Prime Ministers and Some Others Part 5

"Philosophy's the chap for me," said an eminent man on a momentous occasion. "If a parent asks a question in the cla.s.sical, commercial, or mathematical-line, says I gravely, 'Why, sir, in the first place, are you a philosopher?' 'No, Mr. Squeers,' he says, 'I ain't.'

'Then, sir,' says I, 'I am sorry for you, for I shan't be able to explain it.' Naturally, the parent goes away and wishes he was a philosopher, and, equally naturally, thinks I'm one."

That is the Balliol manner all over; and the ardent Holland, instructed by Green, soon discovered, to his delight, that he was a philosopher, and was henceforward qualified to apply Mr. Squeer's searching test to all questions in Heaven and earth. "It was the custom at Balliol for everyone to write an essay once a week, and I remember that Holland made a name for his essay-writing and originality.

It was known that he had a good chance of a 'First in Greats,'

if only his translations from Greek and Latin books did not pull him down. He admired the ancient authors, especially Plato, and his quick grasp of the meaning of what he read, good memory, and very remarkable powers of expression, all helped him much. He was good at History and he had a great turn for Philosophy" (_cf_.

Mr. Squeers, _supra_), "Plato, Hegel; etc., and he understood, as few could, Green's expositions, and counter-attack on John Stuart Mill and the Positivist School, which was the dominant party at that time."

In the summer Term of 1870 Holland went in for his final examination at Oxford. A friend writes: "I remember his coming out from his paper on, Moral Philosophy in great exaltation; and his _viva voce_ was spoken of as a most brilliant performance. One of the examiners, T. Fowler (afterwards President of Corpus), said he had never heard anything like it." In fine, a new and vivid light had appeared in the intellectual sky--a new planet had swum into the ken of Oxford Common Rooms; and it followed naturally that Holland, having obtained his brilliant First, was immediately elected to a Studentship at Christ Church, which, of course, is the same as a Fellowship anywhere else. He went into residence at his new home in January, 1871, and remained there for thirteen years, a "don," indeed, by office, but so undonnish in character, ways, and words, that he became the subject of a eulogistic riddle: "When is a don not a don? When he is Scott Holland."

Meanwhile, all dreams of a diplomatic career had fled before the onrush of Aristotle and Plato, Hegel and Green. The considerations which determined Holland's choice of a profession I have not sought to enquire. Probably he was moved by the thought that in Holy Orders he would have the best chance of using the powers, of which by this time he must have become conscious, for the glory of G.o.d and the service of man. I have been told that the choice was in some measure affected by a sermon of Liddon's on the unpromising subject of Noah;[*] and beyond doubt the habitual enjoyment of Liddon's society, to which, as a brother-Student, Holland was now admitted, must have tended in the same direction.

[Footnote *: Preached at St. Mary the Virgin, Oxford, on the 11th of March, 1870.]

Perhaps an even stronger influence was that of Edward King, afterwards Bishop of Lincoln, and then Princ.i.p.al of Cuddesdon, in whom the most persuasive aspects of the priestly character were beautifully displayed, and who made Cuddesdon a sort of shrine to which all that was spiritual and ardent in young Oxford was irresistibly attracted. Preaching, years afterwards, at a Cuddesdon Festival, Holland uttered this moving panegyric of the place to which he owed so much: "Ah! which of us does not know by what sweet entanglement Cuddesdon threw its net about our willing feet? Some summer Sunday, perhaps, we wandered here, in undergraduate days, to see a friend; and from that hour the charm was at work. How joyous, how enticing, the welcome, the glad brotherhood! So warm and loving it all seemed, as we thought of the sharp skirmishing of our talk in College; so buoyant and rich, as we recalled the thinness of our Oxford interests. The little rooms, like college rooms just shrinking into cells; the long talk on the summer lawn; the old church with its quiet country look of patient peace; the glow of the evening chapel; the run down the hill under the stars, with the sound of Compline Psalms still ringing in our hearts--ah! happy, happy day!

It was enough. The resolve that lay half slumbering in our souls took shape; it leapt out. We would come to Cuddesdon when the time of preparation should draw on!" Readers of this glowing pa.s.sage have naturally imagined that the writer of it must himself have been a Cuddesdon man, but this is a delusion; and, so far as I know, Holland's special preparation for Ordination consisted of a visit to Peterborough, where he essayed the desperate task of studying theology under Dr. Westcott.

In September, 1872, he was ordained deacon by Bishop Mackarness, in Cuddesdon Church, being chosen to read the Gospel at the Ordination; and he was ordained priest there just two years later. It was during his diaconate that I, then a freshman, made his acquaintance. We often came across one another, in friends' rooms and at religious meetings, and I used to listen with delight to the sermons which he preached in the parish churches of Oxford. They were absolutely original; they always exhilarated and uplifted one; and the style was entirely his own, full of lightness and brightness, movement and colour. Scattered phrases from a sermon at SS. Philip and James, on the 3rd of May, 1874, and from another at St. Barnabas, on the 28th of June in the same year, still haunt my memory.[*]

[Footnote *: An Oxford Professor, who had some difficulty with his aspirates, censured a theological essay as "Too 'ollandy by 'alf."]

Holland lived at this time a wonderfully busy and varied life. He lectured on Philosophy in Christ Church; he took his full share in the business of University and College; he worked and pleaded for all righteous causes both among the undergraduates and among the citizens. An Oxford tutor said not long ago: "A new and strong effort for moral purity in Oxford can be dated from Holland's Proctorship."

This seems to be a suitable moment for mentioning his att.i.tude towards social and political questions. He was "suckled in a creed outworn" of Eldonian Toryism, but soon exchanged it for Gladstonian Liberalism, and this, again, he suffused with an energetic spirit of State Socialism on which Mr. Gladstone would have poured his sternest wrath. A friend writes: "I don't remember that H. S. H., when he was an undergraduate, took much interest in politics more than chaffing others for being so Tory." (He never spoke at the Union, and had probably not realized his powers as a speaker.) "But when, in 1872, I went to be curate to Oakley (afterwards Dean of Manchester) at St. Saviour's, Hoxton, Holland used to come and see me there, and I found him greatly attracted to social life in the East End of London. In 1875 he came, with Edward Talbot and Robert Moberly, and lodged in Hoxton, and went about among the people, and preached in the church. I have sometimes thought that this may have been the beginning of the Oxford House."

All through these Oxford years Holland's fame as an original and independent thinker, a fascinating preacher, an enthusiast for Liberalism as the natural friend and ally of Christianity, was widening to a general recognition. And when, in April, 1884, Mr.

Gladstone nominated him to a Residentiary Canonry at St. Paul's, everyone felt that the Prime Minister had matched a great man with a great opportunity.

From that day to this, Henry Scott Holland has lived in the public eye, so there is no need for a detailed narrative of his more recent career. All London has known him as a great and inspiring preacher; a literary critic of singular skill and grace; an accomplished teacher in regions quite outside theology; a sympathetic counsellor in difficulty and comforter in distress; and one of the most vivid and joyous figures in our social life. It is possible to trace some change in his ways of thinking, though none in his ways of feeling and acting. His politics have swayed from side to side under the pressure of conflicting currents. Some of his friends rejoice--and others lament--that he is much less of a partisan than he was; that he is apt to see two and even three sides of a question; and that he is sometimes kind to frauds and humbugs, if only they will utter the shibboleths in which he himself so pa.s.sionately believes. But, through all changes and chances, he has stood as firm as a rock for the social doctrine of the Cross, and has made the cause of the poor, the outcast, and the overworked his own. He has shown the glory of the Faith in its human bearings, and has steeped Dogma and, Creed and Sacrament and Ritual in his own pa.s.sionate love of G.o.d and man.

Stupid people misunderstand him. Wicked people instinctively hate him. Worldly people, sordid people, self-seekers, and promotion-hunters, contemn him as an amiable lunatic. But his friends forget all measure and restraint when they try to say what they feel about him. One whom I have already quoted writes again: "I feel Holland is little changed from what he was as a schoolboy and an undergraduate--the same joyous spirit, unbroken good temper, quick perception and insight, warm sympathy, love of friends, kind interest in lives of all sorts, delight in young people--these never fail. He never seems to let the burden of life and the sadness of things depress his cheery, hopeful spirit. I hope that what I send may be of some use. I cannot express what I feel. I love him too well."

This is the tribute of one friend; let me add my own. I do not presume to say what I think about him as a spiritual guide and example; I confine myself to humbler topics. Whatever else he is, Henry Scott Holland is, beyond doubt, one of the most delightful people in the world. In fun and geniality and warm-hearted, hospitality, he is a worthy successor of Sydney Smith, whose official house he inhabits; and to those elements of agreeableness he adds certain others which his famous predecessor could scarcely have claimed.

He has all the sensitiveness of genius, with its sympathy, its versatility, its unexpected turns, its rapid transitions from grave to gay, its vivid appreciation of all that is beautiful in art and nature, literature and life. No man in London, I should think, has so many and such devoted friends in every cla.s.s and station; and those friends acknowledge in him not only the most vivacious and exhilarating of social companions, but one of the moral forces which have done most to quicken their consciences and lift their lives.

By the death of Henry Scott Holland a great light is quenched,[*]

or, to use more Christian language, is merged in "the true Light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world."

[Footnote *: Written in 1918.]

Light is the idea with which my beloved friend is inseparably a.s.sociated in my mind. His nature had all the attributes of light--its revealing power, its cheerfulness, its salubrity, its beauty, its inconceivable rapidity. He had the quickest intellect that I have ever known. He saw with a flash into the heart of an argument or a situation. He diffused joy by his own joy in living; he vanquished morbidity by his essential wholesomeness; whatever he touched became beautiful under his handling. "He was not the Light, but he came to bear witness of that Light," and bore it for seventy years by the mere force of being what he was. My friendship with Dr. Holland began in my second term at Oxford, and has lasted without a cloud or a break from that day to this. He was then twenty-five years old, and was already a conspicuous figure in the life of the University.

In 1866 he had come up from Eton to Balliol with a high reputation for goodness and charm, but with no report of special cleverness.

He soon became extremely popular in his own College and outside it. He rowed and played games and sang, and was recognized as a delightful companion wherever he went. But all the time a process of mental development was going on, of which none but his intimate friends were aware. "I owed nothing to Jowett," he was accustomed to say; "everything to Green." From that great teacher he caught his Hegelian habit of thought, his strong sense of ethical and spiritual values, and that practical habit of mind which seeks to apply moral principles to the problems of actual life. In 1870 came the great surprise, and Holland, who had no pretensions to scholarship, and whose mental development had only been noticed by a few, got a First Cla.s.s of unusual brilliancy in the searching school of _Literoe Humaniores_. Green had triumphed; he had made a philosopher without spoiling a Christian. Christ Church welcomed a born Platonist, and made him Senior Student, Tutor, and Lecturer.

Holland had what Tertullian calls the _anima naturaliter Christiana_, and it had been trained on the lines of the Tractarian Movement.

When he went up to Oxford he destined himself for a diplomatic career, but he now realized his vocation to the priesthood, and was ordained deacon in 1872 and priest two years later. He instantly made his mark as a preacher. Some of the sermons preached in the parish churches of Oxford in the earliest years of his ministry stand out in my memory among his very best. He had all the preacher's gifts--a tall, active, and slender frame, graceful in movement, vigorous in action, abundant in gesture, a strong and melodious voice, and a breathless fluency of speech. Above all, he spoke with an energy of pa.s.sionate conviction which drove every word straight home. He seemed a young apostle on fire with zeal for G.o.d and humanity. His fame as an exponent of metaphysic attracted many hearers who did not usually go much to church, and they were accustomed--then as later--to say that here was a Christian who knew enough about the problems of thought to make his testimony worth hearing. Others, who cared not a rap for Personality or Causation, Realism or Nominalism, were attracted by his grace, his eloquence, his literary charm. His style was entirely his own. He played strange tricks with the English language, heaped words upon words, strung adjective to adjective; mingled pa.s.sages of Ruskinesque description with jerky fragments of modern slang. These mannerisms grew with his growth, but in the seventies they were not sufficiently marked to detract from the pure pleasure which we enjoyed when we listened to his preaching as to "a very lovely song."

Judged by the canons of strict art, Holland was perhaps greater as a speaker than as a preacher. He differed from most people in this--that whereas most of us can restrain ourselves better on paper than when we are speaking, his pen ran away with him when he, was writing a sermon, but on a platform he could keep his natural fluency in bounds. Even then he was fluent enough in all conscience; but he did not so overdo the ornaments, and the absence of a ma.n.u.script and a pulpit-desk gave ampler scope for oratorical movement.

I have mentioned Holland's intellectual and moral debt to T. H.

Green. I fancy that, theologically and politically, he owed as much to Mr. Gladstone. The older and the younger man had a great deal in common. They both were "patriot citizens of the kingdom of G.o.d"; proud and thankful to be members of the Holy Church Universal, and absolutely satisfied with that portion of the Church in which their lot was cast; pa.s.sionate adherents of the Sacramental theology; and yet, in their innermost devotion to the doctrine of the Cross, essentially Evangelical. In politics they both worshipped freedom; they both were content to appeal to the popular judgment; and they both were heart and soul for the Christian cause in the East of Europe. Holland had been brought up by Tories, but in all the great controversies of 1886 to 1894 he followed the Gladstonian flag with the loyalty of a good soldier and the faith of a loving son.

When in 1884 Gladstone appointed Holland to a Canonry at St. Paul's, the announcement was received with an amount of interest which is not often bestowed upon ecclesiastical promotions. Everyone felt that it was a daring experiment to place this exuberant prophet of the good time coming at what Bishop Lightfoot called "the centre of the world's concourse." Would his preaching attract or repel?

Would the "philosophy of religion," which is the perennial interest of Oxford, appeal to the fashionable or business-like crowd which sits under the Dome? Would his personal influence reach beyond the precincts of the Cathedral into the civil and social and domestic life of London? Would the Mauritian gospel of human brotherhood and social service--in short, the programme of the Christian Social Union--win the workers to the side of orthodoxy? These questions were answered according to the idiosyncrasy or bias of those to whom they were addressed, and they were not settled when, twenty-seven years later, Holland returned from St. Paul's to Oxford. Indeed, several answers were possible. On one point only there was an absolute agreement among those who knew, and this was that the Church in London had been incalculably enriched by the presence of a genius and a saint.

In one respect, perhaps, Holland's saintliness interfered with the free action of his genius. His insight, unerring in a moral or intellectual problem, seemed to fail him when he came to estimate a human character. His own life had always been lived on the highest plane, and he was in an extraordinary degree "unspotted from the world." His tendency was to think--or at any rate to speak and act--as if everyone were as simply good as himself, as transparent, as conscientious, as free from all taint of self-seeking. This habit, it has been truly said, "disqualifies a man in some degree for the business of life, which requires for its conduct a certain degree of prejudice"; but it is pre-eminently characteristic of those elect and lovely souls

"Who, through the world's long day of strife, Still chant their morning song."

III

_LORD HALIFAX_

There can scarcely be two more typically English names than Wood and Grey. In Yorkshire and Northumberland respectively, they have for centuries been held in honour, and it was a happy conjunction which united them in 1829. In that year, Charles Wood, elder son of Sir Francis Lindley Wood, married Lady Mary Grey, youngest daughter of Charles, second Earl Grey, the hero of the first Reform Bill.

Mr. Wood succeeded his father in the baronetcy, in 1846, sat in Parliament as a Liberal for forty years, filled some of the highest offices of State in the Administrations of Lord Palmerston and Mr. Gladstone, and was raised to the peerage as Viscount Halifax in 1866.

Lord and Lady Halifax had seven children, of whom the eldest was Charles Lindley Wood--the subject of the present sketch--born in 1839; and the second, Emily Charlotte, wife of Hugo Meynell-Ingram, of h.o.a.r Cross and Temple Newsam. I mention these two names together because Mrs. Meynell-Ingram (whose qualities of intellect and character made a deep impression on all those who were brought in contact with her) was one of the formative influences of her brother's life.

The present Lord Halifax (who succeeded to his father's peerage in 1885) writes thus about his early days:

"My sister was everything to me. I never can remember the time when it was not so between us. I hardly ever missed writing to her every day when we were away from one another; and for many years after her marriage, and as long as her eyes were good, I don't think she and I ever omitted writing to one another, as, indeed, we had done all through my school and college life. She is never out of my mind and thoughts. Her birthday, on the 19th of July, and mine, on the 7th of June, were days which stood out amongst all the days of the year."

This extract ill.u.s.trates the beautiful atmosphere of mutual love and trust in which the family of Sir Charles and Lady Mary Wood were reared. In other respects their upbringing was what one would naturally expect in a Yorkshire country-house, where politics were judiciously blended with fox-hunting. From the enjoyments of a bright home, and the benign sway of the governess, and the companionship of a favourite sister, the transition to a private school is always depressing. In April, 1849, Charles Wood was sent to the Rev. Charles Arnold's, at Tinwell, near Stamford. "What I chiefly remember about the place is being punished all one day, with several canings, because I either could not or would not learn the Fifth Declension of the Greek Nouns."

So much for the curriculum of Tinwell; but it only lasted for one year, and then, after two years with a private tutor at home, Charles Wood went to Eton in January, 1853. He boarded at the house of the Rev. Francis Vidal, and his tutor was the famous William Johnson, afterwards Cory. "Billy Johnson" was not only a consummate scholar and a most stimulating teacher, but the sympathetic and discerning friend of the boys who were fortunate enough to be his private pupils. In his book of verses--_Ionica_--he made graceful play with a casual word which Charles Wood had let fall in the ecstasy of swimming--"Oh, how I wish I could fly!"

"Fresh from the summer wave, under the beech, Looking through leaves with a far-darting eye, Tossing those river-pearled locks about, Throwing those delicate limbs straight out, Chiding the clouds as they sailed out of reach, Murmured the swimmer, 'I wish I could fly!'

"Laugh, if you like, at the bold reply, Answer disdainfully, flouting my words: How should the listener at simple sixteen Guess what a foolish old rhymer could mean, Calmly predicting, 'You will surely fly'-- Fish one might vie with, but how be like birds?

"Genius and love will uplift thee; not yet; Walk through some pa.s.sionless years by my side, Chasing the silly sheep, snapping the lily-stalk, Drawing my secrets forth, witching my soul with talk.

When the sap stays, and the blossom is set, Others will take the fruit; I shall have died."

Surely no teacher ever uttered a more beautiful eulogy on a favourite pupil; and happily the poet lived long enough to see his prophecy fulfilled.

The princ.i.p.al charm of a Public School lies in its friendships; so here let me record the names of those who are recalled by contemporaries as having been Charles Wood's closest friends, at Eton--Edward Denison, Sackville Stopford, George Palmer, George Lane-Fox, Walter Campion, Lyulph Stanley,[1] and Augustus Legge.[2]

With Palmer, now Sir George, he "messed," and with Stopford, now Stopford-Sackville, he shared a private boat. As regards his pursuits I may quote his own words:

[Footnote 1: Now (1918) Lord Sheffield.]

[Footnote 2: Afterwards Bishop of Lichfield.]

"I steered the _Britannia_ and the _Victory_. I used to take long walks with friends in Windsor Park, and used sometimes to go up to the Castle, to ride with the present King.[3] I remember, in two little plays which William Johnson wrote for his pupils, taking the part of an Abbess in a Spanish Convent at the time of the Peninsular War; and the part of the Confidante of the Queen of Cyprus, in an historical in which Sir Archdale Palmer was the hero, and a boy named Chafyn Grove, who went into the Guards, the heroine. In Upper School, at Speeches on the 4th of June, I acted with Lyulph Stanley in a French piece called _Femme a Vendre_. In 1857, I and George Cadogan,[4] and w.i.l.l.y Gladstone, and Freddy Stanley[5] went with the present King for a tour in the English Lakes; and in the following August we went with the King to Koenigs-winter. I was in 'Pop' (the Eton Debating Society) at the end of my time at Eton, and I won the 'Albert,' the Prince Consort's Prize for French."