In 1832, Ferrier became an advocate at Edinburgh, but it does not appear that he had any serious idea of practising at the Bar. This is the period at which we know that the passion for metaphysical speculation laid hold of him,—a passion which is unintelligible and inexplicable to those who do not share in it,—and as Ferrier could not clearly say in what direction this was leading him, as far as practical life was concerned, he probably deemed it best to attach himself to a profession which left much scope to the adopter of it, to strike out lines of his own. What led Ferrier to determine to spend some months of the year 1834 at Heidelberg it would be extremely interesting to know. The friend first quoted writes: 'I cannot tell of the influences under which he devoted himself to metaphysics. My opinion is that there were none, but that he was a philosopher born. He attached himself at once to the fellowship of Sir William Hamilton, to whom he was introduced by a common friend—I think the late Mr. Ludovic Colquhoun. I know that he looked on Sir William at that time as his master.'
Probably the friendship with Hamilton simply arose from the natural attraction which two sympathetic spirits feel to one another. It is clear that at this time Ferrier's bent was towards metaphysics, and that, as Mr. Inglis says, this bent was born with him and was only beginning to find its natural outlet; therefore it would be very natural to suppose that acquaintance would be sought with one who was at this time in the zenith of his powers, and whose writings in the Edinburgh Review were exciting liveliest interest. A casual acquaintanceship between the young man of three-and-twenty and the matured philosopher twenty years his senior soon ripened into a friendship, not perhaps common between two men so different in age. It is perhaps more remarkable considering the differences in opinion on philosophical questions which soon arose between the two; for it is just as difficult for those whose point of view is fundamentally opposed on speculative questions to carry on an intercourse concerning their pursuits which shall be both friendly and unconstrained, as for two political opponents to discuss vital questions of policy without any undercurrent of self-restraint, when they start from entirely opposite principles. Most likely had the two been actually contemporaries it might not have been so easy, but as it was, the younger man started with, and preserved, the warmest feelings to his senior; and even in his criticisms he expresses himself in the strongest terms of gratitude: 'He (Hamilton) has taught those who study him to think, and he must take the consequences, whether they think in unison with himself or not. We conceive, however, that even those who differ from him most, would readily own that to his instructive disquisitions they were indebted for at least half of all they know of philosophy.' And in the appendix to the Institutes, written soon after Sir William's death, Ferrier says: 'Morally and intellectually, Sir William Hamilton was among the greatest of the great. A simpler and a grander nature never arose out of darkness into human life; a truer and a manlier character God never made. For years together scarcely a day passed in which I was not in his company for hours, and never on this earth may I expect to live such happy hours again. I have learned more from him than from all other philosophers put together; more, both as regards what I assented to and what I dissented from.' It was this open and free discussion of all questions that came before them—discussion in which there must have been much difference of opinion freely expressed on both sides, that made these evenings spent in Manor Place, where the Hamiltons, then a recently married couple, had lately settled, so delightful to young Ferrier. He had individuality and originality enough not to be carried away by the arguments used by so great an authority and so learned a man as his friend was reckoned, and then as later he constantly expressed his regret that powers so great had been devoted to the service of a philosophic system—that of Reid—of which Ferrier so thoroughly disapproved. But at the same time he hardly dared to expect that the labours of a lifetime could be set aside at the bidding of a man so much his junior, and to say the truth it is doubtful whether Hamilton ever fully grasped his opponent's point of view. Still, Ferrier tells us that from first to last his whole intercourse with Sir William Hamilton was marked with more pleasure and less pain than ever attended his intercourse with any human being, and after Hamilton was gone he cherished that memory with affectionate esteem. A touching account is given in Sir William's life of how during that terrible illness which so sadly impaired his powers and nearly took his life, Ferrier might be seen pacing to and fro on the street opposite his bedroom window during the whole anxious night, watching for indications of his condition, yet unwilling to intrude on the attendants, and unable to tear himself from the spot where his friend was possibly passing through the last agony. Such friendship is honourable to both men concerned.
Perhaps, then, it was this intercourse with kindred spirits (for many such were in the habit of gathering at the Professor's house) that caused Ferrier finally to determine to make philosophy the pursuit of his life—this combined, it may be, with the interest in letters which he could not fail to derive from his own immediate circle. He was in constant communication with Susan Ferrier, his aunt, who encouraged his literary bent to the utmost of her power. Then Professor Wilson, his uncle, though of a very different character from his own, attracted him by his brightness and wit—a brightness which he says he can hardly bring before himself, far less communicate to others who had not known him. Perhaps, as the same friend quoted before suggests, the attraction was partly due to another source. He says: 'How Ferrier got on with Wilson I never could divine; unless it were through the bright eyes of his daughter. Wilson and Ferrier seemed to me as opposite as the poles; the one all poetry, the other all prose. But the youth probably yielded to the mature majesty and genius of the man. Had they met on equal terms I don't think they could have agreed for ten minutes. As it was, they had serious differences at times, which, however, I believe were all ultimately and happily adjusted.'
The visits to his uncle's home, and the attractive young lady whom he there met, must have largely contributed to Ferrier's happiness in these years of mental fermentation. Such times come in many men's lives when youth is turning into manhood, and powers are wakening up within that seem as though they would lead us we know not whither. And so it may have been with Ferrier. But he was endowed with considerable calmness and self-command, combined with a confidence in his powers sufficient to carry him through many difficulties that might otherwise have got the better of him. Wilson's home, Elleray, near the Lake of Windermere, was the centre of a circle of brilliant stars. Ferrier recollected, while still a lad of seventeen years of age, meeting there at one time, in the summer of 1825, Scott, Wordsworth, Lockhart, and Canning, a conjunction difficult to beat.[4] Once more, we are told, and on a sadder occasion, he came into association with the greatest Scottish novelist. 'It was on that gloomy voyage when the suffering man was conveyed to Leith from London, on his return from his ill-fated foreign journey. Mr. Ferrier was also a passenger, and scarcely dared to look on the almost unconscious form of one whose genius he so warmly admired.' The end was then very near.
Professor Ferrier's daughter tells us that long after, in the summer of 1856, the family went to visit the English Lakes, the centre of attraction being Elleray, Mr. Ferrier's old home and birthplace. 'The very name of Elleray breathes of poetry and romance. Our father and mother had, of course, known it in its glorious prime, when our grandfather, "Christopher North," wrestled with dalesmen, strolled in his slippers with Wordsworth to Keswick (a distance of seventeen miles), and kept his ten-oared barge in the long drawing-room of Elleray. In these days they had "rich company," and the names of Southey, Wordsworth, De Quincey, and Coleridge were to them familiar household words. The cottage my mother was born in still stands, overshadowed by a giant sycamore.'
We can easily imagine the effect which society such as this would have on a young man's mind. But more than that, the friendship with the attractive cousin, Margaret Wilson, developed into something warmer, and an engagement was finally formed, which culminated in his marriage in 1837. Not many of James Ferrier's letters to his cousin during the long engagement have been preserved; the few that are were written from Germany in 1834, the year in which he went to Heidelberg; they were addressed to Thirlstane House, near Selkirk, where Miss Wilson was residing, and they give a lively account of his adventures.
The voyage from Leith to Rotterdam, judging from the first letter written from Heidelberg, and dated August 1834, would appear to have begun in inauspicious fashion. Ferrier writes: 'I have just been here a week, and would have answered your letter sooner, had it not been that I wished to make myself tolerably well acquainted with the surrounding scenery before writing to you, and really the heat has been so overwhelming that I have been impelled to take matters leisurely, and have not even yet been able to get through so much view-hunting as I should have wished. What I have seen I will endeavour to describe to you. This place itself is most delightful, and the country about it is magnificent. But this, as a reviewer would say, by way of anticipation. Have patience, and in the meantime let me take events in their natural order, and begin by telling you I sailed from Leith on the morning of the second of this month, with no wind at all. We drifted on, I know not how, and toward evening were within gunshot of Inchkeith; on the following morning we were in sight of the Bass, and in sight of the same we continued during the whole day. For the next two or three days we went beating up against a head-wind, which forced us to tack so much that whenever we made one mile we travelled ten, a pleasant mode of progressing, is it not? However, I had the whole ship to myself, and plenty of female society in the person of the captain's lady, who, being fond of pleasure, had chosen to diversify her monotonous existence at Leith by taking a delightful summer trip to Rotterdam, which confined her to her crib during almost the whole of our passage under the pressure of racking headaches and roaring sickness. She had a weary time of it, poor woman, and nothing could do her any good—neither spelding, cheese, nor finnan haddies, nor bacon, nor broth, nor salt beef, nor ale, nor gin, nor brandy and water, nor Epsom salts, though of one or other of these she was aye takin' a wee bit, or a little drop. We were nearly a week in clearing our own Firth, and did no good till we got as far as Scarborough. At this place I had serious intentions of getting ashore if possible, and making out the rest of my journey by means that were more to be depended on. Just in the nick of time, however, a fair wind sprang up, and from Scarborough we had a capital run, with little or no interruption, to the end of our voyage.' An account of a ten days' voyage which makes us thankful to be in great measure independent of the winds at sea! Holland, our traveller thinks an intolerable country to live in, and the first impressions of the Rhine are distinctly unfavourable. 'The river himself is a fine fellow, certainly, but the country through which he flows is stale, flat, though I believe, not unprofitable. The banks on either side are covered either with reeds or with a matting of rank shrubbery formed apparently out of dirty green worsted, and the continuance of it so palls upon the senses that the mind at last becomes unconscious of everything except the constant flap-flapping of the weary paddles as they go beating on, awakening the dull echoes of the sedgy shores. The eye is occasionally relieved by patches of naked sand, and now and then a stone about the size of your fist, diversifies the monotony of the scene. Occasionally, in the distance, are to be seen funny, forlorn-looking objects, trying evidently to look like trees, but whether they would really turn out to be trees on a nearer inspection is what I very much doubt.' At Cologne he had an amusing meeting with an Englishman, 'whom I at once twigged to be an Oxford man, and more, even, an Oxford tutor. There is a stiff twitch in the right shoulder of the tribe, answering to a similar one in the hip-bone on the same side, which there is no mistaking.' The tutor appears to have done valiant service in making known the traveller's wants in French to waiters, etc., though 'he spent rather too much of his time in scheming how to abridge the sixpence which, "time out of mind," has been the perquisite of Boots, doorkeepers, etc.' 'But,' he adds in excuse, 'his name was Bull, and therefore, as the authentic epitome of his countrymen, he would not fail to possess this along with the other peculiarities of Englishmen.' From Cologne, Ferrier went to Bonn, where he had an introduction to Dr. Welsh, and then proceeded up the Rhine to Mayence. He does not form a very high estimate of the beauty of the scenery. He feels 'a want of something; in fact, to my mind, there is a want of everything which makes earth, wood, and water something more than mere water, wood, and earth. We have here a constant and endless variety of imposing objects (imposing is just the word for them), but there is no variety in them, nothing but one round-backed hill after another, generally carrying their woods, when they have any, very stiffly, and when they have none presenting to the eye a surface of tawdry and squalid patchwork,' thus suggesting, in his view, a series of children's gardens—an impression often left on travellers when visiting this same country. His next letters find him settled in the University town of Heidelberg.
CHAPTER II
WANDERJAHRE—SOCIAL LIFE IN SCOTLAND—BEGINNING OF HIS LITERARY LIFE
In the present century in Germany we have seen a period of almost unparalleled literary glory succeeded by a time of great commercial prosperity and national enthusiasm. But when Ferrier visited that country in 1834 the era of its intellectual greatness had hardly passed away; some, at least, of its stars remained, and others had very recently ceased to be. Goethe had died just two years before, but Heine lived till many years afterwards; amongst the philosophers, though Kant and Fichte, of course, were long since gone, Schelling was still at work at Munich, and Hegel lived at Berlin till November of 1831, when he was cut off during an epidemic of cholera. Most of the great men had disappeared, and yet the memory of their achievements still survived, and the impetus they gave to thought could not have been lost. The traditional lines of speculation consistently carried out since Reformation days had survived war and national calamity, and it remained to be seen whether the greater tests of prosperity and success would be as triumphantly undergone.
We can imagine Ferrier's feelings when this new world opened up before him, a Scottish youth, to whom it was a new, untrodden country. It may be true that it was his literary rather than his speculative affinities that first attracted him to Germany. To form in literature he always attached the greatest value, and to the end his interest in letters was only second to his attachment to philosophy. German poetry was to him what it was to so many of the youth of the country from which it came—the expression of their deepest, and likewise of their freshest aspiration. The poetry of other countries and other tongues—English and Latin, for example—meant much to him, but that of Germany was nearest to his heart. French learning did not attract him; neither its literature nor its metaphysics and psychological method appealed to his thoughtful, analytic mind; but in Germany he found a nation which had not as yet resigned its interest in things of transcendental import in favour of what pertained to mere material welfare.