"Daniel Deronda" and "John Halifax, Gentleman," may wisely be classed together as attempts of competent artists to sketch a gentleman. Whether they have failed in the attempt I would not make bold to say, but for some reason the characters impress me as being scarcely adequate. Both faces are open, and lit as by a lamp of truth; their lives are sweet as meadows scented with new-mown hay; we become sworn friends to both without our willing it; they have nothing to take back, because words and deeds are faithful to their best manhood; they are strong, and women lean on them, which, aside from God's confidence, is the highest compliment ever paid a man. Deronda is a man among aristocrats, Halifax a man among plebeians and commercial relations; but manhood is the same quality wherever found; for God has made all soils salubrious for such growth. But these do not compel, though they do charm us. Bayard, in "A Singular Life," may fall in with Deronda and Halifax. Tragedy darkens at "the far end of the avenue." Bayard is a social reformer in attempt, though of the safe and right type, meaning to change men, that there may be wrought a change in institutions. He runs a tilt with Calvinian orthodoxy as Methodism does, and loves God and his fellow-men and a good woman, and finds no toil burdensome if he may be of spiritual help and healing. "A singular life" he lives; but singular because it is the gospel life, and he merits the name the slums gave him, "The Christ-man." He is helpful, few more so, and knows power to stir us, which in the event is the superb quality in character. Captain Moray, in "The Seats of the Mighty," and Henry Esmond, in "Henry Esmond," are gentlemen of military mold, and we love them both because they make for lordly inspiration in the soul. Esmond must always keep his hold on men as a hero. These two soldiers need no one to remind us they know how to die; and know that other, larger thing—how to live. Esmond, over a long stretch of life lying in our sight, walked ever as a prince. Any national literature might be glad for one such as he. Our imagination takes wings when we think of him. Such cleanness, such lack of self, such self-poise and firmness, such singleness of love and devotion, such inaptitude for anything not noble, such tense heroic purposes, such stalwart intention to make himself a man! He is greatness, and his story to be read as a tonic. He recruits heroisms in the heart, and rests us when we grow weary. Thackeray is reported by Anthony Trollope to have called his creation, Esmond, "a prig." He might better have called him a gentleman; for such he is, or narrowly lacks of being. Indeed, did not Thackeray present another who is altogether gentleman, Esmond would be catalogued as this ideal character; for he misses it so little, if at all, and is by odds most magnetic of Thackeray's creations. And Browning's "Caponsacchi" and Hugo's "Valjean" have the true instincts of gentlemen. Valjean redeemed himself from worse than galley slavery—from debauched manhood to spiritual nobility, bewildering in holy audacity and achievement. Were there a pantheon for souls who have struggled up from the verge of hell to stand in the clear light of heaven, be sure Valjean would be there. Volumes are requisite for his portrait, and we have only room for words! Of Caponsacchi, take the pope's estimate as accurate, "Thou sprang'st forth hero." And Pompilia conceived him rightly, for he minded her of God. What farther need be said? Is not that panegyric enough for any man? Because he was so strong, so fearless, so pure, so gifted with great might to love, so keen to see Pompilia was pure as a babe's dreams, and the light on his forehead falls from the lattices overhead—the lattices of heaven—we love him. Had his figure been fully drawn we should have had a gentleman. Nor are we sure he ought not to be so catalogued; as he is, we find no fault in him. He minds us of the morning star.
Two characters in literature since Don Quixote are life-size gentlemen, and these are Colonel Newcome and King Arthur, as drawn by Thackeray and Tennyson, men of one era and pure souls. In these characters is evident deliberation of intent to create gentlemen. This article has given no heed to biography or history, because these concern themselves with truth as observed, and are therefore not imaginative. What we are considering is an ideal person, fashioned after the pattern discovered in good lives, which happily grow more and more plentiful as years multiply. Besides, biography can never get at the real man; for biography is a story of doing, while what we need is a story of soul. In Boswell's "Johnson" or in Anthony Trollope's "Autobiography" there is approach to what we care to know; but in the life of Jowett or Tennyson, though both are admirable specimens of biography, what man among us but closed those books with a sense of, not dissatisfaction, but unsatisfaction? What we were really hungry for was not there. What Jowett was, which made him a part of the life-blood of English thought and Englishmen—who found that out? Some things never can be told, unless the poets or prose dramatists tell them. Poetry and fiction do what history and biography fail to do—make us interior to a soul's true life.
Colonel Newcome is all gentleman. He hangs a curtain of silence over one room in his life. To his wife, mother of his beloved Clive, he will make no reference. Not bad, but frivolous and weak and querulous, she was; but Colonel Newcome never whispers it. What had made many misanthropes, made him a better man. No bitterness tainted his spirit. Pure women put him in a mood of worship, as they ought to put us all. He could, in conduct, if not in memory, forget hurts and wrongs, which is one mark of a large spirit. His was, his biographer affirms, "a tender and a faithful heart." In him paternity and maternity met, which is a conjunction we have not given heed to as we ought in thinking on the heart. Motherhood is in the best fatherhood. Not long since I met a minister who, on my mentioning a black and scrawny village, said, with lovelit face and ringing, jubilant voice, "O yes, that is where my boy was born!" How true hearts do remember! And Colonel Newcome loved his son with such sweet and wide fidelity as makes the heart covet him for father. All those days of separation from his son, he thought of him "with such a constant longing affection." And his joy on seeing his son once more is the joy of one getting home to heaven. "To ask a blessing on his boy was as natural to him as to wake with the sunrise, or to go to rest when the day is over. His first and last thought was always the child." He expects good of people, will say no ill of any, can not understand Sir Brian Newcome's frigid reception, and is hurt by it as by a poisoned arrow shot by the hill tribes in far India; he can not tolerate foul thought or speech, burns hot with righteous wrath against Captain Costigan when he sings a vile song, thundering, "Silence!" "'We ought to be ashamed of doing wrong. We must forgive other people's trespasses if we hope forgiveness of our own.' His voice sunk low as he spoke, and he bowed his honest head reverently." How unostentatious his bravery, and riches puffed him up not a trifle! How alert to love, how open to enjoyment, how young his heart and how pure! What simplicity and what grave courtesy, particularly to women! How wide those windows of his soul open toward heaven! How magnanimous, how sad his face and heart, how sensitive his nature, to any lack of love on dear Clive's part! Though to his own heart he will not admit such lack exists, sitting above in his cheerless room, listening to his son's merry-making, that son glad to be left free of his father's presence,—how bravely he bore poverty when financial ruin came, not missing wealth for himself, but for him he loved, and how he grieved for those who had lost through him! He was not faultless. Men are not often that; but his anger rose from his heart. His indignation was for those he loved. We can see him now, as if he lived among us yet. His honest, melancholy face; his loose clothes hanging on his loose limbs; sitting silent, with his sad eyes; a bankrupt, giving over his pension for reimbursing those who had lost by him; and his eagerness for wealth for love's sake, always thinking of somebody else,—such is this gentleman who trusts in God. And thus simple, noble, unhumiliated:
"I chanced to look up from my book toward the swarm of blackcoated pensioners, and among them—among them—sat Thomas Newcome. His dear old head was bent down over his prayer-book; there was no mistaking him. He wore the black gown of the pensioners of the Hospital of Grey Friars. His Order of the Bath was on his breast. He stood among the poor brethren, uttering the responses to the psalm. . . . His own wan face flushed up when he saw me, and his hand shook in mine. 'I have found a home, Arthur,' said he; for save this he was homeless. As death came toward him his mind wandered, driven as a leaf is driven by wandering winds. He headed columns in Hindustan; he called the name of the one woman he had loved. In death, as in life, his thought was for others, for Clive, dear, dear Clive. He said, 'Take care of him when I 'm in India;' and then, with a heartrending voice, he called out, 'Leonore, Leonore!' She was kneeling by his side now. The patient voice sank into faint murmurs; only a moan now and then announced that he was not asleep. At the usual hour the chapel bell began to toll, and Thomas Newcome's hands, outside the bed, feebly beat time. And just as the last bell struck, a peculiar sweet smile shone over his face, and he lifted up his head a little, and quickly said, 'Adsum!' and fell back. It was the word we used at school when names were called; and lo! he, whose heart was as that of a little child, had answered to his name, and stood in the presence of his Master."
Small wonder if, in India, they called Thomas Newcome "Don Quixote."
And King Arthur is Alfred Tennyson's dream of a gentleman. Arthur is manhood at its prime. He was strong, a warrior, a self-made man, since the foolish questioned, "Is he Uther's son?" Mystery and miracle mix with his history, as is accurate, seeing no life grows tall without the advent of miracle. He is rescuer of a realm from anarchy, founder of the Round Table—an order of knighthood, purposed to include only pure knights—was not spectacular; for we read that others were greater in tournament than he, but he greater than all in battle, from which we see how great occasions called out his greatness. He measured up to needs. Though often deceived, he was optimist, hoping the best from men. He counted life to be a chance for service. There was a hidden quality in him, as when he, unknown to all, went out from Camelot to tilt with Balin and overthrew him. His life was pure as the heart of "the lily maid of Astolat," and demanded in man a purity as great as that of woman. His love was mighty, unsuspicious, tender. He was himself a king, born to rule, fitted to inspire. No littleness sapped his greatness. He rejoiced in others' strength, prowess, victory. His was an eye quick to discover merit in woman or man, as in Lynette. His heart was tender, and a cry for help awoke him from deep sleep. He hated foulness as he hated hell. He was like a sky, so high, pure, open. Himself makes an era, for his age clusters about him as if he were a sun to sway a system. Like Cordelia, in "Lear," he is a figure in the background; yet, despite his actual slight participancy in the "Idyls of the King," he always seems the one person of the poem. What is Lancelot matched with him, or pure Sir Galahad? If knighthood misconceived King Arthur then, men do not misconceive him now. A great spirit must not murmur if misconceived. The world will cluster to him hereafter, himself being God's hand to lift them to his Alp of nobleness. Arthur's life upbraids men for their sin. His very purity alienated Guinevere. Goodness has tempests in its sky, and storms make morning murk as night; and one true knight. King Arthur, goes sick at heart to battle with rebels in the West. Lancelot and Guinevere are fled; Modred has raised standard of rebellion; some knights are dead, slain in battle or searching for the Holy Grail; some have left off knighthood,—and King Arthur is defeated! Nay, this can not be. He rides into the battle, having forgiven Guinevere "as Eternal God forgives"—the battle where
"Host to host
Shocks, and the splintering spear, the hard mail hewn,
Shield-breakings, and the clash of brands, the crash
Of battle-axes on shatter's [shatter'd?] helms, and shrieks
After the Christ, of those who falling down
Look'd up for heaven, and only saw the mist."
And, the battle ended, Arthur moans, "My house hath seen my doom;" but he has not forgotten God, nor hath God forgotten him. God is his destination, and he trusts him now as in the golden yesterdays:
"I have lived my life, and that which I have done
May He within himself make pure!"
And Arthur found, not sorrow nor defeat, but victory; for