By his simplicity we do not mean the simplicity of the head—of that he had none; he was eminently shrewd and knowing—more so than many thought; but we refer to that quality of the heart and of the life, expressed by the words, “in simplicity a child.” In his own words, from his Daily Readings,—
“When a child is filled with any strong emotion by a surprising event or intelligence, it runs to discharge it on others, impatient of their sympathy; and it marks, I fancy, the simplicity and greater naturalness of this period (Jacob’s), that the grown-up men and women ran to meet each other, giving way to their first impulses—even as children do.”
His emotions were as lively as a child’s, and he ran to discharge them. There was in all his ways a certain beautiful unconsciousness of self—an outgoing of the whole nature that we see in children, who are by learned men said to be long ignorant of the Ego—blessed in many respects in their ignorance! This same Ego, as it now exists, being perhaps part of “the fruit of that forbidden tree;” that mere knowledge of good as well as of evil, which our great mother bought for us at such a price. In this meaning of the word, Dr. Chalmers, considering the size of his understanding—his personal eminence—his dealings with the world—his large sympathies—his scientific knowledge of mind and matter—his relish for the practical details, and for the spirit of public business—was quite singular for his simplicity; and taking this view of it, there was much that was plain and natural in his manner of thinking and acting, which otherwise was obscure, and liable to be misunderstood. We cannot better explain what we mean than by giving a passage from Fénélon, which D’Alembert, in his Eloge, quotes as characteristic of that “sweet-souled” prelate. We give the passage entire, as it seems to us to contain a very beautiful, and by no means commonplace truth:—
“Fénélon,” says D’Alembert, “a caractérisé lui-même en peu de mots cette simplicité qui se rendoit si cher à tous les cœurs, ‘La simplicité est la droiture d’une âme qui s’interdit tout retour sur elle et sur ses actions—cette vertu est différente de la sincérité, et la surpasse. On voit beaucoup de gens qui sont sincères sans être simples—Ils ne veulent passer que pour ce qu’ils sont, mais ils craignent sans cesse de passer pour ce qu’ils ne sont pas. L’homme simple n’affecte ni la vertu, ni la vérité même; il n’est jamais occupé de lui, il semble d’avoir perdu ce moi dont on est si jaloux.’”
What delicacy and justness of expression! how true and clear! how little we see nowadays, among grown-up men, of this straightness of the soul—of this losing or never finding “ce moi!” There is more than is perhaps generally thought in this. Man in a state of perfection, would no sooner think of asking himself—am I right? am I appearing to be what inwardly I am? than the eye asks itself—do I see? or a child says to itself—do I love my mother? We have lost this instinctive sense; we have set one portion of ourselves aside to watch the rest; we must keep up appearances and our consistency; we must respect—that is, look back upon—ourselves, and be respected, if possible; we must, by hook or by crook, be respectable.
Dr. Chalmers would have made a sorry Balaam; he was made of different stuff, and for other purposes. Your “respectable” men are ever doing their best to keep their status, to maintain their position. He never troubled himself about his status; indeed, we would say status was not the word for him. He had a sedes on which he sat, and from which he spoke; he had an imperium, to and fro which he roamed as he listed; but a status was as little in his way as in that of a Mauritanian lion. Your merely “sincere” men are always thinking of what they said yesterday, and what they may say to-morrow, at the very moment when they should be putting their whole self into to-day. Full of his idea, possessed by it, moved altogether by its power,—believing, he spoke, and without stint or fear, often apparently contradicting his former self—careless about everything, but speaking fully his mind. One other reason for his apparent inconsistencies was, if one may so express it, the spaciousness of his nature. He had room in that capacious head, and affection in that great, hospitable heart, for relishing and taking in the whole range of human thought and feeling. He was several men in one. Multitudinous but not multiplex, in him odd and apparently incongruous notions dwelt peaceably together. The lion lay down with the lamb. Voluntaryism and an endowment—both were best.
He was childlike in his simplicity; though in understanding a man, he was himself in many things a child. Coleridge says, every man should include all his former selves in his present, as a tree has its former years’ growths inside its last; so Dr. Chalmers bore along with him his childhood, his youth, his early and full manhood into his mature old age. This gave himself, we doubt not, infinite delight—multiplied his joys, strengthened and sweetened his whole nature, and kept his heart young and tender; it enabled him to sympathize, to have a fellow-feeling with all, of whatever age. Those who best knew him, who were most habitually with him, know how beautifully this point of his character shone out in daily, hourly life. We well remember long ago loving him before we had seen him—from our having been told, that being out one Saturday at a friend’s house near the Pentlands, he collected all the children and small people—the other bairns, as he called them—and with no one else of his own growth, took the lead to the nearest hill-top,—how he made each take the biggest and roundest stone he could find, and carry,—how he panted up the hill himself with one of enormous size,—how he kept up their hearts, and made them shout with glee, with the light of his countenance, and with all his pleasant and strange ways and words,—how having got the breathless little men and women to the top of the hill, he, hot and scant of breath—looked round on the world and upon them with his broad benignant smile like the ἀνήριθμον κυμάτων γέλασμα—the unnumbered laughter of the sea,—how he set off his own huge “fellow,”—how he watched him setting out on his race, slowly, stupidly, vaguely at first, almost as if he might die before he began to live, then suddenly giving a spring and off like a shot—bounding, tearing, αὖτις ἔπειτα πέδονδε κυλίνδετο λᾶας ἀναιδής, vires acquirens eundo; how the great and good man was totus in illo; how he spoke to, upbraided him, cheered him, gloried in him, all but prayed for him,—how he joked philosophy to his wondering and ecstatic crew, when he (the stone) disappeared among some brackens—telling them they had the evidence of their senses that he was in, they might even know he was there by his effects, by the moving brackens, himself unseen; how plain it became that he had gone in, when he actually came out!—how he ran up the opposite side a bit, and then fell back, and lazily expired at the bottom,—how to their astonishment, but not displeasure—for he “set them off so well,” and “was so funny”—he took from each his cherished stone, and set it off himself! showing them how they all ran alike, yet differently; how he went on, “making,” as he said, “an induction of particulars,” till he came to the Benjamin of the flock, a wee wee man, who had brought up a stone bigger than his own big head; then how he let him, unicus omnium, set off his own, and how wonderfully IT ran! what miraculous leaps! what escapes from impossible places! and how it ran up the other side farther than any, and by some felicity remained there.
He was an orator in its specific and highest sense. We need not prove this to those who have heard him; we cannot to those who have not. It was a living man sending living, burning words into the minds and hearts of men before him, radiating his intense fervor upon them all; but there was no reproducing the entire effect when alone and cool; some one of the elements was gone. We say nothing of this part of his character, because upon this all are agreed. His eloquence rose like a tide, a sea, setting in, bearing down upon you, lifting up all its waves—“deep calling unto deep;” there was no doing anything but giving yourself up for the time to its will. Do our readers remember Horace’s description of Pindar?
“Monte decurrens velut amnis, imbres