Knowing both Kingsley and Froude very intimately, I soon came to know many of their friends, though my residence at Oxford kept me clear from the vortex of literary society in London. In some respects I regretted it, but in others I found it a great blessing. It requires not only mental, but considerable physical strength to stand the wear and tear of London life, and I confess I never could understand how some of my friends, Browning, Tyndall, Huxley, M. Arnold, and others, could manage to do any serious work, and at the same time serve the Moloch of Society to whom so many men and women in London offer themselves and their children as willing sacrifices year after year. They had not only to dine out and lose their evenings, but wherever they went they had to shine, they had often to make speeches, long speeches, at public dinners, they came home tired and slept badly, and in the morning they were interrupted again by letters, by newspapers, by calls, then by meetings and committees, by the inevitable leaving of cards, and, lastly, there was with many of them their official work. Society is a voracious animal, and has deprived the world of much that can only be the outcome of quiet hours, of continuous thought, and of uninterrupted labour. These men must have had not only the brain, but the physical constitution also of giants, to survive this constant social worry.
A quiet dinner with a few friends is pleasant enough, and a certain amount of social friction may even be useful in keeping us from rusting; nay, a casual collision with a kindred spirit may sometimes call forth sparks which can be turned into light and heat. But to dress, to drive a few miles, then to be set down, possibly, between two strangers who have little to say and much to ask, and who, if ill-luck will have it, may not even be beautiful or charming, is a torture to which men like Browning and M. Arnold ought never to have submitted. An afternoon tea is a far more rational amusement, because people are not kept chained for two hours to one chair and two neighbours, but can move about and pick out some of their friends whom they really wish to talk to. Even a luncheon is more bearable, for it does not last so long, and one may find a chance of talking to one’s friends. But dinners are tortures, survivals of the dark ages for which there is no longer any excuse, and I believe that more people, and good people too, have fallen victims to dinners, public or private, than have broken their necks in the hunting field.
I had hoped at one time that the æsthetic phase through which English society was passing, would have put an end to, or would at least have modified, these social gobblings. Surely it is a most unbeautiful sight to see a number of people, young and old, with or without teeth, filling their mouths with mutton or beef, chewing, denticating, masticating their morsels, and then washing them down with wine or water. No doubt it can be done inoffensively, or even daintily, but is it? Eastern ladies know how to throw small morsels of food into their open mouths with their fingers, and Eastern poets describe this performance with rapture. Chinese poets become eloquent even over chop-sticks as handled by their fair ones. But for all that, the Hindus seem to me to show their good taste by retiring while they feed, and reappearing only after they have washed their hands and face. Why should we be so anxious to perform this no doubt necessary function before the eyes of our friends? How often have I seen a beautiful face distorted by the action of the jaw-bones, the temples forced out, and the cheeks distended by obstinate morsels. Could not at least the grosser part of feeding be performed in private, and the social gathering begin at the dessert, or, with men, at the wine, so as to have a real Symposion, not a Symphagion? But I am on dangerous ground, and shall broach no further heresies.
Life at Oxford has many advantages. Of course our London friends tell us that we are mere provincials, but that is a relative expression, and, anyhow, we enjoy life in peace. It is true we have not shaken off the regular society dinners altogether, but no one is offended if his friends tell him that they are too busy to dine out. And we still have our pleasant small dinners or luncheons of four, six, at the utmost eight people, when you can really see and enjoy your friends, and not only roast beef and port. In former years, when I first came to Oxford, it was different, but then the evil was chiefly confined to heads of colleges and halls, and there were even then exceptions, where you dined to meet a few friends, and not simply to lay in food.
One of my earliest dinners I remember at Oxford was to meet Thackeray. Thackeray was then writing “Esmond,” and a Mr. Stoddard—a fellow of St. John’s College—asked me to meet him at dinner. We were only four, and we were all very much awed by Thackeray’s presence, particularly I, not being able as yet to express myself freely in English. We sat silent for some time, no one ventured to make the first remark, the soup was over, and there was a fine John Doré on the table waiting to be splayed. We were hoping for some brilliant sally from Thackeray, but nothing came. At last Thackeray suddenly turned his large spectacled eyes on me and said: “Are you going to eat your own ancestor?” I stared, everybody else stared. At last we gave it up, and Thackeray, looking very grave and learned, said: “Surely you are the son of the Dorian Müller—the Müller who wrote that awfully learned book on the Dorians; and was not John Doré the ancestor of all the Dorians?” There was a general, “Oh, oh!” but the ice was broken, and no one after this horrible pun was afraid of saying anything. All I could tell Thackeray was that I was not the son of Otfried Müller, who wrote on the Dorians, but of Wilhelm Müller, the poet, who wrote “Die Homerische Vorschule,” and “Die Schöne Müllerin,” and as to John Doré being our ancestor, how could that be? The original John Doré, so I have been told, was il Janitore, that is, St. Peter, and had no wife, as some people will have it, or at least never acknowledged her in public, though he was kind to his mother-in-law. All this did not promise well, yet the rest of our little dinner party was very successful; it became noisy and even brilliant.
Thackeray from his treasures of wit and sarcasm poured out anecdote after anecdote; he used plenty of vinegar and cayenne pepper, but there was always a flavour of kindliness and good-nature, even in his most cutting remarks. I saw more of him when he came to Oxford to lecture on the Four Georges, and when he stood for Parliament and was defeated by Cardwell and Charles Neate. After one of his lectures, when I expressed my delight with his brilliant success, “Wait, wait,” he said, “the time will come when you will lecture at Oxford.” At that time my English was still very crumbly; there was no idea of my staying on in England, still less of my ever becoming a professor at Oxford.
Thackeray’s novels were a great delight to me then, and some have remained so for life. Still, there is a fashion in all things, in literature quite as much as in music, and when lately reading “The Newcomes” I was surprised at the meagreness of the dialogue, the very dialogues for which we felt so impatient from month to month when the book first came out in numbers. Still one always recognises in Thackeray the powerful artist, who, like a Japanese painter, will with a few lines place a living man or woman before you, never to be forgotten.
I am sorry I missed seeing and knowing more of Charles Dickens. I met him in my very early days with a friend of mine at some tavern in the Strand, but did not see him again till quite at the end of his career, when he was giving readings from his novels, and knew how to make his audiences either weep or laugh. Still I am glad to have seen him in the flesh, both as a young and as an old man. However wide apart our interests in life might be, no one who had read his novels could look on Dickens as a stranger. He knew the heart of man to the very core, and could draw a picture of human suffering with a more loving hand than any other English writer. He also possessed now and then the grand style, and even in his pictures of still life the hand of the master can always be perceived. He must have shed many a tear over the deathbed of poor Joe; he must have chuckled and shouted over Mr. Winkle and Mr. Tupman going out partridge shooting. Perhaps to our taste, as it now is, some of his characters are too sentimental and simpering, but there are few writers now who could create his child-wife. It always seemed to me very strange that my friend Stanley, though he received Dickens among the great ones of Westminster Abbey, could not, as he confessed to me, take any pleasure in his works.
But though I could not spend much time in London and cultivate my literary acquaintances there, Oxford itself was not without interesting poets. After all, whatever talent England possesses is filtered generally either through Oxford or Cambridge, and those who have eyes to see may often watch some of the most important chapters in the growth of poetical genius among the young undergraduates. I watched Clough before the world knew him, I knew Matthew Arnold during many years of his early life, and having had the honour of examining Swinburne I was not surprised at his marvellous performances in later years. He was even then a true artist, a commander of legions of words, who might become an imperator at any time. Clough was a most fascinating character, thoroughly genuine, but so oppressed with the problems of life that it was difficult ever to get a smile out of him; and if one did, his round ruddy face with the deep heavy eyes seemed really to suffer from the contortions of laughter. He took life very seriously, and made greater sacrifices to his convictions than the world ever suspected. He was poor, but from conscientious scruples gave up his fellowship, and was driven at last to go to America to make himself independent without giving up the independence of his mind. With a little more sunshine above him and around him he might have grown to a very considerable height, but there was always a heavy weight on him, that seemed to render every utterance and every poem a struggle.
His poems are better known and loved in America, I believe, than in England, but in England also they still have their friends, and in the history of the religious or rather theological struggles of 1840–50 Clough’s figure will always be recognised as one of the most characteristic and the most pleasing. I had once the misfortune to give him great pain. I saw him at Oxford with a young lady, and I was told that he was engaged to her. Delighted as I was at this prospect of a happy issue out of all his troubles, I wrote to him to congratulate him, when a most miserable answer came, telling me that it all was hopeless, and that I ought not to have noticed what was going on.