Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman Part 11

My father and mother were very great personal friends of Newman's, consequently I saw a great deal of him during my early girlhood.

My father was the late George Bucknall, of Rockdene, Weston-super-Mare, and for many years was a great invalid. He suffered from locomotor ataxy.

Professor Newman lived just across the road from our house: we could often see him walking about his garden, or sitting at his library window, and very often he came across to our house to discuss his books or letters with my father.

As a young girl I remember the great fascination of his courtly, genial manners. I shall never forget my first interview with him. It happened on my return home from school for the holidays. Being much distressed at having to change from the old p.r.o.nunciation of Latin to the "new," it occurred to my father that I should ask Professor Newman to help me. So I went in to see him. He was sitting by the fire in large fur-lined boots made of felt, and wearing two coats (for he always found it difficult to keep sufficiently warm). When I stated my difficulty, he went to his shelves with his wonderful smile (the room was lined from floor to ceiling with books) and took out his translation of the _Iliad_, and read it to me. Then he said quite casually, "Now I will read the same pa.s.sage to you in Latin." And he proceeded to read it aloud in a musical voice of exquisite charm. I cannot express the pleasure which this gave me, nor how it set me at my ease with him from that moment. He gave me a very warm invitation to come again, and he would gladly help me in any holiday work I wanted to do.

I was always specially struck with his way of talking about religion. He was very reverent in what he said, and it was evident that he was at heart deeply religious. I mention this because in later years it has been often a shock to me to find him condemned by others for doubting revealed religion.

The Professor's special views on foods were very strong, and he had a great dislike for the custom of rearing cattle for food. Once he gave a dinner party to show how many choice courses could be served with vegetarian recipes only. As my mother was ill at the time, I was invited to go with my father. I remember the delightful way in which he received us. He presented the "youngest lady" (myself) to the "oldest gentleman"-- the late Professor Jarrett, who was an old college friend of his, and who was staying with Newman. I remember the awe with which I gazed at him. Mr.

and Mrs. Dymond, Mr. and Mrs. Temperley Grey, and Mr. and Mrs. F. G.

Comfort were among the other guests.

Once, when he was talking to my mother, he said: "You are wearing a nice coat" (a black fur one). "I suppose it is very dear? How much a yard do you think it would cost?" As he spoke he looked down at his own coat (the outside one of three), and said: "I have had this coat twenty years and cannot match the cloth." This was not to be wondered at, for it was a long hairy one--quite green with age. Another day I came into the room and heard the Professor say to my mother quite seriously: "I never can understand how it is that my hat always interests the idle little boys in the street. They say as I pa.s.s them, 'Where did you get that hat?'

Everyone wears a hat of one shape or another, and I really fail to see why _mine_ should be so very interesting."

He was wearing a soft felt hat with a very broad brim, set far back on his head; and with his peculiar American-looking beard and thin grey locks that came down over the high Gladstone collar which he always wore, and a black and white shepherd's-plaid scarf wound round his neck and twisted over in front with its ends tucked into his waistcoat, he looked sufficiently odd.

I remember once running as fast as I could to catch the post, and as I started I saw the Professor in front of me, evidently bent on attaining the same object. Great was his glee when at last I did overtake him (though I had some difficulty, for he ran well even at the age of seventy), and he said, "I thought I would give you a good race, but you have caught me up after all!"

One day he called just as I was going for a ride. He gave me quite a lecture on the dangers of the side-saddle, and said very earnestly that women ought to ride "astride" (at that time this was a thing _incompris_ in England). He declared that women in other countries were accustomed to riding thus, and that it was the only safe method of riding.

At the time of his brother's being made Cardinal, some ardent admirers of the Professor's in Australia sent him a very beautiful silver inkstand.

His delight and pleasure in receiving such a present was great. But that people should think of him in that way was a great surprise, for his humility as regarded his powers was a very noticeable fact about him always. The design of the inkstand was one of great beauty and good workmanship. It represented ostriches standing under a palm tree, and beside them was an exquisitely made silver feather for a pen.

[Ill.u.s.tration: FRANCIS NEWMAN EMERITUS PROFESSOR OF LONDON UNIVERSITY Enlargement of photograph of the bronze bust done from life by Mrs.

Georgina Bainsmith, sculptor, of St. Ives, Cornwall, which is now in University College, London.]

One afternoon my father, mother, and I were all sitting reading, when the door opened and the Professor walked in. He held his hat in his hand, and a large rug was fastened round his shoulders like a shawl (over his three coats), and in his hands he held a small brown-paper parcel. As he came in he said, "I don't know why your maid did not announce me--I see she is a stranger"; and then turning to my mother, who had been ill, he said, "My cook has made a new vegetarian dish for my lunch to-day, and I requested her to make some for you, as I am quite sure it will suit you." The dish turned out to be delicious--one of those which his wonderful vegetarian cook was so constantly inventing. [Footnote: The parlourmaid, on being reprimanded for not showing Newman into the drawing-room, said she thought she was only to show "gentlemen" into the drawing-room!]

Newman had a theory that plants feel pain, and that we should treat all vegetable life as if it were sentient, and care for it accordingly.

The Professor was always ready to respond to any appeals for the advancement of the Woman's Suffrage movement. At that time it was very unpopular, but whenever we had meetings in favour of it at our house he was always the moving spirit.

At Weston-super-Mare Newman lived a life of great seclusion, and I believe I was the only young girl who visited him constantly--indeed, ours was the only house to which he came almost daily. Once when he was very ill, I think I was the only visitor admitted; and as Hannah, his old servant, ushered me in with a smile of pleasure, I heard a curious sound. On looking back to the hall door I saw a huge netting hanging from where the letter-box should be, trailing along the floor like a huge sausage, crammed full of letters of enquiry for the Professor. Hannah told me "the master had not been able to attend to them."

I had long possessed a great wish to devote my time to the study of modelling, and my father's great wish was that I should devote myself to Art. In 1885 I gained the distinction of a silver medal at Taunton Exhibition for modelling some flowers in clay on vases, with low relief panels. This pleased the Professor very much; and when, one day, I told him how keenly I wanted to model a bust of his head and shoulders, he smiled, and said, with an odd boyish, shy sort of pleasure, "Was he good- looking enough to be immortalized?" and added he would be delighted to sit to _me_ for his portrait, though he had always refused to sit to others to be photographed.

So he used to come and talk to my mother, and thus I was able to work at my modelling with ease. Great was my delight when I found I possessed power over the clay, and was succeeding in making a portrait which everyone considered a good one. The Professor insisted on my being very particular over the collar and the scarf. (His collars always had to be made for him, as he could not buy in shops the kind he wore.) In later years of hard student life that followed, for me, with the added distinction of other medals, nothing ever came up to the excitement caused by my portrait of the Professor. The bust [Footnote: This bust is now standing in the general library of London University, with this inscription:--

"FRANCIS WILLIAM NEWMAN (brother of the Cardinal),

Emeritus Professor of University College, London.

Natus June 27, 1805. Obiit October 4th, 1897.

As an expression of the great esteem and affection in which he was held by all who knew him, this bust (modelled from life by the Sculptor) is presented to this University by

GEORGINA BAINSMITH, Sculptor, "St. Ives, Cornwall." Aug. 1907.] has always been one of my greatest treasures; and after the lapse of years that have gone by since it was first modelled, I still revere and reverence his memory and his truly beautiful life. Whatever he wrote, _this_ is what his actual life and deeds expressed strongly: "_he lived to do good_." This is what impressed me most as a young girl, and my life has been richer and n.o.bler for the honour and privilege of knowing Francis Newman.

Georgina Bainsmith, _nee_ Bucknall. St. Ives, Cornwall.

[Ill.u.s.tration: ANOTHER VIEW OF THE BUST IN UNIVERSITY COLLEGE (OF FRANCIS NEWMAN), ON ITS PLINTH BY MRS. GEORGINA BAINSMITH, SCULPTOR, OF ST. IVES, CORNWALL The Reproduction is by Mr. J. C. Douglas, of Strives, Cornwall, and was photographed from the clay before it was cast.]

CHAPTER VII

LETTERS TO ONE OF HIS GREATEST FRIENDS, DR. NICHOLSON

Dr. Nicholson, a native of Barbadoes, was only fourteen years old when his father, Rev. Mark Nicholson, came to England. [Footnote: I am indebted for these facts of Dr. Nicholson's life to some printed data kindly sent me by his daughter.] He was sent to a private school at Bristol, and went on to Oxford, where he took his B.A. degree. Later on he went to study Oriental languages at Gottingen; and there he became the pupil of the famous Dr.

Ewald, Professor of Oriental Languages. At the end of his work there Dr.

Nicholson obtained the Ph.D. degree. The Professor and he became close friends, and a correspondence began between them, on Dr. Nicholson's departure, which lasted unbroken till the Professor's death. He was perfectly conversant with Latin and Greek, and also Arabic, while Hebrew was almost as familiar a language; and as for his knowledge of Sanscrit, Ethiopian, Gothic, Chaldean, Syriac, French, German, Spanish, Italian, Danish, it was as perfect as could be. He had, in the truest sense, the _gift_ of tongues. Sixteen languages, indeed, he had mastered besides his own. He had, in very truth, a perfect genius for them. And it was no slipshod attainment with him to learn any one of the sixteen; for by the time he had mastered a language he practically knew it inside _and_ out.

He loved this study perhaps more than any other, because it gave him a truer insight into Holy Scripture. Many articles on the Hebrew Scriptures were contributed by him to _Kitto's Biblical Encyclopaedia_, and there are many allusions to these in Newman's letters which follow. He translated Dr. Ewald's _Hebrew Grammar_, and thus it became well known to Englishmen.

[Ill.u.s.tration: DR. JOHN NICHOLSON FROM A PHOTO TAKEN AT GoTTINGEN BETWEEN 1855 AND 1860 BY KIND PERMISSION OF MISS NICHOLSON, PENRITH]

Dr. Nicholson lived for forty years at Penrith. He did not care to go much in society; he was too true a student for that. For the two studies (and social life _is_ certainly one) are so diametrically opposed regarded as pursuits, that it is almost impossible to make the day long enough to devote oneself to both. "Love to study" might very truly have been recognized as his life motto, even as it was that of one of the greatest students at Harrow a few years ago, Rev. Thomas Hanc.o.c.k, for both men cared nothing for fame. Dr. Nicholson was a man of strong religious tendencies, and though he was in no way narrow in his views of other religious societies, yet he was decidedly most in touch with the Anglican Church. As a politician he was a Liberal. Fifty years ago he married the second daughter of Captain Waring, R.N., and had six children.

He died (in November, 1886), as Rev. E. W. Chapman, Vicar of Penrith, said, "in perfect peace, with our Lord's Name and our Lord's last words on his lips. His presence in the town, his loving sympathy with poor people, his kindly greeting to all who knew him, we shall miss very much...." He added that "his whole life was spent in the study of Holy Scriptures...."

Francis Newman was his lifelong friend, and the letters which follow will plainly show that it was a friendship of kindred spirits: the friendship of two who had a great many interests in common, and were therefore in close touch with each other.

_To Dr. Nicholson from Francis Newman._

"_17th Feb._, 1843.

"My dear Nicholson,

"I hope you will not bother your little boy with any foreign language too soon. _Soak_ him well and long in his native English, or he will never come to any good, I fear. If he sees a father in love with German, he will of himself quite early take to it. The great difficulty (I should expect) will be to secure that it may not be too early. Of course you see about the Anti-Corn Law doings? I think I shall before long be as fanatical as anyone about it: I rage the more inwardly because I have no vent. I am eager to sign a solemn league and covenant about total and immediate repeal, which I suppose and hope they will get up...."

The next letter in order refers to "Berber," a language bearing some relation to the Arabic, over which Newman was at work with his dictionary.

It also touches on his own ill-health and enforced idleness. It is dated from Manchester, October, 1843:--

"I have been suffering indisposition which was aggravated in reality by overrating its importance. My medical adviser said it was organic affection of the heart; in spite of my great incredulity ... I took other advice afterwards in Derby, where I went to see one of my sisters, and am now a.s.sured that it was nothing but 'the great sympathetic' that disordered the heart. I was nearly three weeks in the country and in idleness, and gained much benefit from it. I spent much indoors time in learning to use water-colours, and got a nice pony to ride, and was a great deal in the air, and very early to go to bed; and took no medicines but tonics and a colocynth pill on occasion. Myself and wife both return much better. I believe I knocked myself up by excitement of mind over the Berber and working at my dictionary, At Prichard's advice I have lately written to Bunsen to ask his aid in getting the dictionary published. I think it may be of use, as adding one more known language in North Africa to those already accessible, which are, I believe, Arabic, Coptic, Gheez, and Amharic."

In June of the same year he says, in respect of Kitto's _Encyclopaedia_: "Your _Ahasuerus_ shows you to me as an invaluable contributor to him: I could not have written that (if I had had the learning) without an attack on Ezra and Esther about the word!... Mr. Jowett has sent me (at Bunsen's and Prichard's request) the chief part of the transcript of the Berber MS.

in the possession of the Bible S----. I suppose I must do my best now to get deeper into the language."

In May, 1845, Newman has been greatly interested in translating into Greek, English verses "to test the _possibility_ of retaining any Greek accent such as the books mark in singing." He has tried translating "Flow on, thou shining river" in Greek, so that it might be sung to Moore's own tune. One does not come across in his letters much reference to music, nor does it seem as if he had any great taste for it--at any rate, not in the same way as had Cardinal Newman, who had a real pa.s.sion for it in earlier years.

The later part of the letter has to do with the much-vexed question of the "Maynooth Controversy."

Newman writes from "4, _Cavendish Place_, 12th _May_ 1845":--