Home Life of Great Authors

by Hattie Tyng Griswold

This misinterpretation of his work and misinterpretation of his motives was a keen grief to him throughout life. He never became hardened to such attacks, and they afflicted him to the end. "'Hypatia,'" he once said, "was written with my heart's blood, and was received, as I expected, with curses from many of the very churchmen whom I was trying to warn and save." But he was more than repaid for this misinterpretation and persecution by the orthodox and conservative classes, by seeing the efforts he had put forth—some of them, at least—crowned with considerable success even in his lifetime; while he was conscious of having sown much seed that would ultimately take root in reform. He never faltered, although he grew very weak and discouraged at times. He writes thus to a friend:—

"Pray for me; I could lie down and die sometimes. A poor fool of a fellow, and yet feeling thrust upon an sorts of great and unspeakable paths, instead of being left in peace to classify butterflies and catch trout."

Long before his death he saw the condition of the English poor very materially modified. Bad as things are in England to-day, they are much better than in the days when Charles Kingsley began his labors.

He was accused of growing conservative in later life, and doubtless he did so, as it is natural that man should do; but he had witnessed great improvement during his life, and perhaps felt that the forces which had been called into play needed guiding and directing now, rather than further stimulation. But, like all dreamers, he was obliged to bid farewell to many of his dreams for the good of his fellow-men as he grew older. There was intense sadness to him in this, and Kingsley during all his later life was a very sad man. Striving to be cheery and helpful, as he had ever been, there was yet in his face the look of a defeated man,—the look of a man upon whom life had palled, and who had scarcely hope enough left to carry him through to the end. There was remarkable pathos in many of his sermons, and ineffable sadness in many of his letters. Doubtless much of this was due to overwork, for he had overworked himself systematically for many years, and could not escape the consequences. He paid the penalty in flagging spirits and a growing weariness of life. During the journey in America, near the close of his life, there was but a forced interest where once the feeling would have been real and keen; and we find him once writing like this:—

"As I ride I jog myself and say, 'You stupid fellow, wake up! Do you see that? and that? Do you know where you are?' And my other self answers, 'Don't bother, I have seen so much I can't take in any more; and I don't care about it at all. I longed to get here. I have been more than satisfied with being here, and now I long to get back again.'"

And, again, from St. Louis he writes:—

"I wish already that our heads were turned homeward, and that we had done the great tour, and had it not to do."

There was also much of pathos in his speech at the Lotos Club in 1874, where he said:—

"One of the kind wishes expressed for me is long life. Let anything be asked for me except that. Let us live hard, work hard, go at a good pace, get to our journey's end as soon as possible; then let the post-horse get the shoulder out of the collar. . . . I have lived long enough to feel like the old post-horse,—very thankful as the end draws near. . . . Long life is the last thing that I desire. It may be that as one grows older one acquires more and more the painful consciousness of the difference between what ought to be done and what can be done, and sits down more quietly when one gets the wrong side of fifty to let others start up to do for us things we cannot do ourselves. But it is the highest pleasure that a man can have who has (to his own exceeding comfort) turned down the hill at last, to believe that younger spirits will rise up after him and catch the lamp of truth—as in the old lamp-bearing race of Greece—out of his hand before it expires, and carry it on to the goal with swifter and more even feet."

He did not live long after his return from America. He took cold Advent Sunday, and soon was down with the sickness from which he never recovered. His wife was dangerously ill at the same time, and he made himself seriously worse by leaving his bed once or twice to go to her, where he said "heaven was." To this wife he had been a devoted lover for over thirty years, and retained to the last moment his chivalric devotion. To his children and his servants he was the ideal parent and master, and to every one who had known him personally the ideal friend. His parish was only a large family, where he was held in like honor and esteem. Would that we all in these restless times might find some of the secret springs of his life, and thus make, like him,