My Life as an Author Part 4

"... And is it not in truth A poisoned sting in every social joy, A thorn that rankles in the writhing flesh, A drop of gall in each domestic sweet, An irritating petty misery,-- That I can never look on one I love And speak the fulness of my burning thoughts?

That I can never with unmingled joy Meet a long-loved and long-expected friend Because I feel, but cannot vent my feelings,-- Because I know I ought, but must not, speak,-- Because I mark his quick impatient eye Striving in kindness to antic.i.p.ate The word of welcome strangled in its birth?

Is it not sorrow, while I truly love Sweet social converse, to be forced to shun The happy circle, from a nervous sense-- An agonising poignant consciousness-- That I must stand aloof, nor mingle with The wise and good in rational argument, The young in brilliant quickness of reply, Friendship's ingenuous interchange of mind, Affection's open-hearted sympathies?

But feel myself an isolated being, A very wilderness of widowed thought!"

All this is only sad stern truth; nothing morbid here: let any poor stammerer testify to my faithfulness. Amongst others afflicted like myself was Charles Kingsley, whom I knew well at a time when I had overcome my calamity; whereas he carried his to the grave with him; though he had frequent gleams of a forced and courageous eloquence, preaching energetically in a somewhat artificial voice,--in private he stammered much, as once I used to do, no doubt to his mortification, though humbly acquiescing in G.o.d's will.

Chess is a chief intellectual resource to the stammerer; for therein he can conquer in argument without the toil of speech, and prove himself practically more eloquent than the men full of talk whom he so much envies. Accordingly, in days gone by (for of late years I have given it up, as too toilsome a recreation) I played often at that royal game. In these times it is no game at all,--but a wearisome if seductive science; just as cricket is an artillery combat now, and football a most perilous conflict, and boating breaks the athlete's heart, and billiards can only be played by a bar-spot professional, and tranquil whist itself has developed into a semi-fraudulent system of open rules and secret signs; even so the honest common-sense old game of chess has come to be so enc.u.mbered with published openings and gambits and other parasitic growths upon the wholesome house-plant, that I for one have renounced it, as a pursuit for which life is too short and serious (give me a farce or a story instead), and one moreover in which any fool well up to crammed book games may crow over the wisest of men in an easy, because stereotyped, checkmate. However, in this connection, I recollect a small experience which proves that positive ignorance of famous openings may sometimes be an advantage; just as the skilled fencer will be baffled by a brave boor rushing in against rules, and by close encounter unconventionally pinning him straight off. When a youth, just before matriculation, I was a guest at Culham of the good rector there, a chess-player to his own thinking indomitable, for none of the neighbours could checkmate him: so he thought to make quick work of a silent but thoughtful boy-stammerer,--by tempting him at an early period of the game to take, seemingly for nothing but advantage, a certain knight (his usual dodge, it appeared) which would have ensured an ultimate defeat.

However, I declined the generous offer, which began to nettle my opponent; but when afterwards I refused to answer divers moves by the card (as he protested I ought), and finally reduced him to a positive checkmate, he flew into such an unclerical rage that I would not play again; his "revenge" might be too terrible. For another trivial chess anecdote: a very worthy old friend of mine, a rector too, was fond of his game, and of winning it: and I remember one evening that his ancient servitor, bringing in the chessboard, whispered to me, "Please don't beat him again, sir,--he didn't sleep a wink last night;" accordingly, after a respectably protracted struggle, some strange oversights were made, and my reverend host came off conqueror: so he was enabled to sleep happily. I remember too playing with pegged pieces in a box-board at so strange a place as outside the Oxford coach; and I think my amiable adversary then was one Wynell Mayow, who has since grown into a great Church dignitary. If he lives, my compliments to him.

One of the best private chess-players I used often to encounter,--but almost never to beat, is my old life-friend, Evelyn of Wotton, now the first M.P. for his own ancestral Deptford. It was to me a triumph only to puzzle his shrewdness, "to make him think," as I used to say,--and if ever through his carelessness I managed a stale, or a draw,--very seldom a mate,--that was glory indeed. If he sees this, his memory will countersign it.

Let so much suffice, as perhaps a not inappropriate word about the Literary Life's frequent mental recreation, especially, where the player is, like Moses, "not a man of words."

One day, by the by, this text in the original, "lo ish devarim anochi"

(Exod. iv. 10), came to my lot in Pusey's Hebrew cla.s.s, to my special confusion: but every tutor was very considerate and favoured the one who couldn't speak, and Mr. Biscoe in particular used to say when my turn came to read or to answer,--"Never mind, Mr. Tupper, I'm sure you know it,--please to go on, Mr. So-and-So." This habitual confidence in my proficiency had the effect of forcing my consciousness to deserve it; and it usually happened that I really did know, silently, like Macaulay's cunning augur, "who knew but might not tell."

Speaking of recreation, Izaak Walton's joy as a contemplative man has been mine from youth; as witness these three fishing sonnets, just found in the faded ink of three or four decades ago, which may give a gleam of country sunshine on a page or two, and would have rejoiced my piscatorial friends Kingsley and Leech in old days, and will not be unacceptable to Attwood Matthews, Cholmondeley Pennell, and the Marstons with their friend Mr. Senior in these. I have had various luck as an angler from Stennis Lake to the Usk, from Enniskillen to Killarney, from Isis to Wotton,--and so it would be a pity if I omitted such an authorial characteristic; especially as my stammering obliged me to "study to be quiet."

I.

"Look, like a village Queen of May, the stream Dances her best before the holiday sun, And still, with musical laugh, goes tripping on Over these golden sands, which brighter gleam To watch her pale-green kirtle flashing fleet Above them, and her tinkling silver feet That ripple melodies: quick,--yon circling rise In the calm refluence of this gay cascade Marked an old trout, who shuns the sunny skies, And, nightly prowler, loves the hazel shade: Well thrown!--you hold him bravely,--off he speeds, Now up, now down,--now madly darts about,-- Mind, mind your line among those flowering reeds,-- How the rod bends,--and hail, thou n.o.ble trout!"

II.

"O, thou hast robbed the Nereids, gentle brother, Of some swift fairy messenger; behold,-- His dappled livery prankt with red and gold Shows him their favourite page: just such another Sad Galataea to her Acis sent To teach the new-born fountain how to flow, And track with loving haste the way she went Down the rough rocks, and through the flowery plain, Ev'n to her home where coral branches grow, And where the sea-nymph clasps her love again: We the while, terrible as Polypheme, Brandish the lissom rod, and featly try Once more to throw the tempting treacherous fly And win a brace of trophies from the stream."

III.

"Come then, coy Zephyr, waft my feathered bait Over this rippling shallow's tiny wave To yonder pool, whose calmer eddies lave Some Triton's ambush, where he lies in wait To catch my skipping fly; there drop it lightly: A rise, by Glaucus!--but he missed the hook,-- Another--safe! the monarch of the brook, With broadside like a salmon's, gleaming brightly: Off let him race, and waste his prowess there; The dread of Damocles, a single hair, Will tax my skill to take this fine old trout; So,--lead him gently; quick, the net, the net!

Now gladly lift the glittering beauty out, Hued like a dolphin, sweet as violet."

CHAPTER VII.

PRIZE POEMS, ETC.

In the course of my Oxford career I tried for two Newdigate Prize poems, "The Suttees" and the "African Desert," won respectively by Claughton, now Bishop of St. Albans, and Rickards, whose honours of course I ought to know, but don't. A good-looking and well-speaking friend of mine, E.H. Abney, now a Canon, was so certain that the said prizes in those two successive years were to fall to me, that he learnt my poems by heart in order to recite them as my speech-subst.i.tute in the Sheldonian Theatre at Commemoration, and he used frequently to look in upon me to be coached in his recital. It was rumoured that I came second on both occasions,--one of them certainly had a 2 marked on it when returned to me, but I know not who placed it there. However, my pieces were afterwards printed; both separately, and among my "Ballads and Poems,"

by Hall and Virtue, and are now before me. As an impartial and veteran judge of such _literaria_, I am bold to say they are far better than I thought, and might fairly have won Newdigate prizes, even as friend Abney & Co. were sure they would.

At the close of my University career came, of course, the Great Go, which I had to do as I did the Little Go, all on paper; for I could not answer _viva voce_. And this rule then, whatever may be the case now, prevented me from going in for honours, though I had read for a first, and hoped at least to get a second. Neither of these, nor even a third cla.s.s, was technically possible, if I could not stand a two days' ordeal of _viva voce_ examination, part of the whole week then exacted.

However, I did all at my best on paper, specially the translations from cla.s.sic poets in verse: whereof I'll find a specimen anon. The issue of all was that I was offered an honorary fourth cla.s.s,--which I refused, as not willing to appear at the bottom of the list of all, alphabetically,--and so my tutor, Mr. Biscoe, not wishing to lose the honour for our college, managed to get it transferred to another of his pupils, Mr. Thistlethwaite, whose father wrote to thank me for this unexpected though not unmerited luck falling to his son.

One short presentable piece of verse-making in the schools is as below from Virgil: there were also three odes of Horace, a chorus from aeschylus, and more from other Greek and Latin poets.

"Sicilian Muses, sing we loftier strains!

The humble tamarisk and woodland plains Delight not all; if woods and groves we try, Be the groves worthy of a consul's eye.

Told by the Sibyl's song, the 'latter time'

Is come, and dispensations roll sublime In new and glorious order; spring again With Virgo comes, and Saturn's golden reign.

A heavenly band from heaven's bright realm descends, All evil ceases, and all discord ends.

Do thou with favouring eye, Lucina chaste, Regard the wondrous babe,--his coming haste,-- For under him the iron age shall cease, And the vast world rejoice in golden peace," &c. &c.

I select this bit, famous for being one of the places in Virgil which goes to prove that the Sibylline books (to which the Augustan poets had easy access) quoted Isaiah's prophecies of Christ and the Millennium. It will be considered that my public versifying was quite extempore, as in fact is common with me. For other college memories in the literary line, I may just mention certain brochures or parodies, initialed or anonymous, whereto I must now plead guilty for the first time; reflecting, amongst other topics, on Montgomery's Oxford, St. Mary's theology, Mr. Rickard's "African Desert," and Garbet's p.r.o.nounced and rather absurd aestheticism as an examiner. Here are morsels of each in order:--

"Who praises Oxford?--some small buzzing thing, Some starveling songster on a tiny wing,-- (_N.B._ They call the insect Bob, I know, I heard a printer's devil call it so)-- So fondly tells his admiration vast No one can call the chastened strains bombast, Though epitheted substantives immense Claim for each lofty sound the _caret_ sense," &c. &c.

Next, a bit from my Low Church onslaught on St. Mary's in the Hampden case, being part of "The Oxford Controversy":--

"Though vanquished oft, in falsehood undismayed, Like heretics in flaming vest arrayed Each angry Don lifts high his injured head, Or 'stands between the living and the dead.'

Still from St. Mary's pulpit echoes wide Primo, beware of truth, whate'er betide; Deinde, from deep Charybdis while you steer Lest d.a.m.ned Socinus charm you with his sneer, Watch above all, so not _Saint_ Thomas spake, Lest upon Calvin, Scylla's rook, you break," &c. &c.

These forgotten trivials, wherein the allusions do not now show clear, are, I know, barely excusable even thus curtly: but I choose to save a touch or two from annihilation. Here is another little bit; this time from a somewhat vicious parody on my rival Rickard's prize poem: it is fairest to produce at length first his serious conclusion to the normal fifty-liner, and then my less reverent imitation of it. Here, then, is the end of Rickard's poem:--

"Bright was the doom which s.n.a.t.c.hed her favourite son, Nor came too soon to him whose task was done.

Long burned his restless spirit to explore That stream which eye had never tracked before, Whose course, 'tis said, in Western springs begun Flows on eternal to the rising sun!

Though thousand perils seemed to bar his way, And all save him shrunk backward in dismay, Still hope prophetic poured the ardent prayer To reach that stream, though doomed to perish there!

That prayer was heard; by Niger's mystic flood One rapturous day the speechless dreamer stood, Fixt on that stream his glistening eyes he kept,-- The sun went down,--the wayworn wanderer slept!"

So much for the prize-taker; the prize-loser vented his spleen as thus:--

"Bright was the doom that diddled Mungo Park, Yet very palpably obscure and dark.

Long burned his throat, for want of coming nigh That stream he long'd and pray'd for wistfully, Whose course, 'tis said, that no one can tell where It flows eternal; guessing isn't fair.

Though miles a thousand had he tramp'd along, And all, save him, were sure that path was wrong, Still hope prophetic poured the ardent prayer He'd find that stream,--if it was anywhere!

That prayer was heard, of course, though no one knows Where this said Niger never flowed, or flows; All that is known is, that a dreamer stood In speechless transport by a mystic flood, And after fixing on't his glistening eyes, The sun goes down, and so the dreamer dies!"

For the fourth promised specimen, the best excuse is that Garbet really did utter the words quoted,--and the answer he received about love is exact, and became famous:--

"'Didst e'er read Dante!'--Never. 'Cruel man!

Take, take him, Williams,--I--I never can.'"

_N.B._--Williams was the other examiner. Garbet went on with a further question nevertheless,--as he was affectedly fond of Italian:--

"'Dost know the language love delights in most?

If thou dost not, thy character is lost.'

'Yes, sir!'--the youth retorts with just surprise, 'Love's language is the language of the eyes!'"

In those days, as perhaps also in these, like Pope, "I spake in numbers," verse being almost--well, not quite--easier than prose. In fact, some of my critics have heretofore to my disparagement stumbled on the printed truth that he is little better than an improvisatore in rhyme. And this word "rhyme" reminds me now of a very curious question I raised some years after my Oxford days in more than one magazine article, as to when rhyme was invented, and by whom: the conclusion being that intoning monks found out how easily the cases of Latin nouns and tenses of verbs, &c., jingled with each other, and that troubadours and trouveres carried thus the seeds of song all over Europe in about the ninth century, until which time rhythm was the only recognised form of versification, rhyme having strangely escaped discovery for more than four thousand years. Is it not a marvel (and another marvel that no one noticed it before) that not one of the old poets, Hebrew, Greek, Latin, and I think Sanscrit, Arabic, and Celtic too, ever (except by manifest accident, now intentionally ignored) stumbled upon the good idea of terminating their metres with rhyme? Where is there any ode of Horace, or Anacreon,--where any psalm of David; any epigram of Martial, any heroic verse of Virgil, or philosophic argument of Lucretius,--decorated, enlivened, and brightened by the now only too frequent ornament of rhyme?

I have just found among my old archived papers, faded by nearly six decades of antiquity, a treatise which I wrote at nineteen, styled by me "A Vindication of the Wisdom of Scripture in Matters of Natural Science." This has never seen the light, even in extracts; and probably never can attain to the dignity of print, seeing it is written against all compositor law on both sides up and down of a quarto paper book.

Therein are treated, from both the scriptural and the scientific points of view, many subjects, of which these are some: Cosmogony, miracles (in chief Joshua's sun and moon), the circulation of the blood revealed in Ecclesiastes, magnetism as mentioned by Job, "He spreadeth out the north over the empty s.p.a.ce and hangeth the world upon nothing," the blood's innate vitality--"which is the life thereof," the earth's centre, or orbit, and inclination, astronomy, spirits, the rainbow, the final conflagration of our atmosphere to purify the globe, and many other matters terrestrial and celestial. Some day a patient scribe may be found to decipher this decayed ma.n.u.script and set out orderly its miscellaneous contents. I began it at eighteen, and finished it when at Oxford.

There is also now before me another faded copybook of my early Christ Church days containing ninety-one striking parallel pa.s.sages between Horace and Holy Writ; some being very remarkable, as Hor. _Sat._ i. 8, and Isaiah xliv. 13, &c., about "making a G.o.d of a tree whereof he burneth part:" also such well-known lines as "Quid sit futurum eras, fuge quaerere," and "Quis scit an adjiciant hodiernae crastina summae Tempora Di superi?"--compared with "Take no thought for the morrow" and "Boast not thyself of to-morrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth." With many more; in fact I collected nearly a hundred out of Horace, besides a few from others of the cla.s.sics.