of the 
 Forest. 
 
 First and foremost, the Princess not only graciously deigned to 
 accept your chivalric portrait, which I tendered with all due 
 obeisance on the morning of the holy Sabbath, but was pleased to 
 declare that she would have considered your conduct quite unworthy 
 of the noble names you inherit, in the vernacular decidedly mean, 
 had you not sent it. Her Highness went so far as to announce that 
 in so sad a case of dereliction of duty she would no longer have 
 regarded you as De Rohan of the Silver Tankard, but as Holyhock 
 of the Pewter Pot a doom too dreadful to contemplate. So you 
 see that, as usual, I was right. 
 
 As for my poor self, although I had another sleepless night on 
 Saturday, I was already rather better on Sunday, and could eat 
 
 and drink, and even smoke a little. The wicked T and B 
 
 played lawn-tennis all the day, which was wonderfully bright and 
 warm. We others walked a little and palavered immeasurably. 
 We surveyed the grievous ravage wrought in the Royal demesnes 
 by the late gale. Two trees blown down, a full pear-tree stripped, 
 &c., &c.
 
 128 BETWEEN LEICESTER AND LONDON 
 
 On Monday, after a good night, consequent on the pious and 
 jolly manner in which we had spent the Lord's Day, I was first 
 down. This annoyed Her Royal Highness, who on the following 
 morning directed Lizzie not to ring the bell ; so I slept on in sweet 
 security, and H.E.H. stole the victory she could not fairly win. 
 But as she was not down until twenty minutes after the hour I 
 should have been ready at had the bell been rung, the real triumph 
 clearly rested with me. This morning I was first down again, 
 despite the fact that Jack, that unholy Pilgrim of the Night, kept 
 me up till half-past one in company with the naughty French 
 Nana. 
 
 The poor Princess is suffering sorely, but not continuously, from 
 a certain side tooth. When it is very bad she resolves to have it 
 out ; when it relents, she postpones the dreaded operation. The 
 present decision is to undergo it shortly after to-morrow, whose 
 evening brings a festive dance. How long this decision will ho 
 who can tell ? for it hath been written or sung by some veracious 
 royalty or other, souvent femine varie. 
 
 Our farm now comprises two cows and a calf and four little pigs. 
 The mother sow lieth dead, to our great sorrow. Perhaps my 
 arrival was too much for her, for she took cold and inflammation 
 the very day thereof. 
 
 Here endeth the first chapter of these Chronicles of small beer. 
 Yours truly, JAMES THOMSON. 
 
 To Mr. Bertram Dobell. 
 
 Forest Edge, Kirby Muxloe, nr. Leicester, 
 
 Thursday, December 1, 1881. 
 
 DEAE SIE, You see I am down here, drawn by urgent invita- 
 tions, and glad of the change, as I was not feeling well in London, 
 although of course the country here is very different in November 
 and December from what it was in June and July. The home 
 comfort itself. 
 
 You asked about the Pall Mall Gazette. Morley don't find an 
 opening for me there at present, but he has accepted a piece of two 
 hundred lines blank verse, "A Voice from the Nile," which I did 
 down here and sent for the Fortnightly. He says that he likes it 
 very much ; can't promise positively for January number, but will 
 try. The " Deliverer " duly appeared in November. I am doing 
 now another which I shall offer him, and have planned yet another.
 
 BETWEEN LEICESTER AND LONDON 129 
 
 As the Gentleman's proof of the " Ring and the Book " came and 
 was returned yesterday fortnight, I presume it is in this month. 
 My host found that it had not arrived last evening. 
 
 Please remember me to Mr. Reeves, and tell him my little 
 literary news, and say that I will write him soon. 
 
 As the Athenceum printed the fifth and last instalment of my 
 Shelley notes on the 19th November, I am about writing to offer 
 articles on any books in my scope. 
 
 My photos reached me (i.e., six of them) on Wednesday, Novem- 
 ber 23rd, which made me forty-seven, a month after the sitting. 
 Percy Holyoake has one for you, and one for Mr. Reeves. They 
 are very poorly done though they took so long, but friends say a 
 good likeness. Yours truly, JAMES THOMSON. 
 
 Early in 1882 Thomson was back at his lodgings 
 in Huntley Street ; but after three weeks of ill-health 
 and wretchedness he was only too glad to return once 
 more to Forest Edge. The following letter, a pencilled 
 note, was evidently written after a period of great 
 depression : 
 
 To Mr. Percy Holyoake. 
 
 7 Huntley Street, 
 Monday, February 6, 1882. 
 
 DEAR PERCY, Will you let me know whether the arrangement 
 for Leicester holds ? A really pious Sabbath has restored to me my 
 mind, such as it is. Of course I am still weak and nervous in body, 
 and if I am to go will be grateful for help in packing, &c. I write 
 because my clothes are so fluffy that I don't think I shall have the 
 courage to enter No. 12. 
 I will ask all the news when I see you. Yours truly, 
 
 B.V. 
 
 If anything could have permanently restored Thomson's 
 failing health and energies at this time, the kindness of 
 his friends in Leicester and London would have done so. 
 Mr. Barrs's house, like Mr. Wright's, was scarcely less 
 than a home to him, and, in addition to the encourage- 
 ment of pleasant society, every facility was given him at 
 Forest Edge for the pursuance of his work. His prospects
 
 were in some ways more reassuring than they had been 
 for some years past, for he had lately obtained an entry 
 to the Fortnightly Review, the Cornhill, and other 
 magazines, and was also contributing occasionally to the 
 Athenaum and the Weekly Dispatch. He still entertained 
 the idea of writing a book on Heine, and was also medi- 
 tating the possibility of issuing a third volume of poems. 
 But his great need was that of some definite occupation 
 on which he might reckon as a reliable source of income ; 
 and this, owing to his recent failure in journalism, he 
 was unable to command. The following extracts from 
 letters to Mr. Dobell give an insight into his literary 
 plans and difficulties in this the last year of his life : 
 
 Forest Edge, near Leicester, December 31, 1881. I wrote to 
 Mr. Beeves a few days before Christmas, telling him about all my 
 doings, and I daresay he has told you. Since then the time has 
 been chiefly spent in distractions with guests here, so that I have 
 even yet about half a day's work on the fair copy Browning Notes 
 to do. I still hold to the Heine booklet, and hope to set hard to 
 work on it when I come back. 
 
 March 10, 1882. Your March catalogue coming to hand this 
 morning reminds me that I ought to let you and Mr. Beeves know 
 how I am getting on, though I have very little to tell. You are no 
 doubt aware that one small sketch, "The Sleeper," has appeared in 
 this month's Cornhill. Leslie Stephen writes in very friendly 
 fashion, which encourages me to send him with fair hope any other 
 piece not over long, and of the proper tone, that may come into my 
 head. 
 
 Kegan Paul wrote me a fortnight ago for permission to include 
 one or two short bits in a volume of extracts from living English 
 poets, "in which only those really worth the name, and whose 
 writings appear to be of permanent value, will be incorporated." 
 The choice of extracts naturally to be with his editors. Of course 
 I gave willing permission, and I assumed that yourself and Reeves 
 would agree. 
 
 The Bev. has also written, wanting to include extracts in a 
 
 collection of Social and Domestic Poems ! Again assuming your
 
 BETWEEN LEICESTER AND LONDON 131 
 
 concurrence, I have given permission. He will name books, author, 
 and publishers. There are some queer clergymen in these latter 
 days. 
 
 Altogether, before and since Christmas, I have done about 
 sixteen hundred lines down here, fit, I think, for inclusion in 
 a volume, when opportunity offers. Just now I want to do, if I 
 can, two or three pieces of about one hundred lines or fewer, as bait 
 for Cornhill or other magazines. So much for my news. 
 
 March 28, 1882. I have been taking poetical stock with result set 
 forth on other leaf. There seems to be enough in hand, half old and 
 half new, for another volume. I understood from Mr. Reeves that, 
 with Forman's Keats, and half-a-dozen other works, his hands are 
 quite full for this season. Being, as usual, since the Tobacco Plant 
 was cut down and uprooted, in sad want of cash, I should be very glad 
 to sell the whole copyright right out, but suppose it would be 
 impossible to get anything for it. You may have noticed a little 
 skit of mine, " Law v. Gospel," in this week's Dispatch. Yesterday 
 I sent another on the Prince Leopold grant. If the Dispatch will 
 take such things, it will help a little.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 LAST DAYS 
 
 WE have seen that after the writing of The City of 
 Dreadful Night, and its publication in 1874, there was 
 a break' of seven years in Thomson's poetical activity. 
 Yet it was evident that his imaginative powers were only 
 slumbering during this silent period, for we have a glimpse 
 of the true poet in a beautiful lyric, " The Nightingale 
 and the Eose," written in 1877. The music lying 
 dormant within him was still destined to be called forth, 
 as the bird's song is called forth by the fragrance of the 
 
 flower. 
 
 " The Nightingale was not yet heard, 
 
 For the Rose was not yet blown." 
 His heart was quiet as a bird 
 
 Asleep in the night alone, 
 And never were its pulses stirred 
 
 To breathe or joy or moan : 
 The Nightingale was not yet heard, 
 
 For the Rose was not yet blown. 
 
 Towards the close of 1881 Thomson had resumed the 
 writing of poetry. The cause of this revival of the 
 poetic instinct must be sought in the success achieved by 
 his two volumes of verse ; still more, perhaps, in the 
 cheering influence of the society of his Leicester friends. 
 To his friendship with host and hostess of Forest Edge 
 is to be ascribed the fact that his later poems were 
 mostly written in a tone of unwonted hopefulness, as if 
 there had at last dawned on this weary dweller in the 
 city of darkness a new and unexpected light. " When, 
 
 132
 
 LAST DAYS 133 
 
 at the end of February," writes Mr. William Maccall, 1 
 " I received my last letter from him, he appeared to 
 have escaped for a time from the dungeons and despairs 
 of the Inquisition, and to be gladdened for an instant by 
 the sun. He was living at some hospitable abode in 
 Leicestershire, and seemed to be almost hopeful and 
 happy, and half ashamed to be, for the first time since 
 boyhood, happy and hopeful." 
 
 In several poems we find him actually reverting to the 
 ideal and rapturous melodies of his youthful period, 
 striking much the same note as that which he had struck 
 more than twenty years before in the poems contributed 
 to Tait. " He Heard her Sing," especially, with its sus- 
 tained intensity of passion, its splendour of poetic wealth 
 and subtle recurrence of certain words and cadences 
 which form the keynote of the melody, must be placed in 
 the first rank of Thomson's shorter poems. To those 
 who love the man and his work, there is something 
 very pathetic in this sudden and unlooked-for outburst of 
 beautiful song, from one who was already nearing the 
 end of a life in which he had found little but sorrow and 
 disappointment. The stanzas, " At Belvoir," written in 
 January, 1882, are specially remarkable as indicating 
 traces of a reviving happiness in Thomson's mind only 
 a few months before the date of his death. 
 
 A maiden like a budding rose, 
 
 Unconscious of the golden 
 And fragrant bliss of love that glows 
 
 Deep in her heart infolden ; 
 A Poet old in years and thought, 
 
 Yet not too old for pleasance, 
 Made young again and fancy-fraught 
 
 By such a sweet friend's presence. 
 
 t 
 
 1 " A Nirvana Trilogy ; Three Essays on the Career of James Thomson."
 
 134 LAST DAYS 
 
 Yes, now and then a quiet word 
 
 Of seriousness dissembling 
 In smiles would touch some hidden chord 
 
 And set it all a-trembling : 
 I trembled too, and felt it strange ; 
 
 Could I be in possession 
 Of music richer in its range 
 
 Than yet had found expression ? 
 
 Yet, looking at these lines with the knowledge of after 
 events, we can see that the warmth he then felt within 
 him was nothing more than that " Indian summer " 
 which may at times be observed in the life of man as 
 in the life of Nature that " last brief resurrection of 
 summer," as a great writer has called it, " a resurrection 
 that has no root in the past, nor steady hold upon the 
 future, like the lambent and fitful gleams from an expiring 
 lamp." That Thomson himself in his heart felt his 
 new hopes to be as illusory as those which had preceded 
 might be gathered from those terribly pessimistic poems, 
 " Insomnia " and " The Poet to his Muse," which were 
 composed about this same time. He also left a more 
 explicit record of his own feelings in the stanzas " To 
 H. A. B." dated on his forty-seventh birthday. 
 
 When one is forty years and seven, 
 
 Is seven and forty sad years old, 
 He looks not onward for his heaven, 
 
 The future is too blank and cold, 
 
 Its pale flowers smell of graveyard mould ; 
 He looks back to his lifef ul past ; 
 
 If age is silver, youth is gold ; 
 Could youth but last, could youth but last ! 
 
 Too late was, in fact, the fatal word which was to 
 be written against the brighter prospects and happier 
 circumstances that s.eemed to be arising on Thomson's 
 path. And the end which he himself felt to be at
 
 LAST DAYS 135 
 
 hand was foreboded by his more intimate friends and 
 acquaintances, who could read in his changed appearance 
 the story of broken health and failing vitality. 
 
 "He looked," writes one who knew him at this time, 1 "like a 
 veteran scarred in the fierce affrays of life's war and worn by the 
 strain of its forced marches. His close-knit form, short and sturdy, 
 might have endured any amount of mere roughings, if its owner 
 had thought it worth a care. It is rare to find so squarely massive 
 a head, combining mathematical power with high imagination in so 
 marked a degree. Hence the grim logic of fact that gives such weird 
 force to all his poetry. You could see the shadow that ' tremendous 
 fate ' had cast over that naturally buoyant nature. It had eaten 
 great furrows into his broad brow, and cut tear-tracks downwards 
 from his wistful eyes, so plaintive and brimful of unspeakable 
 
 tenderness as they opened wide, when in serious talk I am far 
 
 from saying that Thomson did not find any happiness in life. His 
 wit and broad fun vied with his varied information and gift of 
 happy talk in making him a prince of good fellows ; and he least 
 of all would be suspected of harbouring the worm in his jovial 
 heart. But these were the glints of sunshine that made life 
 tolerable ; the ever-smouldering fire of unassuageable grief and 
 inextinguishable despair burned the core out of that great heart 
 when the curtain of night hid the play-acting scenes of the day." 
 
 " Insomnia " is in some respects the very darkest and 
 most terrible of all Thomson's writings. Its expression 
 of personal suffering is more poignant and direct than 
 anything in The City of Dreadful Night ; nor has it 
 any of the comfort, if comfort it can be called, which 
 is there derived from a calm and passionless system 
 of philosophical resignation. I have already remarked 
 how important a part sleeplessness played in Thomson's 
 sufferings, and how much of his despondency and morbid 
 prostration may be traced to that origin ; in this poem 
 the curse of insomnia is depicted with a ghastly and 
 startling vividness which finds no counterpart in English 
 
 1 G. G. Flaws in Secular Review, July 1. 1883.
 
 136 LAST DAYS 
 
 literature, even in the work of the opium-eating brother- 
 hood of De Quincey, Coleridge, and Poe. 
 
 I paced the silent and deserted streets 
 
 In cold dark shade and chillier moonlight grey ; 
 Pondering a dolorous series of defeats 
 
 And black disasters from life's opening day, 
 Invested with the shadow of a doom 
 That filled the Spring and Summer with a gloom 
 
 Most wintry bleak and drear ; 
 Gloom from within as from a sulphurous censer 
 Making the glooms without for ever denser, 
 To blight the buds and flowers and fruitage of my year. 
 
 How far this tragedy of a lifetime, which was now 
 drawing to an end, was due to innate constitutional 
 tendencies, and how far to the stress of external circum- 
 stances which might conceivably have been averted, is 
 a question which scarcely admits of any confident 
 conclusion, and which each reader of Thomson's life 
 and writings will settle for himself. The following is 
 the opinion of Mr. George Meredith, who was probably 
 better qualified than any other man to understand the 
 subtle complexities of such a character as Thomson's : 
 
 " I had full admiration of his nature and his powers. Few men 
 have been endowed with so brave a heart. He did me the honour 
 to visit me twice, when I was unaware of the extent of the tragic 
 affliction overclouding him, but could see that he was badly 
 weighted. I have now the conviction that the taking away of 
 poverty from his burdens would in all likelihood have saved him 
 to enrich our literature ; for his verse was a pure well. He had, 
 almost past example in my experience, the thrill of the worship 
 of moral valiancy as well as of sensuous beauty ; his narrative poem 
 ' Weddah and Om-el-Bonain ' stands to witness what great things 
 he would have done in the exhibition of nobility at war with evil 
 conditions. 
 
 "He probably had, as most of us have had, his heavy suffering 
 on the soft side. But he inherited the tendency to the thing which 
 slew him. And it is my opinion that, in consideration of his high
 
 LAST DAYS 137 
 
 and singularly elective mind, he might have worked clear of it to 
 throw it off, if circumstances had been smoother and brighter about 
 him. For thus he would have been saved from drudgery, have had 
 time to labour at conceptions that needed time for the maturing 
 and definition even before the evolvement of them. He would 
 have had what was also much needed in his case, a more spacious 
 home, a more companioned life, more than merely visiting friends, 
 good and true to him though they were. A domestic centre of 
 any gracious kind would have sheathed his over-active, sensational 
 imaginativeness, to give it rest, and enable him to feel the delight 
 of drawing it forth bright and keen of edge." 
 
 The story of the close of Thomson's life is that of 
 a man who had lost all desire to live. " Let it not be 
 misread as a harshness," says one who did his best 
 to help him at this time, "or as a lightly tripped-off 
 phrase, when I give out that, in all verity to me, his 
 later life was a slow suicide, perceived and acquiesced 
 in deliberately by himself." ' This suicidal recklessness 
 was due to the fact that in the spring of 1882 his 
 visit to Leicester had ended in a fit of intemperance, 
 and he had returned to London in bitter remorse and 
 despondency. It was the death-blow to his last chance 
 of happiness. The following pathetic letter tells its own 
 
 tale : 
 
 To Mr. J. W. Barrs. 
 
 1 Huntley Street, Gower Street, W.C., 
 
 Friday, April 22, 1882. 
 
 DEAR MR. BARRS, I scarcely know how to write to you after 
 my atrocious and disgusting return for the wonderful hospitality 
 and kindness of yourself and Miss Barrs. I can only say that 
 I was mad. In one fit of frenzy I have not only lost more than 
 I yet know, and half murdered myself (were it not for my debts I 
 sincerely wish it had been wholly), but justly alienated my best 
 and firmest friends, old and new, both in London and Leicester. 
 
 As, unfortunately for myself at least, I am left alive, it only 
 remains for me to endeavour my utmost by hard and persistent 
 
 1 G. Gordon Flaws, Secular Review, July 1, 1883.
 
 138 LAST DAYS 
 
 struggling to repay my mere money debts, for my debts of kindness 
 can never be repaid. If I fail, as very probably I shall fail, the 
 failure will but irresistibly prove what I have long thoroughly 
 believed, that for myself and others I am much better dead than 
 alive. 
 
 As apologies would be worse than useless, I will conclude by 
 simply expressing my deep gratitude for your astonishing unde- 
 served goodness to myself, and my best wishes for the welfare of 
 you and yours. In all sincerity, JAMES THOMSON. 
 
 On his return to London there ensued two terrible 
 months of desperation and homelessness. The patience 
 of his long-suffering landlord was now exhausted, and 
 the door of his lodging was closed to him though with 
 a strange and dogged persistence he several times forced 
 an entry into the house, to be again thrust forth into 
 the streets. A plan was on foot among his friends to 
 place him in a " retreat " at Liverpool ; but they had of 
 course no legal control over his movements, and were 
 often for days together ignorant of his whereabouts ; 
 nor does it seem probable that at this period he could by 
 any means have been reclaimed. The darkness of his 
 record is broken only by a few lurid incidents, such as 
 that described by Mr. W. Stewart Boss in the Agnostic 
 Beview. 1 
 
 " I shall never forget the last time I met Thomson. I met him 
 at the office of this journal accompanied by one of his last remain- 
 ing friends (G. Gordon Flaws, ' Gegee'f '). This was in May, 1882, 
 after his return from Leicester. The hand of death was on the 
 poet's shoulder, not solemn and stately death only the mournful 
 abjectness of dissolution, met by a calm and suffering rather than 
 
 a fierce and defiant despair The glance of a moment sufficed to 
 
 show Gegee'f and myself that our companion was in the sodden 
 
 state which succeeds a prolonged debauch Gegee'f advanced a 
 
 small loan, and in spite of his remonstrances the bar at the Holborn 
 Restaurant was the only mart in the world where Thomson would 
 
 i April 6, 1889.
 
 LAST DAYS 139 
 
 consent to have the little sum disbursed He stands before me 
 
 now as distinctly as he did nearly seven years ago among the well- 
 dressed people at that glittering bar he, the abject, the shabby, 
 
 the waif His figure, which had always been diminutive, had 
 
 lost all dignity of carriage, all gracefulness of gait. When the 
 miserable hat was raised from the ruined but still noble head, it 
 revealed the thinning away of the ragged and unkempt hair, deeply 
 threaded with grey. His raiment had the worn, soiled, and deeply- 
 creased aspect that suggested that, for some time back, it had been 
 worn day and night, and had been brought in contact with brick 
 walls and straw pallets, and even the mud of the street. The day, 
 for May, was a raw and cold one, with a drizzle which ever and 
 anon merged into a downpour of rain ; and the feet of the author 
 of the ' City of Dreadful Night ' were protected from the slushy 
 streets only by a pair of thin old carpet-slippers, so worn and 
 defective that, in one part, they displayed his bare skin." 
 
 To dwell further on the sordid details of this crown- 
 ing tragedy would be worse than useless. It suffices 
 to say that, owing to his landlord's just complaints of 
 the annoyance caused him, Thomson was on several 
 occasions in the hands of the police, and once (May 
 12) was sentenced, under an assumed name, to four- 
 teen days' imprisonment, which he spent in hospital. 
 It was the opinion of the magistrate, who, when informed 
 of the circumstances of the case, showed great con- 
 sideration, that the effect of this sharp check might be 
 beneficial, and such, too, was the hope of Thomson's 
 friends ; but this hope, like the others, was doomed to 
 prove illusory. 
 
 It was at Philip Marston's rooms in the Euston Eoad, 
 at the very time when Percy Holyoake was searching 
 for Thomson in vain, that the final catastrophe took 
 place. A vivid and moving account of the scene has 
 been written by Mr. Herbert Clarke 1 : 
 
 1 I have to thank Mr. Clarke for kindly allowing me to make use of this 
 record, now printed for the first time (1898)
 
 140 LAST DAYS 
 
 "On the 1st of June, 1882, 1 went by appointment to meet James 
 Thomson, at Philip Marston's rooms in Euston Road. When I 
 arrived, between seven and eight o'clock in the evening, I found 
 three persons there Marston himself, Mr. William Sharp, and 
 a third whom I did not know ; a man with a careworn, tragic face, 
 a remarkably furrowed forehead, and a leaden complexion; a 
 ghastly figure. He was half-lying, half-sitting on the sofa, and it 
 was clear that something was very wrong ; in fact, I had not been 
 long in the room before he sank back on the sofa, with some 
 incoherent muttering, and relapsed into total unconsciousness. 
 
 "It was explained to me that Thomson, for this was the author 
 of the 'City of Dreadful Night,' had arrived at Marston's rooms 
 early in the day, and had spent the morning with his host. They 
 had read poetry, they had talked, doubtless there had been whiskey. 
 Towards afternoon Thomson had asked if he might lie on Marston's 
 bed, and there he had spent the rest of the day until shortly before 
 my arrival, when he had made his appearance in the lamentable 
 state I have described. I was taken into the bedroom, and found 
 some marks of blood on the sheets. 
 
 " What was to be done ? Thomson could not be left on Marston's 
 sofa ; so much was clear. Marston was blind and helpless ; he 
 occupied the second floor of the house ; his father had the first 
 floor. But Dr. Marston was quite useless in an emergency. His 
 ceremonious, old-world courtesy never forsook him, but his faculties 
 did ; he was every whit as helpless as his son. Somebody asked 
 where Thomson lived, and somebody else, Philip Marston I think, 
 was able to produce an address that had once been his. Here was 
 a gleam of hope. We left Mr. Sharp to watch the sick man, and 
 Philip and I went off to find his lodgings. The usual things 
 happened ; we were misdirected by others ; we lost the way for 
 ourselves ; we got the right number in the wrong street, and the 
 wrong number in the right one, but we found the place at last. 
 
 " A shaggy-browed man in his shirt-sleeves answered my ring, 
 holding a candle above his head and scowling at us from the dark 
 doorway. 
 
 "'Live here? Mr. Thomson? No, he don't,' he snapped 
 rudely. 
 
 " ' We were told he used to lodge here,' I ventured to suggest. 
 
 '"He tried to burn this here house down one night,' retorted 
 the man, more rudely than before, ' and he don't come here again 
 if I know it.'
 
 LAST DAYS 141 
 
 M ' He's been taken very ill,' I urged. ' He can do no harm now. 
 Won't you take him in if we bring him ? ' 
 
 " The man emphasised his refusal with an oath, and slammed 
 the door. 
 
 "'That's cheerful,' remarked Marston, after a short pause of 
 astonishment. ' Now what are we to do ? ' A question to which 
 I had no answer ready. 
 
 " However, we could not go back exactly as we had started ; so 
 we called upon a doctor, and took him with us to Marston's rooms, 
 where nothing had happened in our absence. 
 
 " Thomson could not be roused, and the doctor, after examining 
 the pupils of his eyes and feeling his pulse, recommended his 
 immediate removal to a hospital. Mr. Sharp and I carried him 
 downstairs, put him in a cab, and took him to University College. 
 
 " The house-surgeon was sewing up a yawning gash in a man's 
 head, and could not attend to him ; so he lay huddled upon a 
 bench until the house-physician could be fetched. We had to wait 
 some time. The wounded man chattered cheerfully ; his com- 
 panion, who had inflicted the gash, endeavoured to persuade him 
 that it was done out of pure friendship ; the inevitable woman 
 who was at the bottom of the quarrel agreed with both ; the 
 surgeon went on with his work, paying little attention to either. 
 
 "At last the house-physician arrived, and Thomson was taken 
 away to the wards, without recovering consciousness, and I never 
 saw him again. 
 
 " Next day Philip Marston wrote to me as follows : ' A thousand 
 thanks for all you did last night. Yesterday has rather shaken me. 
 Sharp and I called upon Thomson to-day, and found him collected, 
 but very ill. He asked for a shilling in case he should want to 
 write any letters. What an awful revelation of things, is it not ? 
 I don't think he could have had sixpence in the world. We tried, 
 but all in vain, to obtain any information about his recent 
 residences." 
 
 " Months afterwards I was told by one of Thomson's best friends 
 that he had spent hours in searching for the poet on that very 
 evening of the 1st of June, 1882." 
 
 From the moment of Thomson's admission to the 
 hospital the physicians gave no hope of saving his life ; 
 but the next day, when Mr. Sharp, accompanied by 
 Philip Marston, visited him in the ward, he was not
 
 142 LAST DAYS 
 
 only conscious, but expectant of a speedy recovery. At 
 the moment when his friends were going away he sat up 
 in his bed, with a look of great animation on his features, 
 and expressed his fixed resolve to leave the hospital on 
 the following Monday, even if he left it in his coffin a 
 conviction which was strangely verified by the result. 
 He died on the evening of Saturday, June 3, 1882, from 
 utter exhaustion consequent on internal bleeding, and his 
 body was removed from the hospital on the day he had 
 mentioned. The similarity of scene and circumstance 
 between Thomson's death and that of Edgar Poe has 
 not escaped observation. 
 
 He was buried on June 8 at Highgate Cemetery, in 
 the very grave where, eight years before, his friend 
 Austin Holyoake had been laid to rest ; and with him 
 were buried a small purse and locket containing a tress 
 of yellow hair his one memento of his lost love. 
 Among those present at the funeral were his brother 
 Mr. John Thomson, Mr. T. E. Wright, Mr. Percy 
 Holyoake, Mr. Bertram Dobell, Mr. J. W. Barrs and 
 Miss Barrs, Philip Marston, and other friends. An 
 adaptation of the Secularist Burial Service written by 
 Austin Holyoake was read by Mr. Wright, who after- 
 wards paid a just and faithful tribute to Thomson's 
 memory. 
 
 Thus ended the life of one who, whatever his failings, 
 impressed all those who knew him intimately, and many 
 who only knew him in part, as not only the most 
 brilliantly gifted, but the noblest, gentlest, most lovable 
 man with whom they had ever come in contact. The 
 charm of his manner and conversation is attested by the 
 united record of many independent witnesses there was 
 a grace, a glamour, an attractiveness about his personality 
 which has been possessed in equal measure by few poets
 
 LAST DAYS 143 
 
 of his century. We see in him the high, heroic spirit, 
 filled with intense natural love of all physical and moral 
 beauty, but thwarted and hampered by the development 
 of inherited infirmities and the weight of external mis- 
 fortunes, until he is involved in a Nessus-robe of doubt 
 and failure and despair ; yet all the while by sheer 
 strength and courage of intellect looking his destiny in 
 the face, and maintaining to the last his gentleness 
 towards others and his constancy to himself.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 PESSIMIST AND POET 
 
 THOMSON had been brought up, as we have seen, in the 
 strictest Presbyterian doctrines, and in the opening period 
 of his authorship he had not altogether lost belief in the 
 tenets of Christianity, though his keen and trenchant 
 intellect, sharpened by early misfortunes, had cut him 
 adrift from much to which he had previously clung. 
 Two distinct phases of religious opinion are observable 
 in his writings. We see him, at the outset of his literary 
 career, in that painful state of hesitation and doubt 
 through which so many powerful thinkers have had to 
 pass, with labour and misgiving of mind, before emerging 
 into conviction. In some lines written in 1855, "sug- 
 gested by Matthew Arnold's stanzas from the ' Grande 
 Chartreuse,' " he gives expression to the regret which he 
 still felt at the parting, inevitable though he saw it to be, 
 from the central doctrine of Christianity ; while in the 
 " Doom of a City," written two years later, and even in 
 the gloomy " Mater Tenebrarum " of 1859, there are still 
 signs of a belief, or half-belief, in the immortality of the 
 soul and the benevolence of an overruling deity. Appar- 
 ently connected with this change of religious faith was 
 that period of hesitation between alternate moods of 
 self-reproach and self-confidence of which, and of his 
 final deliverance, he has left a record in " Vane's 
 Story": 
 
 144
 
 PESSIMIST AND POET 145 
 
 I half remember, years ago, 
 
 Fits of despair that maddened woe, 
 
 Frantic remorse, intense self-scorn, 
 
 And yearnings harder to be borne 
 
 Of utter loneliness forlorn ; 
 
 What passionate secret prayers I prayed ! 
 
 What futile firm resolves I made ! 
 
 As well a thorn might pray to be 
 
 Transformed into an olive-tree. 
 
 My penitence was honest guile ; 
 My inmost being all the while 
 Was laughing in a patient mood 
 At this externe solicitude, 
 Was waiting laughing till once more 
 I should be sane as heretofore. 
 
 The second phase, which, roughly speaking, covers the 
 period of his life in London that is, the greater and 
 more important part of his career was one of mature 
 conviction. He became a declared atheist, disbelieving 
 the doctrine of personal immortality, and looking to 
 death as the final comfort and recompense for the misery 
 
 of life. 
 
 This little life is all we must endure, 
 The grave's most holy peace is ever sure, 
 
 We fall asleep and never wake again ; 
 Nothing is of us but the mouldering flesh, 
 Whose elements dissolve and merge afresh 
 
 In earth, air, water, plants, and other men. 
 
 In the introductory note to his " Lady of Sorrow " 
 (1864) he thus alludes to himself under the title of 
 "my friend Vane": "He was at that time wont to 
 declare that he believed in the soul's immortality as 
 a materialist believes in the immortality of matter : he 
 believed that the universal soul subsists for ever, just as 
 a materialist believes that universal matter subsists for 
 ever, without increase or decrease, growth or decay : he 
 
 L
 
 U6 PESSIMIST AND POET 
 
 no more believed in the immortality of any particular 
 soul than the materialist believes in the immortality of 
 any particular body. The one substance is eternal, the 
 various forms are ever varying." 
 
 He had also adopted the doctrine of Necessity : 
 
 I find no hint throughout the Universe 
 Of good or ill, of blessing or of curse ; 
 I find alone Necessity Supreme. 
 
 So he wrote in a notable section of The City of Dreadful 
 Night. He admitted, it is true, that this theory is not, 
 and cannot be, consistently carried out in the ordinary 
 conduct of life, since he saw that necessitarians were no 
 better able than other people to avoid expressions implying 
 moral praise or blame. Yet he was so far true to his 
 belief as to accept the conclusion that it is useless and 
 irrational to confide in any schemes for the improvement 
 of the human race ; and he laughs at the inconsistency 
 of those who, after premising that man is the creature of 
 circumstances, proceed to lay down the corollary that 
 circumstances may in their turn be improved by man. 
 He himself was a disbeliever in all human progress, and, 
 ardent admirer though he was of Shelley's character and 
 writings, he could not subscribe to the cardinal doctrine 
 of his faith the perfectibility of man since it seemed 
 to him that, if there is any advance in intellectual well- 
 being, it is an advance in a circle, with the result that 
 after centuries of earnest labour, and seemingly forward 
 movement, the latest condition of the civilized race is 
 much the same as the earliest. 
 
 Take, for example, the following passage from his 
 satirical " Proposals for the Speedy Extinction of Evil 
 and Misery ": 
 
 This great river of human Time, which comes flowing down thick 
 with filth and blood from the immemorial past, surely cannot be
 
 PESSIMIST AND POET 147 
 
 thoroughly cleansed by any purifying process applied to it here in 
 the present ; for the pollution, if not at its very source (supposing it 
 has a source) or deriving from unimaginable remotenesses of eternity 
 indefinitely beyond its source, at any rate interfused with it count- 
 less ages back, and is perennial as the river itself. This immense 
 poison-tree of Life, with its leaves of illusion, blossoms of delirium, 
 apples of destruction, surely cannot be made wholesome and sweet 
 by anything we may do to the branchlets and twigs on which, poor 
 insects, we find ourselves crawling, or to the leaves and fruit on 
 which we must fain feed ; for the venom is drawn up in the sap by 
 the tap-roots plunged in abysmal depths of the past. This toppling 
 and sinking house wherein we dwell cannot be firmly re-established, 
 save by re-establishing from its lowest foundation upwards. In 
 fine, to tlwroughly reform the present and tlie future we must 
 tlioroughly reform tJie past. 
 
 It is evident that one who held this belief could not 
 but be convinced at heart of the futility of all social 
 reform; and, though by natural sympathy and predilec- 
 tion he was led to range himself among the reformers, he 
 always looked with suspicion and dislike on anything 
 approaching to propagandism. " Were I required," he 
 says, " to draw a practical moral, I should say that all 
 proselytism is useless and absurd. Every human being 
 belongs naturally, organically, unalterably, to a certain 
 species or society ; and by no amount of repeating strange 
 formulas, ejaculations, or syllogisms, can he really aposta- 
 tize from himself so as to become a genuine member of 
 a society to which these are not strange but natural." 
 In a similar vein he defines sin as being the violation of 
 one's own nature, the striving after some forbidden object, 
 not through natural desire, but through mere vanity or 
 fashion. "The iniquity which a man draws and tugs 
 painfully to him, that is the abomination ; not the iniquity 
 which itself draws him." The notion of repentance finds 
 no place in his doctrine, which may be summed up in 
 three lines of " Vane's Story ":
 
 148 PESSIMIST AND POET 
 
 Oh what can Saadi have to do 
 
 With penitence ? And what can you ? 
 
 Are Shiraz roses wreathed with rue ? 
 
 In politics Thomson's sympathies were entirely with 
 the popular cause, his keen pity for the downtrodden 
 victims of social injustice being attested by several 
 indignant passages, especially in the " Doom of a City," 
 written in 1857, and the prose essay " In our Forest of 
 the Past," which is dated twenty years later. In the 
 satirical essay on " Bumbleism " it is pointed out that, 
 though there is more liberty in England than on the 
 Continent in matters affecting political discussion and 
 private life, the reverse is true as regards questions of 
 morals and sociology, for here the power of Bumble's 
 purse rules our so-called free press and free institutions 
 with a hand heavier than that of any Continental despot. 
 Thomson saw clearly that true democracy must be rid of 
 other things besides political inequalities ; since religious 
 intolerance, backed up by plutocratic influence, is 
 absolutely fatal to the existence of a free community. 
 " Imperialism imposes fines, imprisonment, banishment ; 
 Bumble simply imposes death by starvation." 
 
 Equally firm was his sympathy with all struggling 
 nationalities, such as the Italy and Poland of that day. 
 He could also be just (a rarer gift) to those national 
 aspirations or prejudices which ran counter to the policy 
 which he personally approved ; we find him, for instance, 
 speaking favourably of the Basques, who had supported 
 the Carlist cause in 1873. " Such was the loyalty of 
 these people ; far more noble than ours ; for they were 
 giving freely of their substance and their lives, whereas 
 we give chiefly snobbish cringing and insincere adulation, 
 and our rich give the money of the nation, in large part 
 wrung from the poor." It hardly needs to be said that
 
 PESSIMIST AND POET 149 
 
 he heartily despised and detested the bellicose spirit of 
 certain modern statesmanship. He graphically describes 
 the Crimean war as " a mere selfish haggle for the adjust- 
 ment of the balance of power, badly begun and meanly 
 finished," and refers to the more recent exploits of 
 Jingoism as " brutally iniquitous battue- wars against 
 tribes of ill-armed savages." 
 
 Yet, unswerving as was his devotion to the cause of 
 the people, and strong as was his indignation against 
 every form of privilege and self-aggrandizement, he was 
 devoid, in politics as in other matters, of hopefulness 
 and confidence. For, in addition to his general disbelief 
 in the possibility of progress, he had little or no trust 
 in political combinations as a means of attaining an end ; 
 so uncompromising was his individualism that he con- 
 sidered a society to be " a maimed, mutilated, semi- 
 vital compromise," and a meeting to be " always less 
 wise than a man." In the prose piece entitled " The 
 Sayings of Sigvat " he imagines an interlocutor asking 
 him why, if he has no faith in the improvability of man 
 by man, he himself works hard in that very direction. 
 The answer given is that he is simply following the 
 dictates of his own nature ; " one works, and cannot but 
 work, as his being ordains." " Though no word of 
 mine," he says, "will ever convert anyone from being 
 himself into being another me, my word may bring cheer 
 and comfort and self-knowledge to others who are more 
 or less like myself, and who may have thought themselves 
 peculiar and outcast." 
 
 Yes, here and there some weary wanderer 
 In that same city of tremendous night 
 
 Will understand the speech, and feel a stir 
 Of fellowship in all-disastrous fight ; 
 
 " I suffer mute and lonely, yet another
 
 150 PESSIMIST AND POET 
 
 Uplifts his voice to let me know a brother 
 
 Travels the same wild paths though out of sight." 
 
 His views on art and literature were pervaded by the 
 same tinge of melancholy and despondence. His strong 
 natural yearning for action in preference to thought led 
 him to regard art as a mere substitute and makeshift for 
 the fuller and truer life of reality that is so often denied 
 us; art was to him the outcome of want rather than 
 fruition, of disappointment rather than success. Shake- 
 speare is instanced by him as the supreme and typical 
 example of the wise man who will practise art only so 
 long as he is compelled to do so by circumstances, and 
 will return to actual life from the mere study of life on 
 the earliest opportunity ; since no man " of opulent 
 vitality " will deliberately and finally commit himself to 
 the "imprisonment with hard labour of a great work." 
 This pessimistic view of literature is further illustrated 
 by another passage, much in the style and sentiment of 
 Poe, in which Thomson speaks of despair as a valuable 
 auxiliary of art, admitting that it is a sign of " interior 
 death and mouldering," but adding that this " mouldering 
 has manured some of the fairest flowers of Art and 
 Literature." His whole position on this subject is briefly 
 summed up in some introductory remarks prefixed to " A 
 Lady of Sorrow." " The night-side of nature," he says, 
 " has been the theme of literature more often than the 
 day-side, simply because literature, as a rule, is the refuge 
 of the miserable ; I mean genuine, thoughtful, earnest 
 literature ; literature as an end in and for itself, not 
 merely as a weapon to fight with, a ware to sell, a luxury 
 to enjoy. The happy seldom write for writing's sake ; 
 they are fully employed in living." 
 
 Thomson's pessimism is the expression of a dominant 
 mood, amounting to a personal conviction a mood with
 
 PESSIMIST AND POET 151 
 
 which all thinking men must be acquainted at times, but 
 which is felt by some far more often and more strongly 
 than by others. 1 " I wish," he says, in his essay on 
 Sympathy, " to draw into clear light the facts that, in 
 two moods of two several hours not a day asunder, a 
 man's relations to the most serious problems of life may 
 be, and often are, essentially opposite ; that the one may 
 burn with hope and faith, and the other lour black with 
 doubt and despair ; and that there is no possibility of 
 conciliating (philosophically) this antagonism, since the 
 two are mutually unintelligible." In the same essay he 
 asserts that there are cases, though not frequent ones, 
 in which " a dark mood has dominated a whole life." 
 But though the dark mood was the one with which he 
 was specially familiar, and though in The City of Dreadful 
 Night and similar writings he dilated and insisted on 
 this mood to the exclusion of the other, yet he was 
 himself well aware that it was a half-truth and not the 
 whole truth to which he was then giving expression. 
 " Is it true," he asks of his own pessimistic doctrine in 
 the introduction to "A Lady of Sorrow" "is it true in 
 relation to the world and general life ? I think true, 
 but not the whole truth. There is truth of winter and 
 black night, there is truth of summer and dazzling noon- 
 day. On the one side of the great medal are stamped 
 the glory and triumph of life, on the other side are 
 stamped the glory and triumph of death ; but which is 
 the obverse and which the reverse none of us surely 
 knows. It is certain that both are inseparably united 
 in every coin doled out to us from the universal mintage." 
 
 1 " As to pessimism," wrote Herman Melville, with reference to Thom- 
 son's poetry, " although neither pessimist nor optimist myself, nevertheless 
 I relish it in the verse, if for nothing else than as a counterpoise to the 
 exorbitant hopefulness, juvenile and shallow, that makes such a muster in 
 these days."
 
 152 PESSIMIST AND POET 
 
 The sense of " sanctitude and piety," finding action 
 in services of gentleness and tenderness to suffering 
 fellow-beings, is a most important and characteristic 
 feature of Thomson's pessimism, relieving it altogether 
 from any suspicion of misanthropic churlishness, and 
 allying it not only with the most valuable part of Scho- 
 penhauer's philosophy, in which compassion is made 
 the principle of moral action, but also with the tender 
 and benevolent sadness of Buddha. In an essay on 
 Schopenhauer he expresses a strong dislike for the tinge 
 of sullenness and vanity that disturbed the philosophic 
 composure of the great German pessimist, while he 
 refers to Buddhism as " the venerable, the august, the 
 benign, so tender, so mystic, so profound, so solemnly 
 supernal." This frank human sympathy is the one ray 
 of light that relieves the deepening gloom of Thomson's 
 despondency. If we regard Leopardi as the source of 
 his most pessimistic inspiration, so in like manner must 
 we attribute to Shelley's example much of the gentle- 
 ness and humanity that pervade even his most sombre 
 productions ; and we note that while The City of 
 Dreadful Night was appropriately dedicated to Leo- 
 pardi, the "younger brother of Dante," Vane's Story, 
 which is conceived in a somewhat more tender spirit, 
 was dedicated to Shelley, the " poet of poets and purest 
 of men." Next to these two literary sponsors, Heine 
 and Novalis must not be overlooked as having strongly 
 affected his imagination and line of thought ; Novalis 
 perhaps in a minor degree, and more by a sense of 
 spiritual relationship and the similarity between their 
 lives than by direct force of teaching, whereas Heine's 
 influence is very noticeable in all his mature thoughts 
 and writings. 
 "In all moods," he wrote of Heine, in words that are to a singular
 
 PESSIMIST AND POET 153 
 
 degree applicable also to himself, "tender, imaginative, fantastic, 
 humorous, ironical, cynical ; in anguish and horror, in weariness 
 and revulsion, longing backward to enjoyment, and longing forward 
 to painless rest ; through the doleful days, and the dreadful 
 immeasurable sleepless nights, this intense and luminous spirit 
 was enchained and constrained to look down into the vast black 
 
 void which undermines our seemingly solid existence And the 
 
 power of the spell on him, as the power of his spell on us, is 
 increased by the fact that he, thus in Death-in-Life brooding on 
 Death and Life, was no ascetic spiritualist, no self-torturing eremite 
 or hypochondriac monk, but by nature a joyous heathen of richest 
 blood, a Greek, a Persian, as he often proudly proclaimed, a lusty 
 lover of this world and life, an enthusiastic apostle of the rehabili- 
 tation of the flesh." 
 
 But if Thomson owed much to Leopard! and Shelley 
 and Heine a debt which he himself openly and grate- 
 fully avowed he was none the less perfectly independent 
 and original in his methods of thought and in the con- 
 clusions at which he arrived. Both by nature and con- 
 viction he was far too jealous an upholder of the freedom 
 of private judgment to be in danger of blindly following 
 any intellectual lead ; indeed, he was more likely, if he 
 erred at all, to err in the opposite direction, " obstinately 
 individual " being the description applied to him by one 
 of his friends. Nor does he betray the least tendency 
 to preach his pessimistic gospel in an over-positive or 
 dogmatic spirit, exhibiting it, as I have already said, 
 simply as that side of the great medal of life which most 
 men would gladly overlook, but which had presented 
 itself to him as the more important and significant one. 
 The insolubility of the mystery of existence is the chief 
 point in Thomson's pessimistic creed, from which he 
 deduces the entire worthlessness of all metaphysical 
 systems, and mercilessly satirizes those theologians and 
 philosophers who expatiate on the origin of the universe. 
 He compares such metaphysicians to a colony of mice
 
 154 PESSIMIST AND POET 
 
 in a great cathedral getting " a poor livelihood out of 
 communion-crumbs and taper-droppings," and specu- 
 lating confidently on " the meaning of the altar, the 
 significance of the ritual, the clashing of the bells, the 
 ringing of the chants, and the thunderous trepidations 
 of the organ." 
 
 Some of Thomson's critics have raised the question, 
 in rather a casuistical spirit, why, if he found life so 
 bitter and looked forward so longingly to death, he did 
 not himself cut the knot of his perplexity by having 
 recourse to suicide, which he several times mentions 
 with approbation as a means of escape from the sorrows 
 of existence, as in the following lines taken from " In the 
 Eoom," a poem devoted specially to the subject: 
 
 The drear path crawls on drearier still 
 To wounded feet and hopeless breast ? 
 
 Well, he can lie down when he will, 
 And straight all ends in endless rest. 
 
 It may be observed that in one or two of his poems 
 Thomson himself anticipates the personal application of 
 this argument, and gives reasons to account for his own 
 continuance in living, as when he refers to the poet's 
 passion for creative art as the one prop of life : 
 
 So potent is the Word, the Lord of Life, 
 
 And so tenacious Art, 
 Whose instinct urges to perpetual strife 
 
 With Death, Love's counterpart ; 
 The magic of their music, might, and light, 
 Can keep one living in his own despite. 
 
 Speaking of the poems as a whole, we may say that 
 they all, more or less, bear evidence of Thomson's 
 capacity for full, rich life ; of his oriental love of repose, 
 coupled with an ever-present sense of the mystery o 
 existence ; and, finally, of his growing conviction that
 
 PESSIMIST AND POET 155 
 
 all labour is useless, and all progress impossible, in face 
 of the stony and impenetrable destiny by which mortals 
 are confronted. The metaphors in which he most 
 delights are those of wine and the wine-cup ; of the 
 raptures of the dance, of the rose's rich scents, and the 
 nightingale's sweetness of voice ; of sunshine warmth 
 and moonlight purity ; of the sea, the sky, and all the 
 opulence that nature seems to lavish on man ; but side 
 by side with these is the strong, stern, mathematical 
 grasp of facts, which, in its determined and deliberate 
 realism, does not scruple to borrow a simile from a piece 
 of mechanism, or even from an algebraic formula. Then, 
 again, there is the strange contrast, yet no sense of 
 discord, between Thomson's allegorical, visionary, and 
 symbolic tendencies and his logical, practical habit of 
 thought ; in the highest heaven of his most spiritual 
 flights he is still the keen, calm reasoner, while in 
 his coldest speculations he retains something of the 
 impassioned poet. Like De Quincey, he possesses the 
 gift of distinct mental vision finding utterance in sublime 
 imagery ; those who read The City of Dreadful Niylit, 
 or " Insomnia," cannot doubt that the forms there 
 described were actually existent to the eye of the poet. 
 He himself tells us how, during his sojourn in London 
 with his "Lady of Sorrow" the life-long grief that is 
 thus allegorically represented he lived in a spiritual 
 world of his own, not less real than the actual world 
 around him : 
 
 She annihilated from me the huge city, and all its inhabitants ; 
 they, with their thoughts, passions, labours, struggles, victories, 
 defeats, were nothing to me ; I was nothing to them. As I passed 
 daily through the streets, my eyes must have pictured the buildings 
 and the people, my ear must have vibrated to the roar of the 
 vehicles ; but my inward vision was fixed the while on her, my 
 inward ear was attentive to her voice alone. She annihilated so
 
 156 PESSIMIST AND POET 
 
 utterly from me the dark metropolis, whose citizens are counted by 
 millions, that the whole did not even form a dark background for 
 the spiritual scenes and personages her spells continually evoked. 
 
 Yet this same visionary was also one of the shrewdest 
 logicians, one of the keenest critics, and one of the most 
 trenchant satirists of the age in which he lived. 
 
 At the time when Thomson first entered on his literary 
 career the most prominent representatives of English 
 poetry were Tennyson, Arnold, and the Brownings, 
 Lander's star having already practically set, and the 
 names of Swinburne, Morris, and Eossetti being as yet 
 unknown. The influence most discernible in Thomson's 
 early writings is that of Shelley ; but as his style matured 
 it became Dantesque rather than Shelleyan in the gravity 
 and conciseness of its expression, and it is evident that 
 Dante, whom Thomson had studied till he knew him 
 almost by heart, had made a profound impression on his 
 mind. Heine, too, became before long a very potent 
 influence, as is proved by the affinity of thought and 
 tone, the numerous references to his writings that are 
 scattered through his works, and what he modestly 
 called the " attempts at translations." 
 
 But such receptivity is perfectly compatible with 
 independence ; and original Thomson undoubtedly was, 
 if ever poet was so. The strong, clear impression of his 
 very marked personality is stamped on the thought, 
 style, and diction of every poem he wrote. He has, of 
 course, something in common with those contemporary 
 writers who rose to fame and celebrity while he was 
 still condemned to struggle with obscurity and neglect ; 
 but the similarity, where any similarity exists, is only 
 such as must necessarily be found between all poets of 
 the same social and political epoch. The dates, moreover, 
 which are in most cases prefixed to Thomson's poems,
 
 PESSIMIST AND POET 157 
 
 often show that, though published later, they were in 
 reality written earlier than those to which a resemblance 
 may be traced. 1 
 
 This mention of dates leads naturally to the subject of 
 Thomson's method of composition and publication. It 
 was not his habit to write down anything, either in the 
 form of verse or prose, until it had been to some extent 
 shaped and perfected in his mind, and the work once 
 written underwent but few corrections, some of the 
 original manuscripts being almost untouched. Thus 
 the "Voice from the Nile," which was published in 
 the Fortnightly Bevieio in 1882, was projected ten years 
 before that date ; while in the case of other poems there 
 elapsed a considerable interval of time between the 
 writing and the publication. I have already noticed 
 the striking resemblance between The City of Dreadful 
 Night and the prose piece entitled " A Lady of Sorrow," 
 which had been written ten years earlier. During all 
 that time the writer was carrying in his mind the sombre 
 imagery, and even actual phrases, which he afterwards 
 converted with such effect into a poetical form. In this 
 patient workmanship, and conscientious elaboration of 
 the details of his art, we see the secret of much of his 
 success in the creation of vivid word-pictures which fix 
 themselves indelibly on the mind. 
 
 Many of Thomson's writings, whether belonging to his 
 early or his late period of authorship, are subjective in 
 a high degree, being full of a marked and easily dis- 
 cernible individuality. Through the medium of his 
 poems, grave or gay, we see him as he was actually 
 seen in his lifetime ; now overshadowed by the profound 
 
 1 See the high opinion of Thomson expressed by J. A. Symonds (Memoir, 
 II. pp. 229. 230): "There ia no English poet now living, except Tennyson 
 Browning, Swinburne, and Morris, who comes near him."
 
 158 PESSIMIST AND POET 
 
 gloom of pessimistic thought, now forgetting his sorrows 
 for a time, in some interval of hearty and almost 
 boisterous merriment ; and now in the intermediate 
 mood, half pensive, half playful the mood of " Vane's 
 Story " in which he was most familiar to his friends. 
 Yet the scope of his genius was perhaps wider than 
 would be supposed by those who know him only by his 
 published volumes of poems, for his prose works and 
 scattered pieces show that he was also gifted with a 
 very keen power as satirist, critic, and journalist a 
 power which would certainly have brought him to the 
 fore if it had been enlisted in a more popular cause, and 
 exerted under less depressing circumstances. 
 
 His masterpiece in prolonged narrative is " Weddah 
 and Om-el-Bonain," which is a model throughout of 
 severe concentration and artistic finish ; but his power 
 of strong, vivid description is made evident in many 
 scattered passages, of which one of the most notable is 
 the poetical reproduction, in the closing section of The 
 City of Dreadful Night, of Albert Diirer's " Melencolia" 
 a piece of writing certainly not surpassed by anything 
 of its kind in contemporary literature : 
 
 Anear the centre of that northern crest 
 Stands out a level upland bleak and bare, 
 
 From which the city east and south and west 
 Sinks gently in long waves ; and throned there 
 
 An Image sits, stupendous, superhuman, 
 
 The bronze colossus of a winged Woman, 
 Upon a graded granite base foursquare. 
 
 Titanic from her high throne in the north, 
 That City's sombre Patroness and Queen, 
 
 In bronze sublimity she gazes forth 
 Over her capital of teen and threne, 
 
 Over the river with its isles and bridges,
 
 PESSIMIST AND POET 159 
 
 The marsh and moorland, to the stern rock -ridges, 
 
 Confronting them with a coeval mien. 
 The moving moon and stars from east to west 
 
 Circle before her in the sea of air ; 
 Shadows and gleams glide round her solemn rest. 
 
 Her subjects often gaze up to her there : 
 The strong to drink new strength of iron endurance, 
 The weak new terrors ; all, renewed assurance 
 
 And confirmation of the old despair. 
 
 In addition to this quality of picturesque vision, 
 Thomson was gifted with a remarkable faculty of clear 
 and lucid expression. His love of allegory may occa- 
 sionally lead him in a few of his earlier writings into 
 something approaching to mysticism, but otherwise I 
 doubt if there is a single passage in his works which is 
 not perfectly plain, intelligible, and perspicuous. His 
 pure, racy, idiomatic English is free from any trace of 
 fastidiousness ; yet at the same time he possessed the 
 cultured taste of a man who is a master of several 
 languages. But the main power which underlay all his 
 literary powers, and enabled him to use them with real 
 and lasting effect, was the genuineness of feeling which 
 lends to his word-pictures an intensity which could not 
 have been supplied by any external culture. Poe has 
 been accused not infrequently of indulging in exaggera- 
 tion and darkening the shadow of his gloomy imagining 
 for the sake of artistic effect ; the accusation may be a 
 just or an unjust one, but there is at least some ground 
 for the suspicion. With Thomson it is quite different ; 
 his sincerity of conviction is writ very plainly for those 
 who give his writings the attention they demand. In 
 the record of the extraordinary errors into which critics 
 have fallen when estimating the qualities of new poets, 
 a place should certainly be reserved for the discovery 
 made by one of Thomson's reviewers, that "he has
 
 160 PESSIMIST AND POET 
 
 simply written dreadful poetry just because now it is the 
 fashion to be dreadful." 1 
 
 Concerning his lyrical genius little need be said 
 except that his best lyrics, many of which are to be 
 found scattered among the Fantasias, are informed by 
 very true and deep feeling, which finds fit expression in 
 words of consummate grace and tenderness. Nothing is 
 more indicative of his right to be numbered among real 
 poets than his faculty of swift and certain selection of 
 the subjects most suited to his pen. 
 
 As surely as a very precious stone 
 
 Finds out that jeweller who doth excel, 
 
 So surely to the bard becometh known 
 The tale which only he can fitly tell. 
 
 So he wrote in " Weddah and Om-el-Bonain " ; and 
 his words are true not only of the origin of that narra- 
 tive, but also of the keen instinctive insight which 
 guided him in the choice of his lyrics. In the notes 
 of Fitzgerald's " Omar Khayyam " he lights on a chance 
 sentence quoted from the diary of a traveller in Persia, 
 concerning the date of the commencement of the nightin- 
 gale's song; and this is forthwith adapted to be the 
 keynote of that beautiful piece of lyrical harmony, " The 
 Nightingale and the Eose." Again, in a list of the titles 
 of some old Scottish songs, he chances to see this " most 
 pathetic " one, " Allace ! that samyn sweit face ! " and to 
 this chance we owe the production of some exquisite and 
 moving lines. 
 
 It remains to say a few words about the translations. 
 Many of Thomson's versions from Heine's " Buch der 
 Lieder " appeared originally in the Secularist, and several 
 of these were collected and reprinted, under the title of 
 
 1 Athenesum, Hay 1, 1880.
 
 PESSIMIST AND POET 161 
 
 Attempts at Translation from Heine," in the volume 
 which contained the " City of Dreadful Night " ; while 
 a few more may be found scattered among the other 
 writings. As a translator of poems of which the essential 
 charm and grace must be regarded as well-nigh untrans- 
 latable, Thomson has fared better than others who have 
 attempted the same task ; though his translations, viewed 
 solely as English poems, cannot be compared for brilliancy 
 and power with his original productions. In a letter 
 addressed to Thomson, shortly after the publication of 
 his first volume, Dr. Karl Marx expressed his delight at 
 the versions from Heine, which he described as " no 
 translation, but a reproduction of the original, such as 
 Heine himself, if master of the English language, would 
 have given." 
 
 In addition to his poetical versions from Heine, 
 Thomson translated Novalis's " Hymns to Night " (still 
 in MS.), and most of the " Dialogues " of Leopardi, 
 some of which appeared in the National Reformer during 
 1867 and 1868. A well-known critic and accomplished 
 Italian scholar has spoken of the published translations 
 from Leopardi as executed " with extraordinary felicity." ' 
 
 Thomson's prose writings are scarcely less excellent 
 than his poems, though they have attracted far less 
 attention in the literary world. Here, too, the juxta- 
 position of the imaginative and logical faculties is seen 
 to stand him in good stead, and we might say of his 
 best essays what he himself has said of Shelley's, that, 
 " with the enthusiasm and ornate beauty of an ode, they 
 preserve throughout the logical precision and directness 
 of an elegant mathematical demonstration." His stylo 
 is strong, simple, and perspicuous, yet inspired by the 
 
 1 Encyclojxedia Britannica; art. " Leopardi." 
 
 M
 
 162 PESSIMIST AND POET 
 
 same intensity of feeling that has been noted in his 
 poetry. In the prose " Phantasies," which are in reality 
 prose-poems, and closely akin to the dream-fugues of 
 De Quincey, there is a certain amount of deliberate 
 word- structure and carefully balanced melody ; but even 
 here his sentences are quite free from unnecessary 
 ornament, his manner being that of a writer who knows 
 exactly what is to be said and the most effective way of 
 saying it. Owing to his affinity to De Quincey, some 
 critics have been over hasty in accusing Thomson of 
 plagiarism ; but in reality there is as much distinction 
 in his prose as in his poems, the same strong-minded 
 thinker speaking unmistakably through both. 
 
 Take, for example, the following passage from " In our 
 Forest of the Past," a brief picture of the Elysium of 
 happy souls : 
 
 And we turned to the right and went down through the wood, 
 leaving the meanings behind us ; and we came to a broad valley 
 through which a calm stream rippled toward the moon, now risen 
 on our left hand large and golden in a dim emerald sky, dim with 
 transfusion of splendour ; and her light fell and overflowed a level 
 underledge of softest yellow cloud, and filled all the valley with a 
 luminous mist, warm as mild sunshine, and quivered golden on 
 the far river-reaches ; and elsewhere above us the immense sweep 
 of pale azure sky throbbed with golden stars ; and a wonderful 
 mystical peace as of trance and enchantment possessed all the 
 place. And in the meadows of deep grass, where the perfume of 
 violets mingled with the magical moonlight, by the river, whose 
 slow sway and lapse might lull their repose, we found tranquil 
 sleepers, all with a light on their faces, all with a smile on their 
 lips. And my leader said : " Their wine was pure, and the goblet 
 
 full ; they drank it and were content ; and therefore they now 
 
 sleep placidly the sleep that is eternal ; and the smile upon their 
 lips, and the light in shadow from beneath their eyelids, tell 
 that they dream for ever some calm, happy dream ; they enjoy 
 unremembering the fruit of their perfect lives." 
 
 As an essayist pure and simple, he is seen at his best
 
 PESSIMIST AND POET 163 
 
 in such pieces as those on " Indolence," " Sympathy," 
 and " Open Secret Societies." It has been well remarked 
 that a really fine essayist is one of the rarest of literary 
 phenomena, because the mere suspicion of any didactic 
 tendency is often sufficient to destroy the peculiar charm 
 and indefinable aroma of the essay. Thomson, though 
 too much of a metaphysician and revolutionist to be a 
 model essayist, was endowed nevertheless with a con- 
 siderable portion of the genuine Addisonian faculty of 
 lambent humour and gentle raillery of human foibles, aa 
 appears to a marked extent in the essays just mentioned. 
 In letter-writing, where somewhat similar qualities are 
 indispensable to success, he also excelled ; his letters, as 
 may be judged from the examples given in this volume, 
 being remarkable for their ease, directness, versatility of 
 style, and incisive vigour of expression. Serious or 
 humorous, descriptive or critical, these letters seldom 
 fail to wield the charm of high artistic finish united with 
 perfect freshness and spontaneity ; even in Shelley's 
 famous " Letters from Abroad " it would be difficult, I 
 think, to find many finer pieces of descriptive writing 
 than the long letter to Mr. W. M. Bossetti from Central 
 City, Colorado. 
 
 Thomson's critical writings give evidence of his wide 
 literary sympathies, catholicity of taste, and natural 
 insight into what is best in contemporary literature, aa 
 well as in that of past periods. For Dante he is said 
 to have expressed unbounded reverence in private talk, 
 accepting Mr. Euskin's statement that Dante is " the 
 central intellect " of the world. His love of the Eliza- 
 bethan poets is shown in his delightful essay entitled 
 "An Evening with Spenser," where he declares Spenser 
 and his fellows to be " peers of the noblest men that 
 have existed since the human race was born "; for Milton 
 
 M*
 
 164 PESSIMIST AND POET 
 
 he seems to have felt a less hearty admiration, if it is fair to 
 judge by a few scattered references to parts of " Lycidas" 
 and " Paradise Lost." His most notable criticisms of the 
 modern school are those which deal with Burns, Blake, 
 Browning, Garth Wilkinson, Whitman, Meredith, and 
 Shelley. He was the first writer who, recognizing in 
 Shelley the teacher as well as the singer, ventured to 
 drop the tone of timid apology which even the most 
 favourable reviewers had previously considered neces- 
 sary. Here is a suggestive and striking piece of criticism, 
 written, be it remembered, long before the time when 
 Shelley's poems became in any sense popular : 
 
 In musicalness, in free and, as it were, living melody, the poems 
 of Shelley are unsurpassed, and on the whole, I think, unequalled 
 by any others in our literature. Compared with that of most 
 others, his language is as a river to a canal, a river ever flowing 
 " at its own sweet will," and whose music is the unpurposed result 
 of its flowing. So subtly sweet and rich are the tones, so wonder- 
 fully are developed the perfect cadences, that the meaning of the 
 words of the singing is lost and dissolved in the overwhelming 
 rapture of the impression. I have often fancied, while reading 
 them, that his words were really transparent, or that they throbbed 
 with living lustres. Meaning is therein, firm and distinct, but 
 "scarce visible through extreme loveliness"; so that the mind is 
 often dazzled from the perception of the surpassing grandeur and 
 power of his creations. I doubt not that Apollo was mightier than 
 Hercules, though his divine strength was veiled in the splendour of 
 his symmetry and beauty more divine. 
 
 The " Note on George Meredith " is one of his finest 
 pieces of criticism, a splendid testimony to the high 
 qualities of a great novelist whose name at that time 
 was comparatively unknown. The leading features of 
 Meredith's genius are caught and reproduced with rare 
 insight : 
 
 He loves to suggest by flying touches rather than slowly elaborate. 
 To those who are quick to follow his suggestions he gives in a few
 
 PESSIMIST AND POET 165 
 
 winged words the very spirit of a scene, the inmost secret of a mood 
 or passion, as no other living writer 1 am acquainted with can. 
 His name and various passages in his works reveal Welsh blood, 
 
 more swift and fiery and imaginative than the English So with 
 
 his conversations. The speeches do not follow one another 
 mechanically adjusted like a smooth pavement for easy walking ; 
 they leap and break, resilient and resurgent, like running foam- 
 crested sea-waves, impelled and repelled and crossed by under- 
 currents and great tides and broad breezes ; in their restless agita- 
 tions you must divine the immense life abounding beneath and 
 around and above them; and the Mudie novice, accustomed to 
 saunter the level pavements, finds that the heaving and falling are 
 sea-sickness to a queasy stomach. Moreover, he delights in the 
 elaborate analysis of abstruse problems, whose solutions when 
 reached are scarcely less difficult to ordinary apprehension than 
 are the problems themselves ; discriminating countless shades 
 where the common eye sees but one gloom or glare ; pursuing 
 countless distinct movements where the common eye sees only a 
 whirling perplexity. 
 
 Meredith is further described as " the Robert Browning 
 of our novelists," whose day is bound to come at last. 
 Elsewhere, also, Thomson declares himself " a most 
 devout admirer, who had been watching through a 
 quarter of a century for the dayspring, confounded by 
 its prodigious delay." 
 
 On the other hand, how severe he could be in his 
 literary judgment and polemical satires is shown by one 
 or two scathing reviews of books which he felt to be 
 aggressively pretentious and slovenly, and by his 
 Lucianic burlesques on certain theological tenets which 
 seemed to him to be so superstitious and degrading as to 
 deserve no quarter. 1 
 
 When we take into consideration Thomson's whole 
 body of work, poetry and prose together, it must in 
 justice be said that he possesses the two prime qualities 
 
 i Bee the posthumous volume. Satires and Profanities, published in 1884.
 
 166 PESSIMIST AND POET 
 
 that are essential to the making of a great writer. In 
 the first place, he has that strong sense of humanity 
 which lies at the back of all really memorable literature ; 
 pessimist though he may be, his sympathies are entirely 
 human ; the subject, in one shape or another, of all his 
 writings is that great struggle between Love and Death, 
 the pessimistic view of which must present itself, in 
 certain moods and at certain times, to the mind of every 
 thoughtful person. Secondly, he is gifted with the not 
 less indispensable faculty of poetic and artistic expression 
 the rich tone, the massive strength, the subtle melody 
 of his language will scarcely be denied by those who 
 have made it their study. Popular he perhaps can never 
 be, in the ordinary sense, since his doctrines all point to 
 a conclusion disagreeable to the popular taste ; but when 
 once his claim to immortality is impartially considered, 
 it will be impossible to deny that his position in English 
 literature is unique ; a special niche will have to be set 
 apart for him in the gallery of poets.
 
 INDEX 
 
 ACADEMY, THE, 80, 86 
 
 " A Lady of Sorrow," 41, 79, 80, 
 
 157 
 
 Aldershot, 16, 17, 27, 29, 34 
 Arnold, Matthew, 144, 156 
 AthencBum, The, 124, 129, 160, 
 
 note 
 
 BALLINCOLLIG, 8, 10, 11 
 
 Barnes, Joseph, 8, 9, 12 
 
 Barrs, J. W., 120-25, 129, 142 ; 
 
 letter to, 137 
 Miss, 120, 137, 142 ; letters 
 
 to, 123, 124 
 Belvoir, visit to, 121, 122 ; lines 
 
 " At Belvoir," 122, 133, 134 
 Boyd, James, 2 
 Bradlaugh, Charles, 8, 9, 16, 34, 
 
 36-38, 45, 47, 50, 51, 69, 72, 
 
 79, 85 
 
 Mrs., letters to, 46-48, 89 
 
 Alice, letters to, 83, 84 
 
 Hypatia (Mrs. Bradlaugh 
 
 Bonner), quoted, 36-38 ; letter 
 
 to, 83 
 
 Browning, Robert, 7, 19, 23 
 Mrs. Barrett, 7, 23, 125, 
 
 126 
 " B. V." nom de plume, 34, 39, 
 
 52,95 
 Byron, Lord, 7 
 
 CALEDONIAN ASYLUM, 2, 5, 6 
 " Carlist Reminiscences," 69 
 Chelsea Military Asylum, 6, 11, 
 
 12, 14, 15 
 "City of Dreadful Night, The," 
 
 71, 75, 77-81, 85, 86, 112-15, 
 
 158, 159 
 
 Clarke, Herbert E., quoted, 
 
 139-41 
 
 Cope's Tobacco Plant, 95, 96, 125 
 " Crepusculus," nom de plume, 34 
 
 DANTE, 156, 163 
 
 De Quincey, 33, 155, 162 
 
 Diaries, Thomson's, 75, 76, 127 ; 
 
 quoted, 58, 59, 103-105, 119, 
 
 120 
 Dobell, Bertram, 85, 86, 112, 
 
 142 ; letters to, 85, 86, 90-92, 
 
 97-101 
 
 " Doom of a City, The," 23 
 Duncan, George, 5, 6, 20, 21, 
 
 27, 74, 84, 85 
 Diirer, Albert, 77, 82, 115, 158 
 
 ELIOT, GEORGE, 118, 119 ; cor- 
 respondence with, 81, 82 
 
 "Essays and Phantasies," 125, 
 162 
 
 FLAWS, G. G., 135, 137, 138 
 Foote, G. W., 88, 89, 92, 94, 95, 
 
 97, 98, 101, 102 ; quoted, 13, 
 
 107-10 
 Forest Edge, Leicester, 120-23, 
 
 126-30, 133 
 Eraser, John, 95, 96 
 Fraser's Magazine, 45, 55, 56 
 Fortnightly Review, 114, 125, 
 
 128, 130 
 Froude, J. A., 45, 55, 56 
 
 GRANT, JOHN, 17-19, 48, 76, 84 
 
 Gray, Agnes (Mrs. Greig), 7, 27, 
 
 28 ; letters to, 22-27 
 Helen, 7, 26, 28, 29 
 
 167
 
 168 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Gray, William, 3, 29 
 
 HARVEY, G. J., 30 
 
 Heine, 152, 153, 156 ; transla- 
 tions from, 160, 161 
 
 Hollett, Fred, 76 
 
 Holyoake, Austin, 47, 48, 83, 84, 
 142 
 
 Mrs. Austin (afterwards Mrs. 
 
 T. R. Wright), 47, 48, 97 
 
 George Jacob, 92, 94, 95 
 
 Percy, 97, 116, 119, 139, 
 
 142 ; letters to, 121, 122, 127- 
 129 
 
 INSOMNIA, 43, 82, 106 ; lines on, 
 135, 136 
 
 JAQUES, W. E., 48, 76 
 Jersey, 30, 81 
 
 " Jottings," in the National Re- 
 former, 91 
 
 KINGSLEY, CHARLES, 45, 55, 
 56 
 
 LIBERAL, THE, 102 
 London Investigator, The, 34 
 Lytton, Bulwer, 1, note, 88 
 
 MACCALL, WILLIAM, 28, 88, 95, 
 
 133 
 Marston, P. B., 81, 102, 116, 
 
 139-42 ; quoted, 18, note, 40 
 "Melencolia, The," 77, 82, 158 
 Melville, Herman, quoted, 45, 
 
 117, 151, note 
 Meredith, George, 19, 101, 102, 
 
 105, 114-17 ; quoted, 136, 137; 
 
 note on, 164, 165 
 Morley, John, 125, 128 
 
 NATIONAL REFORMER, THE, 
 
 34, 39-41, 48, 52-54, 56, 80, 
 
 85, 86, 91 
 "Nightingale and the Eose, The," 
 
 132 
 Novalis, 34, 152; translations 
 
 from, 161 
 
 OMAR KHAYYAM, 160 
 
 PESSIMISM, Thomson's, 38, 78, 
 
 107, 108, 150-53 
 Phantasies, Prose, 162 
 Poe, Edgar, 142, 150, 159 
 Port Glasgow, 1 
 Potterton, James, 21, 27, 29 
 
 REEVES AND TURNER, pub- 
 lishers, 112, 115, 121, 123, 130 
 
 Ross, W. Stewart, 138, 139 
 
 Rossetti, D. G., 52, 53 
 
 W. M., 52, 81, 86, 117; 
 
 quoted, 52-54 ; letters to, 54- 
 56, 59-65, 67-69, 75, 77, 94, 
 95, 112, 113, 117, 118 
 
 " SATIRES AND PROFANITIES," 
 
 165 
 
 Schopenhauer, 14, 15, 152 
 Scott, Miss, 97 
 Secularist, The, 94, 95 
 Secular Review, The, 95 
 Shakespeare, 150 
 Sharp, William, 1, note, 140-42 
 Shelley, 7, 34, 67-69, 75, 112, 
 
 146, 152, 164 
 
 "Sigvat," nom deplume, 96, 149 
 " Sunday at Hampstead," 44 
 " Sunday up the River," 44, 45, 
 
 54-56 
 
 Swinburne, A. C., 117, 118 
 Symonds, J. A., quoted, 157, 
 
 note 
 
 TAIT'S EDINBURGH MAGA- 
 ZINE, 34, 133 
 Thomson, A. A., 14 
 
 James, of Pitlochry, 1-5 
 
 John, 2, 3, 24, 48, 142 
 
 Mrs. John, 3, 48 ; letters 
 
 to, 3, 4, 49-51, 72, 73, 87, 88, 
 126, 127 
 Sarah (nee Kennedy), 1-4 
 
 "VANE'S STORY," 10, 42, 43, 
 117, 118, 144, 145, 152, 158
 
 INDEX 
 
 169 
 
 WATTS, CHARLES, 88, 89, 91 
 
 Webber, Byron, 30 
 
 "Weddah and Om-el-Bonain," 
 
 52-55, 117, 118, 136, 158 
 Weller, Matilda, 9-14, 108, 142 
 Whitman, Walt, 113, 164 
 
 Wilkinson, J. J. Garth, 99, 100, 
 
 102, 164 
 Wright, T. R., 97, 116, 118-21, 
 
 129, 142 
 Mrs. T. R. (Mrs. Austin 
 
 Holyoake), 97, 116, 119-21 
 
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