("But thou, my babe, shall wander like a breeze
By lakes and sandy shores, beneath the crags
Of ancient mountains, and beneath the clouds
Which image in their bulk both lakes and shores
And mountain crags")
—listening with hardly less than his father's delight to the sounds and voices of nature, in homely intimacy with all homely folk, uttering now and then piercing words of wisdom or regret, teaching little children in village schools, and——.
Well, it would be perhaps too much to say that he continued to justify the rejection of the Oriel fellows. Who knows how largely that event may itself have contributed to what it too hastily anticipated and too finally condemned? It appears certain that the weakness had not thus early made itself known to Hartley's general acquaintance at the University. Mr. Dyce had nothing painful to remember of him, but describes him as a young man possessing an intellect of the highest order, with great simplicity of character and considerable oddity of manner; and he hints that the college authorities had probably resented, in the step they took, certain attacks more declamatory than serious which Hartley had got into the habit of indulging against all established institutions. Mr. Derwent Coleridge touches this part of the subject very daintily. "My brother was, however, I am afraid, more sincere in his invectives against establishments, as they appeared to his eyes at Oxford, and elsewhere, than Mr. Dyce kindly supposes." How poor Hartley would have laughed at that!
One thing to the last he continued. The simplicity of character which Mr. Dyce attributes to his youth remained with him till long after his hair was prematurely white. As Wordsworth hoped for him in his childhood, he kept
"A young lamb's heart among the full-grown flock;"
—and some delightful recollections of his ordinary existence from day to day among the lakes and mountains, and in the service of the village schools, are contributed to his brother's Memoir. Here is one, from one of the scholars he taught:
"I first saw Hartley in the beginning, I think, of 1837, when I was at Sedbergh, and he heard us our lesson in Mr. Green's parlor. My impression of him was what I conceived Shakespeare's idea of a gentleman to be, something which we like to have in a picture. He was dressed in black, his hair, just touched with gray, fell in thick waves down his back, and he had a frilled shirt on; and there was a sort of autumnal ripeness and brightness about him. His shrill voice, and his quick, authoritative 'right! right!' and the chuckle with which he translated 'rerum repetundarum' as 'peculation, a very common vice in governors of all ages,' after which he took a turn round the sofa—all struck me amazingly; his readiness astonished us all, and even himself, as he afterwards told me; for, during the time he was at the school, he never had to use a dictionary once, though we read Dalzell's selections from Aristotle and Longinus, and several plays of Sophocles. He took his idea, so he said, from what De Quincy says of one of the Eton masters fagging the lesson, to the great amusement of the class, and, while waiting for the lesson, he used to read a newspaper. While acting as second master he seldom occupied the master's desk, but sat among the boys on one of the school benches. He very seldom came to school in a morning, never till about eleven, and in the afternoon about an hour after we had begun. I never knew the least liberty taken with him, though he was kinder and more familiar than was then the fashion with masters. His translations were remarkably vivid; of [Greek: mogera mogerôs] 'toiling and moiling;' and of some ship or other in the Philoctetes, which he pronounced to be 'scudding under main-top sails,' our conceptions became intelligible. Many of his translations were written down with his initials, and I saw some, not a long while ago, in the Sophocles of a late Tutor at Queen's College, Oxford, who had them from tradition. He gave most attention to our themes; out of those sent in he selected two or three, which he then read aloud and criticised; and once, when they happened to agree, remarked there was always a coincidence of thought amongst great men. Out of school he never mixed with the boys, but was sometimes seen, to their astonishment, running along the fields with his arms outstretched, and talking to himself. He had no pet scholars except one, a little fair-haired boy, who he said ought to have been a girl. He told me that was the only boy he ever loved, though he always loved little girls. He was remarkably fond of the travelling shows that occasionally visited the village. I have seen him clap his hands with delight; indeed, in most of the simple delights of country life, he was like a child. This is what occurs to me at present of what he was when I first knew him; and, indeed, my after recollections are of a similarly fragmentary kind, consisting only of those little, numerous, noiseless, every-day acts of kindness, the sum of which makes a Christian life. His love of little children, his sympathy with the poor and suffering, his hatred of oppression, the beauty and the grace of his politeness before women, and his high manliness,—these are the features which I shall never forget while I have any thing to remember."
The same writer afterwards tells us:
"On his way to one of these parties he called on me, and I could not help saying, 'How well you look in a white neckcloth!' 'I wish you could see me sometimes,' he replied; 'if I had only black-silk stockings and shoe-buckles I should be quite a gentleman.' Those who had only seen him in the careless dress that he chose to adopt in the lanes—his trowsers, which were generally too long, doubled half way up the leg, unbrushed, and often splashed; his hat brushed the wrong way, for he never used an umbrella; and his wild, unshaven, weather-beaten look—were amazed at his metamorphose into such a faultless gentleman as he appeared when he was dressed for the evening. 'I hate silver forks with fish,' he said; 'I can't manage them.' So did Dr. Arnold, I told him. 'That's capital; I am glad of such an authority. Do you know I never understood the gladiator's excellence till the other day. The way in which my brother eats fish with a silver fork made the thing quite clear.'
"He often referred to his boyish days, when he told me he nearly poisoned half the house with his chemical infusions, and spoiled the pans, with great delight. The 'Pilgrim's Progress' was an early favorite with him. 'It was strange,' he said, 'how it had been overlooked. Children are often misunderstood. When I was a baby I have often been in the greatest terror, when, to all appearance, I was quite still;—so frightened that I could not make a noise. Crying, I believe, is oftener a sign of happiness than the reverse. I was looked upon as a remarkable child. My mother told me, when I was born she thought me an ugly red thing; but my father took me up and said, 'There's no sweeter baby any where than this.' He always thought too much of me. I was very dull at school, and hated arithmetic; I always had to count on my fingers.