However, his books, both in prose and poetry, became more and more popular, and this meant that his income became larger and larger.
Publishers say that novels and sermons have the largest market in England and the colonies, and Kingsley provided both. All went on well: even his being stopped once in the middle of a sermon by a clergyman who had invited him to preach in his church in London, but did not approve of his sermon, did not hurt him. He had many influential friends; both the Queen and the Prince of Wales had shown by special marks of favour how much they appreciated him, and he had a right to look forward to ecclesiastical preferment and to a greater amount of leisure and freedom. One unexpected cloud, however, came to darken his bright and happy life. Some people will say that he brought it upon himself, but there are certain clouds which no honest man can help bringing upon himself. He, no doubt, began the painful controversy with Newman. Having seen how much misery had been caused among some of his own dearest friends by the Romanising teaching under the auspices of Newman and Pusey, he made the mistake of fastening the charge of dishonesty, half-heartedness, and untruthfulness on Newman personally, instead of on the whole Roman Catholic propaganda in England from the time of Henry VIII.’s apostasy from the Roman Church to that of Newman’s apostasy from the Church of England. I shall not enter into this controversy again. I have done so once, and have been well punished for having ventured to declare my honest conviction that throughout this painful duel Kingsley was in the right. But Kingsley was clumsy and Newman most skilful. Besides, Newman was evidently a man of many friends, and of many able friends who knew how to wield their pens in many a newspaper.
In spite of having taken a most unpopular step in leaving the national church, Newman always retained the popularity which he had so well earned as a member of that Church. I have myself been one of his true admirers, partly from having known many of his intimate friends at Oxford, partly from having studied his earlier works when I first came to England. I read them more for their style than for their contents. If Newman had left behind him no more than his exquisite University sermons and his sweet hymns he would always have stood high among the glories of England. But Kingsley also was loved by the people and surrounded by numerous and powerful friends. It must be due to my ignorance of the national character, but I have certainly never been able to explain why public sympathy went so entirely with Newman and against Kingsley; why Kingsley was supposed to have acted unchivalrously and Newman was looked upon as a martyr to his convictions, and as the victim of an illiberal and narrow-minded Anglican clique. Certain it is that in the opinion of the majority Kingsley had failed, and failed ignominiously, while Newman’s popularity revived and became greater than ever.
Kingsley felt his defeat most deeply; he was like a man that stammered, and could not utter at the right time the right word that was in his mind. What is still more surprising was the sudden collapse of the sale of Kingsley’s most popular books. I saw him after he had been with his publishers to make arrangements for the sale of his copyrights. He wanted the money to start his sons, and he had a right to expect a substantial sum. The sum offered him seemed almost an insult, and yet he assured me that he had seen the books of his publishers, and that the sale of his books during the last years did not justify a larger offer. He was miserable about it, as well he might be. He felt not only the pecuniary loss, but, as he imagined, the loss of that influence which he had gained by years of hard labour.
However, he was mistaken in his idea that he had laboured in vain. Immediately after his death there came the most extraordinary reaction. His books sold again in hundreds of thousands, and his family received in one year a great deal more from his royalties than had been offered him for the whole copyright of all his books. People are more willing now to admit that though Newman may have been right in his “Apologia pro Vita Sua,” Kingsley was not wrong in pointing out the weak points in Newman’s character and in the moral and political doctrines of the Roman Catholic system, more particularly of the Jesuits, and the dangers that threatened his beloved England from those who seemed halting between the two Churches, the one national, the other foreign, the one reformed, the other unreformed.
There was another occasion when Newman’s and Kingsley’s friends had a sharp conflict at Oxford. When the Prince of Wales was invited to Oxford to receive his honorary degree of D.C.L., he had, as was the custom, sent to the Chancellor a list of names of his friends on whom he wished that the same degree should be conferred at the same time. One of them was Kingsley, then one of his chaplains. When his name was proposed a strong protest was made by Dr. Pusey and his friends, no one could understand why. Dr. Pusey declared distinctly that he did not mean to contest Kingsley’s orthodoxy, but when asked at last to give his reasons, he declared that Kingsley’s “Hypatia” was an immoral book. This was too much for Dr. Stanley, who challenged Pusey to produce one single passage in “Hypatia” which could be called immoral. On such conditions Shakespeare could never have received an honorary degree from the University of Oxford. I still possess the copy of “Hypatia” which Stanley examined, marking every passage that could possibly be called immoral. It need hardly be said that there was none. Still Dr. Pusey threatened to veto the degree in Convocation and to summon his friends from the country to support him. And what could have been done to prevent an unseemly scandal on such an occasion as a royal visit to Oxford? Dr. Stanley and his friends yielded, and Kingsley’s name was struck out from the Prince’s list, and, what was still worse, it was never placed again on the list of honorary doctors such as might really have reflected honour on the University. If ever the secret history of the degrees conferred honoris causa by the University of Oxford on truly eminent persons, not members of the University, comes to be written, the rejection of Kingsley’s name will not be one of the least interesting chapters.
Kingsley’s death was a severe blow to his country, and his friends knew that his life might have been prolonged. It was a sad time I spent with him at Eversley, while his wife lay sick and the doctors gave no hope of her recovery. He himself also was very ill at the time, but a doctor whom the Queen had sent to Eversley told him that with proper care there was no danger for him, that he had the lungs of a horse, but that he required great care. In spite of that warning he would get up and go into the sick-room of his wife, which had to be kept at an icy temperature. He caught cold and died, being fully convinced that his wife had gone before him. And what a funeral it was! But with all the honour that was paid to him, all who walked back to the empty rectory felt that life henceforth was poorer, and that the sun of England would never be so bright or so cheerful again, now that he was gone. Though I admired—as who did not?—his poetical power, his brilliant yet most minute and accurate descriptions of nature, and the lifelike characters he had created in his novels, what we loved most in him was his presence, his delightful stammer, his downright honesty, and the perfect transparency of his moral nature. He was not a child, he was a man, but unspoiled by the struggles of his youth, unspoiled by the experiences of his later years. He was an English gentleman, a perfect specimen of noble English manhood.
Having been particularly attached to his young niece, my wife, he had at once allowed me a share in his affections, and when other members of her family shook their heads, he stood by me and bade me be of good cheer till the day was won, and she became my wife. That was in 1859. Here are some verses he had addressed to his two nieces, to my wife and to her sister, afterwards Mrs. Theodore Walrond (died 1872):—
TO G***.
A hasty jest I once let fall—