Reminiscences of Charles Bradlaugh Part 3

Mr. Bradlaugh was naturally irritable, but the irritability was only on the surface. The waves were easily raised, but there was plenty of quiet sea beneath. Though giants are often phlegmatic, his big frame embedded highly-strung nerves. When he was put out he could storm, and he was misunderstood by those who took the mood for the man. Had they seen him in the melting mood they would have learnt that Charles Bradlaugh was a more composite personality than they imagined.

During the last year or two of his life he underwent a wonderful softening. A beautiful Indian-summer light rested upon him. He was like a granite rock, which the sweet gra.s.s has overgrown, and from whose crevices peep lovely wild flowers.

As President of the National Secular Society he did a great work. I do not think he had a p.r.o.nounced faculty for organisation. But he was a firm, sagacious leader, with the personal magnetism to attract devotion.

That he was never overbearing I will not affirm. But it is easy to organise sheep. One good dog will do it. Mr. Bradlaugh had to hold together a different species, with leaping legs, b.u.t.ting horns, and a less gregarious tendency.

He was a splendid chairman to push through a ma.s.s of business, but he shone less on ordinary occasions. An ideal chairman, when not promoting his own schemes, should be like a midwife; he should aim at a quick delivery and a safe birth. Mr. Bradlaugh did not always observe this rule. But every man has the defects of his qualities, and even the sun must be taken with its spots.

Mr. Bradlaugh's speeches at the annual Conferences of the National Secular Society are better reading than his political speeches. Being less in the world of practice there, and more in the world of principle, he gave play to his ideal nature, his words took color, and metaphors flashed like jewels in the sword of his orations. It was a signal proof of his power, that after a whole day's exhausting work, both to himself and his audience, he never failed to rouse the wildest enthusiasm.

Now that Mr. Bradlaugh is dead I do not hesitate to repeat what I said during his lifetime, that his Freethought work was the most fecund and important. Even his great battle against the House of Commons was for religious freedom against bigotry, and his one great legislative achievement was the Act dealing with Oaths and Affirmation. His staunchest political supporters were his Freethought followers. His lectures, his personal influence, and his reputation, leavened the public mind more than his orthodox enemies suspected, and he created a vast quant.i.ty of raw material to be utilised by his successors in Secular organisation.

In the foregoing pages I have attempted no complete sketch of Charles Bradlaugh. I have written, not a monograph, but a number of rough jottings. Yet I hope I have conveyed an impression of the man, in some degree faithful, to those who may have been imperfectly acquainted with him; and I trust the features I have presented, however baldly outlined, will be recognised by those who knew and loved him.

When all is said and done, I think the final impression one retains of Charles Bradlaugh is his _heroism_. His was cast in a great mould of mind and character, as well as body. Like every hero the world has ever seen, he had his defects and failings, for it is given to no man to be perfect. But positive excellence, with all its drawbacks, is far above negative merit. "Thou shalt" is loftier virtue than "thou shalt not,"

and the hero is superior to the saint.

Charles Bradlaugh was a colossus of manhood. He was one to design, and dare, and do. The beaten path of mediocrity had no attraction for that potent spirit. He belonged to the heroic type which seeks perilous ways and fresh conquests. Like the hero of one of Browning's poems, he was "ever a fighter." In stormy times he naturally rose to the top. He was one of the select few, not of those who enrich the world with great discoveries, or new principles, or subtle perceptions of beauty--but those who appeal to the heroism of man's nature, without which he is at best but a splendid beast, and who minister to that sense of dignity which is the supreme necessity of our race.

The elements So mixed in him, that Nature might stand up And say to all the world, "This was a man!"