Memoir and Letters of Francis W. Newman Part 35

"I throw these leaflets in this and that direction as _feelers._ Of course more can be printed when wanted....

"With best regards, "I am, yours,

"F. W. Newman."

"15 Arundel Crescent, Weston-super-Mare, "_3rd Jan. _, 1887.

"Dear Friend,

"You need not think me dead yet; but you easily might, so estranged am I to Manchester.

"Yet I at least have life enough to be able to wish all welfare and blessing to you and yours in this New Year. The acc.u.mulation of letters has always thwarted me when I have tried to find your last letter.... I seem to remember that you then told me of the marriage of your eldest daughter and of the literary efforts of another. Since then we have had the overthrow in the W.K. of the Safe-Harlot-Providing Law, and indeed it must have been as early as 1885; and the episode of Mr. Stead and his prosecution was later! A great moral change has been wrought (for the better, I say) in our ladies by that wickedness of our ruling cla.s.ses with the aid of wicked medical theories provoking indignant protest. To drag printed matter into daylight is no doubt very offensive; but without sweeping it away no sound health is to be expected. The ladies, I fancy, will now, more _perseveringly_ than men, keep in activity the Purity Society. And if some of them seem a little _too_ active--I ask, how _can_ this odious system of sin, crime, and cruelty be crushed without hot enthusiasm? And where was enthusiasm hot without partial error? Fire burns!

"This reminds me of my sending you (at your request) a load of anti- vaccination literature, and I am wondering whether you were able to turn it to service. THAT monstrous iniquity _must_ come down; but the medical schools and _your Irishmen_ block out our movement.

"I wonder how you and Mr. Kingsley look on Mr. Gladstone. I never condemned his _measure_, though I have always (for years back) declined to aid a Parliament for all Ireland and _still more_ the expulsion of Irish deputies from the English Parliament.... But I did not intend here to enter Irish politics further than to indicate that while I am anti- Gladstonian, I cry 'Ireland for the Irish,' 'India for the Indians,'

'Egypt for the Egyptians,"--_come what may_ to the English 'Empire'! [But I have never read in history of any empire being ruined or harmed by Justice, Mercy, or Purity.]

"I suppose I must say, 'Alas!' that the older I become [81 last June] the more painfully my creed outgrows the limits of that which the ma.s.s of my nation, and those whose co-operation I most covet, account _sacred_. I dare not (unasked) send to friends what I print, yet I uphold the _sacred moralities_ of Jew and Christian [Hindoo and Moslem] with all my heart.

Two mottos, or say _three_, suffice me:--

"The Lord reigneth.

"The righteous Lord loveth righteousness.

"The Lord requireth Justice, Mercy, and Sobriety of thought, not ceremony or creed.

"Accept for all of you my warm wishes.

"Your Vegetarian friend of old,

"F. W. Newman."

[No date. Probably _1st March_, 1888.]

"My dear Friend,

"What a violent winter it has been in very many places! Nor is it all over. After the awful 'blizzard' in New York, and its minor horrors elsewhere, and the many fatal avalanches, I see this morning fresh inundations in Hungary from sudden melting of snow. The sudden chill which smote your husband was but a mild type, it seems, of the death fatal to so many. Other deaths from cold, reported to us, have reminded us of your great and sudden loss; yet what had I to say to you? I have thought that the echo from your son in Calcutta may have made your grief break out afresh.... I trust that time, which has not yet at all had softening powers, has not added any fresh bitterness on a fuller realization....

"Affectionately yours,

"F. W. Newman."

"Alas! my dear friend, that your generous son Leonard had not more experience how vain is a man's swimming power against the current of an _ordinary_ river. I have known this in the Tigris, in the Nile, and even in the Thames, though the bathing men in several places called me a first- rate swimmer. Longfellow in 'Hiawatha' has touching and powerful lines on _disasters never coming singly_, but as vultures acc.u.mulating round a huge carca.s.s.

"Wisdom comes too late for the individual; yet it is not useless for _others_ to inquire after causes. Did your husband pride himself on not wearing a specially thick coat in winter and _roughing_ it as do some vegetarians?... I rather believe that man is a tropical animal, hairless, made for a climate warmer than ours, and needing much aid from clothing.

"Ever yours,

"F. W. Newman.

"Herewith I return your interesting sc.r.a.ps.

"_21st March_, 1888."

_Extract from a letter, 7th Jan_., 1889.

"More and more I believe, that as our clearest DUTY is in _this_ world, it is wholesome that our most eager interest (_if unselfish_) should be in this world and not (with Count Tolstoi) so full of eagerness for immortality, that it is an effort with him to refrain from suicide! I _accept with grateful_ submission whatever of after-life the Supreme Lord gives--or does not give. My desire cannot affect His actions, and in fact I _never_ have been able to work myself into _any_ desire for a future so undefined and unimaginable. This will show how ill I deserve a little of (shall I say) praise or compliment in your last.

"With kind salutes to your daughters, "I am, your sincere friend,

"F. W. Newman."

"The Firs, West Cliff Gardens, "Bournemouth, "_17th Aug_., 1889.

"My dear Friend,

"How extraordinary you must have thought my silence, after your kind letter from this place. Perhaps you imputed it to illness. That is not true. Yet it may be called half true: for illness of my wife is one topic, and increased _weakness_ makes me slower in the smallest matters--such as handling a book, or duly b.u.t.toning a shirt or coat: while I have been dealing with proof-sheets from always two printers, sometimes four. My day is cut short at each end--for in the colder months I cannot sit at my desk until my fire is lighted, and my eyes are wearied before evening candlelight. Meanwhile my unwilling correspondence has rather increased than lessened....

"I am achieving a long hoped for work, in which of course I have to pay the printers--i.e. to leave in some connective available form whatever miscellaneous important printing I have ever published, ethico-political, theological, economical, historical, aesthetic, critical, mathematical: indeed, the mathematical is all new, not reprint.

"I take as vivid an interest in all that concerns public welfare, of England, Ireland, and foreign countries, and hope I ever shall. More than ever I see that our best work for G.o.d is to work for G.o.d's creatures, not excluding gentle brutes.

"Is it possible that you are even now _here_? That would be very good news.

"Your lazy friend, with much apology,

"F. W. Newman."

"Northam, near Bideford, "_19th May_, 1890.

"My dear Friend,

"Your two letters were indeed doubly welcome, and brought me virtual pardon for two neglects, of which the worst was, the keeping locked up (and still in prison!) the letters which you bade me to return...

"The _chief_ want of Cornwall, I was told by an old resident, is _soil_; the rock is too near the surface. Herein art will do much in a few generations. Attica and Palestine--stony soils--bore plentiful pine fruit.

Our Channel Islands utter the same thing. In England the _landlord_ is the effectual starver of the soil. Bishop Stubbs, a first-rate authority on agriculture, explains the immense excess of crops raised acre by acre under _peasant_ culture, 'because the farmers' land is labour-starved.'"

"_15th July_, 1891.

"... The state of Ireland under existing factions would much have discomposed your patriotic husband. As for me, who cannot pretend Irish patriotism, things now look better.... But the aspect on the whole is to me far more encouraging than alarming. The reign of false aristocracy is fast declining; the rising powers everywhere ask for _justice_ between orders and (as never before) between the two s.e.xes, and the power of women is about to signalize itself in most valuable directions--for the benefit of _both_ s.e.xes, and for the first time to claim nationally that moral and Christian Right shall be the aim of Law.

"But I confess if we wish to attract ancient nations to Christianity, we have first to reconsider our creed fundamentally, a terrible summons to Protestants as well as Catholics....