SAMUEL T. COLERIDGE
Beneath the blaze of a tropical sun the mountain peaks are the Thrones of Frost, this through the absence of objects to reflect the rays.
What no one with us shares, seems scarce our own—we need another to reflect our thoughts.
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge
SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE
Samuel T. Coleridge was a thinker, and thinkers are so rarely found that the world must take note of them. John Stuart Mill, writing in Eighteen Hundred Forty, assigned first place among English philosophers to Jeremy Bentham, incidentally mentioning that Samuel Taylor Coleridge was Bentham's only rival.
In philosophy there is an apostolic succession. We build on the past, and all the centuries of turmoil and travail which have gone before have made this moment possible. There has never been any such thing as "the fall of man"; for the march of the race has been a continual climb—a movement onward and upward. Were it not for Coleridge and Bentham, we could not have had Buckle, Wallace and Spencer, for the minds of men would not have been prepared to give them a hearing. "Half the battle is in catching the Speaker's eye," said Thomas Brackett Reed; and a John the Baptist to prepare the way is always necessary. Without Coleridge to quietly ignore the question of precedent, and refuse to accept a thing without proof, and ask eternally and yet again, "How do you know?" Charles Darwin with his "Origin of Species" would have been laughed out of court. Or probably had Darwin been persistent we would have consigned him to the stocks, burned his book in the public square, and with the aid of logical thumbscrews made him recant.
Even as it was, the gibes and guffaws of the press and pulpit came near drowning the modest, moderate voice of Darwin; and for a score of years, his reputation as a scientist seemed to be trembling in the balance. Yet today the man who would seriously attempt in an educated assembly to throw obloquy upon the doctrine of Evolution and the name of Charles Darwin would find himself speedily listed with Brudder Jasper of Richmond, Virginia. The Church now, everywhere, has its Drummonds, who build on Darwin and use his citations as proof; and Drummond merely expressed what the many believe—no more.
The man who has dared to think for himself and voiced his thought—the emancipated man—has been as one in a million. What usually passes for thought is only the repetition of things we have heard or been told. We memorize, repeat by rote and call it thought.
With the Church and State in control of food and clothes, and with spears, clubs, knives and guns ready to suppress whatsoever seemed dangerous to their stability, it is a miracle that men have ever improved on anything—for progress has been for centuries a perilous performance. To question a priest was blasphemy. To reason with a judge was heinous. To think and decide for yourself was to invite torture and death.
And all this was very natural, simply because the superior class who monopolized the good things of earth were obliged, in order to enslave and tax men, to make them believe that their power was derived from God. And thus was taught the "divine right of kings," the duty of submission, the necessity of belief and the sinfulness of doubt. The source of all knowledge was declared to be a book, and the right of interpretation of this book was given to one class alone—those who sided with and were a part of the Superior Class.
The reason the race has progressed so slowly is because the strong, vigorous and independent have been suppressed, either by legal process, or exterminated through war, which reaps the best and lets the weak, the diseased and the cowards go.
Those who doubted and questioned have been deprived of food and clothes, disgraced, mobbed, robbed, lashed naked at the cart's tail, burned at the stake, or separated from their families and transported beyond the sea to be devoured by wild beasts, die in jungles, or toil out their lives in slavery.
But still there were always a few who would doubt and a few who would question; and in the early part of the Eighteenth Century in England the government was being put to severe straits to cope with the difficulty. Lying in the Thames were receiving-ships on which were crowded men and women to be transported. When the ship was full, crowded to her utmost, she sailed away with her living cargo. From Sixteen Hundred Fifty to Seventeen Hundred Fifty, over forty thousand people were sent away for their country's good. The hangman worked overtime, all prisons were crowded, and the walls of Newgate bulged with men and women, old and young, who were believed to be dangerous to the stability and well-being of the superior class—that is, those who had the right to tax others.
Finally, the enormity of bloodshed and woe involved caused a sort of concession on both sides to be agreed upon. Oppression continued will surely lead to a point where it cures itself, and the superior class in England, with a wise weather-eye, saw the reef on which they were in danger of striking. They heard the breakers, and began to grant concessions—unwillingly of course—concessions wrung from them. The censorship was abolished, reform bills introduced, the rights of free speech and a free press were partially recognized. The clergy, taking the cue, began to preach more love and less damnation; for the pew ever dictates to the pulpit what it shall preach. Thus general relaxation was in order to meet the competition of rival sects and independent preachers that were springing up; for although creeds never change, yet their interpretation does, and liberal sects do their work, not by growing strong, but by making all others more liberal.
Thus the latter part of the Eighteenth Century witnessed a weakening of both sides through compromise. The schools and colleges were pedantic, complacent, smug and self-satisfied; by giving in a few points they had absorbed the radicals, and the political protesters had been bought off with snug places in the excise. Pretended knowledge passed for wisdom, dignity paraded as worth, affectation and hypocrisy patronized virtue. And Coleridge appears upon the scene, a conservative, with a beautiful innocence and an indifference to all pretended authority and asks, "How do you know?"
The number of people who have written their names large in literature, who were the children of clergymen, is no mere coincidence. Tennyson, Addison, Goldsmith, Emerson, Lowell, Jane Austen, Charlotte Bronte, Coleridge—you can add to the list to suit. Young people follow example, and the habit of the father in writing out his thoughts causes others of the family to try it, too. Then there is an atmosphere of books in a rectory, and leisure to think, and best of all the income is not so great but that the practise of economy of time and money is duly enforced by necessity. To be launched into a library and learn by absorption is a great blessing.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge was born in Seventeen Hundred Seventy-two, the son of the Reverend John Coleridge, of Ottery Saint Mary, a small village of Devonshire. The rector was also a schoolmaster, just as all clergymen were before division of labor forced itself upon us. This worthy clergyman was twice married, his first wife bearing him three children, the second ten. Samuel was the last of the brood—the thirteenth—but his parents were not superstitious.
The youngest in a big family, like the first, is apt to have a deal of love lavished upon him. The question of discipline has proved its own futility, and when a baby comes to parents approaching fifty, depend upon it, that child transforms the household into a monarchy, with himself as tyrant. This may be well and it may not.
Little Samuel Taylor seemed to be aware of his power; he evolved a wondrous precocity and ruled the rectory with a rod of iron. When he was five he propounded questions that shook the orthodoxy of the worthy vicar to its very center.
Yet, remarkable as was the intellect of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, the family would not have remained in obscurity without him. In fact, the very brightness of his fame caused the excellence of his brothers to be lost in the shadow. His brother James became the father of Henry Nelson Coleridge, who married his cousin Sara, the daughter of our poet.
To anticipate a little, it is well enough here to say that the daughter of Coleridge was a woman of remarkable excellence, and if you wish to disprove the adage that genius does not transmit itself she is a good example to bring up—even though there is a difference between fact and truth. James Coleridge was also the father of Mr. Justice Coleridge, himself the father of Lord Chief Justice Coleridge.
And since iconoclasm is not out of place in an essay on Coleridge, it can also be stated that when Sara Coleridge married her cousin she did a wise thing. The marriage was a most happy one, and the children of these cousins have shown themselves to be beyond the average. And once, certainly not with his daughter in mind, Coleridge debated the question of consanguinity with Charles Lamb, and proved to his own satisfaction at least that the marriage of cousins was eminently sane, proper, just and right, and fraught with the best results for humanity.
The only indictment that can be brought against the father of Coleridge is that he was a zealous Latin scholar, and proposed that the term "ablative" be abolished as insufficient, and in its stead should be used that of "quale-quare-quiddative case." He was a simple, amiable, excellent man who did his work the best he could, and was beloved by all the parish. As to the excellence of the established order of things he had no doubts—government and religion were divine institutions and should be upheld by all honest men.
As to the vicar's wife we know little, but enough of a glance is given into her character through letters to show that she had in her make-up a trace of noble discontent. She was not entirely happy in her surroundings, and the amiable ways of her husband were often an exasperation to her, rather than a pleasure—even amiability can be overdone. He never saw more than a mile from home, but her eyes swept England from Cornwall to Scotland, and few men, even, saw so far as that a hundred years ago. The discontent of Samuel Taylor Coleridge was the heritage of mother to son. When Samuel was nine years of age the father passed away. The widow would have been in sore financial straits had it not been for the older children, and even as it was, strict economy and untiring industry were in order. Out of sympathy, Mr. Justice Buller, who had been a pupil of the Reverend John Coleridge, proposed to secure the youngest boy a scholarship in Christ's Hospital School, and so we find him entered there, July Eighteenth, Seventeen Hundred Eighty-two. This was a year memorable in the history of America; and the alertness of the charity boy's intellect is shown in that he was aware of the struggle between England and the Colonies. He discussed the situation with his schoolfellows, and explained that the mother country had made a mistake in exacting too much. His sympathies were with the Colonies, but he thought submission on their part was in order when the stamp-tax was removed and that complete independence was absurd—the Colonies needed some one to protect them.
Such reasoning in a boy of ten years seems strange, especially in view of the fact that a noted professor of pedagogy has recently explained to us that no child under fourteen is capable of independent reasoning.
But it is quite certain that young Coleridge's opinions were not borrowed, for all the lad's acquaintances, who thought of the matter at all, considered the Americans simply "rebels" who merited death.
Coleridge remained at Christ's Hospital for eight years, and before he left had easily taken his place as "Deputy Grecian." Charles Lamb has given many delightful glimpses of that schoolboy life in the "Essays of Elia."
Middleton, afterward Bishop of Calcutta, called the attention of Boyer, the master, to Coleridge by saying, "There is a boy who reads Vergil for amusement!" Boyer was a strict disciplinarian, but he was ever on the lookout for a lad who loved books—the average youth getting out of all the study he could.
The master began to encourage young Coleridge, and Coleridge responded. He wrote verses and essays, and was a prodigy in memorizing. According to Boyer's idea, and it was the prevailing idea everywhere then, and is yet in some sections, memorization was the one thing desirable. If the subject were Plato, and the master had forgotten his book, he called on Coleridge to recite. And the tall, fair-haired boy, with the big dreamy eyes, would rise and give page after page, "verbatim et literatim."
Before Coleridge went to Cambridge, when nineteen years old he had taken on that masterly quality in conversation that made his society sought, even to the last. Lamb has told us of the gentle voice, not loud nor deep, but full of mellow intonations, and bell-like in its purity.
Such a voice, laden with fine feeling, carrying conviction, only goes with a great soul. No doubt, though, the young man had grown into a bit of a dictator, and this habit of harangue he carried with him to College. To talk enabled him to think, and expression is necessary to growth. So the habit of argument with Coleridge seemed Nature's method of developing his powers of mental analysis. No more foolish saying was ever launched than, "Children should be seen and not heard." From lisping babyhood Coleridge talked, and talked much. When he was twenty, at Cambridge, he drew the boys to his room, until it was crowded to suffocation, just by the magic of his voice, and the subtle quality of his thought. His questioning mind went right to the heart of things, and in his divisions and heads and subheads even the professors could not always follow him. Let us hope that he himself always knew what he was trying to explain.
He discussed metaphysics, theology and politics, and very naturally got to treading on thin ice.
In theology his reasoning led him into Unitarianism, then a very fearful thing; and in politics he dallied with Madame la Revolution.
A polite note from the Master of the College, suggesting that he talk less and follow the curriculum a little more closely, led him straight to the Master, with whom he proposed to argue the case, or publicly debate it. This was terrible!
Stephen Crane at Syracuse University, a hundred years later, did just such a thing. He sought to argue a point in the classroom with Chancellor Symms.
"Tut, tut!" said the Chancellor. "Have you forgotten what Saint Paul says on that very theme?"
"Yes, I know," replied the best catcher ever on the Syracuse Nine; "yes, I know what Saint Paul says, but I differ with Saint Paul." And Stevie, unconsciously, was standing on the well-lubricated chute that landed him, soon, well outside the campus.
The authorities did not admire the brilliant young Coleridge, full of his reasons and prolix abstractions. He was attracting too much attention to himself, and gradually gathering about him a throng of admirers who might disturb the balance of things. He was there anyway only through sufferance, and an intimation was given him that if he were not willing to accept things as they existed, and as they were taught, he had better go elsewhere.
Piqued by his treatment and feeling he had been misunderstood and wronged, he suddenly disappeared.
Some months afterwards, an acquaintance found him in a company of dragoons, duly enlisted in His Majesty's service, under an assumed name.
The authorities at Jesus College were notified, and knowing that such a youth was out of place serving as a soldier, and feeling further a small pang of regret possibly for having driven him away, a plan was set on foot to secure his discharge. This was soon brought about, and doubtless much to Coleridge's relief. Erelong he found himself back at Cambridge—a little subdued, and a trifle more discreet, for his rough contact with the workaday world.
A journey to Oxford, to visit an old friend, proved a pivotal point in his life. The fame of Coleridge as a poet had gone abroad, and the literary fledglings at Oxford sought to do the visitor honor in the proper way. Among others whom he met on this visit were Robert Southey and Robert Lovell, both poets of considerable local fame.
Lovell had been married but a few months before to a young woman by the name of Fricker. Southey was engaged to a sister of the bride, and there was still a third sister fancy-free. The three poets became fast friends. They were all radicals, full of ambition to make a name for themselves, and all intent on elevating society out of the ruts into which it had fallen. All had suffered contumely on account of advanced ideas; and all were out of conceit with the existing order.
They discussed the matter at length, and decided to set the world an example, by founding an ideal colony and showing how to make the most of life.
Coleridge had long been interested in America, and from an acquaintanceship with sundry soldiers who had helped fight the battles of George the Third in the New World, he had gathered a rather romantic idea of the country. The stories of returned sailors and soldiers, told to civilians, are seldom exactly authentic. And Coleridge the poet, bubbling with the effervescence of youth, argued that a home on the banks of the Susquehanna, with love and books and comradeship, was the ideal condition.
The matter was broached to the three sisters Fricker, and they of course responded—what woman worthy of the name of woman would not? And so the arrangements were fast being made, and as a necessary feature the three poets were duly and legally married to the three sisters, and Eden was to be peopled with the best.
A date was arranged for sailing, but some trifling matter of finance delayed the exodus—in fact, certain expected loans were not forthcoming. Coleridge put in the time lecturing and preaching from Unitarian pulpits. He also tried his hand as editor, but the publication scheme failed to bring the shekels that were to buy emancipation. The innate contrariness of things seemed to be blocking all his plans.
Meanwhile we find Lovell drifting off into commercialism. That is to say, Barabbas-like, he had turned publisher. Gadzooks! What would you have a man with a wife and baby do? Live on moonshine—well, well, well!
Death claimed poor Lovell before he could make a success either of commerce or of art.
Coleridge moved up to the Lake District, and at Keswick, near where the water comes down at Lodore—or did before the stream dried up—he rented rooms of a kind friend by the name of Johnson, who owned Greta Hall. Southey was writing articles for London papers. He received a guinea a column, and when he wrote a poem, as he did every little while, he sent it to a publisher who returned him a little good cash.
Southey's wife went up to Keswick on a visit to see her sister, Mrs. Coleridge. Southey followed up to Keswick, and rather liked the situation. The Southeys and the Coleridges all lived together as one happy family.
Southey was writing poetry and getting paid for it; and beside this had a small income. Coleridge allowed Southey to buy the supplies, and when he went away on tramp lecturing tours he felt perfectly safe in leaving his family with Southey.
While up that way he met a young man, a native, by the name of Wordsworth—William Wordsworth—and a poet, too.
Wordsworth had a sister named Dorothy, and this brother and sister lived together in a little whitewashed stone cottage, built up against the hillside at Grasmere, a village thirteen miles from Keswick. Coleridge liked these people first-rate and they liked him. He used to go down to visit them, and they would all sit up late listening to the splendid talk of the handsome Coleridge. William said he was the only great man he had ever met, and Dorothy agreed in the proposition.
Coleridge was discouraged: the world did not care for his work, and the men in power had set their faces against him—or he thought they had, which is the same thing. There was a conspiracy, he thought, to keep him down; and Wordsworth should have advised him to join it, but did not.
Dorothy Wordsworth was a most extraordinary woman—she was gentle, kind, low-voiced, sympathetic. She was not handsome, but she had the intellect that entitled her to a membership in the Brotherhood of Fine Minds. She knew the splendid excellence of Coleridge, and could follow him in his most abstract dissertations; and if his logic faltered she could lead him back to the trail.
Dorothy Wordsworth admired and pitied Coleridge; and from pity to love is but a step.
But Coleridge was not capable of a passionate love—the substance of his being was all absorbed in abstract thought. And yet Dorothy Wordsworth attracted him as no other woman ever did. He forgot his wife, Sara, up there at Southey's. Sara was a better-looking woman than Dorothy, but she lacked intellect. Her life was all bound up in housekeeping and going to church, and the petty little round of daily happenings to neighbors and friends. The world of thought and dreams to her was nothing. She loved her husband, but his foolish foibles vexed her, and his lack of application prompted her to chide him. And at such times he would turn to his friends at Dove Cottage for sympathy and rest.
They used to tramp the hills, and discuss philosophy, and recite their poems the livelong day. It was on one such jaunt that out of the ghost of shoreless seas they sighted the "Ancient Mariner." Then Coleridge went ahead, completed the plot and gave the poem to the world. And once he said, half-boastfully, to Dorothy: "This old seafaring poem is valuable in that it is a tale no one will understand, but which will excite universal interest. Only the perfectly sane and sensible is dull."
Wordsworth had read somewhat of the works of the German philosophers, and as he and his sister had a little money saved up they decided to go over and attend the lectures at the University of Göttingen for awhile. Coleridge had nothing in the way to prevent his going, too, save that he didn't have the money. However, he wanted to go and so decided to lay the case before the sons of Josiah Wedgwood. These young men had been schoolfellows of Coleridge at Cambridge, and once he had gone home with them and so had met their father.
And right here comes a very strong temptation to say not another word about Coleridge, but merge this essay off into a sketch of that most excellent, strong and noble man, Josiah Wedgwood. Here is a man who left his impress indelibly on the times, and whose influence outweighed that of a dozen prime ministers. The potter is gone, but he lives in his art, so we still have the best and purest and noblest of the soul of Josiah Wedgwood.
This man had assisted Coleridge at Cambridge, and it was to his sons Coleridge looked for help to realize his Susquehanna dream of Utopia. But the Wedgwoods knew the hazy, moonshine quality of the project and made excuses.
Coleridge now appealed to them for assistance in a saner project, and they supplied him the money to go to Göttingen.
His stay of fourteen months in Germany gave him a firm hold on the language, and a goodly glimpse into the philosophy of Kant, Leibnitz and Schleiermacher. When Coleridge returned to England, he went at once to see his interesting family. Rumor has it that Mrs. Coleridge, in addition to caring for her own little brood and assisting in the Southey household, had also been working in the Keswick lead-pencil factory for a weekly wage of twelve shillings. The philosopher did not much like this lowering of dignity, and said so mildly. This led to the truthful explanation that he had hardly done his duty by his family in allowing them to shift for themselves or be cared for by kinsmen; and therefore advice from him was out of place. In short, Southey intimated that while he would care for his sisters-in-law he drew the line at brothers-in-law. And Samuel Taylor Coleridge drifted up to London (being down) to see if something would not turn up.
His first task there was to translate "Werther," but the work did not seem to go. Grub Street took up the brilliant talker, and for a time he gave parlor lectures and filled the air of thought and speculation with his brilliant pyrotechnics. The force of his mind was everywhere acknowledged, but someway he did not seem to get on. Men who have managed the finances of a nation often have not been able successfully to control their own; and more than once we have had the spectacle of one who could do the thinking for a world failing in the humdrum duties of a citizen and neighbor. Coleridge tried various things, among others a secretaryship that took him to Malta, but the lack of system in his habits and his absent-mindedness made him the prey and butt of "practical" men.
When Carlyle said that no more dreary record than the lives of authors existed, save the Newgate Calendar, he spoke truth.
That the lives of most authors is a series of misunderstandings, blunders, heart-burnings, tragedies, is a fact. The author is a man who diverts and amuses us by doing the things we would do if we had time; and if we like him it is only because he expresses the things we already know. His is a hard task, requiring intense concentration—a concentration that can only be continued for a short time without the absolute burning out of existence.
To think one's best and write out ideas is an abnormal operation. The most artistic work is always done in a sort of fever or ecstacy, which in its very nature is transient. To hunt and fish and dream and to work with one's hands are all very natural; but to sit down and think and then express your thoughts by the artificial scheme of writing on paper is a dangerous operation. If carried to excess it shall be paid for by your life.
Coleridge had turned night into day in his hot zeal to follow the winding, dancing mystery of existence to its inmost recess. At times he had forgotten to eat or sleep; and then to reinforce despairing nature he had resorted to stimulants.
Digestion had become impaired, circulation faulty through lack of exercise, so sleeplessness followed stimulation. Then to quiet pain came the use of the drug that brings oblivion. And lo! thought burned up brighter than ever and all the dreams of youth and twenty came trooping back.
Coleridge had made a discovery. He thought he was getting the start of God Almighty; but he wasn't, for men have tried that before, and are trying it today, and many know not yet that we are strong only as we cling close to the skirts of Mother Nature and follow lovingly in her ways.
From his twenty-ninth year we find Coleridge a wreck in mind and body; shuffling, sick, disheartened, erratic, uncertain, yet occasionally brilliant. He tramped the streets, feared and shunned. His money was gone, his power of concentration had vanished. In search of bread he met an old-time friend, Doctor Gillman.
"Gillman," said Coleridge, "I am sick and helpless—look at me!"
"Why don't you come to my house and live with me?" asked the kind friend.
"Gillman," said the poor man, "Gillman, I am on my way there!"
So Gillman brought him to his house up at Highgate and took care of him as a child. And there he remained, the pride and pet of a group of brave, thinking men and women.
He lived on for thirty years, under the kindly, skilful care of his friend, but all the real work of his life was done before he was thirty. Occasionally the old fire would flash forth, and the wit and insight of his youth would shine out. Keats, Shelley, Lord Byron, and others strong and great sought him out to hold converse with him. And so he existed, a sort of oracle, amiable, kind and generous—wreck of a man that was—protected and defended by loving friends; while up at Keswick, Southey cared for his wife and educated his children as though they were his own.
"I am dying," said Coleridge to Gillman in July, Eighteen Hundred Thirty-four; "dying, but I should have died, like Keats, in youth and not have made myself a burden to you—do you forgive me?" We can guess the answer.
The dust of Coleridge rests in Highgate Cemetery, just a step from where he lived all those years. He, himself, selected the place and wrote his epitaph. The simple monument that marks the spot was paid for by kind friends who remembered him and loved him and who pardoned him for all that he was not, in memory of what he once had been.
To a young man from the country, who makes his way up, no greater shock ever comes than the discovery that rich people are, for the most part, woefully ignorant. He has always imagined that material splendor and spiritual gifts go hand in hand; and now if he is wise he discovers that millionaires are too busy making money, and too anxious about what they have made, and their families are too intent on spending it, ever to acquire a calm, judicial mental attitude.
The rich are not the leisure class, and they need education no less than the poor. Lord, enlighten thou our enemies, should be the prayer of every man who works for progress: give clearness to their mental perceptions, awaken in them the receptive spirit, soften their callous hearts, and arouse their powers of reason.
Danger lies in their folly, not in their wisdom; their weakness is to be feared, not their strength.
That the wealthy and influential class should fear change, and cling stubbornly to conservatism, is certainly to be expected.
To convince this class that spiritual and temporal good can be improved upon by a more liberal policy has been a task a thousand times greater than the exciting of the poor to riot. It is easy to fire the discontented, but to arouse the rich and carry truth home to the blindly prejudiced is a different matter. Too often the reformer has been one who caused the rich to band themselves against the poor.
Samuel Taylor Coleridge was a Tory who defended the existing order on the plea of its usefulness.
He approached the vital issue from the inside, taught the conservative to think, and thus opened the eyes of the aristocrats without exciting their fears or unduly arousing their wrath.
Self-preservation prompts men to move in the line of least resistance. And that any man should ever have put his safety in peril by questioning the authority of those able and ready to confiscate his property and take away his life is very strange. Such a person must belong to one of two types. He must be either a revolutionist—one who would supplant existing authority with his own, thus knowingly and willingly hazarding all—or he is an innocent, indiscreet individual, absolutely devoid of all interest in the main chance.
Coleridge belonged to the last-mentioned type. Genius needs a keeper. Here was a man so absorbed in abstract thought, so intent on attaining high and holy truth, that he neglected his friends, neglected his family, neglected himself until his body refused to obey the helm. It is easy to find fault with such a man, but to refuse to grant an admiring recognition of his worth, on account of what he was not, is an error, pardonable only to the rude, crude and vulgar. The cultivated mind sees the good and fixes attention on that.
Coleridge formulated no system, solved no complex problems, made no brilliant discoveries. But his habit of analysis enriched the world beyond power to compute. He taught men to think and separate truth from error. He was not popular, for he did not adapt himself to the many. His business was to teach teachers—he conducted a Normal School, and taught teachers how to teach. Coleridge went to the very bottom of a subject, and his subtle mind refused to take anything for granted. He approached every proposition with an unprejudiced mind. In his "Aids to Reflection," he says, "He who begins by loving Christianity better than truth will proceed by loving his own sect or church better than Christianity, and then end in loving himself better than all."
The average man believes a thing first, and then searches for proof to bolster his opinion. Every observer must have noticed the tenuous, cobweb quality of reasons that are deemed sufficient to the person who thinks he knows, or whose interests lie in a certain direction. The limitations of men seem to make it necessary that pure truth should come to us through men who are stripped for eternity. Kant, the villager who never traveled more than a day's walk from his birthplace, and Coleridge, the homeless and houseless aristocrat, with no selfish interests in the material world, view things without prejudice.
The method of Coleridge, from his youth, was to divide the whole into parts. Then he begins to eliminate, and divides down, rejecting all things that are not the thing, until he finds the thing. He begins all inquiries by supposing that nothing is known on the subject. He will not grant you that murder and robbery are bad—you must show why they are bad, and if you can not explain, he will take the subject up and divide it into heads for you.
First, the effect on the sufferer. Second, the evil to the doer. Third, the danger of a bad example. Fourth, the injury to society through the feeling of insecurity. Fifth, the pain given to the families of both doer and sufferer. Next he will look for excuses for the crime and give all the credit he can; and then finally strike a balance and give a conclusion.
One of Coleridge's best points was in calling attention to what constitutes proof; he saw all fallacies and discovered at a glance illusions in logic that had long been palmed off on the world as truth. He saw the gulf that lies between coincidence and sequence, and hastened the day when the old-time pedant with his mighty tomes and tiresome sermons about nothing should be no more. And so today, in the Year of Grace Nineteen Hundred, the man who writes must have something to say, and he who speaks must have a message. "Coleridge," says Principal Shairp, "was the originator and creator of the higher criticism." The race has gained ground, made head upon the whole; and thanks to the thinkers gone, there are thinkers now in every community who weigh, sift, try and decide. No statement made by an interested party can go unchallenged. "How do you know?" and "Why?" we ask.
That is good which serves—man is the important item, this earth is the place, and the time is now. So all good men and women and all churches are endeavoring to make earth heaven; and all agree that to live, now and here, the best you can, is the fittest preparation for a life to come.
We no longer accept the doctrine that our natures are rooted in infamy, and that the desires of the flesh are cunning traps set by Satan, with God's permission, to undo us. We believe that no one can harm us but ourselves, that sin is misdirected energy, that there is no devil but fear, and that the universe is planned for good. On every side we find beauty and excellence held in the balance of things. We know that work is needful, that winter is as necessary as summer, that night is as useful as day, that death is a manifestation of life, and just as good. We believe in the Now and Here. We believe in a power that is in ourselves that makes for righteousness.
These things have not been taught us by a superior class who have governed us for a consideration, and to whom we have paid taxes and tithes—we have simply thought things out for ourselves, and in spite of them. We have listened to Coleridge, and others, who said: "You should use your reason and separate the good from the bad, the false from the true, the useless from the useful. Be yourself and think for yourself; and while your conclusions may not be infallible they will be nearer right than the opinions forced upon you by those who have a personal interest in keeping you in ignorance. You grow through the exercise of your faculties, and if you do not reason now you never will advance. We are all sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be. Claim your heritage!"
BENJAMIN DISRAELI
The stimulus subsided. The paroxysms ended in prostration. Some took refuge in melancholy, and their eminent chief alternated between a menace and a sigh. As I sat opposite the Treasury bench, the Ministers reminded me of those marine landscapes not unusual on the coasts of South America. You behold a range of exhausted volcanoes; not a flame flickers on a single pallid crest; but the situation is still dangerous: there are occasional earthquakes, and ever and anon the dark rumblings of the sea.
—Speech at Manchester
BENJAMIN DISRAELI
Since Disraeli was born a Jew, he was received into the Jewish Church with Jewish rites. But Judaism, standing in the way of his ambition, and his parents' ambition for him, the religion of his fathers was renounced and he became, in name, a Christian. Yet to the last his heart was with his people, and the glory of his race was his secret pride.
The fine irony of affiliating with a people who worship a Jew as their Savior, but who have legislated against, and despised the Jew—this attracted Disraeli. With them he bowed the knee in an adoration they did not feel, and while his lips said the litany, his heart repeated Ben Ezra's prayer. In temperament he belonged with the double-dealing East. He intuitively knew the law of jiu jitsu, best exemplified by the Japanese, and won often by yielding. He was bold, but not too bold.
Israel Zangwill, shrewdest, keenest and kindliest of Jews—with the tragedy of his race pictured on his furrowed face, a face like an ancient weather-worn statue on whose countenance grief has petrified—has summed up the character of Disraeli as no other man ever has or can. I will not rob the reader by quoting from "The Primrose Sphinx"—that gem of letters must ever stand together without subtraction of a word. It belongs to the realm of the lapidary, and its facets can not be transferred. Yet when Mr. Zangwill refers to the Mephistophelian curl of Lord Beaconsfield's lip, the word is used advisedly. No character in history so stands for the legendary Mephisto as does this man. The Satan of the Book of Job, jaunty, daring, joking with his Maker, is the Mephisto of Goethe and all the other playwriters who, have used the character. Mephisto is so much above the ordinary man in sense of humor—which is merely the right estimate of values—so sweeping in intellect, that Milton pictures him as a dispossessed god, the only rival of Deity.
Disraeli, not satisfied with playing the part of Mephisto and tempting men to their ruin, but thirsting for a wider experience, turns Faustus himself and sells his soul for a price. He knows that everything in life is sold—nothing is given gratis—we pay for knowledge with tears; for love with pain; for life with death. He haggles and barters with Fate, and pays the penalty because he must.
He alternately affronts and cajoles his enemies; takes all that the world has to give; knows every pleasure; wins every prize; makes love to the daughters of men (without loving them); and winning the one he selects, secretly thanks Jehovah, God of his fathers, that he leaves no offspring—because the woman fit for his mate and equal to mothering his children does not exist.
The sublimity of his egotism stands unrivaled. It is so great that it is admirable. We lift our hats to this man. Napoleon gained the field without prejudice; but this man enters the list with hate and prejudice arrayed against him. He plays the pawns of chance with literature, religion, politics, and moves the queen so as to checkmate all adversaries. He flouts love, but to show the world that he yet knows the ideal, he occasionally pictures truth and trusting affection in his speeches and books. This entire game of life is to him only a diversion.
They may jeer him down in the House of Commons, but his patience is unruffled. He says, "Very well, I will wait." Now and again he smiles that wondrous, contagious smile, showing his white teeth and the depth of his dark, burning eyes.
He knows his power. He revels in the wit he never expresses; he glories in this bright blade of the intellect that is never fully unsheathed.
They think he is interested in English politics—pish! Only world problems really interest him, and those that lie behind mean as much to him as those that are to come. He is one with eternity, and the vanquished glory of Rome, the marble beauty of Athens, the Assyrian Sphinx, the flight from Egypt under the leadership of one who had killed his man—yet had talked with God face to face—these and the dim uncertainty of the unseen, are the things that interest him. He is a dreamer of the Ghetto.
There was no taint of mixed blood in the veins of Benjamin Disraeli. He traced his ancestry in a record that looks like a chapter from the Book of Numbers. His forebears had known every persecution, every contumely, slight and disgrace. Driven from Spain by the Inquisition, barely escaping with life, when Jewish blood actually fertilized the fields about Granada, his direct ancestor became one of the builders of Venice. The Jews practically controlled the trade of the world in the sun-kissed days of prosperity, when Venice produced the books and the art of Christendom.
To trace an ancestry back to those who enthroned Venice on her hundred isles was surely something of which to be proud; and into the blood of Benjamin Disraeli went a dash of the gleam and glory and glamour of Venice—the Venice of the Doges.
This man's grandfather came to England with a goodly fortune, which he managed to increase as the years went by. He had one son, Isaac, who nearly broke his parents' heart in that he not only showed no aptitude for business, but actually wrote poems wherein commerce was held up to ridicule. The tendency of the artistic nature to speak with disdain of the "mere money-grabber," and the habit of the "money-grabber" to refer patronizingly to the helpless, theoretical and dreamy artist, is well known. Isaac Disraeli was an artist in feeling; he must have been a reincarnation of one of those bookmakers of Venice who touched hands with Titian and Giorgione and helped to invest wisely the moneys the merchants of the Rialto made. Never a Gratiano had a greater contempt for a merchant than he. Just to get him out of the way, his parents packed Isaac off to Europe, where he acquired several languages, and some other things, with that ease which the Jew always manifests. He dallied in art, pecked at books, and made the acquaintance of many literary men.
When his father died and left him a goodly fortune, he had the sense to turn the entire management of the estate over to his wife, a woman with a thorough business instinct, while he busied himself with his books.
Benjamin was the second child of these parents. He had a sister older than himself, and two brothers younger. Those philosophers who claim that spirits have their own individuality in the unseen world, and the accident of birth really does not constitute a kinship between brothers and sisters, will find here something that looks like proof. Benjamin Disraeli bore no resemblance in mental characteristics to his sister or brothers; he did, however, possess the mental virtues of both father and mother, multiplied by ten.
When twelve years of age he exhibited that intense disposition for mastery which was through life his distinguishing trait. The Jew does not outrank the Gentile in strength, but the average Jew surely does have the faculty of concentration which the average Gentile does not possess. And that is what constitutes strength—the ability to focus the mind on one thing and compass it: to concentrate is power.
When Ben was sent to the Unitarian school at Walthamstow, aged fifteen, it was his first taste of school life. Up to this time his father had been his tutor. Now he found himself cast into that den of wild animals—an English school for boys. His Jewish name and features and his dandy ways and attire made him the instant butt of the playground. Ben very patiently surveyed his tormentors, waited to pick his man, and then challenged the biggest boy in the school to single combat. The exasperating way in which he coolly went about the business set his adversary's teeth chattering before the call of "time." The result of the fight was that, even if "Dizzy" was not thoroughly respected from that day forth, no one ever called, "Old clo'! Old clo'!" within his hearing. Of course it was not generally advertised that the lad had been taking boxing lessons from "Coster Joe" for three years, with the villainies of a boys' school in view. In fact, boxing was this young man's diversion, and the Coster on several occasions expressed great regret that writing and politics had robbed the ring of one who showed promise of being the cleverest welter-weight of his time.
The main facts in both "Vivian Gray" and "Contarini Fleming" are autobiographical. Like Byron, upon whom Disraeli fed, the author never got far away from himself.
It was not long before the intense personality of young Disraeli made itself felt throughout the Walthamstow school. The young man smiled at the pedant's idolatry of facts, and seized the vital point in every lesson. He felt himself the superior of every one in the establishment, master included—and he was.
Before a year he split the school into two factions—those who favored Ben Disraeli, and those who were opposed to him. The master cast his vote with the latter class, and the result was that Ben withdrew, thus saving the authorities the trouble of expelling him. His leave-taking was made melodramatic with a speech to the boys, wherein impertinent allusions were made concerning all schoolmasters, and the master of Walthamstow in particular.
And thus ended the school life of Benjamin Disraeli, the year at Walthamstow being his first and last experience.
However, Ben was not indifferent to study; he felt sure that there was a great career before him, and he knew that knowledge was necessary to success. With his father's help he laid out a course of work that kept him at his tasks ten hours a day. His father was a literary man of acknowledged worth, and mingled in the best artistic society of London. Into this society Benjamin was introduced, meeting all his father's acquaintances on an absolute equality. The young man at eighteen was totally unabashed in any company; he gave his opinion unasked, criticized his elders, flashed his wit upon the guests and was looked upon with fear, amusement or admiration, as the case might be.
Froude says of him, "The stripling was the same person as the statesman at seventy, with this difference only, that the affectation which was natural in the boy was itself affected in the matured politician, whom it served well for a mask, or as a suit of impenetrable armor."
That literature is the child of parents is true. That is to say, it takes two to produce a book. Of course there are imitation books, sort o' wax figures that look like books, made through habit by those that have been many years upon the turf, and who work automatically; but every real, live, throbbing, pulsing book was written by a man with a woman at his elbow, or vice versa.
When twenty-one years of age Benjamin Disraeli produced "Vivian Gray." The woman in the case was Mrs. Austen, wife of a prosperous London solicitor. This lady was handsome, a brilliant talker, a fine musician and an amateur artist of no mean ability. She was much older than Disraeli—she must have been in order to comprehend that the young man's frivolity was pretense, and his foppery affectation. A girl of his own age, whose heart-depths had not been sounded by experience, would have fallen in love with the foppery (or else despised it—which is often the same thing); but Mrs. Austen, mature in years, with a decade of London "seasons" behind her, having met every possible kind of man Europe had to offer, discovered that the world did not know Ben Disraeli at all. She saw that the youth did not reveal his true self, and that instead of courting society for its own sake he had a supreme contempt for it. She intuitively knew that he was seething in discontent, and with prophetic vision she knew that his restless power and his ambition would yet make him a marked figure in the world of letters or politics, or both.
For love as a passion, or supreme sentiment, ruling one's life, Disraeli had no sympathy. He shunned love for fear it might bind him hand and foot. Love not only is blind, but love blinds its votary, and Disraeli, knowing this, fled for freedom when the trail grew warm. A man madly in love is led, subdued—imagine Mephisto captured, crying it out on his knees with his head in a woman's lap!
But Mrs. Austen was happily married, the mother of a family, and occupied a position high in London society.
Marriage with her was out of the question, and scandal and indiscretion equally so—Ben Disraeli felt safe with Mrs. Austen. With her he put off his domino and grew simple and confidential.
And so the lady, doubtless a bit flattered—for she was a woman—set herself to push on the hazard of new fortunes. She encouraged him to write his novel of "Vivian Gray"—discussed every phase of it, read chapter after chapter as they were produced, and by her gentle encouragement and warm sympathy fired the mind of the young man to the point of production.
The book is absurd in plot, and like most first books, flashy and overdrawn. And yet there is a deal of power in it, and the thinly veiled characters were speedily pointed out as living personages. Literary London went agog, and Mrs. Austen fanned the flame by inviting "the set" to her drawing-room to hear the great author read from his amusing work. The best feature of the book, and probably the saving feature, is that the central figure in the plot is Disraeli, himself, and upon his own head the author plays his shafts of wit and ridicule. The impertinence and impudence which he himself manifested were parodied, caricatured and played upon, to the great delight of the uninitiated rabble, who gave themselves much credit for having made a discovery.
The man who scorns, scoffs, gibes and jeers other men, and at the same time is willing to drop his guard and laugh at himself, is not a bad man. Very, very seldom is found a man under thirty who does not take himself and all his wit seriously. But Disraeli, the lawyer's clerk, at twenty was wise and subtle beyond all men in London Town. Mrs. Austen must have been wise, too, for had she been like most other good women she would have wanted her protege admired, and have rebelled in tears at the thought of placing him in a position where society would serve him up for tittle-tattle. Small men can be laughed down, but great ones, never.
A little American testimony as to the appearance of Disraeli in his manhood may not here be amiss. Says N.P. Willis: "He was sitting in a window looking on Hyde Park, the last rays of sunlight reflected from the gorgeous gold flowers of a splendidly embroidered waistcoat. Patent-leather pumps, a white stick with a black cord and tassel, and a quantity of chains about his neck and pockets, served to make him a conspicuous object. He has one of the most remarkable faces I ever saw. He is lividly pale, and but for the energy of his action and strength of his lungs would seem to be a victim of consumption. His eye is black as Erebus, and has the most mocking, lying-in-wait sort of expression conceivable. His mouth is alive with a kind of working and impatient nervousness, and when he has burst forth, as he does constantly, with a particularly successful cataract of expression, it assumes a curl of triumphant scorn that would be worthy of Mephistopheles. His hair is as extraordinary as his taste in waistcoats. A thick, heavy mass of jet-black ringlets falls on his left cheek almost to his collarless stock, which on the right temple is parted and put away with the smooth carefulness of a girl. The conversation turned on Beckford. I might as well attempt to gather up the foam of the sea as to convey an idea of the extraordinary language in which he clothed his description. He talked like a racehorse approaching the winning-post, every muscle in action."
Disraeli, like Byron, awoke one morning and found himself famous. And like Byron, he was yet a stripling. Pitt was Prime Minister at twenty-five. Genius has its example, and Disraeli worshiped alternately at the shrines of Byron and Pitt. The daring intellect and haughty indifference of Byron, and the compelling power of Pitt—he saw no reason why he should not unite these qualities within himself. He had been grubbing in a lawyer's office, and had revealed decided ability in a business way, but novel-writing in office-hours was not appreciated by his employer—Ben was told so, and this gave him an opportunity to resign. He had set his heart on a political career—he thirsted for power—and no doubt Mrs. Austen encouraged him in this. To push a man to the front, and thus win a vicarious triumph, has been a source of great joy to more than one ambitious woman. To get on in politics, Disraeli must enter the House of Commons. Even now, with the help of the Austens, and his father's purse, a pocket borough might be secured, but it was not enough—he must enter with eclat.
A year of travel was advised—fame grows best where the man is not too much in evidence; there is virtue in obscurity. Disraeli decided to go down through Europe, traveling over the same route that Byron had taken, write another book that would secure him some more necessary notoriety, and then stand for a seat in the House of Commons. Once within the sacred pale, he believed his knowledge of business, his ability to express himself as a writer or speaker, and the magic of his presence would make the rest easy.
There was no dumb luck in the matter—neither father nor son believed in chance; they fixed their faith on cause and effect.
And so Ben went abroad before London society grew aweary of him.
His stay was purposely prolonged; and news of his progress from time to time filled the public prints. He carried letters of introduction to every one and moved in a sort of sublime pageant as he traveled.
When he returned, wearing the costume of the East, he was greeted by society as a prince. His novel, "Contarini Fleming," was published with great acclaim, and interest in "Vivian Gray" was revived by a special edition deluxe. "Contarini" was compared to "Childe Harold," and pictures of Disraeli, with hair curling to his shoulders, were displayed in shop-windows by the side of pictures of Byron.
Disraeli was the lion of the drawing-rooms. When it was known he was to be in a certain place crowds gathered to get a glimpse of his handsome face, and to listen to his wit.
He introduced several of his Eastern accomplishments, one of which was the hookah. "Beware of tobacco, my boy," said an old colonel to him one day; "women do not like it; it has ruined more charming liaisons than anything else I know!"
"Then you must consider smoking a highly moral accomplishment," was the reply. The colonel had wrongly guessed the object of Disraeli's ambition.
He became acquainted with Tom Moore, Count d'Orsay, and Lady Morgan; Lady Blessington welcomed him at Kensington; Bulwer-Lytton introduced him to Mrs. Wyndham Lewis—wife of the member from Maidstone—aged forty; and he was, say, twenty-five. They tried conclusions in repartee, sparred for points, and amused the company by hot arguments and wordy pyrotechnics. When they found themselves alone in the conservatory, after a little stroll, they shook hands, and the gentleman said, "What fools these mortals be!" "True," replied the lady; "true, and you and I are mortals." And so Disraeli found another woman who correctly gauged him. They liked each other first-rate. At last a vacant borough was found and arrangements made for the young man to stand as a candidate for the House of Commons. The campaign was entered upon with great vigor. Disraeli quite outdid himself in speech-making and waistcoats. The election took place—and he was defeated.
With Disraeli defeat meant merely a transient episode, not a conclusion. On the second venture he was elected, and one sunshiny day found himself duly sworn in as a member of the House of Commons, with a seat just back of Peel's.
There is a tradition in Parliament, adopted also in the United States Senate, that silence is quite becoming to a member during his first session. Disraeli had a motto to the effect that it is better to be impudent than servile, and in order to teach Parliament that in the presence of personality all rules are waived, he very shortly indulged him in an exceeding spread-eagle speech. But he had not spoken five minutes before the members began to laugh. Catcalls, hisses and mad tumult reigned. The young man in the flaming waistcoat let loose all his oratorical artillery, and the result was bravos and left-handed applause that smothered his batteries. Again and again he tried to proceed, but his voice was lost in the Clover-Club fusillade. The Chair was powerless. At last the speaker saw an opening and roared above the din, "I will now sit down, but you shall yet listen to me!"
Opinions were divided as to whether the House had squelched the Israelitish fop, or whether the fop had tantalized the House into unseemliness. The young man needed snubbing, no doubt, but the lesson had been given so brutally that sympathy was with the snubbed. The original intent was to abash him, so he would break down; but this not succeeding, he had simply been clubbed into silence.
Then when Disraeli refused to accept condolences—merely waiving the whole affair—and a few days after arose to make some trivial motion, just as though nothing had happened, he made friends.
Any man who shows himself to be strong has friends—people wish to attach themselves to such a one. Disraeli showed himself strong in that he held no resentment, and indulged in no recrimination on account of the treatment he had received. A weak man would have done one of these things: resigned his seat, demanded an apology from the House, or refused to let his voice again be heard. Disraeli did neither—he continued to speak on various occasions, and expressed himself so courteously, so modestly, so becomingly, that the members listened in awe and curiosity. Then soon it was discovered that beneath the mild and gentle ripple of his speech ran a deep current of earnest truth, tinged with subtle wit. When he spoke, the loungers came in from the cloakrooms, fearing to miss something that was worth while.
The House of Commons experience taught Disraeli one great truth, and that was this: the most effective oratory is not bombastic. Among educated people (or illiterate) the quiet, deliberate and subdued manner is best. Reserve is a very necessary element in effective speaking. It is soul-weight that counts, not mere words, words, words. The extreme deliberation and compelling quality of quiet self-possession in Disraeli's style dated, according to Gladstone, from the day that Parliament tried to laugh him down. After that if any one wanted to hear him they had to come to him, and he took good care that those who did come did not go away empty. He never explained the evident, illustrated the obvious, nor expatiated on the irrelevant.
However, the motto, "Impudence rather than servility," was not discarded. Instead of a dashing style he developed a slow, subtle, scathing quality that was quite lost on all, save those who gave themselves to close listening.
And the House listened, for when Disraeli went after an antagonist he chose an antlered stag. If little men, fiercely effervescent and childishly inconsequential, attempted to reply to him or sought to engage him in debate, he simply answered them with silence, or that tantalizing smile.
O'Connell and Disraeli, although unlike, had much in common and should have been fast friends. Surely the age and distinguished record of O'Connell must have commanded Disraeli's respect, but we know how they grappled in wordy warfare. Disraeli called the Irishman an incendiary, and O'Connell, who was a past master in abuse, replied in a speech wherein he exhausted the Billingsgate lexicon. He wound up by a reference to the ancestry of his opponent, and a suggestion that "this renegade Jew is descended from the impenitent thief, whose name was doubtless Disraeli." It was a home-thrust—a picture so exaggerated and overdrawn that all England laughed. The very extravagance of the simile should have saved the allusion from resentment; but it touched Disraeli in his most sensitive spot—his pride of birth.
He straightway challenged his traducer. O'Connell had killed a man in a duel years before, and then vowed he would never again engage in mortal combat.
Disraeli intimated that he would fight O'Connell's son, Morgan, if preferred, a man of his own age.
Morgan replied that his father insulted so many men he could not set the precedent of fighting them all, or standing sponsor for an indiscreet parent. But with genuine Irish spirit he suggested that if the son of Abraham was intent on fight and could not be persuaded to be sensible, why, the matter could probably be arranged.
Happily, about this time, police officers invaded the apartments of Disraeli and arrested him on a bench-warrant. He was bound over, to his great relief, in the sum of five hundred pounds to keep the peace.
O'Connell never took the matter very seriously, and referred soon after in a speech to "my excellent, though slightly bellicose friend, child of an honored race."
Disraeli did not take up politics to make money—the man who does that may win in his desires, but his career is short. Nothing but honesty really succeeds. Disraeli knew this, and in his record there is no taint. But the income of a member of the House of Commons affords no opportunity for display. Disraeli's books brought him in only small sums, and his father's moderate fortune had been sadly drawn upon. He was well past thirty, and was not making head, simply because he was cramped for funds. To rise in politics you must have an establishment; you must entertain and reach out and bring those you wish to influence within your scope. A third floor back, in an ebb-tide street, will not do. Like Agassiz, Disraeli had no time to make money—it was a sad plight. But this was a man of destiny, and to use the language of Augustine Birrell, "Wyndam Lewis at this time accommodatingly died." Mrs. Wyndam Lewis had been the firm friend and helper of Disraeli for many years, and although a small matter of fifteen years separated them as to ages, yet their hearts beat as one.
Scarce a twelvemonth had gone before the widow and Disraeli were married. They disappeared from London for some months, journeying on the Continent. When they returned all the old scores in way of unpaid bills against Disraeli were paid, and he was master of an establishment.
Disraeli was thirty-five, his wife was fifty, but it was a happy mating. They thought alike, and their ambitions were the same. Disraeli treated his wife with all the courtly grace and deference in which he was an adept, and her princely fortune was absolutely his. "There was much cause for gratitude on both sides," said O'Connell. And there is no doubt that Disraeli's wife proved the firmest friend he ever had. For many years she was his sole confidante and best adviser. She attended him everywhere and relieved him of many burdens. That true incident of her fingers being crushed by the careless slamming of the carriage-door, and her hiding the bleeding members in her muff, and attending her husband to the House of Commons, where he was to speak, refusing to disturb him by her pain—this symbols the moral quality of the woman. She was the fit mate of a great man, and it is pleasant to know that she was honored and appreciated.
To tell the story of Disraeli's thirty years in Parliament would be to write the political history of the time. He was in the front of every fight; he expressed himself on every subject; he crossed swords with the strongest men of his age. That he had no great and overpowering convictions on any subject is fully admitted now, even by his most ardent admirers—it was always a question of policy; that is to say, he was a politician. He gave a point here and there when he had to, and when he did, always managed to do it gracefully. When he ambled over from one party to another he affected a fine wrath and gave excellent reasons.
Three times he was Chancellor of the Exchequer, and twice was he Prime Minister, and for a time actual Dictator. But he took good care not to exercise his power too severely. When his word was supreme, the safety of the nation lay, as it always does, in a strong opposition.
In one notable instance was Disraeli wrong in his prophecies—he declared again and again that Free Trade meant commercial bankruptcy. Yet Free Trade came about, and the fires were started in ten thousand factories, and such prosperity came to England as she had never known before.
Political economy as a science was a constant butt for his wit, and in physical science he was dense to a point where his ignorance calls for pity. He believed in the literal Mosaic account of creation, and said in his paradoxical way on one occasion, that in belief he was not only a Christian, but a Jew. And this in spite of his most famous mot: "All sensible men are of one religion."
"And what is that?"
"Sensible men never tell."
Had Disraeli been truly sensible he would not have attempted to hold Charles Darwin up to ridicule, by declaring in a speech at Oxford that "it is a choice between apes and angels." He had neither the ability, patience, nor inclination to read the "Origin of Species," and yet was so absurd as to answer it.
In his novels of "Coningsby," "Sybil" and "Tancred," he argues with great skill and adroit sophistry that a landed aristocracy is necessary to a progressive civilization. "The common people need an example of refinement in way of manners, art and intellect. Some one must take the lead, and reveal the possibility of life in leisurely and luxurious living." And this example of beauty, gentleness and excellence was to come from the landed gentry of England—ye gods! Was it possible that this man believed in the necessity of the gentry as a virtuous example? Or did he merely view the fact that the aristocracy were there in actual possession, and as they could not be evicted, why then the next best thing was to cajole, flatter and discreetly advise them? Who shall say what this man believed!
Sensible men never tell.
But this we know, this man had no vice but ambition. He conformed pretty closely to England's ideals, and his thirst for power never caused him to take the chances of a Waterloo. His novels show a close acquaintanceship with the ways of society, and he knew the human heart as few men ever do. The degradation of the average toiler in Great Britain, the infamy of the policy extended toward Ireland, and the cruelty of imperialism—all these he knew, for his books reveal it; but he was powerless as a leader to stem the current of tendency. He acquiesced where he deemed action futile.
"Lothair" is his best novel, for in it he gets furthest away from himself. It reveals a cleverness that is admirable, and this same brilliancy and shifty play of intellect are found in "Endymion," written in his seventy-fifth year. Whether these novels can ever take their place among the books that endure is a question that is growing more easy to answer each succeeding year. They owed their popularity more to their flippant cleverness than to their insight, and their vogue was due, to a great extent, to the veiled personalities that interline their pages.
That Disraeli did not carry out all the plans and reforms he attempted, need not be set down to his discredit. It is fortunate he did not succeed better than he did. He, however, safely piloted the great ship in the direction the passengers desired to go; and his own personal ambition was reached when he, a Jew at heart—member of a despised race—had made himself master of the fleets, armies and treasury of the proudest nation the world has ever known.
Bound into the life of Disraeli is a peculiar incident in the romantic friendship that existed between him and Mrs. Willyums of Torquay, Cornwall. About the year Eighteen Hundred Forty-nine, Disraeli began to receive letters from an unknown admirer, who expressed a great desire for an interview on "a most important business." All public men, especially if they have the brilliant mental qualities of Disraeli, receive such letters. The sensitive neurotic female who is ill-appreciated in her own home and whose soul yearns for a "higher companionship" is numerous. Disraeli's secretary used to take care of such letters with a gentle explanation that the Chief was out of town, but upon his return, etc., etc., and that was the last of it. But this Torquay correspondent was insistent, and finally a letter came from her saying she had come to London on purpose to meet her lord and master, and she would await him at a seat just east of the fountain in Crystal Palace at a certain hour. Disraeli read the missive with impatience—the idea of his meeting an unknown woman in this fishmonger manner at a hurdy-gurdy show! He tossed the letter into the fire. The next day another letter came, expressing much regret that he had not kept the appointment, but saying she would await him at the same place the following day, and begging him, as the matter was very urgent, not to fail her.
Disraeli smiled and showed the letter to his wife. She advised him to go. When his wife said he had better do a thing he usually did it; and so he ordered his carriage and went to the hurdy-gurdy show to meet the impressionable female of unknown age and condition at the seat just east of the fountain. It was a silly thing for the leading member of Parliament to do—to make an assignation in a public place with a fool-woman—all London might be laughing at him tomorrow! He was on the point of turning back.
But he reached the fountain and there was his destiny awaiting him—a little woman in widow's black. She lifted her veil and showed a face wrinkled and old, but kindly. She was agitated—she really did not expect him—and the great man gave a great sigh of relief when he saw that no flashily dressed creature had entrapped him. Even if people stared at him sitting there it made no difference. In pity he shook hands with the little old woman, sat down beside her, calmed her agitation, spoke of Cornwall and the weather, and inquired what he could do for her. A rambling talk about nothing followed, and Disraeli was sure it was just a mild case of lunacy.
He arose to go, and the woman gave him an envelope, saying she had written out her case and begged him to read the letter when he had time. The man was preoccupied, his mind on great affairs of state—he simply crushed the letter into the side-pocket of his overcoat, bade the woman a dignified good-morning, and turned away.
It was a month before he found the letter all crumpled and soiled there where he had placed it. He really had forgotten where it came from. The envelope was opened and out dropped a Bank of England note for one thousand pounds. This note was to pay for certain legal advice. The advice wanted was of a trivial nature, and Disraeli, always conscientious in money matters, hastened to return the money, in person, and give the advice gratis.
But the lady had had the interview—two of them—and this was all she wanted. Letters followed, and this developed into a daily correspondence, wherein the old lady revealed the story of her passion—a passion as delicate, earnest and all-devouring as ever a girl of twenty knew. Insane, you say? Well, ah—yes, doubtless. But then, love is illusion; perhaps life is illusion, a very beautiful rainbow, and why old folks should not be allowed to chase it, or allow sweet emotion to gurgle gleefully under their lee, a bit, as well as young folks, I do not know. Then, really, is love simply a physical manifestation and do spirits grow old? If so, where is our belief in the immortality of the soul?
Mrs. Willyums was childless, had long been a widow, was rich, and her heart had been in the grave until she began to trace the record of Disraeli. She was a recluse: read, studied, fed on Disraeli—loved him. After several years of dreaming and planning she had actually bagged the game. She was a woman of education and ideas. Her letters were interesting—and Disraeli's letters to her, now published, reveal the history of his daily life as he never told it to another. At her death the bulk of Mrs. Willyum's fortune went by will to Disraeli.
But Mrs. Disraeli was not jealous of this affection. Why should a woman of sixty be jealous of another woman the same age? They pooled their love and grew rich together in recounting it. Presents were going backward and forward all the time between Disraeli's country home and Torquay. Mrs. Willyums next came to live at Hughenden. There she died, and there she sleeps, side by side, as was her wish, with Benjamin Disraeli, Lord Privy Seal, Earl Beaconsfield of Beaconsfield, Viscount Hughenden of Hughenden. And the reason the Ex-Premier was not buried in Westminster Abbey was because he had promised these two women that even death should not separate them from him. So there under the spreading elms, in this out-of-the-way country place, they rest—these three, side by side, and the sighing breeze tells and tells again to the twittering birds in the branches, of this triple love, strange as fate, strong as destiny, warm as life, pure as snow, and unselfish as the kiss of the summer sun.
SO HERE ENDETH "LITTLE JOURNEYS TO THE HOMES OF ENGLISH AUTHORS," BEING VOLUME FIVE OF THE SERIES, AS WRITTEN BY ELBERT HUBBARD: EDITED AND ARRANGED BY FRED BANN; BORDERS AND INITIALS BY ROYCROFT ARTISTS.