Bygones Worth Remembering Volume I Part 13

Born June 12, 1802, at Norwich, she died June 27, 1876, at Ambleside. In 1832, when she was twenty-eight, Lucy Atkin wrote to tell Dr. Channing that "a great light had arisen among women," which shone for forty-four years. When she was a young woman, Lord Melbourne offered her a pension, which she declined on the ground that a Government which did not represent the people had no right to give away their money--an act of integrity so infrequent as to be always fresh. In her case it explains a career.

Two of the greatest women in Europe, George Sand and Harriet Martineau, of nearly equal age, died within a few weeks of each other. "Pa.s.sed away" is the phrase now employed, as though the writer knew that a journey was intended, and was in progress, whereas as Barry Cornwall wrote:--

"A flower above and a mould below Is all the mourners ever know."

Mrs. Fenwick Miller relates that Miss Martineau began writing for the Press, like the famous novelist mentioned, under a man's name, "Deciphalus." Once when at Mr. W. E. Forster's, at Burley, it fell to me to take Mrs. Forster down to dinner. Being in doubt as to what was etiquette in such cases, preferring to be thought uncouth than familiar, I did not offer my hostess my arm. Afterwards I asked Miss Martineau what I might have done. She answered that "a guest was an equal, and any act of courtesy permissible in him was permissible in me," but in better terms than I can invent. Recurring to the subject at another time, she said, "I was well pleased at your consulting me as you did. It would save a world of trouble and doubt and energy, if we all asked one another what the other is qualified to tell. I, who have to be economical of energy and time, always do it. I ask, point blank, what it is important for me to know, from any one who can best tell me, and I like to be inquired of in the same way. I hope no guest will feel puzzled in my house, but ask, and what I can answer I will." The readiness with which she placed her wisdom at the service of her friends might have given Matthew Arnold (as she was a frequent visitor at Fox Howe) his idea of "Sweetness and Light."

Greater than the difficulty of deafness was the fact that Miss Martineau wrote on the side of Liberalism. Tory writers dipped their pens in the best preparation of venom sold by Conservative chemists. The Church and King party, which burnt down Dr. Priestley's house, soon discovered that Miss Martineau was guilty of the further crime of being a Unitarian.

Nevertheless, she abandoned no principle, nor apologised for maintaining what she believed to be true. Spinoza, as Renan has told us, gave great offence to his adversaries by the integrity of his life, as it did not give them a fair opportunity of attacking him, for the enormity of his conduct in believing less than they believed. This was the case with Harriet Martineau, who had said in one of her books, "A parent has a considerable influence over the subsistence fund of his family, and an absolute control over the numbers to be supported by that fund." The _Quarterly Review_, "written by gentlemen for gentlemen," added, "We venture to ask this maiden sage the meaning of this pa.s.sage." Why not ask the Rev. Thomas Maithus, whose words Miss Martineau merely repeated?

All that was meant was "deferred marriages." The reviewer put an obscene construction upon it, and imputed to her his own malignant inference.

This was a common rascality of logic alike in theology and politics in those days.

The intrepid auth.o.r.ess happened to believe there was some truth in mesmerism. Dr. Elliotson, who thought so too, told me that his temerity that way cost him 7,000 a year in fees. This mesmeric episode brought the doctors upon the poor lady, who never forgave her being alive when they said she ought to be dead. Eminent physicians predicted that she would sink down in six months. When, instead of sinking down, she rode on a camel to Mount Sinai and Petra, and on horseback to Damascus, they said "she had never been ill!"

She had the unusual capacity which the G.o.ds only are said to give--that of seeing herself as others saw her. She saw her own life and intellectual power in its strength and in its limitation, as though she stood away from them and looked at them; she saw them, as it were, palpable and apart from herself. Of imagination, which sheds sunshine over style, she had little. Her pictures were etchings rather than paintings. Her strength lay in directness of expression and practical thought She saw social facts and their influences, their nature and sequences, with a vividness no other writer of her day did. When she had completed the translation of Comte's "Positive Philosophy," she placed at my disposal twenty-five copies to give to persons unable to buy them, but able to profit by them; and to extend the knowledge of its principles. She offered me the publication of an edition of "Household Education." No book like it had been written before, and none since.

Four hundred copies were sold by my arrangement. The book was mainly intended for women. The review of it for the _Reasoner_* was written by my wife, as I advocated that women should take their own affairs in the press into their own hands, and give their own opinion on what concerned them. Miss Martineau's object in writing "Household Education" was, she told me, "to indicate that, in her opinion, education should be on a philosophical basis," adding: "I should see the great point of it is ignoring rank in so important a matter as the development of human beings. It was written for Buckingham Palace and the humblest cottage where life is decently conducted." Miss Martineau lived twenty-two years after receiving prognostications of early decease. Had she not been a woman of courage she would have died, as was suggested to her. She understood that she must accept new conditions of life. She had a bed made in a railway carriage, and went down with her maids to Ambleside, and never left her house except to take air and get the relief which the smoking of a cigarette gave her, as she sat on summer evenings just outside the open windows of her sitting-room. She might have given herself greater liberty, for she did not die of heart ailment after all.

* Reasoner, vol. vi. pp. 378-9 and 390.

As I have seen in women of thought, Harriet Martineau, like George Eliot, grew handsomer as she grew older, and acquired that queenly dignity, such as is seen in George Richmond's painting of Miss Martineau in mature years.

She devoted all her diversified genius to inspire public affairs with loftier aims and persistent purpose. She was one of those Christians mentioned by Shakespeare who "mean to be saved by believing rightly."*

Harriet Martineau did, and these words of Flavius might be her epitaph.

* "Twelfth Night," act iii., scene 2.

CHAPTER XVI. THE THREE NEWMANS

[Ill.u.s.tration: Newman]

In one of the last conversations I had the pleasure to hold with Mr. Gladstone, I referred to the "three Newmans" and their divergent careers. He said he never knew there were "three." He knew John Henry, the Cardinal (as he afterwards became), at Oxford. He knew Francis William there, who had repute for great attainments, retirement of manner, and high character; but had never heard there was a third brother, and was much interested in what I had to tell him. The articles of Charles Newman I published in the _Reasoner_, and their republication by the late J. W. Wheeler, were little known to the general public, who will probably hear of them now for the first time.

Though I name "three Newmans," this chapter relates chiefly to the one I best knew, Francis William, known as Professor Newman. The eldest of the three was John Henry, the famous Cardinal. The third brother, Charles, was a propagandist of insurgent opinion. Francis was a pure Theist, John was a Roman Catholic, and Charles a Naturist, and nothing besides; he would be cla.s.sed as an Agnostic now. Francis William was the handsomest He had cla.s.sical features, a placid, clear, and confident voice, and an impressive smile which lighted up all his face. John Henry manifested in his youth the dominancy of the ecclesiastic, and lived in a priestly world of his own creation, in which this life was overshadowed by the terrors of another unknown. Francis believed in one sole G.o.d--not the head of a firm. His Theism was of such intense, unquestioning devotion, of such pa.s.sionate confidence, as was seen in Mazzini and Theodore Parker, of America. Voltaire and Thomas Paine were not more determined Theists. In all else, Francis was human. Charles believed in Nature and nothing more. In sending me papers to print in the _Reasoner_ on "Causation in the Universe," he would at times say, "My mind is leaving me, and when it returns a few months hence, I will send you a further paper." Like Charles Lamb's poor sister, Mary, who used to put her strait waistcoat in her basket and go herself to the asylum, when she knew the days of her aberration were approaching, Charles Newman had premonition of a like kind. He had the thoroughness of thought of his family. The two brothers--the Cardinal and the Professor--united to supply Charles with an income sufficient for his needs. The Cardinal, though he knew Charles' opinions, readily joined.

When some questioning remark on Professor Newman was made incidentally in the House of Commons, in consequence of his uncompromising views, the Cardinal wrote saying that "for his brother's purity he would die,"

which, considering their extreme divergence of opinion, was very n.o.ble in the Cardinal.

Professor Newman, I believe, wrote more books, having regard to their variety and quality, than any other scholar of his time. Science, history, poetry, theology, political economy, mathematics, travel, translations--the Iliad of Homer--among them a Sanscrit dictionary. He wrote many pamphlets and spoke for the humblest societies, regardless of the amazement of his eminent contemporaries and a.s.sociates. On questions relating to marital morality, he did not hesitate to publish leaflets. I published a series of letters for him in the _Reasoner_--now some fifty years ago, so we were long acquainted. These earlier communications came to me at a time when the authorities of University College in London, where he was Professor of Latin, were being called upon to consider whether his intellectual Liberalism might deter parents from sending their sons there. But it was bravely held that the University had no cognisance of the personal opinions of any professor. Like Professor Key, Mr. Newman took an open interest in public affairs. Though variedly learned, Professor Newman's style of speech, to whomever addressed by tongue or pen, was fresh, direct, precise, and lucid.

Mr. Newman's quarto volume on Theism, written in metre, is the greatest compendium of Theistical argument published in my time, and until Darwin wrote, no entirely conclusive answer was possible.

Francis Newman had a travelling mind. From the time when I published his "Personal Narrative" of his early missionary experience at Aleppo, he grew, year by year, more rationalistic in his religious judgment. In one of his papers, written in the year of his death, he said: "It may be asked, 'Is Mr. Newman a disciple of Jesus?' I answer, 'Of all nations that I know, that have a religion established by law, I have never seen the equal to what is attributed to Jesus himself. But much is attributed to Him--I disapprove of.' On the whole, if I am asked, 'Do you call yourself a Christian?' I say, in contrast to other religions, 'Yes! I do,' and so far I must call myself a Christian. But if you put upon me the words Disciple of Jesus, meaning the believing all Jesus teaches to be light and truth I cannot say it, and I think His words variously unprovable. Now all disciples, when they come to full age, ought to seek to surpa.s.s their masters. Therefore, if Jesus had faults, we, after more than two thousand years' experience, ought to expect to surpa.s.s Him, especially when an immense routine of science has been elaborately built up, with a thousand confirmations all beyond the thought of Jesus."

What a progressive order of thought would exist now in the Christian world had Mr. Newman's conception of discipleship prevailed in the Churches!

Mr. Newman's words about myself, occurring in his work on "The Soul," I remember with pride. They were written at a time when I had an ominous reputation among theologians. When residing at Clifton as a professor, Mr. Newman came down to Broadmead Rooms at Bristol, and took the chair at one of my lectures, and spoke words on my behalf which only he could frame. But he was as fearless in his friendship as he was intrepid in his faith. He wrote to me, April 30, 1897, saying: "I appeal to your compa.s.sion when I say, that the mere change of opinion on a doubtful fact has perhaps cost me the regard of all who do not know me intimately." The "fact" related to the probability of annihilation at death. He regretted the loss of friendship, but never varied in his lofty fidelity to conscience. Whatever might be his interest in a future life, if it were the will of G.o.d not to concede it, he held it to be the duty of one who placed his trust in Him to acquiesce. The spirit of piety never seemed to me n.o.bler, than in this unusual expression of unmurmuring, unpresuming resignation.

His first wife, who was of the persuasion of the Plymouth Brethren, had little sympathy with his boldness and fecundity of thought. Once, when he lived at Park Village, Regent's Park, his friend, Dr. James Martineau, came into the room; she opened the window and stepped out on to the lawn, rather than meet him. Mr. Newman was very tender as to her scruples, but stood by his own. When I visited him, he asked me, from regard to her, to give the name of "Mr. Jacobs"--the name I used when a teacher in Worcester in 1840, where I lectured under my own name and taught under another.

On February 12, 1897, Mr. Newman wrote:--"Mv dear Holyoake,--I am not coming round to you, though many will think I am. On the contrary, I hope you are half coming round to me, but I have no time to talk on these matters." He then asked my advice as to his rights over his own publications, then in the hands of Mr. Frowde, printer, of Oxford; but with such care for the rights of others, such faultless circ.u.mspection as to the consequences to others in all he wished done, as to cause me agreeable surprise at the unfailing perspicacity of his mind, his unchanging, scrupulous, and instinctive sense of justice.

He regarded death with the calmness of a philosopher. He wrote to me April 30, 1897: "Only those near me know how I daily realise the near approach of my own death (he was then ninety-three). I grudge every day wasted by things unfinished which remain for me to do." No apprehension, no fear, and he wished I could "appear before him, with a doc.u.ment drawn up," by which he could consign to me the custody of all the works under his control. At the time, as he said, he might "easily be in his grave"

before I could accomplish his wishes. He says in another letter that his "wife, like himself, abhorred indebtedness." He provided for the probable cost of everything he wished done. His sense of honour remained as keen as his sense of faith. He was a gentleman first and a Christian afterwards.

Mr. Gladstone told me he was under the impression that he had, in some way unknown to himself, lost the friendship of Mr. Newman, from whom he had not heard for several years; and Mr. Newman was under an impression that Mr. Gladstone's silence was occasioned by disapproval of his published views of the "Errors of Jesus"--an error of a.s.sumption respecting Mr. Gladstone into which Mr. Newman might naturally, but not excusably, fall; for Mr. Newman should have known that Mr. Gladstone had a n.o.ble tolerance equal to his own, or should personally have tested it, by letter or otherwise, before nurturing an adverse conjecture. I mentioned the matter to Mr. Gladstone, and found Mr. Newman's surmise groundless. At the same time I gave him a copy of Mr. Francis Newman's "Secret Songs" (as one copy given to me was called) which revealed to Mr. Gladstone a devotional spirit he did not, as he said, imagine could co-exist in one whose faith was so divergent to his own.

The following letter, which has autobiographical value, may interest the reader:--

"Norwood Villa, 15, Arundel Crescent,

"Weston-super-Mare.

"March 22, 1893.

"Dear Mr. George Jacob Holyoake,--I had no idea of writing to Mr.

Gladstone, yet am glad to hear that you gave him my 'Secret Hymns.'

Probably my contrast to my brother, the late Cardinal, always puzzled him. That we were in painful opposition ever since 1820 had never entered his mind, much less that this opposition made it impossible to me to endure living in Oxford, which also would have been my obvious course.

"I did send my 'Paul of Tarsus' to Mr. Gladstone, which partially opened his eyes. For my brother's first pretentious religious book was against the Arians, which I _think_ I read at latest in 1832. Mr. Gladstone has _written_ that my brother's secession to Rome was the greatest loss that the English Church ever suffered. Of what kind was the loss my little book on 'Paul' indirectly states, in pointing out that, as our English New Testament shows, Paul in his own episode plainly originated the doctrine, three centuries later _called_ Arianism, and held by all the Western Church until young Athanasius introduced his new and therefore 'false' doctrine.

My brother, with Paul's epistle open before him, condemned the doctrine of Arian, and did not know that it was the invention of Paul, and thereby prevailed in the whole Western Church. Moreover, I read what I cannot imagine met Mr. Gladstone's eyes, that 'It is not safe to quote any Pre-Athanasian doctrines concerning the Trinity, since the _Church_ had not yet taught them how to express themselves.' After this, _could_ Mr. Gladstone, as a decent scholar, mourn over my brother's _loss_ to the Church? I hope Mr. Gladstone can now afford time to read something of the really early Christianity. He will find the Jerusalem Christianity perishing after the Roman revolt, and supplanted by Pauline fancies (not Christian at all) and by Pauline morality, often better than Christian. To me our modern problem is to eschew Pauline fancies and further to improve on Pauline wisdom.

"But since I have reached the point of being unable to take Human Immortality as a Church axiom, I cannot believe that the problem is above fully stated, or that Christianity deserves to become coetaneous with man's body.

"Perhaps I ought to thank you more, yet I may have said too much.--Yours truly,

"F. W. Newman."

One day as Mr. Newman was leaving my room in Woburn Buildings, he looked round and said: "I did not think there were rooms so large in this place"; and then descending the stairs, as though the familiarity of the remark was more than an impulse, he said: "Do you think you could join with me in teaching the great truth of Theism?" Alas! I had to express my regret that my belief did not lie that way. Highly as I should think, and much as I should value public a.s.sociation with Mr. Newman, I had to decline the opportunity. If the will could create conviction, I should also have accepted Mazzini's invitation--elsewhere referred to--for Theism never seemed so enchanting in my eyes as it appeared in the lives of those two distinguished thinkers who were inspired by it.

CHAPTER XVII. MAZZINI IN ENGLAND-INCIDENTS IN HIS CAREER

[Ill.u.s.tration: Mazzini]

Giuseppe Mazzini, whom Englishmen know as Joseph Mazzini, was born in Genoa, June 22, 1805, and died in Pisa, March 10, 1872. He spent the greater part of forty years of his marvellous life in London. * Some incidents of his English career, known to me, may increase or confirm the public impression of him.

* First in Devonshire Street, Queen Square; in Chelsea; in Brompton; in earlier years in penury. Where he had command of a sitting-room, birds were flying about. Uncaged freedom was to Mazzini the emblem of Liberty.

Never strong from youth, abstemious, oft from privation, and always from principle, he was as thin as Dumas describes Richelieu. Arbitrary imprisonment, which twice befel him, and many years of voluntary confinement, imposed upon himself by necessity of concealment--living and working in a small room, whence it was dangerous for him to emerge by day or by night--were inevitably enervating. When he first came to London in 1837, he brought with him three exiles, who depended upon his earnings for subsistence. The slender income supplied him by his mother might have sufficed for his few wants,* but aid for others and the ceaseless cost of the propaganda of Italian independence, to which he devoted himself, had to be provided by writing for reviews. At times cherished souvenirs had to be pledged, and visits to money-lenders had to be made.