In England we go on in our usual humdrum way; the ecclesiastical world agitated by all manner of foolish Hampden-rows: of the confused babble about which all quiet people are infinitely tired. I have given our Provost notice of my intention to leave his service (as tutor) at Easter. I feel greatly rejoiced to think that this is my last term of bondage in Egypt, though I shall, I suppose, quit the fleshpots for a wilderness, with small hope of manna, quails, or water from the rock. The Fellowship, however, lasts for a year after next June.
I had not, I think, seen the Rajah Brooke when you departed. I liked him extremely; met him once at breakfast with Stanley, and once in the evening with our Provost; quite a kingly man, clear-sighted and simple-minded, full of will and purpose, but without a grain of self-will or ambition. Stanley says that he deprecated English, or indeed European, colonisation in Borneo as bad for the natives. He had had two thousand offers, but declined generally, saying the time was not yet come.
To a Friend.
[In answer to a remonstrance against his intention of resigning his Fellowship.]
February 20, 1848.
Be not afraid: I love my mother earth, and ‘in the air will never float’ ‘Until I get a little boat,’ and of a better build than the famous ‘Crescent Moon.’
No, but remember withal, that no man moves without having one leg always off, as well as one leg always on the ground. Your stationary gentleman undoubtedly has both for a basis, and much good may his double pedestal do him. —— and —— go shuffling along, lifting their feet as little as possible from the earth. There are also horses, are there not, called ‘daisy-cutters’? not, as I am told, the best breed.
The mere carnal understanding, I grant you, goes on its belly in the shape of the serpent. While this and other reptile faculties grovel on the ground, imagination and fancy, with the eagle and the butterfly, move in liquid air. But the vivipara, my friend, ‘in whom should meet the properties of all,’ must do neither, or both. Expect therefore from me, if not the stately march of the sublimest mammalian type, at any rate nothing worse than the per-saltum locomotion of the kangaroo.
However powerful my centrifugal force, I shall be certain to be recalled by the at least equally powerful gravitation of hunger and thirst, not to mention nakedness.
The spirit truly is centrifugal, but the flesh centripetal; wherefore man, being a compound, revolveth in a sphere. Under cover of which theory I retreat to my bed.