Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman Part 10

William de Morgan, who has kindly written them for this memoir. Mr. de Morgan tells me that his father and Francis Newman were old friends, but they were widely apart on religious questions, and that he remembers "when the Martineau controversy was at its height" he said to him: "Newman and I were very old colleagues, and I loved and respected him. But if I had been supposed to have any official knowledge of Newman's views about Christianity derived from my position as a Professor, I should have thrown up my situation long ago." And Mr. de Morgan adds: "This had reference to the absolute agnosis on religious views which was the banner U.C. nailed to the mast in old days." He says he remembers, in his boyhood, that there were many religious discussions between his parents and Francis Newman, but that he was far too young to understand what they were about then, and remembers them consequently but vaguely.

"When I came to see more of Newman as a Professor in cla.s.s, I had arrived at the condition of a pert and very foolish boy of sixteen who had made up his mind to be an artist and failed altogether to take advantage of the splendid opportunities before him. I attended Newman's cla.s.ses; saw him every day; might have acquired the knowledge of much of the Latin cla.s.sics. Somehow I missed my chances, and I cannot now recall a single instance of my availing myself of the interviews he accorded so gladly to any attentive student to get at difficult pa.s.sages, and so on. In my time I suspect his cla.s.ses included a larger number than usual of bad and idle young scaramouches, who deserved to be turned out of the cla.s.s, instead of the sort of over-forbearance their Professor showed. I feel sure now that a more truculent character than his would have enforced order better, with advantage to the weak and wavering pupils. He treated boys too much like human creatures--and some of us were as mischievous as monkeys. I recollect a particular instance ill.u.s.trating this fact and his forbearance.

"The weather was bad, and bad colds abounded. One day Newman ventured to remonstrate gently with the victims of catarrh--indeed, the noise was awful. But he had the indiscretion to add: 'Gentlemen, if you cannot wipe your noses, I must really ask you to blow them outside the door.' Of course the results were awful! The young imps rushed out incessantly into the pa.s.sage, and made noises like motor-cars. If the Professor committed an error of judgment in his first edict, he certainly made up for it by the way he kept his temper. In this he was really perfect. But the boys presumed on it, of course. I remember that one of them, instead of attending to his _Juvenal_, wrote a long poem about this nose incident, which pa.s.sed from hand to hand.

"There was another incident about that time which I fancy others may remember better than I. It was snow time, and the schoolboys in the playground were pelting papers in the college precinct. Newman pa.s.sed by, and a heavy volley all but destroyed his umbrella, which he used as a shield. A few days after he came into the Common Room with a new umbrella.

'See what a beautiful present I've had,' he said, 'from my young friends across the railings.' I have an impression that it was a guinea umbrella bought with penny subscriptions; but this may be another story that has got mixed with it."

Sir Edward Fry writes, in response to a request from me for his recollections of Newman:--

"I attended Professor Newman's senior cla.s.s on Latin literature for two or three sessions in 1848, and I have a very vivid remembrance of him; at that time he had not a.s.sumed a beard, and his clean-cut features were not obscured by hair, as in later life. His lectures were very interesting and stimulating. If I may venture to express an opinion on the point, I should describe him as a very brilliant scholar, with a tendency towards eccentricity.

"We read whilst I was with him some three or four of the early works of Livy, and some of the histories of Tacitus; and his expansion of the Const.i.tution of Rome, both at the early and later date, was of very unusual excellence. Such was my memory, and this has been confirmed by a reference to my notebooks which I have made in consequence of your note. I think his estimate of character did not always agree with that of Tacitus.

Other subjects which I recollect as having been expounded were the relation of Latin to the Celtic group of languages, and that everlasting question, the relation of the Etruscans and the Pelasgi.

"Once a week Newman used to give out a piece of English prose to be rendered into Latin; these he corrected, reading also to us his own version. Since your note I have looked at such notes of his lectures as I can find, and at his corrections of my Latin prose."

Mr. Talfourd Ely, writing on Francis Newman as a teacher, says "he was most careful and conscientious in his work. He was refined and even fastidious in literary taste. To the ordinary undergraduate, such as myself, he seemed too little like other men. We did not understand his genius, and were too apt to judge him by peculiarities of garb and speech.

Like many other scholars, he could hardly keep in touch with young athletes, and probably did not care to do so. But personally I was greatly indebted to him, and I can never forget his generous help and kindly thoughtfulness."

Mr. Winterbotham, also pupil of Francis Newman, says:--

"I was more keen on mathematics than cla.s.sics, and was not what he would have considered a promising pupil. My brother Edward, who was a year my senior, was not much better.... My recollections are confined to the peculiarities of his dress and manner: the rug with a hole in the middle for his head, which formed his outer garment in winter. The complete suit of dark grey alpaca, _tail_ coat, waistcoat, and trousers, which he donned in warm weather.

"His remonstrance to the cla.s.s on the indignity inflicted on him by the boys at the adjoining school, who s...o...b..lled him and broke his umbrella, was followed by his request that they would 'use their influence with the boys' by way of protecting him in future, and his recognition of their efforts next day, when he exhibited a new umbrella presented to him by the boys.... For dear old De Morgan [Footnote: Father of the Mr. de Morgan who contributes his reminiscences, and old friend of Newman.] I had a great regard, and I was better able to appreciate his marvellous powers as a mathematician."

Here is a short reminiscence by Professor Pye Smith:--

"Newman was a small, dark, slightly-built man, with black moustache and beard, and a doubtful affected manner. He made us read long pa.s.sages without comment, and rarely went beyond the translation. I do not think I ever spoke to him (or others of his cla.s.s). The memory of his teaching would, I think, be most valuable in correcting the Latin verses we made for his comment and correction. The only professors at that time whom I got great benefit from were Aston Key, De Morgan, and Ma.s.son."

The next reminiscence belongs to a much later date in the Professor's life. In 1863 he was no longer teaching at University College. Mrs.

Kingsley Tarpey says she remembers him first in the summer of 1874 or 1875. Her descriptions of him, his opinions, and his life as she knew it are full of keen interest.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FRANCIS NEWMAN IN MIDDLE AGE FROM PHOTO BY JOHN DAVIES, WESTON-SUPER-MARE]

In the quotation from a letter which follows, Professor Newman's own views on teaching at the college are given:--

"You say there is a complaint that '_as the students cannot be got to prepare their work_ the lessons _have come to be_ mere prelections from the professors.' I am not aware of any change in the pupils since I have been here, except that my cla.s.ses are smaller, in part owing to the removal of Coward College and the rivalry of the new inst.i.tution in which it is now comprised; in part (I happen to know) from dread of my personal ... influence; in part, I suspect, from the working of London University, which I think bad; and others must add, whether worst of all is, my own want of judgment in selecting subjects, and the mode of the treatment.

Undeniable it is that my cla.s.ses are smaller, that my half-dozen best scholars are decidedly below the half-dozen best I had in the first year or two. But if I am myself to blame, it is, I think, _from the very reverse process_ of that implied in the words above quoted, viz. I often question whether it would not be at once wiser and more right to raise my teaching to the small minority of my best pupils, and ignore the many who come in on my cla.s.ses unprepared. I have of late suspected that I allow the University so to drag me down into school teaching that the abler and advanced students are driven away from me. Moreover, I am getting quite sick of going again and again over elementary books in mere school fashion.

"To vary this, I have this term given one day a week in my senior cla.s.s to lecture _on_ books, viz. 1st, on Horace's _Odes_, which nine out of ten have already read, and which I myself read with the junior cla.s.s last session (having engaged to do this before I guessed that the University would select the same year for B.A.), and many of the junior cla.s.s being this year in my senior cla.s.s. 2nd, on the _Epistles_ of Cicero, which are enormously too long and too difficult for pupils to read, and in which, nevertheless, candidates for honours at B.A. are liable to be examined. I conjecture that somebody has seen this announcement of mine in our prospectus, and imputes it to a _relaxation of discipline_ in my pupils (indeed there is little enough, and always was, in the majority of mine; they only want to sc.r.a.pe through their degree, and the University kindly keeps its real demands at a minimum). On the contrary, it is an effort of mine to make the lectures less unworthy of my more advanced pupils. I may add that I have _always_ lectured more or less in this way on Cicero's _Letters_.... At the same time I avow my entire dissatisfaction with things as I have them. In June I have to print and publish the books in which I will lecture from October to June next, _while I have not the slightest idea who will be in the cla.s.ses_. In August, out comes the statement of University books for the following year, which often increases my confusion. It is easier to complain of this than to remedy it."

It is not difficult to understand Newman's point of view as regards the almost impossibility of keeping in hand in one cla.s.s a team of students-- some eagerly desirous of going forward into the real study of literature, and others only anxious to "sc.r.a.pe through" for the purpose of obtaining their degree.

Mrs. Kingsley Tarpey's reminiscences begin thus:--

I think it was in the summer of 1874 or 1875 that Professor Newman first came to visit us. My mother had been much interested in some articles of his on vegetarianism, and had corresponded with him on the subject, and when the Annual Conference of the Vegetarian Society was held in Manchester later on, he stayed with us. This visit was the beginning of a very warm friendship with our family, which lasted close on twenty years.

During that time my mother corresponded regularly with Professor Newman, but unfortunately only some eighteen or twenty of his letters have been preserved. There is scarcely one of these, however, that does not contain something of permanent interest and value.

I remember very well, in the days when we used to have visits from him, that Professor Newman was looked upon by very many as a mere faddist. His extreme views on several subjects no doubt took him out of range of the sympathies of the "man in the street." But it is strange to find, on looking through these letters, how advanced opinion is coming into line with his so-called outrageous ideas of a generation ago. It would have given him keen pleasure, if he could have lived till now, to see the strides that have been made of late years in the Women's Suffrage movement, and the admission of women to public bodies. In social and moral reform, and in the Temperance movement also, the progress has been very marked, and we may soon have an Act prohibiting the smoking of tobacco by young boys--a matter on which Professor Newman had very strong views.

Last, but not least, the Vegetarian movement, in which he took so keen an interest, has gained new vigour from the advocates of the simple life.

I remember that on the occasion of his first visit we children regarded him with mingled awe and curiosity. His quaint appearance and his formal, deliberate manner of speech made him seem to us like a being from another world. We were at once fascinated and repelled, and I think he became at first the object of our constant, though furtive, observation. But his unvarying gentle kindness and extreme simplicity very soon won our confidence, and later on an accident made us his fast friends and admirers.

It happened that the second or third time that he came to Manchester for the annual meeting of the Vegetarian Society, my father and mother were away, and it fell to the younger members of the household to entertain our distinguished visitor. It was an occasion looked forward to with trepidation and misgiving, but we need not have felt alarmed. No one could have been more genial in his att.i.tude to the youthful housekeepers. He would chat easily and pleasantly with even the youngest of us, and he always managed to find some interesting topic. Sometimes he would give us an account of the doings at the Conference during the day. I remember some curious facts about some of the members. One man ate nothing but apples, and considered them a complete and ideal food for man. Another varied his diet between roots and nuts. He carried a.s.sorted strange nuts with him in his pocket, and after his speech he presented some to the President. Our Professor brought them home with him and wished us to try them, but I am afraid that, with the conservative instinct of young animals, we distrusted the unknown, and we did not venture. The Professor considered that our molar teeth clearly indicated grain, roots, and nuts as our food, and the incisors as clearly suggested fruit, but at that time he was in some doubt about the canine teeth. At his request some of us gravely cracked nuts with him, and after the experiment we agreed that human beings more naturally crack nuts with the back teeth, where leverage is most powerful. A suspicion remained that our pointed fangs _might_ have been used to tear flesh!

During this same visit it was suggested that the Society should change its name to one that would describe it more accurately, "Vegetarian,"

strictly, implying that the members would eat only vegetables. There was much difficulty in finding a portmanteau word that would convey vegetables, eggs, and milk. Professor Newman much disliked the idea of calling it the VEM Society (the name that was afterwards adopted, I think); his proposal was "Anti-creophagite," or "Anti-creophagist." But he could get no support for this name; members objected that no one would know what it meant or how to spell it. Professor Newman had been pained to learn that only two or three people in the hall knew the Greek word.

He was very much interested in language, and it was characteristic of him never to pa.s.s a word that he did not know. He had a great dislike and contempt for _slang_, and he deplored the growing use of it, and the impoverishment of the language that resulted. But dialect words, or old words that lingered in some parts of the country, while they had dropped out of common speech, interested him greatly. One day a younger sister of mine brought him a footstool as he sat reading, and in offering it to him called it a "buffet." It is not a word in common use, but I think we had adopted it from the nursery rhyme about "Miss m.u.f.fett, who sat on a buffet." The Professor was on the alert at once.

"That word is quite new to me," he said. "Did you say 'bussock'? I wonder is that a Lancashire word, or does it come from Ireland? 'Bussock'! Will you spell it for me, please?"

My sister was far too young and too shy to correct him, and after faintly murmuring "buffet" again, she ran away in extreme confusion. I am afraid "bussock" went down in the Professor's notebook as an interesting variant of "ha.s.sock."

In this connection some delightful stories were told by Dr. Nicholson, of Penrith, an old friend of Professor Newman's and of my father's. The Professor was staying at Penrith, and the two friends had been walking up a steep path. When they stopped to rest, the doctor was regretting that his climbing days were virtually over.

"The truth is," he said humorously, "we are neither of us as steady on our pins as we once were."

"Pins, Nicholson, pins! What are _pins_?" asked Professor Newman gravely.

On another occasion they were out walking together and the first Lord Brougham pa.s.sed them in an open carriage. Dr. Nicholson remarked upon Lord Brougham wearing "goggles," and Professor Newman said, in his gentle deliberate way, "Now, Nicholson, may I ask what you exactly mean by 'goggles'?"

The Professor wore hats that in those days were considered amazing: large white or light grey hats made of soft felt. On one of his visits to Penrith he had walked up from the station to the house, and he was followed by a crowd of little boys shouting "Who's your hatter?" which was a catch-phrase of the time. The Professor described to Dr. Nicholson what an extraordinary interest the boys had shown. "They repeatedly asked me,"

he said, "to tell them who was my hatter, and really, Nicholson, at the time I could not remember the man's name."

Miss Nicholson, of Penrith, adds another story which should have place here.

"My own chief recollection of him," she writes, "is of a day when he and the second Mrs. Newman came into Penrith with me, where I had some shopping to do. On the way into the town Professor Newman said, 'You do not seem to be very clear as to the history of John Brown and the battle of Bull's Run.' I said I was not very clear about it, so he began from the beginning, so to speak, and the story of John Brown lasted till we reached home again. I went into shops to make my purchases, and on each occasion as I came out Professor Newman took up his tale just where he had left off. He showed no annoyance at the frequent interruptions or at my inevitable lapses of attention. His wonderfully clear, distinct enunciation, and his marvellous memory for facts, never faltered."

There was an extraordinary absence of humour about Professor Newman that made him at times unconsciously very humorous. I wish I could remember the quaint wording of an advertis.e.m.e.nt of his for a cook in a vegetarian paper. There was a long and precise account of the services required for "the smallest possible family," and application was to be made by letter to "Emer. Prof. F. W. Newman," etc. We thought some of the cooks might be puzzled to know what Emer. Prof. meant. I remember also an artless post card he wrote after one visit explaining that he had forgotten his _teeth_, and asking to have them sent after him.

He had a very odd theory about baldness in men. It sounds a little like a joke, but I believe it was meant in all seriousness. He had observed that men with a very strong growth of beard were more liable to go bald early than those who had the hair on the face thin and scanty. He described this as a kind of _landslip_, I remember, and his idea was that human beings could only have a small crop of hair, and that a good crop on the chin meant a failure higher up. And that, he thought, accounted for the fact that women rarely go bald.

At the time of the visit I have described, our whole family had become enthusiastic vegetarians--indeed, I may say the whole household of fourteen, for the servants had followed suit. This was a great pleasure to Professor Newman, for it was through his writings that my mother had first become interested in the subject. He had great hopes at one time that she would also share in some other crusades of his against alcohol, tobacco, vaccination, etc. etc. He sent her a great number of leaflets and pamphlets on all these subjects, but though my father was a non-smoker and almost a total abstainer, he was so from habit and inclination and not from any pledge, and I do not remember that the Professor made any convert except myself. I came across a bundle of tracts of his which no one seemed to be reading, and I devoured them all. For some years, from about the age of fifteen, I was an enthusiastic follower of Professor Newman, even in his most extreme ideas. I am afraid he never became aware of this, however, for of course it was only with the older members of the family that he would discuss such questions.

The most enjoyable visit we ever had from him was also the last of any length that he paid us. I think it must have been in the summer of 1879 or 1880, when we were living in the country a few miles from Manchester. It was then I first learnt what a delight a country walk might be. He joined some of the younger members of the party who were taking the dogs out for a run, and I do not think two hours were ever spent by us in a more interesting and fascinating way. He had the rare and charming gift, in talking to young people, of making them feel that he regarded them as equals. And though he was imparting knowledge all the time, he had the air of being really more interested in what they had to contribute. That walk was a revelation to me, a kind of treasure trove of natural science.

Hitherto my love of nature had been almost entirely aesthetic and poetical, and this walk with the Professor gave me a new pleasure and a new interest in country life.

I should run into great length if I were to set down all the little traits and incidents that go to make up the memory of that gentle and charming personality. His eccentricities were entirely lovable, as we knew them, and even when he meant to be severe his unconsciously humorous way of putting things took away the sting, as when, one day at lunch, he pointed at a jug of claret and asked, "What is that ugly black liquid? I say ugly and black because I believe it to be some kind of wine."

He had kind and courteous ways with women, and he surprised one by his thoughtfulness in domestic matters. There was no subject too small or too remote for his consideration. I remember his showing us a new scientific way to build a fire, lighting it from the top; and it is upon a lesson of his on rural sanitation that I have based my own management of those matters in our country home. I have a pleasant memory of his holding a skein of wool for me to wind one wet afternoon, and of his telling me the while of his observations of a family of _bugs_. He was travelling in the East, and at some place where he stayed was much distressed by vermin. At last he discovered that a procession of bugs came out nightly from a certain crack in the plaster, and by removing the paper he could get a very good view of the colony with the aid of a gla.s.s. He did not disturb them, it is needless to say, but watched them during his stay, and learnt many curious things about their habits and customs. He formed a very high opinion of their intelligence, I remember.

One day he came in and found my mother and some of us sitting sewing; he asked if he might read to us, and said that his mother and sister used to like him to read to them when they had work to do. I do not remember in the least what he read to us, though I am sure it was appropriate and instructive; but I remember well that he stood while he read, and that his delivery was as clear and as careful as if he had been reading to a large audience.

After his second marriage we saw him but little, but my mother heard from him now and then, and he often sent her articles he had written. In the last years of his life he wrote but seldom. I give extracts from letters over a period of about eighteen years.

FRANCIS NEWMAN IN PRIVATE LIFE BY MRS. BAINSMITH, SCULPTOR