"We were all puzzled by the apparent conflict between the vitality and the impish pranks of the brilliant student, expounding to us the most heterodox of social views, and the 'bigotry' which we seemed to discern when we touched her spiritual side." [Footnote: Book of the Spiritual Life, Memoir, p. 10.]
No doubt the fastings and mortifications which Emilia Strong practised at that period of her youth would seem 'bigotry' to a lad brought up under influences which, in so far as theology entered into them, had an Evangelical bent. Charles Dilke thus summed up his early prepossessions and practices in this respect:
'My mother had been a strong Low Church woman, and those of her letters which I have destroyed very clearly show that her chief fear in meeting death was that she would leave me without that class of religious training which she thought essential. My grandfather and my father, although both of them in their way religious men (and my grandfather, a man of the highest feeling of duty), were neither of them churchgoers, nor of her school of thought; and … as I was till the age of twenty a regular church attendant and somewhat devout for a boy of that age, it was a grief to me to find that my brother's turn of mind as he grew up was different, and that he naturally thought his judgment on the subject as good as that of the mother whom he had lost at three years old, and could hardly be said to have known.'
But the true spiritual influence on Charles Dilke's early life was derived from his grandfather, whose nature had in it much of the serenity and wise happiness which go to the making of a saint. This influence was no doubt ethical in its character rather than religious; but it can be traced, for example, in a humane scruple which links it with Dilke's affectionate cult of St. Francis of Assisi:
'In 1856 I had begun to shoot, my father being passionately fond of the sport, and I suppose that few people ever shot more before they were nineteen than I did. But about the time I went to Cambridge I found the interference with my work considerable, and I also began to have doubts as to considerations of cruelty, and on points affecting the Game Laws, which led me to give up shooting, and from 1862 I hardly ever shot at all, except, in travelling, for food.'
The taste for travel, always in search of knowledge, but followed with an increasing delight in the quest, began for him in the rovings through England with his grandfather. As early as his seventeenth year he was out on the road by himself; and this letter written from Plymouth, April 5th, 1860 after a night spent at Exeter, indicates the results of his training:
"This morning we got up early, and went to the Northerny [Footnote: Northernhay, or Northfield, a pleasure-ground at Exeter.] and Cathedral. Nothing much. Took the train at quarter before ten. Railway runs along the shore under the cliffs and in the cliffs. We saw a rather large vessel wrecked on the sands. Teignmouth pretty. Got to Totnes before twelve. Hired a boat and two men, 10s. 6d. Down the river to Dartmouth, twelve miles. The Dart is more like a series of lakes than a river; in some of the reaches it is impossible to see what way you are to get out. Very like the Wye until you get low down, then it opens into a lake about two miles across, free from all mud, nothing but hills and cliffs. Then it again contracts, and passes through a gorge, which is said to be very like parts of the Rhine.
"The scene here is splendid. Dartmouth now comes, but the river, instead of spreading and becoming ugly, as most tidal rivers do, remains narrow and between cliffs, until you have the great sea waves thundering up against them. Dartmouth contains a church more curious than half the cathedrals in the kingdom: Norman (Late), fine brasses, barrel roof with the paint on, and stone pulpit painted, etc., etc. There are some very fine old houses also. The place is the most lovely by far of any that I ever saw—Paradise.
"We have had a bad day—real Devonshire—where they say that they must have one shower every day and two on Sundays. 'Shower' means about six hours' quiet rain, vide 'Murray' and our experience of to-day. The boatmen say 'it rains most days.' I hope Mrs. Jackson is going on well. Trusting you are all well, I send my love to all and remain
"Your affectionate grandson,