Memoir of a Brother

by Thomas Hughes

The next letter is dated two years later, when the question what profession the writer of the last was to follow, had become important:—

“Dearest Mother,

“I will answer your questions as well as I am able. Harry will not lower himself by farming. It might have been so ten years ago, but the world is getting less absurd, and, besides, I think more gentlemen are now taking it up as a profession (Mr. Huxtable, for instance, and many others), and are most highly respected. But to succeed in farming in England now, one must be a remarkable man; one must thoroughly understand all practical details, and be able to work oneself better than a labourer; besides this, the farmer must be a tolerable chemist and geologist, must understand bookkeeping and accounts, and must be enterprising and yet cautious; as patient as Job, and as active minded (and bodied) as anyone you can think of. Now Harry, although amiable, is rather indolent, and unless he can entirely get rid of this, he will ruin himself in a year by farming in England. In Ireland or the colonies it might be different. For the same reasons I would not recommend the Bar for Harry. It is very laborious, the confinement great, and it requires a hard head: moreover, the education is quite as expensive as an Oxford one, if that is any consideration. However, if you think that Harry can acquire (not an ordinary, but) an extraordinary amount of diligence, let him come to the Bar or farm. I confess I should discourage both ideas. If you can get a cadetship for him, I would certainly accept it. The two dangers of Indian military life are extravagance and dissipation, and I don’t think Harry inclined to either. He has not been extravagant at Rugby, and the temptations of a public school are as great as they are anywhere; and I think he is well-principled and kind-hearted, which will save him from the other danger. The army is getting much better, and officers begin to find out that they may do immense good in their profession by looking after the condition of their men. If you should obtain a cadetship, it will not be difficult to make Harry understand that he will have other duties besides drill, and I believe he would perform them. I am sure he would be exceedingly popular with officers and men. If he had been bad-tempered, or disobedient, or ill-conditioned, I should have recommended the navy, as by far the best school for such a character; but as he does not want such discipline, as we have no interest, as it is a poor profession in a worldly point of view, and as he is (I fancy) rather too old, I think it is out of the question. I confess I should hesitate much between orders and the army. If I saw any likelihood of Harry’s doing anything at Oxford, I should like to see him a clergyman. I am sure he would be a conscientious one, and therefore happy. But I don’t think he would do anything (though of course he would pass), and there are the same temptations there as in the army. On the whole, I would try immediately to procure a cadetship; if you cannot get one, I would try to induce Harry to take orders. I said something about Ireland and the colonies in connection with farming. On second thoughts, I don’t think Harry would be a suitable person. Amiable tempers always require (at first) some one to look up to and lean upon; they are longer in learning to stand alone. Now, no one is so much isolated as a colonist. He is thrown entirely on his own resources, and has no one to give him advice and sympathy. In the army, and indeed in orders, one is generally trained to bear responsibility. So I am for the cadetship. He will be at once provided for, and will return to England in the prime of life with a competence. This is always supposing that he will escape the dangers of the profession (as I think), and that you and he do not think the advantages counterbalanced by the separation. I have no doubt that when communication with India is easier (and it will soon be incredibly easier), officers will come home at shorter intervals.”

Meantime he was studying the same question carefully in his own case, with a view to determining whether he should take orders when his work at Harrow was over. His father and mother, though on the whole wishing that he should do so, were perfectly content to let him think the matter out, and settle it his own way. They seem, however, to have supplied him with specimens of contemporary pulpit literature, upon some of which he comments in his correspondence, not, on the whole, with any enthusiasm. “Surely,” he sums up some criticism on a popular preacher of that day, “there is a pulpit eloquence equally remote from fine writing and familiarity, such as was Dr. Arnold’s. I am doubtful as to reading these books, for I know that I ought not to think of the style, and yet I cannot help it. It takes me down against my will.”

Your grandfather replied: “The Church ought certainly to be a labour of love, and followed with zeal. If on a final review of your sentiments, aided perhaps by the advice of some clergyman you look up to (why not Vaughan?) you do not think you could engraft this zeal on sound convictions, and an upright character, you are quite right in deciding for the Bar. In after life you will not be wholly dependent on a profession, and many of our best men have started as late.”

In the end he made up his mind against taking orders, but not on any of the grounds which deter so many young men of ability now. “My only objection,” he writes to his mother, “to taking orders is, that it might not suit me. Once ordained, it is impossible to change your profession; and unless a man has his whole soul in this profession, he is useless, or worse.”

And so, at the end of his three years at Harrow, he resolved to go to the Bar, and choosing that branch of it for which his previous reading had best qualified him, took his degree of Doctor of Civil Law, and entered at Doctors’ Commons.

You will have recognized by this time how carefully your grandfather watched the development of character in his sons, and that he was by no means inclined to overlook their faults, or to over-estimate their good qualities. The longer I live myself, the more highly I am inclined to rate his judgment of men and things, and this is the conclusion he had formed at this time of his eldest son’s character. It occurs in a letter to a relative then living, and dated 25th January, 1849:—

“I am glad you have had an opportunity (difficult to get from his reserved character) of seeing what is in George when put to the proof. There are many men of his age with more active benevolence and habits of more general utility, as well as perhaps warmer spiritual feeling, also more useful acquired knowledge. His great forte, rather lies in those qualities which give men the ascendency in more troubled times—perfect consistency of word and purpose, great moral and physical courage, and a scrupulous sense of what is due to oneself and others in the relations of social life, combined with the caution a man should possess, who never intends to retract an opinion or a profession. Much perhaps of the chevalier sans tache who used to be the fashion in the rough times before steam and ’ologies came in. In my time these sort of people were always more popular among Oxford youngsters (who are very acute in reading character) than mere wits, scholars, or dashing men. I suppose it is so still, and thereby account for the estimation which it seems he had in Oriel. And I apprehend this sort of established character must help a man in a profession where he means to work, and I will answer for his doing so.”

But there is one feature in George’s character which this estimate of it does not bring out. I mean his great unselfishness. As an illustration of this, I will show you how he treated a proposal made on account of your grandfather while he was at Harrow. We had had the first loss in our circle. Your uncle Walter, whom none of you remember, a young officer in the Artillery, had died of an attack of yellow fever in British Guiana. This had shaken your grandfather a good deal, and his health was no longer strong enough to allow him to follow, and enjoy, his country pursuits. Besides, the house at Donnington was too big for the shrunken family which now gathered there, and those of us who had flitted were settled, or likely to settle, in London. So it was thought that it would be well for your grandfather, and all of us, if he were to follow, and move up to the neighbourhood of town. In any case George’s opinion would have been the first taken on such a step, but in this it was necessary that he should consent, as Donnington was settled on him. He was very much attached to the place in which we had all grown up; and local, and county, and family associations had a peculiarly strong hold on him. But all these were set aside without a second thought. All he was anxious about was, that so serious a change should be well considered. “I think,” he writes to his mother, “you should be cautious about changing. In the first place, it will cause you personally an immense amount of annoyance, which you ought never to incur, especially now. Then you will miss your garden, and your village occupations, and your neighbours. My last letter might have led you to suppose that I myself preferred Hampstead to Donnington, but that is not the case. I should consider it desirable under certain circumstances. If you and my father, and Jeanie and the rest, think these circumstances exist, I sincerely hope you will change, and lose no time about it. But do not do a thing which will cause you a great deal of trouble and annoyance without the clearest grounds. Above all, believe, and this I say with the most perfect truth, that I shall be equally happy whichever you do.”