Two English Men of Letters

THE conditions of the literary life in America are less determined than they are in England. The only organization within which authorship may be said to find substantial shelter is journalism, and this profession is so exacting and so inimical to most forms of literature, that those who have most serious thoughts of the literary life are rather desirous of escaping from journalism than of using it as a vantage ground. It might seem at first blush as if the universities and colleges would offer a desirable fastness from which to send out ventures in literature ; but the academic life is a somewhat sterile one ; it is with us so identified with the pedagogic that the energies of the professor, if they move the production of books, are most likely to be occupied with the tools of the profession. Text-books in abundance issue every year from college faculties, but very few contributions to humane literature. The academic life again is so specialized that even the professor of English literature rarely produces work upon which his successor or associate may comment. His attitude toward the subject of his teaching is too critical to allow him much freedom of mind, and he is besides so conscious of his position that he is undermined in his resolution, and rendered abnormally sensitive to the criticism of others as well as of himself. The professors in other departments are still further removed from the possibility of being littérateurs by the whole course of their training and the limitations of their profession.

The constitution of the English universities, on the other hand, directly encourages and sustains the literary life. This is not to say that literature in its freest expression is not there, as here, outside the walls of the college, but that a man of literary taste and ambition may deliberately possess himself of academic situations which will make it possible for him to lead a literary life, free from fret and carking care ; and also that the prizes for scholarship offered by the universities distinctly suggest to the student literary occupation. A man, in other words, with fortune enough to secure him a university education, may hope to win a Fellowship which will demand only slight academic duties, leaving him free to devote himself to literature ; and a student devoted to learning who falls into such a place will, by the very force of his own nature, be urged into literary production. Thus the university, by a provision which enlarges the scope of university life, is more than a training-school for immature minds; it is a society of scholars, and as such, directly encourages and sustains the literary life.

The Memoirs ¹ of the rector of Lincoln College illustrate this point in an interesting fashion. He represents a distinct class of professional Englishmen. To the learned professions is added one so clearly defined as to offer a goal for ambition as well understood and recognized as the army, the church, or the bar. “ There never was any question as to my destination. It was assumed from the cradle upwards that I was to go to Oxford, and to be a Fellow of a college. From about 1825 [when he was not twelve] onwards, a Fellowship of Oriel was held up to me as the ideal prize to which I was to aspire. I was never diverted or distracted from this goal of ambition by any alternative career being proposed to me. I was to go to Oriel, of course, as a commoner, — there were no scholars in those days, — and then it would depend upon what talents I might give proof of whether a Fellowship of Oriel were within my reach or not.” He went to Oxford to reside in 1832, and his life thereafter was passed under academic influences. For fifty years a resident member of the university, and for at least the latter half of that period one of the most conspicuous figures there, well may he conclude his memoirs with the words : —

“There seems to have fulfilled itself for me that adage of Goethe which, when I first came upon it, appeared a mere paradox: —

Of that which a man desires in youth of that he shall have in age as much as he will.”

We speak of him as a conspicuous figure at Oxford, but there is a charmed circle in England, as in every highly organized people, within which dwell men and women who are without fame in the wide world, yet have a positive reputation among the historians of fame, so that, as in the case of Mark Pattison, one such cannot die without instantly giving rise to long obituaries in the leading journals. Probably many Americans heard for the first time the name of this Oxford scholar when they read in the English weeklies of his death, and found the papers for weeks afterward occupied with reminiscences and characterizations.

His contributions to literature, few in number, are of a high order, and are likely to preserve his fame more even than this autobiography, which will serve to explain him to those already interested in his career. His Isaac Casaubon, especially, a masterly piece of biographic work, will bring him the respect of all students of literature. If he could have written his study of Scaliger he would have placed himself even more emphatically in the ranks of the greater men of letters in England. These works, as well as his study of Milton, came near the end of his career, when he had firmly established his reputation among his peers. The very lateness of the fruit is characteristic of the slow ripening of his powers, but none the less does his literary production confirm what we have said as to the aid which the university affords the literary life. Pattison was predestined for literature, and yet, when one studies the conditions of his life, it seems impossible to believe that the results finally reached could have been attained by him in any other profession.

Indeed, the slowness of his development and the long concealment of his consciousness of a vocation give a singular charm to his Memoirs. He seems to look back upon his youth and early manhood with an odd mingling of pity and contempt. The frankness with which he writes makes the book possess the true flavor of autobiography. He is concerned with his mental and spiritual growth, and so deeply interested in it is he that he is willing to spread upon the record the testimony of his memory to what can scarcely be regarded as less than donkeyish stupidity in youth. He was sent to college, and accepted the destiny planned for him apparently without a doubt as to its wisdom. Under conditions of extreme poverty it is hardly credible that he would have been selected for an academic career. Trollope deliberately disclosed his own slowness of development in his autobiography, and Pattison’s revelation of his dullness may be placed above Trollope’s for candor and penetration. Trollope turns upon his boyhood with a half revengeful air ; Pattison is curiously interested in the young fellow whom he remembers, and relates tales of his gaucherie and general mental clumsiness which would amaze one if he did not perceive that the author was all the while intent on a psychological study. He had not had the rough introduction to life which a public school gives ; he had been brought up in a Yorkshire rectory, amongst women chiefly, leading a solitary life and fumbling about for the thread of his being. Thus, when he went up to Oxford he was thrown into a singular bewilderment. He could not adjust his preconceived notions of the place and life there to the actual facts and conditions; least of all could he adjust himself to his surroundings.

“ I was not all at once made aware,” he says, “ of this want of conformity between myself and others of my age; I arrived at the apprehension of it slowly, after many vain experiments and successive failures to establish a good understanding with one after another. . . . My weakness of character was such that I came to the conclusion in the end that the fault or defect, whatever it might be, was in me. They could not be all wrong, and they seemed to have no difficulty in getting on with each other. My boyish inexperience was such that I could not understand how it could be that the others, many of whom were below me in attainments, were before me in manliness of character; that they dared to assert themselves as they were, while I was deficient in character, and hid, instead of standing by, the small amount I possessed. This inability to apprehend the reason of my social ill success had a discouraging consequence upon the growth of my character. I was so convinced that the fault was in me, and not in the others, that I lost anything like firm footing, and succumbed to, or imitated, any type or set with which I was brought in contact, esteeming it better than my own, of which I was too ashamed to stand by it and assert it. . . . The consequences to me of this relation to others did not end with mutability and chameleon-like readiness to take any shade of color. The sense of weakness being thus daily and hourly pressed upon me grew internally painful. I felt humiliated and buffeted, and as if I were destined to be the sport and football of my companions. Out of this consciousness grew a general selfconsciousness, which gained ground rapidly upon me, and became a canker in my character for years afterward. I, who had come up to Oxford a mere child of nature, totally devoid of selfconsciousness to such a degree that I had never thought of myself as a subject of observation, developed a selfconsciousness so sensitive and watchful that it came between me and everything I said or did. It became physical nervousness. I thought every one was watching me ; I blushed and trembled in company when I spoke or moved, and dared not raise a glass to my lips for fear it should be seen how my hand trembled. Before I said anything I had to think what would So-and-so think of me for saying it. A morbid self-consciousness was in a fair way to darken my life, and to paralyze my intellect.”

He makes a faint defense of this “ dressing the window for customers ” as probably an inherited failing, and remarks in passing that his sister, who lives in literature as Sister Dora, in Miss Lonsdale’s book —“ romance,” Pattison calls it — showed the same tendency. “ She spent a faculty of invention ” he remarks, a little viciously, “ which would have placed her in the first rank as a novelist, in embellishing the every-day occurrences of her own life.” It is more to the point to observe that his own mental and physical awkwardness, largely the result of his isolation followed by a sudden plunge into the world, gave way not before resolution, but before the gradual command which he acquired of himself under the discipline of a will set doggedly to attain the result for which he had been sent to Oxford. Again and again he fails to secure a Fellowship and the reader is disposed to think that this period of failure was really a more determining one in Pattison’s mental and moral development than the autobiographer recognizes.

The whole book impresses upon one the power which this university life has to absorb the thought of a really strong man. In looking back upon his earlier days, Pattison is stirred by the recollection of the academic battles. It is true that he writes from within the walls which he had never left, but he writes after an enlargement of mind through contact with great religious movements, with scholarship, and with literature, which would seem sure to correct a too narrow and parochial view. How moved he was by his final success in securing a Fellowship appears when he writes : —

“ I had seen with the despair of an excluded Peri all the gates of all the colleges shut against me, and here in the most unlikely quarter of Oxford, I had really got the thing I had so eagerly desired. I was quite off my head for two or three days, and must have exhibited myself as a jeune étourdi in the eyes of the Rector and Fellows of Lincoln.” It is noticeable, however, that the attainment of his wishes, so far from making him merely complacent, was really the means of a further development of his powers, for it was not long before he was heartily engaged in effecting reforms in the management of the college. So completely did he identify himself with Lincoln that when his failure to be chosen Rector resulted in a reactionary movement, he became almost paralyzed in his will, secluded himself, and led for a long time a half torpid existence. Again his defeat opened the way for a larger, wider interest, and he took part in the general movement of university reform. He was finally chosen to the office which he had lost, and the tenor of his life thenceforward moved on without much disturbance.

We have omitted to dwell upon the religious side of Pattison’s character, though it forms an interesting, and to some justifying, portion of his autobiography, because we desired chiefly to call attention to the picture which his life presents of a scholar’s career, with special reference to the bearing it has on the literary life. The doggedness with which Pattison overcame difficulties, the half-blind manner in which he pushed forward in his studies, and the final breadth and accuracy of his learning might have been repeated in other forms had he been thrown upon the open world of London ; but it is clear that the half-monastic life which he led was singularly adapted to shape a character so divided in weakness and strength as his was, and to occasion at last the literary productions which certainly would not have proceeded from him under other conditions.

The university, however, is not the only English organization which fosters literature and makes a vantage-ground for the man of letters. As it is demonstrably more efficient in this respect than its American congener, so the civil service of England has offered a more convenient shelter for the littérateur than the same service in America. Our government, indeed, has not been slow to recognize authors, but it has been chiefly in the way of rewards in the diplomatic service for those who have already won a certain distinction. Now and then, notably in the case of the New York Custom House, government offices have served as means of support to hard-working literary men, but the general insecurity which has hitherto attached to this employment, and the peril to one’s self-respect in seeking appointments, have hindered such men from counting upon this resource. One of the probable results of a service organized upon the merit system is the attraction to it of men capable of clerkly labor, but chiefly ambitious of literary fame. The freedom from concern which enables one to lay aside his business mind, like an office coat, when the clock strikes three, and don the literary habit, is especially necessary to the calm and cheerful pursuit of literature. Such a state of things exists in London to-day, and may be confidently predicted of Washington, New York, and other cities, in the near future.

The memoirs of Sir Henry Taylor ² do not precisely illustrate this, for his connection with the civil service was rather the result of a tradition holding in the higher ranks of the service, by which men of education easily found their way into positions less strictly clerical. His career nevertheless points the moral which we have been drawing, for it illustrates the ease with which one may lead a divided life, giving his formal half to government service, and enjoying, without detriment, a poet’s occupation and fame. The division is not an uncommon one in England, and in Sir Henry Taylor’s case there was not only a delightful literary life, but a very serviceable official one. If he had not written Philip Van Artevelde, Taylor would yet have had an honorable place in the administration of government, for though his position by his own choice was a subordinate one, he rendered very effective service in the Colonial office, and brought high principle and intelligent thought to bear upon administrative economy.

We can easily dismiss the book as a demonstration of the ease with which literature and officialism are combined, and resort to it for its very agreeable record of reminiscences. Indeed, at this distance we do dismiss, in reading, much of the detail which Taylor the under-secretary indulges in respecting his affairs during office hours, and confine ourselves to what Taylor the poet does and says when he is at liberty. The air of the book throughout is extremely agreeable and well-bred. Possibly recent examples served as warnings to avoid disagreeable personalities ; at any rate, the kindly and discriminating author distinctly avoids a censorious judgment of others, and in treating of his own life and affairs maintains a decent reserve. Yet the book is not without its own little confidences. We are a little amused at first at the familiar manner in which the author speaks of his wife as Alice; but if he can do it for his own pleasure, we certainly share that pleasure. One comes to take a most friendly interest also in the old man’s fond preference for the society of girls, and there is a light rustle of muslins, especially in the closing chapters, which falls upon the ear with a grateful delight. Here is a little touch which shows that in his interest in girls, he gave as well as received : —

“ If my change of air has not done much for me, I have at least had a very pleasant change in other respects, being on a visit here to the Prescotts, with whom I spent some two or three months of last summer, while Alice was at Tunbridge Wells ; people abounding in kindness of all sorts, and hospitable beyond all human hospitality of modern times. They have had with them, since January, the whole of the family of Stephen Spring Rice, — his wife and ‘ the tuneful nine,’ his children, and their governess and servants, — in all, seventeen souls ; and the house is as ‘ cheerful as a grove in spring,’ and music goes on from morning till night, — pianoforte, harp, violin, violoncello, and voices of all kinds, and, I may also say, of all ages ; for yesterday I heard a song very beautifully sung by a lady seventy-seven years old. The music all day long, and not the performing only, but even the practicing, suits me, — better than it would you, I dare say, — for I have an ignorant fondness for music which is by no means fastidious. And then there is a great deal of girl-life going on, which is alway full of interest for me ; and there is one very fine creature of the girl-kind, ingenuous, noble, and free, who, though not of the house, is always in and about it, playing croquet on the lawn by day, or making music in the evenings, and concerning whom — a girl I had never seen till last week — I was seriously consulted by a man of whom I know almost as little. And when I see the sort of holiday-life that is led at such a place as this, I hardly wonder that so many a man (like Jacob) finds a wife at a watering-place.”

In such leisurely fashion the book runs on, the half-serious, half-idle gossip of an old man who, from his corner, looks out on the world in which he has played no unimportant part, while he has all along retained a good portion of his independence and has used well his higher gifts. His amiability does not stand in the way of a shrewd characterization, as well as discriminating judgment of men and affairs. He has almost the air of a champion when speaking of Aubrey de Vere, whom he admires greatly, and his loyalty to Wordsworth is dignified as well as enthusiastic. How cleverly he can sketch a group of people — no easy task— may be seen in an off-hand letter which he writes to Aubrey de Vere from a country-house where he was staying at the time. After rapidly jotting down the men of science and letters, he adds: —

“ Then comes a good-humored-looking Captain and Mrs. Baring ; an A lick Baring ; a Mr. Beach; a Lord Giffard, pleasant but sanguinary, for he had killed sixty-five tigers, eleven elephants, and a multitude of bears ; a Mr. Gowan, fulfiller of all knowledge, it is said, whose walk into the room was as if he had the knowledge in a bowl between both hands and was afraid of spilling it; or like the walk of a man who knows that he is always on the edge of a precipice; or like the walk of a monthly nurse in a darkened room, who knows not what she may knock against next—only he seemed to be himself the object of his own nursing; he said nothing (except a few words once a day to make silence audible, and to assure us that he was not the ghost of a nurse), and he expected nothing and was in nobody’s way; and at the end of his visit his servant wrapped him carefully up and put him into a fly to be taken away. He probably left no impression on many of us ; but on me he left rather a peculiar impression — of a noiseless and passionless existence; a human being who gave nothing, asked nothing, said nothing, did nothing, felt nothing, and was perfectly contented with himself and everybody else ; how cautiously he sat down ! ‘ weighing his spread vans,’ while the nether part gradually lowered itself to within flumping distance, and then flumped; Lord de Mauley, cultivated, refined, and distinguished-looking, and he might have been agreeable, but his favorite son is in the Crimea, and he looked as if the waters of the Black Sea had gone over his soul.”

It would be easy to go on picking out entertaining passages from a book which reflects a generous, lively nature. The best things, as we have hinted, are quite independent of the foreign office, but we suspect that Sir Henry owes much of his genialty to the freedom which his hemispherical life permitted. At any rate, we cannot help recognizing the delightful possibilities which lie for men of letters in such conditions as were his. We are aware that much else than the mere formal condition of a civil service on the merit system determines such literary life either in England or in America, and we have no wish to plead for a mere repetition of conditions. The literary life is more selfdetermined than to be dependent upon any such conditions, and possibly the difficulties which it is passing through in America are fitting it for a freer, more influential future. Be this as it may, until America offers something better, we must continue to think that in the organization of English life, the Pattisons and Taylors have a capital chance for making the most of themselves.