The Vagabond in Literature

by Arthur Compton-Rickett

In the introductory paper to this volume an attempt is made to justify the epithet “Vagabond” as applied to writers of a certain temperament. This much may be said here: the term Vagabond is used in no derogatory sense. Etymologically it signifies a wanderer; and such is the meaning attached to the term in the following pages. Differing frequently in character and in intellectual power, a basic similarity of temperament gives the various writers discussed a remarkable spiritual affinity. For in each one the wandering instinct is strong. Sometimes it may take a physical, sometimes an intellectual expression—sometimes both. But always it shows itself, and always it is opposed to the routine and conventions of ordinary life.

These papers are primarily studies in temperament; and the literary aspects have been subordinated to the personal element. In fact, they are studies of certain forces in modern literature, viewed from a special standpoint. And the standpoint adopted may, it is hoped, prove suggestive, though it does not pretend to be exhaustive.

If the papers on Hazlitt and De Quincey are more fragmentary than the others, it is because these writers have been already discussed by the author in a previous volume. It has been thought unnecessary to repeat the points raised there, and these studies may be regarded therefore as at once supplementary and complementary.

My cordial thanks are due to Mr. Theodore Watts-Dunton, who has taken so kindly and friendly an interest in this little volume. He was good enough to read the proofs, and to express his appreciation, especially of the Borrow and Thoreau articles, in most generous terms. I had hoped, indeed, that he would have honoured these slight studies by a prefatory note, and he had expressed a wish to do so. Unhappily, prior claims upon his time prevented this. The book deals largely, it will be seen, with those “Children of the Open Air” about whom the eloquent author of Aylwin so often has written. I am especially glad, therefore, to quote (with Mr. Watts-Dunton’s permission) his fine sonnet, where the “Vagabond” spirit in its happiest manifestation is expressed.

“A TALK ON WATERLOO BRIDGE
“the last sight of george borrow

“We talked of ‘Children of the Open Air,’
Who once on hill and valley lived aloof,
Loving the sun, the wind, the sweet reproof
Of storms, and all that makes the fair earth fair,
Till, on a day, across the mystic bar
Of moonrise, came the ‘Children of the Roof,’
Who find no balm ’neath evening’s rosiest woof,
Nor dews of peace beneath the Morning Star.
We looked o’er London, where men wither and choke,
Roofed in, poor souls, renouncing stars and skies,
And lore of woods and wild wind prophecies,
Yea, every voice that to their fathers spoke:
And sweet it seemed to die ere bricks and smoke
Leave never a meadow outside Paradise.” [0]

A. R.

London, October, 1906

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION the vagabond element in modernliterature
I	Explanation of the term Vagabond	[3]
	First note of the Vagabondtemperament—restlessness
II	Second note of the Vagabond temperament—a passionfor the Earth	[4]
	Compare this with a passion for Nature
	Browning—William Morris—George Meredith
III	Third note of the Vagabond temperament—the note ofaloofness	[6]
	Illustrate from Borrow, Thoreau, Walt Whitman
IV	Bohemianism—its relation to Vagabondage	[8]
	Charles Lamb—a Bohemian rather than a Vagabond
	The decadent movement in Verlaine, Baudelaire
	The Russian Vagabond—Tolstoy, Gorky
V	The Gothic Revival and Vagabondage	[12]
VI	Robert Browning and his “Vagabond moods”	[13]
	Tennyson and William Morris compared
VII	Effect of the Vagabond temperament upon Literature	[15]
I WILLIAM HAZLITT
I	Discussion of the term “complexity”	[19]
	Illustration from Herbert Spencer, showing that complexityis of two kinds: (1) Complexity—the result of degeneration,e.g. cancer in the body; (2) Complexity—the consequent of ahigher organism, e.g. dog more complex than dog-fish
	Complexity and the Vagabond—Neuroticism andGenius
	Genius not necessarily morbid because it may have sprungfrom a morbid soil. Illustrate from Hazlitt
II	Two opposing tendencies in Hazlitt’stemperament:	[24]
	(1) The austere, individualistic, Puritan strain;
	(2) The sensuous, voluptuous strain. Illustrationsof each
III	The Inquisitiveness of Hazlitt	[28]
	No patience with readers who will not quit their own smallback gardens. He is for ranging “over the hills andfar away”
	Hazlitt and the Country—Country people—Walkingtours
IV	The joyfulness of Hazlitt	[31]
	The joyfulness of the Vagabond a fundamental quality
V	The styles of Hazlitt and De Quincey compared	[32]
	The tonic wisdom of Hazlitt
II THOMAS DE QUINCEY
I	The call of the Earth and the call of the Town	[37]
	Compare De Quincey, Charles Dickens, and Elia
	The veil of phantasy in De Quincey’s writings seemedto shut him off from the outside world
II	Merits and defects of his style. Not a plasticstyle, but in the delineation of certain moods supremelyexcellent	[40]
	Compare De Quincey and Oscar Wilde
	Our Ladies of Sorrow and De Profundis
III	The intellectual grip behind the shifting phantasies	[45]
	De Quincey as critic and historian
IV	The humour of De Quincey—not very genuine page	[48]
	Witty rather than humorous
	Humour not characteristic of the Vagabond
V	De Quincey—Mystic and Logician	[52]
	The fascination of his personality
III GEORGE BORROW
I	Dreamers in Literature	[57]
	Romantic autobiography and Lavengro
	Borrow on the subject of autobiography
	The Celt and the Saxon in Borrow
	His egotism
	Little objective feeling in his friendships
	A self-absorbed and self-contained nature
	The Isopel Berners episode discussed
	The coldness of Borrow
II	His faculty for seizing on the picturesque and picaresqueelements in the world about him	[66]
	Illustrations from The Bible in Spain
	Illustrations from Lavengro
III	Borrow and the Gypsies	[75]
	Mr. Watts-Dunton’s tribute to Borrow
	Petulengro
	Borrow’s faculty for characterization
	“How to manage a horse on a journey”
IV	Borrow and Thomas Hardy compared	[82]
	Both drawn to characters not “screened byconvention”
	Differences in method of presentment
	Borrow’s greater affinity with Charles Reade
	His distinctive originality
	The spacious freshness of his writings
	In his company always “a wind on theheath”
IV HENRY D. THOREAU
I	Thoreau and his critics	[89]
	The Saxon attitude towards him
	The Walden episode
	Too much has been made of it
	He went to Walden not to escape ordinary life, but to fithimself for ordinary life
II	His indebtedness to Emerson	[93]
	His poetic appreciation of Nature
	Thoreau on “Walking”—compare withHazlitt
	“Emersonitis”—examples
III	Thoreau and the Indians	[97]
	The Indians were to Thoreau what the Gypsies were toBorrow. But he lacked the picturesque vigour of Borrow
	His utterances on the Indian character considered
	Thoreau and civilization
	Swagger and Vagabondage
IV	Thoreau as a thinker	[104]
	His Orientalism
	“Donatello” (?)
	His power over animals
	Thoreau and children—his fondness for them
	This not an argument in favour of sociability
	Lewis Carroll
	The “unsociability” of the Vagabond ingeneral, and Thoreau in particular
	Thoreau and George Meredith
	Similarity in attitude towards the Earth
V ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON
I	Romance—what is it?	[117]
	Its twofold character
	Romanticism analysed
	The elfish character of Stevenson’s work
II	The “Ariel” element in Stevensonpredominant	[120]
	The “unreality” of his fiction
	Light but little heat
III	The Romantic and the Artist	[123]
	Blake—Shelley—Keats—Tennyson
	His ideal as an artist
	His courageous gaiety
IV	His captivating grace	[126]
	The essays discussed—their merits and defects
	His indebtedness to Hazlitt, Lamb, Montaigne
	His “private bravado”
V	The artist exemplified in three ways: (1) The maker ofphrases; (2) The limner of pictures; (3) The painter ofcharacter. Illustrations	[130]
	Dickens, Browning, and Stevenson—their love of thegrotesque
	Treatment of Nature in fiction from the days of Mrs.Radcliffe to the present day
	Scott—the Brontës—Kingsley—ThomasHardy
	Stevenson moralizes
VI	Is the “Shorter Catechist” element aweakness?	[137]
	Edgar Allan Poe and Stevenson
VI RICHARD JEFFERIES
I	Jefferies, Borrow, and Thoreau	[141]
	The neuroticism of Jefferies
	Distinction between susceptibility and passion
II	Jefferies as an artist	[143]
	He loved the Earth with every nerve of his body
	His acute sense of touch
	Compare with Keats
	Illustrations
	His writings, studies, and tactile sensation
	Their sensuous charm
III	His mysticism	[148]
	Illustration
	Compare with Tennyson
	Mysticism and hysteria
	The psychology of hysteria
	“Yoga” and the Sufis
	Oriental ecstasies and the trances of Jefferies
	Max Nordau—Professor William James
	De Quincey and Jefferies compared
IV	Differences between Thoreau and Jefferies	[156]
	Praise and desire alternate in Jefferies’writings
	His joy in the beauty and in the plenitude of theEarth
V	Jefferies as a thinker	[158]
	“All things seem possible in the open air”
	Defect in his Nature creed
	His attitude towards the animal creation
	“Good sport”
	His democratic sympathies—influence of Ruskin
	His stoicism
	His pride and reserve
	Our indebtedness to him
VII WALT WHITMAN
I	The supreme example of the Vagabond in Literature	[169]
	Mr. Swinburne’s verdict
	Whitman the pioneer of a new order
	No question about a “Return to Nature” withWhitman
	He never left it. A spiritual native of the woodsand heath
	Yet wild only so far as he is cosmic
	His songs no mere pæans ofrustic solitudes; they are songs of the crowded streets as wellas of the country roads; of the men and women of every type, noless than of the fields and streams
	No quarrel with civilisation as such
	His “rainproof coat” and “goodshoes”
	Compare with Borrow’s big green gamp
II	Whitman’s attitude towards Art	[173]
	Two essentials of Art—Sincerity and Beauty
	Whitman’s allegiance to Sincerity
	Why he has chosen the better part
	His occasional failure to seize essentials
	Illustrations of his powers as an artist
	“On the Beach atNight”—“Reconciliation”—“Whenlilacs last on the dooryard bloomed”
	Whitman’s utterances on Death
	Whitman’s rude nonchalance deliberate, not due tocarelessness
	“I furnish no specimens”
	Whitman’s treatment of sea
	The question of outspokenness in Literature
	Mr. Swinburne’s dictum
	Stevenson’s criticism—“A Bull in a ChinaShop”
	“The Children of Adam”
	Merits and defects of his Sex Cycle
	Whitman and Browning
	The poetry of animalism
	Whitman, William Morris, and Byron
	Mr. Burroughs’ eulogy of Whitman discussed
	The treatment of love in modern poetry
	On the whole the defects of Whitman’s sex poemstypical of his defects as a writer generally
	Characteristics of Whitman’s style
III	Whitman’s attitude towards Humanity	[187]
	His faith in the “powerful uneducatedperson”
	The Poet of Democracy
	Whitman and Victor Hugo
	His affection comprehensive ratherthan deep
	Mr. William Clarke’s eulogy discussed
	The psychology of the social reformer
	Whitman and the average man
	His egotism—emptied of condescension
	Whitman no demagogue—his plain speaking
	The Conservatism and conventionality of the masses
	Illustration from Mr. Barrie’s AdmirableCrichton
	Democratic poets other than Whitman—EbenezerElliott, Thomas Hood, and Mrs. Browning
	Whitman’s larger utterance
	Whitman and William Morris compared
	Affinity with Tolstoy
IV	Whitman’s attitude towards Life	[198]
	No moralist—but a philosophy of a kind
	The value of “messages” in Literature
	Whitman and Browning compared
	Whitman and culture
	Whitman and science
	Compares here with Tennyson and Browning
	Tonic influence of his writings
	“I shall be good health to you”
	His big, genial sanity

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS