The Altar Fire

by Arthur Christopher Benson

June 14, 1889.

It is comforting to reflect how easy it is to abandon habits, and how soon a new habit takes the place of the old. Some months ago I put writing aside in despair, feeling that I was turning away from the most stable thing in life; yet even now I have learned largely to acquiesce in silence; the dreary and objectless mood visits me less and less frequently. What have I found to fill the place of the old habit? I have begun to read much more widely, and recognise how very ill-educated I am. In my writing days, I used to read mainly for the purposes of my books, or, if I turned aside to general reading at all, it was to personal, intime, subjective books that I turned, books in which one could see the development of character, analyse emotion, acquire psychological experience; but now I find a growing interest in sociological and historical ideas; a mist begins to roll away from my mental horizon, and I realise how small was the circle in which I was walking. I sometimes find myself hoping that this may mean the possibility of a wider flight; but I do not, strange to say, care very much about the prospect. Just at present, I appear to myself to have been like a botanist walking in a great forest, looking out only for small typical specimens of certain classes of ground-plants, without any eyes for the luxurious vegetation, the beauty of the rich opening glade, the fallen day of the dense underwood.

Then too I have begun to read regularly with the children; I did it formerly, but only fitfully, and I am sorry to say grudgingly. But now it has become a matter of intense interest to me, to see how thoughts strike on eager and ingenuous minds. I find my trained imagination a great help here, because it gives me the power of clothing a bare scene with detail, and of giving vitality to an austere figure. I have made all sorts of discoveries, to me astonishing and delightful, about my children. I recognise some of their qualities and modes of thought; but there are whole ranges of qualities apparent, of which I cannot even guess the origin. One thinks of a child as deriving its nature from its parents, and its experience from its surroundings; but there is much beside that, original views, unexpected curiosities, and, strangest of all, things that seem almost like dim reminiscences floated out of other far-off lives. They seem to infer so much that they have never heard, to perceive so much that they have never seen, to know so much that they have never been told. Bewildering as this is in the intellectual region, it is still more marvellous in the moral region. They scorn, they shudder at, they approve, they love, as by some generous instinct, qualities of which they have had no experience. "I don't know what it is, but there is something wrong about Cromwell," said Maggie gravely, when we had been reading the history of the Commonwealth. Now Cromwell is just one of those characters which, as a rule, a child accepts as a model of rigid virtue and public spirit. Alec, whose taste is all for soldiers and sailors just now, and who might, one would have thought, have been dazzled by military glory, pronounced Napoleon "rather a common man." This arose purely in the boy's own mind, because I am very careful not to anticipate any judgments; I think it of the highest importance that they should learn to form their own opinions, so that we never attempt to criticise a character until we have mastered the facts of his life.

Another thing I am doing with them, which seems to me to develop intelligence pleasurably and rapidly, is to read them a passage or an episode, and then to require them to relate it or write it in their own words. I don't remember that this was ever done for me in the whole course of my elaborate education; and the speed with which they have acquired the art of seizing on salient points is to me simply marvellous. I have my reward in such remarks as these which Maud repeated to me yesterday. "Lessons," said Alec gravely, "have become ever so much more fun since we began to do them with father." "Fun!" said Maggie, with indignant emotion; "they are not lessons at all now!" I certainly do not observe any reluctance on their part to set to work, and I do see a considerable reluctance to stop; yet I don't think there is the least strain about it. But it is true that I save them all the stupid and irksome work that made my own acquisition of knowledge so bitter a thing. We read French together; my own early French lessons were positively disgusting, partly from the abominable little books on dirty paper and in bad type that we read, and partly from the absurd character of the books chosen. The Cid and Voltaire's Charles XII.! I used to wonder dimly how it was ever worth any one's while to string such ugly and meaningless sentences together. Now I read with the children Sans Famille and Colomba; and they acquire the language with incredible rapidity. I tell them any word they do not know; and we have a simple system of emulation, by which the one who recollects first a word we have previously had, receives a mark; and the one who first reaches a total of a hundred marks gets sixpence. The adorable nature of women! Maggie, whose verbal memory is excellent, went rapidly ahead, and spent her sixpence on a present to console Alec for the indignity of having been beaten. Then, too, they write letters in French to their mother, which are solemnly sent by post. It is not very idiomatic French, but it is amazingly flexible; and it is delicious to see the children at breakfast watching Maud as she opens the letters and smiles over them.

Perhaps this is not a very exalted type of education; it certainly seems to fulfil its purpose very wonderfully in making them alert, inquisitive, eager, and without any shadow of priggishness. It is established as a principle that it is stupid not to know things, and still more stupid to try and make other people aware that you know them; and the apologies with which Maggie translated a French menu at a house where we stayed with the children the other day were delightful to behold.

I am very anxious that they should not be priggish, and I do not think they are in any danger of becoming so. I suppose I rather skim the cream of their education, and leave the duller part to the governess, a nice, tranquil person, who lives in the village, the daughter of a previous vicar, and comes in in the mornings. I don't mean that their interest and alertness does not vary, but they are obedient and active-minded children, and they prefer their lessons with me so much that it has not occurred to them to be bored. If they flag, I don't press them. I tell them a story, or show them pictures. While I write these words in my armchair, they are sitting at the table, writing an account of something I have told them. Maggie lays down her pen with a sigh of satisfaction. "There, that is beautiful! But I dare say it is not as good as yours, Alec." "Don't interrupt me," says Alec sternly, "and don't push against me when I'm busy." Maggie looks round and concludes that I am busy too. In a minute, Alec will have done, and then I shall read the two pieces aloud; then we shall criticise them respectfully. The aim is to make them frankly recognise the good points of each other's compositions as well as the weak points, and this they are very ready to do.

In all this I do not neglect the physical side. They can ride and swim. They go out in all weathers and get wholesomely wet, dirty, and tired. Games are a difficulty, but I want them to be able, if necessary, to do without games. We botanise, we look for nests, we geologise, we study birds through glasses, we garden. It is all very unscientific, but they observe, they perceive, they love the country. Moreover, Maud has a passion for knowing all the village people, and takes the children with her, so that they really know the village-folk all round; they are certainly tremendously happy and interested in everything. Of course they are volatile in their tastes, but I rather encourage that. I know that in the little old moral books the idea was that nothing should be taken up by children, unless it was done thoroughly and perseveringly; but I had rather that they had a wide experience; the time to select and settle down upon a pursuit is not yet, and I had rather that they found out for themselves what they care about, than practise them in a premature patience. The only thing I object to is their taking up something which they have tried and dropped; then I do require a pledge that they shall stick to it. I say to them, "I don't mind how many things you try, and if you find you don't care about one, you may give it up when you have given it a trial; but it is a bad thing to be always changing, and everybody can't do everything; so don't take up this particular thing again, unless you can give a good reason for thinking you will keep to it."

One of the things I insist upon their doing, whether they like it or not, is learning to play the piano. There are innumerable people, I find, who regret not having been made to overcome the initial difficulties of music; and the only condition I make is, that they shall be allowed to stop when they can play a simple piece of music at sight correctly, and when they have learnt the simple rules of harmony.

For teaching them geography, I have a simple plan; my own early geography lessons were to my recollection singularly dismal. I used, as far as I can remember, to learn lists of towns, rivers, capes, and mountains. Then there were horrible lists of exports and imports, such as hides, jute, and hardware. I did not know what any of the things were, and no one explained them to me. What we do now is this. I read up a book of travels, and then we travel in a country by means of atlases, while I describe the sort of landscape we should see, the inhabitants, their occupations, their religion, and show the children pictures. I can only say that it seems to be a success. They learn arithmetic with their governess, and what is aimed at is rapid and accurate calculations. As for religious instruction, we read portions of the Bible, striking scenes and stories, carefully selected, and the Gospel story, with plenty of pictures. But here I own I find a difficulty. With regard to the Old Testament, I have frankly told them that many of the stories are legends and exaggerations, like the legends of other nations. That is not difficult; I say that in old days when people did not understand science, many things seemed possible which we know now to be impossible; and that things which happened naturally, were often thought to have happened supernaturally; moreover, that both imagination and exaggeration crept in about famous people. I am sure that there is a great danger in teaching intelligent children that the Bible is all literally true. And then the difficulty comes in, that they ask artlessly whether such a story as the miracle of Cana, or the feeding of the five thousand, is true. I reply frankly that we cannot be sure; that the people who wrote it down believed it to be true, but that it came to them by hearsay; and the children seem to have no difficulty about the matter. Then, too, I do not want them to be too familiar, as children, with the words of Christ, because I am sure that it is a fact that, for many people, a mechanical familiarity with the Gospel language simply blurs and weakens the marvellous significance and beauty of the thought. It becomes so crystallised that they cannot penetrate it. I have treated some parts of the Gospel after the fashion of Philochristus, telling them a story, as though seen by some earnest spectator. I find that they take the deepest interest in these stories, and that the figure of Christ is very real and august to them. But I teach them no doctrine except the very simplest—the Fatherhood of God, the Divinity of Christ, the indwelling voice of the Spirit; and I am sure that religion is a pure, sweet, vital force in their lives, not a harsh thing, a question of sin and punishment, but a matter of Love, Strength, Forgiveness, Holiness. The one thing I try to show them is that God was not, as I used to think, the property, so to speak, of the Jews; but that He is behind and above every race and nation, slowly leading them to the light. The two things I will not allow them to think of are the Doctrines of the Fall and the Atonement; the doctrine of the Fall is contrary to all true knowledge, the doctrine of the Atonement is inconsistent with every idea of justice. But it is a difficult matter. They will hear sermons, and Alec, at school, may have dogmatic instruction given him; but I shall prepare him for Confirmation here, and have him confirmed at home, and thus the main difficulty will be avoided; neither do I conceal from them that good people think very differently on these points. It is curious to remember that, brought up as I was on strict Evangelical lines, I was early inculcated into the sin of schism, with the result that I hurried with my Puritan nurse swiftly and violently by a Roman Catholic chapel and a Wesleyan meeting-house which we used to pass in our walks, with a sense of horror and wickedness in the air. Indeed, I remember once asking my mother why God did not rain down fire and brimstone on these two places of worship, and received a very unsatisfactory answer. To develop such a spirit was, it seems to me, a monstrous sin against Christian charity, and my children shall be saved from that.

Meantime my own hours are increasingly filled. It takes me a long time to prepare for the children's lessons; and I have my reward abundantly in the delight of seeing their intelligence, their perception, their interest grow. I am determined that the beginnings of knowledge shall be for them a primrose path; I suppose there will have to be some stricter mental discipline later; but they shall begin by thinking and expecting things to be interesting and delightful, before they realise that things can also be hard and dull.